by Brian Carter
Moonsleek and her cubs were frolicking in the water by the island.
‘Didn’t you take a mate last winter?’ Wulfgar said. Killconey nodded.
‘The hounds got her. I found her in a ploughed field. They had cut off her pads and brush. Are those the only parts of us they eat? I don’t understand.’
‘Fitches will eat just the back legs of frogs,’ Wulfgar said lamely.
Killconey followed the otters with his eyes as they swam into the reeds.
‘The dog otter has wandered off,’ Wulfgar said, happy to broach a new subject. ‘Moonsleek was beginning to make life uncomfortable for him. Most she-animals seem to get like it when they’ve got young.’
Killconey curled up and hid his nose in his brush.
‘Summer isn’t a good time for otters,’ he murmured. ‘The hounds were on Big Two Rivers yesterday. I saw an otter take to the water.’
‘And?’
‘I don’t know. Men come, we run, otters run, rabbits run – every animal runs.’
There was no more to be said.
CHANGES
The foxes settled contentedly into the flow of the season. It was still a time of plenty around Hay Tor. St Bartholomew’s Day had passed and the barley at Sedge Brimley stood ready for harvest. The in-country was a patchwork of tawny and yellow fields cast haphazardly among the greens. On Dartmoor clusters of red berries hung from the rowans and the purple of bell-heather mingled with the rose and pinks of other heathers. Here and there the startling green of sphagnum clothed soft ground. The days were still hot but the nights had drawn in.
Now the wandering was good. Killconey had claimed a territory for himself on Hammel Down, but like Wulfgar he preferred to be alone. Once in a while the foxes’ paths crossed and news was exchanged, though Stargrief came less often to the Leighon Ponds. Sometimes Wulfgar caught a glimpse of him on Black Hill, but he was difficult to approach. The abundance of insects meant he could feed close to his kennel and spend most of the night communing with the universe. To what end? Wulfgar thought.
Lately the vision of the pure white place had risen from many a twilight. He kept searching for Teg on the snowfields, but it was always the strange vixen running through the dream to greet him. Before anguish could set in he would recall Killconey’s stoicism and clench his teeth and let the evening crowd his consciousness.
Since Jacko’s death Scoble had become even more of a recluse. He came out at dusk and walked the high ground with his shotgun hoping to blast Wulfgar. Every so often he spent the night beside the Leighon water, which the animals called Dead Dog Pond to commemorate Jacko’s drowning, and he left poison bait in the valley and tilled gins where the foxes ran.
But Wulfgar was hunting the border country that Scoble seldom visited unless there was farm work to be had. He laid up in the wood by Bagtor Mill and terrorised the duck who used the pool.
One of Moonsleek’s cubs ate Scoble’s bait and died painfully under the alders. The grieving otter bitch led her remaining young downstream the same night and made a new home on the River Bovey. Mordo and Skalla got at the cub’s body before the trapper did his morning rounds, and by the time the man arrived the pelt was useless. The ravens climbed high out of gun range and beat up the valley.
Without a dog Scoble took fewer rabbits, and foxes who would not have stood a chance in Jacko’s company slipped away unnoticed when danger threatened. Scoble brooded about it in his kitchen and drank scrumpy and became morose. He had to get another dog but there would never be another Jacko.
‘Poor old boy,’ he slurred. The cider loosened his teeth and his bowels, but his hatred remained firm-set.
One morning he found Meg the spaniel throttled in a wire among thick gorse close to Holwell. The dog had taken to running with the beagle bitch from Leighon and Richard Williams was used to her being out half the night.
Scoble’s first impulse was to toss the animal in the pond but he had enough common sense to realise how stupid such an act would be. He couldn’t afford to have every hand raised against him. So he took the carcass to Holwell Clitter and dumped it in one of the crevices. Then he smoked a Gold Flake and waited for his limbs to stop shaking. He had to be at Sedge Brimley after breakfast. Lugg’s barley was ready to reap. He chuckled and tapped his fists together. If it wasn’t sheer bloody poetry! The Yank had got Old Blackie out of a wire but he couldn’t save his own dog! Nature could play funny tricks.
He stretched and felt the hair stiffen on the nape of his neck. There was no need to turn and look up, but he did. The dark fox stood on the edge of the tor by the Scots pine that grew out of the quarry face. For a long time Scoble and Wulfgar stared at each other while the hatred crackled between them. Eventually the trapper gave a cry and covered his face with his hands.
‘You,’ he sobbed. ‘You. You.’
His palms were wet with snot and tears. He snuffled and rocked to and fro. Charlie the mule and Jacko would help him. O yes, you bastard. He could see the two skeletons galloping side by side out of some foggy autumn night, hunting the fox to its doom, their white, fleshless jaws pulping the backbone, sending the vermin down to hell.
When he peered through his fingers, Wulfgar had vanished. The pine tree shivered in the wind that was pushing big innocent clouds across the sky.
‘He ought to do it for nothing,’ said George Lugg. ‘I bet that wadn the first sheep his bloody dog’s killed.’
‘You’ve only got the Yank’s word on it,’ his father said. ‘It idn evidence.’
‘Us saw the ewe, father,’ George said. ‘Yank was right. Foxes don’t kill like that.’
‘All right, all right,’ Farmer Lugg said soothingly. ‘But the lurcher’s dead and all this yap won’t bring our sheep back.’
‘No, and it galls me. I reckon Scoble knew all along and was takin’ us for a ride.’
‘Now why would un do that?’ said his father patiently.
‘Well, the great cake idn sixteen ounces to start with. He’s scrumpy-puggled. All he can think of is bloody foxes.’
‘I expect it’s his didakai blood,’ said Yabsley, hitching up his overalls.
The Luggs waited to see if he was serious.
‘I idn leg-pullin’, boys. His old mum got put in the family way by a gypo. I suppose her did more than cross his palm with silver.’
‘Her should’ve crossed her legs,’ George said and Yabsley grinned.
‘Leonard’s late,’ said Farmer Lugg. ‘It idn like him.’
‘He’ll be out after foxes, maister,’ Yabsley said.
‘Us had better start,’ Lugg sighed. ‘Pity though. I wanted to put a new bit of corrugated on the linhay. That storm back along nearly ruined the hay.’
The barley field shone in the sun and Scoble could hear the harvesting machine as he tramped down the long meadow by the copse. Whirling wooden slats were pressing the stalks against the blade. The barley was grabbed, bound and shuffled out in a line at the side. Yabsley crooned to the horse and gently flicked the reins. The Luggs stood the sheaves in stooks and the farm collies chased the rabbits, which were bolting in all directions.
Scoble stopped and put a match to his cigarette, and he had a clear mental picture of Yabsley perched on the harvesting machine like an overweight Ben Hur. Endlessly taking the piss out of me and Jacko, he thought. Yabsley’s never done nothing except flap his big lips.
He spun on his heel like a soldier and headed back up the slope to the lane. At dusk he would try the ponds again or maybe hang around Yarner Wells for the chicken thief. When I get Old Blackie I’ll have un stuffed sure enough. He’ll go to the Rock Inn and stand behind the bar among the whisky bottles. Caught by Leonard Scoble – that’s better than havin’ your name on the cenotaph. People looked at things in pubs, but cenotaphs were long forgotten except for one day a year.
Moonsleek slid into the water crying for her dead cub. Three small wet heads bobbed along with the current behind her. Romany shook the eel and dropped it at his feet.
&
nbsp; ‘She doesn’t come any more when I call,’ he said. ‘She carries an emptiness only the lost cub can fill.’
‘I’m sorry, Romany,’ said Wulfgar. ‘The trapper has been busy lately with his snares and gins and poison rabbit!’
‘We gave you the lurcher and Man took our cub. You foxes haven’t brought us much luck.’
Wulfgar felt they had strayed into areas where words were redundant. Romany lowered his eyes, placed a paw on the eel and began to feed.
OLD BLACKIE DID IT
‘Any luck, Richard?’ Jenny said.
‘She’s gone,’ the American said gently. He sank into the armchair and gazed up at the ceiling.
‘I’ve looked everywhere. The whole neighbourhood’s out searching for the dog. It’s really odd. Meg’s gone off before but never very far. I’ve been up the Bovey and the Becca Brook. I’ve been to places that aren’t even on the map.’
Above the net half-curtains the first gleam of dawn showed in the sky.
‘Has Scoble got anything to do with it?’ Jenny said.
‘I honestly don’t know. Sure the guy’s mean enough. I guess nothing surprises me anymore.’
‘Look,’ she said. ‘I’ll have to go in a moment. Would you like me to make you a cup of tea?’
‘No, no,’ he said quickly, as though he had pulled himself back from a remote thought. ‘God, I’m sorry, Jenny! How long have you been here?’
‘Since midnight.’
‘What will your folks say?’
‘They’ll worry about the dog. Will you be at the meet?’
‘Yes – if you can guarantee no otters will be killed.’
‘They hardly ever see one, let alone make a kill,’ she smiled. ‘You won’t do anything idiotic, will you?’
‘I don’t know. I guess I’m on the animal’s side. The whole buiness of chasing it to death with dogs seems pretty obscene.’
‘Perhaps you ought to reserve judgement until you’ve participated.’
‘OK, Jenny. Thanks for coming over.’
He walked her to the door but did not kiss her goodbye. The bottom of the sky held the pinkish-silver light that he loved. A few birds were singing quietly. It was the sort of dawn chorus he expected at the slack end of summer.
Returning to the sitting-room he spun the ‘Adagio e staccato’ 78 from Handel’s Water Music. The marvellous sound strode confidently into the twentieth century because it had been written to enrich eternity.
The hounds met at Parke, a large house on the outskirts of Bovey Tracey. The master and most of the field wore the dark blue hunt uniform: bowler hats, tweed jackets, knee breeches, heavy-knit stockings and black brogues. They carried ash poles shod with steel caps and notched to signify the number of kills they had witnessed.
The pack was led by a couple of pure-bred, rough-haired otter hounds called Bullrush and Mariner, and the rest of the animals were old foxhounds, too slow for the real job. Each had a watery name like Bargeman, Diver, Boatman, Navigator, Coxwain and Helmsman. But Bullrush and Mariner were the inspiration of the field with their good noses and the music of their cries. They were strong swimmers who could own a line better than the other hounds.
A day of slow cloud shadows and golden heat had Richard remembering occasions that seemed to have been stolen from death – excursions west in packed trains, a feeling of quiet desperation, sweat, blue and khaki uniforms, encapsulated, timeless.
‘You didn’t find the spaniel,’ said Colonel Shewte.
Why did they make everything rhetorical? Richard thought. But he said, ‘Meg’s vanished off the face of the earth, sir,’
‘Poor girl! The locals are blaming Old Blackie.’
‘That’s absurd,’ said Richard.
‘They’re a superstitious lot,’ said Jenny. ‘Old Blackie’s become a sort of Fox of the Baskervilles.’
‘Thanks to Scoble,’ Richard said.
The trapper was stooping over Bullrush, kneading the hound’s chest with his fingers. He looked up casually and returned Richard’s glance.
‘There’s something medieval about that guy,’ the American murmured.
Jenny took his arm.
‘He’s coarse and a bit anti-social,’ she said. ‘Nothing else.’
‘Salt of the Earth,’ said Colonel Shewte. ‘Try to think of Dartmoor as his factory. He’s got the mentality of a ferret. Completely unsentimental.’
Richard made no reply. He saw the dark fox leaping again in the wire.
Yabsley came up with two of his terriers and the conversation swung round to dogs in general. The hunt moved off down through the parkland to the River Bovey. The water was cobbled with sunlight. Stubble glinted in the fields above the town and great dark mounds crowned the oaks and elms.
He was unhappy in that gone-to-seed piece of England where the undertones of decay were sharp and surreal. Banks of nettles, tall stands of cow parsley and foxgloves, the cloying green of the grass – everything was unnaturally still. The air was heavy. Only the water looked alive and optimistic.
He took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. The hunt jargon sounded as phoney as hell – ‘half a couple of hounds’, ‘a good nose’, ‘grabbed him by the rudder’ – like the bullfighting bullshit and the murderous monosyllables of Hemingway’s Nick Adams.
‘What are the terriers for?’ he said.
‘To worry a beast out of its holt,’ said Jenny. ‘I adore them. They’re so plucky.’
The master was a nice, dapper little person; he trotted behind the hounds who were ranging upstream. They splashed through open, sundrenched stretches, over the gleam of shillit, stone and pebble into the glooms beneath overhanging boughs.
‘If Scoble had his way we’d kill every otter we found,’ Colonel Shewte said breathlessly.
‘The hunt tries to take the dogs – not the bitches,’ Jenny explained.
Richard struggled to think of something polite to say but he could only nod. More quaint, slaughterhouse small talk, he thought. Scoble and George Lugg were looking at him and laughing. He reddened and blew his nose. A boy of about ten tugged at his sleeve.
‘You lost a dog, mister?’ he said.
The boy’s hair was the colour of corn stubble, his eyes dark and alert.
‘Yes – a liver and white spaniel called Meg.’
‘Is there a reward?’
‘Would a pound note be OK?’
‘Where do I bring the dog to if I find un?’
Richard told him.
‘Got any gum, mister?’
‘Sorry, I don’t use it,’ the American grinned.
‘Off you go now,’ Jenny said firmly.
They watched him overtake the leaders and fall in behind the master.
‘Who was that?’ Richard said.
‘O a strange little character,’ said Jenny. ‘We call him Stray. He’s never at school. You’ll find him in the most extraordinary places. He earns a small fortune opening and closing the moorland gates.’
‘I’ve seen him,’ Richard exclaimed, snapping his fingers. ‘A month ago, climbing Bowerman’s Nose like a squirrel.’
By lunchtime no otters had been sighted. Several lines had been pursued by the pack, but neither Mariner nor Bullrush had given tongue. Richard and Jenny sat together on the bank above the weir. A buzzard wheeled over Trendlebere Down.
‘Are you homesick, Richard?’ Jenny said, unwrapping the sandwiches.
‘No.’
‘But something’s wrong.’
He tossed a pebble in the water. Out of the corner of his eye he saw several hounds gathered round the trapper wagging their tails. Stray had started to wade across the river. Scoble cupped his hands to his mouth and cried ‘cuckoo – cuckoo’.
‘Why the hell did he do that?’ Richard said.
‘They think the child’s simple,’ said Jenny.
Richard hugged his knees to his chin and tried to think it out.
Presently he said, ‘I’d like to go back to the cottage, Jenny.’
‘If you don’t mind. I want to look for Meg.’
‘This isn’t to your liking, is it, Richard?’
‘I guess not.’
She helped him into his jacket and placed a kiss on his cheek.
‘You’re not mad at me are you, Jen?’
‘Of course not! Shall I come tonight?’
‘I’d like that.’
He crossed the river clumsily and Scoble said ‘cuckoo’ again and Yabsley laughed.
Higher up, the Bovey glided black and silent through Houndtor Wood. Moonsleek and her cubs pressed tight against the bank, right in among the oak roots. Like all otter bitches with cub she had a nomadic nature and wanted no permanent holt. The Leighon Ponds had been convenient until Man had come, now he was coming again. She had smelt the hounds and heard the high notes of the horn. Moonsleek hissed and the cubs butted her with their noses, sensing her fear, fighting to get under her body.
Mariner let out his challenge. The pack responded with a deep-throated burst of music as they owned the line and picked up the drag of the otter bitch. They frantically seethed around Moonsleek’s hiding place. The two pure-bred hounds were in the water, tearing at the roots. Moonsleek sprang at Bullrush and showed him her teeth in a fierce grimace. The master got down on his hands and knees and peered into the holt.
‘She’s got cubs,’ he said. ‘Whip the hounds off, please.’
A mile further on the valley deepened and rough ground climbed to the fields of Lustleigh. Romany had run up the hillside for a little way, changed his mind and doubled back to the river. He lay against the current for a while with just his nostrils showing. He had been hunted many times and knew it was fatal to seek out a holt. But the hounds weren’t far off. He lifted his head and sniffed the air and had a look round. Sitting in the grass on the far bank was the dark fox.
‘Moonsleek is safe,’ said Wulfgar. ‘The hounds will be here shortly. What do you intend doing?’
‘I’ll swim, run, hide, fight – what else?’
‘Come with me. I’ll foil the scent.’
‘How?’
‘Do as I say.’
Romany joined him.
