by Brian Carter
With the rising of the moon the vixen began to cry and from valleys and hills all around Beckaford the dog foxes answered. A fall of heavy rain did not stop the caterwauling, and by dawn eleven dogs had assembled at the top of the lane leading to Beckaford Farm. The vixen sat on the boulder under the beech trees. The rain had powdered away into mist and the upsweeping wind brought the secrets of the valley to the foxes. Against the bank of rocks and moss celandines poked through the dead leaves, and here and there nettles grew in clusters no taller than an upright vole.
Wulfgar lifted a leg and watered the rowan stump. A wren sang from the thicket at the base of the ash and oaks. Cloudy and full the Becca Brook swept under the bridge. The dark fox fetched up a screaming wail that froze the fur on the backs of the other dogs, but Killconey’s reply was high-pitched and not too distant. The unbelievably exciting scent of vixen saturated their beings. Now they were truly alone, sparking aggression, dead to everything except the fire in their bellies.
The hedge quivered under the passing wind. Wulfgar suddenly roused himself and stretched, curling his upper lip and crinkling his nose, his yellow eyes full of the vixen-madness. Setting off for Beckaford he thought of the lonely moments that assailed him every night and jerked up his head to tear loose the agony.
The nine dog foxes sparring on the open ground beside the beeches were called Thorngeld, Brackenpad, Furzegeld, Bramblewaif and Moonbreeze; Mireheath, Sundrifter, Copsewalker and Torsmoke. Killconey and Stargrief lay close to the boulder where the vixen sat apparently unperturbed by the skirmishing. But only Stargrief was at peace with himself. His companion had fought and defeated the boldest of the suitors, yet the blood still shot into his hackles.
‘When Wulfgar comes,’ Stargrief said, ‘the rabbits will scatter.’
Killconey smiled and narrowed his eyes. He was more than a bit insane with lust.
‘I’ve yet to lose at this game,’ he said. ‘In the fields of my homeland they call me Killconey-eat-Granite. I’ve killed five dogs in combat.’
‘Wulfgar will drop you like a cub,’ the old fox said quietly.
‘Friendship has blinded you,’ said Killconey.
‘Yes, he is like my flesh and blood – like all the cubs I’ve ever sired. But when you tackle him you will be fighting seven foxes.’
‘Riddles annoy me, Old Mouse.’
‘He is Teg and her dead young ones. And he is Tod and Wulfgar.’
‘Tod lives in us all.’
‘Wulfgar has the strength of the great visionaries.’
‘We’ll see,’ Killconey growled.
The dark fox was among them like a storm. A spluttering bark and the scream of an enraged tomcat hoisted him onto the boulder beside the vixen. He stood with his forepaws on the granite and swung his gaze across the gathering.
‘Let the animal who is tired of living step forward.’
The racking, frenzied shriek silenced the dog foxes and brought the vixen to her belly. Then Killconey strutted into the little arena and the remaining animals sat in line along the edge of the lane, facing inwards. Killconey was puffed-out and stiff of leg.
‘I piss on your words,’ he snarled, flattening his ears and showing his fangs.
Wulfgar sprang, his forepaws spread, and bowled him over. But before he could be pinned Killconey twisted and wormed and bit one of his adversary’s front legs. Wulfgar ran around him, reckless with anger, and dealt him a terrible wound with his incisors. The speed of the attack had Killconey gasping. Once more the world somersaulted. He hit the ground and rolled on his shoulder. The pain smashed through a blur of branches, rocks and sky. Fangs snapped and ripped the hair from his throat. He grappled the dark shape but Wulfgar held him down and raked his belly with hindfeet in a real attempt at disembowelling. Killconey screamed and broke free, then he lunged and missed and was floored yet again.
Wulfgar fought with unprecedented fury, killing the trapper for the marvellous happiness he had destroyed. The hair along his spine had prickled and rage inflated him to almost twice his normal size. He whirled in his tracks in a flurry of fallen leaves and Killconey drew back, hunched and shaking. The screech paralysed him and he could only bare his fangs noiselessly before such strength.
But Wulfgar seemed to have lost interest. He sat down and scratched as if a problem had been solved.
‘Seven foxes’, Stargrief said.
In the dim light he looked greyer than usual. Killconey regarded him with respect, seeing for the first time the true prophet. The scar-faced fox had lived a solitary life and the doings of the Haytor Clan still puzzled him. Dark warrior, grey prophet, lovely vixen; it was the lost world of Tod. He recalled his mother’s stories of the duels that lasted half the night. Was the Golden Age returning as spring returned after winter? Slinging a foreleg over his flank he pushed his muzzle into his haunch and licked the wound.
‘Is it deep?’ Stargrief asked. He shuffled up to Killconey and got to work with his tongue.
Behind him was a patter of departing foxes. The wind, gathering force, shook raindrops from the beeches and lifted Swart’s feathers. The crow wobbled on the top twig and peered down through the branches. Only four foxes remained below but they were very much alive.
Spreading his wings Swart flew over the valley to the sheep field where a dead ewe lay.
On Trendlebere Down a second vixen was screaming. The shrill notes rose and fell three times. Wulfgar’s breathing had almost ceased and his brush no longer swept the ground. The vixen watched him placidly.
‘You are the greatest of the Hill Fox Nation,’ Killconey said. ‘To be beaten by you is no disgrace. Call me and I’ll come running – to the stars if necessary.’
‘We are brothers,’ Wulfgar said.
Killconey threw back his head and barked the double note of the courting dog. A missel-thrush began to sing. The vixen spoke again and Killconey and Stargrief hastened away.
‘The Old Mouse never gives up,’ Wulfgar said.
‘Old Mouse?’ said the vixen. Her voice was thick and tremulous with desire.
‘Stargrief the bard. He lives on dreams. He mounts dream-vixens and sires dream-cubs.’
She jumped down and rolled in the leaves, her coat lustrous, reddish-brown, her paws black and neat. He tried to ignore Teg but for a little while her ghost stood between them. Yet the vixen was beautiful in the sleek style of her kind. The markings round her eyes were especially dark and the hair within her ears very white. Slowly Teg’s phantom faded until there was nothing between them but the wind.
Rising on his hindlegs he danced around her, singing his love like a back-alley tom. Then her tongue was cool and wet on his nose and eyes. And it was good to leave thought behind at the estuary of being where many currents of emotion met.
Her name was Rowanfleet and her fur was the colour of autumn beech leaves. When she grinned she revealed teeth as white as hazel nut kernels. Unlike Teg she had very little to say.
They walked through Leighon Woods and he waited for the hunger to become something more profound, but only the lust endured and several nights later even that had diminished.
‘It’s every vixen’s dream to be loved by Wulfgar,’ Rowanfleet said one evening.
The raw desperation in her voice annoyed him. Snow was falling in big wet flakes that melted on contact with the grass. The sky above the valley was grey and white, goose feather – swan feather, drifting down.
‘I’ll carry your cubs but never your love.’
Her sorrow brought back a flood of memories.
‘You don’t love me, do you, Wulfgar.’
‘I feel for you more than I feel for any living vixen.’
‘Perhaps I should have given myself to Killconey.’
‘Didn’t he find a mate on the Down?’
‘No, Leafsong went off with Sundrifter.’
Wulfgar laughed and licked her nose. He stretched his forelegs, then his back legs and shook the snowflake ice off his coat.
‘The conies wi
ll be feeding in the field by the rookery.’
‘Do you want me to come?’ Rowanfleet said.
‘Yes. The hunting will be easier.’
Maybe this is all I can ever hope for, he thought, crossing the Becca Brook in three bounds.
BLIZZARD
But the little joy there was soon vanished from their relationship and one evening she got up and left him. He made no attempt to stop her although her going weighed heavily on his conscience. Watching her zig-zag up the valley into the dusk he wondered if he would ever be free of Teg. In the past he had used vixens without regret, but Rowanfleet’s sadness continued to reach out to him long after she had gone. For several nights the stale incense of vixen clung to his kennel.
From the rocks by Bowerman’s Nose he could hear the bells of Manaton church. The blackness was as opaque as the emptiness in his gut. O Tod, he prayed, let me feel something, something good. Great, invisible flocks of fieldfares were passing across the moors, chacking their pebbly cries. The night was mild and laden with scent.
He came to Hedge Barton and killed mice. Stargrief answered his contact call at Jay’s Grave and they walked down the road together. The old dog was talkative and spoke of the Golden Seasons, spinning his words into a bright acoustic drug, coaxing Wulfgar out of himself. Clouds opened above Hound Tor and the universe rushed into Wulfgar’s head. Then he was entering the White Vision and the vixen ran to greet him, leaping high from the snow with every bound, catching the stars in her eyes.
‘It’s Rowanfleet!’ he exclaimed.
‘Where?’
‘In the vision. In the White place. What does it mean?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘But the mating had no love in it.’
‘You’re certain?’
‘There’s only Teg. There isn’t room for any other animal.’
‘What about this glorious Now of life you’re always on about?’
‘Teg comes and goes. I keep thinking I’m free but she returns to kennel in my heart and the suffering starts again.’
‘In the vision are you chasing the vixen?’
‘No. She runs towards me.’
‘Then she’ll come back to you and that’s what you really want. She’s part of your destiny. She is the future and Teg is the past.’
‘But why did I reject her?’
‘We know the past. The future is like a dark, scentless night.’
The mild weather ended with a week of January left. A cold snap filmed the edges of Dead Dog Pond with ice and freezing winds swept in from Northern Russia. Snow fell upon the moors and Stargrief and Wulfgar kennelled permanently at Greator Rocks, where the cave under the holly tree faced south-west. It was deep and dry and had been used by generations of dog foxes.
On a night of intense cold they visited Leighon House and killed two guinea fowls that had roosted low in an outbuilding. The deaths were quiet and the beagle bitch lying asleep in the kitchen did not stir.
The birds were lugged back to the cave and the foxes ate well.
‘My nose is like ice,’ Stargrief complained. ‘And my pads don’t belong to me.’
The dry bracken rustled as he twisted and turned and tried to get comfortable.
‘Put your back against mine,’ Wulfgar said. ‘And stop whining.’
‘This weather will finish me off.’
‘Good,’ said Wulfgar, curling his brush round his muzzle.
He woke at noon the following day. The cave roof gleamed brightly and looking outside he saw the fallen snow glaring against the granite. The wind carried clouds of little fuzzy grains, piling them in drifts, and above Greator Rocks the snow swirled and flashed against a leaden sky. Every so often the flakes were rushed in horizontal lines by the north-easter.
Wulfgar went out into the eye of the gale. The weird low-key drone made the landscape quake and undulate. As he sniffed the wind, which smelt of nothing but coldness, a shotgun blast of snow caught him in the muzzle. The furze and heather screamed and the rowan branches were flailing. He returned to the cave, which was quiet, facing as it did away from the wind. Stargrief shifted and groaned in his sleep, kicking his feet like a dreaming cub.
Throughout the afternoon snow fell and after dark Dartmoor experienced the worst storm in living memory. The roar of the wind filled the foxes with awe. Beyond the mouth of the cave the drifts were soon six foot deep and climbing higher by the hour. Most of the farm animals were caught in the open and some were buried where they stood against the drystone walls.
It was the coldest night Scoble could recall. He sat by the fire drinking Scotch and mulled cider. Yarner Wood was booming and snow was running up the hill to Haytor like white smoke. He had covered the ferrets’ hutch with sacks and heaped the logs and kindling in a corner of the kitchen. The cold stabbed deep into his damaged lung, which ached in a dull, burning sort of way that no thumping with the fist could remove. Sweat poured off him and the bouts of coughing left him weak and gasping.
But the storm was welcome. You could track a fox easily in the snow, and animals did stupid things when they were hungry. It was heaven-sent white to defeat the blackness of hell and the black devil of a fox would leave his signature everywhere he went.
Scoble screwed the wart into his beard with the tip of his forefinger and saw off another tankard of hot, spicy cider. The taste of ginger and cloves seeped through the fur on his tongue. Dreamin’ of home, Scoble? the corporal said. Scoble took off his boots and placed his feet on the fender, and after a little while steam rose from his socks. Young Leonard no longer seemed such a stranger; he wasn’t just a faded, sepia figure patrolling the frontiers of a nightmare. Christ! How they prayed for bad weather! It was difficult to mount offensives in snow storms, in the winter mud. You could sit it out round a fire while the clock ticked away your life and Fritz crouched in his hole on the other side of No Man’s Land. Dear Son of God, let me get wounded in the left arm and go home. There were whispers of revolution in Russia. All they had to do was bayonet the officers and it would stop – the cold, the shelling, the freezing filth of trench life. Cheer up, lads, Major Farjeon said. He had come from the bath via the breakfast table at H.Q. to boost morale. He was clean, portly and bored. Leonard wondered if the bayonet would penetrate all that Cafe Royal flab. But the hatred and resentment came to nothing. The bastards got their own way in the end – every time.
The balaclava had frozen to his lower lip. He peered across the waste of snow. The wind sang in the barbed wire and the skinny old fox hobbled towards him dragging an injured hindleg. It came howling with the agony of starvation and he put a bullet in its head. What the hell are you up to, Scoble? barked Corporal Wellan. Saw the enemy over by the wire, Corp. On a night like this! – the bastards deserve to have their arses blown off. Go and get a drink, lad. I’ll take over for a while.
The Scotch dulled the ache in his chest. He leant forward and poked the fire. His socks were singeing. The fingers fumbling the cork of the whisky bottle trembled. Jacko looked up at him and grinned.
‘You idn dead, boy,’ Scoble whispered, reaching down to stroke the greatcoat that lay in a heap beside the chair.
It snowed all night on the north-easterly wind. Sometimes gritty handfuls swirled and rattled against the rock in the mouth of the cave. The foxes lay awake while whiteness grew outside, then towards daybreak the wind died and by morning the snow no longer fell. The hush was absolute. Dartmoor was completely isolated from the rest of Devon. The great drifts that blocked the roads and cut off the villages also brought the railways to a standstill. The Newton Abbot – Moretonhampstead line was buried up to platform level at Lustleigh and even deeper by Wray Barton bridge.
Stormbully and Fallbright visited the Leighon Valley and loitered with intent above the coney runs. In many places the wind had made sure the grass was visible in tufts. Worried by cold and hunger the rabbits hopped out to feed and the old cock buzzard made a kill. The hawks wielded the gutting knives of their bills and let a littl
e colour into the whiteness, but Wulfgar ranging across Holwell Down put them to flight and brought the dead rabbit back to the cave.
‘That was quick work,’ said Stargrief.
Wulfgar sat and watched the old fox eat. A sheep wandered into the cave, its eyes glazed with misery, but when it saw the foxes it turned and went slowly onto the hillside.
‘Do you think Rowanfleet will be all right?’ Wulfgar said.
‘Why shouldn’t she be?’
Wulfgar shook his head.
‘I wish we had never been parted.’
‘She’ll be back.’
‘Maybe I should go and find her.’
‘Where? If you cry loud enough the trapper will come running. Watch the ponds. She’ll return. Your visions have never played you false.’
‘But this isn’t the White Vision, Stargrief.’
The old dog glanced up at him.
‘Where are the high mountains and the white grouse and the white hares?’ Wulfgar said.
‘Could it be the dream country of all foxes?’ Stargrief said. ‘The peaceful sanctuary, Star Place on earth? Or is it a bit of wishful thinking?’
‘No, the country is real enough. I shall lead the clan to it some night. But it isn’t here. It isn’t the moors.’
‘Will I survive to see it?’
‘If you stop chatting and carry on eating there’s a chance.’
‘Maybe I’ll reach your vision before you do,’ Stargrief sniffed. ‘Maybe it’s the good hunting country we all tread after death on the way to the Star Place.’
‘You look as if you might be there tonight.’
‘Ho ho,’ Stargrief said solemnly.
During the next few days the snow fell gently. In the lee of the rocks there were many brownish-yellow marks where the sheep had been lying. The ponies, too, had come down off the hills and a large herd roamed from Holwell to Emsworthy, their body steam floating above them. Stormbully filibustered down to rob the open grave of winter, slashing the silence again and again with his skirl.
