The Tides of Avarice

by John Dahlgren

“Yes.”

  “The lack thereof, I mean.”

  “Yes,” said Sylvester. He wished Fourfeathers would get on with it. He wished Doctor Nettletree’s cottage were a bit closer than it was. He wished quite a lot of things.

  “I had a chilling premonition about what was going to happen.”

  “Yes?” said Sylvester, a bit of testiness creeping into his voice.

  The fox seemed to notice this. His eyes narrowed. “Are you yessing me?”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  The fox gave him a thoughtful sidelong look as they passed through the main gate of Foxglove. Sylvester noticed, although at that moment he did not register, that the sidelong glance just happened to turn Fourfeathers’s face away from the lemming guard who was standing there, a ceremonial pitchfork firmly gripped in front of him. Sylvester gave the guard a wave of his free paw, and received a nod of admission in return. If the guard saw anything unusual about the sight of an obviously injured fox limping into the town he gave no sign of it.

  “One thing I not be a-likin’ of,” explained Fourfeathers, seeming to relax a little, “and that be impertinence to strangers.”

  “I can assure you, my dear fellow, that I wasn’t—”

  “Least said, soonest mended.”

  “Good.”

  “Now, where was I?”

  “You were having a premonition.”

  “Was I? Oh, yes. Premonitizing, I was. I thought to meself, I thought, that pair of moles, they might well step out right a-front of that speeding cart. So I sped me own step, I did.”

  “You did?”

  “I just said so, didn’t I? Anyway, the skies darkened. Clouds roiled. The birds hushed. The trees stilled. The air seemed to turn to ice.”

  “And?”

  “Sure thing, the little mole, without looking one way or t’other – not that it’d a done him any good even if he had, moles being as blind as bats is – without looking one way or t’other he, or she, lets go of its mother’s paw and runs straight out into the middle of the road, letting out a lightsome little cackle of sheer happiness at the joys of the world, as moles is prone to do.”

  Most of the moles Sylvester had encountered had such a gloomily suicidal bent as to make lemmings seem like laughing jackasses, but he decided to let it pass. Any more interruptions from him and Fourfeathers’s story wouldn’t be done by the time they got to Doc Nettletree’s – not that Sylvester hadn’t guessed the end of it anyway.

  Or thought he had.

  “I burst into a trot,” continued Fourfeathers. “And from a trot into a run, then from a run into a veritable flat-out sprint. Me lungs fair a-burstin’ out of me ears, I reached that young, rapscallion mole just in time to whip him out of the path of the trundlin’ cart wheels and threw meself clear, with the little one over me shoulder. The spinning wheels missed me by no more’n the thickness of a claw, they did, and I was being fair a-winded as I landed on me tum on the ’ard, ’ard mud of the roadway edge.

  “But at least the younker was safe. That was what I was being a-thinkin’ as I sat up and dusted meself down as best I was able. It was all worth it, these little sufferings of mine.”

  The fox nodded to himself in a self-satisfied way. Sylvester didn’t begrudge him the smugness. Fourfeathers really had been the hero he so obviously wanted Sylvester to say he was.

  There was something missing from the story, Sylvester realized.

  “Was it when you threw yourself clear of the wheels that you twisted your ankle?” he said.

  If gray foxes could blush, Fourfeathers would have done so.

  “Ah, not quite. No, not quite.”

  “Then what did happen?”

  “Like I’ve been of a-tellin’ thee, moles ain’t no great shakes in the seeing department.”

  “They’re almost blind,” agreed Sylvester, “although they can see real well underground, they tell us.”

  “And this mother mole was no exception to the rule. All she could make out through the dim, fuzzy mists of her vision was that her spotty, little brat, wot had been right next to her but a moment before, was now bruised and battered on the far side of the road. What the great racket of creaking wheels and galloping hooves and cursing coachmen had been all about, she had no strong-founded opinion, having noticed nuttin of the cart going by. All she could be a-thinkin’ of was that some great gallumpher – meaning me in case you’s not been paying proper attention – had grabbed her horrible little progeny.”

  Fourfeathers took a deep breath, as if forcing himself to remember something he’d tried to banish into the black vaults of oblivion at the back of his mind.

  “She advanced upon me, she did,” he said. “Wrathfully.”

  “On the warpath, was she?” prompted Sylvester.

  “On more than just the one warpath. She had a whole spaghetti junction of them.” The fox’s lips had gone white and his eyes rolled in their sockets. “She thought I was attackin’ of her firstborn, she did, and there ain’t no fury like a mother mole’s when she be havin’ her dander up.”

  “Yes, but your leg. How did you hurt it?”

  “I’m getting there. Patience, youth.”

  “Ah, sorry, Mr. Fourfeathers.”

  “Picture the scene. Me a-lyin’ there in the dust. The little mole a-bawlin’ his guts out, and of course not a-tellin’ his mommy that he was the one had been a blithering banana running out in the way of the cart like that. And Mamma Mole vengeful as a scorpion whose toe you trod on. She, she …”

  It seemed Fourfeathers was at a loss for words to describe the full ghastliness of what happened to him next.

  Sylvester glanced ahead of them down the quiet lane to which he’d been guiding their footsteps. Doctor Nettletree’s snug little house was not far now.

  “Tell me,” he said. “You’ll feel better once you’ve gotten it off your chest.”

  Fourfeathers heaved yet another enormous sigh. “I wouldn’t be a-tellin’ of just anyone, young fellow-me-lad,” he replied. “But you’ve already earned yourself a place in me heart, you have, and I reckon I can trust thee. So, the next thing was—say, you won’t be a-spreadin’ of this all over town, will you?”

  Sylvester assured him that it would be the strictest of secrets between them, and that he hoped the Great Lemming Spirit Lhaeminguas would strike him dead where he stood should he ever breathe a word of it to any other living soul (all the while resolving to tell Viola the best and juiciest details at the first possible opportunity).

  “Well, what happened next,” said Fourfeathers heavily, “was that Mamma Mole picked up me very own leg and started a-beatin’ me over the head with it.”

  “She what?”

  The fox nodded confirmation. “I ain’t never seen it done afore,” he added dolefully. “And I hopes, as sure as I be a-limpin’ here, that I don’t ever see it again. But that’s exactly what she did.”

  Sylvester did his best not to giggle at the images cavorting across his mental gaze.

  “That sounds, well, dreadful.”

  “It was, and the worst of it was, as I discovered when she’d swept off with her brat under her arm, the inconsiderate besom had sprained me ankle where she’d been a-grippin’ it with what to belabor me, see?”

  “I think I’ve got a frog in my throat.”

  “That all you can be a-sayin’, young Master Sylvester, to this tale of tragedy?”

  “Something in my eye too.”

  “Perhaps that be tears of sympathy?”

  “Perhaps. Oh, look, we’re at Doc Nettletree’s house. Let’s hope he’s in.”

  ✳ ✳ ✳

  “Doctor Nettletree, I’ve got another patient for you,” said Sylvester, pushing the door open.

  “Well, you’ll just have to wait,” said Nurse O’Reilly, looking up from her magazine. “Doct
or’s doing surgery, and there’s a queue.”

  She gestured around the waiting room where, sure enough, two or three other lemmings waited. There was old Mrs. Beesworth, holding the most enormous goiter in her paws in front of her. Billy Swampers had something in his paws too but it was less savory than any goiter: a brown paper bag that he seemed just to have finished using. Mrs. Perkins was there with an unidentifiable junior Perkins who’d managed to get his head stuck inside an item of porcelain usually found under people’s beds. An item not normally mentioned in polite conversation.

  “Oh,” said Sylvester. “But this is an emergency, you see, and—”

  “It’s emergency surgery that Doctor’s in,” said Nurse O’Reilly harshly. “So don’t give me none of your lip, Sylvester Lemmington, or I’ll be telling your mother.”

  “Oh.”

  “And she’ll give you what for, I can bet.”

  Sylvester distinctly heard her add, under her breath, “Little pipsqueak.”

  Doctor Nettletree had two nurses, a friendly one (“Too friendly, if you ask me,” Sylvester’s mother had once said darkly, but then had clammed up completely when Sylvester had tried to get her to explain what she meant), Nurse Gillespie, and a bullying martinet, Nurse O’Reilly. It was just Sylvester’s rotten luck that today was a day when Nurse O’Reilly was on duty.

  Still …

  He gestured behind him, and Fourfeathers obediently filled the doorway.

  More than filled it.

  The fox stooped to put his head through the doorway. He gave Nurse O’Reilly a gallant, brave but desperately suffering grin that had a remarkable number of teeth in it.

  “But some emergencies,” said the nurse, trying desperately to retain her cool as she floundered toward the door to Doctor Nettletree’s consulting room, “are more urgent than others.”

  Mrs. Beesworth stared at Sylvester as if she’d like to strangle him with her goiter. She’d obviously been waiting quite a while. For a moment Sylvester felt guilty, but only for a moment. If Fourfeathers had been just another lemming, or at least lemming-sized, Sylvester would have been happy for the pair of them to sit in the waiting room for as long as need be, but the fox was far too big for that to be a sensible option. Doc Nettletree was going to have to tend to him outside.

  The unidentifiable junior Perkins made an equally unidentifiable echoing sound from within the porcelain container. Sylvester guessed it was probably a protest, but chose not to inquire.

  “Great Spirit above,” exclaimed Doctor Nettletree, emerging from his consulting room with Nurse O’Reilly fluttering behind him. “A fox. I’ll be damned and double-damned!”

  “Doctor!” cried Mrs. Perkins, gesturing toward the anonymous occupant of the chamber utensil beside her . “There are children present!”

  “Yes. Of course, m’dear. Terribly sorry, I’m sure. Probably scarred the innocent little mite for life.”

  “I think,” said Sylvester tentatively, “it might be best, Doctor, if you examined my friend in the open air?”

  Doctor Nettletree rubbed his chin. “You may be right. Nurse O’Reilly? Fetch me my—oh, where has the dratted woman gone?”

  “She’s fainted,” said Mrs. Perkins.

  “Fainted?”

  “She took another look at the monster and went over like a ninepin.”

  How typical of bullies, thought Sylvester. All bluster and bravado when there’s no danger to them and other people are taking the risks, but as soon as there’s the slightest chance that they themselves might have to—

  His thoughts were cut short by Doctor Nettletree. “Remind me to fire her one day. Well, Sylvester Lemmington, if I haven’t got one of my regular nurses to assist me, I suppose you’d better do your best to fit the bill.”

  Sylvester felt his head begin to swim. Visions of cutting open raw flesh and handling squishy intestines swarmed through his mind. For a moment he wished he could join Nurse O’Reilly stretched out on the floor.

  “There’ll be none of that, lad,” said the doctor, as if he realised what Sylvester was imagining. “You say he’s got a gammy leg, that’s all?”

  “That be being the extent of my suffering, yessir,” confirmed Fourfeathers. He tried to demonstrate his limp while still standing in the same place.

  “Then with luck there shouldn’t be any dicing and slicing involved at all,” said Doctor Nettletree. “Unless we have to amputate, of course. I say, are you all right, young Sylvester? You’re looking a bit green.”

  “I’m fine,” lied Sylvester.

  “Then let’s get to it, shall we?”

  There was a neatly trimmed patch of lawn at the back of Doctor Nettletree’s cottage, and that seemed the best place for him to conduct his examination of the injured fox. With his arms around the shoulders of Sylvester and Doctor Nettletree, Fourfeathers limped valiantly around the side of the building. Once they reached the lawn, he let go of his supporters and sprawled on his back on the grass.

  “Do thy worst, sawbones.”

  “Right then,” said Doctor Nettletree, putting down the bulging, clanking leather bag he’d brought with him. “Let’s take a look, shall we? How did you do this to yourself?”

  Sylvester answered for the fox. “He was quite a hero, actually. He saved a mole-child from being run over by a cart, but managed to get hurt himself.”

  “Really?” murmured Doctor Nettletree, kneeling down beside the flank of the much larger creature. Fourfeathers’s stomach rose and fell rapidly as he breathed. Clearly the fox, for all his earlier bravado, was terrified of doctors. “Where did this happen?”

  “A few miles out of town,” said Sylvester.

  “And he limped the rest of the way?”

  “Until I met him, yes. I was able to help him after that.”

  “He was lucky.”

  Sylvester responded with a blush.

  “Well,” continued Doctor Nettletree, kneading the fox’s outthrown leg as he spoke, “I don’t think he has too much to worry about. I can’t find any damage to the tendons or the bone. There’s just a little strain to the muscle down here,” he prodded a finger firmly into Fourfeathers’s ankle, and the fox let out a high yip of pain which Doctor Nettletree ignored, “and it’s making it difficult for him to walk. Other than that he’s got a clean bill of health, at least so far as his leg’s concerned. A few days’ rest should see him right as rain again.”

  “Pleased to hear thee a-sayin’ that, Docko,” said Fourfeathers, still lying on his back and staring at the blue sky far above.

  Doctor Nettletree winced. “Please don’t call me Docko.”

  “’Pologies, I’m sure.”

  “Accepted.”

  “It’s good I’ll not be out of sorts for too long, because I’m a fox of many concerns, see, and there’s pressing matters that insist I not be a-stayin’ here in your lovely burg of Foxglove for too long.”

  “What does bring you here, Mister . . .?”

  “Fivefeathers. Robin Fivefeathers.”

  “Huh?” said Sylvester.

  The gray fox darted him a startled look. “Math was never me strong point,” he muttered. “Fourfeathers, I mean to say,” he told the doctor. “Like I told young Master Lemmington here, I be a-comin’ to try to find my good friend, Levantes, a prince among ferrets, what I lost when—”

  “I’ve seen Levantes,” said Doctor Nettletree somberly.

  “You have?” Robin Fourfeathers propped himself up on his elbows.

  “Yes, and so has young Sylvester here.”

  Fourfeathers swiveled his head to stare accusingly at Sylvester. “Why didn’t you be a-tellin’ of—”

  “I started to, but then—”

  “Then what?”

  “You fell in a ditch.”

  “Fell in a—oh.” The fox began to laugh. “You’re right. I did
, didden I?” He reached over to slap Sylvester dizzyingly on the back. “My mistake, forgive the impatience. I been a-lookin’ for that ba—for my old pal, Levantes, for many a long day, and it be natural that—”

  “Quite,” said Doctor Nettletree. “You fail to understand one thing, however, my good man.”

  “And that a-bein’?”

  Doc Nettletree said it flat out. “He’s dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “As a doorn—er, I’m afraid so.”

  For the first time since Sylvester had met him, the fox seemed genuinely agitated. Not even the obvious pain he’d been in when he’d tumbled into the ditch had thrown him as off-kilter as this. Doctor Nettletree’s announcement apparently came as a complete shock to him.

  “When?”

  Doctor Nettletree waved his hand vaguely. “Two, three nights ago, here in this clinic. He’d been very badly wounded, and—”

  “No chance you could be wrong?”

  “No. Not unless he was lying to us about who he was. He was a ferret, and he told us his name was Levantes. Of course, there could be two ferrets cal—”

  Fourfeathers dismissed the suggestion with a snort and an angry gesture. He was sitting up fully now, which meant he was about as tall as Doctor Nettletree. “And he was really, really dead?”

  “Absolutely. No chance of a miracle recovery, or whatever you might be thinking of.”

  “Doctor Nettletree’s an excellent doctor,” put in Sylvester. “He wouldn’t be wrong about something like this.”

  The fox’s eyes narrowed. “Wounded, you say?”

  Between them Sylvester and Doctor Nettletree told him the story of how the ferret had been brought to shore and had later expired.

  Fourfeathers turned his gaze inquisitorially toward the young lemming. “He tell you anything he shouldn’t have?”

  “I don’t know what you mean by ‘shouldn’t have.’”

  “Secrets.”

  “We didn’t have very long to speak at all.”

  “Long enough.”

  That prickle of suspicion at the back of Sylvester’s neck started up again. How could he tell how much of what Levantes had told him was supposed to be kept a secret from anyone who came inquiring afterward? The answer was that he couldn’t, but he could err on the side of caution when it came to recounting the conversation he’d had with the dying stranger.