Hunter's Moon

by Garry Kilworth

  One of the ducks farted, but whether this was in fright, or intended as an insulting reply, O-ha could not tell. Domesticated creatures were strange, having given their souls to man, and therefore difficult for a wild creature to understand.

  There was a sudden sound from the farmhouse. Something in the upper regions crashed against a wall and a human began barking into the night. O-ha flattened herself against the coop, wondering whether to dash into the fields, or whether to stay where she was, and wait for something more positive to happen. She would have to cross the thinnish ice carefully – not panic and run blindly – or she might go through and quickly drown in the freezing water below. A beam of light came from the house, striking the coup. It swept around the island, missing her by a hair.

  She waited, her heart pattering in her breast, for the sound of the gun that might send her to the Perfect Here, that place after death for foxes of a proper nature, regarded by their friends, respected by their enemies, hated by none that were not hated themselves.

  Even when it did not come, she stayed frozen to the ground, waiting. Her breath formed misty blossoms in the night air which drifted away over the frostfire. Somewhere a mouse shrieked, probably pinned by the talons of an owl. A cloud dropped over the moon.

  Chapter Three

  She lay in the shadow of the coop until the furore inside had ceased and the activity in the house had quieted. It was a cold night and no doubt the farmer was reluctant to leave his warm bed and venture out. Were it summertime O-ha might have been running against the gun.

  Finally, she got up and walked back across the ice. She felt stark and vulnerable in the moonlight, and on hearing movement outside, the ducks had started complaining again. Gip was moving restlessly in his kennel. O-ha’s mother, O-fille, had known Gip well in seasons gone by, and had told O-ha stories of being chased from the farm by the sheepdog. Gip had not been a killer though, even in his prime.

  ‘There was one time,’ O-fille had said to the circle of cubs, of whom O-ha had been one, ‘when Gip had been left unchained and chased me from some rabbit hutches, just outside the kitchen door. I had just about gnawed through the leather hinges when he came hurtling around the corner and saw me.

  ‘Of course, I was away like a cat with its tail on fire …’ the cubs had laughed at this image ‘… with Gip close behind. He was young and nippy in those days, and broad at the shoulder. Like a fool I ran into the barn, where some men were working, and found myself being chased round in a circle with the farm labourers barking at us.

  ‘Eventually Gip cornered me and advanced slowly towards me. The workmen were yipping in excitement by this time.

  ‘Gip said, “They’re telling me to kill you.” He was angry with me for putting him in a position where expectations were high. At that moment I realised he was not a killer. I could see it in his face, in his stance. But under the eyes of his masters he had to do something to me. I tried to make a dash for it, but he caught me by the fleshy part of my throat. He tossed me into the air like a bundle of hay, over his shoulder.

  ‘I hit the ground near the open doorway and was on my feet in an instant, and running for the havnot. Gip was not far behind me, shouting, “Don’t come back vixen. You’ve had your warning. I won’t be so lenient next time.”’

  ‘I did go back, of course. We have to, don’t we? But I never pushed Gip too far …’ There were some farm dogs – efficient, firm, no-nonsense – who did their jobs effectively, without spilling unnecessary blood. Then there were those hounds, which included foxhounds, who would go out of their way to taste blood.

  O-ha followed the frosted path beyond the ice, and was able to slip away across the havnot until she reached the relative safety of the open hav.

  Her foray had taken a long time and dawn was beginning to creep across the fields. O-ha found a byway in the grass, following it towards the sun. When she had travelled about two hundred yards, she stopped and sniffed the air.

  Meat! She could smell the heady scent of meat.

  Her senses flamed as the perfume swam to her nostrils on the back of Ransheen. She turned from the byway into untracked country, a place where the brambles wrestled with bryony and tall thickets of blackthorn sprouted from the cropped grass. A stoat, having changed its name and colour for the winter months to become the ermine, hissed and spat at her as she passed its labyrinth of tunnels. She was not hungry enough to tackle the ferocious little beast, and anyway, there was a promise on the wind. She had now identified the smell: rabbit. O-ha knew of a warren nearby, but this was a wounded or freshly dead creature, sending out this signal. It was necessary to be wary, for that fact left many open questions.

  She came to a wire fence stretching across the hav, beyond which some cows were grazing on frosted grass. Large as these creatures were, she knew them to be gentle and they offered no threat. Nevertheless, she hesitated before going under the wire, into the havnot, sniffing for a stronger scent of steel gin traps. She was not so stupid as to rush blindly into an area she did not know well.

  Once she was satisfied, she slipped under the wire quickly, walking fast, but still with great caution. She rarely broke into a trot, and only ran in emergency situations. Her mother had taught her that a cool head was more use than hot feet.

  Eventually, she came to a covert of blackthorn, riddled with rabbit runs. At the entrance to one of these lay a rabbit. It was still. All around its throat was a line of blood.

  Another of man’s traps had caught the creature: a wire snare that strangled its victims to death. The more the rabbit had struggled, the tighter had grown the wire loop, and finally it had throttled itself. O-ha could see where the base of a blackthorn had been stripped of bark, as the rabbit had thrashed out with its hind legs.

  O-ha licked her nose, sensitising it, and tested Ransheen. Then she moved forward, slowly, her muzzle close to the ground. The first thing she did was to pass her shadow over the rabbit twice, in the ritual cleansing of carrion. Then she gripped the freshly dead rabbit in her jaws and tried to pull it way from the wire, but as expected, it held fast. Even jerking it from side to side did not release the meat.

  Realising that it was impossible to free the meal from its trap, she satisfied herself by gnawing its underside and feeding on the soft organs beneath. Her snout buried itself inside the rabbit as she fed and her belly welcomed the warm food.

  When she had been feeding for some time, a sound came to her from the far side of the covert. Since her nostrils were still clouded with the smell of gore and blood, she could catch no scent. She stiffened, flattening herself to the ground. One thing she did know: it was not the tread of a human. It was too light and soft: a four-footed creature. A small dog, badger or fox.

  She was not afraid of badgers, even though they were more powerful creatures than foxes, but a dog was another matter. Her breath quickened as she swiftly assessed the avenues of escape.

  Suddenly, a screech from above distracted her: a magpie had landed on the blackthorn. It strutted arrogantly along a branch, making too much noise for its size, then it became a blur of black and white as it stopped still and O-ha lost focus. Then the scent of fox, old fox, filled her nostrils. A grizzled dog fox came round the blackthorn, licking its grey muzzle. The rest of its coat was dark – darker than 0-ha’s – and its head looked too large for its body.

  O-ha said, ‘A-magyr! You startled me.’

  The old dog fox eyed her belligerently. A-magyr had once been a rangfar: one of those itinerant foxes that wander the countryside, the gypsies of the fox world. Although he had now settled in the district, it was said he still had nothing but contempt for ords, the foxes that never move more than a mile from their parish.

  ‘Startled?’ he growled. ‘Foxes shouldn’t be startled. They should have their wits constantly about them. They should know the time ahead as well as the time past.’ He shouldered her out of the way. ‘Now push off. I like the look of that rabbit.’

  Since A-magyr was well known for his ca
relessness, the rebuke was a little unjustified coming from him. He was renowned for having once strolled down the middle of the local village street in broad daylight, unimpressed by the humans that stopped to goggle at him. Only when a vehicle honked its horn at him, had he deigned to acknowledge the presence of the humans, and had slipped down an alley. He was a very big fox, larger than most, and it would have to be a brave town dog that took him on.

  ‘Come on, shove off,’ he snapped, as she hovered by his shoulder.

  O-ha considered the situation. She had eaten most of the soft meat and breast. Only the head and legs remained untouched. But this was her rabbit. She had intended to cache some of it and tell A-ho of its whereabouts. A-magyr was robbing her of her find, and he knew it.

  She flattened her body against the ground, in front of him, her ears against her head and her hind legs as taut as springs.

  A-magyr looked up, almost lazily. His eyes narrowed.

  ‘What?’ he said. ‘Try me, would you? Go away vixen, before you get hurt. You know how many foxes I’ve thrashed?’

  ‘Tell me afterwards,’ she snapped, irritated by his dog-fox-boasting. If they did fight, there was a possibility of serious injury, even death, if it went that far. Her heart was pounding a little as A-magyr took up a stance in front of her. Then, just in time, she remembered.

  She began to back away.

  A-magyr’s head came up and he affected an arrogant pose.

  ‘Ah, thought better of it? Good for you. I hate fighting females – they’re unpredictable. They hate losing, and they always lose against me.’

  This little speech made her bristle with frustration. She dearly wanted to make him roll over in submission, but she was concerned for her unborn cubs. It was wrong to put them at risk. If she stayed she might injure them, and A-magyr had little to lose. She decided to back off.

  ‘Mind my cubs,’ she said, testily.

  He paused to eye her haughtily.

  ‘Pregnant, eh? Couldn’t care less.’

  ‘Hope it chokes you,’ she said. ‘Of course, you wouldn’t know anything about cubs, would you? Was there ever an O-mogyr in your life? They say no vixen would ever live with such a …’

  She stopped when he turned to face her.

  ‘Watch your mouth, ord,’ he said. ‘Don’t think those cubs will prevent me teaching you a lesson. Respect your elders.’

  The magpie glided to the ground now and strutted a few yards away.

  ‘Respect your elders,’ it mimicked in a high, rasping voice. ‘Ich glaube, ja.’

  O-ha bared her teeth.

  ‘And you can shut up,’ she said.

  A-magyr crossed his shadow back and forth over the meat, the way O-ha had done, then began to chew a hind leg. She watched him for a short while as he chewed the meat that was so precious during Ransheen, then strolled away at a leisurely pace.

  He called out to her, with his mouth full, ‘Hunt on today. Heard the hounds this morning. Look to your tail, vixen.’

  A hunt!

  A cold shiver went down her spine. She ought to thank A-magyr for the warning, but she wondered whether he was lying or not. It might be his idea of a joke, to watch her running back to her earth while he finished the rabbit. She sniffed the air instead. The trouble was, she was thirsty again; after the meal, and she had not managed to get a great deal of liquid from the pond ice. The river was too far away. She considered other watering places.

  O-ha carried with her ancient knowledge of all the waterholes, soaks and hiding places in her parish. Most of this topographical knowledge was passed between generations – from mother to cubs – but some of it was retained through racial memory, from the time of Firstdark, when the world had been formed. Foxes had been on the earth longer than many animals, certainly longer than those upstart humans, and had witnessed the birth of the Long Hot Wind, Cle-am, which had shaped the world into its basic form. During Firstdark, foxes had fought great battles with other creatures, much larger than themselves, and the ancestors of O-ha had triumphed. Those first heroes and heroines still lived on, as the fox-spirits of the hav, and from time to time they appeared before distressed foxes to offer information and advice. You could not summon them, but they came to the spiritually oppressed when they felt their presence was deserved. They were especially active after some betrayal or treachery in which dogs were involved, since these cousins of the fox were bound with humans in an effort to exterminate them in the way they had done the wolves.

  Survival, in any parish, depended upon the knowledge passed down from Firstdark, which was held in songs and chants.

  The mystery and magic of Firstdark were locked in fox memory. O-ha knew all the tracks, all the fox highways and byways, all the soaks and waterholes in the district. Walking through the tall grasses, now glistening with the melting frost, she made her way to a depression a quarter of a mile from Trinity Wood, where water was often held in the natural cup of a rock. Facing south, the rock was one of the first objects struck by the morning sun and it was possible that there might be meltwater in the hollow. Once she had drunk, she intended to go to earth.

  She stepped out with a determined stride. As she travelled along a ditch beneath a mossy bank, Ransheen brought a warning to her, from upwind. She stiffened. Almost immediately, she heard the terrible sound of the hunting horn and the distant yelling of dogs.

  ‘Up! Up! Get the red devils up!’ the hounds were shouting in that dog-dialect of theirs.

  The mob was abroad.

  O-ha was alarmed, but did not panic. The hunt was still a long way off. She could not even smell the horses yet. She could hear their hoofs, drumming against the hard turf, but they were still at a canter. No gallop had begun, which meant they had not picked up a scent.

  Look to your tail, vixen, A-magyr had said.

  She intended to do so, for the sake of her cubs as well as herself.

  She crossed from the bank to some trees, still walking in the shadows. A fox does not have the stamina nor the speed to beat foxhounds in an open race across country. The dogs were faster, stronger. They were able to run long after a fox’s heart had burst, or its legs had collapsed beneath it. Given such odds in favour of the pursuer, it was surprising that so many foxes escaped the pack, but they often did. They got away because they relied on wile, and guile, rather than speed. Foxhounds were fast but often not very bright. They stopped to verify every nuance in scent before running on, sometimes blindly in the wrong direction. They paused at points where byways crossed, finding the mixtures of old scents and new scents confusing. Also, foxes are much more agile than a dog, and can leap fences, walk the edge of a plank with perfect balance, squeeze through holes, use the odours of external things, such as cars to disguise the trail. O-ha had ten times more resourcefulness than any hunting hound.

  Just as she was about to enter a covert, there was a barking from down-wind. A human on foot! He had seen her and was yapping excitedly to attract the distant riders. She saw the man, now running towards her, wave his stick and point in her direction.

  ‘Damn you,’ she snapped, irritably.

  Then she caught a whiff of his odour, between the safety of her earth and herself.

  ‘The hav,’ she thought, heading out into open country, into the gorse and bracken. She tried to remember where she had last seen recently ploughed land, where her trail might be lost amongst the furrows, and then remembered it was winter: most of the fields had been turned a long time past.

  ‘I’m not thinking straight’, she muttered to herself.

  Like the sound of a bloodthirsty beast itself, a nightmarish, many-legged monster with a hundred sharp-toothed mouths, the horn was louder, and nearer.

  Chapter Four

  The cries of the hounds filled the air, punctuated by the sound of the hunting horn and the baying of the huntsmen.

  O-ha’s heart was racing now, as she zigzagged over the hav, hoping to find some hiding place where the hounds could not get at her. She had never witnessed t
he end of a hunt, but she had heard the tales from those who had. She knew the dogs would rip her to pieces and that her tail would be cut from her coat, to be wiped over the face of some human new to the gory business, smearing it with blood. It was one of those human rituals which went back to the time the two-legged beasts came out of the sea-of-chaos: a ritual they had brought with them from the other side. O-ha was not the first fox to wonder what kind of creature used the reeking, smoking blood of another animal for ornamental pleasure; what kind of creature decorated itself in the symbolic colour of pain.

  She reached a ditch by a road and immediately used it like a tunnel, hoping that the icy bottom would not hold her scent for long. There were heavy shadows in the trench, which hopefully would dilute her scent and weaken it to a point where it was hardly recognisable from the other creature smells, ditches being busy places. Smaller mammals scattered out of her way as she travelled along, none of them jeering, not even those who might one day end their life in a fox’s stomach. Fear was abroad, and they caught it from her as she swept past them. It got into their nostrils and choked their brains, so that they found themselves scurrying away to holes or nests, in an effort to rid themselves of the foul smell that created such panic.

  O-ha left the ditch just as the hounds were milling around, trying to pick up her scent at the point she had entered it. She waited for a few seconds, gathering her breath. O-ha was terribly thirsty now and she knew if she did not get a drink soon, her strength would ebb rapidly. If only she had been patient at the pond! Then she heard them, tumbling along the hedgerow, and she knew her ruse had not worked. Once again, she took to her paws.

  Instead of crossing the field adjacent to the ditch, she travelled down the centre of the road for part of the way. Her instinct told her to do the unpredictable thing. Behind her, the hounds still shouted: ‘This way! This way! We’ve almost got the devil.’ The riders were thundering alongside the road, knowing that the hard surface would damage their horses’ legs with the jarring. It slowed them a little.