Fading behind, hardly audible, sounded the men: demanding to know what had become of Demik and how he had escaped through a locked door—leaving only a pile of clothes as if he’d gone up in smoke. The remaining foxes would tell them Demik had struck out north, across the footbridge on the Aaqann River, with many of his family and no intention to return. Still, we could not take the chance that they or their dogs might come this way.
We broke into a run, through the birch forest and beyond, many miles east, then south, curving out and around the vast expanse of mining territory until we could head due south, seeking out the coast again—Juneau, Skagway, and continue to travel back, back, back on my own life story.
We would reach saltwater before the first frost. How much farther from there?
Would they follow me so far, even if we could? Would they hold faith in me that Demik held? Even Ondrog, Komu, and now Mej? How long could I expect them to follow in blind loyalty? Or even out of pure hope?
I shivered as I ran, scared for them, for all of us. How could I be who they needed me to be when I might not even be able to get myself to a safe future?
The only reason I could push on, could expect to take us anywhere at all, was this reverse path—joined by my own faith that it would continue to unravel before me.
For now, I saw the most recent part of my own story as if the memories had never left me. Straight back to the smashing cage in an unbroken line. As if that blow had opened my mind with the opening of the cage. If we followed my tracks backward we must eventually find where I had come from, which meant finding foxes.
Until that time, everything now was horribly, painfully clear.
Chapter 12
I had tumbled down the river that day in a torment of confusion and flickering memories that I had already buried like last autumn’s cache. Before then … my head … pain … losing even more…
I’d crashed about for miles down the river, almost to the joining of the Yukon—where I’d have been, and drowned, if not for Tem and Qualin. All those miles had started just before the waterfall, in the lumber camp that fed logs into the Aaqann River. I’d known nothing of this then. Only the bite of iron in my foot, the leftover trapline trap from the same line that captured the lynx whom we had freed on one of those first days out.
Before the river came the foot trap. I lay there for days, already weak and hungry, my mind a confusion of images and struggles, desperate for my own people, for a friend, for freedom from this suffering. Then the man heard my sporadic cries and dragged me up onto the back of a horse with him as he rode to the lumber camp.
Only in camp itself had I left a mark. Here, the men had teased and harassed me with their dogs. Dazed as I already was, I still fought and bit—mostly the dogs. Until I bit a man on the hand. He brought their entertainment to an end by murder. That sensation, flying through the air when I’d sniffed in the camp, the blow to the ground … my own blood…
It was there beside the river that the bitten man had swung me by the hind legs into the rocky shore, crash, crash, crash, as if killing a huge salmon, then threw me into the water since my thin and malnourished summer pelt wasn’t worth keeping.
It was those blows, not the river’s wrath, that drove out the last fragments of memory—who I was, where I’d come from, why I roamed the wilderness alone a long way from home.
Any thought of having another form to revert to had already left me seasons previously. With the spark of life nearly gone, blood flowing from my ears and nose into the water, I wanted only my family back. Only the farthest, deepest memories back. The love in my kit days, the gentleness of a parent, the adoration and passion of a mate. The good things, none of the bad.
Then I woke in the cradle of Qualin’s arms. Tem was overjoyed, Qualin and Skeen were kind, and Demik was there, holding on, loving me from the start—which was all I’d needed. The dark times were gone, the badness crushed from my skull, while Demik reminded me what I was, teaching me to change again, healing my body and saving my poor head.
Here was my love, my salvation. Demik brought Mej and Komu as well. Then Ondrog, who’s aloneness I could not bear, who’s small suffering of solitude reminded me of many seasons passed locked in a cage, though I had not known it at the time. His aloneness brought tears to my eyes, as had the trap on the lynx, and the idea of myself being caged or alone.
Yet they had always brought me the good things, not the bad. They’d helped me remember the important moments: my own name and the various sorts of love I had known in my life, which meant knowing joy and contentment and companionship. They had brought the memories worth having—love—at a time when I could not have taken any of the rest. In so doing, in being there for me, they’d allowed me to grow strong enough to take in the rest. Now, as it all came back, I didn’t sob or hide. This was me, a part of me. It was time to remember.
Remember for my new family, to bring them home. Remember for those who came before, to honor those who had left me with the shadow of love and joy at the heart of my life in the first place.
Before the river, before the lumber camp, before the trap, there had been the roving. The cage had been broken open. I’d run. I ran north and east, away from the coast and steamers, away from the man who charged admission to see me, or kept me in the shop to draw customers. I ran blindly because I could hardly remember what I was or why I’d started running in the first place. I ran only to escape hurt and pain and aloneness … and that cage.
I ran all spring, all through the breakup of the ice and thaw. I ran until my paws could hardly carry me and I had lost all sense of place and purpose. My diet, at least, was more diverse and I got back some of my health, yet eating so little I remained a stick of a fox, a slinking shadow through one forest and the next. Until the foot trap and the lumber camp and the river.
Before that, there had been the cage … for how long?
It seemed I’d been in Juneau in the spring with the ice melting. It also seemed that was when I’d run.
Perhaps the return to Juneau was a short time. Before the cage was broken open. There had been seasons in the place called Seattle. The harbor never froze, the snow never fell thick. I remembered the difference in my whiskers and feel of the air in my nose. Seattle simply never got cold. A flurry of snow, short, gray days and long nights of rain. No more. No less. So all autumn and winter in Seattle at least. Before that, the steamer, rock and scream of the great boat that carried me away from my home. The cage, sliding and bobbing about. Barking dogs, angry men. A sickness that boiled through my stomach with the endless motion and would not let up. So terrible was the movement that for days after arriving in Seattle I still felt sick, still felt the boards heave beneath my paws.
The man had held up my cage, told an older man about me, said how he would charge to see me, how well the Klondike stampede was going, how much money they could make, how things were in Alaska and how he could tell people here that I was the only black fox of the Yukon.
Before that, before Seattle or any steamer, there had been the cage. Already the cage for months, people coming to stare and poke at me. The black fox biting the bars, digging at the boards. Before that … before…
A snare, a fist with a heavy leather glove, into the cage. How?
I knew of snares. I should not have been so careless. I knew better than to allow myself to be shoved into a cage. I could have changed if snared. But no. The cage, the padlock, and my own slow death within. Why? How had I let this happen? Where had it happened? How long ago? More than a year, I was sure of that. There had been snow on the ground. A snare hidden by fresh snow—the trapper’s friend.
Six seasons, then, I had been in the cage. At least a year and a half. Long enough to die inside. Long enough to forget. Or make myself forget. Long enough that I lost track of who I was and what had happened to me, while that last beating, my head against the stones, had been enough to clear out any lingering details.
Before that … how I came to the snare, where I was
when I was snatched away from my wilderness … these things I had to know. I had to remember because they would lead me to my family. Now I had to take my second family to them. I had to be the messenger Demik believed I was. If I could not be their guide, they had nothing left anymore—just like me in the cage. They had no way out. I had to be that axe, that opening, that light, and that run to freedom.
It was my chance now to repay the love and healing they had given me. If only I could. If only I knew how. If only I could go back just a little farther … before…
Chapter 13
Night 80
I crept on soft paws through the streets of Juneau—a place I hardly knew, scarcely remembered in smell and sound of the tides, having never walked about the streets before. Still, it terrified me—sent my teeth chattering, hackles bristling, saliva dripping from my chin. It didn’t matter. I had to find the place, had to find the exact spot where the cage had been broken open and, it seemed, somehow, I would know more.
As the bars had dropped away for Demik and I saw my own freedom, now, if I sniffed the spot, surely it would take me to the next path.
Mej crept along at my flank. His coat was far brighter than mine, yet streets were dark in the pure night now of late September. Komu slunk at our heels, pausing often to listen, then catching up. Mej also stopped often, ears pivoting. I slipped on through the dark.
I trusted them to keep watch for me, to know the sounds and habits and intentions of human beings. If I stopped now, that dread would win and I must surely flee. As it was, I felt as safe as I could with them to get on with my own search. It was why I’d chosen them.
Demik had tried to come along, even Ondrog. Ondrog had understood when I’d led Mej and Komu out. I’d had to shriek in Demik’s face and finally bite his nose to get him to back off and remain by Ondrog’s huge white paws in the foot of the mountains with the others.
All were apprehensive, mistrusting me anyway, then fresh suspicions added by this pushing south into human towns. At least hunting had been good. Leaves were falling, nights were cold and clear, the small animals were running about, preparing for winter, the rivers and streams remained accessible for fishing. Not for much longer. The first frosts had already come. Still waters were rimmed in ice crystals. Another month and the rivers would begin to freeze. Like the daylight, the warmth, the successful hunting and easy traveling, the summer was slipping away. Not yet our courage. I would find this way for us. For now, they remained willing to follow.
Mej and Komu paused on the road while I sniffed along the boardwalk.
Even the road in Juneau was boards, tight packed, a main street of solid timber into which no horses’ hooves or wagon wheels could sink. It made for easy movement, but poor traction if one should need to make a sudden sprint away from a dog or shotgun.
Komu pounced and chased a rat under the sidewalk.
A saloon door flapped and noise from shouting men and music poured out with yellow light into the street. We crouched, waited, and moved on. It wasn’t shouting drunks or singing that worried me. It was the other sorts of men. The kinds with two watchful eyes and two steady hands on their firearms, traps, and cages.
Mej sniffed at the saloon. There was something longing about him. Maybe it was the games or whiskey. Or maybe he only longed for a cigarette.
Heart pounding, I trotted across the street to a broad shopfront. An awning overhead, wide glass windows, a real second story with more windows and timber walls, not merely a false-front. I smelled leather and whale oil, boot polish and sawdust, dried goods and rust on tin cans.
I shuddered as a fresh burst of fear rippled through me, making my breath catch. Here, in front of this door, that had been forced by the young woman and man with the axe to reach me, my paws had touched ground again, and I’d run. Mere months ago.
So the snare? The cage itself? Where to follow the trail back? To start at the beginning? Which way to go? I could not reach Seattle. There had to be a trail to pick up from the start of the cage, from the snare, a focus of memory needing only one more jumping off point—like Mej saying my name, the sight of the logging camp, the feel of Demik in the cage.
Mej and Komu joined me, sniffing about the shop door. Komu placed his forepaws on the rim of the wall and peered inside through the dark glass, whiskers quivering. Mej followed, shoving Komu’s shoulder out of the way to get the same angle, though there was a whole wall of glass to look through.
Komu relinquished his spot and joined me.
I was sitting stupidly against the door, quivering, saliva dripping unchecked. Komu touched the side of my muzzle, at my sensitive whisker buds, with the tip of his tongue, only making me flinch.
He watched me in the dark, his eyes taking up and reflecting the few outside lights. It was so much easier to see at night in fur than in skin. It made the Arctic nights more bearable to spend much of the time in fur. As well as spend them with friends or family, or a mate. I knew that. How could I not know this?
I met Komu’s eyes as he studied me anxiously.
Mej also joined me, cocking his head.
When I still only sat, shivering, he nuzzled my ear.
They were right. I couldn’t just sit here. Only … I didn’t have what I’d come for. I remembered what had happened here. I remembered the steamer and arriving into Juneau. I remembered a place before. Maybe Skagway or Dyea, where I’d been in the cage before leaving this land, then returning. Yet this spot, this place of memories, was bringing back no others. Only that. No more. Then where was the rest of my story? Must I find the place of the snare to go farther back? How?
Komu whimpered and again touched me with his nose.
I would have to change and tell Demik. He would help. All of them. If the five of us could talk together…
Yet … Demik was resting his faith in me. Even Mej was on this journey now, whether or not he believed in it.
If I couldn’t push on, I was letting them down. For right now the clan was behind me, still believing. If I faltered…? If I admitted I didn’t know what to do? What would happen to them? Would they follow at all? Would they turn for home and condemn themselves to a life of oppression, and no hunting grounds, while the humans consumed their ancestral homes?
I had to keep going. If I didn’t know the way … I had to guess. And pray.
The fear, the black place and terrors that door held for me, eased with the touches of the two dog-foxes. I blinked, nosed their fur, and found my feet. I shook in an effort to rid myself of the nightmare images of the cage, then, focused on myself appearing to know what to do next, I set out past them, trotting back for the foot of the mountains and our skulk, each one depending upon us—upon me.
Chapter 14
The first snows fell as we traveled north and west along the coast. Constant days and nights in fur had thickened those coats that were sparse from summer and sharpened the senses of those not used to spending much time out of skin. All the same, that early snow was wet and heavy, the game fading, the wild huckleberries and cranberries of autumn already gone.
The skulk followed with diminishing spirits, yet pushed on, holding out hope that I had somewhere in mind to take them.
I tracked through muddy tidal flats, climbed mountain slopes, and descended again for a last couple weeks traveling through sparse, wet snow in the lowlands. There were so many rivers flowing out to sea here, I knew I’d come down one, I’d drifted in the cage to the coastal towns. Then I should follow a river up to find where I came from. Only … there seemed to be a river, or stream that might open to a river, every few steps in this land.
I followed one, then another. I scouted human towns and simple encampments or trading posts, finding the sight of Hudson’s Bay Company signs familiar, yet leading to nothing.
Each day, as my feet ached more and my stomach felt emptier, I prayed to Earth Mother to bring my two families together. Each night, I felt my own certainty that the way would become clear with fresh memories.
Day af
ter day, and night after night, for we slept and traveled sporadically, Demik and Ondrog remained at my side. Komu cheered others with his games and chases. Mej bullied stragglers into line so we had no smaller skulks turning back.
Once, working with Ondrog and by sheer numbers, we brought down a deer together. This bolstered spirits and we had a day and night of rest and feasting, moving on with such full stomachs and lighter steps.
The bears were still not in hibernation and we had several hard runs to clear out of an old grizzly’s territory. Likewise, we had to stay clear of total wolf packs, mountain lions, and trapping humans.
The night came when we’d just skirted a bear range and hurried through a wolf territory, the coast now far behind and to our left, that I felt the pull of the northern lights.
The patterns were vivid that night, a sky laced in green and pink which took on a brown shade to my eyes in fur. Up there, north, in the higher ground and lighter snow, something called me.
The air was extra crisp that night, ice forming on my whiskers as I breathed out through my nose, moisture in my eyes freezing and stinging. Again, the seasons were changing. The very short northern autumn was over. Winter was truly upon this land. Which meant night, also would soon become nearly universal. No time to venture north and west into the deep interior of Alaska. Yet here my whiskers tingled to follow.
I did, striking out that night below the northern lights with new purpose.
It was the first time the skulk broke in earnest. I heard it as squabbling, a squeal, chatter, and quick screams.
Then I turned with Demik to find Mej and Komu snapping at fully half our number who had refused to make the turn.
Mej was ready to fight, head low, back arched, and mouth wide as he shrieked at them.
Ondrog stalked over, also with his head down, but silent, as if on a game trail.
His prey resented being treated as such. They humped their backs and gekkered at him.
Fox’s Night: A Foxy Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (Foxes of the Midnight Sun Book 3) Page 5
