The Midnight Fox Read online

  I went out and shut the door and walked across the hall to my room. I saw this movie on TV one time about a king who suddenly found out that in all his castle there was not one man, not one, who would help him fight the Red King of Crete. This king stood on his balcony, all alone, looking over his kingdom, which would soon be lost, and his face had a terrible lonely look. That was how I felt as I stood at the window looking out over the ragged line of the forest. I felt so much like that king that I thought if I put my hand up to my face, my face would feel very old and wrinkled and lonely.

  I heard the sound of the hound in the woods again, and I knew that the black fox was out there now running beneath the trees. To me she was worth a hundred turkeys and hens. I wished suddenly that I had lots of money and could go down to Aunt Millie and say, ‘Here! I want to buy every hen and turkey you have on behalf of the black fox. They are all to belong to her, and she may come and get them whenever she chooses.’ And Aunt Millie would tuck the money in her apron pocket and say, ‘The turkeys and hens are now the property of the black fox.’

  I walked over and sat on my bed and I suddenly felt worse than ever, because I remembered how that king had saved his castle from the Red King of Crete. He sent his daughter to get Hercules, who was waiting in the nearby hills, and Hercules, shining with sweat and muscles, arrived just in time to do battle and send the entire Cretan army limping back to their ships. Then the king had only to reward Hercules with the gift of his beautiful daughter, and the story came to a satisfying end while the people of the kingdom danced and sang for joy. So I was not like the lonely king after all. I had no beautiful daughter, no muscular friend waiting in the hills, and I knew that my story would not end with wild song and joyous dancing, but with a runny nose and wet eyes.

  Fourteen

  Unwilling Hunter

  The next morning was hot and dry, and when I looked out of my window the air was brown with dust. I could hardly see the forest. It was like the dust had become magnetised by the sun and was rising to meet it.

  Happ was lying in the yard under a tree. He had given up his chase at some point during the night and was now in a state of collapse. The heat was already unbearable. The earth had not cooled off during the night and now the sun had already begun to reheat it.

  I went downstairs and the only person at the table with any animation was Uncle Fred. Hazeline was sitting with her chin in her hand, sullenly dipping a slice of toast into her coffee and then nibbling at it. Aunt Millie usually sat straight as a broom, but this morning she too was leaning forward on the table. ‘Sit down and get yourself some cereal.’

  I sat down and she said, ‘I swear if we don’t get some rain we are all going to dry up and blow away like the crops.’

  ‘I’m going to start pumping water from the pond this morning,’ Uncle Fred said.

  ‘It won’t do any good.’ Aunt Millie turned her napkin over in her lap as if she were looking for the cool side.

  ‘And then this afternoon,’ Uncle Fred said to me, ‘you and I’ll go after the fox.’ I could see that it was this thought that had caused his spirits to rise. ‘Right?’

  ‘Yes.’ I did not want to go, of course, but I had the idea that if I was there, if I was right at his elbow every minute, there might come a time when I could jar his elbow as he fired his gun and save the fox. It was a noble thought but I knew even then it wasn’t going to work.

  ‘In case anyone is interested,’ Hazeline said in a low voice, ‘Mikey is not going to marry me.’

  ‘What, Hazeline?’

  ‘I said Mikey’s not going to marry me!’ And she slammed down her napkin and left the room.

  ‘What is that all about?’ Uncle Fred asked.

  ‘Mikey’s not going to marry her unless she loses twenty pounds,’ I said.

  ‘I cannot stand one more thing. I cannot!’ Aunt Millie said. ‘If one more thing happens in this house I just don’t know what I’m going to do.’

  ‘Now, now. Mikey is going to marry Hazeline. The rain is going to come. And we are going to get the fox that’s after your chickens,’ Uncle Fred said. ‘Come on, Tom, help me with the pump.’

  ‘Well, don’t let the boy get a heatstroke out there,’ Aunt Millie said. ‘I mean it. That will be absolutely the last straw.’

  ‘I’ll be all right.’

  It was afternoon before the pump was working and the muddy water was moving between the small, dusty rows of vegetables.

  ‘Well, that’s that. Now, let’s take some time off and go into the woods.’ Uncle Fred paused, then said, ‘If you’re too tired, you don’t have to come.’

  ‘No, I want to.’

  He looked pleased. ‘I think you’ll enjoy it.’

  We went to the house and I waited on the back steps while Uncle Fred went in and got his gun. He came out carrying it, muzzle down, and I could tell just from the way he held it that he knew everything there was to know about that particular gun. I knew that his hands had been over that gun so many times that, blindfolded, he could load it and aim it and probably hit whatever he wanted.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  It was like in an army movie when the sergeant says, ‘All right, men, let’s move out,’ and all the tired discouraged soldiers get up, dust themselves off, and start walking. I fell behind Uncle Fred and we went through the orchard – Happ leading the way – and down to the creek. We passed the place where we had found the turkey eggs, passed the place where I had sat and first seen the black fox. There! My eyes found the very spot where I had first seen her coming over the crest of the hill.

  Uncle Fred crossed the creek in one leap – the water was that low now – and stepped up the bank. Silently I followed. ‘Fox tracks,’ he said, and with the muzzle of his gun he pointed down to the tiny imprints in the sand. I had not even noticed them.

  If I had hoped that Uncle Fred was not going to be able to find the black fox, I now gave up this hope once and for all. What it had taken me weeks and a lucky accident to accomplish, he would do in a few hours.

  ‘The fox must be up there in the woods,’ I said eagerly, knowing she was not, or that if she was, she had gone there only to make a false track.

  ‘Maybe,’ Uncle Fred said.

  ‘Let’s go there then,’ I said and I sounded like a quarrelsome, impatient child.

  ‘Don’t be in too big a hurry. Let’s look a bit.’

  Happ had caught the scent of something and he ran up the creek bank, circled the field, then returned. Uncle Fred walked slowly along the bank. We were now about half a mile from the fox’s den. If we kept on walking up the creek, past the fallen tree, past the old chimney, if we rounded a bend and looked up through the brambles in a certain way, then we could see the fox’s den. It seemed to me as I stood there, sick with the heat and with dread, that the fox’s den was the plainest thing in the world. As soon as we rounded the bend, Uncle Fred would exclaim, ‘There it is.’

  I said again, ‘Why don’t we go up in the woods and look? I think the fox’s up there.’

  ‘I’m not looking for the fox,’ he said. ‘We could chase that fox all day and never get her. I’m looking for the den.’ He walked a few feet further and then paused. He knelt and held up a white feather. ‘One of Millie’s chickens,’ he said. ‘Hasn’t been enough breeze in a week to blow it six inches. Come on.’

  We walked on along the creek bank in the direction I had feared. I was now overtaken by a feeling of utter hopelessness. My shoulders felt very heavy and I thought I was going to be sick. Usually when something terrible happened, I would get sick, but this time I kept plodding along right behind Uncle Fred. I could not get it out of my mind that the fox’s life might depend on me. I stumbled over a root, went down on my knees, and scrambled to my feet. Uncle Fred looked back long enough to see that I was still behind him and then continued slowly, cautiously watching the ground, the woods, everything. Nothing could escape those sharp eyes.

  Suddenly we heard, from the woods above, the short high bark I
knew so well. The black fox! Uncle Fred lifted his head and at once Happ left the creek bank and dashed away into the woods. He bayed as he caught the scent of the fox, and then his voice, like the sound of a foghorn, was lost in the distant trees.

  ‘That was the fox,’ I said.

  Uncle Fred nodded. Slowly he continued to move up the creek, stepping over logs, rocks, brushing aside weeds, his eyes and the muzzle of his gun turned always to the ground.

  We walked up the field and then back to the creek. We crossed the creek and while we were standing there Happ returned. He was hot, dusty, panting. He lay down in the shallow water of the creek with his legs stretched out behind him and lapped slowly at the water.

  ‘Happ didn’t get the fox,’ I said. Every time I spoke, I had the feeling I was breaking a rule of hunting, but I could not help myself. As soon as I had said this, we heard the bark of the fox again. The time it seemed closer than before. Uncle Fred shifted his gun in his hand, but he did not raise it. Happ, however, rose at once to the call, dripping wet, still panting from his last run. Nose to the ground, he headed for the trees.

  The sound of his baying faded as he ran deeper into the woods. I knew the fox had nothing to fear from the hound. The fox with her light movements could run from this lumbering dog all day. It was Uncle Fred, moving closer and closer to the den with every step, who would be the end of the black fox.

  Fifteen

  The Den

  By this time we were only a hundred feet from the entrance to the fox’s den. Uncle Fred had crossed the creek again and moved up towards the thicket of trees. From where he was standing, he could have thrown a rock over the trees and it would have landed in the little clearing where I had seen the baby fox play.

  He walked past the thicket to a lone tree in the centre of the field and stood there for a moment. Then he knocked the creek mud on his shoe off on one of the roots and walked back to me. He turned and walked the length of the thicket. It was like that old game Hot and Cold, where you hide something and when the person gets close to it you say, ‘You’re getting warmer – you’re warmer – now you’re hot – you’re red-hot – you’re on fire, you’re burning up!’ Inside right then I was screaming, ‘You’re burning up.’

  ‘Look at that,’ he said. He pointed with his gun to a pile of earth that had been banked up within the last two months. ‘Sometimes when a fox makes a den she’ll bring the earth out one hole, seal it up, and then use the other hole for the entrance. It’ll be around here somewhere.’

  He moved through the trees towards the den, walking sideways. I could not move at all. I just stood with the sun beating down on my head like a fist and my nose running.

  I heard the sound of Happ’s barking coming closer. He had lost the fox in the woods but now he had a new scent, older, but still hot. He came crashing through the bushes, bellowing every few feet, his head to the ground. He flashed past me, not even seeing me in his intensity, his red eyes on the ground. Like a charging bull, he entered the thicket and he and Uncle Fred stepped into the small grassy clearing at the same moment.

  ‘Here it is,’ Uncle Fred called. ‘Come here.’

  I wanted to turn and run. I did not want to see Uncle Fred and Happ standing in that lovely secluded clearing, but instead I walked through the trees and looked at the place I had avoided so carefully for weeks. There were the bones, some whitened by the sun, a dried turkey wing, feathers, and behind, the partially sheltered hole. Of course Uncle Fred had already seen that, and as I stepped from the trees he pointed to it with his gun.

  ‘There’s the den.’

  I nodded.

  ‘The baby foxes will be in there.’

  This was the first time he had been wrong. There was only one baby fox in there, and I imagined him crouching now against the far wall of the den.

  ‘Go back to the house and get me a shovel and sack,’ Uncle Fred said.

  Without speaking, I turned and walked back to the house. Behind me the black fox barked again. It was a desperate high series of barks that seemed to last a long time, and Happ lunged after the fox for the third time. It was too late now for tricks, for Uncle Fred remained, leaning on his gun waiting for the shovel and sack.

  I went up the back steps and knocked. Usually I just went in the house like I did at my own home, but I waited here till Aunt Millie came and I said, ‘Uncle Fred wants me to bring him a sack and a shovel.’

  ‘Did you get the fox?’

  ‘Uncle Fred found the den.’

  ‘If it’s in the woods, he’ll find it,’ she said, coming out of the door, ‘but you ought to see that man try to find a pair of socks in his own drawer. Hazeline,’ she called up to her window, ‘you want to go see your dad dig out the baby foxes?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I declare that girl is in the worst mood.’ She walked with me to the shed, put the shovel in my hand, and then pressed a dusty grain sack against me. ‘Now, you don’t be too late.’

  ‘I don’t think it will take long.’

  ‘Are you all right? Your face is beet red.’

  ‘I’m all right.’

  ‘Because I can make Hazeline take that shovel to her dad.’

  ‘I feel fine.’

  I started towards the orchard with the shovel and sack and I felt like some fairy-tale character who has been sent on an impossible mission, like proving my worth by catching a thousand golden eagles in the sack and making a silver mountain for them with my shovel. Even that did not seem as difficult as what I was really doing.

  It must have taken me longer to get back than I thought, for Uncle Fred said, ‘I thought you’d gotten lost.’

  ‘No, I wasn’t lost. I’ve been here before.’

  I handed him the shovel and let the sack drop to the ground. As he began to dig, I closed my eyes and pressed my hands against my eyelids, and I saw a large golden sunburst, and in this sunburst the black fox came running towards me.

  I opened my eyes and watched Uncle Fred. He dug as he did everything else – powerfully, slowly, and without stopping. His shovel hit a rock and he moved the shovel until he could bring the rock out with the dirt. At my feet the gravelly pile of earth was growing.

  I turned away and looked across the creek, and I saw for the fifteenth and last time the black fox. She moved anxiously towards the bushes and there was a tension to her steps, as if she were ready to spring or make some other quick, forceful movement. She barked. She had lost the dog again, and this bark was a high clear call for Uncle Fred and me to follow her.

  There was a grunt of satisfaction from Uncle Fred and I turned to see him lift out, on the shovel, covered with sand and gravel, the baby fox.

  He turned it on to the sack and the baby fox lay without moving.

  ‘He’s dead,’ I said.

  Uncle Fred shook his head. ‘He’s not dead. He’s just play-acting. His ma taught him to do that.’

  We both looked down at the little fox without speaking. I knew that if I lived to be a hundred, I would never see anything that would make me feel any worse than the sight of that little fox pretending to be dead when his heart was beating so hard it looked like it was going to burst out of his chest.

  I looked over my shoulder and the black fox was gone. I knew she was still watching us, but I could not see her. Uncle Fred was probing the den with his shovel. I said, ‘I don’t think there are any more. She just had one.’

  He dug again, piled more earth on the pile, then said, ‘You’re right. Usually a fox has five or six cubs.’

  ‘I think something happened to the others.’

  He bent, folded the ends of the sack, and lifted the baby fox. I took the shovel, he the gun, and we started home, the baby fox swinging between us. Happ joined us as we crossed the creek and began to leap excitedly at the sack until Uncle Fred had to hold it shoulder high to keep it from him.

  We walked back to the house without speaking. Uncle Fred went directly to some old rabbit hutches beside the garage. Bubba had once rais
ed rabbits here, but now the cages were empty. Uncle Fred opened one, shook the baby fox out of the sack, and then closed the wire door.

  The baby fox moved to the back of the hutch and looked at us. His fur was soft and woolly, but his eyes were sharp. Nervously he went to one corner. Aunt Millie came out and looked. ‘Just like a baby lamb,’ she said. ‘It’s a sweet little thing, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s not the way you were talking yesterday,’ Uncle Fred said.

  ‘Well, I’m not going to have anything after my chickens,’ she said. ‘Not anything! I’d be after you with the broom if you bothered my chickens.’ They laughed. Her spirits seemed greatly improved now that the fox was doomed, and she called, ‘Hazeline, come on out here and look at this cute little baby fox.’

  ‘No.’

  Uncle Fred went into the shed, returned, and snapped a lock over the cage latch.

  ‘You think somebody’s going to steal your fox?’

  Aunt Millie laughed.

  ‘I wouldn’t put it past a fox to open up an unlocked cage to get her baby.’

  Aunt Millie shook her head in amazement, then said, ‘Well, you men have got to get washed for supper.’

  We went into the house and I said to Uncle Fred, ‘What are you going to do with the baby fox?’

  ‘That’s my bait. Every hunter alive’s got some way to get a fox. They got some special trap or something. Mr Baynes down at the store makes up a special mixture that he says foxes can’t resist. My way is to set up a trap, using the baby fox for bait. I’ll sit out on the back porch tonight and watch for her.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘It never fails. That is one bait a fox can’t resist.’

  Sixteen

  Captured

  ‘Are you getting sick?’ Aunt Millie asked at supper that night.