Run with the Wind (10 page)

‘I was afraid it might be something like that,’ said Old Sage Brush when they told him about the dead sheep and the farmer. ‘Are you sure you weren’t followed here?’

They assured him they hadn’t been, and the old fox announced that they must leave the area without delay. The farmer or his sheepdogs might come looking for them. Worse still, the fun dogs that were running wild and attacking the sheep might find them, and dogs like that, with a taste for killing, would be a great danger. Black Tip now felt well enough to travel, so they slipped silently out of the gorse.

Taking care to avoid any choking hedge-traps that might now lie in their path, they continued in what they hoped was the general direction of Beech Paw. Old Sage Brush had taken the precaution of getting Fang and Skulking Dog to bring up the rear, and when they had stopped to rest, he also asked Fang to circle behind them to make sure they weren’t being followed. Fang found nothing, but the old fox wasn’t happy, and a short time later he sent Skulking Dog out. When Skulking Dog returned, he sought out Fang and
told him: ‘Old Sage Brush must have sensed something. I think the fun dogs have picked up our trail.’

Fang sat up. ‘You mean the farmer’s dogs?’

‘I don’t think so. They’re running in a pack. I’d say they’re the ones that have been attacking the sheep. What do you think we should do? I don’t want to alarm the others.’

‘We’ll tell Old Sage Brush and Black Tip,’ said Fang. ‘They’ll know what to do.’

On hearing the news, Old Sage Brush was thoughtful for a moment. ‘I had a feeling we were being followed,’ he said. ‘How far back are they?’

‘A good way,’ Skulking Dog told him. ‘We’ve left enough circles and false scents to keep them busy for a while.’

‘Good,’ said the old fox, ‘but we better move on. Say nothing to the others for the moment. Skulking Dog, you and Fang stay here at the rear, and let me know if they get close.’

‘I’ll stay back too,’ Black Tip volunteered. ‘I’m okay now.’

‘All right,’ said Old Sage Brush. ‘Vickey can be my eyes. We need all the strength we can muster back here in case the fun dogs catch up with us.’

‘But how can we travel without the brush to guide us?’ asked Skulking Dog.

‘We’ll just have to keep going and hope we don’t go off course,’ said Old Sage Brush. ‘Hurry. We’ve no time to waste.’

If the others suspected something was wrong, they said nothing, and with Vickey leading, they continued their journey
by daylight. Every now and then one of the foxes bringing up the rear, doubled back to check. In this way they were able to lay more false scents which they hoped might delay their pursuers or put them off their trail altogether. However, their efforts were in vain. There were too many of them travelling together, and they were leaving a strong scent. As the morning wore on, it became apparent that the fun dogs were gaining on them. They were now approaching an area where plantations of evergreens capped the hills, and lakes shimmered in the meadows below.

‘Maybe we could make it to those evergreens,’ suggested Skulking Dog.

‘They’re too far away,’ said Black Tip, ‘but there’s a small wood just ahead of us. We could make a stand there and let the others try and reach the evergreens.’ Skulking Dog nodded, and Fang said: ‘All right, let’s tell them to make a run for it. Hurry, there’s no time to lose.’

By now the vixens had sensed that something was wrong, and the news that they were being followed came as no surprise to them. They took off as fast as they could for the wood, closely followed by Hop-along and Old Sage Brush.

For once Old Sage Brush felt helpless, and as the other three caught up with them at the edge of the wood and told them their plan, he asked sadly: ‘Why must it end like this, my gallant young friends? Why?’

‘Because this is the way it has to be,’ said Black Tip.

‘I stay because I have nothing to lose,’ said Fang.

‘And we stay because we have everything to lose if we don’t,’ said Skulking Dog. ‘At least our vixens and our cubs will survive.’

They parted in a clearing in the middle of the wood. There was no time for sorrow. The fun dogs were closing in. A touch of noses, a look that said thanks, and the others were on their way. Then the three dog foxes lay down to wait for a fight they knew they could not win, either by courage or cunning.

There were four dogs in the pack — a young Alsatian and three small mongrels. They were town dogs nobody cared about. The white one with the black ear had been a boy’s pet until he tired of it. The long-bodied brown one had belonged to an old woman who had died. The scruffy black one had never belonged to anyone. In the Alsatian they had found a leader and in the sheep flocks of the country all of them had found a lot of fun. However, chasing sheep was a game that had given them a taste for blood and turned harmless stray dogs of the streets into a savage pack of hunters with a price on their heads.

The three foxes lay among the bracken in the clearing. Behind them, the others had gone off through the trees to safety. Ahead of them they could hear the fun dogs panting as they plodded through the undergrowth in pursuit of their quarry. An excited bark from the Alsatian, and a squeal of
delight from one of the smaller dogs, told them the time had come. Their normal instinct was to run, but they knew that if they evaded capture the fun dogs might return to the scent of the others, and they couldn’t risk that. It had to be a fight.

As the dogs raced into the clearing, the three foxes sprang out of the bracken and leaped on the Alsatian. The three mongrels flung themselves into the battle, and the quietness of the clearing was shattered by a rolling, snapping, shrieking ball of fury. Skulking Dog was hanging out of the Alsatian’s neck when he felt a searing pain in his tail and was forced to release his grip and fight off the brown dog. Fang turned to snap at the white dog with the black ear as it sank its teeth into his right hind leg. Black Tip turned to face the scruffy black dog and would have died in the jaws of the Alsatian were it not for the fact that he and the black dog rolled over and over so fast the Alsatian couldn’t catch him. The Alsatian was standing waiting … waiting for the opportunity to snap its powerful jaws on one of them. When that happened, it would be all over.

So intent was the Alsatian in watching for its chance, that it failed to see the three vixens streaking out of the undergrowth and launching themselves at its neck. As they fell to the ground, snarling and snapping, the noise in the clearing reached a frightening pitch. The three smaller dogs who were locked in battle with the young dog foxes, saw the Alsatian go down and immediately their courage began to
flag. To add to the confusion, two more foxes had appeared. Hop-along was in there with the vixens, seeking a grip on the Alsatian’s throat too. The smaller dogs weren’t to know that the vixens were in cub, that Hop-along was lame, and that the last fox to appear at the edge of the clearing was blind. All they knew was that their leader was down and they were suddenly out-numbered. Disentangling themselves from their attackers, they turned and fled. The Alsatian now found itself alone and in serious danger of being overcome. Shaking off its attackers, it too beat a hasty retreat.

Hardly able to believe their good fortune, the foxes gathered themselves up. They were a sorry sight. Sage Brush, old and frail. Hop-along, hobbling on three legs. The vixens, one obviously in cub and all badly shaken. Black Tip, bruised and bleeding and with the mark of the snare around his neck. Skulking Dog, the tip of his tail almost bitten off. Fang, dragging his torn right hind leg. Nevertheless, they were alive, and in case the fun dogs might pick up the courage to resume the attack, they limped off through the trees as fast as they could.

Eleven

A Wrong Turn

I
n the depths of the evergreens, the dog foxes licked their wounds. The flight from the fun dogs had taken a lot out of Old Sage Brush, and he soon dozed off. Black Tip was unable to get his tongue round to soothe the bruise that circled his neck, so Vickey did it for him. The choking hedge-trap had bitten deep, deeper even than the teeth of the fun dogs, and his neck was stiff and sore. Drops of dried blood here and there on his hair showed where the wire had seared its way through his thick coat, and Vickey cleaned them off and smoothed the fur back into place.

Fang’s right hind leg was also stiff and sore from the bite he had got. The little white dog had sunk its teeth well and truly into his hip as he was busy engaging the Alsatian. It had drawn blood and caused him considerable pain, but as
he licked his wounded leg he was determined to be on the move again soon because he knew delay would only make movement more difficult.

Skulking Dog’s only injury was to his tail. The brown dog had sunk its teeth right into the bone, and instead of the brush being full and flowing like it should be, the end of it was matted with blood and was bent in a most unfoxlike fashion. He cleaned the wound and tried to nudge the tip back into position. But each time he flicked it, it bent again. Sinnéad, who was watching, thought it was most peculiar, and went over to see if she could nudge it into position. Back, however, it would not go, and after several unsuccessful efforts she stepped back, cocked her head to one side and looked at it. It did look funny, she thought, and suddenly she felt like laughing. However, she knew if she did she would only hurt her mate’s feelings, so she just smiled and said: ‘Don’t worry Skulking Dog, it’ll be as good as new in no time.’

Hop-along, who was poking his nose under a flat rosette of plantain leaves in search of slugs, lifted his head and sniggered. The others looked up and smiled. Somehow the sight of a fox with a bent brush made them forget their own troubles for a moment. It looked very strange. Skulking Dog grinned. He was glad to see them laughing again, even if it was at his expense.

The sniggering stirred Old Sage Brush out of his slumber,
and as Fang came over and settled down beside him, he observed: ‘You limp.’

The others looked at the old fox, surprised that he could tell the difference in Fang’s trot on the soft grass. He might be blind, they thought, but the sharpness of his hearing was matched only by the sharpness of his mind.

‘I’ll be all right, said Fang. ‘Just a bit sore after the fight with the fun dogs.’

‘And how are the rest of you?’ asked Old Sage Brush. ‘Vickey, you shouldn’t have gone back to fight the fun dogs. Nor you, She-la.’

In fact, Vickey was a bit worried since their fight with the fun dogs. She had been thrown to the ground rather heavily by the Alsatian, and she was concerned in case her unborn cubs might have been hurt. Yet it was a fear she hadn’t shared with anyone, not even Black Tip. Somehow she felt that at this stage it was a matter entirely for herself. Later, when the cubs were born, there would be a time for sharing. Until then she would keep her fears to herself.

‘I’m all right,’ she told Old Sage Brush.

‘So am I,’ said She-la.

‘And Sinnéad?’ he asked. ‘How about you?’

‘I’m fine too,’ she said.

‘Don’t worry,’ Vickey assured him. ‘We’re all right.’

‘That’s good,’ said the old fox. ‘But you shouldn’t have put your cubs at risk.’

‘It’s just as well they did,’ said Black Tip, ‘or we wouldn’t be here now.’

‘That’s right,’ said Skulking Dog. ‘We’d never have fought off the fun dogs on our own.’

‘You didn’t have to come back either,’ said Fang to Old Sage Brush. ‘Or you Hop-along. But you did.’

The two dog foxes didn’t reply, so Vickey said: ‘Anyway we had no choice. If the fun dogs had killed you, they’d have come after us. So we only did what we had to do.’

‘I’m glad you did,’ said Black Tip, and nothing more was said about the matter as this seemed to sum up the feelings of all of them.

‘And how about you Black Tip?’ asked Old Sage Brush.

‘No injuries,’ said Black Tip. ‘My neck’s a bit sore still from the choking hedge-trap. That’s all. Hop-along’s all right too. So’s Skulking Dog, except that he’s got a bent brush.’

Old Sage Brush chuckled. In his mind’s eye he could just imagine it, and he repeated: ‘A bent brush?’ and chuckled again to himself.

‘My brush may be bent,’ said Skulking Dog, ‘but there’s nothing wrong with my hearing.’

‘Sorry,’ said Old Sage Brush. ‘I didn’t mean to laugh. The important thing is that you’re all right.’

The others didn’t hear the old fox chuckle again, but they got the distinct impression he did. Old and all as he was, he could still enjoy the thought of a fox with a bent brush, and
they were glad to see him smile. The rest was doing him good already.

Black Tip couldn’t help thinking that while they could laugh at their fight with the fun dogs now, it had been no laughing matter at the time. He also wondered and not for the first time, if in fact Old Sage Brush had deliberately misled the fun dogs into thinking there were only three foxes so that the surprise of seeing the others, rather than their strength, would win the day. He thought of asking him, then changed his mind. He didn’t think the old fox would tell him, and anyway, some things, he felt, were better left unsaid.

As they waited for darkness, they amused themselves by recalling their adventures since they had started searching for the secret of survival. Sinnéad was thrilled to hear how her father had manoeuvred the little brown hen so as to get food out of the hatchery in the hollow; and how Hop-along had outwitted Lepus in the Land of the Hares. Privately she was delighted that Skulking Dog’s encounters with the howling dogs and the fun dogs had equalled those feats in cunning and courage. Some day in the not-too-distant future she would be telling her cubs about the daring way he had rescued her, and how he had fought for her. Skulking Dog would be a father they could be proud of.

Soon they fell asleep, and when they awoke they found themselves enveloped in the comfort of darkness. It was raining again, and the clouds still hid the brush from view.
However, they were anxious to put as many fields as possible between themselves and the fun dogs, so they pressed on and didn’t stop until they came to a river.

Hearing the patter of rain on the water, Old Sage Brush asked: ‘Which way does the river run?’

‘I can’t make out which way it flows,’ answered Black Tip. ‘It hardly seems to move at all.’

They had never come across a river like this before. The banks were flat and straight, and on exploring it for a short distance they found there were many waterfalls and bridges along the way, but no bushes or ditches to slow them down. Instead, there were paths that would allow them to make good progress, and there were long stretches of reeds where they could hunt for moorhens and other food as they went along. Unable to see if the brush was still behind them they decided to follow the river in the hope that it might lead them towards Beech Paw.

Unknown to the foxes, they had strayed far from Glensinna. In travelling without the brush to guide them, and in their efforts to escape from the fun dogs, they had turned full circle, and instead of going back towards Beech Paw, they were going farther away from it.

Thus, their flight from the fun dogs had taken them up through the hills to the south of Dublin, and the river they
had come upon was in fact the Grand Canal which cuts across the country from the River Shannon to Dublin. As a result, they were now going towards a bigger concentration of man than they had ever known.

Unaware of this mistake, they continued the journey along the river without interruption, apart from stops to allow Old Sage Brush and Hop-along to rest. Once or twice they also paused to listen when they thought a fun dog might have picked up their trail, but each time it came to nothing. It was something else that gave Old Sage Brush a feeling that all was not well. The sound of falling water told them they had come to another wooden crossing. Old Sage Brush stopped and sniffed the air. ‘What’s that smell?’ he asked.

‘I think it must be man’s rubbish,’ said Black Tip.

Now, as they peered through the darkness, they could see heaps of rusty cans and broken bottles in off the pathway, and pieces of wood and plastic containers floating at the edge of the water. There were two or three horses grazing along the banks, but they knew they were no longer in the country. Beyond the horses they could make out the shapes of buildings, and above the noise of the waterfall the barking of fun dogs now came to their ears.

‘We’ve gone far enough,’ said Old Sage Brush turning back. ‘This is man’s place.’

A smelly river bank so near man was the last place any of them expected to meet another fox. But man’s place was also
the hunting ground of a mangy little fox called Scavenger, and he had picked up their scent some way back. Seeing the country foxes turning and retracing their steps, Scavenger hopped out of the hedge on to the pathway in front of them.

‘Sorry to startle you,’ he smiled. ‘What brings you to man’s place?’

Realising this was who had been following them, Fang approached the stranger and told him: ‘We’re on our way to the Land of Sinna.’

Scavenger laughed a wheezy little laugh that made his shoulders shake, and said: ‘You’ll be on your way to nowhere if you’re not careful. You’re in man’s place now, you know, and it’s full of dangers.’

‘We must have taken a wrong turn somewhere,’ said Black Tip. ‘It’s difficult without the brush to guide us.’

‘The brush is that way,’ said Scavenger, pointing his nose across the river.

Looking up over the water, the others could see that the clouds were now clearing to reveal the running fox in the sky, and they realised that they had been going in the wrong direction. Old Sage Brush and Black Tip were anxious to get back on the right course as soon as possible. Scavenger, however, could see they were in no fit condition to continue, and so he offered to take them to a safe place, a place where, he assured them, neither man nor his fun dogs could touch them, and where they could eat and rest until they were well
enough to travel. Then he would guide them back out of his territory. It was an offer they were glad to accept.

Scavenger led them back across some fields to a spot where he judged it safe to await the right time to move. For what seemed a long time, they watched the running fox in the sky play hide and seek behind the clouds. They talked of food, of man and his fun dogs, and of course, about their beloved Beech Paw and the Land of Sinna. Scavenger listened, but the others got the feeling that he wasn’t unduly impressed. As far as he was concerned, he had been born and bred in man’s place, and there was nowhere like it — certainly not in the country.

At last the distant sound of fun dogs died down, and Scavenger rose to lead them to a safer place. Quickly they ran along the river, past the horses and under a stone bridge, until they came to a series of waterfalls. There they made their way across two wooden beams and out through a narrow gateway in a low stone wall. Now, they found, they really were in man’s place. The streets were empty. Yet it was all new to them and very frightening. The smells of man and his machines and his uncollected rubbish were everywhere. They saw a mongrel scraping among a pile of black plastic bags of refuse. Fortunately he was too occupied with his search for food to notice them moving swiftly past the church and through the flashing lights.

Around the corner, Scavenger led them across a road and
into the comparative safety of a gently-sloping park. At the foot of this they swam across a wide, fast-flowing river, continued along the bank for some distance, crossed another road, and nipped in through a small iron gate set in a long, high stone wall.

A chill wind was blowing through a row of Austrian pines just inside the wall as Scavenger led them up the hill into a small wood of birch trees whose silvery bark sparkled in the light of the moon. From there he took them across a large flat field dotted with tall white posts, through more woods and finally in between green railings to an area of thick undergrowth.