Outfoxed

CHAPTER 55

Deep in the wood a crisscrossing of mountain lion and coyote tracks attracted Inky’s attention. She’d left her own delicate prints in the snow, a tighter track than the red fox’s. As this was her first snow she hadn’t realized how tired she would get. She abandoned the idea of dropping down into the cornfields. She circled behind a cairn. A mouse had to be in there somewhere. She was right.

Nibbling on her breakfast, she heard the horn far away. Hounds could move better in the snow than she could, so she started for home, a short quarter mile away.

A soft hoot stopped her. “Inky. Coyote coming this way and the hounds are on him.”

“I’ll hurry.” She talked as she ran, Athena flying slowly overhead. “Did you have a good night?”

“When the weather’s bad I hunt the barns. Eight mice.”

Impressed, Inky said, “I’m satisfied with one.” She reached her den, sitting down outside it. “This stuff makes me tired.”

“Don’t venture far from your den in deep snow, Inky. It can be fatal. Sometimes the snow will get an icy crust on top. That’s not so bad but you can slip and slide halfway to China.” She chortled. “Wings are a big advantage.”

“I’ll let you know when I sprout some.”

The horn sounded a bit closer, maybe two miles away.

“They cast behind Foxglove Farm.” Athena perched on a low limb, her head turned nearly upside down. “Didn’t take long to pick up the coyote. They run straight as a die. You’d best be careful of them. They’ll eat your game and run you out, too. Right now there’s enough for everybody but during a famine the coyote will be your enemy. Never forget that. Not so good for the hounds either.”

“I’d think it would be so easy. They stay on the scent and just run along.” Inky blinked as Athena shook some snow off the branch and the snow fell in her eyes.

“A good hound figures things out. If you zig and zag and circle back, a good hound thinks about it, casts himself or herself until picking up your scent again. If all hounds do is run coyote, then all they need to be is fast. They don’t have to solve problems. Sister fears the coyote. If he runs you foxes out, then generations of breeding for special characteristics in hounds will go down the drain. People will breed for nose, drive, and speed. They won’t need brainy hounds.” Athena noted Inky’s crestfallen face. “Don’t fret. There aren’t that many coyotes here yet and as I said, it won’t be a problem until there’s a shortage of food. Besides, when Mr. Coyote starts snatching the house pets from suburban manicured yards, you’ll hear a fuss. Next thing you know the laws will change and folks will be out there hunting coyote with guns. That, too, presents problems. I tell you, Inky, the first weekend of deer season there are more guns out here than there were at Gettysburg.”

“What’s Gettysburg?”

“Human foolishness. I’ll tell you about that some other time. When the snow melts why don’t you store up corn, oats, whatever, just in case we get a big storm. Squirrels have a point, you know.”

“Thank you. I will.”

The horn was within a mile of them now. They looked over at a rocky foothill to the Blue Ridge Mountains shining in the distance, the very edge of the Foxglove Farm territory. The coyote was trotting along the top of the boulders of the foothill.

“Is he in danger?” Inky asked.

“No. A coyote runs only as fast as he needs to run. When he’s ready he’ll vanish. Although he’d better not let Cora or Dragon get too close. They are very fast hounds. They’re way back, though. Hear them now?”

And the faint music of the hounds drifted toward them.

Inky listened intently. “Will the coyote kill me?”

Athena swiveled her head back to focus on Inky. “Don’t give him a reason. Don’t challenge him. You’ll be all right. You have more to fear from St. Just now than from coyotes.”

“Exactly how did Target kill his mate?”

“Hubris. Conceit. Two summers ago, the summer of the grasshoppers, Target was sunbathing on Whiskey Ridge and she dive-bombed him. He leapt up and caught her. Wasn’t asleep, you see. She brought it on herself.”

Inky’s beautiful eyes seemed even more lustrous as she sat in the snow. “Athena, do you know everything?”

She laughed. “No, my, my, no, but I watch, I listen, and I learn. If you listen to older animals and watch everyone around you, you learn from their experiences, too. You can even learn from humans.”

“Really?”

“They’re a case study. You see they’ve removed themselves from the rest of us and they’re suffering. They’re losing practical intelligence. Just one example: Humans are fouling their own nest. Every bird, every den dweller knows you can’t do that. But they are. I don’t mind that they’ll pay for it. I mind that we’ll pay for it with them.”

“All of them?”

“Not all of them. Some are still close to us. But I fear their knowledge will be discounted by the city dwellers. I fear in another generation or two it will be lost and then the earth will shudder.”

“I hope not.” Inky felt frightened, for she respected the power of the earth.

“I hope not, too, little one, but they grow more and more arrogant. I tell you a common house cat—and I do not esteem cats, most especially that smart-ass, Golly—but even Golly has more wisdom than humans.”

“Even Sister?”

“Sister is one of us. Peter Wheeler was, too, and Shaker and Doug. They live within Nature’s rhythms and despite human frailty they are respectful. But Peter has gone back to earth. And what of the young ones? I just don’t know.” Athena glanced back at the boulders. The coyote had left and she saw the silhouette of the pack, in a line, crossing the rocks. “There’s good hound work for you.”

“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” Inky smiled. “Athena, when the snows started I was at the hound graveyard. Sister and Raleigh were there and she was hurt. She was mourning Archie and the human dead, too. And she said she was going to lay a trap on Thanksgiving hunt. She didn’t say what but when the snow melts I’ll tell Aunt Netty and Mother and Father. I don’t know what we can do but we can be out and ready.”

“I’ll stay up on Thanksgiving, then. I wonder what she’ll do?” Athena sighed, her plump chest pushing out, revealing the light-colored feathers under the long silky ones. “I’m going home to bed. I suppose Babs is there.” Babs was the screech owl in the next tree. “She’s a dear friend, you know, but that dreadful voice.” Athena shook her head then lifted off as Inky turned and scooted into her den.