The Sun Trail

Chapter 23

After Gray Wing left Clear Sky’s territory, he couldn’t stop worrying about Jagged Peak. There was no cat to tell him how his little brother was doing. Gray Wing wished he still had Turtle Tail to talk to.

I’ve been missing her ever since she left to live with Bumble, Gray Wing realized. She hadn’t come to visit as she had promised, and though Gray Wing sometimes picked up her scent on the giant rock beneath the four oaks, he never saw her there.

Sometimes I feel as if I’d lost one of my own paws.

Dappled Pelt stayed with Clear Sky for the next half-moon. The sun was setting when she finally made it back to the hollow, shaking her pelt in annoyance as she padded down to join the others.

“Honestly!” she exclaimed. “Any cat would think Clear Sky wanted to keep me a prisoner. I’ve been stuck in his… his camp, he calls it, with hardly enough room to stretch my paws.”

“How is Jagged Peak?” Gray Wing asked.

“He can use the leg again,” Dappled Pelt replied. “He’s still limping badly, but that should improve with time.” She flopped down beside Shattered Ice. “Oh, it’s good to be back!”

“I’m really glad to see you,” Hawk Swoop mewed. “I’m expecting kits with Jackdaw’s Cry, and I was worried you wouldn’t be back in time to help me. Cloud Spots is great, but he’s not the most sympathetic cat on the moor.”

“That’s great news!” Gray Wing purred, while Shattered Ice murmured congratulations.

“With the cold season coming, it’s not the best time,” Dappled Pelt meowed. “But don’t worry, Hawk Swoop. Cloud Spots and I will make sure you’re fine. We’d better start gathering herbs to store,” she added. “Then we’ll have everything you need if there’s an emergency.”

The day after Dappled Pelt’s return, Gray Wing went out on the moor to hunt with Jackdaw’s Cry, Rainswept Flower, and Shattered Ice.

The sun had just cleared the horizon. A cold breeze blew across the moor and the grass was furred white with frost. The moorland pools and streams were rimmed with ice. Every cat’s breath puffed out in white clouds, and they fluffed up their fur against the chill.

“I wonder if it snows here,” Rainswept Flower meowed. “It’s getting cold enough.”

Jackdaw’s Cry nodded. “If it does, my kits will need better shelter. I wonder if we ought to move into the trees, just until the cold season is over.”

“That might be asking for trouble from Clear Sky,” Shattered Ice grunted.

Jackdaw’s Cry’s ears flicked up in protest. “Clear Sky doesn’t own the forest!”

“Come on,” Gray Wing interrupted, uncomfortable with the hostility against his brother. “We’re supposed to be hunting. Who can catch the first rabbit?”

To his relief, the two toms dropped the argument and all four cats spread out to cover a wide stretch of moorland, though they stayed within sight of each other. It was Rainswept Flower who spotted the first prey, breaking into a run to pursue a rabbit that pelted away from her toward a gorse-covered bank.

Gray Wing took off after her, hoping to intercept the rabbit before it could escape into its burrow. But while he was still several tail-lengths behind, Rainswept Flower reached the top of a ridge and vanished down the other side. A heartbeat later Gray Wing heard her voice raised in a screech of alarm.

“Rainswept Flower!” Gray Wing yowled.

His heart pounding, he raced toward the spot where he had last seen her. He found himself on the edge of a hollow in the moor, almost surrounded by gorse bushes. More gorse and rocks lined the slope down to hummocky ground at the bottom; the grass that grew there was sparse. At one side was a large boulder, and in the center a stretch of loose, bare soil.

“Rainswept Flower!” Gray Wing yowled again. “Where are you?”

Shattered Ice and Jackdaw’s Cry panted up beside him. “What happened?” Jackdaw’s Cry demanded.

“Rainswept Flower… just disappeared,” Gray Wing replied, still stunned at the speed with which she had vanished. Is there something down there that eats cats?

“What’s that?” Shattered Ice asked, pointing with his tail.

The loose soil in the middle of the dip was heaving. Suddenly Rainswept Flower’s head popped up. She scrabbled at the earth with her forepaws, but the sandy soil at the hole’s edge kept crumbling away. “Help me!” she yowled.

Jackdaw’s Cry began to bound forward, but Gray Wing blocked him with his tail. “We have to be careful,” he warned, “or we might all end up down there.”

Gray Wing led the way more cautiously into the hollow. “Are you okay?” he asked Rainswept Flower as he drew closer.

“Fine,” she replied. “I’ve swallowed some soil, but I’m not hurt. There are rabbit burrows under here, stretching in every direction.”

“Really?” Shattered Ice’s voice was sharp with interest. “Are there any rabbits?”

Rainswept Flower shook her head. “All the scents are stale.”

The ground gave way a little under Gray Wing’s paws as he reached Rainswept Flower’s side, but it bore his weight. “Push with your paws when I say ‘Now!’” he instructed her. Cautiously he leaned over and fastened his teeth in her scruff. “Now!”

Rainswept Flower pushed upward as Gray Wing heaved. For a few heartbeats he thought they would both end up down the hole, but then Shattered Ice reached to grab Rainswept Flower’s shoulder on one side. Jackdaw’s Cry grabbed the other, and soon all four cats tumbled backward, safe on solid ground again.

“Thanks!” Rainswept Flower gasped, spitting out soil and shaking loose earth from her pelt.

“We should get away from here,” Jackdaw’s Cry meowed.

“Wait a moment.” Shattered Ice was peering down the hole where Rainswept Flower had fallen, scraping experimentally at the edge with his forepaws. “If we dig out this loose soil,” he explained, “we could get into the tunnels.”

“Why?” Jackdaw’s Cry asked.

Without replying, Shattered Ice plopped into the hole. There was silence for a moment, and then his voice came from a little farther away. “Rainswept Flower was right! There are lots of tunnels here. And the soil is soft. We could easily widen them so that we could fit down them.”

“Gorse and Wind often hunt rabbits into their burrows,” Gray Wing meowed, beginning to see the possibilities.

A gleam woke in Jackdaw’s Cry’s eyes. “You mean we could chase the rabbits all the way to their nests?”

“Not only that.” Shattered Ice reappeared, and after a moment scraping at the loose soil on the edge of the hole managed to scramble out unaided. “The tunnels stretch a long way. If there’s a battle, we could travel in secret to other parts of the moor.”

A shiver of horror traveled through Gray Wing as he fixed his gaze on Shattered Ice. “What are you meowing about—a battle? We’re friends with the other cats around here. Who would we be fighting?”

Shattered Ice gave him a doubtful look, but Gray Wing turned away. “The tunnels will be useful, sure,” he mewed. “For shelter, and for hiding from foxes and Twolegs.”

Rainswept Flower nodded. “We need to tell Tall Shadow about this. I’ll go and get her.”

While they waited, Gray Wing and Jackdaw’s Cry went down the hole with Shattered Ice and began digging out some more of the tunnel system.

“You’re right,” Gray Wing murmured, gazing down one of the black passages. “They seem to stretch a long, long way.”

He watched anxiously as Jackdaw’s Cry plunged into the darkness, then reappeared backward, his paws scuffling the earth excitedly.

“It could be done,” the black tom meowed. “We’ll need to dig air holes that will let light in too. And we could bring moss down for nests. Hawk Swoop and our kits would be safe and warm here.”

As he was speaking the light suddenly faded. Gray Wing turned and managed to make out Tall Shadow’s head blocking the hole. A moment later she jumped down to join them.

“This is great!” she exclaimed. “It’s just what we need. Have you scented any dogs or foxes down here?”

Shattered Ice shook his head. “Only stale rabbit scent. I think the rabbits must have left when the tunnels started falling in.”

“Hmm… we’ll have to be careful that they don’t fall in on us,” Tall Shadow mused. “All the same, I think we should move our whole camp down here. In the cold season we can make dens underground, and when the weather’s warm we can sleep under the gorse bushes.”

Jackdaw’s Cry gave a little bounce of enthusiasm. “Great!”

Over the next few days the cats moved across the moor to the new camp, digging out spaces for dens and transporting the bedding for new nests. Cloud Spots and Dappled Pelt carefully carried their store of herbs and found a safe place to keep them in one of the tunnels.

Jackdaw’s Cry was the most skillful at exploring the burrows, finding several that stretched for long distances beneath the moor, and others with exits nearby among the gorse bushes and rocks on the slope of the hollow.

Gray Wing still had mixed feelings about living underground, even for part of the time. He had to force himself into the enclosed, stifling spaces, but he could see the opportunities that the tunnels offered.

The hollow was too exposed. Down here, we have shelter and we’ll be safe from foxes. A heartbeat later he added reluctantly to himself, And… just maybe, from other cats.