Cinnabar, the One O'Clock Fox Page 4

Glancing back, Cinnabar was shocked to see how the hounds had gained. They were running close packed, their tongues slavering, their voices shrill. He had to reach the creek at once.

  Ahead, there it was, snaking along with the shine of gold on its back and the voice of it still laughing up at him. “Come to me! Come to me!”

  Frantically he thrashed through the willows, skidded down the slippery bank, and now the cold water was washing up his legs. He couldn’t touch bottom! The current swirled him about and lined him downstream. With his nose up and his forepaws paddling like small water wheels, he was rapidly leaving the hunt behind. He looked around and saw that the hounds had stopped at the creek’s edge. They were lapping the cold water greedily.

  An impish grin crossed his face. “They’ve had a pretty good run,” he laughed. “And now they’re drinking their bellies full; that’ll slow ’em down.”

  These thoughts were suddenly dashed out of his head, for the current was growing stronger, swifter. It took command of him. In all his life Cinnabar had never been tossed about like this. He barely managed to suck in a lungful of air, for the rush of water tumbled him along, slapping him this way and that way, cuffing him over the head with pieces of drift.

  “Oh, bless my stars!” he gulped in panic. “What shall I do? What shall I do?”

  “You’ll do as I tell you!” the creek spumed in his face, as it rudely shunted him into a narrow wooden flume. It was the raceway to a mill!

  With all his might Cinnabar struggled to claw up the slippery sides. But the fast-flowing current said, “No! I’ve got you in my clutches. I won’t let you go!”

  In vain Cinnabar fought, fought to leap clear, but the watery ogre drew him under and shot him violently through the race-gate and up against the big mill wheel. Winded, he fell limply onto a moving paddle, with falling water pouring down on all sides.

  “Oh, mercy me!” he sobbed. “I’m in a box of water! Help, help! I’m drowning!”

  In that frightful moment the paddle began dipping at a crazy angle; then as the wheel continued to turn, Cinnabar was suddenly plummeted into space and dropped into a shallow black pool where there seemed to be no current at all.

  There he stood, belly deep, under the shower that splashed down from the wheel. He was a pitiable fellow, waterlogged, bewildered, and utterly spent, coughing, wheezing, and fighting for air.

  “Oh, black night!” he gasped. He was in the very bowels of the mill, with dank darkness all around. Only the barest sliver of light showed far above his head. He tried leaping toward it, tried again and again, but it was much too high and far away.

  Then in his darkness the words of Grandma Bushy came to him. Wistfully he saw her now, cutting out little cookies in the shape of mice and rabbits and pheasants, and he could hear her lovely voice saying, “Cinny-boy, remember always every ingress has an egress.”

  Now he thought he knew what she meant. But was it true?

  As his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, they were like cat’s eyes glowing, and they saw with catlike clearness. Something beside him was moving! It was the big water wheel, the very one that had pitched him down into the dungeon. But now the paddles were traveling upward through that slit in the ceiling. Here was the egress!

  “Oh, thank you, Grandma Bushy!” Cinnabar piped. “I’ll ride a paddle to escape. . . . Surely I can leap that far!”

  He tried and failed. With an agonized cry he slipped from the slimy moss-covered paddle, back into the pool. He took a long breather, letting the water wash gently against his legs as it moved slowly toward the tail pond. Then valiantly he tried again. This time his elbows caught the raised edge of a paddle, and his toenails fairly dug into its leached surface. And so he clung for dear life.

  “I made it, Grandma Bushy!” he cried. “I made it!”

  Yes! The paddle was carrying him up, up, up to the light. He laughed nervously, so great was his relief. “Oh, me! Oh, me!” he kept repeating. “Being caught in the raceway and getting soused was more sport than I bargained for. But I’m not sorry. I’ll know better than to enter the creek near the mill again.”

  In the few seconds as he rose, so did his spirits. His breath came more easily and he rested while the wheel carried him onward. Surely it would end in the great out-of-doors, in a treetop perhaps, and he would scamper down the trunk and hightail it for home.

  “Whee!” he shouted and laughed. Like a child on a Ferris wheel he was enjoying his ride to the full when to his surprise he found himself, not outdoors, as he had hoped, but at the first floor of the mill.

  A booming voice was saying, “Aye, traveler, the general divides his flour into superfine, fine, middlings, and shipstuff.”

  Only by the merest chance the miller happened to look up. “Great Jumping Jehoshaphat!” he whistled as he caught sight of Cinnabar atop a paddle. Soon, very soon the little fox would tumble down again, through the water chute and into the dark dungeon. Seeing the danger, the miller cried out, “Here’s a fox in a fix!”

  With a quick reach he grabbed Cinnabar by the tail and tossed him to safety.

  As Cinnabar landed on the floor, he uttered a string of throaty barks. “Yapp, yurr. Yapp, yapp, yurrrrr.” It was the voice of a wild thing, brave and unafraid. “Think you,” it said, “that I would tumble down that chute again? Not me. Not me! Not on your lefe, lofe, life!”

  “I’ll be hog-switched!” grunted the traveling peddler. He and the miller stared agape as the little fox showered them both with spray from his coat and then went scurrying among the barrels, trying to find a way out. As if his nose were a divining rod, Cinnabar snuffed along the floorboards and drove out of hiding a nervous mother rat with a little train of youngsters. She went skittering around the wooden beams and braces, her family after her.

  The miller held his sides in laughter. “This be the craziest fox I ever see,” he guffawed as Cinnabar chased the whole family of rats back into their nest. Quite easily he might have caught the last squeaking fellow, which would have made a tasty tidbit, had not the sound of the Huntsman’s horn pierced the millhouse.

  The miller became a changed man. Grabbing a twig broom, he ran after Cinnabar. “You must be the general’s quarry!” he gasped as if recognizing a famous character. “Why, you mought be the One O’Clock Fox!” And brandishing the broom, he yelled to the peddler, “Open that door—the one to the road!”

  “Git, you!” shrieked the peddler, kicking at the fox with his boot.

  Cinnabar flew out the door just a moment before the hunt went galloping by.

  “Yer quarry goes thataway,” bawled the miller. “Aye, General, thataway!” And he pointed a bony finger in Cinnabar’s direction.

  Chapter 10

  WHOOOO, YOU?

  Cinnabar streaked along the road, letting the breeze of his own making dry his coat. All the mint scent was gone now, and his own foxy fragrance drifted enticingly along behind him.

  It spurred the hounds to renewed action, but even so, they couldn’t catch him, for the cooling stream had given him new energy. That last little squeaking rat, however, had reminded him of two things. He was hungry; he was famished! And second, had he not made a promise to Vicky? His own words came rushing back at him: “You get the currant jelly. I’ll fetch the hen.” Somehow I’ll do it! he promised himself.

  He planned his route as he sped along well ahead of the hunt. “I’ll run on down the road a piece, make a big swing through the woods, and by that time I’ll be far from those blood-hungry hounds. Then on to Mister Plunkett’s henyard, where I’ll pick off the best.”

  His mind was so purposeful now that the sights of the road went unnoticed. He ran past cabins with smoke curling from their chimneys, past a schoolhouse where a forlorn boy was sweeping the steps. He overtook a pair of drowsy mules drawing a great load of tobacco. Farther on, as the road cut through the big woods, a dust cloud came hulking toward him. When the shape of it fell apart, it turned out to be a coach-and-four rattling along at a merry clip. The driver
up in his box leaned out as they met. “Yoiks!” he cried to the oncoming hunt. “There goes yer fox! Tally ho!”

  A spidery man ran out of a barn, tried to lay hold of Cinnabar’s tail, but he slithered out of reach, swerved off the road, and whisked into the dark woods.

  The hounds were going so fast they overran the scent and dashed on.

  Cinnabar sighed in pure delight at how neatly his plans were working. In the ghostly stillness of the forest, his padded feet made no noise at all. A gray squirrel chippered at him from the stump of a tree and dropped a beechnut at his feet.

  “Hi, nutcracker,” Cinnabar called out. “How’s the burying business?”

  He expected no answer and got none. His mind settled down to his own business at once. “I’ve baffled the hounds,” he grinned in satisfaction. “Now I’ll circle through the woods, and so to Mister Plunkett’s.”

  He was making fine progress when the richest, strongest scent came wafting his way. He took a deep breath and froze in his tracks with wonder and joy. What was this rank, sweet, reasty smell that set his saliva juices working? It made his whole body quiver in excitement. “Why, ’tis fish!” he drooled. “Nice and old and oily! Who has left fish in the forest? Who?”

  Deep in a pine tree a ruffled screech owl echoed his thoughts. “Who? Who? Whoooooo?”

  Cinnabar paid no heed to the owl. The fulsome fragrance of fish was a magnet pulling him on until suddenly he burst upon the source of the smell. It was a trap, and upon its pan lay a rich chunk of catfish with all of the oily skin left on. As if this were not tempting enough, a sliver of chicken breast was impaled alongside the fish.

  “By the great horned spoon!” cried Cinnabar. “And me whose belly is pinched with hunger!” His eyes glanced all around to make sure that no thief was after his prize. He ventured a step closer, and another. Traps held no terror for him. Often and often he had devoured the bait without so much as a hair being caught. “I can do it again!” he exclaimed.

  His heart thumping fast, he reached for the inviting morsels, and as his mouth opened to snatch the bait, his left forefoot barely grazed the trigger.

  CRACK!

  All in a shocked instant the iron jaws snapped shut. One of Cinnabar’s toes was caught fast! In a panic he tried to jerk free, but the jaws were merciless.

  A little cry escaped him. His whole body crumpled. He tried to straighten, tried to shake his foot, but the weight of the trap was almost beyond bearing. He began panting and shivering violently, and his body felt hot and cold at the same time.

  He looked about helplessly—helpless against the awful stillness of the forest, and he began a pleading chant. “Oh, let me see them again,” and his breath whispered the names over and over, “Rascal, Pascal, Merry, and Mischief; and oh, Vicky, Vicky, Vicky!”

  A doe wandered near, studied him with her sad wet eyes. Then quietly she turned tail and left him to his loneliness.

  The same brown owl came soundlessly sifting through the gloom. It swept into a bush over Cinnabar’s head, staring blindly with its glassy eyes. “Whoooo? You?” it screeched. “Whoooo? You?”

  Cinnabar hated the owl with a mounting fury. He mustered a pitiful bark, then set to work frantically to tear himself free. He put one forepaw on the trap to steady it, and pulled with all his might. A knife-edge of pain shot up his leg. For a long moment he was too sick to try again.

  Up in the sky a crow spied the trapped fox and circled about him. “Caw! Caw!” it screamed raucously, as if enjoying Cinnabar’s fate. Then it wheeled away and soon more crows came, a whole flock of croaking, flapping crows, beating their ebony wings in his face. “Caw! Caw! Caw-aw-aw-aw!” they cackled harshly.

  All this while the hunt was checked at the edge of the woods. Hounds were catching their breath, horses steaming and blowing, hunters conferring.

  “Which way has the One O’Clock Fox gone?”

  “To earth?”

  “So soon?”

  “Surely not! Always before, he has given us a run until dark.”

  The talk came to a sudden halt as the men heard the racket of the crows.

  “Hark!” Billy Lee cried. “Hark to the tattletale birds. They’ve sighted our fox. Tiy hioui,” he called to the hounds. “Leu in! Leu in!”

  In his misery Cinnabar sensed what was happening, sensed that he was caught in a double trap. The crows were trapping him, too. His whole body seemed to squeeze together as if it were trying to become invisible. Even his heart felt pinched and little, and hurt.

  From the tops of the pine trees more shiny black crows came swooping down, ready to stab him with their bills. The air went wild with their cawing, and now wilder still with the hounds’ baying.

  There was no time to think. Only time to act. With a fierce grip Cinnabar’s teeth clamped down on the trap and he tore himself free. In a flash he was gone. He felt no pain in his foot now. Only a dead numbness. But behind in the trap he had left a toe, and behind him as he ran a spotting of blood showed darkly on the forest duff.

  Chapter 11

  CANDLELIGHT AND AN OPEN DOOR

  In a blind daze Cinnabar took off. The press of the hounds forced him away from home, but fortunately he stumbled upon a well-beaten path, smooth and kind to his foot. For nearly a mile he paced steadily ahead of the hunt, his legs pumping like some machine. But as the numbness wore off, the blood began throbbing in the torn foot. It throbbed in his head, too, until he dizzied with pain. The way in front of him began to blur and waver; yet the hounds drove him on. Forward and ever forward over the narrow path, running, struggling, foot and leg burning, the wound stinging hotly as the blood dried.

  Desperately he needed a moment to rest and pant, but the hounds were hitting the trail too hard. They were gaining at an alarming rate. He had to go on. He limped along on three legs, then whimpering in pain he made himself go on four.

  The dampness of late afternoon was settling down, and with the sureness of a wild thing Cinnabar knew that as the day wore on to evening his chances of escape were less. Already the grasses that overran the path were latching on to his scent with their greedy fingers. He tried deliberately to avoid them, to run down the center, holding his tail high as well. But it drooped tiredly and brushed against them.

  The hounds now were in full cry. To drown out their baying, Cinnabar began calling again the names of his family:

  “Rascal, Pascal, Merry, Mischief,

  And oh, Vicky, Vicky, Vicky,

  Don’t forget me; don’t forget me.”

  As he chanted, the path began to widen out and join up with a road. The pike to Fredericksburg! It was like some miracle-answer to a prayer. Now there were no grasses to steal his scent. The road was red clay, clean and bare, and so the hounds were slowed.

  On he went, across a bumpy bridge over Accotink Creek. On and on. It was torture. His lungs ached and his whole body felt a supreme weariness. Then, as in a dream, he saw ahead an opened door and in the darkness within, a candle burning. It was the door to Pohick church! Once before, he had sought refuge there.

  How far to that candle?

  Two breaths away?

  A dozen?

  He fixed on the tiny flame as on a beacon, and he moved toward it in a direct savage motion. When at last he reached the stone steps of the church, he had to take them one at a time. Then he staggered inside.

  A choking filled his throat. “Glory be!” he whispered in the high-vaulted stillness. “Glory be! I’m saved!”

  The pack of hounds kept right on past the door. But as they lost the scent, they soon came back, fanning around the churchyard, questing. When the hunters arrived on the scene, they thought the pack had lost their wits.

  “Sweet Lips! June and Jowler! Chanter and Rhapsody!” In great disgust Billy Lee called the hounds to him and cast them down the pike toward Fredericksburg.

  Within the church, Cinnabar felt as secure as if he were in his own den. At first he saw no one. No one at all. He heaved a great sigh and lay down to rest.r />
  He had hardly shut his eyes when a thin, whistling sound skirled out of the air. It was so high-pitched that he winced at the pain to his ears. A moment’s silence followed. Then more weeping, wailing notes came tumbling down from the organ loft. The sound repelled Cinnabar, but the smell from the loft intrigued him. Unmistakably it was chicken. Fried.

  Hopefully, he got to his feet, pattered up the narrow steps, and stood poised on the topmost one.

  Directly in front of him, upon the organ bench, he saw a plump-bodied woman holding a chicken leg in one hand and pounding the keys with the other. All at once she became so excited over the spasm of sound she had created that the drumstick slipped from her hand and fell under the bench. As she leaned over to pick it up, a tawny red body snatched it away and dived under the pedals.

  The screech that followed was horrible. For the poor woman, not seeing the fox clearly, thought the strange disappearance of her food was a punishment meted out by the Lord. Leaping from the bench, she ran the full length of the loft and hid behind the door of a small closet. “Oh, saints and little sinners,” she sobbed hysterically, “I didn’t mean to touch the organ. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t . . . I didn’t.”

  Keeping his eyes and ears open, Cinnabar devoured the chicken like one starved. He tore each shred of meat from the bone and gulped it whole. Then he chewed the gristle at the joint. As he began polishing the bone, the door of the closet opened a crack and the white-capped head of the charwoman peeped out. Her beady eyes found his own amber ones, and for a long moment the two creatures regarded one another.

  It was the woman who broke the silence. She clucked softly and delightedly, like some mother hen. “Here I thought ye were a spook come to affright me fer tryin’ out the organ, and all ye be is a pore little wildling.”

  Cautiously she emerged from her hiding place. “Oh, and ye’ve hurt yer paw,” she whispered, “and yer tongue is all swolled up from thirst.”