Cinnabar, the One O'Clock Fox Read online

  So as not to frighten her woodland visitor, she moved now very slowly, yet lightly too in spite of her bulk. Down the steps she tiptoed, and up the aisle to the baptismal fount, which she had been washing.

  Cinnabar crept after her at a safe distance, hoping for more chicken.

  “Now, li’l red fox,” she breathed, “a nice refreshin’ drink is what ye need. And ’tis a lucky thing I forgot to put lye ashes in my scrub bucket today. The water’s clear and cool, like it just come from the well.”

  She took a pewter mug from the pulpit and dipped it into the pail. “Reverend Massey ain’t a-going to mind a little woodsy person drinkin’ outa his mug . . . leastawise, I don’t think so. If’n he does,” she chuckled, “I’ll just up and say right back at him from his own sermon: ‘Inasmuch as ye hae done it unto one of the least of these, ye hae done it unto me!’ ”

  With great ceremony she set the mug on the floor and stepped back a goodly distance. There she stood quite motionless, her hands wrapped in her apron.

  After a long moment Cinnabar took a step forward and another, hopping on three legs to save the hurt one. At last he reached the mug, but he had time for only a few good laps of water when his ears came up sharply. His whole body tensed as he heard the hunter’s horn calling the hounds together. They were coming back!

  His mind was in a whirl. “Shall I bolt for the door?” he asked himself. “No! There’s not time. I’m cornered. I’ll hide here.” Dipping his hurt paw in the water, he looked up at the charwoman with pleading eyes. “You won’t tell on me, will you?”

  “ ’Course not,” she replied, as if the plea had been spoken.

  Now her head, too, bobbed up in alarm, for across the pews she saw a man’s figure blocking the doorway. It was the Kennel Huntsman, Billy Lee, holding the reins of his horse. Quickly she whisked off her apron and dropped it over Cinnabar. Then composing her face as best she could, she called out a wavery “G-g-good evening,” and then a “Good evening, s-s-ir!” as she recognized, beyond the door, the stately form of General Washington.

  Billy Lee waved his cap in excitement. “Ma’am,” he shouted, “have you seen our One O’Clock Fox? ’Tis a draggled dog-fox. You seen him, ma’am?”

  The charwoman’s eyes wandered from floor to ceiling and back again. They caught the pixielike face of Cinnabar peering out at her. “You won’t tell on me, will you?” he asked again.

  “Oh, I seed him all right!” yelled the charwoman, half running, half stumbling to the door. “He was here, like a whiff and a pfsst, but the good Lord knows where he’s at by now!” And then she fell into hysteria. “Heaven’s angels, oh heaven’s angels, how’s a body to get her work done? How’s a body to . . .”

  Chapter 12

  FARMER PLUNKETT, HERE I COME!

  In that brief moment huddled in the friendly darkness of the old blue apron, the happenings of the day flashed through Cinnabar’s mind. Great sport, yes! But, he grudgingly admitted to himself, somewhat more than he had wanted. What a day!

  He listened to the beat of hoofs fading, and to the dying echo of hound voices. “I best be off while the way is clear!” he said under his breath. He sat up, letting the apron fall about him like a cloak. He felt surprisingly good. His stomach was comfortable with the delicious chicken he had eaten, his thirst was slaked, and the dizziness in his head was gone. Even his foot had stopped bleeding and the pain was no more than a dull ache.

  The charwoman sighed in relief as she came back to Cinnabar. She seemed enormously pleased with herself. “No siree!” she chuckled. “I didn’t tell on ye, little Bre’r Fox, did I? And now, feller, ye needn’t be perlite about staying on. ‘Eat and run’ has got to be yer motto, I know. So gie me my apron, and be off with ye.”

  Cinnabar looked into her kindly face. Then he shook free of the apron, and with a swift, gliding movement skirted his way past the baptismal fount, past the pulpit, past the row of box pews, and out into the haze of late afternoon.

  Pohick cemetery stood opposite the door, and Cinnabar bounded aloft a tombstone to get his bearings. He searched the land but saw no shadow of movement. So trusting more to his nose than to his eyes, he faced the breeze, letting his delicate nostrils sift it of its many scents. It told him that the hunters had gone on beyond the church in a southwesterly direction.

  “Oh, fat green frogs!” he exclaimed in glee. “They’re far off my line!”

  He perched a moment atop his observation tower and figured his next move. Home would be to the north and east. And on the way he’d cut through the big woods, and through the sheepfold and cattle pen of Farmer Plunkett. Then he’d be there—right in the chickenyard, the old brushy, weedy, ill-kempt yard where cocks and hens picked and pecked. He’d choose the plumpest one of all; then in no time he’d be back in his own den.

  He turned to look at his shadow and saw that his ears were very long and several tombstones away. It was growing late! Vicky would soon be in a panic of worry. He could almost see her tremble and hear her teeth chattering. He must spare her that and not be too long overdue.

  Leaping to earth, he hastened out to the road and made a sharp turn, backtracking the way he had come. Before he had gone far, a horse and rider loomed up on the road ahead of him. Were they members of the hunt? Cinnabar stopped in midflight. Dare he go on and overtake them? Or would it be wiser to drop back and melt into the shadows? Boldly he decided to go on, and was much relieved to find that the man was a circuit rider whom he had seen many times, Preacher Clapsaddle by name. Cinnabar fell into a dogtrot beside the horse.

  “What is a single plodding horseman,” he shrugged, “when I’ve been eluding thirty galloping hunters!”

  The preacher was reading aloud in his best pulpit voice. “Our text today,” his words boomed out over the countryside, “be from the Song of Solomon: ‘Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines; for our vines have tender grapes.’ ”

  Solemnly he closed and locked his Bible and then looking down spied the jaunty form of Cinnabar. He was so startled he almost fell out of his saddle. A low gasp escaped him. “ ’Tis an omen!” he cried. “My sermon is writ. It be a concurrence sent from the Lord.”

  Cinnabar, unmindful of the dramatic role he had just played, turned off the road and with true homing instinct slid into the big woods. He would take the shortest way.

  Once he was homeward bound, the compass in his mind gave him no peace. Its needle pricked and urged him forward. Straight through the woods he traveled. As he ambled along, his ears were tuned to catch the slightest sound. A twig snapped; he froze into a statue. Then he chuckled to himself, for it was only a lazy black bear—fat, full, and heavily furred, ready to hibernate. Farther on, a doe with her nearly grown fawn stomped the ground menacingly, as if Cinnabar had no right to her woods.

  “So be you!” he barked curtly. This was Grandma Bushy’s favorite way of ending any argument.

  Suddenly the peace of the woods shattered. To the right of him Cinnabar heard the hounds yapping, and ahead he smelled man-smell. He hated this man-smell with an especial hate, for it was Farmer Grimm’s. Stooped over like a jackknife, the man was laughing harshly to himself as he baited another of his vicious traps. A crick in his back caused him to straighten up with a start.

  Rubbing the sore muscle, he let his eyes rove, and all in the same instant he saw Cinnabar and heard the hunters. A fiendish grin crossed his face. Cupping his hands to his mouth, he bellowed his find to the oncoming hunt. “Here’s yer varmint! Here he be!”

  Like some great scudding cloud the cavalcade swept through the woods in Cinnabar’s direction.

  Cinnabar was off! Through the big trees, weaving around tree trunks, leaping fallen logs, then through sumac and hawthorn and out onto a brown meadow. There were no paths to follow, only paths to make—in the tall grass, over tussocks and hummocks, over the tangled matting of many years. And now the wiry blades cut the pads of his feet until the torn place began to sting again.

  He
made spy hops by leaping high above the grass. How far had he come? Was it a hundred yards to Farmer Plunkett’s? Two hundred yards?

  A sheep blatted as if in answer. Why, he was practically there! He was there! The stone-and-rail fence was just ahead. With a magnificent bound he reached the top rail and went teetering along like a man on a tightrope. The hounds were close on him now, frenzied by the nearness, their voices sharper and shriller for the kill.

  But inside the penfold the whole flock of sheep seemed in league with Cinnabar. Mouths open, heels kicking dust, they jammed close to the rails, baa-aaing and blatting as if their lives, too, were at stake. As Sweet Lips jumped at the fence, Cinnabar’s body made a flying arc into the air. He landed on the soft, woolly back of a great ewe in the very center of the flock.

  “Whee, and oh whee!” he cried, treading the billowing gray wave of sheep, vaulting from one to another, nipping at their necks to drive them forward. Like a bareback rider in a circus he rode the sheep across the field until the view-halloo of the hunters gave way to cheers of amazement and admiration.

  Again they were outfoxed! To head him off they had to gallop all the way around two enclosures, one for the sheep and one for the cattle. The hounds, too, were baffled, for all of the precious fox scent was mingled and lost among the sheep.

  Cinnabar’s voice trilled in mischievous enjoyment. “Oh, what sport! This day was worth waiting for.” And as he jumped from back to back, he sang an old nursery rhyme he had taught his youngsters:

  “O, a hunter went a-hunting, O,

  And he wished to leap a gate.

  Said the owner, ‘Go around

  With your horse and your hound,

  For never shall you leap my gate.’

  Ha, ha, ha! Ho, ho, ho! And here I come, Mister Plunkett, ready or not!”

  Leaping to the ground, he rushed headlong through the penfold, gained the top rail of the fence on the far side, and dived into the pasture where the excited cows were hightailing it from fence to fence.

  Farmer Plunkett, musket in hand, now came running, not toward Cinnabar but toward the cow pasture. “Stop!” he yelled to the hunters, failing to recognize General Washington. “You’re worritin’ my cows and they’ll gie me no milk. Stop, I tell ye!” And he waved his musket high, his trigger finger curved.

  Cinnabar forced himself to look away from the fun. Then he squeezed under the bottom rail of the cattle pen and into the henyard where the silly chickens froze to earth as they heard the wild confusion.

  “There is no time to lose,” Cinnabar panted. “While the farmer scolds the hunters, I’ll pick off Vicky’s plump hen, and then home!”

  Chapter 13

  MUSKET FIRE

  It was exactly as Vicky had said. Farmer Plunkett’s henyard was in a sorry condition. Not only was the fence in a higgledy-piggledy state, but the yard itself was a scraggle of brush and weeds.

  Thinking now of his promise to Vicky, Cinnabar slithered his way deeper into the henyard. He would select the choicest bird in the flock and carry it off in spite of his pursuers!

  The sun was dipping down behind the far hills, but before it slid from sight it picked out a hen in a setting mood. She had built her nest in a hideaway place, but the last long sun-shafts found her. Cinnabar considered a moment as she regarded him with her red-rimmed eyes. Then his mind pulled away from the thought. “No!” he decided. “I will not snatch her up. Where’s the sport in taking a setting hen? I will not do it! And besides,” he reminded himself, “setting hens are poor pickin’s. Vicky wants her birds young and juicy.”

  Moving stealthily, he inched his way to the center of the yard and crouched there quite concealed among the weeds. He had not long to wait. As horses and hounds neared, the hypnotized chickens suddenly came alive and a whole running parade streamed right at Cinnabar. They were led by a gay-feathered, high-stepping cockerel who pumped along at a jerky one-two gait.

  “He’s my bird!” Cinnabar whispered joyfully. “Young and fleshy, and too cocky for his own good.”

  And just when Cinnabar was up on his toes, ready for the pounce, a musket ball whistled by his ear. It was close, close as a hair. Where it hit, Cinnabar had no idea. All he knew was that the whole yard became a whirlwind of fluttering, squawking chickens. With perfect timing, he sprang into the melee, grabbed the cockerel in midair, and bolted out of the yard, in full view of a groom riding toward the hunt. The groom, who had been trying to catch up, was leading a fresh pair of horses for the general and Billy Lee. The horses were so eager to join the chase that Cinnabar took a great risk in dashing between their nervous feet.

  “Thar he goes!” cried the groom as the fleeing Cinnabar narrowly escaped a second round of musket fire.

  Cinnabar was puzzled as he ran. The bird in his mouth was not flapping and struggling, but hung limp and quiet. He did not know that the shot intended for him had instantly killed the cock.

  His day almost complete, Cinnabar thought he had never been so happy. He was homeward bound. His heart was full of home! And in his mouth, the nice prize for Vicky and the pups. What if musket shot whirred and whined around his head? It couldn’t stop him. Nothing could!

  He flew in and out among the farm buildings—past the wagon shed, the woodshed, the washhouse, past the smokehouse and the pigsty. There was danger in coming this way, but it was quicker and it would slow the hounds. As he cut around the farmhouse, he planned his course carefully. He would head for the North Branch of Dogue Run, float downstream to his own woods, and then he’d be only a hoot and a holler from home.

  He looked back and saw the general hastily changing horses. Even with his mouth full of feathers, Cinnabar managed a throaty chuckle. He had worn out the General’s mount, and now he was losing the farmer in his very own farmyard! Mister Plunkett had stumbled over a tree root, discharged his musket, and scattered the hounds galley-west!

  For nearly a half mile Cinnabar trotted a straightaway line for the creek. It was an easy downhill course, easy underfoot, with few ridgy places to hurt his torn pad. But as he tired from his burden, it seemed farther than he had thought. At times he went knee-deep in grass, with milkweed pods waving above his head and late asters nodding. And the longer he traveled, the heavier the bird seemed—for it was dead weight, fully one-third of his own. It pulled his head down, and a tiredness began washing over him like a wave. Only a little while ago he had been full of chuckles. Now he felt small, and burdened, and alone under a vast sky.

  The evening wind blew up to him from the creek. He clenched his jaws tighter on the cock. “Cinny!” He tried to make believe Vicky was calling to him. “Cinny, it is only a little piece farther to the creek. You can make it, Cinny! You can make it. I know you can.”

  The yipping cries of Sweet Lips and the hounds broke into his thoughts. He looked back again and saw the grasses swaying, and he knew that the pack was pressing hard.

  He made his legs go. The good foot, the hurt foot, hind left with front right, hind right with front left. A little more, and a little more. “I believe in you, Cinnabar. Trot! Trot! Trot faster! Faster!”

  Only seconds ahead of the hounds he reached the swift-flowing creek. Here it was—his old friend, the creek—rippling and laughing up at him.

  He slipped into its cool wetness, tightening his hold on the cock as if it might come alive and fly away. He looked over his shoulder, measuring his distance from the hounds, and then he looked ahead to home. He could still make it! He turned over now, letting the current cradle him. It carried him surely, steadily. Yet how gentle it was! How very gentle! He looked up at the dusky heavens. A few stars winked at him. He guessed he knew now how it must feel to be a cloud, a little cloud floating in a deep sky.

  He held the cock with his forepaws and just drifted along as the busy creek flowed on to meet the river. Wearily he closed his eyes, enjoying a moment of rest-fulness. His bushy tail lay floating stilly upon the water, so that when the hunters were close enough to sight him, they wondered, “Can he .
. . can he be dead?”

  As if in reply, Cinnabar wheeled around, snatched the cock in his teeth again, and swam strongly to the far bank.

  His quick movements set off a whole chain of explosions behind him. Hounds plunged into the water and, one by one, thirty horsemen began fording the creek. The very air went wild with noise. Men’s cries mingled with the screaming of hounds and the plash of hoofs. It was like thunder crashing nearer and nearer.

  Quick, Cinnabar! Across the meadow and into your woods! Quick! Into the woods for your life! Now legs pumping, lungs pumping. Go. Go. Go. The air burned his nose as he sucked it in. The cock grew heavier and heavier and its spindly legs seemed to grow longer and longer. They flapped against him, getting in his way so that his gait lost its rhythm.

  Behind him, the whirl of hounds whipped closer and closer. They were hammering his trail with a fierce joy. They would catch him, unless . . . ? The question spun in his mind. Drop the cockerel? Drop it?

  No! No! Run, run, run! You might make it.

  Earth coming at him. Woods coming at him. Big pines making way for him. This way, Cinnabar, this way. The trees must be moving! The whole forest streamed past him, so fast was his pace. His lungs seemed on fire, but he was going to make it! From his game heart he drew the last ounce of strength. In one breathless spurt he reached the old familiar sassafras thicket. And then—oh praises be!—he was almost drawn inside his den by the curling fingers of his own clump of ferns. As in a dream he heard the voice of George Washington rocketing through the woods: “The One O’Clock Fox is going to earth. Call off your hounds, Billy Lee; ’twas a magnificent run!”

  With a gay swish of his brush, Cinnabar disappeared into the black hollow of his den. More plainly than any words it said: “Thank you, one and all! Thank you, Sweet Lips, and you, General Washington, and all you hounds and gentlemen!”