There’d been an atmosphere of suppressed excitement in the village that morning. The boy was glad to go into the solitude of the woods to search for the fox. It wouldn’t take long. Foxes didn’t hide their tracks, unlike people. He stopped to hoist the shotgun onto his shoulder, then moved stealthily forward. Most of his friends knew nothing about foxes, but the boy knew where they made their dens and when they were most active. He could even tell if they were a dog or a vixen from the muskiness of their scent. The fox couldn’t escape him.
He walked further into the wood. Sweat beaded his brow even though it was a cool afternoon. Suddenly weary, he stopped to sit on a fallen tree trunk. He waited, the gun hot in his hands. After a few minutes he placed it on the grass by the side of him and wiped his palms on his shorts. It was then that the fox emerged. She stood copper bright in a shaft of sunlight and sniffed the air, her nose twitching with concentration. When she picked up the scent of the boy, her ears pricked to sharp points and in an instant, she zig-zagged from sight, a ribbon of flame flickering into the green. He recognised the markings on her face, the silver streak on her left flank and the earthy scent of her.
The memory of the hunt came unwanted to his mind, a confusion of steaming horses, red livery and yapping hounds. A fox, ears flattened to its head, ran for its life across an open field. There’d been a sickening shrieking as the dogs caught up and tore it apart in a terrible frenzy. The boy had known there were cubs and after the hunt was over, he’d searched until he’d found them. The fox in the clearing was a cub he’d reared, now fully grown.
As afternoon turned to evening, he sensed the fox creeping back. Eventually she was so close he could almost touch her. He looked up expecting her to twist nimbly out of danger, but she stood motionless, staring at the boy. It was as if she recognised him and knew why he’d come. He looked into her eyes and knew she trusted him. That morning as he’d passed the kennels housing the foxhounds, he’d heard the whisper that the trail hunt advertised on posters pinned around the area was a cover for a real hunt. He looked at the fox in front of him. He couldn’t let them tear her apart.
The boy stood up and raised the gun. The fox was motionless. Moments later a loud crack echoed through the woodland, the sound bouncing from tree to tree and booming across the land. Roosting birds flew up from the thicket and shot skywards shrieking with annoyance. There was a long silence. The boy bent down to gently stroke the fox’s crumpled body. Then he picked up his gun and walked slowly away.
