A Taste for Rabbit Read online

  “It’s Wally! Remember? The swimming hole? The ball court? I sat behind you in rabbit history class.” For a moment, he sounded genuinely disappointed at Quentin’s response.

  “I remember an ugly, stupid rabbit named Wally,” Quentin said. “I remember the ugly, stupid rabbit had some embarrassing problems with cold water at the swimming hole.” He squinted up at the tower. “Oh, yes. Now I see. It’s that Wally, isn’t it?”

  Wally’s voice turned icy. He suddenly seemed to remember his duty. “Shut up,” he said coldly. “What’s the password, Vole-hole? I’m waiting.”

  Quentin didn’t answer.

  “Password, Vole-hole — did you hear me? I’m giving you another chance, since this is your first time. Say the password, or else!” Wally’s deep voice had become a menacing growl.

  “I’m thinking,” Quentin said. “Wait, I’ve got it, I’ve got it!” he cried, pretending to be excited. “Bloody foxes! That’s it, isn’t it?”

  “No, it’s not,” Wally said, his voice expressionless. “Now who’s the stupid one? The manual says I have to shoot you.” He raised the bow he’d held at his side and positioned an arrow. “I don’t think I’ll mind that a bit.”

  Uh-oh. “All right, I remember now, ” Quentin said. “It’s Foxblood, right?”

  “Right,” Wally said, and put the bow down. “Don’t forget it, Vole-hole. Or you’ll be sorry.” He pulled his head in and disappeared into the tower.

  Quentin turned and walked back along the wall, smiling to himself. This could be my chance to get even, he thought. I can hardly wait.

  The next morning, just after dawn, Harry was outside of town, trotting along a road on the edge of Wildwood, which was blanketed in snow. The sky was barely light, with no glimmer of sun, but for the moment it had stopped snowing; the air was cold, and his breath clouded in front of him. His heavy brown boots crunched softly on the path, and he was grateful for the squirrel hide that lined his coat and his gloves.

  Briefly Harry wondered what promises Isaac had made to his friends. Clearly his brother’s interest in learning about the rabbit warren at the fortress had to be more than simple concern about food for the community. Harry had witnessed for himself how much Isaac cared about his fellow fox. The image of John’s limp body filled his mind, but he pushed it away. Let that be on Isaac’s conscience, he thought. It’s no concern of mine.

  The sky lightened as the hours passed, but not by much. Snow fell in feathery flakes at first, then with a blinding fury. The cold gray clouds, low in the sky, and the bare, brown-black trees, their branches covered in snow, made the landscape seem rinsed of color, like an old engraving from a schoolbook. By the afternoon, Harry, having decided to take a short cut, was traveling through an area of dense wood where the snow was deep on the trail and the terrain hilly. Rocks and buried logs occasionally blocked the path completely, forcing him to struggle through the snow and uncertain footing in the woods before finding his way back. It was slow going.

  Once or twice he glimpsed a retreating shape in the deep forest on one side or the other of the rudimentary path. Once or twice he heard a muffled, thumping footstep in the near distance that quickly faded. I knew I wouldn’t be the only living creature in these woods! he thought. And if there are creatures, there is food.

  He was hungry. Using some of Isaac’s money, he’d treated himself to an early — and very expensive — breakfast at a local restaurant that was still serving small portions of the last bits of pre-frozen, spicy mouse-and-squirrel sausage. Now, after the cold struggle through the drifted woods, Harry was suddenly aware of a familiar gnawing in his belly.

  He stopped, mindful of his failure a few days ago, and stood motionless, waiting until his breath slowed. Then his keen ears picked up the sound of an animal scurrying beneath the snow. He listened intently. In a moment, the sound was repeated, and it was close by. Harry detected the scent of vole, and his ears told him there was more than one.

  In the stillness of the snow-covered forest, the scurrying sound was like a clap of thunder to Harry’s ears. In another moment, he located the source: a mounded shape, perhaps a fallen log, a short distance away. The faint movement of the powdery white surface told him he was correct.

  Harry carefully removed his coat and placed it gently on the ground. Then, in a flash, he was digging at the snow, and in less than a minute his effort was rewarded. Two adult voles and three out-of-season young, buried beneath the snow in a pile of decaying leaves and pine needles, were exposed to the cold air. The babies squealed in fear and the voles scrambled to escape. Harry barely noticed the terror in their eyes; he snapped the spines of the adults one at time, then, holding the babies by their tails, he bit off their heads. The hot blood and tender bones seemed to melt in his mouth, and his saliva dripped into the snow. In another moment, he had devoured the voles, skin and all.

  * * *

  The first time he’d tasted vole he’d been a child on an excursion into Wildwood Forest with Isaac and Dad. They had left early in the morning, and following Dad’s instructions and his “Preparation, Planning, and Perseverance” motto, had decided in advance exactly where they’d be hunting. Each of them carried a small knapsack and an informally drawn map. Dad had a compass, folded into a leather pouch.

  “Just because we live in a civilized society,” he’d said as they started out at dawn, “doesn’t mean you don’t need to know the basics. Our ancestors found all their food this way. I want my sons to know how to fend for themselves. You never know.”

  They were walking through the early light. The air was cool, and on the horizon, the Black Mountains were hidden by a pale gray fog. Following first a long, wide trail out of town at the eastern end of the forest not far from their house, they gradually turned onto narrower paths until they were in the middle of the pleasant woods. Dad checked the map frequently, his gray-brown felt hat pulled down over his brow for shade, his sharp blue eyes alert and vigilant. His father was big — or at least that’s how Harry remembered him — and he strode through the woods with a relaxed confidence. Isaac and Harry trotted behind him.

  “You never know what, Dad?” said Isaac.

  “Just you never know. Your mother thinks fresh-killed prey is more easily digested and nutritious. She may be right. Anyway,” he went on, “I want you to experience this. It’s part of growing up.”

  Harry had felt himself to be in an exalted state almost from the moment they entered the woods. There had always been a serious injunction against going to the forest alone, and Harry had never violated it. Isaac claimed to have heard — and seen — monsters lurking in the trees at night. Harry didn’t think he believed him.

  Now Harry found every tree and shrub to be an object of intense beauty and interest; every sound — the crackle of leaves and pebbles underfoot, the snapping of twigs, the wind sighing through the firs, the calls of birds — a song of the gods. The smells alone made him dizzy with delight and excitement. He had found his true home.

  Dad had forged ahead, talking, explaining, warning. He pointed out dangers and opportunities. He told them how to trot silently (they couldn’t do it), how to distinguish the scent of different creatures, and which ones were most likely to be catchable and/or edible. He pointed out the signs of various species on the forest floor and could differentiate among the droppings of birds and smaller mammals as if reading their signatures. He warned about dangers — the poisonous, tempting berries, the few larger creatures in the wood, themselves untamed, who would call them prey.

  “Us? Me?” Harry said, shocked. He had stopped walking, trying to take in the concept that he could be viewed as a desirable lunch or dinner by some slavering, uncivilized creature.

  “Yes, you. All of us. You need to remember,” his father said, turning and taking his paw while Isaac walked beside them, “that foxes, badgers, weasels, ermine, raccoons, and a few others are the only creatures to have achieved this level of civilization. Didn’t you learn this in school?”

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p; “We learned it,” Isaac said, “but they didn’t tell us about the other part. That we could be someone’s dinner.” He looked around. “Maybe we should go home.”

  “But aren’t we doing the same thing?” Harry asked.

  Dad stopped. “We are doing this for sport,” he said seriously. “This is not the way we live our lives, you know that. Your mama shops at the market and we eat cooked, prepared foods at restaurants. What we are doing is called recreational hunting. It’s perfectly acceptable as long as it’s kept under control and is not part of an instinctive, thoughtless life behavior.”

  “But the prepared food was alive once. Aren’t we just as bad as the animals who want to eat us?”

  “Some things are not fair or logical, Harry,” his father said and patted him on the head. “This is one of them. Now let’s find ourselves some lunch.”

  They continued on the narrow path. Harry’s thoughts about unfairness were swept away by another idea: that some thing out in the forest, covered with the same lovely summer sunshine, could be hunting for him, slinking silently through the woods, watching his every move. The thought made Harry tremble with fear and excitement. Maybe Isaac wasn’t lying.

  Ahead of them, Dad stopped, signaling silence with a severe glance and his paw to his mouth. Harry heard the rustle of leaves and twigs and, in a few minutes, saw a mouse family darting through the underbrush, their camouflage so effective they could barely be seen.

  Dad gestured for Isaac to come closer. Isaac did, but when he saw the mice, he leaped forward. “I see them! I see them!” he shouted and pounced, but by then the mice and all their relatives had scampered madly away, leaving only the unsettled leaves and a darkened trail of overturned, sweet-smelling earth behind them.

  “Patience, Isaac, my son, patience!” Dad said with kindness in his voice. “Don’t just jump on it, whatever it is. Wait. Let your senses tell you the right moment to make your move. You still have your old instincts. Learn to listen to their voices.”

  Isaac nodded, embarrassed. “Sorry, Dad,” he said.

  Harry could hardly refrain from laughing. I could have caught them all, he thought. He poked Isaac when Dad wasn’t looking and mouthed the word, “Baby!”

  “Dad! Harry hit me!” Isaac said in his whiny voice.

  “Harry, leave your brother alone. He’s younger than you, and it’s your job to look out for him. Hitting is not a part of that responsibility,” Dad said without turning around.

  “Yes, Dad,” Harry said, and poked Isaac harder.

  Isaac’s face crumpled and he was about to howl in protest, when Dad stopped and gave them That Look. They were alongside a stream, hidden behind some shrubbery, while a family of voles slept peacefully in the dirt along the bank in front of them, barely two feet away. Harry could still remember the feeling. He had focused on the voles with such intensity that the smells and sights about him faded and became distant. The voles came into sharp focus, while around them the ground, the sky, and the stream became soft and blurred. All that existed were the voles, his own slow, measured breaths, and the pounding of his heart.

  “Now, Harry!” Dad whispered, but Harry had already leaped and sunk his teeth into the neck of the largest vole, which barely had the opportunity to offer a protesting squeal before going limp in his mouth. As the others vanished into the brush, Harry took the vole out of his mouth and brought it over to Dad. The taste of hot blood and velvety skin lingered pleasantly.

  “How was that, Dad? Was that all right?” he’d said, even though he knew it was more than all right.

  “Wonderful, son,” Dad said, with a generous pat on the back. He turned. “Did you see your brother, Isaac?”

  Isaac was sitting under a tree with an odd look on his face. His sandy brown fur was rumpled, and he seemed pale. “I don’t feel good,” he said, and his lower lip trembled. “I want to go home. I want Mama.”

  “What’s the matter now?” Harry said to Isaac. “Do you always have to ruin everything? Dad?” He turned to his father. “Do we have to go back?”

  Dad was bending down to look at Isaac. “What’s the matter, son?” he asked with tender concern. “Are you hurting? Did you eat some of those berries I warned you about?”

  Isaac hesitated, then nodded.

  Dad shook his head. “Let’s go home,” he said. “We can come back tomorrow.” He picked up Isaac and held him in his arms all the way to the house, while Harry trotted alongside, his anger and disappointment a bitter taste in his mouth. All around him the forest breathed its tempting smells and sounds, but Harry could only focus on Isaac, who had spoiled the best day of his life.

  * * *

  They never went back. Isaac’s illness had been catastrophic; he was bedridden for months. Mama kept a vigil at his bedside day and night. Dad became distant and distracted. Harry was left to his own devices, making his own meals, doing his homework at the kitchen table while Dad and Mama sat with Isaac and Mama sang him the old songs to help him sleep.

  Isaac gradually recovered from the strange paralysis that had gripped him, but when he did his left leg was permanently weakened and he walked with a limp. Harry remembered tiptoeing into Isaac’s bedroom — they had once shared it, but Harry had been moved out to avoid possible contagion, and had been sleeping on the living room couch. It was a winter afternoon when Dad had finally told him it was safe.

  It had been so long since Harry had seen their room that he was shocked at its familiarity — and at the changes. Isaac, looking very small and fragile, sat propped up in Harry’s bed, which had been moved closer to the window, “so Isaac can see the sunshine,” Mama explained, hovering nearby. Harry’s precious collection of forty-nine perfectly oval black pebbles neatly arranged by size on his dresser had vanished, never to be found again, and his favorite toy, a raggedy stuffed mouse named Clarence, was nestled under Isaac’s arm.

  “Here’s your big brother, Isaac, dear,” said Mama. “Come here, Harry, and say hello to Isaac. He’s finally feeling better.” Mama reached out her paw to Harry to draw him close.

  Before Harry could move, Isaac said in a weak voice, “I’m thirsty, Mama,” and Mama quickly turned away from Harry and poured water into a glass from a pitcher that sat on a new nightstand near the bed. “Here, dearest,” she said, holding the glass to his mouth. Isaac took the glass and drank one or two sips, then sighed and pushed her paw away. When Mama’s back was turned, Isaac looked at Harry with a triumphant little smile and stuck out his tongue.

  * * *

  For a few moments, Harry was lost in thought, staring blankly into the silent woods. Then he sighed and washed the blood and gore from his paws and face with some clean snow. There is no point in living in the past, he thought. Isaac has made his life, I have made mine. Isaac is the wealthy Managing Director of Foxboro, hobnobbing with the powerful and rich, never wondering where his next meal will come from. I live from day to day in a run-down apartment owing money to just about everyone. Mama and Dad are gone, and so is my inheritance.

  But Dad left me his compass.

  * * *

  At midafternoon, Harry paused for a rest and cleared away the snow beneath a tall, bent pine. He sat down, bit off his gloves, undid the pouch, and pulled out the map with icy paws.

  His plan had been to stop for a time at Inn the Forest, Isaac’s disparaging evaluation notwithstanding. His brother’s distaste somehow made the place even more appealing. Furthermore, he’d have the chance to take in some good meals — assuming, of course, that the Inn was well stocked — and hope for an end to the snow. A storm like this could not last forever. According to the map, the fortress was still far away. He could get there later in the week, look around, and return home just in time to collect the rest of the money. On the way he’d stop at the abandoned summer cottages that clustered near Elk Lake, where as a child he had vacationed with his family. It was a good plan. He pulled out the compass, checked it, and returned it to the pouch. Then he carefully folded the map and tucked it away.r />
  As he walked with difficulty along the snow-covered path, he thought about Isaac’s money. Was I too willing to be his flunky? Should I be running errands for the brother I despise? Can Isaac be trusted to pay me when I return? Isaac was once again using his weak leg as an excuse to avoid anything difficult or inconvenient, just as he had his entire life. I’ll find a way to come out on top, Harry thought confidently. I just have to figure it out.

  After hours of climbing upward into the hills on the meandering trail, struggling through the underbrush when the path disappeared, backtracking and stumbling over brittle shrubs and fallen branches, he found what he’d been looking for: In a clearing stood a large, sturdy wooden building, somewhat rambling in shape. Over the years additions and extensions had extended the original squarish structure until it tentacled broadly over the snowy landscape. The door would open into the lobby of what he knew to be the shabby but friendly Inn the Forest, run by a badger. Sure enough, there was a carved sign on the door. Harry knocked loudly.

  The peephole above the sign opened. A cold black eye gazed at him briefly, then the small window clicked closed. A deep voice growled at him from the other side of the door. “What do you want?”

  The door creaked open. Harry’s nose detected the pungent vestige of an earlier visit from a skunk, perhaps even several winters ago, and the stronger, slightly salty smell of raccoon.

  “I want a room. May I come in?”

  There was a shuffling noise and the door opened wider. A huge creature loomed before him, now backlit by the lamps just inside the entryway.

  It was one of the largest raccoons Harry had ever seen. Wearing faded overalls and a checked flannel shirt, the raccoon had substantial girth and was a good head taller than Harry. The creature’s eyes were bright and alert behind the black mask of fur.

  Harry’s fatigue made him angry. “This is Inn the Forest, right? There is a vacancy, right? What happened to the badger?”