In the Path of the Storm Page 4

  Trey lowered his head and he scraped the ground with a front hoof as he looked at the hare. He looked like a bull about to charge. Leveret didn’t wait to find out. He leapt up and bounded through the grasses. Trey galloped after him. He was in an ugly mood. This animal had ignored his ruling. He meant to punish him. The hare must be made an example to deter others. The stag crashed through the grassland area, flattening the succulent stalks he was so determined to save for the herd’s sole enjoyment. Fleet of foot as Trey was, Leveret’s elastic bounds left the deer farther and farther behind. The hare’s constantly veering course was impossible to follow for long. At last, Trey pulled up. He tossed his head, half in frustration, half in bewilderment at Leveret’s pace. But he was content that he had driven home his lesson. He didn’t think Leveret would be back.

  Trey was correct in his assumption. Leveret had been alarmed and frightened. He kept running and leaping long after the grassland was well behind him. He was a highly strung animal and so intent on flight that he almost collided with Friendly, Fox and Vixen’s son, who was lapping listlessly from a puddle.

  ‘Hey! Slow down! What’s the hurry?’ Friendly called out, cheerfully. ‘It’s too hot for racing.’

  The well-known tones of the affectionate animal’s voice halted Leveret’s career. He turned, relieved to find a companion.

  ‘Whatever’s the matter?’ Friendly asked. ‘You look badly scared.’

  Leveret brought his breath and racing heart under control before he attempted to answer. ‘There’s a mad creature amongst the deer herd,’ he explained. He was still distressed. ‘He attacked me. Charged at me, the great brute, while I was sleeping. A small animal like me! Without a word of warning. If it’s some sort of stupid game . . .’

  Friendly recognized the culprit at once. ‘Oh, you’ve encountered Trey, have you? The mighty new Lord of the Reserve!’ He sounded contemptuous. ‘No, Leveret, this is no game. Haven’t you heard? This stag has set himself up as the successor to his great ancestor. Only he’s not satisfied with dominating the deer herd. He wants all of us to pay him homage.’

  ‘But – but – a deer?’ Leveret spluttered. ‘I thought we had nothing to fear from any of them. They’ve been our friends – allies even – in the old days.’

  ‘Well, these are new days, Leveret. The old order, you see, has passed. And it seems we’re to accept it – or go.’

  5

  Owl’s Progress

  TAWNY OWL SKIMMED over the motorway to the open countryside again. Quietness enveloped him. Soon he felt hungry once more. He caught what he needed and ate, comfortably lodged in the fork of a tree. He was quite alone and he was beginning to enjoy it. He thought for a moment about his companions in White Deer Park but then quickly dismissed them from his mind. He was relishing his solitude, away from Weasel’s carping comments and the young foxes’ teasing that he had endured for too long. He looked forward to reaching his destination, to re-visiting the old haunts and, above all, to the awe in which he would be held as the only Farthing Wood creature to have dared to journey back. Just let those young foxes hear his story! They’d soon change their tune, especially when he arrived on the scene with the missing female they had loved to joke about.

  Tawny Owl rested only briefly after eating. He was eager to press on. He felt fresh and full of energy. He flitted noiselessly through the moonlit summer night over the fox-hunting terrain where Vixen had so nearly lost her life. By dawn he was within sight of the river. An ancient hollow oak beckoned him to roost. He fluttered down and settled himself inside.

  A short distance outside White Deer Park, Whistler was dutifully beginning his search for the errant Owl.

  The next evening Tawny Owl crossed the river. Memories flooded back once again of Fox’s accident in the water when he had been carried away downstream, away from his friends. But all that was ancient history. With the river behind him Owl travelled more circumspectly. He wasn’t so sure of recognizing the route. Until he reached Farthing Wood itself, there would be no more prominent landmarks. However he felt his direction was correct. His instincts seemed to guide him. What didn’t ring quite true was the ease with which he was travelling. Of course the journey of the animals from Farthing Wood to the Nature Reserve had been infinitely more difficult for land-travelling creatures, especially when the whole party had agreed to adapt its pace to accommodate the smallest representatives such as Toad, who had actively been demonstrating the route part of the time, and voles and fieldmice: tiny creatures who could only go in short stages. Up in the air, problems and barriers to progress that had seemed almost insurmountable on that journey, were as nothing.

  The speed with which Tawny Owl covered the distance surprised him more than anything. The long odyssey which he and his companions had undergone before had seemed at times as if it would never end. Now, alone, and flying at his own pace, it appeared that his journey would be completed in a matter of days. When he picked out from the air a certain copse whose shape was remarkably familiar, Tawny Owl felt he was indeed getting close. The copse was chiefly memorable for its rookery.

  Tawny Owl glided in under cover of darkness and holed up in a dead elm. He meant to surprise the rooks by his presence when they awoke in the morning. Some of them would be bound to recognize him. As he had eaten on the way he allowed himself a semi-doze as he watched, fitfully, the gleaming stars begin to pale. But his doze was rudely interrupted.

  The rooks began to call harshly and urgently at the first glimmer of daylight. They were not calls proclaiming territory or ownership but calls of alarm and warning. Still perched on their untidy nests of twigs they passed angry calls from one to another that echoed back and forth in the tree tops. Tawny Owl had been spied and he was not welcome. There were young still in the nests.

  Owl clung uncertainly to the grey barkless branch of the stricken tree. He wasn’t sure what to do. He supposed, in this murky light, he must seem to the rooks to be just another threatening predator. He decided to wait until the full light of day would reveal to them who it was who had come amongst them. The light grew but there was no lessening of the clamour. Indeed the calls became more raucous, more strident. Eventually some of the angry birds left their nests and flew close to Owl in a mobbing action. They jeered at him, calling him offensive names such as murderer, robber and vandal. Owl was most put out. He tried to recognize amongst these rooks one who would have known him in the past. He and the Farthing Wood animals had spent a while in their copse and had been warmly welcomed by their hosts as heroes. But as he searched the faces with their long pointed beaks and glittering eyes he could see no hint of dawning friendliness in any of them. And they all looked the same. He couldn’t have told them apart. Purple-black plumage with an iridescent sheen that reflected the early rays of the sun. Sharp, malevolent features. They span around him, deliberately malicious, hoping to rid their copse of his presence by their unremitting pressure.

  ‘What, isn’t there one of you who knows me?’ Tawny Owl called out in bewilderment. ‘Not one of you who knows the name of Farthing Wood?’

  ‘Never heard of it.’

  ‘No such place.’

  ‘Farthing Wood? This is Rookery Copse. No other stand of woodland round here.’

  Their voices screeched at him. They knew nothing of his past.

  ‘Fox, Badger, Toad, Kestrel, Tawny Owl,’ the besieged bird cried, desperately attempting to call himself to mind. ‘We travelled here. Before. You made us welcome.’

  ‘Welcome? Welcome? They’d be welcome, I don’t think,’ one screeched back.

  ‘No friends of ours.’

  ‘None of them!’

  ‘But you must remember,’ Tawny Owl almost pleaded. ‘If not you, then your elders. Where are they?’

  ‘What do you want with them? Leave them alone.’

  ‘Get away from our copse!’

  ‘Don’t you see?’ Tawny Owl wheedled. ‘The older birds will recognize me. I was here before.’

  They didn’
t want to hear. An owl was an enemy when young were in the nests. That’s all they knew. They flew at him, buffeting him with their wings. They hoped to topple him from his perch. When that didn’t work, the braver among them began aiming their beaks at him, stabbing downwards as they fluttered close. Tawny Owl gave ground. It was futile to resist any longer. Times were changed. There was no camaraderie to be looked for here. He flapped away from his branch and even then the rooks chased him, egged on by their success. They screamed their delight at his defeat, trying to make his retreat as humiliating as they could. The disappointed owl found himself putting on speed to rid himself of their deafening cries. At last they fell back, satisfied they had defended their nest sites with great daring.

  Tawny Owl flew on dispiritedly. Now solitude didn’t seem so attractive. He longed for some creature, animal or bird, to show him a jot of fellow feeling. He had lived for so long among friends he had forgotten what life was like in the usually hostile environment of nature. He thought of Bold, Fox’s and Vixen’s cub, who must have encountered just the same suspicion and enmity during his bid for independence away from the influence of his father. And what a hard time he had had of it. Owl put the thought behind him. The rooks’ unpleasantness had tired him out, even frightened him a little. He needed to sleep and, first of all, to compose himself.

  Without realizing it, Tawny Owl was flying back on himself, back in the direction from which he’d come to the copse. His one thought was to find a suitable perch. He didn’t enjoy daylight very much except as a time to rest. He found a solitary hawthorn whose branches were almost impenetrable. Inside the thick canopy of greenery he could at last relax. The day passed him by and the few small songbirds who alighted on the thorn soon left again when they saw an owl hiding in its midst.

  As usual Tawny Owl roused at dusk. He got himself airborne and immediately felt that he had been thrown off course. But he wanted to avoid the rookery at all costs, so he could not use the copse as a guide again. What he could do, however, was to use the noise of the rooks themselves as a clue. He knew that at dusk there was always a sort of concert of cawing as the birds settled themselves for the night. So he circled for a while until he picked up their sound. Congratulating himself on this brainwave, Tawny Owl flew towards the sound without ever getting too close to give himself trouble. The noise reached a crescendo and then gradually faded behind him and so Owl knew he had passed Rookery Copse and should soon be on the right track again. But it didn’t prove as simple as that. He couldn’t seem to get his bearings. In his mind he pictured an orchard, a marsh, a road and rows of houses. That was the way back if things were still as they had been before, but he found he couldn’t locate any of these features. Then Tawny Owl berated himself for his stupidity. Of course things weren’t the same as before. How could they be? All that time ago . . .

  He broke off his efforts at navigation to hunt. He decided he must then seek guidance. He caught himself a rat that was trying to raid a squirrels’ drey. As he disposed of his prey it occurred to him that the squirrels might be able to help. He finished his meal. Then he flew back to the birch tree where the drey was sited. The tree grew alongside a couple of young oaks in a patch of undergrowth.

  The squirrels at first scolded Tawny Owl for coming too close, just as they tried to warn off any predator from the youngsters they had to protect. But when the bird pointed out the good turn he had done them they quietened down and listened.

  ‘Do you know a place called Farthing Wood?’ Owl asked. ‘It’s not far from here.’

  ‘Wood? There’s no wood anywhere around here,’ the mother squirrel replied. ‘We’d be living there if there were . . .’

  Tawny Owl sighed. The same reaction as from the rooks. ‘But you must have heard of it, at least,’ he suggested. ‘There was woodland around here once. I used to live in it.’

  ‘Doubtless there was,’ the male squirrel conceded. ‘But what’s the use of asking us about a place that doesn’t exist?’

  ‘I only wanted to know if you’d heard the name,’ Tawny Owl said. He decided he wouldn’t tell them he was attempting to travel to a wood that they believed was non-existent.

  The squirrels looked at each other. ‘I’ve heard the name,’ said the female. ‘But not for a long time. I seem to recall there was some sort of tale attached to it.’

  Tawny Owl perked up considerably. ‘Yes, there was,’ he said eagerly. ‘I – I mean,’ he added quickly, ‘that I believe the tale would have been about how the inhabitants of the Wood had to leave it. Isn’t that so?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, that’s it,’ the squirrel answered. ‘The wildlife all around here used to talk about them. Many of the older ones saw them pass. But they never knew for sure what happened to them.’

  Tawny Owl was burning to tell the squirrels. But he fought the inclination down in order to pursue his main objective. With bated breath he asked: ‘In which direction would Farthing Wood have been?’

  The squirrels flicked their bushy tails as they pondered. ‘It must have been,’ the father squirrel said slowly, ‘where the human dwellings have spread.’

  ‘Yes, yes!’ cried Tawny Owl. ‘The men built over it, didn’t they?’ He was becoming excited.

  ‘Well, if you know that, you must know where it was,’ the squirrel rejoined in a puzzled way.

  ‘But I haven’t seen any human dwellings,’ Tawny Owl spluttered. This was so exasperating!

  ‘You can’t have been over the hill then,’ the female squirrel told him. ‘They’re all around there. Now then, if you have nothing further to bother us with, we’ll go back to our rest.’

  ‘Nothing more, nothing more,’ Tawny Owl called. He was already in the air.

  ‘Thank you again for the rat-killing,’ the father squirrel cried generously. ‘We really are –’

  But Tawny Owl was away. He saw where the land began to rise and followed it directly. At the top of the little hill he looked over and there, below, were the bright lights of human habitations and streets.

  ‘So!’ he breathed to himself. ‘I’m home.’

  But he wasn’t. Not quite.

  6

  Water Rights

  WHISTLER THE HERON abandoned his search when it was obvious that Tawny Owl had left the immediate environs of White Deer Park. ‘I’ll keep a look-out for him from time to time,’ he told himself. ‘But I can’t go combing the entire countryside.’ On his return he flew along the length of the stream and was distressed at what he found there. At intervals there were dead bodies of small creatures, mainly watervoles, lying either on the banks or at the edge of the water, bobbing on the ripples. There was a pair of coots who had suffered the same fate. Their deserted nest amongst some reeds had two fairly well-grown, but lifeless, youngsters in it.

  ‘This is terrible,’ Whistler said. ‘I wonder what’s caused this?’

  He flew up and down, peering at the water for any sign that would give an explanation. But he could see nothing unusual. Later he noticed Adder and Sinuous sunning themselves in their favourite spot. These days they were always together. Whistler wasn’t sure if he should disturb them but he guessed Adder had seen him so he decided in the end to fly over.

  ‘Have you found anything?’ Adder enquired without much interest. He knew Whistler had been looking for Tawny Owl.

  Whistler mistook him. ‘Have you seen them too?’ he asked, referring to the dead creatures.

  Adder looked at him curiously. ‘Them?’ he repeated. ‘You don’t mean to say . . .’ He was picturing Tawny Owl flying back in triumph with his consort.

  ‘Bodies,’ Whistler said. ‘By the stream. A number of them.’

  ‘I told you so,’ Sinuous remarked to her companion.

  Whistler waited politely for an explanation.

  ‘She thinks the place has become one of menace,’ the snake said. ‘Ever since the Great Stag pegged out there.’ He was never one to show overmuch respect.

  ‘I’m not the only one who thinks so. Most of you are
steering well clear of the area,’ Sinuous said to the heron.

  ‘Yes. Except those who live on its fringes,’ he said. ‘But now it seems they’re at risk. I don’t know how long those bodies have been there. I haven’t been near the stream for a long while.’

  Adder ventured a quip. ‘When Whistler the heron ceases to patrol the stream’s banks there’s something fishy going on.’

  Whistler chuckled. ‘That’s just it, Adder. There are no fish.’

  Now Adder was serious. He had remembered Toad. ‘Best to leave the place well alone,’ he said. ‘I wish I’d seen Toad. He sometimes swims there.’

  Whistler was surprised at his words. The snake didn’t often commit himself to pangs of anxiety. ‘The land is damp and humid enough for him at present, I hope,’ said the heron. ‘And he does spend a lot of time with his friends the frogs in the Pond, I believe?’

  ‘He’s a great traveller, our Toad,’ said Adder. ‘Nobody knows that better than I. There’s no knowing where he might turn up.’

  ‘He must look out for himself then, mustn’t he?’ Sinuous observed primly. She was well aware of the little clique of Farthing Wood animals who continued to concern themselves about each other. The idea bored her as she wasn’t party to it.

  ‘I think I’ll look out for him as well,’ Adder lisped, ‘if you’ve no objection?’

  Toad was actually nowhere in the vicinity of the stream. He was enjoying the bonanza of grubs, worms and insects that was all around him. He was a very plump Toad indeed. Swimming wasn’t on his mind very much and, in common with his friends, he hadn’t much desire at present to visit the stream. The Edible Frogs around the Pond didn’t see much of him either. However, they did see a lot of other creatures. Many of the Park’s inhabitants were using the Pond as their chief drinking place now. Amongst these were the White Deer themselves as well as those members of the Farthing Wood community who ranged most widely, such as the younger foxes. So it was only a matter of time before one of them was confronted by Trey.