Redcoat/Chapter 8
THE Red Flower had always had a strange fascination for Redcoat. It drew him with an irresistible force. It was as a magnet to his being. He had first seen it in the summer time when he was a pup. He had been standing with his sire and the rest of the young foxes on the ledge that served as a fox lookout. It was to this ledge that the old fox always went when he wanted to discover what was going on in the valley below.
Bud Holcome had been burning some brush-heaps down in the pasture and it was that which afforded the young foxes their first sight of the Red Flower. How it leaped and danced in the gloom of the summer evening. It seemed to Redcoat that it must be alive. It would flare up with sudden brilliancy when the night wind fanned it, lighting the pasture for rods around, then it would quickly die down, only to leap forth again sending up a shower of tiny stars. It was a weird, wild spectacle and it filled the young foxes with wonder and dread. The old fox could not fully explain to them what it was. He merely intimated that it was a utility of man and something that foxes should keep away from.
The following Summer, when Redcoat was a year and a half old, six or eight Boy Scouts came to the Holcome pasture to camp. First they set up a small, square, white house in which they lived while they were there. Then, as night came on, they kindled the Red Flower and set its bright beams glancing into the darkness. For a long time they sat about the campfire laughing, talking and singing, all of which was very strange to Redcoat who was watching and listening from his lookout. When the boys had all disappeared in the small white house and the Red Flower had died down, Redcoat crept down to the camp to investigate. He went close up to the place where the Red Flower had been but he could not discover it. At last he found a little gleam of a dying coal in the ashes and he poked it with his paw. Wow! He had to grit his teeth tight to keep from yelping and disclosing his whereabouts. Then as he began gingerly backing away he stepped on another coal. This time he could not smother his yelp. He had had enough of the Red Flower for that night, so he went limping to the spring to cool his throbbing paws in the cold water. So this was where the Red Flower went when it finally disappeared. It hid in the ground and it could bite a fox's paw as badly as a thistle or a thorn.
The Spring that Redcoat was three years old was long remembered by the farmers who tilled the broad meadows and the uplands adjacent to Redcoat's mountain. It was called the year of the great drouth.
The fall rains had been very light. There had been little snow in the winter, and almost no rain in the Spring. The grass sprang up in the pasture only to die down of great thirst. Leaves that should have been bright green became yellow or brown, and only the great meadows kept their verdure, and dust was everywhere. The corn and onion fields were simply so many acres of dust which rose in air at the slightest puff of the wind. When the wind blew strong, as it often did across the broad meadows, the dust came shifting along the mountainside almost like a snow storm. Each morning the sun arose in a yellow haze and set in a pool of blood. It was a Spring when old weather prophets shook their heads and looked doubtful. All the wild creatures felt it, even as the men did. Ring Tail, the racoon, who is usually a clever fellow became very morose. Whenever Redcoat passed him he growled and showed his teeth. White Weasel became so thirsty for blood that he rushed at Redcoat one day and only ceased his bloodthirsty attack when Redcoat killed him. A muskrat strayed far up the mountainside away from his friendly creek and finally went mad. Redcoat had often killed muskrats for food, but this one he had to kill in self-defense.
It was at such a time as this, when everything was ripe and ready, that the Red Flower went mad, and great was the excitement among both men and the wild creatures. It started its mad career on the Holcome farm down on the edge of the meadow. No one ever knew how it happened. Perhaps it was a cigarette butt or a partly extinguished match, but anyhow the mischief was done. One evening from his lookout Redcoat saw the Red Flower leap up in half a dozen places. After a short time he saw men striking at it with spruce bows. They were running hither and yon and seemed very much excited. They would beat the Red Flower down to earth in one spot only to have it leap up in another. As soon as they went to the new fire it would flame up in the spot they had just left. The night wind would catch it even as it did the dead leaves and it would go racing through the grass at a frightful pace. Soon the men brought teams and plowed furrows trying to stop it. Then they started other fires and tried to make them run towards the one that was racing to the mountain, but the Red Flower swept on, fanned by the night wind, for it had gone mad and it was beyond the power of man to stop it. Soon it mounted to the lower slopes of the mountain and began creeping up the trunks of the trees. Up one tall pine it shot, twisting and writhing, and finally leaped fifty feet into the air, even lighting the ledge where Redcoat paced to and fro nervously. He could now hear the Red Flower roaring in its madness, and the smoke from the great conflagration choked him. Occasionally he coughed and sneezed. Frantically the men worked, plowing furrows, felling trees, and even using dynamite, but they could not stay the onward rush of the Red Flower. All that night Redcoat watched, and the flames crept higher and higher up the mountainside and came closer and closer to the den in the spruces. Finally the smoke became so thick that Redcoat could no longer watch this fascinating but terrible sight, so he fled into the spruces and marshaled his little family in preparation for moving them to safety.
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He took one of the pups and carried it fifty rods over the mountainside and hid it in a hollow in the rocks. But, the Fox family had not yet learned the lesson of obedience, so when he went back after another the little fox came whimpering after him. Again he grabbed it unceremoniously in his mouth and started further down the mountain on the side which was away from the fire. It was now daylight and Kitty Mason had come up into her father's pasture to watch the smoke which was curling up over the mountain, obscuring the sunrise, and to see if she could discover any of the fire-fighters. Thus it happened that in a little woodland path half way up the mountain, she came face to face with Redcoat fleeing from the fire with his offspring.
Usually Redcoat would have bolted at sight of her but he was now so disturbed and unnerved by the terrible night that he stood for a moment uncertain. This was not the man creature, although it had the same scent its form was different, and Redcoat's intuitions told him that the girl coming along the woodland path would not hurt him. Perhaps it was the friendly one he had seen in the pasture the year before. Then in his desperation a strange resolve came to Redcoat for he trotted forward until within ten feet of her and laid the pup on the ground before her. Then he backed away and growled at the little fox when it tried to follow him. He looked up at the girl beseechingly and his countenance said as plain as words, "Don't you see I am in great trouble? You take care of this one while I go back for the others." The girl understood or thought she did, so when the pup started to follow she dropped her broad brimmed summer hat over him and finally gathered the little fox in her lap, then sat down with her back to a friendly tree to see what would happen next.
Foremost among the fire-fighters had been Mr. Holcome and Bud, for the fire had started on their farm and it was through their timberland that it was racing. As the day dawned Mr. Holcome told Bud to skirt the fire on the West side and go to the top of the mountain to see how it looked from that altitude. Thus it happened that Bud met Redcoat and Fluffy bringing the other three puppies from the spruces. Redcoat had two in his mouth, one sprawling from either side, while Fluffy had one, but the foxes bolted at sight of Bud and he had too many troubles of his own on hand to pay any further attention to them. Fifteen minutes after Redcoat had deposited the first little fox at the feet of Kitty Mason he returned, closely followed by Fluffy, carrying the two small foxes in his mouth. At the sight of the girl he paused in the pathway for several seconds uncertain and then turned sharply to one side and disappeared in the underbrush closely followed by his mate. After a few minutes he returned, and the girl knew that he had found a safe hiding place for the three small foxes and that the mate was guarding them while he had returned for the fourth. He came up to within about ten feet of her and stood watching her narrowly, waiting to see what she would do. He was plainly anxious, so she did not keep him in suspense but put the small fox on the ground at her feet. Then Redcoat uttered a low whimpering note and the little fox scampered to him. He picked it up in his mouth, and after giving the girl a friendly look and with what she thought was a wag of his tail intended for her, he turned and trotted away through the underbrush and she saw him no more.
Thus it happened that Redcoat and his family were introduced for a second time to Kitty Mason, the girl who had thought she coveted his bright coat for a Christmas muff, while Bud Holcome who was the best trapper among the boys of the valley had promised the Christmas gift and he intended to keep his word.