Tailchaser’s Song

"Very well, then," Stretchslow said to Mistress Whir. "You heard Master Tailchaser. He has interceded for your life. Go now, before I change my mind." The squirrel lay still. Fritti began to move forward- afraid Stretchslow had inadvertently broken her back-when she suddenly bolted between them, sending chips of bark flying, and disappeared from beneath the oak-tree arch.

"I wish I had the leisure to hear your story of how you came to be making promises to squirrels, but there are things I still must do before the Eye appears."

They were walking together beneath the giant trees-Fritti moving quickly to keep up with Stretch-slow.

"However, I need to have more important talk with you. I was sure you would decide to leave on your own, but I miscalculated how soon you would set out. So, I have been searching for you since the begi

"Stretchslow, I am afraid I do not understand you at all. Not in the least, and I beg your pardon. What could you possibly have to say to a silly youngling like me? And how did you know I would come searching for Hushpad alone? And how did you know which direction I'd choose?" Fritti was gasping faintly as he struggled to maintain the older cat's pace.

"Many questions, little hunter. Not all can be answered now. Suffice it to say that I do not learn all I know at the Meeting Wall. I have wandered far in my day, and sniffed many, many things. I do admit that nowadays I derive a great deal of pleasure from sun-soaking-certainly I do not hunt as far afield as I once did. But, still, I have my ways.

"As to your other questions," he continued, "well, even a M'an-fed eunuch could have smelled your every intention, little quester. I have known since before Nose-meet-since before you knew yourself- that you would be striking out after litde Marshbat."

"Hushpad," puffed Fritti. "Her name is Hushpad."

"Of course, Hushpad. I know," said Stretchslow with impatience-and perhaps a touch of fondness. "It is my way," he added simply.

Stretchslow stopped suddenly, and Tailchaser fumbled to a halt beside him. Fixing Fritti with his great green eyes, the hunter said: "There are strange things afoot, and not just in the Old Woods. The Rikchikchik and the Folk making bargains is not the strangest. I ca

"How could I…" Fritti began to protest, but Stretchslow silenced him with a paw gesture.

"I have no more time, I fear. Smell the wind."

Fritti inhaled. Indeed, the breeze did carry a strange smell of cold and damp earth, but his senses could make nothing of it.

"You must learn to trust your feelings, Tailchaser," said Stretchslow. "You have some natural gifts there that may aid you where your lack of experience leads you into trouble. Remember, use the senses that Meerclar gave you. And be patient."

Stretchslow sniffed the air again, but Fritti could no longer smell anything unusual. The older cat then rubbed his nose on Tailchaser's flank.

"Keep your left shoulder to the setting sun when you leave the forest," he said. "That should put you in a profitable direction. Do not hesitate to speak my name as recommendation on your journey. In some fields I am well remembered. Now, I must leave."

Stretchslow trotted forward a few paces. Fritti, overwhelmed by events, sat watching him go.

The big cat turned around. "Have you had your Initiation to the Hunt, Tailchaser?"

"Umm…" Disconcerted, Fritti needed a moment to assemble his thoughts. "Umm, no. The ceremony would have been the Meeting after Eye-next."

Stretchslow shook his head and loped back to him. "There is not time, nor proper surroundings, for the Hunt-singing," he said, "but I shall do the best I can." In a daze, Fritti watched as Stretchslow settled back on his powerful haunches and closed his eyes. Then, in a voice much sweeter than expected, he sang.

"Allmother, the hunt-gifts We praise now, We praise now.

Keep us in your Eye; Our true-tails You compass us.

The sun is but fleeting, The Eye is of Always…

Allmother, listen us We pray you, We pray you.

Claw, Tooth, and Bone Is our pledge to your light."

Stretchslow sat with his eyes tight shut for a moment, then opened them and sprang to his feet again. No trace of the slowspeaking, slow-moving cat that Fritti had known seemed left but the cool gleam in his eyes. He appeared charged with purpose and energy; as he approached, Tailchaser involuntarily shrank back.

Stretchslow, however, only reached out and touched his paw to Fritti's forehead. "Welcome, hunter," he said, then turned and sprinted away-pausing briefly at the edge of a facing thicket to call: "May you find luck dancing, young Tailchaser." With that, Stretch-slow vanished into the undergrowth.

Fritti Tailchaser sank to the ground in amazement. Had all this really happened? He had been gone less than a day from his home, and yet it seemed forever. Everything was so astonishing!

He brought his hind foot up and began to scratch behind his ear-an outlet for the conflicting blur of emotions. As he scratched wildly, eyes half closed, he sensed movement all around. He leaped to his feet, alarmed.

The surrounding trees were full of flicker-tailed squirrels.

One of the larger ones-not the squirrel he had spoken with earlier-had shi

"You-you, cat-thing," it said. "Now come along-come. Now you talk-talk. Time you talk with Lord Snap."

CHAPTER 5

The difficulty to think at the end of the day, When the shapeless shadow covers the sun And nothing is left except light on your fur-

–Wallace Stevens

Fritti was climbing high into the treetops. The Rikchikchik who had summoned him stayed several branches ahead, leading him upward. Behind and all about, the rest of the squirrel party were leaping and chattering in their own tongue. He felt as though he had been climbing for days.

In the dizzying upper levels of the great live oak the procession halted for a moment. Fritti sat on a none-too-wide branch and waited for his breath to come back. Like all cats, he was a good climber, but he outweighed his squirrel companions manyfold. He had to cling tighter and maintain better balance than they, especially up here where the branches were getting thi

They stopped in one of the last trunk crotches: several large branches flaring out from the trunk of the oak. They had climbed so high that Fritti could no longer see down to the earth below through the overlapping limbs. The fetching party, augmented by scores of other Rikchikchik, watched him from a safe distance and squittered between themselves in amazement at the sight of a cat in the Lord's tree.

His legs aching, Tailchaser was again forced to rise and follow his hosts. After ascending a few more feet up the central trunk, spiraling upward on radiating branches, they turned out along a wide outreaching limb. Away from the trunk the bough's circumference became rapidly smaller, until Fritti balked for fear that it "would not hold his weight. The Rikchikchik urged him on, though, and he edged forward until he was forced to lie on his stomach and cling. He would go no farther.

As he lay-swaying gently in the breeze-the squirrel who had led the party chirped a brief signal. The tok-tok-tokking noise that he had heard earlier resumed. Craning his head, Fritti could see several of the Rikchikchik with nutshells clutched in their fore-paws, banging them sharply against the tree's trunk and branches in organized, staccato bursts of cadence.