Tailchaser’s Song

The atmosphere was full of cold traces of fear. The smells of his family and nesting place still hung, but they were overlaid with the awful scents of fright and anger. Although the impressions were much jumbled by the action of time and winds, he could also sense who had done this thing.

M'an had been here. The Big Ones had lingered for a long time, but had themselves left no mark of fear or anger. Their reek, as always, was nearly indecipherable of meaning-more like the busy ants and borer beetles than like the Folk. Here his mother had fought them to the end to protect her young, but the Big,Ones had felt no anger, no fear. And now his family was gone.

In the next days he found no trace of them, as he had feared he would not. He fled to the Old Woods and lived there alone. Eating only what he could catch with his still-clumsy paws, he grew thin and weak, but he would not come to the nests of other Folk. Thinbone and other friends occasionally brought him food, but could not persuade him to return. The elders sniffed sagely and kept their peace. They knew wounds of this type were best nursed in solitude, where the decision to live or die was freely made, and not regretted later.

Fritti did not see Hushpad at all, for she did not come to visit him in his wild state-whether out of sorrow for his situation or indifference he did not know. He tortured himself with imagined reasons when he could not sleep.

One day, almost an opening and closing of the Eye since he had lost his family, Tailchaser found himself on the outskirts of the dwellings of M'an. Sick and debilitated, he had wandered out of the protection of the forest in a kind of daze.

As he lay breathing raggedly in a patch of welcome sunlight, he heard the sound of heavy footfalls. His dimmed senses a

The Big Ones drew near, and he heard them cry to each other in their deep, booming voices. He closed his eyes. If it was fated that he should join his family in death, it seemed appropriate that these creatures complete the job that their kind had begun. As he felt large hands grasp him, and the smell of the M'an became all-pervading, he began to pass over-whether to the dream-world or beyond, he did not know. Then he knew nothing at all.

Slowly, cautiously, Tailchaser's spirit flew back to familiar fields. As thought came back he could feel a soft surface beneath him, and the M'an smell still all about. Frightened, he opened his eyes and stared wildly about.

He was on a piece of soft fabric, at the bottom of a container. It gave him a trapped, terrified feeling. Pulling himself onto his unsteady paws, he tried to climb out. He was too weak to jump, but after several attempts he managed to get his forepaws over the edge of the container and scramble out.

On the floor below he looked around, and found himself standing in an open, roofed-over area attached to one of the dwellings of the Big Ones. Although the smell of M'an was everywhere there were none in sight.

He was about to hobble away to freedom when he felt a powerful urge: hunger. He smelied food. Casting his eye about the porch, he saw another, smaller container. The food smell was making his mouth water, but he approached it cautiously. After sniffing the contents suspiciously, he took a tentative bite-and found it very good.

At first he kept an ear cocked for the return of the M'an, but after a while abandoned himself completely to the pleasure of eating. He bolted down the food, cleaning the container to the bottom, then found another full of clear water and drank. This gorging on top of his enfeebled state almost made him sick, but the Big Ones who had put the meal down, perhaps foreseeing this, had provided only modest amounts.

After he drank he wobbled out into the sunlight and rested for a moment, then rose to make his way up to the forest. Suddenly, one of his captors walked around the corner of the bulky M'an-nest. Fritti wanted to bolt, but his body's fragile health would not permit it. To his amazement, however, the Big One did not seize him, or kill him where he stood. The M'an merely passed by, leaning to stroke the top of Tailchaser's head, and then was gone.

So began the uneasy truce between Fritti Tailchaser and the Big Ones. These M'an, on whose porch he had found himself, never hindered his coming or going. They put out food for him to take if he wished, and left the box for him to sleep in if he so desired.

After much hard thought, Fritti decided that perhaps the Big Ones were a little like the Folk: some were good, and meant no idle harm, while some were not-and it was this second kind that had brought ruin to his family and his birthing-place. He found a kind of peace in this balance; thoughts of his loss began to recede from his waking Hours-if not from his dreams.

As health came back to him, Fritti once more found pleasure in the society of the Folk. He found Hushpad also, unchanged in whisker or tail. She asked him to pardon her for not visiting him during his upset days in the woods. She said she would not have been able to bear the sight of her playfellow in such distress.

Pardon her he did, and happily. With his strength returned, they once more ran together in the countryside. All was as it had been, except that Tailchaser was more given to silences, and a little less to happy chattering.

Still, his time with Hushpad was now even more precious to Fritti. They talked now, from time to time, about the Ritual that they would enter when Hushpad came to her season, and Tailchaser became a hunter.

And so their high summer waned, and the wind began to sing autumn music in the treetops.

On the last night before Meeting Night, Fritti and Hushpad climbed the hillside overlooking the M'an-dwellings. They sat silently in the dark of Deepest Quiet for a long while as the lights below flickered out one by one. Finally, Tailchaser raised his young voice in song.

"So high

Above the waving treetops, Above the teeming sky- We speak a Word

Side by side

Upon the rugged world-back, Beyond the sun and tide- This voice is heard…

We are traveling together With our tails in the wind We are voyaging together, We are sun-redeemed and warm.

Long now

We have danced within the forest. Looking only straight ahead- Lacking but the Word.

Soon, though,

We will understand the meaning In our whiskers and our bones- Now that we have heard…"

When Tailchaser finished his song they again sat quietly throughout the remaining Hours of the night. The morning sun rose to scatter the shadows and interrupt them, but when he turned to rub Hushpad's nose in farewell an unspoken promise hung between their commingling whiskers.

CHAPTER 3

They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.

–Edgar Allan Poe

The morning after Meeting Fritti awoke from a strange dream, in which Prince Ninebirds of Bristle-jaw's song had taken Hushpad and was ru

Shaking himself all over, as if to scatter the dismaying fantasy, Tailchaser rose and performed his early-morning grooming-smoothing down the sleep-ruffled fur all along his body, coaxing errant whiskers into place, and ending with a fillip that put his tail tip in perfect order.

Walking through the tall grass behind his sleeping porch, he could not shed the sense of foreboding that his dream had cast over the day. It seemed important, for some reason he could not remember. He should not-and could not-forget the dream. Why?