Escape of the Foxes

The foxes had unwisely dug a lair in an irrigation ditch because the soil was moist and soft and a great place for the female to have her kits. It was a big one with two entrances twelve feet apart. There had been some rain in the early fall and the dark green cotton was well-established and tall. The farmer thereby did not irrigate and immediately bring their habitation to disaster.

Noctural and cautious, they avoided notice until one early evening when the male was near the house on the northern hill, scouting chickens, and the farmer saw him running away. The sardonic little man in khakis and a stained felt cowboy hat looked for the lair the next day, a Friday, and upon finding it decided to drown them out by starting the well engine a half-mile away and flooding the ditch.

One of his best friends, the blacksmith-welder in Victory, was bringing his wife and children the next night for supper and canasta and he had the man and his son come early to help get rid of the foxes. He got a wire cage for his grandson and the blacksmith's boy to hold over the second entrance on the north side of the ditch as the water coursed into the first. He thought the foxes must have kits and hoped both adults would run into the cage.

The boys knew they could be bitten unless they held the cage dead center over the hole and the foxes had nowhere else to go. The unmuffled irrigation engine started and here came the water, scuttling down the ditch and then pouring into the hole. They were startled when the female, little and red, burst out over the water and got away south into the cotton. But sure enough, the cage shivered and filled with the bigger male and the farmer's grandson pulled the cage up just enough to close the door and wire it shut. Wild as anything they had ever seen, the fox was caught. The cage had a handle, but he did not seem inclined to bite the older blacksmith's boy's hand as they walked to the dirt road to avoid trampling any cotton and made their way toward the old adobe farmhouse. It was almost dark and after the boys and their sisters had looked at the fox for awhile, it was mostly forgotten while they ate and then played hide and seek among ancient elm trees in front of the house.

Invisible in the south field but not far away, the female yipped. The male had no interest in anything but getting away, but it was a good cage and the door was secure. The blacksmith's boy was unsure of the fox's value to the men or the other boy. He went to the front porch a couple of times and watched it staring into the field and sometimes yipping back hysterically. He understood the need to drive them away, but he was sorry the kits were dead and they were separated. He had never liked seeing dogs chained or fenced and felt acutely now that wild things should run free. He went inside to see if any of the grownups were interested in the fox, but they were convivially playing their card game. He starting thinking no one would care much if he let it go because the foxes would surely leave the farm now.

He had shot a lot of birds and rabbits and sometimes considered his choice to shoot or not. He had usually shot and rarely missed, but the sense of responsibility was much greater with this bigger, more sentient animal -- miserable and doomed because the farmer had no reason to let it go. The farmer would probably do something with the pelt because it was young and its fur was good.

No one else was around the porch. The boy felt he would always be happy with letting the foxes reunite and go on their fugitive way, but it was more with a sense of imperative that he moved to the cage and reached down. Fixated on the darkness, the fox paid no attention as he unfastened the wire, quietly opened the door and stepped back. It bolted with the same astonishing speed its mate had displayed and the boy imagined its running to her and their briefly licking each other's faces before scampering away in the night, where the richly scented Texas Panhandle air swathed the countryside under the moonless sky.

Email: James Robert Campbell

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