Pax: Chapters 14–17

It took a torturously long time to circle the cabin.

He took a lurching swing across the room.

She took another section of quilt and stripped the batting off, then ripped the yellow calico into strips and dunked them into the plaster.

The cornmeal had a gritty crunch; the ham was smooth and salty against the sweet syrup.

I’d sprawl on the grass underneath those trees with fireflies flashing all around and katydids singing, a heap of peaches on my belly, and I’d eat them till the juice ran into my ears.

His hands, always moving, with their scent of chocolate, which Pax loved, and of mitt leather, which he loathed.

As the two foxes traveled on, Pax reflected on the puzzle of the other scent of his boy—his underlying scent.

It hung between grief and yearning, and it welled from a deep ache for something that Pax could never divine.

They crossed the marshy seam of the valley and climbed the rocky cliffs, shoulder to shoulder this time.

And almost immediately the ground beat with the light staccato of paws tearing toward them.

The challenger spun around in surprise, and Pax charged him headlong.

Pax shook off the blood from a dozen superficial scratches and then cleaned Gray’s wound.

The two padded steadily for an hour through light woods, Pax restraining himself to keep pace with the ailing Gray, relieved at least that they kept moving.

Their discord set Pax’s nerves on edge.

Pax attuned himself once more. West. Still distant, but nearing.

But when Pax trotted back to the path to resume the journey, Gray faltered.

These thoughts calmed Pax and he dozed with the memory of Peter’s knuckles kneading the loose skin between his shoulder blades so real that his fur ruffled under it.

None of the humans had his reedy form, none moved with the same quick energy, none held himself as Peter had—upright, but with a downward cant of his head.

None of the humans had his reedy form, none moved with the same quick energy, none held himself as Peter had—upright, but with a downward cant of his head.

A discarded pork bone, still redolent with fat, proved too much to resist.

His foot throbbed, his shoulders ached, and his armpits were so chafed that they were bleeding.

“Another true piece of myself I recovered: I remembered that I'd made some marionettes for my little nieces when I was a teenager. I remembered how much I loved carving the wood.”

But the next minute she’d rub her salve into his aching shoulders, or sand the splinters off his crutches, or drop her chores to fix him a mug of hot chocolate, and he’d realize how much care she was putting into making him strong and mobile, and he felt guilty.

Looped neatly over pegs beside each marionette was an array of dowels and paddles, strung together with thin black cord.

She pulled a small book from a niche in the wall, then came and sat beside Peter with it cradled in her hands.

Vola handed the control apparatus to Peter.

He left Gray and climbed upstream to a place he’d discovered where the river narrowed beside a gorge wall and the underbrush beside it was dense enough that he could move about unseen by the humans.

He’d had little luck hunting—the area was teeming with mice and rabbits, but they scampered from Pax’s clumsy attempts to catch them.

Afterward, they all toiled—in the field, in the vehicles, unloading more and more machinery—but no one went near the grub tent until dusk, when the same two would cook the evening food, then call the others to gather.

Peter and three other boys had rushed each other from these stone walls, whooping and brandishing sticks.

Inside, meat hung above tables heaped with onions and potatoes—a bonanza for his taking.

When he was a yearling, the father had brought a fan to his boy’s room.

The great hemlock bough lay across Gray’s chest, cleaved from the tree.

As dawn crested, he entered the challenger’s territory, and still he ran.

Pax slept fitfully through the afternoon, plagued by dreams in which his boy was tangled in smoking wires.