“I thought I’d have you over, as I got another plate yesterday,” Sam began when Will had settled himself on the orange chair to wait for dinner. “I won’t have just any kind of plate,” he went on. “It’s got to be a certain kind, and it’s not often I can get them.”
Sam pulled out the drawer of the table and took out two oddly shaped dinner plates. They were flat with a sudden right angle turn at the edges that gave them the appearance of cake pans. It was the color, of course, that made them special. They were a rich burnt orange.
“Where did you get the plates, Sam?” Stacks asked.
“Well, there’s a friend of mine down the river near Washington who has these big crocks. Maybe he only buys one a year, or two years. He saves them for things, uses them for saltfish and all that. I let him know long ago that if he ever broke any, or didn’t need one, that he should save them for me. Last week he knocked the edge off one with a stove poker, and I went down the river to get it. That’s the first one I’ve gotten since I got this one four years ago.”
Stacks listened. Sam ladled the stew onto his plate. The hot steam spiced with wild herbs rolled past his nose. The two men chatted amiably as they ate. Stacks agreed it was the most delicious rabbit stew he had ever tasted. As was the custom when eating all wild game, Will kept watching for shot and splintered bones. Sam noticed this.
“ ’Taint no shot in these rabbits. I caught them myself.”
“Traps?” Will asked.
“No, hands,” Sam answered. Stacks lifted his eyebrows and went on eating. Not a shot showed up as the plate emptied, not even a bone crushed by a trap or splintered by a shot. A strange feeling crept over the trapper. He leaned back in his chair at coffee time and looked at this neighbor whom he hardly knew. They talked about fish and wildlife after dinner, Stacks glancing from time to time at the garden-colored chairs, the kitchen and the old man. He was further from knowing this man than he ever had been.
Before he left, Stacks casually asked Sam where he thought Vison denned. The question came as a relief. Sam had been waiting for it all evening. Now he knew that he would not tell his secret, for he had already satisfied his vain desire to impress the trapper. He felt that by bringing Will into his house and serving him rabbit stew—the finest on the river—that he could forgo the pleasure of proving to Will that he knew where Vison denned.
“Oh, I’ll show you someday,” he said. “He might even have moved on by now. They don’t stay in one place too long.”
“That’s right,” Will answered. “They move around. Still I’d like to have that pelt; and the best way I can get it is by putting a trap right at his den.” The trapper walked out of the side door into the night and old Sam returned to his kitchen. He sat down, thinking of the beautiful mink that had so often figured in his life along the river. Then he thought of the trapper and of his many crafts. Sam took his white head in his hands and slowly ran his long fingers through the matted curls. Had the meal been enough? Did he still want to show the trapper that he knew much about the life of Vison, the Mink?
CHAPTER TWELVE
VISON AND THE STRANGER were still together when the snow drifted in across the hills and decorated the empty limbs of the forest trees. At night they left their dens almost simultaneously, and bounded out along the creek to the ponds, to the canal, and occasionally to the rocks and islands of the river.
Vison was beginning to enjoy the stranger’s company, even though he was never off guard. Constantly suspicious, constantly alert, he was prepared, should the old warrior take it upon himself to turn on him.
One night the relations changed. Vison and the monarch were swimming through the canal searching for fish. The old stranger climbed up on the edge of an oil can, saw a chub weaving through the tangle of submerged vegetation, and plunged. For the first time, he missed. Crawling slowly to the bank, Vison thought he saw the old champ falter as he pulled up the shore. There was a slight hesitation, then a determined effort, and the monarch leapt off to search the weeds of the bank for mice. Several days later, the same thing happened. The stranger faltered as he timed his leap at a rat.
Vison dropped his guard. He realized he had the advantage. No longer need he be cautious and wary. Here was a mink who could not stand up against him in a fight.
The signs of weakness did not bring tolerance to the younger mink’s heart. Rather they created hostility. Vison changed his attitude toward the stranger. For many days he ignored him, hunting on his own and meeting him with rising hair and snorting hisses.
On the occasions when the older mink joined Vison to hunt, the outlaw out-maneuvered and out-ran the one-time monarch of the mink. With bold confidence, Vison exhibited his talents to the stranger, many of which he had learned from the old mink himself. Nevertheless the oldster persisted in seeking out Vison. He accepted as inevitable the fiery aggressiveness of Vison and yielded before the outlaw’s thrusts.
He knew that it would be no Bubo who would kill him, no Vulpes, none of his woodland enemies. It would be Vison who would take him from the fields and canal, and thus send him down, fighting the ablest of all the mink of the Potomac River. So at the signs of hostility from Vison, the stranger waited, ready.
Days and nights passed in this manner until one evening, at the base of the foot log, Vison met the veteran coming down the bank. The sight of the old mink looking into his favorite den brought his patience to an end, and he advanced toward him in open hostility.
The old stranger looked up from the stream and saw the glittering eyes of the youthful mink, his low crouched haunches and his shaking sides. There was no time to retreat as Vison closed swiftly.
Both mink advanced within striking distance. Whether it was the subtile movement in the eye, or the electric tension of the muscles that gave the final signal would never be known—but Vison leapt and the stranger leapt. Their movements were too quick for the eye to follow. The old one’s teeth grazed Vison’s neck, closing with the intent to kill. Vison’s timing had the advantage of youth and good health. He gained the deadly neckhold a fraction of a second before the monarch, and the old mink went down.
Thus the leadership of the stranger was passed on to Vison. He was now the monarch of the Potomac. To him had come the rights of the mighty, the keen, and the youthful.
Through the winter Vison took his choice of the hunting areas without battle. His dominant carriage bristled with confidence and assurance. To the other mink that imperious attitude in the conquering Vison told them that he stood first among them.
Vison was away during much of the trapping season. For weeks he roamed the islands of the Potomac, fishing through the ice, chasing across the wooded isles, with only chance meetings with others of the population of woodland outlaws.
At the end of January, however, he grew restless for the meandering stream with its underwater gardens and rolling banks. He returned to the familiar glades of Muddy Branch.
As he came up the stream bed, he scented the cache of another mink. However, mingled with this was the smell of man, and Vison did not turn off his trail. That familiar combination sparked a warning within him. He continued along his way, sniffing the trails of mice and the hideouts along the bank. The traps of Will Stacks were not sprung.
When Stacks came by the next day and found the traps still empty, with the track of Vison printed in the snow nearby, he began to ponder his mistakes. For some reason he was misjudging this mink. Perhaps he was trap-wise; perhaps the lure was wrong. One solution would be to find his den and place an unbaited and untainted trap at the entrance. He was running over the possibility of Vison’s living in one of the many dens that his steps led to along the creek bed when he saw Sam and Al returning from the river.
Stacks joined them with a cordial hello and the three men followed a path through the woodland. They were silent, thinking of the day that was closing behind them and the things they had done and seen.
It was Al who arrived at the first vocal thought.
“D
id you ever get that big mink on Muddy Branch?” he asked.
“Just been walking along here thinking of him,” replied the trapper. “Can’t figure him out at all. I know where he hunts and fishes and have set two traps out, but I sure can’t get him to even sniff them.”
“Oh, he’s a clever mink, now,” Sam put in, glad to hear that Vison was still safe.
“Say, Sam,” Stacks said slowly. “Didn’t you say you knew where he denned? Now, if you could be so kind as to show me, I just might take that fellow.”
The question had been timed right. Sam knew there was no way out of it. Stacks had said, humbly, “If you could be so kind to me,” and the old Negro’s soul had filled with pride. He would show this trapper of Seneca one of the best-hidden secrets of the woods—the den of Vison, the Mink. He was sorry, but the desire to lead the trapper right up the stream to the hole beneath the foot log was too great. In a voice mingled with sadness and eagerness Sam said:
“I’ll show you, Will Stacks. It’s this way.”
The two men followed with excitement and anxiety. Will wondered what facet of this strange friend’s imagination lured him on now; and Al, always glad to change his direction in search of a new adventure, followed along whether he thought it would be fruitful or not.
As they pushed on through the saplings and blackberries, Sam envisioned the outlaw’s glittering eves and hoped that the mink might still evade the trap.
They broke through the bushes onto Muddv Branch at the spot where Vison fished. This Sam pointed out with considerable pride. Stacks looked it over. He wondered if there was anything here he had missed on his former scouting trips. He noticed a slide under the overhanging limbs of a paw-paw where the mink had slid to the water. Stacks considered all this sign carefully, and then hurried on to catch Sam, who had started hastily up the stream again.
When Stacks caught up with him he was leaning against a tree not far from Vison’s den. Al was looking around the base of the tree and at the holes in the stream’s shoreline.
“Here it is!” Sam said. He pointed to the tangle of wild cucumber vines at the base of the foot log. Al came up from the stream bed at the words and stood searching the area for the hole. Stacks walked to the snow-covered log and knelt down. Peering through the snow-pillowed entanglement without disturbing a branch, he saw the opening beneath the log. Caught on the thorn of a raspberry bush nearby was a tuft of fur. Stacks took it between his fingers and studied it. Mink. The den looked used. The more he looked the more he could see: trails that led out into the woods; the worn earth back in the tunnel. He sniffed the den. There was the indisputable scent of mink.
Satisfied that the old man was right, he began to visualize a trap nested cleverly at the entrance.
“Sam,” he said, his voice tense with excitement, “this sure looks like the real thing.” The trapper looked up, but old Sam had gone. He turned to Al who was bending down over the edge of the stream still looking for clues.
“Where’s Sam?” the trapper asked the fisherman. Al looked for the old man of Red Sand Hill, but the woods held only his departing tracks. He shrugged his shoulders and walked up to the den.
“He’s a strange one.” Al offered.
“Let’s not stay here too long. We’ve left enough scent here already to make the fellow move,” Will said after he had made up his mind as to how to win the prize pelt of Muddy Branch. They left the foot log swiftly and walked through the woods to the road.
That night by lamplight, Stacks worked late, boiling a trap to remove all scent of steel and man. This was to be his masterpiece of the season. Each year Stacks delighted in matching his wits against some noble animal of the woods: sometimes it was a fox; once it was an otter; this year it was Vison.
At dawn of the next day he awoke and hurried off to the stream to lay his trap. He went directly to the den, lifted the leaves, staked down the set, and left. Down the stream he gathered up the two other sets he had placed for Vison and took them to the canal. He set them in hopes of catching a mink that hunted that region.
That evening he came whistling up the hill to his shack. He was happy. The winter landscape was quiet, and Stacks was warm with peace. He gazed at the heavens. Draco, the Dragon, lay coiled between the dippers. Stacks saw the glittering eyes and graceful curves of Vison in the constellation.
Hardly had Stacks left the set, than Sam came to the den. He prowled the woods around the foot log all day, returning now and then to see if Vison was Will’s. At times he was tempted to spring the trap but, thinking of Stacks, he refrained. Yet he hoped that Vison could somehow get away.
As the color slipped out of the sky at dusk, and the nocturnal life of the woods began to stir, old Sam crept up the foot log and waited for his mink. Fifteen minutes passed. An owl hooted near the canal; a rabbit came out of its form and bounded quietly over the wet snow.
Then Vison appeared. He was suddenly at the door of his den. The trap lay directly before him. He smelled the air, his eyes bright with health and excitement. His flashing head darted from side to side as he looked out into the night. In an exuberant desire to be off through the forest, Vison jumped over the trap in a stretching leap. Alighting in the snowy leaves, he stopped and scented the air again. There was a faint odor of man about his den. Despite his care, Stacks had dropped a button from his coat. Vison tracked down the fading smell to the round object in the snow. The scent alerted his other senses. He looked about him. There was something strange about the leaves around his hideout, something unfamiliar. He saw the edge of the trap under its scant leaf and snow covering. Vison knew it was time to desert this den for another. His instincts warned him once more of this particular man smell. This was unlike the trails left behind by the hunters and fishermen passing over his land to the river. This was deliberate. This was the scent left at the strange mink caches. Vison bounded over the foot log and galloped easily to the pond for a solitary hunt among the muskrats.
Old Sam was delighted. Singing and chanting, he followed the creek to the River Road. As he stepped along, he sang of the crafty outlaw that had outwitted the trapper who lived on the hill. The chance leap that Vison had made grew into a sly and witty deed as the old man read his own feelings and thoughts into the woodland animal.
“Old Vison the mink, he leapt the trap.
And now he’s gone and won’t come back.
‘Old Will,’ he said, ‘you can’t fool me,
’Cause I can smell and I can see.
There’s just no man who’s got the knack
To catch my feet in an old steel trap.’ ”
Sam disappeared around the bend in the road, his voice rising and falling in the hushed winter woods.
Stacks barely slept. He was up and down all night, wondering if this were the moment that the mink stepped out of his den onto the hair trigger. When daylight finally arrived, he was dressed and down the hill. At the fence, the trapper broke into a half trot and came smiling onto the site of his trap. It was untouched. For a long time he stood there unbelieving, wondering how the mink had escaped. There were his footprints coming down from his den. They were fresh, made last night. The trap was still open. All the clues indicated that the mink should be in the trap. But he was not. Will sat down on the log and studied further the story of the escape.
What he had overlooked was the spirit of Vison. Despite his knowledge of animals and their habits, he could not know that on this particular evening, Vison had left his den with a bound, glad and eager to be off on his exciting hunting trips along the stream. It was that incalculable spirit of the vivacious outlaw of Muddy Branch, responding to the night, the stream purling, the trees moving, the fish swimming, that Stacks did not estimate.
Will knew it was useless to leave the trap. He felt that Vison was aware of the danger and would not be back.
Sam never asked Stacks about the success of his trap, though they saw each other frequently. And Stacks never told him that he still did not have Vison. He thought the old Ne
gro was sure he had taken his prize; and then at times, he had a feeling that Sam knew more about that trap than he himself did.
Stacks turned his mind to other things. He had much to do and to think about. He was still running his trap line and was getting a fine collection of pelts ready for sale.
The snowstorms of late February were blowing over the land. The streams were locked with ice. Into this cold land came the first signs of spring. The female mink prepared for the spring festivities, the vixen foxes sought their mates, and the great horned owls chose their nesting sites.
Vison abandoned his life of solitude along Muddy Branch and moved among his kinsmen. He traveled a vast domain. He had enlarged his range to include miles of waterways around Muddy Branch. He led the mating activities with ferocity, fighting off any males who dared stand against him.
He feared nothing in his woodland home. Vulpes and Bubo, his greatest enemies, he could escape with his agile talents by land or in the water. The men of the river he could elude by apparently vanishing even in the scantiest cover, and their steel traps he knew and evaded.
One thing that could defeat Vison began gradually to creep in over the hills and glades of his home. Men were buying up the abandoned lands along the riverfront for country homes. They cleared the underbrush, cleaned up the fence rows and planted in neat straight lines.
As the cleared area spread, the wildlife moved before it and changed. The sparrows, rats, and starlings remained. Vulpes and Vison hesitated to hunt the open fields where they could find no shelter, and the mice increased in numbers.
The tap, tap, tap of a hammer on the crossbeams of a house going up on the river shore, sounded through the woods. This was a new sound of spring along the river. The earth had thawed. It was warm enough to build. Other sounds rose one by one to this theme. The frogs piped and croaked. The birds began to sing. The water drained through the valleys and swelled the river.