Part Seventeen - Reprieve

"We have escaped like a bird out of the fowler's snare; the snare has been broken, and we have escaped." Psalm 124:7

"Norman? You can come out now. The storm has passed," called Winston, knocking on the root cellar's door. As the door could only be padlocked from the outside, he opened the door and peered inside. "Norman? Did you hear me? It's safe now."

"Is it gone? Is there anything left?" George was huddled behind a wall of potato crates.

"The house and the barn are fine, save for the windows and wet floors. However, I fear that the greenhouse and the crops..." Winston trailed off; he assumed George would figure that out on his own.

As George emerged from his shelter, he couldn't believe his eyes. The scene was eerily reminiscent of winter. The ground was white, covered in several inches of hailstones. Against the windward sides of the buildings, the hail was piled to two or three feet deep. He could indeed guess the effects that this would have on his crops, which had been so close to harvest. George turned to see the greenhouse, or at least its skeleton. Not a single pane of glass remained in the entire immense structure, and all of its contents were buried under shards of glass and hail. There would be no income from this farm, not this year.

"Insurance! You fool, you didn't buy insurance!" raged George.

"Right," Winston rolled his eyes, "Just as you ordered, oh stingy one, despite my advice." In fact, George had thrown a tantrum when he had learned that his employee had had the nerve to buy crop insurance without his approval. George had immediately visited the insurance company and used proof of his ownership of the farm to cancel the policy, if nothing else just to show Winston who was boss. There was no denying who did what now, and there was the documentation to back up Winston, should his former boss wish to press the issue. Oh, well, it's not my crop now, thought Winston triumphantly while George steamed.

Fuming, George whipped out his mobile phone and quickly stamped out a familiar number with his finger. As he walked around the ruins of the farm, he carried out a furious conversation.

"Yes, this is George Castles. I demand to speak to my father immediately!... Jim Castles, you dolt!... I don't care if he's in a meeting; this is an emergency!... I want to speak to him now, you little..." The following string of words carried clearly across the farm, causing Winston to wince, as well as the limousine driver and even the less refined exterminators, who were busy surveying the damage to their vehicles.

His tirade continued, "... and if I don't have him on the line in ten seconds, I'm going to personally see to it that you're sacked by the end of the day!... That's more like it!" George impatiently paced back and forth as he muttered under his breath. Finally, he continued, "Father? It's me, George... I know, and I'm sorry that I'm interrupting, but something's happened... It's that bloody storm, father, it's destroyed everything, the crops, the greenhouse... Everything! What am I going to do? And that bloody Winston Conner didn't buy any insurance!... What?! He told you what?... Father, I told him to get insurance, and he didn't listen... What papers?... No! Father, those papers are forged! I'm the one that bought the insurance, and he canceled the policy!" There was a pause, and George winced, knowing that his story had just blundered hopelessly. He listened as his father continued yelling from his end of the line. His face began to go white with fear. "No, father, you can't do that! I'll have no money! How will I live? Give me another chance; I won't be able to afford the taxes on the house... What?! You can't do that! I live there! Where in bloody tarnation am I supposed to live?... With you and Mum? Are you insane? I'm thirty-five years old!... A job? But I do have a job, I'm a businessman!... Work for you? What is the wage?... What?! I can't live on that! Who can possibly live on that?... A what?! Father, I am not a custodian! I am a first-class businessman! I absolutely refuse to be a custodian!... But... but... Oh, fine, then, I'll do it! But just for a while - until I find my own place, which will probably take ten years at that salary!... Ten o'clock tonight?! You want be to work tonight?!... Every night? Father, this isn't fair! The storm isn't my fault!..." George bowed his head in resignation, sighing, "Yes, Father, I'll see you tonight..."

George dashed the mobile to the hail-covered ground, sending some shards of black plastic skittering off over the ice. He than marched to the house, waving his arms in rage, and yelling random curses, watched amusedly by the others.

Soon, the mobile in Ken's limousine rang. He picked it up, and carried on a more civil conversation than the one that he just witnessed. "Yes, this is Ken speaking. Hello, Mr. Castles... Actually, your son just broke his mobile, that's why he wasn't answering... He just went back to the house... Yes, Winston's right here. Just a moment..." He looked at Winston and added, "Sir, it's for you. It's George's father.."

"Hello? This is Winston Conner here."

"Hello, I'm Jim Castles. Winston, I have a business proposition for you."

"Yes?"

"My son - and I use the word sparingly - told me that the storm ruined the crops. Right?"

"Oh, yes, Mr. Castles. I'd say everything is a loss."

"And I know full well that you tried to buy insurance, and that George canceled it for no sane reason. Anyway, I know that the farm was purchased from a Newbury lady named Mrs. Elisabeth West - if my memory serves me correctly - this spring for a half-million pounds, and that you were running the farm for Mrs. West, also?"

"Yes, that's correct. Mind you, Elisabeth was a whole world wiser with the business, if I do say so myself. Not to mention the fact that she paid me a lot more generously."

Jim laughed understandingly, "Yes, I can imagine. Anyway, Winston, what I am thinking is this: When the farm was bought from Mrs. West, I made sure that I retained ownership and set up the condition that George would buy it back with the profits of the farm. Now, here is the offer: I wish to sell you the farm. Of course, the price would have to be fair, say... a thousand pounds?"

Winston almost choked. "A thousand pounds? Oh, sir! Are you sure?"

"Quite sure. Oh, and of course, I'll cover your crop losses for this year. Also, I have another idea that I'd like to try."

"Oh, thank you sir! I can't believe this! What idea?"

"Well, as you might guess, my son is cut off of the money tree, so to speak, and since he had never saved any more money than to pay for his next doomed investment... Well, George seemed rather upset at the idea of spending nights mopping floors and cleaning toilets for me, so I was wondering if you might see fit to hire him as your farmhand?"

Winston fought down the urge to burst into laughter. Keeping a straight face, he replied, "Oh, I don't know... Oh... I guess I could use him. I'm sure he could swing a hammer. I was thinking that maybe I should build another barn and buy some Jerseys, and start up a dairy. Yes, that's it! He'll help build the barn, then, he can do the milking! I'm sure he'd love that!"

"Sounds wonderful, Winston, thank you very much. We'll meet tonight at my home, yourself, George, my wife Arlene, and myself, and we'll work out the details. How does nine o'clock sound?"

"We'll be there!"

"Excellent! Well, I guess that I should say good-bye for now. I have a meeting to get back to."

"All right. Good-bye, Mr. Castles. And, thank you again!"

"My pleasure. Good-bye."

Just then, George returned outside. "Ken, let's go. I have to go see my father."

"Oh, you're not going with me, George."

"What? That's, 'Mr. Castles' to you, Ken."

"No, it's, 'George' to me. Your father signs my cheques, and he's just informed me that you are longer on my client list. So, if you want to come with me, it'll cost you a hundred pounds per hour. Which, as I understand it, you can't exactly afford right now."

George fumed and made as if to strike the chauffeur, but he was restrained by Winston. "Hold off, George," said Winston, "Let him go. We've got some work to do here before we go and see your father tonight."

"That's your work! I'm leaving!"

"Not with me, you're not!" said the chauffeur. With that, he got into the limousine and drove out of the farm yard, leaving two tracks in the blanket of hail.

"Well," mused Winston, turning his attention back to George, "Since you're working for me, now, I'd say it is your work." He gleefully observed George's expression and continued, "Oh, yes - ask your father. Unless, you'd rather clean toilets. But, we'll worry about the details tonight."

The exterminators had now wandered over. "Well, the hoses are torn up," said Bill, "and the tanks are dented, but it looks like none of the gas is leaking, thank Heaven. Basically, we can't get rid of your rabbits today, Mr. Castles. Perhaps, next week?"

Winston replied for his new employee, "Oh, don't worry about that, we won't be requiring your services any longer. I'll cover the cost of you coming out, if you wish."

The exterminators looked at George, who looked away. They glanced at Winston, then at each other, and shrugged. "Suit yourself," sighed James, "I guess we'll be going, then."

"Have a good day, lads," replied Winston. He watched as their windowless and pockmarked lorries slowly struggled out of the hailed-in yard and out of sight.

As the limousine and the lorries drove to the other side of the river, the occupants were surprised to see how the worst of the hail was seemingly confined to the area of the farm where they had just been.

***

"What is that noise?" squealed one of the does that had chosen to stay in Grotto, "What are they doing to us?"

Beet replied calmly, "It sounds like that storm has broken out on the silf. Have you ever heard so much thunder?"

Restharrow added, "And it sounds like it's raining stones up there! One thing's for certain, it's not man doing that!"

"Who cares about the storm?" cried another doe in the darkness, "They're going to kill us!"

"Well, they haven't done much since they blocked the holes... and that was quite a while ago," replied her mate.

"They're waiting until after the storm, I tell you! They'll be back!" shouted another buck. A number of rabbits began to babble with fear.

"Quiet!" snapped Beet, "We are to just sit tight. If Frith wants us to live, we will." Beet had reassumed his position of Owsla Captain from Restharrow, and the authority in his voice had its desired effect.

The rabbits sat in darkness in silence, listening to the tumult of the storm above ground. Eventually, the torrential rain began to seep down the two tunnels that had been covered by the gas hoses which had now been torn free by the wind, but this didn't gain the notice of the rabbits who were huddled far down in the heart of the warren. Most of the water soaked harmlessly into the ground. The warren had been well-designed to withstand southern England's often wet weather.

Finally, they heard the storm abating. Beet decided to go above ground to investigate their new situation. As he climbed up the run and neared the exit, he was surprised at how much water had seeped in, turning the run into mud even some distance away from the surface. Then, there was the white glow from the hole itself. It was as if it was covered with a light blanket of snow. As Beet went further up, he was even more surprised to find that the hole was packed in and covered with balls of ice. He pushed through the large hailstones with his nose, and climbed up into a transformed world.

The ground was white as snow for as far as the eye could see, and the trees stood bare as if in mid-winter. He looked up nervously at the two men standing by their hrududil, and who didn't seem to take notice of him, even though he was now contrasted against the white ground. They were obviously occupied with other things, presumably the same strange scene that Beet was beholding. They were also closely inspecting their hrududil, which seemed to have suffered somewhat from the storm's onslaught. The hrududil's skin was dented like rain-pocked mud.

After a while of this, the men walked over to the other men who had been assaulting the warren, and who were now talking amongst themselves. Curious, Beet followed them at a distance. One of the men was obviously agitated. This was the same man that had shot him a few days earlier. The first two men then walked back to their hrududil, which then moved off into the distance and left the scene altogether. Beet knew that these hrududil were to be connected with man's attack, so why were they leaving now? Had plans changed? Did the storm have something to do with this? Beet went back to Grotto to report what he had seen. As he did so, he was surprised to meet Pipit and Fawn returning at the same time.

"You're still alive? Where are the men?" started Fawn, with hope in her voice that Restharrow was also all right.

"They've left," replied Beet, "I don't know why for sure, but the warren isn't zorn. Everyone is all right."

The two does sighed with relief. "Will they come back?" asked Pipit.

"I don't know, dear, but they seem to have changed their minds for now. How are the others? Are they at Cloudtree yet?"

"We left them at the river. We just had to come back, but we had to wait out the storm in a tree - and we're lucky to be alive, which is more than we can say for the tree." said Fawn.

Pipit added, "And I can't believe how much ice is on the ground just around here. It's more than twice as bad as where we were sheltered." She paused, and added firmly, "Well, I'm sorry to have left, dear, and I've returned to stay."

"And I, as well," chimed in Fawn, "I already miss Restharrow terribly."

"Well, Fawn," said Beet with a smile, "Restharrow feels the same about you. Come back inside you two, won't you? I'm sure that Oaktrunk and the others will be fine."

***

"So, what you're saying is that we still can't forget Pratt's little vendetta?" asked one of the displeased vixens. She looked up at the pouring rain that was soaking her fur and making them all miserable.

"Exactly," replied Kate, "I really have gotten to know that dog fox quite well, despite our spats. I want to see Gina dead as much as he does. And at least I know that she's the only one of Mara's family left - it makes the matter much simpler. So, spread out and find her! She can't have gotten far from that confounded farm; Pratt managed to hurt her quite badly before she escaped from what I saw."

"So, where did she flee to?"

"I was getting to that," snapped Kate, "Do you mind? Anyway, she was running toward the river, and will probably try to use it to cover her scent. Let's start there, shall we?"

After the foxes reached the river and moved downstream searching the bank for some minutes, they were met by the desperate vixen. Kate recognized her as Janice, one of the vixens of the area that was currently raising a family. Kate had invited Janice to join her group on several occasions, but was politely refused each time. No matter; the invitation would always be open.

"Janice, what's wrong?" prodded Kate.

"Do you know a dog fox named Pratt?" Janice spoke so quickly that she almost tripped over her words.

"Of course! Why, as we speak, we're helping him find one his granddaughters - named Gina."

"Yes - a while ago, Pratt was chasing after a vixen by that name," breathed Janice, and, noticing Kate's impatient nodding prompt, continued, "He asked me if I had seen her. I told him I had seen a vixen walking up the ridge to the top the river cliff, but that I didn't recognize who she-"

"Well, of course not!" spat Kate, "She's a bigger recluse than even you are, so obviously you wouldn't know her! If you would just run with my group for even a month, you would know these things!"

Janice put on the most indignant expression that she could muster. "Would you let me finish please?" She waited a few moments, to see if Kate would apologize. When no apology came, she continued at a more relaxed pace, "As I was saying, I didn't recognize the vixen, especially from a distance, but what I did notice was that she seemed to be following a group of rabbits. And she wasn't even chasing them - as a matter of fact, those rabbits didn't appear the least bit frightened! Oh, you should have seen the look on Pratt's face when I told him that! He went charging right up that ridge after them.

"Needless to say, that really piqued my curiosity, so I started to follow him up. However, before I even got there, I heard the sounds of a horrible fight. I stayed well back after that, and then all of a sudden, I heard a fox yelp. It was the kind that made my blood curdle; a kind of death cry. I thought it might have sounded like Pratt, and I knew it came from below the cliff, so I made my way back down the ridge and went downstream to see what had happened.

"Sure enough, at the bottom of the cliff, I saw two foxes lying there - Pratt, and the vixen I had seen earlier."

Kate couldn't stand it any longer. "What?! Why didn't you just tell me to start with? Is Pratt all right?"

"Well, I don't know - they weren't moving, and I didn't check on them. I came looking for help right away."

"You didn't check?! You little..." Kate shocked her friends with a string of expletives which made them flatten their ears and which likely would have caused even George Castles to blush if he could have understood the fox tongue.

"Well, no," spluttered Janice in an exasperated tone, "What could I have done? I thought that I should find others first."

"Well, where is he?" cried Kate, on the verge of tears.

"Come on then, I'll show you."

When the arrived at the scene, the rain had lessened more, but was still falling at a decent rate. The thunder had all but abated; only occasional rumbles and sharp booms were heard from behind the heaviest veil of dark grey rain moving away into the distance.

Just as Janice had said, there lay Pratt and Gina. Pratt's mouth was barely open and surrounded by rain-dispersed blood; there was no doubt that he was dead. Upon putting her ear to Pratt's cooling chest, Kate began to break into sobs.

One of the vixens checked on Gina as well, and after confirming that she, too, was dead, spoke up, "Well, I really don't know what to make this. It's a shame, really, but I never much knew either of them. Kate, I'm really sorry."

"He was really quite a jerk, wasn't he," sniffed Kate, "Trying to boss us around with his little mission to find Mara's family." At this she paused thoughtfully, then went on, "But maybe that's what I got to like about him in the short time I knew him. So confident and assertive, and so determined... I've never met any dog fox like him before. I thought maybe... someday... he might... we might..." Her voice trailed away.

"You've never known any like him because most dog foxes stay away from you," observed another one of the vixens. Upon noticing Kate's icy glare, she quickly added, "No doubt because they know that they don't measure up to your stature." She finished meekly, "I'm sorry, too, Kate..."

Kate's old friend Brenda spoke up finally, "Kate, you weren't thinking that he was going to be your mate this winter, were you? You realize that Pratt had a mate of his own, don't you?"

Kate snapped, "If it were any of your business, maybe I was. And if it had ever come to that, I'd have fought her for him."

"Well, that's past praying for now," replied Brenda, "There's nothing more to do here. I've got to get back to my den now."

After Janice left, the other vixens left one by one. Eventually, only Kate remained, lying on the rocks and looking woefully at the body of Pratt. As the rain eased still further, she finally got up, touched Pratt's nose with her own, and after whispering a last farewell, she slowly trotted back upstream to where the others had returned.

***

After Arum had spent some time recovering from his near-drowning, the rabbits decided to make their way back upstream to the base of the cliff where Gina and Pratt had fallen. They had little doubt that their friend was dead, but they had to be certain; to say their farewells.

"Arum, you saved countless lives today," said Oaktrunk, "You know that, don't you?"

"It was an honour, sir," replied Arum, "You're my friends, after all."

As they neared the place where the hombil had fallen, however, they quickly scampered behind rocks to hide themselves. They could see other hombil now which were looking over the bodies of Gina and Pratt. Fortunately, the rabbits were neither seen nor scented by them. One vixen in particular seemed upset to the point of tears, and seemed most distraught over Pratt.

"Do you think that they are coming after us?" asked one of the does nervously.

Arum replied, "I have a feeling that it was Mara and her family that was the sole target. With Gina dead, I suspect that they will call their search off."

Indeed, the hombil soon went back upstream, away from where the rabbits were in hiding. After some time of sulking alone, the last vixen vanished up the river bank, leaving the bodies of Gina and Pratt alone.

When they reached the bloodied stones where the two hombil lay, it was clear that Gina was dead. It appeared that she had bled to death from the bite to the throat delivered earlier by Pratt. How she managed to still tackle Pratt at the cliff after receiving that wound eluded the rabbits.

"Well, my friend, I wish to thank you for our lives," said Oaktrunk sadly, "Farewell, until we meet again. I'm certain that El-ahrairah will have the promised friends in his warren."

"Thank you, Gina. Goodbye-" was all Meadow could manage before breaking into bitter weeping. Her father finished for her.

"Goodbye, Gina. I know you're with your family now, and I can't wait until we can all be together again." said Arum, "I'm sure we'll have plenty to catch up on."

"Father," Meadow sobbed, "can we go now?"

Arum looked at Oaktrunk, who offered, "Yes, we should be going soon. We'd better get to Cloudtree in case there are more hombil about."

The band of refugees started off glumly, grieved over the death of Gina. As the panic of their escape faded, the deaths of their friends in the destruction of Grotto began to dawn full force on them.

************