A Weasel Gone Awry

The following is a preview of a short-story from my upcoming anthology, The Agrigore. This collected volume will serve as a companion to my first book, Frog of Arcadia. If you enjoy my work, children’s literature told with an old soul, please consider supporting my future publications by subscribing.

On a fine autumn day, Farmer Lewis’ boy was a-hunting with his trusty dog, Huckleberry. Ordinarily when the two of them walked together, it was their custom to sing a little melody. Rather, I should say that the boy would often sing while his faithful dog would howl along as best he could. But today, there would be no singing, for as I said they had gone a-hunting, and everyone knows that hunting calls for silence. In fact, the boy considered any sort of frolic on a hunt to amount to taunting, and he was far too sportsmanlike to engage in such foul practices.

And so they marched, keen and silent.

Through upland fields and shallow fords the two of them moved, side by side, taking in the fleeting glory of an Indian summer. The boy kept his shotgun slung proudly over his shoulder. It had been his first real gun and his most prized possession.

Suddenly spying some small game, perhaps enough to fill their pot, the dog froze and stiffened his frame. His beautiful brindle coat shimmered in the sun, as his eyes focused intensely upon a small dell in the distance. Then quickly, the old English pointer darted across the cut crops for those distant trees as the boy made ready from behind.

Disappearing into the hollow, the dog was leading the boy frightfully far from home – further than he had ever roamed before. The boy was afraid. But when the boy finally did reach that dell, he marveled at the oasis which his dog had led him to. There, a spring-fed pond had been hidden amongst the trees; an idyllic watering hole which would have been a great temptation under normal circumstances. The pond’s refreshing allure was magnified on that unseasonably warm day. But it had been months since he had tasted bird, and so it was that his mind remained committed to the hunt. And to locating his dog.

The boy soon breathed a sigh of relief as he found Huckleberry digging at the root of a mighty, old growth tree. In its branches was room enough for a boy to spend his days. “What’d ya find, Huck?” he asked, clutching his shotgun. Huckleberry gave no reply, concerned only with the passionate dig to which he was presently engaged. Posturing for a view, the boy stood on his toes to peak over his dog’s head. From under the root, he spied a golden coloured weasel contorting itself desperately to keep away from the dog’s terrible muzzle, which had been close enough to wet the poor critter with strings of drool.  

The boy paused for a moment to consider. Surely this was one of the weasels who had so greedily cleaned out his family’s chicken coop, not months earlier. Matter a fact, the boy thought, Dad’d be right proud of me if I bagged this varmint. But as he watched the creature’s desperate plight, he pitied it.

“Off, Huck!” the boy finally commanded of his dog, grabbing Huckleberry by his orange neckerchief.

Huckleberry was in a state of disbelief, reluctantly ending the pursuit of his game.

“What’s done is done,” the boy explained to his confused dog. “Killin this rascal won’t bring back not one of our chickens. And we ain’t gettin any new chicks til next Spring. Besides, I ain’t got no appetite for weasel. We only kill what needs killin.”

Though the dog would whine with displeasure, he faithfully endured his master’s command, however offensive it was to his most basic instincts.

“Come on, Huck,” the boy motioned, as he slung his shotgun back over his shoulder. “let’s go bag a pheasant or somethin.”

As the fearsome duo departed, Ichabod remained frozen in disbelief, scarcely trusting his own senses. He had already prepared himself to die under that root; to be digested by a dumb dog. But as the reality of his survival set in, the weasel began to ponder his destiny, and the value of his own life. It was true that he had been actively involved in robbing the boy’s chickens, and that not one of those hens been spared. But since then, he and his fellow weasels had been scattered, and Ichabod had found himself alone and confused.

The weasel’s mind was spinning as he emerged from that shallow den. Why had he been spared the same fate as those hens? The boy’s forgiveness had to mean something, Ichabod tried to reason. But what? As clever as weasels may be, this philosophical chestnut was too marvelous for Ichabod’s mind to crack. Still, he was sensible enough to conclude that his life must be worth something; that he wasn’t just born to eat and die, as all weasels are raised to believe. For a weasel then, this line of thinking would amount to an existential crisis to say the least, if not downright treason. But Ichabod had received grace, and for that he would never be the same.

Finally, the weasel slunk out of the den and moved to the edge of the tree line. The boy and his dog had since moved well beyond the dell.

“I owe my life to that boy,” Ichabod spoke aloud. Though he understood this to be true, he knew not what to do about it.

***

The boy and his dog continued along their search for something to fill their pot. Faithfully, Huckleberry had put the weasel out of his mind, knowing it was outside of his masters will, and that was good enough for him. Their minds were again fully engaged in the hunt.

On the horizon, over the cut corn, danced another dog clear as day. A coyote, the boy rightly perceived. But Huckleberry’s mind was elsewhere, for a male dog knows a female from a mile away. The boy became frightened to see that the frolicking stranger had his dog’s full attention, for he knew that coyotes were pack hunters. “Easy, Huck,” spoke the boy, now realizing that they had roamed too far from home. “Its time we headed back.” But this time, Huckleberry didn’t flinch. Instead, the dog darted out to meet that femme fatale on the horizon. The boy gasped as he spied two other bigger coyotes coming from his dog’s flanks, laying ambush to his poor pooch.

Reactively the boy gripped his shotgun by the stock and braced himself. With his iron sights, he drew a beat on one of the darting wild canines and fired off a true shot, felling the mangy beast with a yelp.

At that fearsome cry, Huckleberry froze in place as he saw the other coyotes darting in different directions. The boy had saved his thankful dogs life. Shaken by the event, they both knew that they had wondered too far, and that it was time to go home. The hunt was off.

Seeing that the duo had departed, Grey Coat re-entered the clearing to visit the lifeless body of his kin. He already knew that his brother was dead, there would be no surprises there, for he had heard that morbid yelp before – it was the uncanny call of death which followed a sound like the cracking of the sky. As Grey Coat stood over the blood-soaked corpse, he was filled with anger. How could we have been so careless around a human with a thunder-stick, he growled. But soon his thoughts began to fester. Who gives this human the right to take the life of one dog for another? he barked with rage. Is not the pack worth more than a single dog?

It was there in the field as the sun began to decline, standing beside the lifeless body of his brother, that Grey Coat swore revenge. “I will kill the boy,” pledged the mangy menace, who was now showing his teeth. “I swear it by the blood of my kin.”

***

As the hot days of that Indian summer carried on, the afternoon sun would beguile the inhabitants of the countryside with laziness. Those were the kinds of days that whipped up a hot wind, which caused grit to stick to the sweat of your brow. Nonetheless, too many lazy days in a row can plague a boy with boredom. And so it was that the increasingly restless boy decided it high time to re-investigate that little spring-fed pond which he had found in the dell. But try as he might, he could not get his lazy dog to budge. The boy fancied that this was where the term dog days of summer must have come from, for pooches can get quite lethargic after a few days of hot sun.

And so it was, that the boy decided to disembark on his own. With his trusty shotgun slung over his shoulder, he committed himself to go no further than that hollow, for that was the newly perceived borderline for his safety. And since his mind wasn’t on hunting, the boy sang loudly as he walked, heigh-ho, the derry-o!

Thrilled he was when he reached the dell for the sun was still in the middle of its great race across the sky and the pond beckoned him with promises of refreshment. Hanging his shotgun up by its sling on a nearby branch, the boy jumped into the cold water pell-mell, throwing caution to the hot, sticky wind.

As he splashed and treaded water, the revived boy sang all the more pleasantly. “Hey, diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle” he giggled with glee, foolishly unaware that he was being watched.

Grey Coat had heard the carefree melodies that the boy had been singing all the way through the harvested fields. A dog himself, Grey Coat was quick to realize that the watering hole must be the boys planned destination. And so it was that the vengeful coyote separated himself from his pack, hell bent on retribution. Alone he raced to the hollow and hid himself among the undergrowth, ready to waylay the lad in cold blood.

With malicious yellow eyes, the lone coyote stalked the boy. Creeping toward the pond, that stealthy predator shrewdly positioned himself between the bank and the tree where the boy’s shotgun hung. With drool dripping from the fangs of his open jaw, Grey Coat revealed himself with a terrible growl.

“Whose there?” the boy hollered, only now realizing how vulnerable he had left himself. Looking helplessly to his gun, the boy winced at the sight of that drooling coyote staring him back in the eyes, grinning a toothy smile.

The dog laughed to see such sport.

But suddenly, a weasel darted out between them, running right under the nose of Grey Coat who could not believe his eyes. The boy recognized the weasel as the one he had saved from his own dog, not days earlier. But before he could wonder at what that crazed weasel was up to, the boy heard a familiar bark from the brush as Huckleberry burst onto the bank, apparently in hot pursuit of that very weasel.

Seeing that mangy predator standing on the bank above his master filled the pooch with righteous anger. With fangs out, Huckleberry threw himself at Grey Coat’s neck, immediately drawing blood. In all the commotion, Grey Coat had let his guard down; that tricky weasel had gotten the better of him.

As his dog brawled with the coyote on the bank, the boy quickly seized the opportunity to retrieve his gun and slay the foul beast. The close-range blast cracked the sky as Grey Coat made his final yelp.

From under that old familiar tree root, Ichabod watched as the boy and his dog embraced over the body of that fearsome menace. The reformed weasel puffed breathlessly with satisfaction. He knew that he had only gotten Huckleberry’s attention in the nick of time: having seen that the boy was almost certainly walking into an ambush, Ichabod had revived the dog from his lazy haze to chase him through the fields at a breakneck pace toward the coyote. This was a risky plan. Ichabod knew that if he had failed, both he and the boy would have surely perished.

Ichabod was tired now, but he had finished the race and had won something of value.

It was then that Ichabod felt the strangest sensation, for a weasel that is. He found that his furry lips had involuntarily stretched themselves tightly across his teeth. It was a pleasant but uncomfortable feeling, as he was using face muscles which he had never used before.

For the first time that anyone can recall, a weasel was smiling. And compassion had made all the difference.

I truly hope that you enjoyed this short story. This tale was written as a supplement to my first book, Frog of Arcadia. If you haven’t read Frog of Arcadia yet, you can grab your copy here. Please feel free to share your thoughts below. And thank you for reading A Weasel Gone Awry.

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