“Hush! Don’t speak that way, sister.”
Clutch spent some effort applying this heroic perspective to himself. The Idle Notion could only have been originated by Sleek and Light. The pathos of their capture and the courage of their rescuer would have caused the account to be exaggerated at every retelling. In the process of its transmission, the story had acquired a warning: if the Clan Fathers didn’t treat Sleekfoot and Lightfinger well, this Mighty Hero would step out of his light again and bring justice to all.
“What is the name of this hero?” Clutch decided to ask.
“It is unknown. Sleekfoot and Lightfinger will not reveal it. They are being starved of nourishment, allowed to eat only grass until they do, yet still they won’t reveal the name of their champion.”
Interesting, thought Clutch. But his next thought was for his kin. “If they are starving, we must get food to them.”
The two ladies looked at him as if he was crazy.
“I am coming down from this tree. Pray do not be alarmed.” Clutch tried not to show the stiffness in his thigh as he descended the willow. It wouldn’t help Sleekfoot and Lightfinger at all if the two ladies identified him as the mysterious hero. At least, not immediately. This was the circumstance the Fox had predicted. It called for unswerving loyalty along the crooked path of cunning. Helpful that he didn’t look like a mighty hero. He didn’t look like anything. He was an unknown. The women’s noses were twitching. They were sniffing him.
“Blessed Lady Hap preserve us! He’s a spy!” The two ladies leapt backward in alarm. They were ready to flee.
“He’s a spy. A personal spy. For the One Who Can’t be Named.”
Now what was he going to do? Being a spy was even more threatening than being a Clan Father. Of course, it was. He was Meatbreath’s son.
The two ladies huddled in fear. He had to find a way to persuade them he was friendly, to show that he could be trusted.
“Let me gather food with you. Then you’ll have more to take back. By the way, how do you carry it back?”
The ladies nodded silently. They were in no position to refuse his offer. He smelled River Clan elite. Funny to think he was superior – he who’d been born in a chimney and raised by a single parent. Yet the Fox’s second prediction was coming true: You smell like Beaver Creek aristocracy. How do aristocrats behave? He had an idea that they swaggered and drawled their vowels. Whatever they did, he had to imitate their manner. Use it as a cover. The wisdom of a Fox.
“We drag the gleanings home across the grass by means of a cunning invention of the Primates. It is called a bag.”
“We find them in the waste bins. Some we unearth from the lake bottom.” The second lady was trying desperately to be helpful.
“Alright, then – let’s gather food.” Clutch looked down into the water. There was Star Duckweed in the lagoon, a favourite of the Mallards. And Water Celery, and the aptly named floating plant called Coontail which everyone ate: fish, ducks, geese, and muskrats. “I’ll throw it up to you from the pond and you can put it in your bag.”
“But monsieur, you’re wounded. And I smell infection. You must be treated immediately.”
“I shall dive down and find some Crowfoot. It stops the bacteria,” the first woman said. She turned to her companion. “You get the bag.”
“Monsieur, I must go and fetch the bag from where I’ve hidden it.”
“Yes, let us do that and I will get started in the pond.” He hoped this display of kindred effort would help the ladies relax. Relaxed enough to be trusted with his secret. While the second lady was away, he’d talk to the first lady. She still had some defiance in her.
He waited on the shore for her to surface with a mouthful of tiny white buttercups.
“Tell me something about yourself,” Clutch asked while she rubbed the antiseptic plants into his torn back.
“I shall tell you my name only – otherwise I will cry. My name is Silverheels. I am of the Firefly Family of the River Clan at Creek Town.”
“Ouch!”
“A little tender there. In the thigh. Whatever have you been doing?”
“Is No Name at Creek Town?”
“Sir, he has gone across the lake to the city. I don’t wish to speak of him further. We are not permitted to.”
The tyrant is away, Clutch thought. That made it easier for him to continue on his eastward quest. But first he had to rescue his two friends, Sleekfoot and Lightfinger. And stay in Creek Town long enough for his wounds to heal.
26
From beneath a table on the patio of the bar, Bandit heard a rustling at the top of the vine where Sensibel had been taken. Two descending shapes making no effort to be discreet. Raccoons in this town owned the night, and it showed in their heedless, carefree spirit. The city was a place to be young in, and these two dandies sounded flagrantly young.
“I wouldn’t take that Barbi-coon out on a date if Lockjaw gave me a bottle of beer for every hair in her tail.”
“She sure fills the eyes though.”
“For that eyeful, you have to pay by the word. Did you listen to her go on? Total word-dump! Where does Lockjaw get his ladies?”
“That one floated down from the Heights by the look of her.”
“But she’s half River Clan, or my nose is off track.”
“The corn-fed wench wouldn’t even let me smell her glands. Said it was rude. Then she asked what hole I came out of.”
“But you’re Creek Town elite!”
“And then – get this! – she says I need to go to school and acquire manners before I dare court a lady.”
“She thinks Lockjaw brought her here to be courted.”
The abbreviated exchanges of urban raccoons, like messages on the web. No threat here. Bandit shuffled out from beneath his table.
