Smiler 01 The Runaways by Victor Canning

Author:Victor Canning [Canning, Victor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

8. A Happy Event – and Others

Yarra had her cubs at six o’clock on Saturday evening. It had been a beautiful, warm April day. She lay most of the time on the patch of chalk just outside the cave entrance, blinking her eyes in the sun and watching the valley and the deserted village. Chiff-chaffs were calling in the tall trees. There was a bright sparkle of water by the road, where a spring rose to feed the little brook that ran through the village and away down the far valley. Two cuckoos exchanged their call signs most of the morning. Once a jay flighted up the valley side and sat in an ash above Yarra and scolded and shrieked at her. The movement in her belly went through her in slow waves and she changed her position frequently to find ease. She saw a Land Warden’s patrol car move through the village twice during the day.

As the afternoon finally wore away Yarra got up and went into the gloom of the cave. Within an hour two cubs were born. They were little larger than kittens. Their eyes were shut and there was only the faintest shadow of marking on their grey bodies. Yarra cleaned herself, nuzzled the cubs close to her licked and groomed them. They made pathetic mewing noises, their wet pelts starred with white chalk dust. After an hour they found her dugs. They butted and chewed at them for a while, finally found the coming milk, and began to suck. One cub was slightly larger than the other. This was a male. The other was a female.

Yarra lay happily with them, her head facing the cave entrance, her ears alert for any sound. When darkness came the cubs slept, cradled into the warm fur of her belly. Yarra caressed them with her muzzle and now and then licked at them. The restlessness had gone from her and she was at peace with the world.

With the coming of dawn light she was suddenly hungry. She stood up. The cubs sprawled away from her clumsily and then found one another. They huddled blindly together as Yarra left the cave.

She went up over the valley ridge on to the wide plain lands. Dawn was just coming up. On the wind from some distant farm came the sound of a cock crowing. A few early larks had risen and were filling the sky with song. Yarra trotted up the ridge to the higher reaches of the combe where it shallowed and finally merged with the long, undulating slopes of the high plain. Coming down wind to her Yarra suddenly caught a familiar scent. She froze and surveyed the ground. There was a slight movement in some tall grasses fifty yards ahead. Against the grass Yarra’s keen eyes picked out a brown, white-mottled form, and she moved fast. Her body now was lighter than it had been, and there was a fierce joy in her that spurred her on as much as her hunger.

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