I really liked driving country roads on pitch dark nights. The universe seemed to shrink to a singularity as the headlights exposed a road that unfolded in quick time with a blur of shadows on the periphery. The blinking center line and the engine hum combined to cast a hypnotic-like spell. One such night was in the fall of the mid nineteen sixties. I was heading home to Kokomo from Smithville, a small town where I taught in southern Indiana. I skirted Indianapolis by taking county roads west of the city. It was after midnight and most other cars had bedded down. I was deep within myself when a sudden intrusion broke the trance. A fox stood frozen in the middle of the road, and then a light thud sounded as the car went over it. I’d never hit a fox before, and I had no wish to view a dead one, but I slowed to a stop, turned around and went back.
I don’t know why I stopped. I had never bothered to before. I knew positive outcomes are greatly diminished when hard projectiles collide with soft flush. Trying to miss them seldom succeeded as they were too soon in harms-way. Besides, I’d seen road-kill enough to know what it looked like. I had converged with birds, ran over rabbits and squashed squirrels. This one would register as just another sad ending. One of many.
I hit a skunk once. Its redolence chased after my car for miles. Its ghost lingered for days. Another time, when driving through desert country at night, I kept seeing these giant jack rabbits. They sat by the side of the road, on their haunches, tall and slim, like fence posts. I thought they were hallucinations. It was my second night without sleep and I’d already witnessed several impossible events, so I knew they weren‘t really there. I enjoyed the spectacle though, and started counting the specters until number fifteen ran under my car producing a racket that rattled me from my revelry.
One collision bothers me to this day, a dog I hit in southern Indiana. We were driving through gently rolling hills. I crested one to see a young pup, nearly grown, just off my side of the road. It was on the shoulder, preoccupied with something, probably an earlier road kill. Its home, the only dwelling in sight, lay directly across the road. The dog, a Sheppard breed with light brown hair had its back to me. I eased into the oncoming lane. I thought the car would pass by before the dog knew we were there, but tapped the horn at fifty feet out as a warning. That startled the young dog, and it bolted for home. I honked with more insistence but it kept converging with me. I swerved to the very edge of the road but the dog ran blindly into my front wheel. I saw its spinning body reflected in the mirror as it skidded back across the road and came to a stop where it had started. There was no use going back. The same thought haunts me whenever I recall the incident, “It would have lived if I‘d not honked”, but I couldn’t go back and undo it.
The headlight shown on the fox’s twitching body. Its position in the middle of the road made me wonder if I had swerved to miss it, but I didn‘t remember. Surprise! The fox was alive. Its head rose, bobbed, and then lowered. I don’t think it was aware that I stood over it. A closer inspection revealed it to be a mature young Red Fox with the classic bushy tail. I had barely grazed its head. A small part of it scalp was torn loose, but there was no other apparent damage.
What to do? I had stopped, found it still alive, and now had a moral dilemma lying at my feet. If it could get some rest in a safe place it might recover. But it was not likely to get it laying in the middle of the road. I took my handkerchief, placed it over the wound, and carried the fox to the car, lying him on the floor board of the passenger side. I sat behind the wheel for a while looking at him. He quieted. I didn’t know whether he was sleeping or dying. I started the car and headed toward home.
I drove on for half hour when the handkerchief suddenly came rising off the floor, a specter floating upward through the dark. Was it coming after me? I turned on the dome light and saw immediately that the fox’s eyes were shut. It was comatose and wreathing in pain. It laid down again, and I turned on the dome light now and then just to check, but it didn’t move the rest of the drive. When I got home my parents helped me prepare a box with a towel in the bottom. We placed it by my bed and Mom asked what I was going to do. I told her that if it was having trouble in the morning I would put it out of its misery.
Morning came and the fox slept peacefully with its nose tucked under its bushy tail, so I loaded the box in the car and took it to a veterinary. I called a couple hours later and the office told me the vet had not touched the fox as he did not know its background. I explained the circumstances, that it was not rabid, and most likely a very healthy animal before I hit it. They called back in late afternoon saying I could pick up the fox. I don’t remember the fee so it was probably reasonable.
I have no memory of seeing or dealing with the fox thereafter. I likely headed back to my teaching job a day or two later, leaving my parents holding the bag… with the fox in it. It recovered rather quickly, but I don’t know how long they kept it as they had no cage. I suspect its stay in Kokomo was rather short.
Dad owned a lot on Palestine Lake at which he liked to visit and putter around. He’d go up to cut weeds, clear underbrush, and toy with the idea of building a small cabin, which he eventually completed. The lake was on state road 25, only sixty miles north of Kokomo so he could get there in an hour. He met an old guy who lived on the lake that was interested in having the fox. Dad said the man was a natural, had the fox eating out of his hand in moments, so he left it with him. Then someone poisoned it not long thereafter.
