The air was bracingly cold, and Rebecca felt shocked back into her body with every breath.
Cait’s eyes were still on her. “You okay? You look a little—”
A streak of movement in the headlights. Flash of teeth and dark fur. A sickening thud. A whimper. Cait slammed on the brakes, the screech of tires on tarmac splintering the night, too late. Silence.
“What was that?”
Cait shook her head. She looked pale and stricken. “I don’t know. A coyote, maybe?”
She opened the door and walked slowly to the front of the Jeep, legs shaking visibly from the shock. Rebecca followed close behind. They saw it at the same time: a smear of blood across the front end and a tuft of coarse hair caught in the grille. A mass of spiky reddish fur. A single limp paw.
It was a fox. From this angle, lying motionless beneath the undercarriage, it looked like it was sleeping. Only the dark red blood staining the muzzle gave it away.
“Oh, God.”
Cait looked back to see Rebecca standing behind her. Cait shook her head. “Get back in the car.”
“Is it—?” She didn’t need the answer. She already knew.
“Get back in the car. You shouldn’t be out here.”
The fox was small—probably a female, and a young one at that. Rebecca thought of the den that used to be underneath the old trampoline in her parents’ backyard. Her dad always pretended that they drove him crazy—“Mangy, overgrown rats,” he’d mutter when he found a fresh lump of scat—but she had caught him smiling at them from the back window on more than one occasion. One summer, she woke up to find the cubs jumping on the trampoline, their little legs flying up in the air as they did flips and somersaults, their mother crouched watchfully nearby. “They’re not much different from dogs,” her mother had said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Just a little wilder.”
Rebecca reached out a hand and touched its chest. Its fur was soft underneath her fingers and still warm.
Cait stared down at the dead fox and up at the deserted street. “We can’t just leave it here in the middle of the road.” She looked at Rebecca. “Are you okay? You aren’t hurt?”
“I’m fine. Are you?”
“I’m okay. I’m just sorry this happened. I should have . . .” She trailed off. The headlights cast two interlocking circles of light in front of them, stretching their shadows long. The only sounds, the hum of the engine and the faint static coming from the radio.
Cait straightened up suddenly and dusted off her jeans. “Why don’t you get back in the car,” she said, trying to steer her toward the door. “I’ll take care of this.”
Rebecca shook her head. “You can’t move it on your own.”
“Sure I can.”
“Please.” She leaned down and placed a hand on the fox’s skull. “Let me help.”
They worked silently, Cait gripping the fox’s hindquarters while she took the neck. Together, they gathered the body out from under the Jeep and carried it over to the side of the road. It was surprisingly heavy; its fur was almost achingly soft.
“It looks like it was quick. Painless.”
Cait nodded. “I hope so.”
They placed the fox at the edge of a small patch of grass in front of a trailer park. “Maybe someone will find it in the morning and give it a proper burial,” Cait said, tilting her chin toward the row of houses.
“Maybe.”
They both knew that was unlikely. Dead foxes were a dime a dozen on a road like this—its body would be left for the vultures to pick over or tossed in the trash for the next municipal pickup.
Rebecca stared down at the fox and fought the sudden urge to howl. It looked so lonely there, all alone in the grass. So small. Like its mother had never licked its soft fur clean, or given it an affectionate nip while it played with the other cubs. She looked away. It was awful, this world. Sometimes unbearably so.
She heard the sound of the Jeep’s door closing and turned to see Cait walking toward her with a bundle of fabric in her arms. An old Baylor sweatshirt. She bent down and tucked the sweatshirt around the fox’s body. The look in her eyes was both embarrassed and defiant. “I didn’t want it to get cold.”
As they pulled out of town, Rebecca could still make out the outline of the fox’s shape in the moonlight,