A Squirrel's Tale

By Richard Wyn Jones

A Squirrel’s Tale is an animal fiction fantasy story for the 10+ age group to adults as seen through the eyes of a juvenile, orphaned red squirrel.
The forests of South West Scotland provide the backdrop to the story, home to the last major colony of red squirrels in Britain. As long as time itself, a natural order has governed this peaceful squirrel population. It is their steadfast belief that “The Lord of the Sky,” the Maker of all things, watches over them, and their reverent understanding that nature’s way is his will. To most squirrels, their world operates in a basically benign fashion. It can be fierce, competitive, even hazardous, at times, but this occurs only out of necessity and represents an essential condition of existence. Rusty, a loner and orphaned juvenile red squirrel however is not content. Deep down, he feels that the Lord of the Sky has ordained a special purpose for him. In his vivid dreams, he constantly challenges the Lord of the Sky to reveal his calling. Many squirrels view him as strange and eccentric, so he spends much of his time away from the Clan.
One spring morning the diminutive Rusty is exploring the farthest part of the forest where a small group of Reds have recently settled. Undetected, he witnesses their brutal murder by a bloodthirsty band of grey squirrels. Abaddon, their ferocious leader has brought his hordes of Greys North, his aim, to kill all red squirrels once and for all.
Rusty must warn the main Clan. Outnumbered they will have to overcome all odds and fight for the very survival of their species.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Wyn Jones
• Release date: Sep 9, 2014
• ISBN: 9780993067419

Richard Wyn Jones

I was born and raised in a small seaside town of Cardigan on the west coast of Wales.After University, I spent many years working in London before finally moving from the city to the countryside, eventually settling in the idyllic Cotswold region of England, where I've had more time to focus on my writing.From a very early age I had a keen interest in crafting stories and would get lost for hours in my adventures. My working career in predominantly senior marketing and creative positions enabled me to continue this childhood passion and fuelled my dream to eventually attempt to write a full blown novel.As a young boy, I found books by authors such as Richard Adams fascinating, where they used animal subject matter to deliver human stories and this genre very much inspired me in the direction I would take for my first novel, A Squirrel's Tale and subsequently with my second novel, The Prairie Drifter.My biggest hope is that people really enjoy the characters and the journey they take as much as I enjoyed creating them.

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A Squirrel’s Tale

Copyright 2014 Richard Wyn Jones

Published by Richard Wyn Jones at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

About the Author

Connect with Richard

Prologue

The forests of South West Scotland are home to the last major colony of red squirrels in Britain. As long as time itself, a natural order has governed this peaceful squirrel population. It is their steadfast belief that the Lord of the Sky, the Maker of all things, watches over them, and their reverent understanding that nature’s way is his will. To most squirrels, their world operates in a basically benign fashion. It can be fierce, competitive, even hazardous at times, but this occurs only out of necessity and represents an essential condition of existence.

Rusty, a loner and orphaned juvenile red squirrel however is not content. Deep down, he feels that the Lord of the Sky has ordained a special purpose for him. He just doesn’t know what it is yet. In his vivid dreams, he constantly challenges the Lord of the Sky to reveal his calling. Many squirrels view him as strange and eccentric, so he spends much of his time away from the Clan.

One spring morning the diminutive Rusty is exploring the farthest part of the forest where a small group of Reds have recently settled. Undetected, he witnesses their brutal murder by a bloodthirsty band of grey squirrels. Abaddon, their ferocious leader has brought his hordes of Greys north, his aim, to kill all red squirrels once and for all.

Rusty must warn the main Clan. Outnumbered, they will have to overcome all odds and fight for the very survival of their species.

Chapter 1

At the highest branch of a young pine tree a lone red squirrel scurries nervously about in the pale spring sunshine. He is out discovering any dramatic events that might have taken place following the big thaw and on his way to visit one of the small outlying Clans that inhabit that far part of the forest. Wandering away from the safety of his tree home and the main Clan was not without its dangers, for many a keen eyed predator would be on the lookout for a tasty meal: eagle, weasel, mink, wild cat or worst of all pine marten - so caution was the key.

However Rusty was glad to be travelling in the increasing warmth of daytime, springing from tree to tree, scampering across branches and scurrying up tree trunks, keeping away from the open ground where many of the dangers lurked, stopping at places that particularly seemed to interest him. To be wandering free and self-reliant was something he found exhilarating and exciting, away from the scrutiny and gossip of his own Clan. At least here if he came across another colony of red squirrels they would not pre judge him like others at home would have. He investigated the corners and crevices of various trees with urgent intensity as if his task was a momentous one, oblivious to the delicate glories of the erupting season which were manifesting themselves in a quivering display of green all around. He was part of that transformation; his energy was part of the universal energy; it was the natural way of things.

Rusty was not a particularly distinctive squirrel, rather a small diminutive character and somewhat undernourished. His slender body was evidently built for speed. Although having lost both his parents, at the start of his second season he was still full of youthful exuberance. The one distinguishing feature was his unusually long wonderful russet red coloured bushy tail, hence his name. The main characteristics of Rusty’s whole personality was awareness, an eager, slightly uncertain reserve in his make-up, a caution, almost an aloofness which kept him apart from the majority of the other youngsters; togetherness and belonging was something he longed for but found difficult to achieve. He was a background figure, a watcher, spending much of his time alone. On the whole other squirrels mistrusted him, or at least were wary of him. Another idiosyncrasy which only manifested itself when he was asleep was his whisperings, shivers and tiny spasms that were an outward indication of the workings of his subconscious mind. He was a strange one, they all thought.

The Red was now more than a day’s journey from his home, heading across the trees near a river bank following a faint odour which wafted its way through the leaves and foliage of the forest, a familiar scent that told him he was close to his destination. He had left shortly before dawn of the previous day, in the midst of the earliest burst of waking activity and had only managed to eat a few seeds and stems before leaving.

He was now feeling compulsive pangs of hunger and his scent organs and eyes were alert for any evidence of a source which he knew would not take him long to find. The forest was carpeted with colourful flowers, the ground resounded with the scurrying of the feet of other forest creatures, the air hummed with the beat of diaphanous wings and small birds. For the most part such individuals paid little attention to each other, beyond keeping a distance apart – more concerned with avoiding hunters of a larger kind. Now and then the fierce rustling of the undergrowth would see a mink skitter by or the flutter of a larger winged bird that might take a fancy to a solitary squirrel caught out in open ground.

Suddenly Rusty stopped. ‘A strange scent’ he thought, screwing up his furry face, his whiskers quivering quizzically and tufted ears pricked ready. He was unable to identify it. He crept cautiously off to one side of the tree, his heart beginning to pump nervously. He emerged from behind a cleft threading his way around the trunk, and there in front of him was a small bird busily covering her new laid batch of eggs. She was so engrossed with her task that she was quite unaware of his approach. Unexpectedly, another bird swooped close, chattering frantically warning him away from the nest. But this was not what he had heard or sensed, even though one of those eggs might provide a tasty morsel at that moment. So as to avoid confrontation he scuttled further up and over the next branch to pass the nesting pair.

Rusty crossed two interlocking branches moving towards the trunk of another large pine tree, finally arriving at the home of the small Red Clan. The little squirrel was about to make his descent and announce himself when he suddenly halted and stood stiffly upright on his hind legs, his nose anxiously searching for clues. Yes – there it was again! His senses had received the faintest waft of a strange, disturbing scent, borne on the frivolous breeze. Rusty’s head jerked from side to side trying to locate the source…Nothing. He stayed motionless, only his whiskers flickered briefly. Another little jerk of his head to the right, as his other senses picked up signals which helped to focus his attention: a delicate vibration transmitted through the undergrowth: a subtle alteration in the sound pattern of the surrounding habitat. He peered fretfully across the clearing towards the small Clan of Reds going about their daily business. All seemed calm. He looked on, an uncertain fear gripping him, but as far as he could tell nothing seemed to be amiss. Rusty waited in the agony of expectancy, as if knowing that the cause of his anxiety must reveal itself in a moment.

When it did so, it came with a terrifying positiveness. The signals suddenly increased tenfold – as whatever was causing them had, at a sign, thrown caution to the wind and was no longer trying to conceal its identity. The ground and branches trembled with the impact of scurrying feet; the strange scent pervaded the air in cloying wafts, the leaves and grass rustled with the impact of powerful bodies. The little squirrel peered across and beneath him. Wave after wave of huge grey squirrels swept with ferocious speed over and around in a merciless tide, killing with callous ease the few red squirrels caught out in open ground. The small Clan stood no chance. In the time that it took the sun to pass across one of the pine fronds above the watching squirrel’s head it was all over.

The grey squirrels disappeared, bearing the spoils of victory with them, and leaving no apparent sign of their coming except for the strange, lingering scent, and the few abandoned corpses, scattered on the ground.

Rusty remained motionless, frozen into a state of shocked paralysis, until the Lord of the Sky spread his great wings across the face of the day, drawing the comfort and protection of his darkness over the scene.

He had heard stories of the evil grey squirrels but had thought these to be just tales and myth.

The young squirrel stared blankly out into the blackness unable to rationalise the massacre, visions of death playing across his mind over and over with distressing clarity. He had never experienced such carnage at first hand in all his relatively short life. He was used of course to witnessing conflict and death. His parents had both died at the hands of predators. But he had been educated and trained in the violent and ruthless ways of Nature – such processes were accepted as an inevitable and necessary part of a squirrel’s life, but this…this example of wanton, indiscriminate slaughter, such a vivid incidence of ruthless aggression.

Inside, Rusty was a mass of unfamiliar emotions. It was as if he had had a revelation; as if the disclosure that there was naked, apparently purposeless evil in the universe had come as a new realisation to his innocent, hitherto trusting self. The world had seemed a basically benign place – fierce, yes; competitive, hazardous – but only out of necessity, only as an essential condition of existence. Now, suddenly, he was aware that there were elements at work other than mere natural forces; that somewhere within the Lord of the Sky’s domain differing codes were in operation, a moral debate existed. It was a momentous discovery.

Slowly, dazedly the small Red came to his senses. A forlorn look towards what had once been a happy small Clan of red squirrels. All dead now. He must warn the others! A sudden surge of adrenaline kick started Rusty’s urge for survival. He turned one last time, a deep sadness in his eyes, before setting off with haste on his journey to alert the main colony of the impending danger. The young squirrel sensed that the fight to save his species’ very survival was about to begin.

Chapter 2

Winter had been, bringing with it the strange numbed mystery of shelter and inactivity, a time to conserve energy, a sort of long half sleep really, in which a squirrel’s mind can sometime float trance-like, free from the semi-inert body, into previously unsuspected realms and dimensions. It did give a space to dream and reflect between those cold moments of foraging for food; and certainly it was a time of greater intensity than those of his normal resting hours, during those cold spells.

As if knowing that he could not escape, he met those impulses, gave himself up to their embrace and relinquished his soul to their whim. And this time they invariably took the same form. He was climbing, scampering the highest of the old Caledonian Scots Pines; wending his way up, up through the branches. He knew not why, yet for some reason he had reached the top. From there, from those dizzying heights he stood with the clouds sailing above his head and the world below him.

And he called breathless into the wind: I have come. I have arrived. I am here!

And, as he had known it would, the Voice echoed back from the clouds: I see you. And the Voice answered: Your purpose? You wish to know your purpose?

Yes! he shouted, what is my purpose?

And the clouds foamed and swirled above him and the Voice murmured from their depths: You will wonder the world and find it full of mysteries; you will labour at your tasks and find them never completed; you will confront all dangers and find sometimes that they are not who you thought they were; you will laugh with your friends and find they are weeping; you will go on your journeys and never come where you meant to come; you will seek your peace and find only more endeavours. And at last, in the midst of the greatest endeavour of all, you may find your purpose.

The clouds rolled on and the Voice was silent. The dream faded – but only for a while.

Chapter 3

Gradually, groggily, reluctantly Sorrel, a colony stalwart, allowed himself to become aware of the subtle change in the temperature and the increased activity he could hear all around him. During these months of freezing cold winter conditions he had taken to spending more time in his drey but had now decided through hunger to venture out to forage once more. His mind did not want to accept the reality of the situation that his body was telling him that such things as hunger and thirst, warmth and cold still existed; that life was a positive, demanding thing which had to be actively challenged. With all the caution and leisureliness of age he waited until he felt the rheumatic limbs, congratulated himself on his age and thanked the Lord of the Sky that he had made it through another hard winter before easing his large bulk somewhat irritably out of his drey, a rather untidy frame of twigs in the fork of a large Spruce tree, onto the nearby branch that had been his home since he could remember. Sorrel was one of a large Clan of red squirrels that had lived peacefully for generations in this secluded dense conifer and broadleaf forest to the West of Scotland, far away from the woes and wars of man.

After days in his warm shelter, the brightness of the early morning sun cruelly assaulted his unaccustomed eyes, while at the same time quickened his sense of anticipation. Sorrel momentarily peered painfully into the magic light, his nose sniffing the air once more for a myriad of passing clues to the conditions and circumstances of his familiar surroundings.

He squatted a while, took in a deep breath, savouring the sweet scent of Spring in the air and surveyed the hustle and bustle of activity and the scurrying