The voices in my head vs the little rabid fox from the woods. 

It was springtime 2020, a magical time for everyone.

Just kidding. 

A global pandemic was in full swing and as we tried to adjust to this ‘new normal’ and all the wide reaching implications and impacts on daily life I received an undeniable reminder that the regular random aspects of existence were still very much in play. 

From inside the kitchen I heard our dog, Isis barking, in that particular way that meant she had encountered a new and exciting thing! She was a beautiful Siberian husky who was not prone to barking. Whining and talking while making direct eye contact; sure, but she rarely made normal dog noises and when she did, it meant something.

Both Ryan and I walked outside to find her barking excitedly and trying to fight/play with a small gray fox through the fence. A fence that I quickly appreciated more than ever. I watched in shock as this small gray fox tried to attack our much larger dog through the barrier. 

Ryan and I looked at eachother, “that’s weird” we both thought simultaneously. The fox had caked dirt all around its mouth and quite the attitude for such a small creature. He called to Isis and she disengaged momentarily, but the fox continued to attack the fence. The little voice in my head said very clearly “that animal is not right.” I picked up a nearby soccer ball and lobbed it over the fence. It landed right next to the creature’s head. The vixen turned immediately and snapped then chased the ball, attacking it with renewed vigor as it rolled away from the gate. 

“Not right at all.” An additional inner narrator confirmed. 

My husband was less sure about his conclusion “that’s fuckin weird” he said to the space I had occupied a second prior as I headed inside to get a gun. I have been a gun owner since I was 12 (though I had been shooting for many years at that point) and was gifted the .22 Marlin rifle I now sought from our bedroom. It is a tubular magazine feed rifle. This means that instead of grabbing a magazine and being ready to go with ten rounds, I had to load each round through a small hole in a tube underneath the barrel of the gun. Knowing time was of the essence and being overly confident in my marksmanship, I only loaded three rounds. 

“You should put more in.” The little voice insisted. 

“Stow it.” My overconfident advisor retorted “we have a rabid fox to kill.” 

I want to take a second to explain my assessment and quickness to lethal force. I have lived in the woods my whole life, I have had extensive encounters with wildlife, especially by modern standards. This was not simply a hungry woodland creature out at a time of day when you wouldn’t expect it. The assumption that normally nocturnal animals in your yard during the day is a sign of illness is inaccurate at best. Often ‘odd’ sightings of critters have more to do with time of year or presence of young rather than rabies. There was not a single aspect of this fox and its behavior that didn’t scream neurological illness. 

The dirt caked around its month was actually a thick foam coated in dirt that came off on the soccer ball when it bit at it. Her movements were intentional, but uncoordinated and it’s decision making (trying to fight a large wolf like creature through a fence and then going after an inanimate object) was impaired. Its whole demeanor was savage, growling and hissing at the world at large, and my soccer ball in particular. 

I have never made the choice to try and kill something so quickly. 

As I came into the living room to ask my husband where the fox was now. He looked at me with surprise, understanding that I had apparently woken up that day chose violence. He said it went around the front and tried to argue that he should take the shot. While I love him dearly and know he is also a very accomplished marxman, I know his eyesight at a distance is not the best. Since it was my gun; that I had loaded, I smiled and walked out the front door in time to see the fox coming around from the side of the house and headed toward the edge of the forest in the direction of our closest neighbor. 

I released the breach slide, and slid it back again, chambering a round right as the fox passed behind the first tree. I tracked it with the iron sights as it loped awkwardly toward our neighbor’s boat. I didn’t have a clear shot of it until it was in front of the vessel and not trusting my aim or that small mass’s ability to stop a bullet from passing through it and putting a nice hole in our neighborly relations even if my aim was right on, I waited.  

“Don’t do it” the little voice said. 

“Damint” an adjacent and opposing narrator exclaimed, knowing the smart voice was right, but hating it all the same. It would appear my internal staff meeting was well attended this morning and full of people not wanting to put holes in boats. As the fox passed in front of the boat and then behind their RV headed into the woods, I engaged the safety and left the deck and headed over to their property. 

I went on the opposite side of the RV in between the house, passing a garbage can full of wood scraps from their kitchen remodel. 

“Grab one of those” said the small voice

“But we has a gun” reasoned a gollum-like growl. 

“One of those might be more useful” asserted the calm logical member of committee. 

“G-U-N” said the card-carrying NRA member present at the debate. 

I did not grab the makeshift club, but instead continued on to the far side of their house to knock on the front door and warn them to keep their pets and kids inside. I knocked a couple times, but got no immediate response. I stepped off the deck, intending to knock on the kitchen window and I came face to face with the fox, coming around the end of the RV. Its reaction was much quicker than mine and it immediately ran at me and started trying to bite my legs. All I had time to do was to use the barrel of the rifle as a means of stopping it from physically getting to me. The veracity of the attack was inspiring. I was able to keep it from getting purchase on my pants, legs or feet only just barely and realized that I couldn’t get the muzzle of the gun on the creature without running the risk of it biting me instantly once I removed the object (the barrel of the gun) currently keeping us apart. I did manage to disengage the safety. 

Now, I have been bitten by a wolf and had to stand my ground as four more members of the pack almost did the same, that interaction was coordinated, precise and powerful. This attack was wild and THANKFULLY without much force behind it. More like a vicious land bound goldfish with no plan other than general murder.  It was difficult to keep the undulating thing at bay due to the wild unpredictability of this crazed creature’s movements. 

“This is where that stick would have come in handy” said the now smug, previously ignored voice. 

“…but boomstick solve everything!” said the ‘merican voice as it told my fingers to fire all three rounds into the ground. 

“Well done” the smart one said, with an audible eye roll. “Got’em” 

“SHUT UP!” This was said in unison by most of the other assembled participants. 

There was a noise behind us as my neighbor opened her door and the fox disengaged from me and I took three steps back. We stared at each other. 

“Good thing you fired all three rounds into the ground and didn’t load more than that, like I told you.” 

“SHHHUT UUUUUUP” a chorus of irritated militants responded. 

“Good thing we didn’t grab that bashing stick either, you guys are really doing an excellent job of threat management, we better hope this whole COVID thing does not progress to a zombie apocalypse, we are not going fair well”. 

As much as most of me hated it, the quiet voice was right. If I had even a single round left I could have ended it easily at the moment. Instead I backed away toward the deck making sure mini Cujo didn’t renew its attempt to draft me into its infected army of one. The fox came around the downhill part of the deck passing three feet below us, making direct eye contact with me while hissing some sort of derogatory fox insult. I can’t really blame it, I was trying my best to kill it. I told my neighbor the situation, punctuated by the continued complaints of the varmint as it headed toward the street. I asked if she had any .22 rounds close at hand, which she did not. We both watched as the little gray creature growled not so merrily down the road. 

I called our town’s Animal Control Officer and he made sure I understood the severity of that type of close contact with such an obviously contaminated creature. Any amount of saliva that got in a skin break could result in an infection. 

“We did not know THAT, I mean yah, don’t get bit but spit in a scratch=rabies?!” The assembly agreed for the first time that day. 

“Good to know”

“Idiots, I could have told you that.” The little voice said in the back.

I realized how lucky I was that I had the gun to keep it from getting a hold of me but how much better off I would have been with a simple length of wood. My pajama pants were smeared with foamy dirt and quickly double bagged and disposed of with the besmirched soccer ball. 

According to the resulting community FB post, the fox went on to try and fight two more adults walking their dogs on a nearby street and then disappeared into the woods to die. By the time an animal is that bad their time left can be measured in hours not days. 

Hindsight being what it is, the quiet little voice had been right 100% of the morning. It was certainly not the loudest voice in my head or the most insistent. It simply stated its opinion in a way that could easily be overridden by an assembly vote of the louder players. I learned a lot about how to calibrate my decisions that day and how much of me could be very sure about things I should think a little more about, or at the very least give the quiet voice a second thought before dismissing it out of hand because of it’s volume. I learned that a bit of 2×4 could be much more useful than a rifle depending on the situation, and that more loud doesn’t mean more right.