At Badger Hill

By Strega

On a little hill near the MacCready farm lived a badger, and besides being very big, almost as big as a man, this was a very unusual badger, for he could talk. He was something of a local legend in hillbilly country and many a hunter had taken his varmint rifle and gone to get its pelt. The hill was a honeycomb of badger burrows and local wisdom was not to try to dig the animal out or send dogs in. In the former case there were always more tunnels and never a badger and in the latter case the dogs most often didn't come back out.

Now there had always been a talking badger on Badger Hill, long as anyone hereabouts could remember. Once in a while someone would show up with a badger pelt and claim it was from the Hill, but though the local badgers were all quite large the pelt was never big enough and someone would go out to the Hill and find the talking badger was still there. And sometimes hunters who went after the badger didn't come back at all.  Over the years and generations the locals decided it was bad luck to go after the badger. Every so often someone still did, though.

If you went to the Hill just to talk, maybe on a cool summer evening with a jar of moonshine to share, the badger would come out of its den and chat. He was no font of wisdom, being only a badger, but he did know about the seasons and the things that were good to eat, not to mention he was good at predicting the weather. He particularly liked talking to the local ladies and there were certain short, prematurely gray and grizzled individuals in the county who were said to have badger blood.  That was nonsense, though. When drunk enough a women might get with the badger (it happened; from time to time a local lady showed off the scratches she got during an ill-considered romp with the furry beast) but of course a badger couldn't get a woman pregnant no matter how enthusiastically he tried. All that talk of unusually hairy and fanged babies was just that, talk, and Joe Dotton over in Randsville came by his beady black eyes and sharp fingernails naturally. Look around the woods enough and you'd find all sorts of odd looking people, and not because their mother  committed an unnatural act with a badger.

The local preachers swore the badger was the Devil's kin while the Indian wise women said it was a local spirit there to guard the land. In any case the badger was left largely alone until the MacCreadys showed up.

The farm near the Hill was abandoned for years before the family moved in, Ma and Pa and two, then three boys. When the third boy was eight and the others twelve and fourteen Ma and Pa had a fight, no one knew over what, and Ma packed her suitcase and left. The boys stayed and Pa sank into his moonshine bottles. Now boys left to their own devices in the woods will get up to no good and pretty soon they were unwelcome in town and avoided in general.  All three stopped showing up at the schoolhouse and after Pa chased the truant man away with an axe the boys were left alone to work on the farm, growing just enough food to feed their family and brewing shine to sell. With time on their hands the three boys soon took to harassing the badger.

It was a very big badger and would hiss and chatter and chase them off, but they'd pelt it with rocks from trees and drive it back into its burrows. Even the youngest would whack its furry rump with a stick before running yelping as the short-legged beast chased after him. The two older boys were soon as habitually drunk as their father and the badger retreated into its tunnels at the first sight of them, wary of rocks or the few civil-war-era rifles the family barely kept working.  

It was an isolated little farm like many another and no one knew for months that the MacCreadys had moved away.  A traveling salesman reported the farm empty after a visit and locals shrugged, assuming the father had taken his boys and moved off to sponge off a distant relative. Good riddance to bad rubbish, more than one said.

That wasn't what happened at all, but the only one who knew what really went on was the badger, and he wasn't talking.

One day when the boys were out hoeing rows and Pa was in an alcoholic stupor there was a scrabbling sound in the earthen basement. Dirt crumbled away under a shelf and the badger squeezed in. It looked sharp-eyed around the dark room and listened to see if it was discovered, and when it thought it was safe it took a full Mason jar of moonshine from the shelf  in its jaws and disappeared back into its tunnel. Three more trips took three more jars and then it entered the burrow and filled the hole in the wall by scooping dirt with its hindclaws. 

There was little sign of what had happened save for the missing moonshine and Pa beat the boys terribly when he found his shine tampered with.  Sore and angry two grabbed their fishing poles and headed to the crick while Cole headed to Badger Hill with his rifle in hopes of getting a shot at the elusive beast.

The most-used burrows were well up the Hill and Cole MacCready was surprised to find a blanket spread near one of them and on the blanket, four jars of moonshine. His father went off alone to drink from time to time and Pa must have brought it up here, forgotten and then beaten them for stealing it.

Cole was in a mood to drink and soon a jar lay empty and a pint of high-proof liquor had him unconscious on the blanket. Only then did the big badger poke its pointed muzzle from a burrow, and even then it looked and listened to make sure the other boys weren't around. When the coast was clear it padded over to Cole, made sure the rifle was out of reach and locked its jaws around his face.

Sodden with alcohol the boy didn't wake until the badger's jaws were past his shoulders and he could only thrash and kick as the badger reached out its foreclaws, gripped his belt and stuffed him into its maw. Inch by inch the big badger swallowed the thrashing boy, lurching forward to engulf Cole's rump and pushing the soles of the boy's ratty shoes against a tree until they were forced into its jaws.  It clamped its muzzle shut and gulped mightily and with that the oldest MacCready boy was just a bulge in its furry middle, still struggling but trapped in the beast's stomach.

With a belch the badger picked the rifle up in its jaws and flung it into a nearby pond (for the MacCreadys having one less rifle could only benefit it) and squeezed fat-bellied back into its burrow.

Cole kicked his last inside his new badger-fur coat as the badger reached a chamber, turned around, and settled down to nap just far enough from the entrance that it could see out but not easily be seen.  As its stomach worked on its hefty meal it slept peacefully, full and feeling rather smug, before it started awake, its round little ears perked up.

This time it was Randy MacCready who came by, looking for his brother most likely and instead finding a lot of moonshine sitting around with no one to drink it.  He would fix that and the badger watched from its burrow, realizing only now that it had forgotten to hide the bait after it caught its meal.  Only after Randy passed out cold did the badger begin to contemplate thoughts of a second.   

It had planned to catch only one of the brothers and wait until it was hungry to try again, but the sight of the middle brother dead to the world was an irresistible temptation and this time it was Randy who woke with his head in a badger's gullet and its swallowing muscles pushing him ever deeper.

Randy hadn't drunk as much and put up a better fight but the badger was very strong and very determined and soon enough Randy was sliding into the wet cavern of badger stomach, already packed full of Cole but with room yet for another. The badger swelled and bulged unnaturally as it trapped Randy's feet against the same tree and walked forward, leaving the younger brother nowhere to go but down its throat.

When it got its jaws around his threadbare shoes and swallowed the badger was so swollen its short legs hung off the ground. Randy was still squirming as the badger struggled toward its burrow, having to rock back and forth to get one set of claws into the dirt and pull itself along. There was no question of hiding the bait now and it was considering whether it would even fit into the burrow when a hard-swung stick smacked into its rump.

The youngest brother, only ten and already a bad egg, swung his walking stick with all his might into the badger's flank. Its thick pelt blunted some of the blow but it was stretched around more than its weight in prey and if the boys inside it absorbed some of the blow its tight-stretched hide still twanged painfully.
"Ow!" The badger exclaimed, "Stop that!"

"Horrible thing, you ate my brothers!" Dan MacCready might only be ten but he was all muscle and rained blows on the badger.  It swiped a paw at him, far out of reach, and only then remembered it was on a slope. It had been hard enough to waddle toward its burrow before this distraction and the badger, so swollen it was nearly a sphere of fur with muzzle and tail and legs sticking out, lost its balance and rolled down the hill.

Dan laughed and ran after, swinging the stick as the badger rolled faster and faster down the hill. Rocks and bumps battered and bruised the fat predator as it hit the bottom of the slope, crashed through a bush and went up the other side of the ravine.
The badger finally came to a halt after crashing into another bush and lay with its head spinning. It just managed to keep from rolling back down toward the boy, who was running full-tilt after it still, but before it could decide what to do an overpowering nausea born of the roll rose in its throat.  The badger gagged and up came Randy MacCready, swallowed last and regurgitated first, and after him his brother Cole.  So strong were the badger's convulsions that the two boys, one slimy and already well on his way to digestion and the other merely wet and suffocated, shot out of its jaws and tumbled down the hill.

Dan burst through the bush just in time to collide with Randy's slippery body, and the corpse of the larger boy slammed him backward onto the ground as Cole's landed atop Randy.  The breath left Dan in an agonized gasp and he stared at the two lifeless faces, one merely dripping with saliva and the other a horror of exposed muscle and liquefied skin.

"Oh god, what am I gonna tell Pa," he gasped, just as the badger's muzzle appeared past the two faces.

"I never liked you," the badger growled, and clamped his jaws around Dan's head.

It only took a couple of minutes to pull the youngest brother from beneath the bodies and swallow him. Dan was all but helpless, trapped beneath his brothers and pulled out only far enough for the badger to swallow a bit more.  Powerful forepaws pushed the wet flesh and clothing of the other two to get them out of the way, then reached out and gripped Dan's belt to pull him in.  Terrified and thrashing he was shoved into the badger's maw and swallowed, and  with a last gulp Dan was curled up in a hot badger stomach that was already sloshing with acid after its efforts to digest his brothers. He screamed and thrashed, but the muscle and fur around him was too thick and the inward pressure soon squeezed him into a helpless fetal ball, only able to wait for suffocation and eventually digestion.

"Never again," muttered the badger as he lay next to the other bodies, ""Will I eat so much I can't defend myself."

But though his latest meal was still kicking and his belly was reasonably full, he could not ignore the two older brothers just lying there next to his jaws.  "Except this once.  Can't leave evidence just lying around."

And over the course of ten minutes he re-swallowed Randy and then Cole, not liking the sting of acid on his tongue any more than Cole had liked it when he began to digest, and with a final herculean effort got the feet of the oldest brother into his jaws and gulped.  The youngest was still now, either squeezed into immobility by the brothers sharing the stomach or already suffocated. The badger let out a mighty belch and, now entirely unable to reach the ground with its paws unless it once again coughed up its prey, looked around at the bushes and decided that this was as good a place to digest the MacCready brothers as any.

And that's what he did, though it was an entire day before he could even move.  All he could do was sleep as his belly struggled to process so much food all at once, relieve himself right where he sat, and then when he was a bit more shrunken at least waddle away from the pile of what used to be the MacCready brothers.  On the fourth day he was finally slim enough to make his way back up the hill to his burrows but 'slim' is a relative term.  He was much, much fatter now, his weight doubled by this one enormous meal. It was a full week before he felt the least stirrings of hunger and he waited another week before making his way deep into his burrows, to one he used only on special occasions.

His claws dug away the dirt and he sat watching and listening, smelling the moonshine and must of the MacCready basement. There was no movement, no sound except a distant snore.  He had watched the cabin long enough to know Pa MacCready's habits and he padded carefully up the wooden steps, freezing at every squeak. A paw pushed open the basement door and beady black eyes scanned the room. It well knew the layout of the little cabin and it didn't need the snore to guide it to Pa's bed.

Pa MacCready was a skinny, yet potbellied man far gone into alcoholism. He stank of drink and the yellowish tinge to his skin spoke of profound ill health. Left to his own devices he'd be dead within a few years. He would not live nearly that long.

"I never liked you either, Caleb," the badger muttered, and Pa MacCready woke to heavy paws on his chest and unhinged jaws sliding over his head and taking in his neck.

He was easier to eat than even his youngest son, so drunk he must have thought he was hallucinating it all. He fumbled at the badger, finding fur over new rolls of fat. He couldn't know he was feeling all that was left of his cruel sons and if the badger had any pity at all for this worn-out husk of a man he didn't show it. Powerful forepaws pushed Pa's shoulders into the badger's jaws and then reached forward to stuff in the next bit. The badger had made sure no weapon was within reach and by the time Pa realized he wasn't dreaming the badger was bolting down his legs.  With a final gulp the last of the MacCreadys was gone down the badger's throat and it looked around, sniffing the air and then the bedclothes. Disappointed at finding no trace of a familiar scent it squeezed through the window and was gone, leaving an empty room whose occupant now squirmed his last in a badgery belly.  The sound of a belch came from outside and then the MacCready residence was empty of life.

A month later a traveling salesman doing his rounds found the place empty, and after looting it of valuables he squirreled away in his merchandise bags he made his way to town and with an admirably straight face told the general store there was no sign of life at the MacCready's.  A few local men went to check, not out of any liking for that poisonous little clan but in hopes of finding something not nailed down to take. There was little of value left and they shrugged and left, telling the townspeople there was no sign of foul play, just no MacCreadys.

The badger went back to his peaceful life of digging squirrels and groundhogs out of their burrows and (being both very large and of genius intellect by badger standards) digging burrows only to "abandon" them until something - probably a coyote or three - moved in, only to return and make a meal of the occupants. Perhaps once a month a human came by one of his burrows and called to him, and he'd stick his nose out cautiously and discuss, usually, the weather. He was very good at predicting rain or harsh winters and for this if nothing else the local farmers valued him. Other than that he was left to his own devices until one day a pretty brown-haired girl, perhaps twenty, set up a picnic by one of his burrows and called to him.

"Hello," said the badger, peering from the darkness of his hole. Always wary of guns he looked and listened until the girl spoke.

"It's just me, Mr. Badger.  Caroline. I'm not armed, you needn't be afraid."

That was an insult but decades of experience made the badger thicker-skinned than that and he did not emerge until he was sure she was alone.

"Thank you," he growled when she poured him a saucer of something clear.  He sniffed, sneezed, and lapped it up.  "That's MacCready moonshine," he said, and was immediately cautious.

"It is," she said.  "Virginia MacCready is my cousin, and she stayed with me after she left Caleb.  She told me all about you."

"Hopefully nice things," the badger said, who was familiar with human courtesies though he rarely had occasion to use them.

"She had scratches," Caroline said.  "From something five-clawed, with paws as big as a man's hand."

"I miss Virginia," the badger growled.  "I was sorry she left.  I must have scratched her when I hugged her goodbye."

"She never said goodbye," Caroline said.  "Or so she told me. And the scratches were on her belly.  You'd have to have hugged her from behind...or been on top of her, say."

"I would never have hurt her on purpose," the badger growled.  "I very much like Virginia."

"She is in Wachaw County now.  I just got a letter.  Her son has ink-dark eyes and sharp teeth, she says."

The badger sighed.  "Yes, we were lovers.  Yes, Caleb most likely saw those scratches, given in a moment of passion. No, he was not a good husband before that. He beat her, and the boys, and it only got worse after she left.  She was the only good thing to come from that family."

"My grandmother heard me asking about you," Caroline said.  "She said her grandmother talked about meeting you, or someone like you, as a teenager.  What are you, Mr. Badger?"

"Just a badger," the talking badger said.  "Who has lived hereabouts for a very long time.  Once I was chief of a little tribe of natives.  Many of the children had sharp teeth, sharp fingernails, black eyes.  That happens less now."

"A badger can't give a woman a child," she said reasonably.

"Are you sure? I am the only badger big enough to try.  I don't lack for lovers; the only reason any male badgers besides myself take mates in this county is that I let them.  No male badger can compete with me yet I let some stay so that we are all not of one bloodline.  I have many lovers.  But badger-femmes can't talk. You can't have a conversation with one, however succulent her smell or how much you like to mate with her. Humans can talk, and I have had a long time to learn to appreciate the beauty of a human woman. Some of them learn to appreciate me."

"What happened to the MacCreadys?" She asked.

"They are gone now, and I am not sad.  Where they have gone I could not say." Heaven, Hell, the large intestine of a badger, who was he to say what the true ending was?  "Except Virginia.  I hope she is happy."

"With Caleb gone, the cabin is hers," she said.  "She has given it to me."

"There is a tunnel in the basement," the badger growled.  "One of my burrows. It has been there for as long as the house has. And the house that was there before that. It is closed at your end and I will not use it unless you ask, but you should know it is there. That is how Virginia and I met, sometimes."

"Thank you," Caroline said, and packed up her picnic basket.  "I'll come by and talk to you soon."

And she did, curious about the unguessably old badger and plying him with questions.   Soon she fell into the habit of meeting him every weekend for a picnic, where he was always patient, always grateful for whatever human food she brought. In return he shared his knowledge of the woods, for he knew seemingly every leaf on every tree for miles. Within six months she and the badger were fast friends, though it was a long time before he told her what really happened to the MacCreadys. Eventually they were more than friends.

The people in Dunsdale knew about her, of course, but she kept to herself.  A relative of the MacCreadys, but not a bad seed like most of them. She had a little money she used to fix the place up and then she was just another lonely woman living on a little farm, with a garden and some chickens and small needs.

A while after she moved in she appeared in town to sell pelts she had tanned. Raccoon, coyote, skunk, others. It seemed their new arrival was a skillful trapper, or somehow knew where every game trail lay.  It was more than enough to keep her solvent and she also seemed to have struck up a friendship with the talking badger. If a cityfolk stopped by the town and heard about the badger, a few dollars to her would set up a meeting. And maybe, a few wagging tongues whispered, if you wanted to meet the badger another way, she was the person to talk to. Maybe that was why a few ladies had new sets of scratches to show off.

A few months later a traveling salesman, garrulous as was their wont, mentioned in town that she now had a dog.  He'd not seen it, but there was now a big basket in her cabin by the basement door, with brown and gray hairs on the padded lining. Another salesman said something growled at him from the basement stairs when he tried to take advantage of a lonely woman living on her own.  And then there was Rudy Murphy, who got powerful drunk one night and staggered out of town saying he was going to bed her whether she liked it or not and never came back.

There was just the lone woman living on the MacCready farm by Badger Hill, where the talking badger lived, all on her own.  But she must have met a traveling salesman or farmer's son she liked, because eventually she showed up to sell her pelts pregnant. When anyone asked who the father was, she just smiled.

And if the native midwife who delivered her son noticed his ink-dark eyes and sharp, sharp teeth, she didn't feel the need to pass that information on.