Baltasar and Blimunda by José Saramago

SINCE THE FLYING machine landed on Monte Junto, Baltasar Sete-Sóis has gone there some six, or was it seven, times to examine and repair as best he can the ravages caused by time and the elements despite the machine's protective covering of foliage and brambles. When he discovered that the iron plates had become rusty, he took along a pot of tallow and greased them thoroughly, repeating the process each time he went back. He had also got into the habit of carrying on his back a bundle of reeds that he collected on marshland he encountered along his route, and these he used to repair such cracks and rents in the cane framework as had been made by natural causes, such as when he found a lair with six fox cubs inside the shell of the Passarola. He killed them as if they were rabbits by striking them on the crown of the head with his hook, then tossed their lifeless bodies here and there in the vicinity.

The parent foxes would discover their dead cubs, smell the blood, and almost certainly return there no more. During the night the foxes could be heard yelping. They had scented out the trail. When they found their dead cubs, the poor creatures made a great din, and since they did not know how to count, and were uncertain whether all the cubs were dead, they approached the hostile machine that had been their downfall, a machine capable of flying, although now grounded and motionless, they drew near cautiously, worried by the scent of a human presence, and sniffed once more the spilled blood of their offspring, then retreated, snarling and bristling as they went. They were never to return to that spot. But the story might have ended differently if,. instead of being a tale about foxes, it had been a tale about wolves.