Property Rights

As the mistress moon departed for the other side of the planet and the taskmaster Sol began his morning rounds, the band of were-foxes were greeted by a most surprising sight: A band of pirates cowered behind barrels and boxes and armed with knives, swords and daggers.

Fred awoke and found a kit-fox suckling at his mothers breast; he also noticed the wolves coming into the glade, headed by Carradene. Fred didn’t much take a liking to Carradene; he was too much an unknown.

“Hold,” said one of the foxes to the wolves. “This be oure land, oure territory. Ye have nae right to come hither without oure saying.”

“Shut up,” answered a large black wolf. “No tailor’s gonna tell me whither I may walk!”

The fox didn’t back down, rather he looked to his own people and to Carradene. “There be rules here. There be pacts based on respect and privacy. Where be the respect that ye wolves be known fer?”

“Stop,” called out Carradene.

Some of the wolves growled while some did not; they all did as they were told. Other foxes gathered ‘round the Taylor; there is always better security in numbers.

“We are here for the pirates,” continued Carradene. “Not your territory. They have no rights here and their apprehension is of higher concern than property rights. We shall take them and be gone.”

The foxes murmured amongst themselves as they were not at all happy with this. Pirates meant booty and booty meant human goods….reminders of who they were, who they had been. Boxes and barrels and wine and jewels and paper and feather and ink, these were anchors to their humanity and that was too precious to just let go.

“No,” said Taylor. “They be ours. We shall have first pickings and ye may return when the sun rises above the northern hillock.”

This was a bold statement and it was greeted by many an angry wolfen grimace.

“Let’s just rip the pretty foxes and take what we want,” said someone from the wolf pack. It was joined by many other similar opinions. The wolves advanced, first one paw, then another, then another. The foxes were ready to defend what they felt was theirs, but a wolf pack was a serious thing….

************

During the entire exchange the spell of the Dragon had worked it’s wonder; all that the pirates could hear were yelps, yips and growls. They weren’t stupid, however, and they were dead positive that the growls were aimed at them.

“Shemp,” whispered a pirate. “Have we any gunpowder?”

“Aye,” answered Shemp. “Moe’s got a barrel beside ‘im.”

“Tell Poe to fetch us the flint-locks,” whispered the pirate to another.

While the wolves and foxes were yipping and growling, the pirates quietly were loading their guns. They weren’t dense enough to think they could fire through a whole pack of wolves and a den of foxes, but they did believe they could scare the living bejeebers outta them.

“Alrighty you knaves,” whispered Captain Gates. “We fire one shot into the air, and if’n the creatures do not run then we fire into THEM! If’n we can get a hole into the rear guard, we flee to our ship. Moe, Poe and Gladstone, you three will guard our backs with yer swords…Fishborne and Flint, you two have yer pistols primed if’n the damnable creatures chase us to the ship. Ready?”

“Ready,” they replied.

********

The wolves were about to rush the outnumbered foxes when a shot rang out into the sky. They froze, each and every one of them, they simply froze. Flint-locks were rare in the lands from which most of the were-folk had originally come. The gunpowder was a gift stolen from the Orient, and flint generally came from the Serengetti. The sound rang like thunder and was followed by the departure of the pirates right through the far lines of stunned foxes.

“God save us!” invoked Fred. “If’n they have the gunpowder they can take the island whole!”

The wolves were the first to recover…the thought of their prize escaping so easily did not sit well with them. They began to run past the foxes and began gaining ground, running faster than the pirates. They continued onward, closer, closer, closer until another crack of thunder shouted itself into the morning air and Rafael (the fastest wolf) skidded and fell to the ground in a heap of bloodied fur. The bullet, a lead pellet really, had hit it’s target: Rafael’s face was covered in blood and where his left eye should have been was only an ugly, pulsating mess! Though Rafael would recover by nightfall, he would ever be without the use of that eye. The wolves slowed and looked at each other in confusion, even they were not faster than a speeding bullet!

The pirates, for their part, continued running up the hill towards the beach on the other side. They ran and found themselves without wolfen foes nor enemies of the foxenkinde either. They ran faster…one more rise and the beach would shine forth with their ship not much farther. But of a sudden they stopped, they stopped dead in their tracks, they even double- tracked a bit. Between them and the beach was a group of the largest bears they had ever seen, larger even than the Grizzly of which they had heard tales. The bears were blocking their path.

“Well,” called out Moran, Chief of the Bear Clan. “fancy meeting you here!”

Of course, all the pirates heard was a long, low series of growls.

1. A pack, a den, and a clan, and one small band of Pirates