Vixen's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

The poacher lay bound in the dirt outside her burrow. Vixen crouched over him with rope looped tight around his wrists. Her socks were spent now, crusted and useless, their stink already fading in the open air. She had won the entrance. She had not yet won the day. The man was still bigger than her, still breathing, still dangerous once his eyes cleared. She checked his knots. Then she noticed the front of his pants. The fabric had pulled tight and shifted awkwardly. Vixen stared. She did not understand it at first. Then she did, and her stomach turned. He was tied, gagging on her socks, half-blind and beaten. And still his body did this. Vixen's ears flattened. Every warning she had ever been taught rose up hot in her chest. Men were like this. Even ruined, even trapped, they were like this. She wanted him gone. She wanted him to feel small the way he made her feel. Her paw twitched toward his throat, but she stopped. A dead man brought other hunters. She needed him to crawl away and warn the rest. So she chose the worse punishment. She climbed onto his chest. She lifted both hind paws and pressed them over his nose and mouth. Her feet were bare and filthy from digging all night, black under the pads, sour with sweat. "Smell that," she said. "Smell what you came to catch." The man's eyes snapped open. He bucked. He tried to twist his face away, but she rode the motion and stayed on his nose. He breathed in the reek of her, and his whole body shuddered. His face went gray. He made a thin, choking sound and heaved again, though nothing came up. Vixen held him there and roughly pinned him in place until he stopped fighting. Until the last of that disgusting bravado drained out of him and left only fear. Then she stepped off. "Get up," she said. She cut the rope from his ankles but left his wrists bound loose enough to work free. He rolled to his knees. He would not look at her. He grabbed his steel bar, missed it twice, then crawled backward down the trail. When he reached the trees he stumbled up and ran, one shoulder scraping bark. Vixen watched until he vanished. Her burrow was hers again. The warm earthen dome curved behind her, safe, hers, the door clear. But she had learned something ugly. He would tell the others what waited here. And now she knew a hunter did not stop wanting even when he was beaten. That kind of man did not learn shame. He learned targets. He would come back with friends, and they would not kneel at her door one at a time. She went inside and began digging a second tunnel.