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“There can be no peace with them” said the man with the cigar as he strolled around the lavish lounge. “They’re savages, brutes.” The rest of the party goers nodded and affirmed him as he grabbed a poker from the rack and stabbed at the fire. Sparks drifted up past mounted antlers above the mantle as he turned back to continue his point. “There isn’t a point waiting until they’re ready. We should do something now, while we have the advantage.”
It didn’t matter if any of the high society rabble believed him. The important audience was the dark haired woman in the tall velveteen chair. She took a sip from her wine glass as all eyes turned to her. The latest elected head of the Coalition had been surprisingly guarded on foreign policy, having run on domestic issues. Her response was characteristically vague. “I don’t think so.”
The man’s hands danced around his chest like they were looking for pearls to clutch before finding their way to his jacket trim. “How can you say that?” He exclaimed. “You’ve seen how they treat each other! How can you expect them to do better by us!”
“All I have seen” The woman replied “is what they run on your network.”
She took out a little cigarette case to avoid gratifying the dramatic faces all around her. She put one between her lips and struck a match as the stain of her lip gloss was imparted to the filter.
“I’m assured, Mr. Davenport, that you are friends with many of anthropomorphic persuasion. Is that correct?”
He stuck out a finger in reply. “The people of this fine nation are nothing like them.”
“Even so,” she said, lighting up. “None of them managed to be invited this evening.”
The man was turning red now. His portfolio didn’t stand to do well without at least a scare of conflict, and his campaign contributions would be wasted. “And how exactly did you come to be our enemy’s greatest advocate? What has the anthrostate done to earn this kid-gloves analysis?”
“I’ll tell you.” she said, calmly letting out a relaxed huff of smoke. “You may recall I ran on a log-cabin platform. The hovel which I grew up in lies on the frontier which we have only recently annexed. And when I was a girl, I had the privilege of meeting an actual state inspector.”
Now there were not even pearl-clutching gasps. That she had endeavored to call a run-in with their most hated enemy’s secret police a privilege demanded silence. She was obligated to explain her remark.
_____
It happened one day as I was helping my mother take clothes from the line that a cloud of dust appeared on the horizon. As was normal we finished quickly and ran inside. Typically anything moving fast enough to make that kind of trail meant trouble. It seemed to change course as it spotted our homestead, and dad handed out the rifles.
“Remember” He said as he divvied up what bullets we had. “Weapons ready. I don’t want to hear so much as a safety clicking. And no one shoot unless I do.”
We all went to our places, peeking out of the little crevices of our shack. The trail stopped and died down before it got close, and we could tell it was a red truck. Lo and behold someone got out and started walking up, all by himself, hands where we could see them. He was a young thing, maybe fifteen or sixteen. Pale, thin, dressed shabby with a rifle over his shoulder.
Dad saw this of course, and decided he must not be too bad after all. Usually anyone with gas was trouble. He set is gun aside but motioned for us to stay where we were. Cracking open the door, he stepped outside to meet the newcomer.
“That’s close enough” he said, holding up a hand. The boy stopped, content that they could speak.
“I don’t mean any trouble. Do you have any good water? We can trade for food.”
Dad’s water still was what allowed our little homestead to thrive. My sisters and I spent considerable time purifying and bottling what we didn’t use for irrigation. Even so, we tried to keep a lid on it. It was something worth stealing.
“We’ve got enough to eat. But if you’ve got salt or sugar we’d be happy to trade you.”
Each man softened their posture as they measured each other to be well intended gentlemen. The stranger drew closer and stuck out a hand to shake. I don’t recall what he said his name was all these years later, but as him and my dad shook we found out what the catch was.
“Now” he said. “My partner is out by the truck. I’d like to ask them to bring it closer, but you should know that they’re furry.”
Dad’s face soured. The hand he had been shaking suddenly stopped dead and held on. After a moment of glaring daggers in our visitor’s eyes he looked out to the truck. He could just see someone sitting inside. He let go of the handshake and backed towards the door.
“I promise our business is only as I discussed” Said the boy. “She’s cool, I can vouch for her.”
“No.” huffed the old man. “She stays where she is. Get the salt yourself and we can swap, then be on your way.”
___
In any case, the children of the house all set aside the guns and started scrapping over the binoculars. My older sister wanted a look at the boy, My brother the truck, and I’ll admit to having been curious about this hideous monster that my Father wouldn’t let within two hundred yards of his family. Being next to smallest however, I was going to have to wait my turn. Dad started shuffling crates of bottled water out front, a job he would delegate to us kids if he wasn’t still intent on hiding us.
The stranger returned with two bags of good, dry salt. Lord only knows where he got it. They began to talk again just as my brother wrested control of the binoculars. For now I was stuck listening to them talk. Apparently I had inherited my curiosity from dad.
“How did you come to be traveling together.”
“Ran out here to escape her. Then got myself caught by something worse. She came for me anyways, and I repaid the favor. It turns out we get along pretty well, she’s not like the rest of them.”
“Some kinda law officer?”
“Something like that. She’s on vacation at the moment.”
Dad straightened up and looked around at the dreary, windswept landscape.
“Here?”
My brother tapped me on the shoulder and at long last I was offered the binoculars. I stepped up to the window for a look at this mysterious forbidden character, but the lighting was all wrong. All I could see through the glare on the windshield was her outline. But as I played with the focus, I caught sight of something else.
I tottered over to the door, not afraid of the boy at all, and spoke up.
“Daddy!” I said, pointing over the horizon.
“I told you to stay low in the house!” He snapped.
“Trails!”
As he peered past the truck and out at the horizon, he could make out at least six distinct clouds of dust traveling in our direction. Our guest saw them too.
“Friends of yours?” He said to my father.
“No.” the old man replied. “Are they after your skin?”
“Couldn’t say.”
Dad’s graven expression grew more intense as the rock met the hard place. He bit his finger, which he sometimes did when faced with a tough choice or puzzle.
“We can go, but they’ll find you.” said the visitor. “They might leave you be if you’ve got nothing worth taking. Or we can stay and help.”
Dad shook his head. “Crop’s too good.” he answered. “Even if you lead ‘em off they’ll hit us on the way back. You say this friend of yours is alright? I’ve got kids in there. A wife.”
The boy placed his right hand over his heart and his left open facing in the air, the finest promise he could make without a bible to hand.
“She’s honorable. We’re here for water and that’s all.”
The stranger’s word would have to be good enough. The dust trails were getting closer, only minutes off now. Betting on the known quantity,
“Have her pull the truck in the barn. Bring whatever you’ve got for a fight and get inside.”
As soon as the boy was off, dad stormed inside. We kids were all mesmerized by the affair, looking up at him with spacy, vacant eyes.
“Rifles!” he said. “Hop to it!”
Next, and most importantly, he turned to Mom, who was already aware of what was going on and glowering at him.
“Honey, I know.” he said.
Her lips were tight with rage. She didn’t like it, but she wasn’t stupid either.
“We don’t need them.” she said, quite obviously wishing that was the truth.
“Look at it this way.” Dad opined. “If they’re here with us, we know where they are. We’ve got eyes on them.”
There was no further time for discussion. Their topic of conversation was upon us. The boy came through the first, then without introduction his mysterious partner. She was large enough that she hunched over as she came through the door to our little home. A Wolf woman, Sharp and shadowy in a big red coat and wide round hat, she looked across all of us slowly. My eyes fell down her gray furred body to the gun hanging on her hip. Big to any of us, it hardly seemed excessive laying on her hip.
“I’m Inspector Desdemona Shay.” She said. “Thank you for the water.”
Her voice was big and deep, but still womanly. We didn’t hear any more of it however, as no less than six banged-up vehicles tore through the yard and began circling the house. One took out our clothes line as it circled, dragging our laundry around like flags before it snagged on something and plucked free.
I saw my mother trembling, positively morbid with fear, but she hadn’t even looked at the raiders. Her eyes were locked on the inspector. If I had been older, or my parents more pleased to speak about the past, I might have known why. I had no reason to think that her scarlet garments were the symbol of the brutal anthrostate’s notorious gestapo. The boy had failed to mention her trade.
Dad ignored all of this drama and stepped out the front door as the cars came to rest around the homestead. “What do you want?” he shouted.
“Don’t worry” said a fat man with rotten teeth. “We’ll help ourselves! Step out and stay clear, and we’ll leave any boy children.”
The ugly man had a sick and hacking laugh, which he indulged in at length along with his men. But as they did so, The inspector took out her gun and rocked back the hammer, with a “click-clack” sound I can still hear. She stepped toward the door, and towards the exposed back of my father without a word.
My mother swung her rifle at her, and as soon as she did the boy batted it away. The wolf didn’t even notice. I could hear them struggle only feet away from me, both still trying to keep the noise down on behalf of the raiders, but my eyes were locked on the wolf. It only took one or two great big steps before she was upon my father, and she reached her left arm around to his right shoulder before flinging him hard to the ground. In the same moment she fired the first shot.
The first raider was felled instantly, and the next before they figured out what was going on. My brother and older sister both took shots at men from the back window, and suddenly a hail of fire was upon the little house. The inspector didn’t flinch. Her third shot hit the boss as he fumbled for a weapon, not having expected to use one. An open-topped car from the back started and roared around front in an attempted retreat before its driver also fell victim to her steady, fuzzy hand.
Unfortunately my mother was a strong frontier woman. She had succeeded in subduing the thin boy whose name I can’t remember, and for a terrifying moment I was sure she was going to shoot the inspector. Lord knows she would have tried. Dad scampered to his feet to stand between them, and having slain all the raiders in the front the wolf wheeled around to draw on my mother. Mom shouldered the rifle.
“Don’t shoot! God dammit I’m fine don’t shoot!” Wailed dad, but a shot went off beside his head. He keeled over, clutching his ear a moment before he shot to his feet to check mom. She was on the ground, Red coat and hat standing over her, her right arm pinned by a huge clawed pawfoot. Shay’s gun was smoking. She put it away.
He fell to his knees. I’m sure he could hardly hear over his ears ringing.
“No!” he shouted. “God damn it, how could you! Can’t you see we’re alone out here? Don’t I have it hard enough?”
The inspector reached down to lift the body of my mother and set her on her feet. “Stop fighting me” she growled, holding the woman firmly at the shoulders and glaring in her eyes. In another moment she was free.
“Look.”
The inspector pointed to a hole in the back window, which in fact corresponded to a dead man just on the other side of the pane, bleeding out among mom’s elephant ears.
The wolf looked around and her nose twitched. Her eyes narrowed.
“They’re through.”
The boy came stumbling out rubbing his head. “I tried to stop her.” he said. “She’s tough.”
“Yep. Can’t ever afford to underestimate. Once the stars go away you can siphon the gas.”
Dad got up and clung to mom so tight I thought he might finally do her in, while the inspector trod over to one of the dead men. She kicked the body over on its back for a look at him. She had been hard to read from the beginning, although being my first run in with an anthro didn’t help. But I’ve never been able to figure out what she was feeling as she looked at him. I only remember what she said.
“What a waste.”
___
“They filled up on water and gas and left us in peace. The only other thing they took interest in was a history book, which we were obliged to part with. You know, I had never wanted to read it before then, but as soon as it was gone I read everything else in the house.”
The party guests were shut up, The woman’s cigarette long run through and crushed in the tray. Her red lipstick stains on the filter were a common point of focus for those too uncomfortable to look her in the eye.
“And you think,” Said Mr. Davenport, “that this makes the anthrostate our allies?”
“No.” She said. “We are in competition with each other. But they aren’t savages or brutes. At least not all of them. They can be reasoned with.”
She stood to leave, putting her cigarette case away.
“And if not, they should sure as hell not be underestimated.”