Summary:
Judy must deal with the attentions of a fowl bird, while Nick strides in to the rescue. After her assailant flees, Judy witnesses a scene that shakes her to her core. Seeking to comfort her, Nick offers her solace and a snack.
Notes:
Oh, Look! Another Chapter!
Death didn't come.
Bewildered, Judy peeked out through her fingers. There, on the ground before her weren't the wet legs of a large carnivorous reptile madly bent on the taste of her hot blood. No, they were instead these odd spindly legs, ending in feet with three long clawed toes. She turned her gaze up those feet and up the equally thin legs, to a wide body of gray feathers, and at the end of that body was a little red skull whose beady glass eyes stared back at her.
"Goobbbbblllleee!"
It's just a bird, thank God! I thought it was the caiman! She smiled a small embarrassed smile, and started to stand up.
WHACK!
"OW!" Judy cried, as the bird slammed his closed beak through her hat and into her skull. She collapsed back to the ground.
"AAAAHHHHRRRRRGGGGGGGGG!" Nick growled loudly as he ran towards the large fowl, waving his arms and rifle in the air like a windmill.
"PUUUTTTT! PUUUTTTT!" It took off squawking, flying a few yards down the path before landing and turning back to look contemptuously back at Nick. It called out another challenge, "Gooobbbleeee!"
Nick, keeping one eye on the bird, held out his paw to Judy's crouching form, "Come on, it's okay. You can stand up now."
Judy took his paw and stood up beside him. She pulled off her fedora and rubbed the sore spot on her scalp. "What was that all about?" She asked him.
Nick chuckled low, "It's the beginning of turkey mating season." He pointed at the bird, "All the young tom's are establishing their pecking order, and he must have thought you were another male come to challenge him. That's why he rushed you, and gave you a peck when you tried to stand up. He was just enforcing his social dominance."
Judy slipped her hat back on, and twisted her frame about, looking down her coat, "That's funny, I don't look like a turkey."
"Yeah, well, they don't see all that well in the dark. He must have seen the movement of your gray coat, and thought you were another tom." Nick nodded toward the trees, "Normally they'd still be up in their tree roosts, but with the onset of the mating season, their hormones kick in and they can get kind of aggressive."
Judy looked at the beady eyed bird with trepidation, "He's not going to attack us again, is he?"
Nick stood tall, and matched the birds stare, "No, he's gonna be too busy in a few moments. A call like that will carry through the forest and bring in other challengers." Nick turned his head slightly, "Yup, here comes one now."
Another large tom flapped down from the trees and answered the first male's challenge. They circled each other, sizing up each other's respective snoods. They were evenly matched in size and coloration, so it was only a matter of moments before a fight broke out. The new arrival launched into a kicking attack with his leg spurs and drove the other male back into the reeds by the edge of the path. But before that tom could counter-attack, a loud clap sounded from the reeds, and the tom screamed as he was dragged backwards through the reeds, disappearing into the gloom. In a panic, the other tom flew away into the trees.
Judy shivered as the scream was cut short with a gurgle. She grasped Nick's uniform in a spasm, her fists balled up in his khaki shirt, and huddled close to his bulk.
"Hey, Hey..." He reached down with his free paw and awkwardly patted her back, "It's okay. You're safe."
Judy shuddered, a wave traveling down her spine, as she fought to control her fright. She banged her head against his stomach in frustration, "I...I'm-m-m-m sorry-y-y-y-". She gasped.
He nodded, "Come on, let's go." He placed his paw behind her back, and gently tried to guide her away from the pool, "Or do you need to go back?" He asked her.
She let go of his shirt and turned to match his slow pace, letting herself be guided. "No," she sighed, "I can go on." The last place she wanted to go was back alongside that pool with it's hidden eyes. She could just imagine the feathers of that unfortunate turkey floating between the watery reeds.
Nick looked down at her in concern, "I would have thought you've seen death before?"
She looked up at him from under the brim of her fedora, the twitching of her nose the only remaining indication of her emotional state. "Death? Yeah, I've seen death before, seen victims at crime scenes. I've even had suspects attack me and try to kill me." She shivered, "But I have never encountered something that wanted to consume me so… savagely." She shook her head, "Usually, during an investigation, I get to know the suspect, so by the time I get to actually arresting them, I'm ready for how violent they can be. That..." She waved her paw back down the path, "that… There was just no warning, no warning at all."
He patted her shoulder awkwardly as he stepped away from her side, "That's predators for you. True predators, anyway. That caiman just wanted to eat, and live another day. He wasn't committing a crime in the process."
Judy let out a breath, "Some do, some do." He looked back at her inquisitively, but she stared back in confusion, "Hang on. Why are you being so nice to me?"
"Nice?" He asked.
"Yes! Nice! And understanding!" She gestured expansively.
"Shouldn't I be?" Nick was confused.
Judy gaped at him, her jaw dropped, "Huh?! No, you've always been horrible! You were a beast to me in class, always making fun of me. Why were you so awful to me?"
"In class, last year?" He ask as he strode along the path, his eyes alert of other dangers as he listened to her with half an ear.
"Yes!" She demanded.
He shrugged, "You were boring."
"WHAT!" She squeaked.
"Well, the way you were teaching was boring, just reading straight from the book. Any mammal can read a book. We didn't do any labs or field work, or even work a few case files."
"It was an eight week intensive overview on criminal behavioral science! I didn't have the space to shove two years worth of my actual Masters work into that short of a time frame!" She pointed out to him.
"Yeah, but that was the interesting stuff, at least to me. The book wasn't interesting at all, just filled with graphs and charts, and all the stuff about mammal behavior was reduced to an overview. Like the author was above everybody else or something, looking down."
She hotly defended her choice of textbook, "Professor McHorn is a noted academic in the criminal justice field, and he was ZPD officer for years before he retired to write his books. He knows what he was talking about!"
"What is he? Your advisor or something?" Nick asked her. "No, when you talked about your experiences, that was interesting. You were interesting. That book? Not so much."
Judy went silent for a moment, loathe to admit that McHorn was indeed on her thesis advisory committee, but she really did feel his book was a good one. She wasn't just using it to suck up to the older rhino. Wait, did he say I was interesting? She smiled to herself, but in her introspection, she lost sight of the trail, and stumbled on the ruts.
He was quicker, and gentler this time, as he caught her shoulder with an open paw, "I'm serious – are you okay? We can go back if we need to."
"No, No, I'm good… It's just… We're doing all this walking, and talking, and stuff, and I haven't had my morning coffee or anything to eat for breakfast." She gestured back the way they had come, "I mean, I'm sure the CSU mammals brought doughnuts, but Bogo told me to do this… I'm sorry. I'm hungry, and not very alert, and my mind is wandering." There; that was all very true, and very incomplete, she knew.
"Oh!" Nick stood back up straight, "I can't do anything about the coffee thing; bad for canines, you know, but I can do something about breakfast. Would you like some cattail?"
"Yes! I would love some cattail; it's been years since I've had any, least since my kit-hood." Every spring, when her father would dredge the irrigation canals, he would bring in armloads of cattail shoots to share with the families, and it was one of Judy's favorite childhood memories.
Nick pointed down the path, "We're almost to the logging road, and there's a ditch that runs alongside it. I noticed cattails growing there, and we should be able to get you some shoots." He led her the remaining distance to the road, and into the sunlight filtering down between the rows of trees.
Nick handed his rifle to Judy, and stepped down into the drainage ditch that ran alongside the road. She looked on in concern, "Be careful! There could be caimans down there!"
He looked back at her, his feet slowly sinking in the mud, a grin on his muzzle, "Nah! Not enough water here for them to swim in, just mud." He pulled his belt knife out and hacked off several fresh stalks which he tossed up on the bank. He put the knife away and started to scramble back up the bank when he stopped with an exclamation, "Oh, hey… Look, Cassina! That'll do!" He dug out his belt and dug up a couple of short shoots. Kneeling on the bank top, he peeled the outer layers off the shoots, and handed them to Judy.
"You mentioned coffee, right? That's Cassina, also known as yaupon. It also contains a lot of caffeine, but it can be kinda strong, so you might just want to nibble on it." He smiled at her before picking up the cattail stalks and started to peel the leaves off of the cores.
Judy frowned for a moment, as she had never heard of yaupon, but she was desperate for coffee, and any substitute would do for her caffeine cravings right about then. She nibbled on the root.
"How's it taste?" Nick asked her.
She frowned for a moment, and then smiled, "Not bad. Kinda nutty and a bit sweet? Could be worse, I suppose." She bit off a larger chunk and chewed on it.
Nick stood and held out the trimmed white cattail stalks to her, "Here, I'll trade ya." Judy handed him his rifle and took the stalks in return as she stared down at his muddy legs in dismay.
"Your legs are all muddy! I'm sorry!" she apologized.
He looked down with a grin and brushed at his shorts, "Occupational hazard for a park ranger, don't worry about it." As a clump fell off his knees, Nick noticed something laying on the ground. "Hang on." He bent over and picked up a small sliver of wood that was laying by the side of the logging road. "What's this?" He held it up.
Judy stared at the pale piece, her eyes narrowing as she slowly chewed. "Looks like a toothpick." She looked up at the taller canine and his nose and asked suspiciously, "What does it smell like?"
"Smell like? Other than careless mammal litter?" He sniffed the stick gently. "Hum… the scent's faint, but if I'd have to hazard a guess..." He tasted the end of the stick with his tongue.
"What?" Judy already had an idea, but it was a pretty far out idea, even in her experience.
Nick held it out for her to look at as he announced his prognosis.
"Weasel."
