When we left off...It was a grey, dismal day in central Massachusetts.
A thin rain hisses down, slowly melting the snow pack. There are silver
icy-cold puddles of water slicking the ground. Driveways have become
temporary stream courses. The streets are gritty with a winter's
accumulation of road sand. The only color is the deep green of the
pines. The sun's light is a frail thing, and the clouds never thin.
The sound of a family of crows off in the distance is mournful, and
muffled by the rain.....

The enraged rooster, Three Bucks, tucked his wings in close to his
body, lowered his head, and charged right at Todd (who was too
terrified to move a muscle) and Hebert, whose pink eyes were squeezed
tightly shut in fervent denial. Hebert didn't even know what was
coming, and that was just as well. He wouldn't have been *happy*
about it. As it was, Hebert was not a *happy* weasel that day.

Todd saw the rooster coming and had just enough time to think "And this
is how it ends," when he registered a blur vectoring to intersect the
trajectory of the roooster. Todd had an impression of something large
and gray coming at him from out of the corner of the coop. He figured
that the whole flock was going to attack, and there was nothing he
could do to stop them. Nothing. He and Hebert were going to die, and
it was all his fault. This whole stupid thing was his fault.

Todd put his paw down comfortingly on Hebert's back and prepared for
the end. He squeezed his own eyes tightly shut, and was hit by
something that felt like a velvet fist! It was a complete body blow
that knocked him back against the pine wall of the coop. He actually
bounced off of it, and landed several feet away snout down into the
straw without a breath left in his lungs. There was a terrible pinching
sensation in his scruff, and then it was lights out! Todd was enveloped
in blackness. He knew nothing more.

Feeling came back to Todd slowly, blearily, and he thought "Is this
the Rainbow Bridge? It smells like chicken dookie." Todd was, in fact,
still alive, but it took him a few moments to reason that out. At
first he knew only that he was surrounded and pinned down by a soft
blackness. He literally couldn't move. And he heard voices, strident
voices, the loudest one was just against his cheek...

It sounded like...Tina? Was he actually...Yes! As incredible as it
seemed, Todd realized that he was being tightly held against Tina's
side, held firm between Tina's wing and her body. Protected, protected
from the dreadful slashing beak of that rooster, and that rooster
didn't sound too happy about it *at all*!

Todd heard "Give them up to me NOW, wife! They have tresspassed in MY
home!"

Tina's voice buzzed against Todd's cheek, it filled his whole body.
"No. They are fed. *We* are fed. I will hear what they have to say for
themselves. We are kindred, both of our kinds have left the Wild. It is
a brotherhood that we share with them. This is justice. Are we going to
show them our justice, or hoomin cruelty? Our kind is peaceful. We have
been bred for peace." There was silence in the coop.

With that Tina's wing lifted, and Todd could see again, that muddy
orange light from the heat lamp far overhead. One of the first things
Todd saw was the white of Hebert's tail lying in the straw, trailing
from... Blessed Be! Hebert had been pressed against Tina's other side
all of this time! Todd burrowed around the hen, scrambled through the
straw and threw himself across Hebert protectively. Tina had saved
them both! *She* must have been that blur that came from the corner
where the eggs were.The gray blur had been her black and white checks!
*She* had grabbed Todd by the scruff with her beak and tossed him
beneath her wings.

Todd looked up, and into the face of the rooster, with his terrible
red eyes....

More Tomorrow

Alexandra in MA

[Posted in FML 6277]