Sunset of Furmankind
LOST IN THE WILDERNESS
©2011 Ted R. Blasingame

Chapter 2 - March of the Furs

Jonathan Sunset stood out in the dark clearing a short distance from where the other Furs had settled in for the night and suppressed a yawn. He remained absolutely still, crouching down in the tall grass and straining all his senses to listen to the forest around them. It had been years since he had done any hunting, but now his senses were sharper. His feline eyes had adjusted to the darkness and the faint starlight over the clearing illuminated his surroundings in ways he had never imagined. Not as color blind as a true cougar, colors were muted compared to what he used to know, but his night sight was brighter, sharper, making it a decent trade-off.

Without consciously thinking about them, his ears swiveled back and forth to zero in on the night sounds around them. There were several incidents where he could hear something large walking over leaves and pine needles through the surrounding brush, but the scents his nose picked up were unfamiliar to him. He guessed it might be a moose, as they were supposed to be in the area. Despite that the Furmankind Institute was located in the middle of the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York, all the scents of the complex had masked anything else from the surrounding forest. Now that he was out in the wilderness, he was enjoying the new scents and sounds so much that he had momentarily forgotten their predicament.

He could smell water somewhere nearby, and he suddenly realized that he could also pick up the faint smell of blood. He began to get alarmed, but once he sifted the scents more carefully, his brain associated the smell with another. He wrinkled his nose in the dark when he realized that one of the females in the group must be menstruating. He did his best to push that scent from his mind, afraid that if he concentrated on it more he could probably have picked out who it belonged to, and he was not that curious.

Sorting carefully through other aromas in the dark, he picked up the scent of something on the light night breeze that made his taste buds tingle, even though he had no idea what it was that he smelled. If it had not been for his sense of duty in keeping watch over his sleeping companions, he might have been tempted to run out after whatever it was that smelled so good to him. One such critter suddenly came into his view. Had his night vision not been so sensitive he might have missed it, but movement at the far edge of the clearing stirred the summer grass in a direction against the occasional breeze. His dilated feline eyes locked on the movement and he recognized a small pair of fuzzy ears barely sticking up above the grass.

Jon caught himself licking his lips. No, he thought to himself, I am not a wild animal to be enticed by a rabbit! Despite this, however, he had to swallow the saliva that was forming in his mouth. The breeze shifted and he suddenly realized that this was the aroma he had picked up before that smelled so nice. He had never lied when he had told someone he was a hunter from a family of hunters. That was not a part of his made-up identity, but was an actual fact of his family history. During his youth, Jon had often hunted rabbits with his father, uncles and cousins, but he had never eaten one raw; neither had he ever actually noticed a scent like this.

For all his arguing and grumbling, this furman experienced a thrill using these newly realized senses — and he understood. It took a trip into the wilderness for him to comprehend part of the reasons for sending Furs out to newly discovered worlds. Such senses could be a benefit to someone trying to learn a new land, and although this is one of the things their instructors had tried to explain to them, it had never sunk in until now.

Go ahead and give in to the animal, he told himself. I’m part cat, but I’m still a man. I can use this. He remained perfectly still, his eyes riveted to the rabbit slowly making its way to a choice patch of clover, but he wanted to run out there and chase it down. Is this a part of the feline instincts, or is it simply because I’m finally starting to accept what I am?

He could not remember how long he had been on watch, but a hunger in his stomach reminded him that they would need to find food soon. The rabbit was a distraction. He needed to be on the watch for any danger that might approach the Furs while they slept, but he also knew that if danger were nearby, the rabbit would have either disappeared already or its motions would be frozen in stillness.

Jon swallowed. He wanted that rabbit. The quivering of its ears in the grass enticed him and he swallowed again. He leaned forward in his crouch ever so slightly until both hands touched the ground without stirring a dry leaf. His movement did not stop there, however. He got down on all fours in the grass, his eyes never leaving his prey. His breathing became shallow as he drew in the rabbit’s scent and the very tip of his long rope tail began to twitch. The muscles in his legs bunched up as he prepared to launch himself out across the clearing. He was going to enjoy this.

“Jon!” someone called out in a quiet voice.

Queued up for the pounce, the feline furman nearly jumped out of his skin, and he did jump forward about two yards only to stumble over his own feet. He hit the ground ungracefully and fell over onto his side. He could feel a ridge of fur standing up along his back and he growled lowly in frustration and embarrassment.

“Over here, Norman,” he grumbled, struggling to get to his feet. He cast a disappointed look back toward the rabbit, but he needn’t have bothered; it was gone.

“There you are,” said his ursine friend. “Go get a couple hours of sleep. I’ll take over the watch for you.”

Jon doubted that the adrenaline now coursing through his body would allow him to relax enough to sleep for a while, but he stood up and found the bear in the darkness by starlight. “Thanks,” he muttered.

Norman did not recognize the annoyance in the cougar’s voice, instead taking the tone as being tired and in need of rest. “Don’t mention it,” he said quietly.

Jon left without another word and made his way over to the slumbering crowd. He did not have a destination in mind, so he merely found a spot on the outer fringes of the group and stretched out on the grass.

He did not go to sleep right away. There was too much pent up energy within him, so he began a series of quiet exercises in the dark, beginning with push-ups in the grass. This act was so habitual to him that he did it without conscious thought while his mind returned to the new sensations he had experienced.

***

When Jon awoke to the smell of smoke, he discovered that he was only one of a few that still slept. The glow of dawn was still mostly down behind the trees, but birdsong in the trees was already active. He rubbed his eyes and started to get up, but discovered that Rose had snuggled up next to him during the night and had his left arm pinned to the ground. He lifted the young vixen’s shoulder gently and extracted his arm, and then she turned over onto her other side without waking up.

Voices mumbled together in conversation from several small groups scattered about the clearing, but the number there did not account for nearly half of the Furs. He yawned, stretched and then got up to his feet. Bits of grass, leaves and pine needles clung to his furman garments, as well as a small bit of dew. He brushed himself off and then walked over to the nearest group.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Cheryl said to him with a smile, looking out at him from under the brim of her cowgirl hat. She sat with Jenni, Jasmine, Dahlia and Erin, all gathered around a small burning fire contained in an old bowl of earth and ringed with moderate-sized, scorched stones; this was not the first time that someone had camped out in the clearing. Lying up against the rocks were a few thick sticks that were blackened on one end.

“Good morning, ladies,” Jon returned, giving them all a partial smile over a puzzled expression. “What’s going on?”

“Breakfast!” Erin said brightly. “The bears are all down at the creek they found this morning, fishing bare-handed.” She giggled at the implied pun, grinning.

“Bare-handed, bare-chested, and in their wet shorts, almost bare bears,” Jasmine added with a grin. Erin giggled again and the two of them exchanged looks of amusement when Jon rolled his eyes at the banter.

Dahlia shook her head with a hopeless expression at her sister and then she looked up at the mountain lion. “No one brought a knife, so we’ve had to use teeth and claws,” she told him. “I wasn’t sure I could eat a fish that wasn’t previously prepared, but once I got past the ick factor it wasn’t so bad when roasted over a fire.”

“Who’s the Scout who rubbed sticks together for your campfire?” the cougar asked, squatting down between Cheryl and Jenni.

“Aaron used to smoke cigars until his transformation changed the way they tasted,” Jenni answered, poking the fire with one of the sticks, “but he still carries his lighter everywhere he goes – says it’s a good luck charm.”

“I forgot he had that,” Jon mused. “Did it have a four-leaf clover painted on each side?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

“Why didn’t he use it last night when we were all in the dark?”

“He said he didn’t want to waste its fuel, but it didn’t take much to get a couple fires going once we’d prepared the ground like this with dry wood.”

Jon nodded in approval. “Sounds like someone’s on top of things this morning.”

“It’s Avon,” Jasmine told him. “He’s a good planner and took charge right away.”

“Does anyone have a problem with him in charge?”

“Travis grumbled about it, but everyone else thinks Avon is the right one for the job.”

“It makes sense,” Jon replied. “Avon’s being trained to be a colony captain when they send out the next Ursis group.” He looked around and then up at the brightening sky. “Why didn’t anyone wake me when everyone else got up?”

Cheryl snickered. “We tried, but neither you nor Rose would get up.”

“I had to make sure you weren’t taking advantage of our little sister,” Jasmine remarked with a sly smile, “but you were a gentleman even in your sleep. I think Kevin may have been jealous, though.”

“Great. Thanks, but you could have gotten me up,” Jon replied, remembering waking up with the youngest of the Fleur sisters snuggled up to him.

“Since you stood first watch last night, we thought you could use the extra sleep.”

Jon frowned. “I assumed we’d be on the move by now, trying to get back to the Institute.”

“Avon figured we’d be better off if we’d had something to eat and gathered up a few supplies first. Several are still fishing if you want breakfast, others are out with Kristen gathering edible berries, and Avon’s got a few scouting around for something to carry water in.”

“That last one’s not going to be easy,” Jon remarked. “It’ll be interesting to see if someone can come up with something. If no one has a knife, it won’t be possible to carve out a wooden container and would take too long with claws.” He picked up one of the charred sticks and got to his feet. “Which way to the fish?”

Cheryl pointed across the clearing to the border of trees nearest to them. “You could just follow your nose to the water,” she teased, “but if you go between those two large pine trees, you’ll find an animal path down a hill to the creek.”

“Thanks, ladies. I’ll be back shortly.”

***

Kristen knelt beside a cluster of purple flowers on twining stems and smiled. She knew things would not be quite this easy when they reached another planet, but she recognized what she had found here, an abundance of amphicarpaea bracteata, more commonly known as hog peanuts. Both the roots and the seeds of the plant were edible, but despite their nickname, they typically had a taste resembling chestnuts rather than peanuts. To the uninitiated, the plant’s triple leaves might resemble poison ivy and warn off the casual hiker, but Kristen knew the difference and began digging at the soil to get at the roots and buried seed nuts.

She already had a small variety of other edible plants she had discovered just inside the edge of the forest near the clearing where they had spent the night, and both pockets of her furman robe top were getting full. The berries, nuts and edible flowers would not feed a group as large as theirs for long, but it would help mute the hunger that would likely set in on their trek back to the Institute.

In spite of the panic of abandonment the night before, most of the Furs were in good spirits. Avon encouraged each and every one of them he spoke to and prompted everyone to work together as a team. Due to her expertise in botany, Kristen had been put in charge of a small group to forage for edible plants they could carry with them.

Michael Lynch approached to see what she was digging up, and when she held one up for him to see, he grinned and got down on his knees beside her.

“You have fuzz all over you,” she teased. The swift fox shrugged and pulled at a hog peanut stem.

“I found some cattails growing down at the creek,” he explained. “I tried to stuff a few stalks in my pockets, but the seeds got everywhere.”

“The cattail plants will appreciate your willingness to spread their seeds across the countryside,” she replied with a nod. “I’ve never actually eaten cattail, but I know the whole plant is edible, the best part being the stalk, so it’ll be good to have along.”

“Hey, can we eat this one?” called out another voice.

Kristen looked up in annoyance, but pasted an indifferent expression on her face. She put a hand on Michael’s arm and indicated that he should continue with the peanuts, and then got to her feet to see what Travis had found.

The German shepherd stood beside a flowering plant on a smooth green stem with red streaks. The triangular leaves were lacy and finely divided with small umbel-clustered white flowers. Travis had crushed several of the leaves in one hand and an unpleasant aroma surrounded him. In his other hand were several dried seed pods that he had lifted toward his lips.

Kristen’s eyes widened and she suddenly swallowed. “No, Travis, those are poisonous!” She tapped his wrists until he dropped the contents from both hands, and then pointed to a small brook they had crossed earlier. “You’d better go wash your hands; that’s hemlock you’ve found there!”

Travis let out a yelp and ran to the brook to clean off his hands. He had never actually seen the plant before, but he had retained enough of his schooling to remember that the philosopher Socrates had committed suicide from drinking a mixture containing poison hemlock. He did not know if it could get into his bloodstream simply by handling it, but he certainly did not want any of it on his hands when he ate something later.

Kristen watched him scrub his hands vigorously with river mud and pebbles, wishing they had some kind of hand sanitizer along. A wave of movement caught her attention nearby and she looked up to see Yuki Tanaka trying to get her attention. The mountain lioness walked around several of the hemlock plants to a tree near the brook.

The Canis Akita stood beside a tree with long pointed leaves with serrated margins decorated by a large purple crop of small, round berries.

“What about these?” Yuki asked in a quiet voice, hoping she had not found something in a repeat of what Travis had just discovered.

The ground beneath the tree was scattered with the berries that had dried and fallen off. Kristen knelt down to examine them for a moment and then her eyes lit up in recognition. She had never actually seen any before, but she knew enough about them from her studies.

“These are hackberries,” she told Yuki with a nod. “They’re like a cross between nuts and berries, and they are safely edible.” Using the hem of her robe top, she brushed off one of the dried and ripened berries before placing it in her mouth; she chewed on it cautiously, hoping her memory was correct, but when the sweet juices spread across her taste buds, she smiled at the canine. “These are good,” she told her. “Gather up all the dried ones you can find, but leave the rest.”

“Why only the dried ones?” the Akita asked, instead eying a plump purple berry on the tree. “There are lots more on the tree.”

“You can eat those, but they’ll be bitter. The sweet ones are those that have matured and dried.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Good job, Yuki,” Kristen told her with a smile. She left the Akita to her task and then walked through the brush to check on Sissy Quinn. The domestic cat looked up at her from the ground where she knelt and held up several thick taproots the color of her fur.

“I found wild carrots!” Sissy exclaimed triumphantly. “I used to grow these in a window box at home and recognized the tops!”

Kristen grinned in return and got down on her knees. “Very good! Here, let me help you dig up more.”

They began to chat as they dug in the forest soil with their claws, and after a moment, Travis knelt down behind her, putting his hands on her shoulders. She stiffened immediately, and he put his nose up beside one of her ears.

“Thank you for saving me back there,” he said with genuine appreciation. “I could have died if you hadn’t stopped me from tasting the seeds.”

Kristen looked over her shoulder at him and nodded. “You’re welcome,” she replied. “This is the kind of thing we’ll all be facing when they send us to other worlds, only we won’t have any kind of experience or knowledge about the local plant life there. The Director may be forcing us on survival training now, but we’re fortunate now in that we know some plants here we can eat. They won’t fill us up, but could keep an edge off our hunger on the way back.”

Travis slipped a hand down to her waist and slid his arm around her. “Thank you,” he said again, whispering right into her ear. “How may I show you my gratitude?”

Kristen knew exactly where his fingers were heading and she cleared her throat. “You’re welcome. Go help Michael dig up peanuts and we’ll call it even.” The canine’s hands crept up farther and she suddenly clamped her arm down hard on his wrist. “Please,” she added.

The German shepherd snorted and withdrew his hand. Before he backed away, however, he whispered, “I’ve noticed that you and Sun-downer aren’t chummy anymore. If you need someone to snuggle up to again tonight, you’re welcome to my warm arms… or more.”

Kristen cleared her throat again and shook her head. “Thanks, but no thanks,” she told him. “Now, the sooner we get back with these edible plants, the quicker we can get started on the way back.”

Travis smiled and gave her ear a quick lick before he stood up and moved back out of reach. Sissy looked at her with wide eyes. She had heard them whispering, but had not been able to tell what the canine had said to the cougar.

“What was that about?” she asked quietly, still looking up at Kristen’s ear.

The botanist rubbed a hand across her ear and then wiped it on the leaves and pine needles covering the forest floor. “That… was him getting on my nerves again,” she muttered, peering down at her claws. “I am trying to be civil, but I was about to let my cat hiss at him. C’mon, let’s get as many carrots as we can find and then get back to the clearing.”

***

“We’ll have to use the GPS sparingly,” Avon announced to the group of Furs gathered around him. “We only have the one set of batteries that were in it and I’ve noticed even those aren’t fully charged. I don’t know how long it will take us to get back to the Institute, so we’ll only turn it on as needed to get our bearings. Fortunately, it’s loaded with topographical maps that should help us make our way around the roughest terrain if we find we have to leave the road.”

The cinnamon-furred grizzly looked around at the thirty sets of eyes looking back at him, the morning sun filtering through the overhead branches upon his shoulders. Despite the accepting attitude they had all adopted earlier, some now looked frightened as they were about to set off. Avon felt their sense of uncertainty, but he did not share that sense of helplessness. This was likely just a mere test, and although there were not many among them familiar with life in a forest, they were still on Earth and everything around them shared the same world history. One day they might be in a similar situation, but it would be upon an alien world where everything around them was unknown. For now, they were still upon home soil.

“I’ve talked it over with some of you and it seems the best course of action would be to follow the road out that Marcelo brought us in on,” he told them. “The roads meander around the mountains through the forest and it may take us longer to get back that way, but the terrain will be level and free of the underbrush we’d have to go through otherwise.

“Since we were left without supplies of any kind, we don’t have so much as a knife to carve out anything that could hold any amount of water to carry along, but the Adirondacks are plentiful in lakes, rivers and streams and we’ve discovered that our hybrid noses can sniff out water. Although we’ve had to eat in ways we’ve never had to before, I hope all of you had the chance to fill your bellies this morning. We’ll likely have to hunt, fish and chew on edible plants along the route, so you may as well get used to thinking that way.

“I’ve overheard some of you talking about our situation and I’ve realized something. Most of us are still thinking like humans.” He held up a massive hand paw and extended it palm outward with his claws fully extended. “We aren’t human anymore. We’re better!” There were several expressions of surprise, as if the thought really had not occurred to them. “We’re more suited to what we’re facing now than any of us have ever been. This is why we’re here, folks. We’re faster, we’re stronger, our senses are sharper and our bodies are more resilient. While we still tend to eat what we’re familiar with, our digestive systems are hardier as well. As long as we can find water that’s flowing, we won’t have to worry about purifying what we find before we drink it. Stay away from stagnant pools and we should be fine. You’ve already discovered that you can eat raw fish with no ill effects, although Kevin’s comparison of it to sashimi wasn’t too far off the mark. You have to get past the human mindset, the old way of thinking.”

He was encouraged by the thoughtful looks he saw throughout the crowd. “Some of you have already discovered that you can walk and run on all fours just as easily as you can by staying upright. That’s the way our new bodies were designed, and although I’ve heard some of you mention that our furman clothes make us look like a cult, they were also designed with the purpose of allowing us the freedom to move whether we’re on two feet or down on all fours.” He looked down at the dark blue robe top he wore and tapped at one side. “I’d always wondered why the deep pockets on these things had the opening at an angle instead of perpendicular to the ground, but now I know. Even if you’re down on four feet, er, hands and feet, things will still stay in your pockets.”

The red wolf near the back held up a hand. Avon pointed to him and said, “You have a question, Ken?”

“Does anyone know what we can expect from the weather on the hike back?” the lupine doctor asked. Like Jenni, Ken Wilder had a medical license he had intended for use in a starter colony somewhere.

It was Sissy who spoke up from the midst of the crowd. “I still can’t get anything on my PBJ out here,” she said, “but I always check the forecast before going to bed every night. We’re due for clear skies and high temperatures in the mid-eighties for the next three days and then there’s a chance for rain and cooler temperatures.”

“Can we make it back before we get rained on?” Dahlia asked.

“We could probably make it in two days if we went the direct route,” Gerard answered, “but going by the road is going to take us longer because it winds around the hills and trees. If we dawdle, we might see some of that rain, so we’ll have to make good time.”

“Maybe we’ll even get lucky and a truck will come by that we can hitch a ride on,” Erin said hopefully.

“Fat chance of that!” Travis replied, crossing his arms. “I doubt the people who live in this area would be happy to pick up a bunch of freaks like us. They’d be more likely to grab a rifle from the gun rack in the back windows of their pickups.”

“What an awful thing to say!” Erin returned with a frown.

“Think about it – it could happen,” the German shepherd shot back. “There’s still a lot of jerks out there who hate Furs.” Kristen peered across the group straight at Jon at those words, but the larger feline did not look back.

“In that case,” Gerard retorted, “you can be the one to approach any oncoming vehicles, since you’re man’s best friend, doggy.”

“Not me,” growled Travis. “Have Cheryl stand out by the road and wiggle her tail at passing motorists. If she took off her clothes and got down on all fours, she’d almost look like a local farm dog!”

“Hey!” Cheryl exclaimed. “Leave me and my tail out of this!”

“Aw, but it’s such a cute tail, darlin’,” Travis countered with a lecherous grin.

“When we get back,” Aaron grumbled aloud, “I’m going to have a little talk with the Director for dumping us out here like this.” He batted a fist into his other palm for effect.

“Not until we find out why,” Avon countered. “This isn’t typical of the usual schedule; he didn’t do this with our class or the previous one, so maybe there’s a reason for it other than just a survival march.”

“It would have been nice of him to have given us some kind of explanation,” Wendy complained. “We had a long enough drive to get out here that he had plenty of time to fill us in.”

“We’ll have more basic supplies with us on another world than what he left us with here,” Michael Lynch remarked.

“Folks, this is not an ideal situation,” Avon said, raising his voice above the sudden conversations, “but you must consider that we may be faced with similar circumstances someday. We have a far better chance of surviving a few days out here than we might on another planet, so we may as well consider this practice for now.”

“You seem too confident about all this,” Arne Kohler said. “What did Marcel tell you?” The African lion crossed his thick arms in a challenging look at the grizzly. “What are you keeping from us?”

“Nothing,” Avon answered without hesitation. “I’m just as in the dark about this venture as the rest of you are, but I’m trying to make the best of the situation.” He looked up at the brightening sky over the clearing. “Listen, no matter what the reason was that the Director had for dropping us off here in the middle of the night, we’re wasting too much time just standing around worrying what’s going to happen to us. I don’t think Marcelo’s going to send the bus back for us, so we need to take this into our own hands and get started.”

“Lead the way, Avon. I’ll bring up the rear to make sure we don’t leave anyone behind.”

“Thank you, Jon.” The grizzly looked around the group. “This is the plan we’ve come up with. If anyone has a better idea, speak up now.” There were no responses, not even from the grousers, so he nodded and pointed toward the trail that led off into the trees in the direction that the bus had taken only a few hours ago. “Let’s go.”

Several of the Ursis Furs moved forward immediately, but the rest of the crowd was sluggish to get going. Within moments, however, thirty-one anthro-human hybrids headed out of the clearing along a road that amounted to little more than ruts in the grass. Despite earlier uncertainty, spirits picked up again now that they were on the move.

Jon added up noses to make sure everyone was accounted for before he followed the last of them out of the clearing. At the back of the group, Sissy was talking quietly with Carl and Ellie, both of whom had remained quiet during the recent discussion, but she glanced over her shoulder at Jon and gave him a smile. When he looked back at her in amusement, her eyes crinkled and then she said something to Ellie before she slowed her pace to allow Jon to catch up to her.

“How are you holding up?” he asked the short feline quietly.

“I was frightened at first,” she admitted, “but now I think we’ll be okay.”

“What made you change your mind?”

Sissy smiled and hooked arms with him. “People like you, Avon, Carl, Ellie and others. You’ve taken something that could be traumatic to some and turned it into nothing more than a hike back along established roads.” She made a wide sweep with her free hand toward the trees on both sides of them. “It might be different if we had to go cross country through the woods and find our own way back through these mountains, but even if it takes us several days, walking along a road isn’t very frightening.”

Jon twitched an ear and nodded. “That’s a very good perspective,” he told her.

“Neither Kim nor Yuki agree with me, though,” Sissy remarked with a pout. “They think we’re all doomed.”

“Doomed? What do the Tanaka sisters think is going to happen to us?”

“They think Marcelo dropped us off for a reason, and that something bad will happen to us if we return.”

“Do they think he’s going to shoot us like wild animals if we come back?”

Sissy shrugged. “I dunno, but Kim thinks Avon should have us set up our own colony out here somewhere – maybe even right back there in the clearing. On the other hand, Yuki thinks we should just scatter in the woods and live on our own in separate groups according to our species.”

“What would be the purpose in that?”

“She’s assuming that the AHCP lost their license or something like that, and that Marcelo dropped us out her to save us from being destroyed like unwanted pets. If we separate off into our Wings, we can survive out here in the wild and breed to keep the groups going.” With her last comment, Jon looked down at the orange cat and suddenly felt conscious of their interlocked arms.

“Uhm, I wouldn’t agree with that assumption,” he replied. “Something may have happened back at the Institute that required getting us away quickly, but I don’t think Marcelo would have been as tight-lipped as he was about it if he knew we were in danger. No, I agree with Avon that this is most likely a survival test. We’re going to live off the land, work together as a team and make our way back. Otherwise, why would he have left us with a GPS receiver with the Institute as the only waymark recorded on it?”

Sissy squeezed his arm. “That’s one of the things I like about you, Jon,” she said with a smile. “You think things through to see the logic in it.”

Up ahead in the crowd following Avon under the over-hanging trees, Kristen paused in her conversation with Jasmine and looked around at the crowd. When she peered back behind them, she saw Sissy merrily hanging onto Jon’s arm, saying something that obviously made the male cougar look embarrassed. She snorted in disdain and then turned back to her companion.

“What’s wrong?” the vixen asked, raising both eyebrows.

“Nothing,” Kristen answered. “Why?”

“Because you just laid your ears back.”

“You’re also smacking me with the end of your tail,” added the polar bear behind her.

Kristen looked back at Dara Turner with an embarrassed smile. “Sorry,” she said, snagging her active tail and pulling it up to her chest.

The large, white-furred woman waved it off and went back to the conversation she was having with Norman Grey, the brown bear who had come into the Ursis Wing as a last-minute replacement when Whelan’s girlfriend had not shown up as a scheduled volunteer. Although Dara was an outrageous flirt with all the male bears, she had become good friends with him over the course of the former NFL football player’s transformation. Norman’s family had been farmers and Dara knew the experience of his upbringing would be a valuable asset when the Ursis colony finally set down on alien soil.

When Kristen returned her attention to the hike, Jasmine leaned in close to whisper, “You look as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. What’s up, cat?”

The mountain lioness smirked at the analogy and waggled the end of her tail in her hand at her friend. “Never you mind,” she said. “It’s nothing.”

Several steps behind her in the group, Travis had noted the incident and then surreptitiously looked over his shoulder to see if he could figure out what it was that had agitated Kristen. He saw nothing but other bodies behind him, though when Carl pulled his wife to the sidelines to point out something to her in the trees, his view became unobstructed. Jon followed a short distance behind the crowd of Furs with the director’s secretary hanging off his arm.

A smile spread across the German shepherd’s features. Witnessing her miffed expression at seeing another feline on Sunset’s arm, Travis was greatly pleased.

He increased his pace just enough that he could move up in the group without attracting too much attention, and soon he had bypassed Dara and Norman so that he had positioned himself right behind Kristen.

He played it cool and simply walked with the crowd, idly listening to the conversations around him. He had just entertained some thoughts that might work out in his favor if he was patient.

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