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Stories from the Verse
A Dozen Verses
Chapter 115: Slade 289
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Cooper 110
The bears were currently not an issue. Oh, certainly if the mother bear so chose she could probably reach him in seconds and kill him as quickly if he were not prepared. However, she had put space between them and although she still kept a watch on him she was mostly focused on dividing the meat of the largest of the dead wolves between herself and her two cubs. With more than a dozen other wolf carcasses scattered around the stream she would have no interest in attacking him, even if he were to snag one of those corpses.
He pondered that. Obviously, this was meat; the bear recognized that. On the other hand, people didn’t generally eat the flesh of carnivores. Part of that, he vaguely remembered hearing in some class years ago, was that the higher up the food chain a creature was, the higher the level of accumulated toxins. Also, it was inefficient--herbivores ate plants, carnivores ate animals who ultimately ate plants, so the amount of plant life needed to support a typical carnivore was greater. Of course, people ate fish, and some people ate snakes. Eating carnivores was not unknown.
Still, something inside suggested that meat from carnivores wasn’t so palatable. Besides, he had no experience cleaning mammals. Fish were available and adequate; he wasn’t going to try to eat wolf. The expression was waste not, want not, but somehow he didn’t think he could apply it here.
Of course, there were the pelts. A dozen furs from arctic wolves would certainly supplement their bedding. Again, though, this was not something he had ever done, or learned, or even watched. That was potential boon that they could not get.
What was worse, he realized, was that the bears weren’t going to dispose of all the carcasses; indeed, even however many wolves they chose to eat were not going to be totally consumed, and there would be scraps left behind. Scraps meant scavenger carnivores. He tried to think of what sort of creatures that would include. At home it would largely have been birds, from crows to eagles. This was not home. He had not spent much time looking at the sky, but somehow did not expect that there were many birds around here. That left land animals. He might hope for foxes or coyotes or something similarly small, but thus far his experience suggested the most probable scavenger was not something he particularly hoped to see: more wolves.
He expressed as much to Shella. An hour later, she giggled, and pointed over at the bears.
“Look near the furthest wolf.”
He looked closer. Heh. Mice were climbing out of holes in the snow, grabbing a chunk of something edible and legging it back into their tiny tunnels. Some had to struggle to rip a bit free, but they were very enthused. Whenever a bear moved its head, they all froze, but soon enough they were back to sneaking snacks. It made for an entertaining show, especially when an overly-ambitious mouse tried to drag a chunk of fur and meat larger than its hole back under snow. The two watched for several hours until the comfort bubble collapsed.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #533: Characters Traveling. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
