A Sneak Peek at
In the Midst of Death . . ..
Chapter 1: Varmint and the Trapper
The raccoon was young and inexperienced, a single mother, as were they all since the male of the species returns to his solitary existence after the season of glorious madness. Raccoons do not give themselves names, but she was about to cross over into the Twilight Zone of human needs and obsessions, and so she unconsciously took the name the man gave her, Varmint.
[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Varmint was raising her first three babies and was on the prowl that night for the nourishment which would keep the milk flowing. There was a huge mouthful right there in front of her, the remains of a pheasant, still feathered and just lying there for the taking.
She did not have the kind of intelligence to question how this feast just happened to lie in her path, but there was a glimmer of warning when her sensitive front paw felt the strange hardness beneath the leaves. She nosed off the top cover of dirt and leaves, revealing a strange dark stick that felt funny. It shouldn’t be here, and yet it did not bite back as she sniffed and pawed and even tried to bite its edge.
Not dangerous, not for eating either, she decided, turning her attention back to the other thing which was absolutely tantalizing in its aroma. Now that was for eating. And yet the first thing, the hard bad-tasting thing, served as an early warning. She didn’t grab it immediately, just reached out with an exploratory paw. When she felt the dead bird shift ever so slightly beneath her paw, she ignored the first lesson of the hunt – it’s getting away, grab harder – and leaped madly away.
The iron jaws snapped close, missing Varmint’s head and upper foreleg, but still closing inexorably upon her right front paw. Unimaginable pain shot up the leg and through her whole body until it was hard to tell where the injury began. Fear overwhelmed her as well, as she found it impossible to leave this place. She thrashed about, and the thing thrashed about with her, but she could not drag it or herself away.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]She cried, a high-pitched chirping sound; she nearly broke her sharp teeth against her treacherous enemy; she came to rest in dumb misery against the hopelessness of defeating it. And then she felt a new distress, the pressure of teats overflowing with milk. She had babies who would die if she did not get back to them.
Desperation brought grim measures, or maybe it just couldn’t hurt anymore than it already did. The trap had already shattered the tiny bones; it took very little time for the raccoon to chew off her own foot.
* * *
Ralph Folsom grimaced in annoyance at the sight of the sprung but empty trap, a grimace made almost demonic by the heavy scar tissue masking the right side of his face. This was money out of his pocket, meat out of his stewpot. But as he knelt to reset it, he saw the severed foot. Raccoon, youngish from the looks of it, but still a decent pelt. Crippled and easy to track.
He paused to scout out a thick branch to serve as a club. Though his flintlock musket was with him constantly, Ralph would not waste shot on so small a target, and besides, holes in the hide would make it unsalable.
Briefly, he regretted his decision to leave his hound, Titania, tied up at the cabin, but she could not be trusted abroad when she was in heat. Despite the proximity of two excellent hounds on the Collins estate, the bitch allied herself last year with a stinking lap dog belonging to Widow Craig, and he’d had to drown the litter in the briny pond, while the mother howled and scratched desperately from her nearby prison inside the cabin.[/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][/vc_column][/vc_row]