Louis Shalako: 2021-02-28

Saturday, March 6, 2021

Core Values, Chapter Thirty-Five. Louis Shalako.

Chapter Thirty-Five

The big cat sat on a branch, purring in contentment…

The big cat sat on a branch, licking herself clean. She purred in contentment, tasting the fresh blood of a rabbit from paws and muzzle. She cleaned herself carefully. The smell of blood was a sure warning to other meals, still on the hoof or crouching cautiously in their burrows. While she groomed her thick tawny fur, she was ever-alert, ever-listening, smelling the wood-smoke and other flavors on the wind. She curled her paw around and cleaned between each toe with her raspy, almost prehensile tongue. She did the other side, then each hind foot, with no hint of her precarious perch.

Her balance and flexibility were miracles of creation.

The killing was easy in these parts, and while the big cat was unaware of the fine geographic distinctions, she had unwittingly moved back into her natural range. She was home, and didn’t even know it. The killing was easy so the living was easy, and now the big cat had no natural enemies. No other top-of-the-food-chain predators competing directly with her, nor preying upon her. No other predators to spook the herd, spoiling a perfect set-up at the last instant, to cross ahead of the herd when the wind was wrong, or to leave a scent by a water source, and make them move on to another.

She had the herd all to herself.

She was familiar with the black bears, who were a hereditary enemy, and sparks flew when they met. Yet she hadn’t smelled any in so long, she knew they were absent. She didn’t waste a lot of time contemplating this. She merely accepted it, and it was good.

While the barking of nervous dogs was often in the air, there were no wolves, and no sign of their past presence. No hint of a pack in the vicinity. No wolverines, no badgers, although their smaller cousins, and pretty good eating when happenstance allowed, such as the groundhog, the raccoon and the possum were in abundance. No moose, the only creature besides one other which truly frightened the big cat. There were plenty of the two-legged noisy ones. She felt a kind of caution, a kind of disdain for them, for they didn’t behave properly. They seemed quite mad in their mindless pursuits, mysterious, and unknowable. She had never eaten one. Never even been tempted. They smelled bad, looked odd, and since she had never tasted the meat, she couldn’t offer an opinion. She had never really developed a hankering to try it.

The deer that were her favorite meal were big, fat and plentiful, and showed signs of complacency, although lately, they were more skittish. She knew nothing of hunting seasons, but they did and they knew, at least the adults, what time of year it was. It was the time of the rut, when the sound of antlers rattling against other antlers would tell her where to go. Tufts of hair would show where they rubbed against the trees, removing unwanted, scruffy last-season fur, to make way for the glossy new coat of autumn.

Their sweet-smelling tracks were scattered in profusion by the water hole, where almost any morning, she could lie in wait and make a try for one. But now it was time to curl up and go to sleep, with her hindquarters rubbing reassuringly against the tree. She put her head on her paws, and relaxed with her tail curled around her like an expensive stole, on the upwind side to keep the chill away from her toes.

A splishing and splashing came from the bowl of the valley nearby, where the creek curled around upon itself, and ran slow and deep. There was nothing in particular there that she liked to eat, and nothing in particular there that she feared. She put her head down and slept, mind you, always with one ear open. One ear tracked the sound as it made its way down the flowing river. Finally, even that movement ceased, and after a while, so did the purring. Her breath was soft, deep and even.

Pale, frosty light glistened on the bark of oak branches around her perch, high above the blackened woods, all a-shiver with uncertain breezes, coming and going as was their wont.

END

Chapter Twenty-Three.

Chapter Twenty-Four.

Chapter Twenty-Five.

Chapter Twenty-Six.

Chapter Twenty-Seven.

Chapter Twenty-Eight.

Chapter Thirty-Three.

Chapter Thirty-Four.

Images. Louis. He steals them from the internet. Also, Big cat.

Louis has books and stories on Smashwords. He also has some art on ArtPal.

Thank you for reading.

Friday, March 5, 2021

Core Values, Chapter Thirty-Four. Louis Shalako.

They're like cute little creatures when they're small...

Chapter Thirty-Four

The giant mutant salamanders were on the move…

With the coming of the cold weather, small game, birds and other creatures became harder to find. As the leaves fell off the trees, they collected underfoot, making it difficult to get food by stealth. It was harder to hide, and the warmth of the midday sun did not last long.

Bellies were going hungry, and it was a long time since any of the larger prey animals had put in an appearance. As if in some collective decision, the giant mutant salamanders were on the move. While the nights were bitter and frosty, the daylight beckoned. They followed the warmth of the sun as it traveled across the sky. Taking refuge in pools, and ponds, and deepnesses in the creek, they huddled together, seeking warmth in the soft oozing muck of the stream bed. Burrowing down head-first, they huddled together in family groups, and used torn-up water lilies and other weeds as a blanket. Rising only for air, they rode out the frigid, bitter nights.

On a moonless night, they stayed until dawn, but sometimes when the moon was full, they couldn’t resist its allure. Confused by its brilliance, bathed in its glare, yet the land remained dark. Eyes grown used to dimness, they relied on smell, and sound, and the very taste of the air around them, to find a warm, living, breathing body to consume.

They could not have told an impartial, objective observer why they were on the move, or how many of them there were, or if there were other groups like this one. All they knew, if they knew anything at all, was that they were hungry. They had to fill their bellies and get fat before the winter’s frozen hell descended upon them. It would turn their world into a stillness that they feared without understanding, for it was magic. They knew no other life, no other beings, but themselves. They knew of no other places, but this one.

They did not know about time, and space, and dimension, and if they had, they could have cared less about such false and artificial constructs of theory. They were hungry and they were going to fill their bellies and that was the only thing that had any importance at all to them.

They did not know about the creation. They did not know about good, and evil. They did not know right from wrong. They knew pain, and they knew pleasure.

They knew fear.

They knew safety and threat.

They knew the muck, and the mud and the river bottom. They knew the trees, the bushes and the plants. They knew the animals, the larger, bigger animals that they could eat now that The Change had come, and they could eat them. The whole world was open to them, if only they had the courage to seize it.

The Change had been foretold in prophecy.

Long ago, The Change had been foretold in prophecy, and it had come to pass. It only remained to be seen what the giant mutant salamanders would do with it. And they were strong. They had learned that you cannot reach the sun, no matter how warm and inviting.

They knew that you cannot touch the moon. But there were other lights, and they seemed much closer. They were moving towards the lights. Like the sun in the sky, like the cold dead eye of the moon, the pretty-colored lights beckoned from the far horizon, making the sky red with a ruddy glow. The surface of the water refracted and reflected this, both on top and under the surface. The dimmest orange flickering glow on the bottom of the river told them their destination was nigh. The warm illumination on the tree trunks invited their curiosity and promised good things to eat.

What more could a salamander reasonably ask? Red eyes glowed in the middle of the meandering creek. Then they submerged, to rest, to wait, and to sleep until tomorrow.

END