Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so here's a story for you instead:
It was dark now. Big Paul, a veteran sheepdog, was already at guard, guarding the sheep. (Hey, what did you expect?) It was still relatively early after sunset, so everything was quiet, though not too quiet, and Big Paul could already smell someone familiar.
“Red,” Big Paul called out to that specific someone. “Come out of the grass – I can smell you!”
“Yes you can,” Red, a male red fox, did look out of the grass, though he kept his distance, given the size difference between himself and Big Paul. “So what? I am not harassing your sheep, and there are not even any lambs. Piss off!”
Big Paul frowned. “This is what I want to talk to you about,” he told Red. “Everyone and everything seem to be more on edge lately than normally; is it because of the dry spell, or not-?”
Big Paul did not finish, as a breeze brought a wisp of a scent to him – bobcat! Big Paul had his own opinion of the wildcat – unlike red foxes, bobcats were quite capable of killing even adult sheep, (if they got lucky), and this particular bobcat, after Big Paul barred her path, went after him, and almost killed him, if the sheepdog hadn’t been able to break out of her grasp and bark a frantic alarm, bringing forth his master with the gun. The bobcat got away, regardless, and Big Paul was in no hurry to relive this experience, and so he immediately whirled around, ready to bark an alarm – but there was no sign of the bobcat.
A dry branch cracked under a heavy foot – this was no fox or even wolf, let alone a wildcat. Big Paul whirled back – Red was long gone, it looked like – and came face to face with a bear.
“Hello,” he said evenly, trying to keep his voice from shaking and himself from backing away. Big Paul succeeded at this, mostly.
“A dog,” the bear – a black bear rather than brown, but it did not matter here, not particularly – did not sound impressed, for his part. “A sheepdog. Step aside, dog, for I want to eat a sheep”. Even as he was speaking, the bear was standing upright, upon his hind legs, giving himself a further height advantage – one that was uncalled and unnecessary, in Big Paul’s opinion.
Big Paul took a deep breath. “I cannot let you do this,” he began, when the bear grabbed him with the forepaws and lifted the sheepdog up to his own eye level.
Looking into the bear’s eyes, all but glowing from insanity and hunger, Big Pau realized that this was it, the end of the line, he was going to be eaten alive in the line of duty, and the bear’s grasp of him over the ribs was so firm that Big Paul could not even bark a warning-
The bobcat came flying out of the night, a ghost of grey and reddish-brown colors. She dug all of her claws into the bear’s shoulder and bit down with all of her disproportionate might into the bear’s ear.
The bear roared – and unlike the bobcat, he was overly loud… or maybe it was just Big Paul’s opinions, as the infuriated giant flung him away. Still, every cloud has a silver lining, theoretically, as the sheepdog’s master appeared on the scene and discharged his gun.
The bear dropped.
On all fours.
The gun in question was loaded with small shot, more suitable for smaller animals such as foxes and bobcats, (also the occasional hare, squirrel, and gamebird, but due to his loyalty, Big Paul ignored his master’s lapses), not so much for wolves or deer, and certainly not for bears.
To make matters worse, the bear’s hide was covered in all sorts of things, from pine needles to pine tar, and so he felt the shot, but little more – and so he charged at Big Paul’s master.
It took every bit of the sheepdog’s strength and speed to slam into the bear, only for the better to slam him away with barely a recognition before biting into the master’s gun – hard. With a fading sight, Big Paul was barely able to register-
BAH
-the herd of sheep, led by the rams, slamming hard into the bear’s flank, knocking him over and trampling him.
“Say what?” was the last thing the sheepdog thought, before he fainted.
<i>Epilogue…</i>
It was night once more. Big Paul – bandaged over the ribs – was standing watch over the sheep once more. The sheep, the entire herd, were in their enclosure once more. Red the red fox was sniffing around the neighbourhood once more.
“What happened?” Big Paul asked the fox now that the bear seemed to be gone.
“After I helped the muzzles open the sheep gate, the sheep charged and trampled the bear, distracting him long enough for the rest of the humans to arrive and deal with him,” Red replied.
“The muzzles?” Big Paul blinked as he looked around – and sure enough, there was the bobcat, flanked by two or three younger and smaller versions of her. This was not the best situation Big Paul wanted to be in.
“Bah!” one of the younger rams bleated through the fence of their enclosure. The bobcats immediately whirled around and stared at him – and the ram promptly fled from the fence.
“Listen,” Big Paul sighed. “For better or worse, I owe you one, so here’s some advice – don’t.”
The bobcats immediately whirled back to him. Unlike the ram, the sheepdog did not back down. “Listen, me and my master, we aren’t alone right now, we got back-up because of the bear attack,” he pointed, with his muzzle, at the human dwelling – lights and human voices were coming through the window, and two younger and less experienced sheepdog were playing next to it. “You won’t be able to handle everyone, especially with a sheep-“
“The summer is a bad one, and a dry one. There’s almost nothing left to eat now,” the bobcat vocally responded to Big Paul for the first time since they learned of each other, and her voice was emotionless and dry. “We have to eat or we’ll starve.”
“It is out of my paws,” Big Paul said sadly, even as he sat down onto his haunches and howled. “Ahoy there, Big Dog in the Sky! Can you help them – can you help us out, please?”
The wind picked up. It blew through the skies, bringing storm clouds with it, and then they burst with rain. The rain washed away the dust and the dirt, invigorating the plants and the small animals – frogs and toads, newts and lizards, mice and voles. When it stopped, night flowers were opening, moths were flying around, and everything felt more invigorated and lovely already.
“…I didn’t expect this to happen,” the sheepdog told his interlocutors, but they were already gone.
<i>End?</i>
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