FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Part 1

Intruder

Without warning the door to the small cabin crashed open loudly. Mandy had locked the door after the last time she used it, but it hadn't been enough. Whoever he was, he was a brute. Huge. Powerful. He ducked through the low doorway and entered without a word. The wind and snow and darkness clamoring behind him, trying to suck out the little bit of heat Mandy had managed to goad the small stove into providing.

He was heavily bundled against the winter. Only his nose and eyes visible under his hood. They were hard eyes. Vicious eyes. The eyes of a killer. They were tired as well. Exhausted from trudging through the deep snow. They spied the young feline crouched on the far side of the tiny cabin. Mandy had nowhere to flee to. There was no back door, and a snowdrift had sealed the shutters of the window firmly closed. She held a bundle in her arms. A makeshift sling kept it close to her body. A tiny kitten in the bundle squirmed, fussed and coughed.

The intruder didn't say a word. He shoved the door closed, shutting out the encroaching winter night. The latch was now broken, but the door was so warped from the cold and damp that it was a struggle to open and close regardless. He dropped his knapsack at the door. He leaned his flintlock rifle on the wall and flipped back his hood, scattering snow that clung to it onto the floor.

He was an ursine. A big brown one. Mandy had only seen one other bear in her life. In a small village her family had traveled through to get to the frontier there was a place with females of ill repute. One of them had been a large, rotund bear wearing strange and revealing clothing. She had been sweeping the front stoop. The bear offered a friendly wave to the family as they rode by on their wagon. Mandy had waved back, earning a scolding from her mother for doing so. As huge as the female strumpet had been, the male in her cabin was much larger.

He stalked through the cabin in a hunched over position to avoid the crossbeams that held up the roof. The same beams that Mandy had to jump to touch. The bear plucked off his mittens and dumped them onto the table as he passed it. At first the young feline thought the bear was coming for her, but he instead went to the stove. She had a pot boiling on the stove. What she was making could only be called "soup" by the most generous definition of the word. She had already made several batches of soup from the bones that were boiling in it, now she was just cooking down the bones until they were also edible. Trying to get the last traces of nourishment from them. Once that was gone there would be no food at all in the cabin. It smelled atrocious, but the bear didn't turn his nose up at the feeble fare. He picked up the spoon and took a sip.

"Could use some salt." He said. He had a deep voice. No doubt hoarse from breathing the dry, frigid air, but beyond that, powerful and commanding.

Mandy didn't answer. She didn't have any salt left, there was almost nothing left. Her father had left for town five weeks ago for provisions to get through the winter and had never returned. The snow had come much earlier than they had expected. She didn't know if her father was dead or just stranded somewhere.

"There's salt in my pack." The bear said as he stirred the pot. He turned and looked at her. He had a burrowing gaze. "If you would, please?"

Mandy edged her way around him and toward the door. His pack was sitting right in front of it. She could easily just toss it aside and flee outside. But where would she go? Ever since it started snowing she hadn't gone any further than the privy. The snow was so deep she could barely move through it. She couldn't even get out and find more firewood. She stroked the little cub strapped to her chest on the head. Joshua was sick. The cold would kill him in no time. Not to mention she's not dressed for this weather. As much as the thought terrified her she was stuck in the cabin with him.

His pack was light, most of the privations having already been used. There was no food in it. Just some clothes, a beat up old pan, and a few wrapped packs. One of them was hard and she knew it was what she was looking for. A brick of salt wrapped in cloth. She had run out of salt a week ago and was missing it desperately. She salivated just from the thought of it.

She looked up. What a fool! His rifle was right there! After taking care that Joshua was secure in the sling, Mandy snatched up the weapon, turned toward the intruder, and raised the rife to her shoulder. This rifle was much larger than any other she had ever held, but she did know how to use them. At this range she couldn't possibly miss. She thumbed back the hammer. The weapon made a loud "ka-klick".

The bear cocked his head to the noise and turned toward her. He looked puzzled. "What are you doing, pup?" He asked.

"Get the hell out of here!" Mandy demanded. "If you don't, I swear I'll shoot you dead!"

"That's not going to happen." The bear growled as he stepped toward her. "If I go back out there I'll die. What's more, if I go out there, you'll die."

"I'll take my chances!"

"Winter hasn't even started yet and you're already eating bones and you have barely enough firewood to last the week!" The bear yelled at her.

"Just get the hell out!" She screamed at him. Joshua started to cry and struggle and Mandy put a paw on him to steady the kit. When she did the rifle's barrel dipped down and the bear moved in on her.

Mandy quickly raised the rifle and pulled the trigger. There was a huge shower of sparks from the flint meeting steel, but nothing else. The bear raised his eyebrows in surprise, shook his head, then snatched the weapon away from her.

"It's not loaded." He told her with a sigh. "I'm all out of powder." He stuck the rifle back against the wall. He moved toward her and Mandy steeled herself for the strike, but he didn't hit her. Instead he scooped up the salt pack off the ground. He was so close she could feel the body heat coming off of him. The heavy stench of his musk assaulted her nostrils. He turned and took the salt back to the stove.

He broke off some of the hardened block of salt and dumped it in the pot. He stirred it for a minute before tasting it again. Satisfied it took the pot off the stove and sat down with it at the table. The chair groaned desperately under his weight. He dumped a portion of it into a bowl and slid it across the table toward Mandy.

"Eat." He told her. He didn't bother with a bowl for himself. He simply ate directly from the pot. Slurping noisily as he did so.

Mandy was hungry, famished, in fact. She sat down across from the giant brute and picked up a spoon. She scooped up a bit of the broth. Her paw was shaking so much she could barely keep it from spilling out of the spoon. She was having supper with a fur she had just tried to murder. She managed a sip of the soup. It was salty. Too salty, but that was just fine. She hadn't had much salt lately.

"I found a grave-site nearby." The bear said, apparently attempting to make small talk. "That's how I found your place. Your father?"

"My mother." Mandy corrected.

"Sorry to hear that." The bear offered without sounding particularly sympathetic.

"My father went to collect firewood. He should be back soon."

"You're a terrible liar." The bear accused. "I'm guessing he went to town and got stuck by the snow. Leaving you all alone with your cub."

"He's not mine." Mandy told him. "He's my brother. And my father will be back soon."

"If he tries to come back he'll die." The bear said flatly. "There's no way in or out of this valley until spring. Believe me, I tried."

Mandy took another sip of the soup. She swished it around in her mouth until it cooled sufficiently. She put her nose up to her brother's mouth, encouraging him to lap at it, then she dribbled what she could into his mouth. He coughed and spit most of it out, but did drink some of it.

"Is that how you're feeding him?" The bear asked.

"It's the best I can do." She said. "We had a goat for milk, but it ran off during one of the snow storms. Probably froze to death."

The bear finished his soup and started munching on the bones for whatever sustenance they could provide. There wasn't much, but occasionally a bit of marrow would be available. He watched the young female feed herself and then her sibling. A very laborious process.

"Unless I miss my guess, you're a lynx." The bear noted. "You're a long ways away from your homeland, aren't you?" Mandy didn't want to talk to him, but talking was probably better than what he could be doing to her.

"We left almost three years ago." She said, suddenly feeling very nostalgic for the fields in which she grew up. "Father told us everything would be easier here. That we could just leave the collectors behind and start again." The little feline looked anguished. "My sister, she died of dysentery on the ship. They just dumped her body over the side like it was garbage. When we got to port the first fur we met made off with half of our luggage and most of our money. There we were, in a land we were unfamiliar with that didn't speak our language and we were already in a bad spot. Father found more lenders, of course. He thought he could borrow and run like he did before, but they knew that trick. They caught us. Father managed to hide me but they took Mother away for a long time. When she came back they said our loan was settled."

"My mother..." Mandy started to choke on her words, but regained her composure. She didn't know why she was telling the stranger this story, but she continued anyway. "My mother had always been a strong and noble female. When she returned it was like they had taken her soul. She was weak, sickly, and pregnant. She didn't want to go on, she wanted to stay in the east and make do there. Father was insistent that we push west. He had this deed to a patch of paradise and by God we were going to make it there or die trying."

"You saw where my mother is." Mandy said. "I don't know where my father is. Little Josh is sick. I don't have anything to feed him. I don't have any medicine. It's like this land wants to kill us."

The bear spit a splint of bone into the empty pot. It rang hollowly in the chilly air of the cabin. The candlelight flickered and danced shadows on the drafty walls. It was almost like a crypt. A foreboding, horrible place she would not be able to leave until the snow melted. It was almost a comfort to know she'll probably die before that happens.

"You're going to rape me, aren't you?" The feline asked bluntly.

The bear offered an apologetic grin. "I'd rather it didn't come to that."