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Jeff Paulsen was one of the few male Coyotes on the Altama who wasn't a Guerilla, fighting against the Balfor army. He had good reasons for that. Looking at him, you could tell that he was old, getting into his sixties. But that wasn't much of an excuse - people of all ages were taking up arms. The real reason lay in the fact that his graying fur was conspiciously thinner on the left side of his body.

This was the result of an accident from his childhood: A steam boiler had exploded while his left side had been facing it. The steel plates had missed him, but the scalding cloud of steam had not, leaving his left side covered in burns of various intensity, which had stunted his fur growth and mutilated his nerves, including those of left eye (which he kept under a patch). But some of the wounds had been infected, his left arm to the point of no return - it had been amputated.

Because of his one-handedness and poor eyesight, Jeff was not a fighter. But that didn't stop him from keeping a .38 revolver in a shoulder holster under his jacket.

When Jeff noticed that the door to his shed was wide open, he drew the revolver from under his jacket with his functional arm.

"Who's there?" He called out in his hoarse old voice. "I've got a gun, you bastards!"

He then realized that if thieves had in fact been in his shed during the night, it was unlikely they'd still be in the shed. He imagined them off in the woods somewhere, laughing at him. In anger, he blew out one of the windows of the shed, his arm flailing backwards with the recoil of the pistol.

Curse it all! he thought, falling into a fit of rage. He cursed the Balfor Confederacy, the previous night's thunderstorm, his injuries. But most of all, he cursed his young daughter, who had run away to join the Black Hammers three years earlier.

After embedding three .38 bullets into a dead apple tree, he at last collected himself. He peered into the shed and was shocked by what he saw. A stocky badger with a solid black face was unconscious on the floor. There was a pool of dried, sticky blood behind his head, and a matching red mark on the edge of the workbench behind him.

Jeff kicked the Badger's leg. When nothing happened, he let out a deep sigh. The last thing he felt like dealing with that morning was a dead body. After thinking for a moment, Lars holstered his revolver and dragged the body out of the shed with his one arm, grimacing as he noticed that a red smear followed the Badger's head across the floor.

He dragged the badger into the grass of the orchard and instantly regretted doing so. Now he would have to clean out his shed, and explain to the authorities why he had wrecked the scene. Then a wild idea seized him. He could bury the corpse by himself - his place wasn't easy to see from the road, and not many people went down it anyways. It would give his plants some fertilizer, and nobody would be the wiser. For some reason, the thought brought a smile to his face and made him chuckle.

On a whim, Jeff tore off the corpse's shirt to check for the signature tattoos of Black Hammer gang members. Sure enough, they were there. on the Badger's broad black back, intricate designs were done with white and red ink, sylized hammers, guns, black flags.

Jeff wondered if this fellow had known his daughter, by any chance.

"Damn shame you're dead, bastard." Jeff thought aloud, spitting.

Then, as if answering Jeff's request, the corpse groaned. Jeff jumped backwards and drew his gun, with surprising speed for a disabled creature his age. He inched back towards it and rolled the Badger over with his foot, so that he was face-up.

The Badger choked "Sonofabitch..." he croaked.

"Better watch who you're talking to, hoss." Jeff said, cocking his revolver and taking aim at the Badger's head.

Darren opened his eyes, and focused on the voice that had been addressing him. After seeing the Coyote's asymmetrical face,

Darren hacked and his throat convulsed in what should've been a chuckle. Eventually, he managed to say "You're one ugly muthafucka, I tell ya that."

Jeff growled and spat on Darren's bare chest. "Black hammer bastard." He sneered. "The only reason I haven't blown your head off is cause I want to ask ya somethin'."

"Get me some water first." Darren choked out.

Jeff spit again, this time landing it on Darren's face, and near his open mouth. "That enough for ya?" He shouted. "Now tell me where my Annie is, that's Annie Paulsen! You got 5 seconds!"

Darren wiped his arm across his face, trying to clear it of spit.

"5!" Jeff barked.

Darren searched his mind, and tried to remember what the angry old Coyote had asked him - he hadn't been listening.

"4, 3, 2, 1!" Jeff continued. When Darren said nothing after "1," Jeff kicked him in the ribs sharply.

Darren coughed and convulsed in response.

"You sorry sumbitch-" Jeff began, but Darren grabbed his leg as it came down for another kick. He pulled the old Coyote down with him, leaped to his feet, and took off across the orchard, heading for the fence.

Jeff rolled over on the ground and leveled the sights of his revolver with the fleeing Badger. He fired once, then once more, and then realized he was out of bullets. He cursed as he saw the black entity continue towards the road.

"You shit-eating Black Hammer son of a bitch!" Jeff yelled after the Badger. He had gotten to his feet by this time, and was about to reload his weapon when he realized he had been lucky - if the Badger had been in the mood to wrestle with him, he might've been killed. And at least nothing was missing from the shed, so far as he could tell.

* * *

"Get back inside!" One of the Wolf soldiers yelled at a Coyote pup who was venturing out of a doorway.

Jas ducked back inside the 2nd story window he had been leaning out of. "Goddamn!" He exclaimed with a slow shake of the head.

"How's it lookin' out there?" Asked his host, a middle-aged female Coyote. Jas had knocked on her door during the night, after a fruitless search for Bryan.

"Not good." Jas whispered. "Looks to me like they're done sniffin' out the west side of town."

"Are they still keepin' everyone inside?"

"Looks like it."

Light was pouring in the open window, it was well after sunrise, and the August day was already getting hot. The soldiers had been searching the town all night, and had set up barricades on the roads leading out. Jas had also seen an APC sitting in the fields to the south; Pilaco was in complete lockdown.

Jas tried to logically think for a moment. If they were still searching, he thought, it could mean one of two things: Either they had not found Bryan yet, or they had found him, and forced him to reveal his accomplices. But then he realized that the soldiers probably would've deduced that it took more than one to kill an armed soldier with nothing but a knife and a club.

"What did you do to get them all riled up like this, hon?" The coyote woman asked. Behind the chair, Jas could see her tail swishing back and forth anxiously.

"Nothin' ma'am, I just didn't wanna be on the street when I saw they were about." Jas lied. He had not given the woman any other details since she had let him in. "Help, the wolves are gonna skin me alive!" had been sufficient to gain entry.

"Then what were you tramping about at night for? They got us on a crufew here, ya know." The woman asked, in a low tone.

"It's the same where I live, up in San Alejo." Jas lied again. Jas had never met a Coyote on the Altama who supported the Balfor annexation, but he had his doubts that the woman would keep quiet if she knew Jas had helped kill a soldier. The Balfor Army often gave rewards to informers, but the other Altamans usually made sure that "snitches get stitches."

The woman sat back in her chair and said nothing more. Jas returned his thoughts to the troops outside, and what he would do.

Jas leaned back against the wall and sighed. What would Darren do in this situation? he caught himself thinking. He wondered whether it was wise to base his actions after Darren's, given the latter's sudden breakdown the previous night.

Trying his best to think about the problem logically, Jas deduced that he needed an accurate grasp of the situation before he could decide on a course of action. Reconnoitre, that was what he needed to do. He stood up with another sigh, and grabbed a collapsible set of binoculars from his jacket pocket.

"Can you get up on the roof from inside?" Jas asked the coyote woman.

"I think so, there's a ladder in the hallway." The woman replied, indicating the door behind her.

Without waiting for direction, Jas strode into the hall, and quickly saw what he was looking for; a rectangular hatch on the ceiling. He pulled the cord that dangled from it, and stood out of the way as a loft ladder slid down. He climbed up, and opened a second hatch, this one with a latch.

"Be careful up there..." The woman said.

Jas took no heed, as he shoved the hatch open, allowing him to climb up onto the asphalt roof. The black surface was hot, even in the morning. Jas was barefoot, but sucked in his breath and stepped onto the tar anyways. The building he was on was a two-story brick structure, the lower floor being a general store. It was one of the taller buildings in town, and he had an excellent view.

He walked to the edge of the roof, gaurded by a 2-foot lip, and brought the binoculars to his eyes. With them, he examined a Balfor APC parked in the fields northeast of the town, about a quarter-mile away. A wolf's helmeted head stuck out of the hatch on the front, manning the pintle-mounted machine gun. Beyond that, the Altama's vast forest began. Jas estimated that it was 200 yards from where the buildings stopped to where the trees began, at the closest point. The grass of the clearing was dense, and about knee-height, but he imagined that crawling through it wouldn't conceal him well. Jas reckoned that a mad sprint to the woods might work, so long as the Wolf in the the APC didn't look his way.

But surely, he thought, there must be another way? He could theoretically just wait it out in town until the Wolves lost interest or focused their search elsewhere. But that could be days, he thought, facepalming. Absent-mindedly, he sat down on the blacktop, only to jump back up with a yelp when the hot surface seared his rear end.

Jas aimed the binoculars at the APC, to check on the Wolf. He all but fell over with fright when he saw the Wolf's bluish eyes staring straight back.

"Be cool, be cool. He ain't gonna do anything..." Jas thought aloud, trying to calm himself.

The wolf swung the machine gun around, and aimed it straight at Jas. This was sufficient to make the Coyote drop to the roof, despite the heat.

* * *

There was a good reason for the fact that there were no dark-furred coyotes living on the Altama plain; they could never stand the summer, and usually moved to less extreme climates. Badgers generally fared little better, but they had nowhere else to go.

So, to say that Darren's marathon - 10 miles of uneven terrain in the 100 degree weather - was a feat would be a massive understatement. He only stopped when his throat was so dry you could've struck a match on it, and his lungs were at the point of collapsing. Eventually, his whole body collapsed, in the shade of a tall cedar tree.

For a time he sat perfectly still, laying on his back in the shade. His vision began to blur, whether it was a mirage or some ill affect of dehydration, he did not know.

I'm going to die here. Darren thought, and he believed it, too. Someday I'll just be a skeleton, sitting under a tree in the woods. Someday, someone's gonna find me and think "What the hell happened to this guy?"

His breathing had slowed to faint gasps, and his skin was bone-dry; he had no moisture left to sweat out. The heat was a vise in the hands of a cruel god, relentlessly crushing Darren's head in. It sapped his will, like a "dog day" on steroids.

There was a high-pitched whining noise like a dog whistle in Darren's ears, but he had neither the strength nor the will to cover them. But then, something reached his ears that gave him reason to do far more. There was a sound, extremely faint at first, but it grew ever so slightly louder. It was a big enough change to make it come to Darren's waning attention, though. The sound was still faint, tugging at the edges of Darren's auditory range. Quiet though it was, Darren knew exactly what it was.

Sounds like a damn waterfall.

Summoning all his last reserves of strength, Darren rolled over and began a slow, painful crawl through the pine needles and brush of the forest floor. The roaring sound grew louder in his mind, and it gave him a sliver of hope. But as they say, hope is a powerful thing. Then a burst of thought hit Darren: This is all fake. There ain't no waterfall. You're just shithouse crazy, Darry. The last thought played through his mind in Lars' voice. Darren growled, and kept dragging himself.

The air on the Altama was dusty that time of year, and that combined with his dehydration, head injury, and low position, made Darren close his eyes as he pulled his stocky, shirtless body over the ground.

Every foot or so, a sharp pain reached Darren's brain through his thickened nerves as a pine needle or some other piece of debris scraped his chest. But he took no heed, and continued.

When Darren's hand reached open air, he still kept on. He did, however make an attempt to open his eyes. But by instinct, they were insantly closed again as the Badger's barely conscious mind realized he was falling.

But this was only for a split-second, as Darren's 160-pound bulk met with water. For a second Darren had no idea what had happened. He could've gone to hell for all he knew. Then, the nature of the cold, wet, substance he found himself immersed in was plain. He opened his eyes, though the water hurt them nearly as much as the dust. He opened his mouth, though the water was cold as ice and gave him brain freeze.

Darren was suddenly happier than he'd ever been in his entire life - so happy that he nearly forgot that he breathed air, not water. When he nearly swallowed a mouthful, he remembered, and panic set in. He couldn't see anything, and he was disoriented. But then, his foot touched the bottom. He pushed up in desperation, and soon his head felt different. Darren realized a split second later that it was out of water, and he sucked in a deep breath before opening his eyes again.

He saw that he had tumbled into a pool in a slow-moving stream. The sun was blocked by the shade of pine trees all around. The sides of the pool were straight and steep, as if someone had built it. Darren now realized that was how he had falled in. But somehow, Darren thought it was somehow unreal. It seemed perfect, which was something he had never felt before.

Darren wasn't a person accustomed to feeling good. His father was dead before he had been born. All Darren knew about him was that he had been an important person in some faraway land, but had fallen out of favor and become a fugitive. He was killed, forcing Darren's mother to flee to the Altama, almost 30 years ago.

Needless to say, the Badger had had a rough childhood, which channeled into his life as a whole. But his life had gotten a lot worse when the Balfor Armies had come marching in - they'd killed his mother. Just shot her, for no reason at all, other than the fact that she didn't belong to the Genus Canis and was too old to swing a sledgehammer. Just like that, his last kin was blown off the face of the earth.

Seeking revenge, he'd been seeked to join the most feared Anti-Balfor gang on the Altama - the anarchist Black Hammers - and had been accepted.

But Darren thought about none of this as he left the water to sit on a flat, dry, rock. His fur and jeans were soaking wet, but he didn't care. He felt as free as a bird just let out of a cage. He stooped back to the stream and drank water from his cupped hands. He did this for about 2 minutes before he got onto his stomach and slurped water, because he thought it was more efficient, but also because it allowed him to bathe his whole face. He drank for a few more minutes, before sighing with content and leaning back on the rock, letting his feet touch the surface of the water.

Darren soon felt uncomfortable in his soaked jeans, so he decided to take them off, along with his shoes, socks, and underwear. He was stark naked, but nobody was around. He barely cared anyways.

After going a few yards downstream, Darren found another rock to lie on, this one in the sun. There he lay, putting his clothes next to him to dry. He banished all thoughts from his head, simply enjoying the sunshine - the heat was welcome after his cold dive.

After he had been lying for about a half-hour, Darren began thinking again. Almost immediately, he remembered why he was in the middle of the forest, and what had led him there.

"Ah, shit!" He said under his breath as he got to his feet. He remembered that Jas and Bryan were in dire straights still, and the only thing that would help them would require the assistance of Lars.

For a moment as he pulled his jeans back on, Darren wondered whether trying to save the two was worth the trouble (he also knew that Lars would think the same thing) - they weren't very competent as snipers, and there were plenty of other Coyotes on the Altama willing to join a reputable gang. Besides, he thought 'yotes usually can take care of themselves, right?

No. Darren denied that reasoning. Bryan, at least, didn't deserve what might befall him (Darren wasn't sure about Jas, though). And officially, it was Darren's job to look after other Black Hammers, whether he liked it or not.

With that, Darren took a last sip of water. He was about to take off running, but soon realized that his bladder would be "running" just as soon, from all the water he drank. He hurriedly emptied it on a tree, and wasting no time, located the Blacktail mountains as he re-buckled his belt. Just visible above the tree line was the signature shape of Bass peak, which he used to get his bearings. Darren broke into a trot, and then accelerated to a fast jog.

Don't worry 'yotes, I'm going to get help.