Buck and Ted got back to the tree over an hour later, their backpacks slung over their backs, Buck carrying his BB rifle in his arms, Ted carrying the rest of their supplies.
It had taken time to convince their Ma they weren’t up to anything, and even more to convince her to let them go at all. Buck had claimed they were going to go camping by the river together, basically to play at being hunters, since they couldn’t go with dad on his trip. Ma hadn’t believed them at first, and even when she had, she hadn’t wanted them to spend several nights away from home by themselves… but Buck had his phone, they had the BB gun just in case, and the river wasn’t far from home anyway.
It had taken Buck promising to call if anything happened (right down to Ted getting a splinter), but Ma had finally relented, and so Buck and Ted had headed out of their home, feeling like real men for the first time in their prepubescent lives.
Of course, before they could head out to their camp-site they had to get supplies. Ma had given them some food and drink to bring, but Buck had some specifics in mind.
He and Ted went to the corner-store and came out with a ball of string, a bag of fruit-flavoured gummy candies, a roll of strong silver duct-tape and a big butterfly net made of brightly coloured plastic. It was meant for kids to play with, but Buck had a better use for it in mind.
With their supplies gathered, the boys headed back to the thicket of trees, carrying with them their food, their drinks, their canteens full of water, their sleeping-bags… everything they needed, including their field-glasses, flashlights and the Swiss Army knives Pa had given them last Christmas.
It was only midday, so they stowed their packs and supplies by the tree and took up their position on the river bank, looking across the flowing water at their prey.
The feral herd was still there, and was dutifully going about their business of settling in. A few fat ones (pregnant ones, they figured) were huddled together in the centre, singing a song to themselves in baby-talk. A few were grabbing stuff like berries off of tree-branches and bringing them over to a designated spot. And one was walking around barking orders at the others.
“Yoo, dummeh! Nee’ mowe nummeis fow nummy piwe! Fin’ mowe nummies!” He shouted.
“O-otay smawty!” The fluffy replied, waddling away in fear.
“Yoo, dummeh!” The smarty yelled at another fluffy. “Where poopie-pwace?!”
“Uhm… nu dig poopie-pwace yet.” The other fluffy replied.
“Dummeh!” Smarty yelled, bopping the fluffy in the face with his hoof. “How Smawty supposed to gu poopies if nu poopie-pwace?! Yoo wan Smawty gu poopies on YOO?!”
“Nu! Nu Smawty, pwease, nu again!” The fluffy begged as Smarty loomed over him.
“Den stop bein’ stoopid and wazy! Dig poopie-pwace awweady! Smawty nee’ gu poopies!”
Across the river, Buck and Ted watched it all through their field-glasses.
“That one’s the leader.” Buck commented, mostly to himself. “The one that calls itself Smarty. They think they’re smarter than the others, but they’re big idiots.”
They watched as Smarty waddled over to the ‘nummy-pile’ and snorted, kicking something out of the pile with his hoof.
“WHA DIS?!” He yelled. “DIS NU NUMMIES, DIS GWOSS SICKY-BEWWIES! GIB TUMMY HUWTIES! WHO PUT DIS IN NUMMY PIWE?!”
The same fluffy from before, the one that had been yelled at for not finding enough food, stepped forwards nervously.
“Uh… was fwuffeh, Smawty…” He admitted, bowing his head in shame.
“STOOPID DUMMEH!” Smarty yelled, stomping on the berry with his hoof. “DIS SICKY-BEWWY BAD FOW FWUFFEHS! DUMMEH FWUFFEH WAN KIWW WHOWE HEWD?!”
“Nu-u-u!” One of the pregnant mares squealed in fear.
“Nu! Nu mean it, Smawty!” The fluffy pleaded, cowering in fear.
“DEN FIND BETTAH NUMMIES, DUMMEH!” Smarty shouted, hoofing the fluffy in the face, smearing the berry juice all over his fluff. “Nu bad sicky-nummies, dummeh! Find GUD nummies! Stoopid dummeh…”
Smarty waddled away, as the berry-smeared fluffy began to cry.
“He’s such a bully.” Ted whispered. “Why are the herd listening to him?”
“Fluffies are dumber than mud, and frankly that’s being mean to mud.” Buck replied. “I could tell 'em I’m Santa Claus and they’d believe it. If the Smarty just says he’s smart, they’ll think it’s true.”
They lapsed back into silence as they watched again.
One fluffy from before had begun digging a small pit, using his stubby, blunt hooves to shift the loose earth out of the way as best he could, digging a small hole about an inch deep, which he was working on expanding to make it larger. As he dug, Smarty waddled over to him.
“Smawty! Smawty, wook!” He called, pride in his voice. “Poopie-pwace dug, just wike Smawty say!”
Smarty huffed.
“Yoo big dummeh! Poopie-pwace too neaw hewd’s sweepy-pwace! Wiww be smewwy to sweep hewe nao! Dummeh nu fink of dat?!”
The dejected fluffy clambered out of the shallow pit and began nudging the earth back in with his hooves, while Smarty snorted at him and waddled away.
“God, you’d think he could just do it himself.” Buck whispered.
“Them ones in the middle, Buck,” Ted whispered. “Are they mamas?”
“Yeah, Ted. See how they’re all fat and round? They’re full of babies. And see all the tiny ones around their bellies? Those are babies that were already born. They’ll get bigger soon.”
“There’s a lot of 'em, Buck.”
“Yeah, I reckon about twenty or so.”
“How’re we gonna get 'em all?”
Buck pulled himself back from the river bank and thought for a moment.
“We’re gonna have to be smarter than them.”
“That’ll be easy.” Ted replied, still watching them. The digging fluffy had just been told off for digging the pit too far from the herd, and was now filling it in while openly crying.
“We can’t take 'em all at once… they’ll panic. We’re gonna have to be smart, and careful.” Buck said, grabbing his field-glasses again for another look… but this time he was looking around the herd. Plenty of trees on all sides, a few stumps that had been left behind when some trees were cut down years ago, a few bushes growing berries, some uneven terrain… and the shallow river separating the herd from them.
“How’re we gonna get 'em, Buck?” Ted asked again, eager to know what his older brother was thinking.
Buck turned his field-glasses back to the herd, watching the Smarty kick a pregnant mare out of ‘his’ spot.
“We’ll take one first. Just one. We’ll see how they react. After that, we’ll work out how to deal with the rest.”
“How’re we gonna get it?”
Buck thought it over.
“We’ll wait until it gets dark, and they start going to sleep. When they’re all sleeping soundly, we’ll lure one of them away.”
Several hours later…
Ted and Buck had passed the time by eating, drinking and sleeping, preparing themselves for the night ahead. They were going to be up for some time in the dark, they were going to need their energy. They slept in shifts, with Buck going first while Ted stayed awake, then Ted resting while Buck kept watch. They couldn’t risk using an alarm on Buck’s phone to wake them up, the herd might hear it. So instead they settled on waking each other up at assigned times.
Sure enough, at 10pm, just as the sky went genuinely dark, Ted was gently shaken awake by Buck.
“C’mon, they’re all piling in now.” He whispered, handing Ted his field-glasses.
The two brothers took up their position again at the river bank and watched.
The ‘poopie-pwace’ had evidently been dug at some point during their sleeping, as one by one the fluffies waddled over to a shallow hole in the ground, screwed up their faces, shook for a moment, then relaxed and waddled away again. Once done, they made their way to the middle of the clearing where the pregnant mares were still planted, each new fluffy gently nudging it’s way into the group.
“It’s a fluff-pile.” Buck whispered. “They do it to stay warm at night.”
They noted that the Smarty had taken ‘his place’ at the centre of the fluff-pile, where it was certain to be warmest… and also safest, as long as you didn’t mind sacrificing the rest of the herd, young and old alike, for your own protection.
Which the Smarty clearly did not mind at all.
“Stahp pushin’!” Smarty snapped as one fluffy got a little over-zealous with trying to get into the pile.
“Buh… buh Smawty, fwuffeh cowd!” It whined.
“Dun’ cawe, dummeh! Shaddup! Smawty twyin’ to sweepy!”
And so the lone fluffy waddled around the outside of the pile, trying to find a good place to nestle himself between the others… but there were no gaps, no cracks, no chinks. Only a wall of fluff that had no spare places left anymore.
“Him.” Buck said, as the lone fluffy curled up in a ball by himself and, shivering, began to sleep. “We’ll get him first.”
“How?” Ted asked. “How’re we gonna do it?”
“Go to the backpacks, get the bag of gummy candies, then bring it back. Oh, and the duct-tape too. Can’t let 'em make any noise.”
Ted left and returned a minute later, creeping back over with the items in his hands.
“Okay, we’re gonna cross over now.” Buck said, lowering his field-glasses. “Remember, walk slowly in the water, don’t raise your feet out of it or it’ll splash when they go back down. Just shuffle real slow-like.”
Ted nodded, and the two brothers got up, picking their way down the short edge until they could reach the water.
It only just passed their ankles, and it was only a few feet wide, so they made it across easily enough and soon stepped up onto the other side of the river, now close enough to hear the herd snoring quietly.
Buck held his finger to his lips, signalling to Ted to not say a word while they were this close to the herd. Ted got the message, and nodded. Buck then pointed to the stuff in Ted’s arms, jabbing his finger in particular at the bag of candies, which Ted handed over.
Buck had opened it earlier during the day when there were sounds of birds and bugs to cover it. Now, in the eerie silence of the night, the tearing plastic would’ve woken up the entire herd. He reached into the bag and withdrew a single gummy candy, squishing it between his fingers. He took careful aim, and lightly tossed it through the gap in the foliage and landing not too far from the lone, shivering fluffy… but it didn’t notice the candy was there.
Buck threw another, but again, the fluffy didn’t notice. It continued to simply ‘hu-hu-hu’ as it fitfully slept in the cold air, all alone. Buck resisted the urge to say something about it and instead hurled another candy at it, this time bopping it directly on the head.
“Snrrk… whuh…?” The fluffy asked groggily, looking aroudn with glassy, dazed eyes. “Wha happen?”
“SSH!” A distinctly Smarty sounding hiss said from the fluff-pile.
The fluffy was about to go to sleep again… until he spotted one of the gummy candies on the floor of the forest. He mouthed the word ‘nummies’, before stepping forward and gobbling it up as fast as he could, munching rapidly at the rubbery texture, his lips smacking as he furiously chewed at his sweet, fruity prize.
With a loud ‘GULP’ he swallowed it, and beamed with pride. He was about to go to sleep, when he spotted another nummy, just like the first!
The fluffy waddled over to it and repeated the process, gobbling it up and swallowing it down as fast as he could. Then he noticed another, slightly further from the herd. As he approached it, Buck tossed a few more candies on the ground, while he and Ted stood on either side of the gap in the foliage. Step by step, candy by candy, the fluffy got closer and closer to them. Finally he peeked himself out of the gap in the foliage, looking for more food.
“Fin’ nummies,” He whispered to hismelf. “Bwing back fow hewd, be big hewo, Smawty finawwy be nice, maybe get speshul-huggies too… just gonna hab one mowe nummy fiwst, den bwing west back fow hewd… just one mowe fiwst…”
Buck pointed at the tape, and Ted silently tossed it over. Buck gripped the end of the tape roll and silently peeled off a length. He had picked the tape carefully, he had used it before in school and around the house. It was strong, and it didn’t make a horrible crackling sound when it was unstuck from itself.
It was perfect.
With a good length of the tape peeled off, he ripped it from the spool and tossed it back to Ted, who caught it quietly. With the fluffy’s head still visible, Buck suddenly swooped down on it, binding the tape rapidly around the fluffy’s mouth. He didn’t even have a second to make a noise before his mouth was tightly wrapped and sealed shut with the sticky silver tape.
With his voice silenced, Buck grabbed the fluffy by the neck and lifted it up, pulling it out of the foliage and scooping it under one arm. He jerked his hand back across the river, and he and Ted crept back over, silently moving through the river again.
Before long they were back at their camp, up by one terrified fluffy, while the rest of the feral herd were still completely asleep.
“We did it, Buck!” Ted whispered, barely able to contain his excitement. “We actually got one of 'em!”
“Told you we could.” Buck said, as he used more of the tape to bind up the fluffy’s legs, effectively hog-tying it while it looked around in frantic terror.
“Now what do we do?”
“Now? Now we wait until mornin’, and see how the rest of the herd reacts. If they panic, we play it by ear. If they stay calm, we stay here for another night.”
And with that the two brothers hunkered down for the night, while the tape-tied fluffy looked around frantically. He couldn’t fall asleep due to the fear in his heart, as well as the sugar in his digestive system, but he couldn’t do anything to escape, or even call for help. All he could do was lie on his side and stare into the darkness, trapped with these two ‘monsters’, and knowing the rest of the herd were in danger too, but he was totally powerless to help them.