Buck and Ted spent the rest of the day watching the herd. Smarty continued to bully everyone, kicking and shouting until they agreed to do whatever it was he wanted from them. The rest of the herd just did their best to stay out of his way.
The drowned fluffy corpse continued lying in the river, unmoved and untouched.
Eventually the two brothers slid down the bank again on their side to talk.
“Okay.” Buck said. “Here’s the plan. The herd is staying there as long as the Smarty tells them to. There isn’t much food there, but they have water from the river, and plenty of cover from the trees. Overall it’s a pretty safe place from predators, so he’ll probably want to stay as long as he can, but it won’t be forever.”
“Yeah, they’re already low on food.” Ted said, having noticed himself how bare the various berry bushes had become so far, and it was only their second day in their spot.
“Right, if we wait too long then they’ll up and leave. So here’s the plan: we pick off a few to start with, it thins their numbers and leaves the survivors with more food to share among them. We’ve already got one of our own,” He said, jerking a thumb at the emaciated fluffy at their camp, his mouth, legs (and recently, his butthole) covered in tape. “And the Smarty killed another.”
Ted shivered at the memory.
“So that means they’re down by two. Once their numbers drop a little more, we can make our move and start taking them out.”
“Cos they’ll panic, right?”
“Right. If they actually see us do something, like shooting at them, they’ll scream and run. Don’t matter what Smarty tells 'em then if they’re too scared to listen, and trust me, they’ll be scared of us. So we gotta leave that until the end. Once we start shooting with the BB rifle, all hell breaks loose.”
“Okay. What do we do now?”
“Now? Now we wait until it gets dark again… then we’re gonna set up a few traps.”
Several hours later…
Once more the herd eventually formed their fluff-pile, with Smarty again taking place at the centre. This time there was no fluffy left outside… not only because the herd had realised how dangerous it was to stray from the pile, but also because the fewer fluffies meant there was less of them to accomodate.
As the herd fell asleep, Buck and Ted made their way over, bringing with them the length of string and their pocket-knives. After crossing the river, Buck unrolled the string and cut it roughly in half, leaving them both with several feet’s worth of string to themselves.
When Buck was a kid, Pa had shown him how to rig up a basic snare trap after they’d seen one in a movie. Then that led to discussing things like dead-falls, pits and more, which Buck had also eventually imparted to Ted… but right now, they only needed the snares.
Working silently, taking every step as carefully as possible, the two brothers rotated in a circle around the herd, each using their length of the string to tie a snare trap, leaving a sinister spool of white thread on the floor of the forest, which they then deftly covered in leaves, camouflaging them perfectly.
Buck worked faster than Ted, having had more experience and practice, but before long the two brothers met again at the end of their circle, having surrounded the herd’s clearing with snare traps. The only place they left free of traps was the path towards the river. If any of them tried to run away, they’d be snagged and caught. Otherwise, if they tried to run towards the river, their only choice was to run directly into it, where they’d inevitably drown.
The two brothers shared a proud smile together, and crept back to their camp.
“Okay.” Buck said after they were back by the tree, a good space away from the bank. “The traps are set. If any of them try to leave, they’ll get caught. They can’t run away now.”
“So what do we do next?” Ted asked, eager to properly ‘start’ their hunt.
“I want to get at least one more.” Buck said, thinking it over. “At least one more fluffy, just to thin their numbers down a little more before we start.”
“How’re you gonna do it?” Ted asked.
Buck was in the process of thinking it over, when he caught sight, from the corner of his eye, of their duct-taped fluffy captive. It was starving and dehydrayed, and visibly uncomfortable from a load of un-shitted shits blocking it’s innards, but it was still alive.
And Buck smirked.
“I know just how I’m gonna do it.” He said.