Near Misses (Wilderness Express Series)
The air grew colder as the path wound peak-way through the forest. Koda pulled her hood atop her head and tightened the dark green cloak around her.
Her stay in Wildnerness had been brief, but it couldn’t be helped. The small town, though quaint, offered her nothing. So, back into the forest she plunged.
She stared at the path ahead. The monotony of the forest lulled Koda’s mind into a haze.
“Koda!”
At hearing her name, Koda spun to search the crowd behind her. People bustled through the town square on their way for a coffee and a sweet, to peruse Hub’s vibrant fashion culture, or strike another task off the day’s to-do list.
“Koda!”
This time a short but strongly built goat in khaki shorts, a loose fitting green Henley, and boots freed herself from the mass of bodies by ducking under a ram’s elbow and turning sideways to squeeze between two ox in sharp business attire.
“Jackie!” exclaimed Koda as the goat ran across the square. They hugged.
“I haven’t seen you in months” said Koda as she brushed dried mud from shirt. Jackie, since they had become friends in grade school, was perpetually covered in dirt, leaves, and whatever else nature could stick to fur.
“Someone hasn’t been topside in a while” Jackie teased.
Koda rolled her eyes and puffed her cheeks in disappointment.
“Don’t remind me. The paper. Life. It’s all been a bit much lately.”
“Well, you look like you’ve kept yourself in shape! At least you’re exercising.”
“A lady tries” said Koda with a toss of her head in her best runway model impersonation. “I’m on my way to the gym now. The stairmaster is no substitute for the Pinnacle, but it’ll have to do today.” Koda looked up. The sky was the mesmerizing blue of a robin’s egg. “I need to get outside more” she sighed.
A flash of blue caught Koda’s eye. A beetle passed her on the trail, so slow had her pace become while reminiscing. A beam of light played off its royal blue shell as it waddled unsteadily on its front two limbs.
Koda cocked her head to the side, unsure of what to make of the scene.
“Oh” Jackie began hopping from one leg to the other. “I have a super cool assignment coming up. Why don’t you come with me?” Jackie’s eyes widen with joy.
“Yes! Please.” Koda, knowing that the Thrive Forestry Service always gave Jackie the most exciting jobs, immediately took to the idea. Her eyes locked longingly on the mountains which hemmed in Hub, the capital of the federation.
“Great!” Jackie twirled in the air. “I’m so excited! Do you still have your camping gear?”
“Of course” Koda laughed.
With Jackie, the adventure was always stretched to its limit. As pups, they had wandered the forest together for hours each day. Though she never said so, Koda knew that Jackie’s goal was always to lose themselves in the forest. A distinct look of betrayal would wash over her face as the two spotted a familiar landmark which dimmed Koda’s sense of relief.
“Perfect! Meet me at the train station in two hours.” Jackie’s voice had taken on the crackling shrill tone Koda had known for years. The goat’s excitement remained as pure as a mountain stream.
“Wait. Two hours?”
“Koda!”
The fox looked to the sky and scrunched her face.
Earthy specs danced up and down in a circuitous manner on the edges of the path ahead. Koda squinted.
Two beetles, one blue and one green, were juggling tiny balls of what smelled like well digested food on either side of the path. Koda covered her nose a sleeve and walked past the beetles while avoiding eye contact.
“Mmhhmm” Jackie nodded so fast Koda swore she could hear something inside her head rattle. “The federation is looking to extend leisure activities into the valley beyond Backwater and I’ve been selected to scout the area. They’ve given me an entire week.”
Jackie rubbed her cheeks and shivered at the thought of spending a week straight in the woods.
“Koda!”
This time, both heard Koda’s name being called and looked around.
A beautiful snow leopard emerged from the cage with a matcha tea in paw. Penna seemed to glide as she serenely navigated the patio tables, waving at Koda. Every head turned when Penna passed. Every time.
“It’s just her tail balled up, you know” said a boar seated at one of the patio tables in response to the hypnotic sway of the leopard’s curves. “All fluff.”
Her badger companion snorted her disapproval.
Just beyond the tables, Jackie bit her lip.
Koda, seeing her reaction, leaned in.
“She’s the kindest soul you’ll ever meet. She’s just…so much. It can be intimidating, I know.”
Jackie nodded.
“It’s not that” she said under her breath.
Koda jerked her foot upward as something passed over it. Soaring through the air were the two beetles, one juggling atop the other as it rolled like a ball.
Amazingly, they remained in form as they landed near the path edge and pulled a hard ninety degree turn without losing a beat. For showmanship, the blue beetle tossed the minute turds high in the air and tucked into a ball while the green beetle unfurled itself with an acrobatic flip, landed atop the rolling blue beetle, and resumed the juggling display.
None of this, to the beetle’s dismay, was seen by Koda who was instead fixated on a particularly large boulder atop a ridge in the woods not too far above her.
‘I wonder how that got there.’
“Jackie, is that you?” Penna’s silky voice pitched with a delighted crescendo. “I haven’t seen you in years.”
Surprise washed over the goat’s face. ‘How, while managing the The Tracker, Thrive’s leading newspaper, annually finishing within the top three of the Thrive Olympics, and sitting on the board of Lending Paws, a charity which helped all in need, was it possible that Penna still managed to remember her name’ Jackie thought as the snow leopard wrapped her in a warm embrace.
“Still living the outdoors life” Penna said as she gracefully wiped mud from her purple sports top.
“Y-yes. Still losing myself in the mountains” Jackie said with a sheepish smile while knocking lose from her shirt dirt that had probably spent the better part of a year caked onto it.
“How wonderful” Penna said, smiling as she sipped her steaming tea. “Just don’t forget to visit every once in a while, or we’ll miss you.”
Jackie’s eyes flickered between Koda and Penna. She had always found trees and rocks easier to read than fellow furkind. Still, despite her apprehensions, not a trace of insincerity rang in Penna’s words.
“I’ll leave you girls to it. I’m gonna lift a bit before spin class” she said to Koda with a mock flex of her bicep. Don’t dawdle. We still need to talk about what we’ll wear to the Lending Paws event tomorrow evening. I’m so excited! Chao, Jackie”
Jackie waved goodbye as she and Koda watched the snow leopard spring away in the direction of the gym and meld into the crowd, heads turning along the way, per usual.
The high-pitched whine of two hard, smooth objects rubbing feverishly against one another brought Koda back to the forest.
She discovered that she had come to a halt and just a few feet in front of her beetles of various sizes and colors were gathered in a nature Koda could only describe as indiscrimate, wonton continuation of beetlekind.
In other words, a beetle orgy.
Koda’s cheeks puffed nauseously at a chorus of moans sliced through by the squeaks of carapace on carapace friction.
“I” Koda hesitated, but her shoulders had already slumped. “I can’t go with you today, Jackie. I have so much to do.”
Koda struggled to meet Jackie’s eyes.
The goat’s face sank into a look far too close to the betrayal of being found for Koda’s comfort.
“I’m sorry. Really. I can go next week. Or, I think I can. I’d have to check my schedule.”
Koda rummaged through her gym bag in search of her planner. “The paper is upping our article production. It’s rough” she said amongst a cacophony of clangs as she rummaged through keys, phone, pens, and more.
“I understand. It’s ok.”
Jackie absent mindedly picked at another blotch of dried mud but stopped herself before completing the task.
“I can definitely do a hike next week. What do you say?” asked Koda, far more guiltily than she hoped as she slowly withdrew an empty paw from her bag.
“Yea sure, that would be great. I’ll drop you a line when I get back in town” Jackie answered, her voiced riddled with doubt.
Koda shifted uneasily and rubbed her shoulder.
“It’s a deal.”
They hugged goodbye. Jackie turned and disappeared into the crowd again leaving a trail of muddy hoof prints behind her. A passing badger cub spotted the mud, scooped it, balled it, and tossed it at the two well-tailored oxen, now seated at a café.
The mud ball splattered on one’s face and provided the other’s coffee with an earthy creamer, who unknowingly sipped the spontaneous concoction and nodded his approval with the air of a true connoisseur.
“Two slices of apple cobbler” declared a waiter as he unloaded plates from his tray onto the table of a pair bulky patrons.
“Two slices of chocolate cherry pie” he continued as the boar and badger began to salivate. “Two slices of angel food cake topped with whipped crème and strawberries” he said as he set the final plate with a clang.
The boar’s eyes rolled into the back of her head as she sniffed at the sweets before her.
“Enjoy your, er, breakfast” said the buck as he calmed his churning stomach with the hand not holding aloft the now empty tray. He hurried back into the café with a hoof over his mouth.
“I never knew how much I enjoyed healthy eating until my doctor pointed out the copious amounts of fruit I was already consuming” declared the boar whose eyes had finally resumed a forward-facing position. “I naturally seek the optimal nutrition, it seems.”
“Naturally” agreed the badger with a dragged out, nasally tone as she tucked her napkin into the low neckline of her dress just in time to save a dangling goop of drool from plummeting into the buxom wilds beneath the flowered linen stretched so thin that every color showed itself three shades lighter.
“Oh, I almost forgot my pills” squealed the boar.
From a purple, tasseled handbag, her plump hoofs produced a burlap bag boasting an assortment of pills in varying colors and shapes. She retrieved a hoofful of indiscriminate medication, crushed it to a fine powder, and sprinkled it atop her breakfast.
“To our health” declared the badger with a momentary, solemn bow just before both dived face-first into their dishes, utensils at the side, forlorn, as crème, crumbs, and bits of fruit burst forth in all directions like savory shrapnel from the breakfast devoured within a single breath.
A low drone jittered through the air, crept into Koda’s ear, and sent a single chill down her stiffening spine.
On the ground before her, licentious joy had morphed into a street brawl. The beetles punched, kicked, and buzzed; abusing each other with abandon.
A roar erupted from the fury of beating wings and the hair on the back of Koda’s neck stood on end. A dormant terror at the bottom of her heart stirred.
Two beetles tumbled through the air past Koda, wings thrashing furiously. Her chest grew cold as the terror within spread, anchoring her feet to the ground.
Then, in the background, she saw it. The boulder on the ridge.
Something deep inside Koda told her that the boulder was the only safe place in these woods. It sounded like total nonsense, but she had nothing else.
Near Koda’s foot, five beetles played a sinister game of tug-o-war. Two pairs pulled on the limbs either side of a fifth. It squealed as tendons stretched and popped.
With a mighty, synchronized tug, one of the battling sides unbalanced all five, sending them tumbling over and knocking into the foot of the petrified fox whose attention still lay on the ridge above.
Koda yelped as she leapt six feet in the air. As soon as her paws touched the ground, she sprang up the mountainside and towards the boulder.
Her heart pounded as she wove in and out of trees all the while the buzzing behind her persisted.
She reached the boulder and scrambled to the top to a clatter of nails on stone. At the top, her jaw dropped at what her intuition had brought her.
Nothing.
With a still heaving chest, she surveyed the beyond which amounted to nothing more than a replication of what lay behind her. At the bottom of a slight decline the path continued a short distance below after reappearing around a bend off to her right.
She laughed. It was the slightly maniacal, high-pitched laugh which popped through gasps of air laugh that escapes a skydiver’s clinched jaw after the chute finally opens on the third tug of the rip cord.
“That’s what all this was about? A short cut?”
She spun back towards the slope she had just raced up and spread her arms wide in mocked glory.
“I’m such a fool.”
Below, on the path, it seemed as if the beetles had paused their orgy-brawl to stare up at a fox atop a rock. One, she swore, pointed and sniggered.
“At least I’ll get out of here sooner” Koda said as she turned and scampered down the far side of the boulder and over to the path.
Koda put her head down and quickened her pace.
