Coyote

Chapter 13: Much Water

"Long Island?" repeated Eli. "What is that? Some den of humans?"

Summer paused. She appeared a little taken aback. "You're not from around here, are you? Long Island is an island. There are a lot of different towns and parks and beaches. It's really quite a busy place. I live on the north shore. Ollie lives nearby, and Hunter lives out on the north fork. River lives in Massachusetts, but she's visiting for a while. That's why we were all in the city this past weekend. We figured we would all go on a vacation together. One of my humans took us on the boat with them. They're inside getting us some water."

A human was getting them water? I flinched in shock. Beside me, Kai did as well. Mr. Rodgers looked like his body had temporarily stopped working. This poor dog couldn't even get water by herself? What kind of life was that?

"You can't just get your own water? This human needs to get it for you?" Eli asked. It was rare to see Eli be so rude, but considering the circumstances it was understandable. Humans had entered our forest and yelled mean things at us, and here was Summer, joyfully depending on humans for basic necessities.

Summer picked up on Eli's shock. Her smile hardened a bit. "I love my humans. I understand I might not be as independent as you clearly are, but I'm fine with that. They look after me, and I look after them."

"You tell them!" roared River, pausing her fight with her brother. "Meanie weird dogs with sweater hats think they can make fun of our cousin?"

"You leave our cousin alone!" barked Hunter. He and River ran around in circles on top of the bench, barking as they did so.

Ollie jumped onto Summer's back and fell asleep. Summer gently lowered herself to the ground, tipped Ollie over onto the floor, and then gently lifted him back up to the bench. She glared at Eli. "I'm sorry that you can't have such a loving relationship with a human."

"That's because humans are the worst!" I said, coming to my brother's defense. "We're chasing three of them who thought they could come into our forest and be mean to us. They said some very impolite things to me after waking me up from a nap. Once we reach their territory, we'll scare them! We're here to exact justice."

"You mean get revenge. You don't have to hold this grudge. Why don't you try letting it go?" said Summer.

I didn't know what to say. This quest of ours was important – historic even. Since time began, humans had been heckling us in our homes. Now, it was time to heckle them in theirs. It was only fair. Giving up now was more than about us, it was about justice for everyone like us, members of every species, who had been wronged by the humans. And now that we knew Lulu and her group of wolf pretenders was hunting down our humans, we had to keep going. I had to keep going. There would be no stopping us.

I wanted to argue further, to show Summer how justified, ordained even, our quest was, but I didn't get that chance. One of the beautiful crewmen ran out on to the deck, panting heavily. He bent over to catch his breath, which must have been difficult considering how restricting his shirt was. When he could breathe again, he wheezed out, "the boat...it's...sinking..." He then collapsed, hitting the deck with a thud. Even in death he looked fine.

Panic took a while to settle in. Slowly, the humans around us began to look around for family members and friends, calling out names, and sprinting along the deck. People toppled into lifeboats and inexpertly tied bulky orange floats to their bodies. No one seemed to notice that we were only a few feet away from the shore. Really, why our dear humans decided to take a boat to Long Island in the first place never made sense to me. They had arrived in the city at Penn Station. It would have been so simple to walk from the Amtrak platform to the Long Island Railroad and leave from there. I didn't know that at the time, because I'm not a human and I was unfamiliar with the simplicity of human travel, but I've since done some research. I don't even think there are any ferries that go from the city to Long Island. This was a private boat. After getting lost in the forest and taking trains this far south, they decided to completely abandon the railroad and hop on a private boat to go about 50 kilometers. Sure, it made our trip more interesting, and I enjoyed the variation. My publishers probably wouldn't have been too thrilled if the entirety of our chase occurred on trains. Moving on.

Meanwhile, all the members of our party, domesticated dogs and us noble, true wolves, stared at the ever-delightful Mr. Rodgers.

Mr. Rodgers looked behind him, then back at us. "What?" he said.

"Could this have anything to do with your plan to keep Lulu out of our way?" Eli asked.

"Well, look here, I didn't do anything-"

"It was totally him," supplied Asher. "He told me not to say anything. He undid a plug below the waterline on the boat. His exact words were, 'That Lulu can't catch up to us if she's swimming with the fishes.'"

"Mr. Rodgers!"

"What?" said Mr. Rodger, shrugging his shoulders. "We had to get rid of them, and your plan was ridiculous. You really thought it would work?"

Not that I ever want to defend him, but in his defense, Lulu chose that moment to exit out onto the deck. She and her trench-coated companions were all soaked with water. Lulu appeared particularly dour, glaring at anyone who dared look at her waterlogged fur. "I thought the point of being on a boat was to not get wet. If I wanted to swim, I would have done so. Let's all leave bad online reviews for this captain, got it Claude? Good." She spotted us on the other end of the deck. Her disappointment grew into a long smile. "It's you all! And you have friends! Domesticated dogs I see...well that's more your speed I suppose. Do the little doggies want a bone?" This last part she said in a mocking baby voice, directing it at the three puppies on the bench.

The sleepy one, Ollie, woke up. "Yes," he said, and then launched himself, mouth open, at Lulu. We all watched as his teeth clamped down on her sleeve, and though she shook her leg back and forth to get him off, he hung in there, flying through the air. His siblings laughed, and then they joined the fray; River climbed on top of Claude and scratched his top hat to shreds, while Hunter ran through the legs of Pink, Yellow, and Orange, causing them all to lose their balance and fall.

I spent most of the time staring in amazement. I genuinely believe that there has never been such a display of ferocity by any group of triplets on a boat in recorded history. It took Mr. Rodgers a whole minute of tugging on my arm to break me out of my trance.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Well..." he began, "I didn't just sink the boat. There was an electrical room, and I thought that maybe I should take out all the casing along the walls, exposing the wires there."

"I don't know what any of that means. What are wires?"

"Oh dear," said Eli. "That isn't good. It isn't good at all."

If not for the sudden blast of smoke that pushed through the doors to the dining area, I would have asked Eli for more information, and probably berate Mr. Rodgers even more, but, due to the adverse circumstances at that time, I decided against it.