Under Northern Skies

7 - a nice coat

"Shame you had to do that," said Zander, as we started to make our way back to his hound grandfather's truck, buck still in tow.

"I know," I explained. "I got the feeling she really liked me. Think I was too mean?" I then asked, worried I had done something I'd later come to regret.

"Hardly," the fox answered certainly. "She's mean herself. I mean, you heard her, right, grandpa?"

"For sure. Were you two on a date?" the hound prodded with a laugh.

"I think she thought we were," I described that roundabout situation, as we got back out to where Patricia's truck used to be, and where the elkhound's still was. "She seemed to be going in for a kiss before you shot this buck."

"I'd have shot a bit later had I known," the elkhound pretended to lament, finishing lifting the bloody animal onto the back.

Zander laughed at all that, and hearing it made me feel a lot better now, as we got into the truck. "She tried to get flirty with me once, you know," he claimed. "Last year, even, though she didn't manage to drag me along hunting."

The vehicle was clearly an old, well-driven but well-kept spare. It felt much more fitting for what we were doing. "Where're we headed?" I asked.

"Back to my house, if you don't mind coming along," said Zander's grandfather.

"Long as neither of you don't mind me," I answered with.

"He's alright," the fox told his grandfather, then smiled back at me.

"As long as you let your folks know," said the grey-haired hound, with a shudder, reaching to turn the heat on. "Getting chilly back there?"

"I was, but it's good now," I bleated, feeling it kick in.

"You must have been chilly, in THAT coat. I know where you must've gotten it, too," the old dog shook his head, looking back at me in the rearview mirror, disappointed by his own accuracy. "That shop is a political pit, through and through."

"Aw, grandpa," Zander disappointedly said, not wishing to hear too much of such stuff.

"Huh? Oh no, no offense to you for wearing it," his grandfather was quick to clarify. "I just mean it with—with the—the reality, I guess. No offense, Kayden, really."

Though Zander seemed dismissive of that, I realized what his hound grandfather was trying to say. It wasn't something I heard everywhere, nor did I really know anyone else who would so readily say it. What I figured a lot of people would take as a prejudice against their opinion, or the rambling of someone who got a little too into the news, I knew was a warning.

"I think I know what you mean," was all I said.

The old canine nodded in understanding. "Well, that's good. You said you knew that girl, too, Zander?" he asked his grandson.

"Mmhm," Zander hummed affirmatively. "Patricia. We were friends for a bit, and I didn't always mind her flirting. I thought she was funny, and sassy. But sassy and mean are two different things, and she's both. Especially on Facebook—from what I hear, I'm not on it," he added, and I think I got the idea.

The hound began to say something, but chose not to, as we pulled in. I got excited once I saw their house. It had its own big space behind the trees beside the highway, slightly secluded yet welcoming.

I reckoned to myself that I was glad he shot that deer when he did.

When we got out of the car, we all examined that deer, taking a second to measure it. Here was the prideful reward of a day out, which Zander and his grandparents admired before inviting me for lunch. How cruel it was, they said, for me to be taken hunting on an empty stomach!