An old friend returns with important news of his travels as the Tigress struggles to keep up with the rest of the pack

A short chapter, I know, but it is hard sometimes to split scenes into digestible chunks. I wonder how things will fare with the tigress's only real friend on the island?

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By the time the Lab’s assailants had finished their errand and returned to the canine camp by the shore, the tigress was far to the south and west, jogging along at the head of her chubby hunting party. Just five days ago, the group had been all but running through the jungle, but now no one was capable of sustaining that pace, the tigress least of all. The striped feline, who had never even attempted to restrain her diet was, as a result, much fatter than most of the wolves in the assembly. While she jogged briskly for the first couple hours, traversing around the root of the mountain which would lead them into the southern jungle where they had found their first cow, her weight began to bear down on her and sap her energy quickly.

The fatty ribbon of flesh on her underside began to feel more like a sheet of lead and the tigress panted more wearily as her strides slowed. Her headstrong jaunt into the forest, whose body language was as loud as a trumpet to most of the canines, ended with a whimper as she was overtaken by the main body of the hunters. The tigress’s hot tongue retracted sloppily into her mouth as she swallowed the spittle in her dry mouth and just as quickly it dropped back out, cooling her body in the same fashion as the smaller canines at her side; unfortunately, the hot, moist air under the soaring trees offered no comfort save the slight breeze created by moving forward. The tigress’s thighs and shoulders burned from the continued exertion with the added burden of her greatly increased weight and annoying buzzing insects were attracted to the scent of her sweat. Just when she thought she would simply have to drop down in the brush and rest, a small tan dog, whom the tigress hadn’t seen hide nor hair of since bringing down the cow five days ago, appeared at her side as if brought on the wind.

“How you holdin’ up there, Pretty Miss.” Asked Coyote with his same charming creole accent.

The tigress blustered and nearly tripped, “What? …Where… have you been?” She slowed down and stopped because she literally couldn’t talk and walk at the same time. The grey furred wolves moved past despite the largish road block her body made. J-39, the Beta wolf, nipped at a yearling wolf that had paused to watch. Soon the tigress and her much smaller companion were left alone with only the noise of her panting and the shouts of the birds overhead. It was only when she was able to stand still did the orange striped feline recognize the changes in Coyote’s condition. While no more pronounced than anyone else who the tigress saw, on Coyote the added fat seemed more a subtraction from his features and it hurt her vaguely to seem him that way compared to her memory of him.

“Me?” Answered Coyote with surprise as if he had been asked if he were a green grasshopper. “I can’t sit still one place ver’ long. You ought to know tha’ much ‘bout me.” Despite his words, Coyote turned a bit sideways as if to hide his newfound belly from the tigress’s piercing orange eyes.

“Yes, but where did you go?” Insisted the tigress, shifting her own eyes away from Coyote’s plump little body, “It’s not like there’s anywhere to go on this godforsaken place.” ‘Except perhaps the strong arms of a white tiger…’ thought the tigress and she quivered slightly.

“Oh, you’d be surprised.” Said Coyote with a laugh. He stood, looking up at the tigress towering over him and for the moment, his newly swollen gut was forgotten, “I tell you, Pretty Miss, there are some mighty queer sights to see on this’ere island. ‘Specially u’nna the leaves where most big folk don’t care t’look.” Coyote lifted his eyebrows and smiled up at the striped feline.

The tigress listened anxiously, even crouching down onto her expansive belly to be eye to eye with the small tan canine. “Tell me what you saw.” She prompted obligingly for Coyote.

“Ah, well, I can’t disappoint a lady, no sir.” Said Coyote, “Ya see, was two day ago I was walking through the jungle north aways o’ the camp and far inland, almost at t’base o’ the mountain. The mountain was tower’n over me and I was afeared o’ getting’ boxed in so’s I was fixin’ to turn around, but ahead I hears a strange noise, almost like th’sea, so I move forward through some ferns. I don’t t’ink you believe me if I say what I saw, but I knows you be seein’ strange things on the island too, girl.”

The tigress nodded her head slightly as an face clad in sparkling white fur framed itself in her mind. “Tell me what you saw.” She repeated in a quiet voice.

Coyote puffed up his now quite broad and round chest and said, “It was giant… ant hills.”

For a moment, the tigress could do nothing but stare down at the little canine, and then she burst into laughter. Fierce, hungry laughter that erupted from the absurdity of Coyote’s concerns and from her own very sincere relief. She laughed so hard that she flopped over onto her generous flank, feet kicking in the air; it felt so good to laugh at something, anything, since being dropped onto this strange and frightening place, she didn’t want to stop. Coyote sat and frowned; what else could he do?

The tigress’s howling brought the wolves running back; they boiled out of the surrounding foliage as if the tiger had shouted a command at them. It was only with their stern, appraising gazes on her back did the tigress finally feel the laughter leeched out of her like being dunked in a cold stream. In a single movement, she managed to rise to her feet, though no one missed the sound of her knees creaking from the strain as she did so. The larger Beta, the one only known as Tau-64 came forward. “Is anything wrong?” He asked gruffly and the tigress knew he’d just as soon see her skinned and hung from a tree rather than follow her if he had a choice. ‘Good thing he doesn’t.’ she thought.

The tigress punished the Beta’s impudent tone of voice with a growl as she snapped her massive fangs in front of his long snout. The pathetic canine tried to jump to the side, but his unaccustomed girth turned his graceful turn into a stumble and he fell flat on his flank, tail between his thick thighs. The tigress had a mind to press her heavy paw down on his prone body to further dominate him, but instead withheld her wrath… for now. With a resigned sigh that the tigress used to cover her laugh at the Beta’s tumble, she said, “Nothing’s wrong. Coyote was just entertaining me with a funny story.”

The Beta got heavily to his feet with a huff. He made nothing of his fall and just said, “Well… where is he?”

That was when the tigress realized that the little wild canine had seemingly evaporated since the wolves had arrived. She thought it peculiar that Coyote would choose to leave right when the rest of the hunting party had shown up, but then she hadn’t seen him with them when they left either. The large feline rubbed a paw down her snout in thought, but she wasn’t going to admit her confusion in front of them; it was her responsibility to be a strong leader. So she stood up. “That doesn’t matter.” She strode forward, the flabby ribbon down her undercarriage rippling like an eel, “I’m finished with this little break. Let’s get to the south side of the island, and then we’ll find a cow, horse or whatever else we can catch.”

The hungry wolves let up a furious war howl as they leapt into the forest. The tigress thought as she ran through the dense green foliage that any prey animals hearing that would do well to take fear into their hearts for they were coming… she was coming.