The Heretics on the Hill

	Despite being an herbalist, I wouldn’t consider myself much of an expert on botany in general.  It’s an interesting field of study, I’ll admit I’ve dabbled out of sheer curiosity, and I can name most of the flora in the valley I’ve chosen to reside of late.  That being said, I can’t say I have the fervor for it that some of the marten tapper tribes have.  I could point to a tree and potentially name it and one or two uses for its bark or leaves or whatnot, but I couldn’t tell you how to raise one from a sapling, exactly when the leaves will fall and what conditions are right for its growth.
	All of that being said, I do have a favorite tree.  For . . . much less intellectual reasons.
	It’s because at some point over the last few years, it became our favorite tree.  It’s broad, the bark is worn smooth to the touch, (save a few of the claw marks I’ve put in it) and it’s got this perfect little notch about half a foot over the top of my head that I can hold on to . . . .
	I don’t know when Ransom and I first started making a habit of fucking in the woods.  Okay, no, that’s a lie.  I remember the exact day.  The season, the weather, the meal we’d had for dinner, the smell of him. . . .  But what I meant to say is, we have a house now.  A beautiful little cabin I’m immensely proud of, nicely wedged onto our small parcel of land, surrounded on one side by my gardens and the other by a sheer hill Ransom likes for neurotic, paranoid reasons that involve visibility and his rifle.  We have a straw-stuffed mattress and goose down blankets and pillows, and a wonderfully warm hearth.  The whole place smells of dried herbs, leather, tea and Ransom’s fur, and every time I come home to it, I’m indescribably happy to be there.  Sometimes I even close my eyes just to take the place in as I used to perceive the world.
	But despite this, so often, we end up outside against our favorite tree.  There’s always some excuse.  We were busy with chores and it got late, and we just can’t seem to make it inside.  Or we were out stargazing, and we just can’t seem to make it inside.  Or we want to look at the stars while we – well you get the point. 
	Really, I think it’s just because no matter how comfortable we are inside our cabin, Ransom and I became accustomed to doing this outside.  Or at the very least, in a tent.  Which is essentially outside.  We’ve also become very accustomed to the, eh. . . to this particular position, as it were.  We’ve tried the walls inside the cabin, but they just aren’t the same. . . .
	So, it’s dusk, Ransom had been out all day checking traps and came home with a nice fat hare for dinner.  I’d been losing track of time in my garden, intermittently grinding, mixing and bottling.  And he’d come home, set the hare down on his butchering stump, had leaned just so against the wiry birch tree near the garden and watched me for a time with that coyote smile and his aging golden eyes.  I’d looked up and seen him – yes, seen him, sometimes I still can’t get over that – with his hip cocked just so, his lanky frame belying the strength I knew resided inside him, his long cotton sleeves shoved up along his biceps.  The wind had caught his scent and brought it to me, and he smelled like pine and dirt and coyote musk, and all at once I knew I wanted him right then and there.  And the tree was just. . . waiting.
	So that’s how we found ourselves repeating the same old same old, one of his strong, rough hands digging into the fresh winter coat that had grown in around my hips, my arms braced against the tree, gripping the little notch I knew was there, while he pounded into me from behind.  While it did make me nostalgic in some ways for the days of old, when we were younger and every encounter like this was harried and wanton, I was glad for many other reasons that we were older now – and more experienced.  Ransom and I had discovered some years ago a mixture of oils that were both good for oiling his bow, and for other, more carnal uses.  So now he always had them on him, and that meant no more days I spent sore and regretting that we hadn’t taken the time to prepare properly.
	He was also far more careful and purposeful now than he’d ever been with me.  Sure, some of that had to do with love and empathy, and all that good stuff.  But he was also just far more experienced now and knew how to get me where we were both hoping to end up.  
	My own paw stroked my cock in a well-practiced rhythm, in time with his thrusts, a guttural groan escaping me as he once again brushed up against that spot deep inside me that I could never seem to reach on my own.  The coyote chuckled and patted my rear, his knot pushing up against me with his thrusts, a reminder that he was growing close, as well.  The promise of being knotted in and of itself was almost enough to push me over the edge, but when he released the hand on my hip to instead sink his fingers around my tail and pull on it just so, I knew I was done for.  He gripped it close to the base and tugged me just so, into each thrust, right on the edge of being too rough, exactly how he knew I wanted it.
	I cried out and came half into my hand, half in the dirt our footpaws were digging in to.  And he redoubled his pace at that, fucking me hard through my climax, until he too was at his peak.  He didn’t let me brace for the knot, and that was probably for the best.  He slid it into me in one solid thrust, and I cried out again.  It was always more than I anticipated, I can’t say I’d ever really gotten used to it.  But it was always worth it.  The feeling of being so full afterwards, leaving my body nearly numb and shaking, Ransom’s chest against my back, his grip on me the only thing keeping me upright.
	Well that, and the tree.  I told you.  Great tree.
	Half an hour and a good scrub at the wash basin later, we were settling in for the night.  I had a wooden bowl of peeled potatoes and carrots to cut, and Ransom was preparing the hare for the pot of water we were bringing to a boil.  We usually preferred stew for dinner, it was easy and allowed us to use whatever we had on hand at the end of the day.
	“He was supposed to arrive earlier today,” Ransom noted from across the room, lowering the readied carcass into the boiling water.  “I kept my trappin’ along the east road, so’s I’d see ‘im before he made it to you.  But no sign of ‘im yet.”
	“Maybe he died on the road,” I muttered, chopping a potato firmly in half before turning it to do the same to the other side.
	Ransom barked a laugh.  “Wouldn’ that be nice?  I don’t think we got that kinda’ luck, though.”
	“You never know,” I sighed.  “Predators this time of year get hungry.  He’s one man.”
	“One very well-armed man, I’d ‘magine,” Ransom said.
	“Shivah’s sure about this, hm?”  I hummed, moving on to the next potato.
	“I trust ‘er info,” Ransom said.  “She was movin’ through town last month, think she ended up talkin’ to that Mayor fella of hers.  He knows his people.  He’s city folk originally, ‘parently.”
	“This man won’t be from the city,” I said, darkly.  “Men like him are only able to operate the way they do where the law is loose.  The otherwolves. . . even the ones from this country, they’ve got laws in place for things like this.  ‘Procedures’.  I talked with the Admiral about them, a bit,” I saw the coyote’s ears go back at the mention of the cattle dog from so long ago.  Still holding a grudge, apparently.  “He dealt with something like this, but it was in Amuresca, and it was a lot more formal.  And he got out of it fine, but to be fair, he had a wife.”
	“It’s the perfect damn cover,” the coyote sniffed, then glanced at me, smiling.  “Not that I have any regrets.”
	I looked up and smiled back at him.  “Nor do I.”
	A sharp knock on the door startled me enough that I nearly cut my finger, and Ransom’s muzzle snapped towards the door, his lip peeling back to reveal his canines.  We both looked at each other again for a moment, before he stood and slung his rifle over his shoulder, moving slowly towards the door.
	“Ah don’t like that we didn’ hear ‘im approachin’ on the road,” he growled.  
	I didn’t either, but I kept my mouth shut on the matter.  The last thing I wanted to do was rile Ransom up further.
	The coyote opened the door a crack, and I closed my eyes for a moment, letting my other senses take over.  I couldn’t see the man from here, and I’d get a better feel for him perceiving the world as I used to.  I gathered a few things right off the bat.  He was feline – a mountain lion perhaps, that would explain the quiet approach.  He smelled older, perhaps around the same age as Ransom.  He also smelled somewhat sour, like whiskey, tobacco and the road.  I was accustomed to that sort of cocktail with the traders and trappers that moved in and out, but for some reason I’d expected he would be more fastidious.  Most of the Preachers I’d met in the area were.  And most of them didn’t drink.
	More and more, the picture Shivah had painted for us of this man was proving true.
	“This’s private property,” Ransom said in a low tone.  “What d’you want at this ungodly hour?”
	“I think we both know full well you was warned I’d be makin’ a stop here tonight,” the man replied in a rough voice, like someone who’d been on the pipe too long.  There was a shuffling noise, like hands against rough cloth, and I opened my eyes in time to see a sliver of the man on the other side of the door, holding something up that caught the firelight from our hearth.  “Federal Inquisitor,” he said, spitting on the stoop.  “I was hopin’ we could all have a sit-down.”
	He caught sight of me at that point, and I crossed my arms neatly over my lap, staring right back at him.  He smiled a little, but it was a hollow, vile thing.  Like he’d seen something that made him happy, but it wasn’t for anyone else’s good.  “That yer. . . partner back thar?”
	“We can talk,” Ransom said, his tone firm but thusfar not aggressive.  “On the porch.  You ain’t comin’ int’my home, and no law says I have t’let you.”
	“Well now,” the man nodded, “I s’pose that’s true.  Then step outside with me, will you?”
	Ransom opened the door further, and I stood, moving to join them.  The cougar stood back as the two of us exited the cabin and took a moment to look us over.  I did the same.  He wasn’t quite so tall as Ransom, but wider-set.  Not very overweight, just barrel-chested, and with the slight paunch that came from drinking too much.  Despite that, he knew his game, because he’d gotten to our porch without Ransom hearing him, and that was no mean feat, even with the night insects trilling and chirping as they were.
	I saw no horse either, which explained why we hadn’t heard him approaching on the road.  He probably had one, or at least a donkey, but he must’ve left it in town.  He wore a hunting knife on his belt and a rifle much like Ransom’s over his shoulder.  Except his looked newer, and in far better condition than Ransom’s.  Much too expensive a weapon for a man of his trappings.  Stolen, probably.
	The cougar looked between us for a few moments before turning his attention exclusively to Ransom.  “Honestly, you kin tell the little missus there t’step back inside, I think this a conversation best had b’tween men.”
	“I’m a man,” I spoke up, my tone just as steady as I’d hoped it’d be.  “And since this concerns me, I feel I should hear it.”
	“Well now, if you weren’t a man, I guess I wouldn’t be here, now would I?”  The cougar chuckled, but there was no real mirth in his town.  “You got it then fox.  You kin stay.”
	“Beggin’ your pardon, but this is our land,” Ransom interjected, coldly.  “If anyone should be tellin’ someone who is or isn’t welcome ‘round here-“
	“Let’s cut to the chase,” the feline glared once more at me, as if he thought he’d intimidate me this time when he hadn’t the first.  “You know why ah’m here.  Word got ‘round about you two an’ yer. . . domestic bliss.  You know they got a name fer you at Crossroads, right?”
	“The heretics on the hill,” I said.  “Can’t imagine how we earned such an auspicious title.”
	“Oh you can’t, can’t you?”  The feline snarled back, derisively.
	“Look fella,” Ransom said, his tone adopting a friendlier air I’d seen him put on before when he was dealing with difficult traders or trying to get out of a scrape.  It didn’t fool me, of course.  But then Ransom wasn’t really ‘friendly’, in the real way, with many folks in the world.  It was a rare soul that earnestly heard his more compassionate side.  “I don’t know what an ‘Inquisitor’ is, let alone what the hell makes you ‘Federal’-“
	“Ah’m Federally licensed, that’s what the hell that means,” the cougar spat again, this time very close to Ransom’s feet.  “Like a Marshall, ‘cept I’m out here protectin’ society from ungodly behavior.”
	Ransom got a dark look at that.  “You ain’t no Marshall, and don’t you go comparin’ yourself to one.”
	“Boy, you don’t have to believe me for it t’be true,” the cougar curled back his nose.  “And I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t already know what you boys is up to on this here mountain-“
	“We’ve broken no laws,” I spoke up.  “We bought this property outright, we deal in legal goods, and we don’t encroach on anyone else’s land or bother anyone in town.  In fact, I treat most of the people that live within fifty miles of here.”
	“There’s the law of man,” the cougar said, drawing out his words, with a paw pointed heavenwards.  “And then there’s the law. . . of God.  And the law of God states that if two men are sharin’ a property, sharin’ in each other’s business, fer this long, without bein’ kin?”  He shook his head slowly.  “Somethin’ ungodly is goin’ on there.  And there are a few folk sayin’ so, or I wouldn’t be here.”
	I saw Ransom’s jaw tighten at that, and I felt his pain.  We couldn’t, and would never know who it was who had reported on us.  Inquisitors in general were rare in Carvecia, the Amurescan religion here was fractured and changed from what it had been in its motherland, partially by cultural necessity, but also because many of the people who’d settled here had been those on the lowest rungs of their caste society, either because of species or breeding.  Hell, in Amuresca, a feline would barely be allowed to practice, let alone hold any position within the church.
	That being said, this man was a fraud.  When we’d heard one was in the area, and had been warned by a local man – we suspected a friend or relative of whomever had reported on us – that we would be getting a visit from him, Shivah had looked into the whole thing for us.  Inquisitions in Amuresca were highly ritualized and complex, and primarily reserved for the upper class who might be falling from grace.  The practice here in Carvecia had been bastardized into something more akin to a witch hunter, a vigilante who took it upon themselves to remove unwanteds and punish ‘criminals’, seize their land and rob them blind in the process. 
	In short, he was here to kill us.  Why he’d gone through the trouble of meeting with us first, I couldn’t say.  Probably to assure himself that we were in fact irredeemable faggots that no one would miss.  If he accidentally murdered an innocent, the law might actually catch up with him. 
	Ransom and I enjoyed the freedom that came with living on the frontier, in the mountainous land that neither tribe nor Carvecian could yet tame.  But you had to be strong to make it out here, for many reasons.  And not all of them had to do with the weather or the terrain.
	Of course, that was a double-edged sword.  A fact which Ransom soon pointed out to him.
	“This is our land,” he repeated, his tone rougher now, with more of a growl in it.  “It ain’t yours, it ain’t the Church’s. . . it ain’t even God’s.  And it’s no one’s damn business what happens on it.”
	“All land is God’s Kingdom,” the cougar said, with the sort of twisted serenity you hear in the voices of the truly delusional, who use their faith to be at peace with whatever they’ve done with their lives.  “He sees all and knows all.  I’m but a vassal of his righteousness.”
	I glared at him, barely avoiding rolling my eyes.  “I think you mean ‘vessel’,” I muttered.
	“Ah know what ah said!”  He belted out.
	“Look here,” Ransom interjected.  “We all know yer just a thief with a tin badge you had some smith punch out for you.  And you think no one’s gonna give a shit what happens to two faggots, ‘specially once you pay off whatever informant you got and most of the law ‘round here.  But you’re sniffin’ up the wrong fuckin’ tree this time.”
	He took a step towards the man, and perhaps out of revulsion, or earnestly because Ransom could be pretty intimidating when he tried, the cougar stepped back.  
	“We ain’t just two lone ‘heretics’,” he growled.  “We’re two heretics with friends.  We made good in this area, we got comrades a-plenty and good connections at th’local trade posts, my man over there’s saved more lives with his healin’ than we could ever make in enemies.”  
	He took another step forward, and the cougar nearly stumbled as he stepped backwards, having hit the edge of the porch.
	“This is our land and it’s good land,” the coyote showed his fangs, dropping his voice to a near inaudible low.  “And I ain’t lettin’ some dickless thief spoutin’ religious garbage take it away from us.  You’re in back country now, boy.  If you want somethin’ ‘round here, you best be able to take it.  I don’t know what yer experience’s been previous. . . but you ain’t scarin’ these two faggots off their land.  And if it’s blood you want, well. . . .”
	At that, the coyote rested a paw on the hilt of his large skinning knife.  The blade rested unsheathed on his belt.  The cougar eyed it, and my fur prickled as I watched the stand-off.  I hadn’t wanted it to come to this, but I’d known it was a possibility.  I’d honestly been hoping either we’d hear the man coming on the road and Ransom could scare him off with a few shots, or that he’d be little more than a bully we could frighten off with some intimidation of our own.  Ransom had definitely put in a good showing there, but the cougar wasn’t budging.
	He had a knife nearly the size of Ransom’s, and he looked like the sort of man who might know how to use it.  He had a rifle too, which meant if he left. . . .
	The cougar’s stance slackened, and he chuckled.  “Alright, calm down there son,” he said, putting his hands up in a placating gesture.  “Best not t’kill a man over a misunderstandin’.  And that’s what this is, it seems.  A misundersandin’.”
	“That so?”  Ransom replied, with a flat affect.
	“Seems so,” the cougar said, the edge in his voice still there, and no kindness in his eyes.  “So, bein’ as you won’t be havin’ me in for supper, I’m guessin’-“
	“You guessed right, there,” the coyote replied.
	“I’ll make my way on off your property, and leave you gents to enjoy your evenin’.”  He tipped his hat, stepping off the stoop with far more sure footing, now.  
	He shot me one last look as he turned to leave, and I knew disgust when I saw it.  This wouldn’t be the first, or the last time I’d gotten that look.  
	I watched Ransom as the man began making his way back down the dark road into the woods.  He never once went for his rifle, but then, that didn’t surprise me.  The cougar kept glancing in our direction, but Ransom wasn’t one to shoot a man in the back.  Out here, the murder of a traveler like this ‘Inquisitor’ would be easy to hide, but it wasn’t just about consequence.   Ransom had his own brand of honor.
	It was one of the few things we didn’t share.
	“He’ll be back to kill us in our sleep,” I stated, evenly.  “You know that.”
	“. . . yeah,” the coyote admitted, at length.  He gave a long, weary sigh.  “Alright.  Light the lantern.”

	It was later that night, in fact, that we heard the gunshots.
	I was woken from a dead sleep, but by the look of his sharp eyes and the fact that he hadn’t undressed, Ransom had never gone to sleep at all.  I reached over to the bedside table for my spectacles, blinking blearily.  “How far off d’you think-“ I began.
	“Sounded close,” he said, grabbing his rifle from the wall.  “I’d say out near the creek.  C’mon.”
	I pulled on a simple shirt and britches, and we made our way out into the night, the forest alive with the sounds of the late fall insects and frogs, singing their last cacophony of song before the freeze came.  Ransom marched down his trails, as sure-footed as ever, and I followed in his wake.  Ironically, I had more trouble making my way around at night now than I had when I’d been blind.  Sight can be a crutch, sometimes.
	As we drew closer towards the stream, Ransom’s pace slowed and he measured his footfalls, growing silent.  I did the same, having far less trouble with it than he was.  With so many leaves fallen already, it wasn’t the best time of year to be stalking through the woods at night, but I’d grown up learning to stalk through crunching snow, so I was a little more practiced at it.  Ransom had always been more of a trapper than a hunter.
	Fortunately for us, she had us both beat.
	The dark figure snaked an arm out and grabbed Ransom roughly by the shirt, yanking him with a clipped noise behind a cluster of birch trees.  He gave a muffled grunt of surprise and nearly went for his knife until I grabbed at his arm.
	“Ransom!”  I whispered fiercely.  “No.”
	The bobcat stared at us in the darkness, her eyes catching the dim starlight in an iridescent green.  Ransom relaxed, albeit not very much, and seemed about to say something when another shot rang out in the dark, clipping the tree not immediately to the right of us, but nearby.
	“I have him pinned down,” Shivah whispered.  “Across the stream, near the Magnolia.”
	Ransom nodded.  “Is he-“
	“Caught him at least once, I think,” she replied.  “Been watching him since yesterday.  He has a camp downstream.  Scouted the area out all of yesterday, found one of your game trails I think he planned to move in on to come up the east side of your cabin.”
	“Shit, I didn’t see none of that when I was out checkin’ traps,” Ransom cursed.
	Shivah smiled a bit, nocking another arrow.  “Well,” she said, “that’s why you’ve got me.”
	“Thanks for being here,” I said, earnestly.
	“Always,” she replied sincerely, then looked to Ransom.  “You go east, I’ll go west.  Puck-“
	I put my hands up.  “You two have got this.  I had the root ready if dinner ended up being an option, but. . . things got unpleasant first.  He would’ve realized something was amiss if we’d fed him.”
	Shivah picked up a nearby rock and threw it towards the direction of the stream.  Another shot rang out, and then Ransom and Shivah both bolted.   And I stayed put and waited.  And waited. It seemed like an eternity, as it so often did when I was waiting on my more adventurous comrades.
	I shuddered as another shot rang out, but this one sounded farther away and was followed by an unfamiliar yell.  Likely the cougar, by the pitch of it.  The far softer sound of an arrow singing through the trees followed suit, and then another shot.  And then nothing.
	I gave ‘nothing’ all of a few seconds before I left my hiding spot, bounding down the nearby slope and leaping the stream, heading towards the direction I’d heard the yell from.  By the time I got there, it seemed to be over.  Or very nearly so.
	Shivah was standing at the edge of the clearing near the magnolia, and Ransom was partially beneath its branches, leg out, pinning the mass of a man I expected was the cougar to the ground, rifle drawn on him.  I could smell blood in the air, but fortunately, none of it was my comrades’ blood.  I knew the scent of that well enough by now to tell the difference.
	The cougar was struggling to breathe, he had an arrow in his thigh and had clearly taken a rifle shot center mass.  It looked like he’d been hit in the lung, probably past the point of saving, but it’d take him awhile to drown on his own blood.
	I calmly walked into the clearing, and looked down on him, dispassionately.
	I’m not a bad person.  At least, I don’t consider myself one.  But this man was planning to murder us in our sleep and parcel out our land and belongings to the highest bidder, because Ransom and I had the nerve to live together and be happy.  And he was planning to do so, knowing he’d likely get away with it, because of who we were.  People like us weren’t generally well-like or wanted.  He’d probably done this many times before.
	This time, he’d made a mistake.
	“You could’ve just left,” Ransom said, reloading his rifle slowly, meticulously.  “I tried t’warn you.”
	He raised the re-loaded gun, leveling it at the man’s head.
	“I told you,” he sighed.  “We have friends out here.”