Toby and Izzy prowled through the still dimly lit wood towards the distant driveway down where Mamma Bear drove to get food, James Chosen had driven to rescue Toby from the slanty-eyed devils and Benny Bear acquired bacon for Toby and females for himself. Toby imagined that one day he would have a pack of Izzy bitches serving him. This fleeting notion took hold of him, hackles and paws, snout and tail, and he lifted his leg.

A cedar trunk was marked.

‘Oh, that felt good.’

A fern was drenched and wept.

‘That felt righteous!”

A mole hole was sprinkled.

‘Take that you blind, duck-footed rat!’

A fence post was marked.

‘Oh my, I’m at the edge of the Chosen Land! Where is Izzy?’

In his enthusiasm for marking his territory, Toby had lost track of Izzy.

“Izzy,” barked Toby, “where are you?”

There was no answer but the movement of some big four-legged creature through the black berry thicket.

“Oh, no,” quivered Toby, as the black berry thicket, those great arching stalks of creeping, reaching thorn, shook from the movement of some terrible creature.

Toby quaked, “Oh, this is bad! I’m scared!”

Then, out from the thicket emerged a big, hairy beast, a mighty bear of tan, brown and black, a bit more dog-like than Toby expected. But this was Chosen Ground and Toby barked heroically, if with a bit of a worried squeak, “Back, back bear, or I’ll get Benny Bear!”

The glowering eyes of the hang-headed beast came closer and it barked, “Dere go Benny Bear, a right dere,” and the big critter pointed with his snout at Benny in his little truck riding over the berm and back onto the driveway while drying his golden wet hair out the window in time to cut off another car coming from the direction of the main driveway.

The thought that a dog could be this big and hairy and scary gave Toby hope that one day he would bark at the entire world—humans and all—and that the world would shake, “I’m Toby, and guard this land for my Master, my Mighty Human!”

“I’m Amos, and my Master could eat your master in one gulp!”

“No, please, stop him, I want melted cheese on eggs!”

Izzy then emerged from down the driveway and scolded Amos, “Brother, Master and Mistress are gone and we have been charged with bringing this pup along.”

Amos ignored Izzy and glowered down at Toby, “You black!”

Challenged, Toby snarled, “Hackles on my back, Big Dog, and one day the leader of the pack!”

Amos sniffed him and snorted a provisional approval, then swacked him with his paw and rolled him over and made him squirm in elk droppings.

Izzy sat stoically by and Toby complained, “This is nasty.”

Izzy explained, “We have to smoother your human scent before we hunt. Wild four-legs run from human scent.”

Toby whined and was lifted back to his paws with that big bear-like snout. Amos then wolfed and bounded off, down into the creek, across the driveway and through the barbed wire fence, leaving behind long fur stuck in the wires. Toby cringed and ducked under the lowest wire, wincing when his curled tail brushed the sharp barb. That barb got Toby’s hackles up and he stopped, turned and marked the prickly wire.

Following Amos, next to Izzy he noticed some huge four legs and Izzy answered, “Mules, stay clear, they will stomp us.”

They turned left up Cedar Mountain and Amos and Izzy hummed, “Yumyumyum,” thrust their muzzles into some great piles of straw flecked dirt balls and began to eat.

“Have some, Pup,” suggested Amos.

“I’m a Chosen. We don’t eat dirt!”

Izzy licked her snout, “This is not dirt, but mule turds.”

“What! You eat poo?”

Amos was munching and Izzy answered, “The mule master feeds them good. Their turds are better then our dry, medicated kibble.”

“Oh, hell know—y’all dogs are disgusting. I’m out of here!”

Toby turned to run back and there was a big black mule, rearing and snorting, “Black dog, black dog—I’ll smash your bones to make my feed!”

Toby ran and ran up the mountain, behind a feed shed, around a big gray mule and past a skittish pony, great hooves clomping behind him, until, at last, he ran under the far barbed wire and beyond into the deep hidden hidey ways of the forest. Toby could not get far enough away and lacked the courage to look back.

‘Where am I,’ wondered Toby.

Soon, Toby was dead nuts lost.

‘Oh, My,’ thought Toby, ‘this is bad.’

Then he heard a friendly canine voice, “This way Black Dog, before the mules get you.”

He thought he saw movement up ahead, in whatever direction that was, and followed the voice. Toby went just a short ways and noted that the smell of the dog was not right, that this friendly dog smelled something like rabbit.

Toby yipped, “You don’t smell right, smell like big rabbit.”

A second dog-like voice yipped, “Cause we eats rabbit, Black Dog. We don’t have no nice black cuddle coat, en a massa what feed us at he table. Rabbit en mice is all we eat.”

“Sorry about that,” Toby yipped and retraced his steps, not trusting the second canine voice, which was different and more sly than the first.

“He gettin’ gone,” yipped one voice.

Then called another, to the left downhill in the saplings, “Here, nigga-nigga-nigga-nigga-nigga!”

Then came a yipping bark from the right, “No, ova hea nig-nig-nig-nig-nig-nig!”

They sounded wrong, smelled wrong and were all around!

“Leave me alone,” yipped Toby as he backed way to where he was not sure.

Then, sure footed and ragged looking, a mangy, dirty, gray, coyote emerged from the shrubs to his left, another from his right of a slight behind him another yipping downhill and one whining uphill, as yet unseen.

Toby snarled, “My Master is James Chosen! He will...ah...he…”

“Black dog,” salivated the narrow faced coyote to his right, “he won’t even knowd we etted on ya lessin’ we drop turd on ‘is porch.”

The thing salivated closer as the other, to his left slunk up with curled nose and whined, “Oh, we’s a eaten table-fed bitch-bread taday!”

Toby was terrified, his tail between his legs, his hackles up but wilting, the puppy in him afraid to snarl, the fear in his heart causing his brain to grow, “Cheese and rice—I can get you cheese and rice by the bowl! Honest, they throw it out like its not even food!”

“I don’t think so, plump Negro!” snarled the slinking one as it’s salivating mouth opened to grab Toby’s neck.

“Cheese and rice!” Toby managed to object before the bight came down.

A crashing and swooshing and snarling and barking came like a storm behind him! Then Amos was there, the near coyote in his jaws and under his paws as Izzy bolted by after the far coyote who drawled, “Later, y’all!” and was yipping on its way.

Before Toby, Amos ripped off an entire leg in his jaws as the near coyote snarled, “We’ll be back ta ged y’all,” blood gushing from its stump as it limped off on three paws and Amos crunched and gnawed, downing mangy leg at a horrific rate.

Toby barked, “We’re the pack and we attack. I’ll grow big and eat your other hind leg!”

‘Well, perhaps after I marinate, baste, temp, and melt cheese upon it,’ his inner pet corrected.

The coyote, covering its retreat with threats began to make a threat as Amos bit off the paw and crunched the lower leg to splinters, “A yum-ayum-yum!”

“Ma kin ‘ill getcha! Whined the hobbling coyote, whose friends were yipping at him from up the mountain, “Paw-paw, up a dissaway!”

Then Izzy came up behind it, bowled it over and went for it’s throat. The coyote tried to fend her off with a hind paw that was not there and the big bitch snatched off his balls and little penis and gulped them greedily down. The feast was on, as Amos pounced like a clumsy cat made out of rugs and went for the throat and Izzy kept eating her way up from down low and the coyote howled to his fleeing fellows, “Y’all ‘ung me out ta die!”

A distant yipping up on the mountain did not disagree and Toby heard then that he had been surrounded by at least three. His hackles up, his ears pointed to heaven and his tail curled with pride, Toby barked, “The Black Pack on the attack!”

And, as the coyote whimpering died and Izzy tore out a long string of guts Toby howled, “Hell’s calling chump-ass backwoods beggars! Hell’s calling!”

As Amos feasted Izzy looked up over her bloody muzzle, “Want some?”

A vision of James Chosen using his meat thermometer to determine if food was burned enough to eat crossed his mind and he nodded, “That’s okay—I’m good. Had bacon and eggs for breakfast.”

“Grrrr, yum-yum gobble gobble grrr!” sounded Toby’s two new friends as it dawned on him, “Hey, did y’all use me as bait?”

Amos looked up with lungs stuck to his snout then over at Izzy, “What’s bait?”

Izzy scolded him, “Toby is, dumb-dumb.”

Amos then slurped down the lung sack and snickered, “Yep new dawgz is fun!”

‘Well, this kind of sucks, but I’m in with the pack, and need to own this,’ mused Toby, before he howled to the Mountain Top, “Black Bait—pup of the pack, you mangy mountain rats!”

A yipping as if of ten mangy coyotes then rose up on the mountain and Toby cringed, “Hey, which way home.”

Amos picked up the mangy head as Izzy gulped down the last of the guts and they trotted on by as Amos snarled and Izzy soothed, “This way, Pup, to check on the chickens from over watch in case a lion is on the prowl.”

“A lion,” Toby whined as they emerged onto the dirt road and he spied the Chosen homestead down below and smelled the scent of Smooka Bear frying bacon, and he was off, down the road, “Smooka Bear!”