Very Fawnedly Yours

© 2013 by Walter Reimer

(All characters courtesy of  EOCostello,  MercMarten and  Major Matt Mason. Any resemblance between characters depicted herein and any real person, living or dead, is too bad for them.)

The setting is Spontoon Island, in the story section Let's Doe It (Let's Fall In Love).

Art by  turnbolt

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Part 6.


June 1937

Learning Curve


Willow:

The trip to San Francisco was smooth, and we met up at the station with the Buckhorn company train car. For some reason, it’s called a ‘consist.’

Reggie said that it’s called that because it consists of whatever you might need for the trip.

I suspect he doesn’t know either.

There was a large package waiting for us aboard the train, addressed to Reggie from his father.

It took a while to convince Reggie to open it. I think he thought it might be a bomb or a box full of poisonous snakes, but instead it was full of papers.

Actually, it was a box. More specifically a dispatch box, made of metal covered in blue Morocco leather and embossed with the Buckhorn’s corporate seal on the lid. Inside were a pile of reports, files, and other papers associated with Reggie’s new position in the family firm.

“Dash it all, Willow,” he’d said, “it’s lucky we have time getting across America, what? It’ll take all that time just to plow through all this.”

“Do you want some help with it, dear?”

“Would you, love?”

As a result of my help, I knew as much about F.R. Buckhorn and Sons, purveyor of groceries to herbivores everywhere, as Reggie knew.

When we reached New York, we had a surprise awaiting us.

Instructions.

Reggie opened the envelope with some trepidation, and read the contents aloud: “Buckhorn’s has an extensive transportation network, essential in moving our raw materials and products all over the world. Your assignment is to board and inspect the two company ships that will be at anchor in New York harbor before you board the Queen Matilda for England two days later. I shall expect a full report of the condition of both ships as well as their manifests before you depart. Father.”

He lowered the paper and we looked at each other. “I think he’s bound and determined to have you know everything, Reggie,” I said.

“What I want to know is how he was able to pinpoint exactly how much time we’d have – as well as the fact we’re taking a Canarder,” he grumbled.

I scratched him behind the ears, and he mellowed a bit. “We did take the company consist.”

“True.”

“And I’m sure he can get schedules on just about anything.”

“Also true, my love.” He smiled. “Care to join me in taking a look at freighters tomorrow?”

I smiled. “Love to.”


***


Reggie:

The two Buckhorn’s ships were berthed a short ways down from the Canard docks. Being company ships, they were easy to spot.

Both sported the Leaf symbol on their single smokestacks, and both were named after towns in Pennsylvania (the Buckhorn Aliquippa and the Buckhorn Altoona).

And both were painted blue.

Not a robin’s egg blue, nor was it the royal blue of Penn. A nice shade of medium blue, though.

Now, family anecdotes explain why the company symbol’s a leaf, and why the ships are named after towns from old Fred Buckhorn’s home state. Explanations differed as to why they were painted blue, but I could guess.

Our chief rival and purveyor of comestibles to the carnivores of the world, Fenwick Foods, has their company ships painted red. In some corporate circles they’re called the Blood Red Fleet.

I suppose we could call ours the Big Blue Fleet, just for the contrast, mind you.

I could easily imagine the Sire looking at a huge wall map of the world’s oceans, with red and blue flags showing the locations of ours and Fenwick’s ships – and glaring at the map through his monocle with the air of a fur who wanted to do a full-dress re-enactment of Trafalgar with all the trimmings.


Willow and I were almost finished inspecting the first freighter when it dawned on me.

Mind you, it was a cloudy dawn.

Sort of a “Red sky at morning” kind of dawn, with every promise of stormy weather on the horizon, and I recognized the source.

Me.

Oh, it wasn’t exactly the reception we got – the crew seemed genuinely pleased to see the son and daughter-in-law of their boss – but the nature and number of things that I discovered during the inspection.

The things that I was finding were just so blasted obvious. It was as if there were big signs pointing to each problem, signs with lettering three feet high and so simple a child could read them.

I got the nagging feeling that I was being played for a sucker, and by my own Sire at that.

And that irritated me.

By the time we’d had lunch aboard the Altoona, Willow could see that the kettle was simmering and not too far away from a nice rolling boil. “Reggie, dearest?”

“Hm? Yes, Willow?”

“Are you all right?”

“Oh, fine, fine. I just get the feeling – “

“You too?”

“Yes, dash it all.” I glowered at the company flag tacked on to one wall of the room. “Father wants me to learn every part of the business – even I can understand that – but it’s like he’s laughing at me.”

My beloved nodded. “I agree. What are you going to do about it?”

I smiled. “Perhaps I should let Father know that the acorn possibly hasn’t fallen far from the tree.”

I got the opportunity when we were down in one of the holds. The cargo there was bananas, scheduled for a trip to England. So far, the ship had remarkably few problems with it or its paperwork, which had me a little on edge.

That edginess paid off as I caught a furtive motion out of the corner of my eye, something moving across the deck.

My hoof lashed out and squished the thing, which turned out to be a rather large spider.

The captain, a thin tabby, glanced at its little leggy corpse. “Banana spider, Sir. They sometimes hide out in the fruit.”

“Don’t you fumigate?”

“To an extent, yes. We don’t want to poison the fruit, of course.”

Willow tapped me on the shoulder and I turned just in time to see another multi-legged miscreant dodge around the corner of a case bearing the stenciled legend ‘Butter.’ We both looked, and saw the spider vanishing into a crack in the case.

“Tell me, Captain,” I asked, “do spiders like butter?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then something is wrong here.”

Two crewfurs prized open the lid of the box to reveal that it wasn’t full of butter, but instead full of spiders.

Despite her pregnancy, Willow pronked.

I was tempted to follow her, but controlled myself and adopted a façade of sang-froid. “A whole box of spiders. Now, what’s that all about?” and I turned an insinuating eye on the captain, who seemed to start sweating despite his fur and the cool environment in the hold.

“Th-those are personal stores, sir – “

“Really? Who do the spiders belong to?” A hurried examination of the box resulted in the name ‘Pedro’ being tossed about, and one crewman was sent to fetch the man, who turned out to be a short tamandua.

“Si?”

“You’re Pedro?”

“Si.”

“Do you speak English.”

A shrug. “Little.”

“Allow me, Sir.” The Captain spoke Spanish, it seemed, as he started a conversation with the tamandua. There was much gesticulating as both furs appeared to like talking with their paws. At one point the Captain asked a question, and Pedro visibly deflated, looking down at his feet and muttering.

“What’s going on?”

The tabby turned back to me. “It appears, Sir, that Pedro here was in a little business for himself. See, a cousin of his works at a restaurant on the East Side – gourmet place, for insectivores.”

I raised an eyebrow. “He was smuggling spiders?”

A nod.

“Live spiders?”

Another brief conversation, and the Captain replied, “He says they’re best eaten live.”

My stomachs resisted the desire of my lunch for repatriation. I suppressed it, my irritation getting the better of me. “Can you translate for me?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Tell him that what he’s done is a violation of company rules,” I said, “not to mention U.S. Customs regulations. He could be thrown into jail, only to find himself deported and unable to work in this business ever again.”

The tabby duly translated, and Pedro’s beady eyes went wide in horror. He started begging in Spanish, and only subsided when I raised a paw.

“However, there is one thing that can save him.”

The tamandua’s face spoke volumes, basically ‘Anything! Anything!’

“The one way to avoid getting arrested is to destroy the evidence, and since the best way of doing that is to eat the evidence, I’ll be willing to forget this whole thing – provided, mind you, that you eat the spiders.”

A quizzical look.

“All of them.”

A shocked look.

“Every last one, and then hunt down and eat every single one that escaped that box.”

I think it was a mixture of horror and nausea now. I could be wrong.

“Reggie?”

“Yes, Willow?”

“Isn’t that – well, a bit harsh?”

I considered, then nodded. “You’re quite right, my sweet. I’d be sorely lacking in the milk of cervine kindness if I took my frustration out on poor Pedro here.”

Turning back to the captain I said, “He eats half the box, and he can sell the rest.”


***


Willow:

Poor Pedro looked quite sick by the time he finished eating his allotment of spiders. Of course, I was sick at the very idea, but I’m quite content to be a herbivore. At least my food doesn’t fight on the way down.

Well, asparagus.

Still, it showed a bit of a ruthless streak in Reggie’s nature that only shows up sporadically, usually when he’s tired or irritated.

We boarded the Queen Matilda on schedule and set off across the Atlantic for Southampton. Which would have been very romantic, had the papers Reggie had been given not been supplemented by additional papers and a stream of telegrams.

It seemed that Lord Josslyn was having copies of his correspondence – all of it – forwarded to his son. While it could be argued that this was a sound practice, it was still a lot to put on my husband.

I was helping him as much as I could, and he did seem to have a firm grasp of it when we disembarked, then boarded the train for London. When Leslie and I stopped over in London, I never had the opportunity to take the train.

And I never want to take it again. The ride guaranteed that Reggie and were both tired when we reached Victoria Station.



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