Redsand Canyon Speechless

The distant mountains seemed to hover on a pillow of long, low clouds, but directly above the skies were pretty much clear. Nynka was for once not in motion, and taking advantage of the late summer’s sunshine while it lasted as she sprawled out on a wide, flat rock whose surface radiated the heat it had been absorbing all morning, baking her comfortably from below even as the brilliant sunshine did so from overhead.

But though her legs might be still, her mind was busy enough to make up for it. Nynka was brooding quietly but furiously on the problem of the seemingly ever-increasing population of canines everywhere. The critters were as thick as midges in the air some days, and while here and there there was occasionally one intelligent enough to mind its manners and maintain a properly respectful attitude toward its betters, on the whole the whole dang species was a bunch of rude, uncouth, loudmouthed boors quite likely to spoil the hunt of any decent creatures about. Nynka wondered if perhaps she ought to find some other, more convincing methods to open all these plaguesome wolves’ eyes to the benefits of letting go of their infernal lupineness and embracing the benefits of weaseldom instead. She was certain they could be so, so much better than they were if they only tried hard enough... and if they couldn’t all become proper weasels then surely the least they could do was to make themselves into better prey, instead of simply eating all the prey and leaving that much less to go around. The idiot brutes did seem to have such trouble getting it all through their thick skulls, though. Sheesh.

In a sudden frenzy of motion Nynka leapt to her feet, spun about in long furry noodle circles for a minute, and then flopped back down again, this time with her other side facing the sun which was slowly beginning to lower itself. Her head hadn’t been plopped on the warm bed of stone again for more than a moment however before she raised her skull and squinted her eyes to scrutinize a particular patch of landscape. Speak of the devils: had that been the shadow of a wolf flitting about near that scruffy patch of scorched grass over there? The glare of the unrelenting sunbeams made it hard to be certain.