Redtail Rise LXVII

He knew that it would be sooner rather than later that the muskrats would become aware of their intrusion, perhaps through the smell conveyed by the water. Gavrel had always found that scents became intensified with even the slightest addition of moisture -- had always wondered why.

He wet his nose in the stream, then his paws as he entered the water, ankle-deep.

His left eye honed in on the youngest one, separated by a yard or so from its presumed parents. It grazed at the water-logged vegetation on the banks, still oblivious.

A triplet of ducks, further downstream, noticed Gavrel before the muskrats did. They visibly tensed but did not yet flee -- and the muskrats, following their example, began to scrabble for an exit.

But Gavrel had already jumped forward, leaving two gouges in the mud where his hind paws had braced themselves. These wells filled up with silt almost as soon as he became airborne, briefly, before his front paws broke the surface of the water, disrupting all things laminar.

There was a frantic dash. His wake resembled the pattern of a skipping stone. His snapping jaws managed to wound it, catching its sinewy tail for a moment before it slipped again out of his grasp. But the wolf persisted.