Turtle Island salt whispering

chani watched the bird, ears falling to splay and eyes hardening. teeth gleamed, and she gnashed them in the marine air, answering with her own directness.
he was not so large that she could not break his neck and skin him for the sake of his stringy meat. careful, a growl warned, before chani turned away, back to curl the children where the bird would not glimpse them again.
and then a thought came to her.
from the denmouth flew three half-chewed vole carcasses, the last fresh-caught that day. 
a truce. a trap. he decided.