At one point, you look over and see him sleeping, and you kind of can't handle the melty feelings it gives you. You quietly take a picture with your phone. If he walks out of your life tomorrow, at least you won't forget what he looks like. Forgetting what people looked like is the worst. He sleeps through stopping at the ranger station to get your windshield sticker and trail map, but wakes up once you leave the paved road. You asked for the farthest campsite, and since the place is pretty empty this time of year, got it. The crunch of gravel changes to the crackle of dry leaves as you back into your designated spot. You're not within sight of the lake, but you can smell it as soon as you open the door, and hear the call of migrating geese. "This is going to be so great," you beam.
"Geese," you say, snapping to attention. You clamber out of the car and cast around for the lake, the nearest sounds of honking. You haven't had goose in ages, you really want to go get one now. You shift from foot to foot, looking over your shoulder at Bel. Perhaps a trifle imploringly. If he makes you hold tent panels or tie ropes or whatever it is that needs doing you will quite possibly die. "Errrrrr, well. Well! So. Er. You can get the— the camping— the items placed, right? You don't need my help? I'd be useless. Probably."
"Okay, thank you, yes, I noticed, excellent, bye," you say, hop-shuffling out of your boxers and tossing them at Bel before galloping happily off into the woods. You take a wide arc towards the lake, giving yourself plenty of time to work out where the geese are and how to get the drop on them, before making a creeping direct approach, popping out from behind a convenient log, and plowing right into the middle of a good size flock. Maybe a dozen pairs of grey and black wings thunder all around you: a leap, a snap, and you've got a big fat one down into the water with you, churning up mud. It's always a great deal of fun to thrash and scuffle with prey, and the goose puts up a hell of a fight, all stunning wing-blows and hissing fit to scare off an army, but you don't take longer than you need to find the neck and clamp down. It goes quiet after that. After a minute you haul it to the bank, shake off, and catch your breath. Hmm. It's a pretty one. You nose at the long feathers of a wing. Well, if you felt like impressing your new friend with a lovely trophy, this'd be it. Fumbling around for a good mouthhold produces some awkward positions: it's big enough that some bit of it keeps dragging along underfoot, and you finally settle on that being the head, rather than the wings or tail, and just sort of awkwardly prance back through the woods, your mouth held high and off to the side. Bel's fussing around with the tent when you get back, it's in the silly sticks-everywhere stage. You whuff for attention as you trot up to him, your tail waving. (this probably took less than an hour)
As you half expected, he's brought back something dead. You're pleased to see it's something there's no limit on, and which, to the best of your knowlege, you don't need a license for: canada goose is damn near as common as the pigeon. And much tastier. "Look at that fat thing," you praise. "How do you feel about letting me pluck it and roast it? It'll take a while but it'll be so delicious, I promise."
You drop it at his feet, your tail upgrading from waving to wagging. You're hardly hungry now, it'd be easy enough to wait, and as seriously as Bel seems to take his human food you're sure he knows how to cook it. The thought of it with extra salt— or perhaps cut up into sandwiches— is enough to set you bouncing around the campsite in happy contemplation. You come back after a time to sniff the tent. A lot of animals have pissed on this tent. Even some dogs! You're going to have to have some words with him about this state of affairs the moment the two of you can mutually communicate. If he doesn't piss on the tent then you're sure as hell going to have to. You're not going to sleep anywhere that's got Property Of Chuckles The Fucking Chihuahua scrawled all over it.
You set the goose aside for now while you finish getting the tent up. Erskin seems extremely interested in it, and slightly offended by it, but not enough to go human and put it into words -- or help. That's fine, you're pretty good at setting it up by now. You'd have had it up already if you hadn't decided to get a fire going and a pot of tea on first. With that done, you get to work on the goose. Plucking it and gutting it is a bit more work than with a duck, and smellier, but you throw the guts well downwind of the camp and wash the body cavity with your water jug, which de-stinks it considerably. You get out your knife -- the very knife that failed to slow down the guy who put the teeth marks in your leg -- and cut the carcass into pieces. It'll cook faster that way. You wrap each quarter in foil along with a bit of butter, some salt and pepper, half a potato, half a carrot, and a slice of onion, and nestle these packages along the edge of the fire. "That's lunch handled!" you announce. "Did you notice anyone else around?" Getting a negative, you start unlacing your boots. He put up with being human for hours, you can go wolf a bit early.
You perk up from your leisurely nibbling of the discarded offal when you see him get into fur. "Hallo, handsome!" you greet him, thumping your tail against the leaves once or twice. "Would you like to try any of this?"
"Nah, I'm saving room for the main attraction. Should be about an hour." You bounce over to sniff the offal, and sneeze. "Yeeeeah that smells like goose poop." You sniff him. "That smells like Erskin." You sniff around the campsite until you reach the tent, and sneeze emphatically. "What the fuck is on my tent?"
You laugh, getting to your feet and following after him. "A few raccoons, a skunk, two bears, a young buck, any amount of rodents and insects, and plenty of dog piss." You sit down and watch him investigate. "Most offensively, a chihuahua. A chihuahua has written HELLO THIS IS MY TENT NOW on your tent. With his dick."
"That offends me in a weirdly instinctive way. But what I don't understand is, when and why did a parade of animals march up and piss on my tent? Is there something about a tent that makes wildlife go 'hello, it's a bathroom!' I am not pissing on the damn thing, by the way, and neither are you."
"You're going to piss on the tent, or I will," you tell him. "It's not— you don't have to hose it down, or soak the whole damn perimeter, just update it. And anyway you're smelling the residual traces of most of what's come and had a look at the thing. Or, well, deer do scent-mark, but it's more of a nuzzle-and-paw situation. I'd bet that the bears were just sniffing about for snacks. "But so, really, it's just the dogs that had the temerity to go look at another man's den and graffiti all over the thing. And I am not sleeping anywhere in, or near, a structure that'd leave me smelling like something that belonged to— to— a damn chihuahua. They're practically rats!"
"But it's factually my tent, no matter what some random dog says. You can piss a treatise about how my truck is actually the mothership that will take you to Saturn, but I'm still the one with the keys. And I don't want to smell piss where I sleep."
"So I'll do it on the other corner, then," you conclude, skipping past him. It turns out to be right where the most offensive declaration is strongest, actually, and by the time Bel lunges for you, the deed is done. It's your tent, now, or at least yours-plural. You don't care what some human says about facts or keys. You care that everything that matters in this woods and the next will smell you on Bel now and know how things properly are. You plant your feet and raise your jaw imperiously at Bel's angry little charge, staring him down. You offered him first go, and he was an absolute puppy about it, he doesn't get to show his teeth now.
"Oh my god, you did not just take a wizz on my fucking tent," you say incredulously. "You get to sleep in the piss corner, that's all I'm saying." Shaking yourself in a way that seems to be equivalent to throwing your hands in the air, you turn away to sniff other things around the campsite, muttering to yourself. "Your entire life is a urinal. You care more about what some fucking squirrels think than about facts like, hey, I actually have the power to remove this object from play, maybe it is mine. License and registration, officer? Well, I don't seem to have those, but -- what's this?" You lift your leg at the truck's front tire. "Hey, apparently my paperwork's all in order!"
You grin after him, and when he finally goes and marks the truck you meet his exasperation with an approving wag. "You know, any bear or frisky stag would also have the ability to remove 'objects in play'," you point out, as he stalks off after. "The ability to remove things isn't at all dependent on ownership. Even that officer would be able to remove your truck, wouldn't he? The basis of possession is usage rights, which is what our little dispute with Tinklecock the Chihuahua was about."
"Ugh, I know, and i'm so annoyed about you being right." You're exploring the area with your nose in widening circles, occasionally pausing to process the information. "That said, it's not like some random dog's claim to my stuff counts either. By human standards or dog standards. I can pretty much claim whatever I want. 'I'm a big baller, you a lil' smaller, you a chihuahua, I'm a rottweiler.' Er... that rhymes a lot better in English." Wolves may have a fantastic singing voice, but apparently they suck at rap.
"Well, sure, I suppose, but if you're willing to tolerate any random dog's signature on your property, any random dog's going to come along and, er, sign. You might as well have the final say." You go sniff at the roasting goose— it mostly smells of fire, but underneath it's delicious. Abandoning it with some regret, you trot after Bel. "We could go for another run," you suggest.
"I kind of don't want to go too far from the campsite while we've got food cooking. Run after lunch, okay? For now, explain me stuff. I don't know what half these smells are. I did not grow up being able to smell these things. Like, okay, there's something over here..." You paw at a drift of leaves, irrationally fascinated by something under there. "I bet i'm like an infant to you, but seriously, what is this?"
You examine it. "Ooh, rats!" you say, digging your nose in. "You get them in brush piles— see how the leaves have piled up against this old bit of log, and that newer tangle of branches? Mice, rabbits, voles, and what have you set themselves up in brush piles in the deeper woods, but this close to a campsite it'd be brown rats. You might hear them skittering about later on. " It's hard to resist the urge to dig until you've flushed them out, but you back up a few difficult steps. "No sense in upsetting them while there's goose lunch to wait on," you acknowledge. "And there might be pups. Wouldn't want to crush them."
