I’mma be real with you right now. I do not like this plan. This plan is awful.

It’s all I can think about as I lie in the bed of Choctafaula Creek, water flowing around me and under me but not quite over me, watching the shore and woods for any sign of movement. Chris and I agree that the paw prints we found near the shore earlier are evidence of a rendezvous site, a place developing pups play and socialize. We reckon once the hounds wake up, the pups will head over here to play while the adult goes out on the hunt.

Unless, of course, we’ve mistaken the pups’ ages and they’re at the point where they start tagging along with their parent on the hunt.

Unless there are multiple rendezvous sites and the pups just happen to choose another one.

Unless the pups can smell me or somehow see lying here in the water in my camo coveralls. I don’t have to pull these hideous things out that out often, thank Jesus, but I keep them in the trunk just for cases like these.

So anyway, like I said. This plan sucks.

But it’s what we’ve got. If it wasn’t the middle of July, we might could wait a couple days, acquire a few more traps, and nab these hounds one by one. If we weren’t just two lonely contractors but a whole, well-funded team of hunters and ecologists and biologists, we might could just let the damn hounds be and observe, record, and report. We’d be radio collaring them, not capturing them for transport.

I hear them coming before I see them. Even over the hollering of the nocturnal bugs and birds and such, I can hear one or two small yips out in the distance.

I’m wearing a pair of night vision goggles Alex loaned me before they headed out for the day. The goggles are uncomfortable; they’re a bit big for my face, and they keep sliding down my nose, but as I peer out them into the depths of the woods, I can clearly see three small pups gamboling in my direction.

Sweet Jesus, they’re cute.

They’re heading this way, all right, but they’re not coming at the creek in a straight line. They’re running around each other, posturing, pouncing on one another and gently tugging at each other’s ears.

My heart speeds up, and I can’t help but grin. I have to remind myself not to move, even a little bit, or I could spook them. Now is not the time for a squee.

I silently repeat everything I’m seeing to myself, hoping that I’ll remember it clearly and precisely when I write up my post-hunt notes. Not for the first time, I wish I had the time and funds to buy a night vision camera, so I could have something more than post-hoc notes to go on when I start to write this experience up for a journal. As it is, I can’t even make field notes because I am literally lying in the water, hands occupied by my tranq gun.

They’re getting closer to the creek bed now; they’re maybe fifty yards away. One of the pups turns towards another and lowers down on its front haunches, then jumps up to pounce. As it does, it opens its mouth, and I hear another high-pitched yip and watch as a small tongue of flame shoots out of the pup’s mouth.

It’s both adorable and terrifying. I don’t think they can manage to set another fire, given the ashen state of the woods around me, but my dissertation was on supernatural wildlife appearance rates and climate patterns, not wildfires.

The pups are still coming toward me, and I’m trying to determine the optimal moment to take my first shot, when I hear it.

The howl.

We all hear it, actually. The pups freeze in their tracks, flattening their ears and tucking their tails. I can hear them start to whine. They’re so pitiful, it breaks my heart.

But I’ve still got to do it. I take my first shot.

The pup nearest me yips and dances around in a small circle, biting and swiping at its own back, where the dart is lodged.

The other two pups take off running—in my direction, thank goodness—and I take my next shot.

The pup on the right yips and stumbles a bit. The left pup skids and turns back to its sibling, nuzzling it as if urging it to keep moving. But the sedative is already starting to take effect, and though the pup rises to its feet, it only takes a few steps before falling once more to the ground, asleep.

The third pup sniffs at its fallen sibling and whines loudly. I take aim, but before I can fire, another howl splits the night air, and the pup takes off running.

In the other direction. Towards Chris.