Harlan shielded his eyes from the blinding light, unable to comprehend what was going on. It wasn't until the massive form of Frank stepped in front of the souce of light that the sherif had some reprieve.

“GRRgrgrgGRGRgrgrgr” came a plea from the Mothman, with arms and wings outstretched. This was seemingly enough for the flames to recede down to an ember.

As Frank moved aside, Harlan could finally make out what he was seeing. The creature was covered in a fur that shimmered and danced like fire, deep orange and yellows with the occasional glimpse of blues and greens at the tips. Its head and body were unmistakably fox-like, but larger and more ferocious, more dangerous. The animal kept its eyes on Harlan, wisps of fire escaping its scowling mouth and nostrils. Its tail was still alert and continued to give off flames.

Frank raised a hand which drew the foxes attention and seemed to calm it further. Its flames died down as it turned and walked over to something else closer to the trunk of the trees.

“Forgive my ignorance, Frank. But is that a phoenix fox? I know it’s a bit absurd to say given my current company, but I didn’t think they existed.”

“Grggrgr” replied the Mothman as he signaled for Harlan to follow.

As he worked his way back to his feet, Harlan was disgusted to find that he had tripped on the decomposing corpse of a deer. The light from the phoenix fox allowed him to take in his surroundings a bit better. The area under the tree was scattered with a multitude of dead animals, most had minimal damage to them with only a few bite marks.

He picked his way through the carnage, being careful not to fall again, and approached where Frank and the fox were standing looking down. As he came up beside the towering Mothman, Harlan followed where they were looking. There, nestled amongst the roots of the tree was a tiny, emaciated looking phoenix fox. Its eyes were closed and its breathing was slow and shallow.

“What…what happened to it?” Asked Harlan

“Grgrgrggrgrggrggrggrgr”

“They took the mother? Who took her? Wait, is that why you took Maggie's chicken? Is that what all this is about” said Harlan as we waved his hand to the corpses around him “You were trying to find something the pup could eat, you were trying to save its life”

The Sheriff ran his hand over his face aashe took the situation in and tried to think things through. “How old is the pup? Have you managed to get it to eat anything?”

“Ggrgrgr..grggrgr” said Frank, sadness apparent in his voice.

“It's ok, you did really well Frank. Problem is I think it’s too young to eat anything solid. The poor bloomin’ thing probably still needs to be on milk”

“Grgrggr?”

“I don’t…I don’t know what to do. I’m ain’t no vet. Outside of Pudding, I know nothing about animals. I don’t even know who we could ask…” Harlan paused as a potentially terrible idea started to form in his head. The old man let out a weary sigh “Sometimes all you’ve got is terrible ideas. Come on big fella, you’re coming with me. Tell the fox there that we’ll be back as soon as we can”

“GRrrr ggrgr”

The sheriff and the Mothman followed their path back, through the narrow opening, along the sandy canyon, through the copse of trees to the clearing, back down the narrow path winding through the hills until they came to their destination. By this point the sun was below the horizon and the light of a fire and lanterns created a warm glow inside the lonely farmhouse.

“Alright, you stay here until I call for you” said Harlan, eyes scanning for threats

“Grgrggrggggrrr”

“I know you don’t like being seen by people, but Maggie knows I was lying to her earlier and if we want her help we need to come clean”

“Grgr”

A sense of worry and anxiety churned in Harlan's stomach as he approached the door. He had faced down plenty of nasty things in his life. Plenty of supernatural nasty things even. But Maggie still scared the hell out of him and his earlier lies made this situation even more perilous.

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He stood before the door and took a breath to calm himself. Before he could knock the door opened and he was greeted with the twin barrels of a shotgun.

“Hello Maggie”

Maggie let out a grunt of annoyance “whaddya ya want?”

“I came to apologize and to ask for your help”

Maggie gave an impatient sneer from behind the unwavering shotgun

“If you lower the gun, I’d like to introduce you to someone. Frank, could you come up here?”

Maggie slowly lowered her weapon as the colossal Moth monster stepped from the shadows and up onto the porch.

“Maggie, this is Frank. You most likely know him as the Mothman. I am sorry I lied about him earlier, as people have a tendency to be scared of him he prefers for people to think of him as just a myth”

“He owes me a chicken”

The lack of fear or surprise that Maggie showed in the face of the Mothman made Harlan fear her slightly more. “We’ll get you a chicken, Maggie. For now we need your advice”

Maggie sneered again as she relaxed “Alright, waddaya want?”

“Well let's say we found a fox pup that lost its mother but still needed milk. Could we give it something else for it to survive? Cows milk, maybe?”

The farmer narrowed her eyes “This is an awful lotta trouble to go through for a fox”

“It’s a pretty rare fox”

Maggie contemplated for a second before saying “Cow's milk wouldn’t work. Best thing for it would be cat milk”

“I didn’t realize you could milk cats” relied Harlan

“You can milk anything with nipples. Hell, there are even some things without nipples that you can milk. Like platypuses”

“Gggrrggrgr”

“Frank says he didn’t think platypuses were real”

An incredulous look crossed Maggie's face “The Mothman, doesn’t think platypuses are real?” She paused for a second as if the absurdity of the situation was finally getting to her. “I think I need to lay off the daybreak cactus. But yes, they’re very real, but they ain’t got teats so their milk just oozes from their skin. Real bastard to collect. Also, they’re one of the few living mammals to produce venom.”

Harlan was uncertain what to do with this new information and could only muster a “uhhhh” in reply.

“You got me monologing you sly dog, my PhD had to do with the ecology of monotremes”

This information broke Harlan out of his stupor “If you’ve got a PhD why are you out here farming?”

Maggie's face took on a deadly serious look “If you’d done a PhD, you’d understand”

The fear returned to Harlan's stomach. “I think we’ve gotten off track, I don’t know if we’ll be able to get any cat milk, I doubt Paw paw McGraw would cooperate. Is there anything else we could use?”

“Well, sheep milk would be the next best thing. I can give you some. It’ll cost ya though” Said Maggie seemingly peering into Harlan's soul

The sheriff swallowed hard “How… how much”

“Two chickens”

“Uhh sure, I’ll get right on that”

Standing back outside the farm house, Harlan took a second to contemplate “Why is my life like this?” He thought to himself before getting back into the saddle. “I’m going to go get some chickens, you stay out of sight until I get back, alright?”

“Ggrgr”

Pudding reared around to the direction of Blackwater. Harlan slowly urged the horse faster until he was moving at a canter. The old horse wasn’t as fast as he used to be, but he still managed to get them to the town in just under 20 minutes. As they pulled up outside the general store, Harlan dismounted and walked Pudding for a couple of minutes to allow them both to cool down properly, before tying the horse off and heading inside.

The jingling of the bell announced Harlan's entrance to the shopkeep who sat, as always, behind his counter. Harlan had a difficult time figuring out the shopkeep, he had characteristics of both age and youth and he had seen his personality change depending on the customer. But he was one of the few people in town who had never caused the sheriff any trouble, and he appreciated that.

“Howdy, sheriff, how can I help you today?”

“Evening Claus, just looking to get a couple of chickens if you have any”

“I most certainly do. Any preference on the breed? I’ve got silkies to sebrights, blue spots to batams”

“Uhh just something that’ll lay eggs, whatever Maggie has”

“Ahh, you’ll be after a couple of Leghorns then. Fine breed. I’ll just pop out back and grab them, anything else?”

Harlan drew a breath between his teeth “This is going to sound pretty weird, but you wouldn’t happen to have any fox or cat milk do you?”

“You’re right, that does sound weird. Weirder still is that I might. Give me a minute” said the shopkeeper with a wink and a grin before turning and walking through a door that Harlan had never noticed before, despite having been in the shop countless times.

After a few minutes, Claus emerged with two large white chickens in a wickerwork cage. He placed these on the counter before producing a small half quart glass bottle of milk. “Two Leghorn chickens and some fox milk. That’ll be 5$ please sheriff”

“That’s pretty steep”

“It’s mostly the milk”

“How did you get that anyway?”

“It is better for everyone if I don’t say” replied Clause with a broad smile that didn’t move his eyes.

Harlan took a second to study the man before placing the money on the counter, saying thank you and leaving. He was nearing his daily limit for such tomfoolery.