The Fire Triangle, A Zootopia Fanfiction -- Part One: Fuel - 43

Disclaimer: Zootopia stories, characters, settings, and properties belong to the Walt Disney Co. This story is written under Fair Use Copyright laws.

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The Fire Triangle-A Zootopia Fanfiction

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Part One:

Fuel

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Chapter 4 - The Wizard of Chaos

(Continued...Pt. 12)

Nick Wilde wandered lonely as a cloud, with no idea where was going, or even where he was...somewhere in the hills overlooking the Carrot Days Festival, right? Yes, there it was, down below. (From up here, it looked like a neon ant-hill.) Every now and then, a fragment of music would find its way up from the stage to the old service road he was following-if you could call this thing a road; it was really nothing more than a pair of winding ruts, with a lane of tall weeds for a center stripe.

Nick had brought no flashlight with him, but he didn't really need one. There was a bright, three-quarter moon out tonight and combined with his built-in night vision, he could navigate the track without difficulty. (Besides, in a pinch, he could always use the light attached to his cell-phone.)

The only other clue he had to his location was that he'd passed by the campground a short while ago. When he'd seen Finnick's van, parked in its old spot, the red fox had given it a wide berth, never mind that it was dark and empty. (Right now, he didn't want take a chance on having to talk to anybody.)

How had it happened, where had it all gone south? Last night, around the bonfire, he been sitting on top of the world with Judy and her family; how had he managed to ruin it all in less than 24 hours?

"Not the first time I messed up like that," he reminded himself, but then stopped in his tracks when a shadow inserted itself into the corner of his vision. Nick was startled, almost stunned; he hadn't used that particular fox-sense in years, had almost forgotten he had it. But then out here in the boonies there was a lot less electrical interference than back in the city.

A scent caught his nose just then, the choking aroma of car exhaust, rich, thick, and pungent; somebody's ride either wasn't firing on all cylinders or else it had a bad muffler. Whatever the case, it had passed this way only a short while ago; he wasn't alone up here.

Nick's first urge was to turn and go back the way he had come; if anybody else was around, then he didn't want to be.

And yet...something in the back of his mind was telling him to stay put, no not just stay put, to follow up on what he'd scented. Once again Nick was surprised; he hadn't felt a hunch this strongly in years, perhaps even longer.

He lifted his muzzle and sniffed the air. Someone else was up here all right, just beyond that grove of oak trees. Actually there were two of them, another fox...and a canine whose species he couldn't quite identify beneath the cover of engine fumes.

Raising his muzzle a second time, Nick checked the wind direction. Another fox and a canid species; they'd have at least as good a sense of smell as him and times two-but they were also upwind of his position; for the moment, he was safe.

He hunkered down on all fours and began to pad his way into the trees, taking care to avoid the road. (Somehow, it seemed like the prudent course of action.)

At the edge of the tree-line, he saw it, a splash of white that could not be from anything indigenous to this hill. Moving quietly as possible, Nick pulled himself up into the crotch of a gnarled oak tree, trying for a better view.

20 yards away, a white pickup truck was parked in the center of a clearing, facing towards the edge of the hill. If it were possible, this rig looked even more dilapidated than the Hopps Family Farm truck. There was writing on the side of the cab, but it was so flecked and faded, that in the dimness of the night Nick was only able to make out the first two letters, 'S' and 'K.'

And there they were, standing in the truck bed and leaning across the cab, both of them propped on their elbows. The smaller animal was a young, red fox, a vixen it looked like, and on her left was a coyote; possibly the same age, it was hard to tell with his companion partially blocking the view. Nick could see that she had a pair of high-powered binoculars in her paws, and was studying the landscape below with an almost fierce intensity. And what was that set-up the 'yote had, was it a telescope? Couldn't be; whoever heard of a telescope with a three-inch tripod? Well whatever it was he was scrutinizing the landscape below every bit as intently as...

The branch beside him rustled suddenly. Someone else was here...in the tree, right below him; his escape route was cut off.

Nick hurriedly unsheathed his claws, and pulled back his lips, exposing his fangs, hoping like heck that whoever was below him, it wasn't an apex predator.

It wasn't; the interloper was a pred all right, but two sizes smaller than him. Nick immediately put his claws away. Where in the world had Conor Lewis come from? (And why hadn't he smelled the kid?)

He put a quick finger to his lips but knew it was a wasted effort; the kid wouldn't listen, kids never listened to...

Conor gave him a silent nod and continued to haul himself up into the oak tree, but much more cautiously and deliberately than a second ago, the leaves barely moved at all.

"What the heck are you doing here?" Nick demanded sotto voce when the young fox came close enough to hear him, "I thought you were downstairs, dancing with Erin."

"Why aren't you downstairs, dancing with Judy?" the kid retorted in a savage whisper, and before Nick could respond to this, he pointed with two fingers at the pickup truck. "What's going on over there?"

"I don't know but I don't like it." Nick told him, hoping the younger fox wouldn't ask him to elaborate. (He didn't.)

Conor offered a quick nod of understanding but said nothing. Moving quietly, he pulled himself up onto a nearby branch. Nick nearly ordered him down again, but didn't dare take the risk; it might lead to an argument and that might lead to his cover being blown.

But then the younger fox's eyes narrowed and his black-furred ears turned upwards.

"Whoa, I think I know those guys." He whispered.

"Really?" Nick's ears were also standing at attention, "who are they?"

"Lemme make sure," the young silver fox answered fumbling in the pocket of his parachute pants. "Dangit, I was sure I had those things...Oh wait, here we go."

He pulled out pair of mini-binoculars, no bigger than two rolls of dimes and pegged them to his eyes, scrolling slowly on the focus knob.

Nick dearly wished he could tell the kid to climb back down again and make himself scarce but sensed the odds of that happening now were about equal to the possibility of being hit by lightning on a day with no clouds. "Can you make out what it says on the side of that truck?" he asked. .

"Only three letters," Conor answered him, "S, K, and I think that's an A...wait, holllld it." His tail became a thicket of hedgehog quills, "Son of a...that's them all right." He passed the binoculars to Nick. "The vixen's name is Amanda-something; I forget her last name, but the coyote dude is Craig Guilford."

Nick almost dropped the binoculars. "Wait, what? He's one of the Guilford family?"

"Yeah, you know about those guys too, huh?" The young fox was only mildly surprised.

"Yes, Levon Chatterton told me about them." Nick answered and then raised the lenses to his eyes. Whoa, these things were no cheapies; the truck stood out as clearly as if it were on an HD monitor, "How do you know about the Guilfords, Conor...from Erin?" he asked.

"Uh, Yeah, pretty much" the young fox answered, but the hesitancy in his voice said that there was more to the story than met the ear. Well, Nick decided, he could question the kid about it later, right now...no, he didn't recognize either the coyote or his girlfriend but now realized that what he'd thought was a telescope was actually a spotting-scope. That meant the Guilford clan owned firearms and...uh, oh.

He passed the binoculars back to Conor, at the same time waving him to silence. "Sssss. he's putting on a blue-fang, just be quiet and listen."

The younger fox nodded and then they each cocked an ear in the direction of the pickup truck.

"Dad, it's me." The young coyote said into the headset, "I just heard from Amanda; no sign of him yet."

The voice was a little faint but Nick Wilde could easily make out the words; it was clear out tonight and he and Conor were downwind of the truck. But what was it Craig had said, that he'd just heard from Amanda? But there she was right next to him, what the...?

"No, I haven't seen anything either." The young coyote was saying, and then paused for several seconds. When he spoke again, his voice had taken on a jagged edge. "Dangit Dad, there have to be three thousand animals down there; how's Mandy supposed to pick out one bunny from a crowd that size? Yeah, I know how big he is. Look, he's gotta be down there somewhere after what happened on the Midway this morning. Why are we wasting our...?

He stopped again, and this time when he resumed speaking, his voice was quavering and barely audible.

"N-No sir...no, I wasn't giving you no sass."

He fell into a long silence...while Nick felt his ears prick up again; (This time Conor's ears were standing up as well.)

"'One bunny'...'how big he is'? Craig Guilford could only have been talking about...but why? What the heck did the Guilford clan have against Jack LaPeigne? Dangit, the answer felt close but Nick couldn't quite get a grip on it; something was missing. (Though he no way of knowing, the young silver fox beside him had issues of his own with the big rabbit.)

Craig meanwhile had disconnected the call and looked ready to tear off the headset and throw it into the trees

"Well?" the young vixen asked him in low growl. Nick couldn't tell if she was frightened, impatient, or both.

"Dad says to stay put until we find him." the young coyote answered with a frustrated snarl, "so we stay put."

Amanda's next words were inaudible, except for the last fragment, "...tell your dad we spotted him and just go?"

Craig turned to look at her for the first time. Nick couldn't quite see his face, but had the distinct impression he wasn't at all happy with her suggestion.

"Oh yeah, great idea Mandy; he's already that close to skinning my tail."

"He doesn't have to know..." she started to say.

"He ALWAYS knows!" her boyfriend cut her off at the pass. When he spoke again, it was with a mixture of awe and dread. "It's like he's got radar or something, he always knows when I've been lying to him; heck, I'm surprised he hasn't figgered out already that you're up here with me instead of down there on the dance floor, like he told you." He picked up the spotting scope and folded the tripod. "Come on let's go."

His girlfriend seemed to come unglued.

"I am NOT going down there!" she snapped, pointing to the edge of the hill.

Craig let out a sound that might either have been a groan or a whine.

"Dangit Mandy, nobody said..."

"I'm not getting any of that nasty stuff on ME!" She went on, flustered to the point of nearly gekkering.

"I told you..."

"He'll do it while we're down there, Craig; you saw how hacked he was for what happened with..."

"Mandy, SHUT UP!"

She fell instantly into a cowed silence.

"That's better," the young coyote told her. Nick thought he might have grabbed her by the arm, but couldn't quite be sure. What he was certain of was that the smell of fear coming off the young vixen was so strong that he could almost taste it. But what was she so afraid of, her boyfriend or the prospect of being sent down to the dance floor to search for Jack LaPeigne? Nick sensed it the latter scenario; but then what was Craig's dad planning that could bring her to within a hairsbreadth of a panic fit?

"First of all," the coyote was saying, trying to keep his voice level, "Dad wouldn't do that to me no matter how mad he was."

"That's coz you're family, I'm not!" Amanda protested, and then hurriedly stifled herself.

"No you're not." Craig conceded smoothly, "That's why you're up here with me instead of down there looking for that bunny. Second, will you use your dumb-fox head for once? They wouldn't let me into the Big Dance anyway; my family's banned from Carrot Days, remember?"

Amanda said something in response to this but; Nick couldn't make out the words; she spoke in a near mumble

Then he saw Craig pointing upwards and towards the left, "That's where we're going, up the ridgetop; we can get a better view of the dance from up there; that one big light won't be in our eyes."

His girlfriend's voice turned indignant and pouty.

"No way; there's all kinds of poison oak up..."

"Get your tail out of this truck, Mandy...NOW! And shut up!"

She leaped from the vehicle as if it were on fire.

Nick watched as she followed her boyfriend into the trees on the opposite side of the clearing. He give it an extra minute just be sure, and then slid down out of his perch and onto the ground below.

"Sssst, hey where you going?" a young voice hissed from up above him in the tree branches.

Nick looked upwards for a second. "I'm going to go check out that truck; stay here."

Conor immediately landed on the ground beside him. Nick promptly began to unroll the Riot Act, but the younger fox got there first

"What, are you crazy?" he said, "When those guys come back, if he doesn't smell that someone was poking around the truck, SHE will; she's another fox, for crying out loud!"

Nick felt his ears turn backwards. Did the kid think he was an idiot? "I'm not going to touch anything, just look."

Conor reached into another pocket and pulled out a small cylinder. "Well, just in case, here," he said, and tossed it to the older fox. Nick caught it in both paws and saw that it was a plastic spray bottle, approximately the size of a flashlight battery. He scrutinized it for moment, and then looked up sharply.

"Biological deodorizer, what the heck are you doing with this stuff, kid?" (So that was why he hadn't smelled anything when Conor had shown up earlier.)

"What can I say, you're welcome!" the young silver fox responded leeringly. (He had retrieved the bottle from Finnick's van along with the mini binocs and several other items. With Jack LaPeigne in the vicinity, he wasn't taking any chances.)

Nick would have loved to pursue the issue, but right now, he didn't have time for a Q-and-A.

"Okay, stay here." He said, and once again the younger fox balked.

"No way, big guy; someone's gotta keep an eye out in case our new buds decide to come back while you're scoping their ride."

Aggggh grrrr, Nick wanted to growl but knew the kid was right. If Craig and Amanda returned while he was examining the truck, they'd see him before he saw them (and also before he caught their scent.) He pulled out his cell phone and set it on 'vibrate'. "Okay here's my number' he said turning the screen towards the young silver fox, "Put it on speed-dial and call me if you see them coming. And let me have your number, too."

"Right," Conor nodded. He entered the number on his cell-phone and gave his number to Nick. And then without another word he skittered away towards where Craig and Amanda had disappeared into the trees.

As soon as he was gone Nick, gave himself a spritz of the deodorizer and began working his way towards the pick-up truck. Where the heck had Conor gotten this stuff? It actually wasn't that hard to obtain, but very few animals knew about it; he knew, he'd used it himself quite frequently in his street-hustling days. But where had the kid heard about it? More importantly, what did he need it for?

He shelved these thoughts for the moment and picked up the pace.

What he found inside the truck turned out to be an anticlimax. There was nothing of interest in the cab, only some empty pop bottles and an old Chinchilton manual. Propped on the dash was what looked like a crudely drawn map, but he couldn't quite be sure. Other than that...wait a second, something was peeking out from under the passenger side seat. Nick pulled out his phone again and switched on the light, covering it with his paw. Raising it to the window, he slipped the paw aside for just a second.

The phone flashed like a ship's semaphore light, giving the red fox only the barest glimpse of what was underneath the seat...but that was enough, and a cynical smirk spread across his muzzle. He wondered what Craig's father would think, if he knew that his darling little angel was planning to skip out on him as soon as he was done up here.

He moved on to the bed of the truck; it was even more of a bust than the cab. Nick was just about to take off when something caught the corner of his eye, an entire stack of somethings as a matter of fact.

Being careful not to touch the sides of the truck bed, he reached in and grabbed one of them.

It was the remains of a flattened cardboard box. Printed on the side was a pair of diamond-shaped emblems, one in white, and a smaller one in dull red. Next to the larger diamond were four numbers, '3015' preceded by the letters 'UN' and followed by another number, 6.1 There was also some lettering, but Nick couldn't make out what it said and didn't want to risk using the phone light again. Instead he tucked the cardboard under his arm and keeping one eye over his shoulder, moved off towards the oak-tree where he'd been hiding earlier. Parking himself behind the trunk, he dialed up Conor's cell-phone.

Somehow, he knew the kid would be smart enough to have also set his phone on vibrate. Yes, he was must have; Nick heard nothing from the opposite tree line as the phone began to ring. The young fox picked up almost immediately but said only "Yo!"

"I've seen enough kid, get back here." Nick responded, dispensing with any greeting.

"Right," came the answer, and then the phone went silent.

"He's good," The red fox mused inwardly, "I wasn't half that sharp when I was his age. But he couldn't have picked up those kinds of street- smarts all by himself; someone taught that kid how to handle himself and whoever it was, they knew their job."

Nick Wilde knew what he was talking about; many years ago, it was he who had been the student. Granted, he had been older back then than Conor was now, out of his teens and into adulthood. Even so the episode had been almost a textbook example of just how quickly you could learn the ABCs of survival when your tail was on the line.

'Tail on the line'... Could that be why the kid was...?

He saw the shadow in the rim of his vision again and then a familiar fox-scent was in his nostrils.

Nick turned towards Conor, touched his fingers together, pointed at the road, made a sweeping gesture with his paws, and then a swimming motion, like a fish; next, he rolled his paws over each other, clasped them together over his mouth and offered two thumbs up to the younger fox. A couple of years earlier, when he'd signed to Judy in a similar fashion (this had been while they were trying to get into the Cliffside Sanitarium), she had only looked at him curiously. Conor didn't; he nodded twice, tapped his nose, blew a puff of air, made a sideways pushing motion with his paw, and then offered the same thumbs up gesture as Nick. Unlike Nick's partner, he'd known exactly what the older fox was saying and had even thrown in his own two cents.

The two of them began to move off down the hill, taking care to avoid the road, (Nick's suggestion,) and also keeping downwind of it, (Conor's addendum.) For the longest time neither one spoke. Mostly they walked upright, occasionally dropping to all fours to scoot through the underbrush.

Twice Nick had to catch up with Conor, the kid was fast and he knew how to move both quickly and quietly...and was small enough to get through a space that was too narrow for the older fox to negotiate. He also had the advantage of being a silver phase fox; his grey-on-black fur offered a measure of camouflage in the semi-darkness. If Nick hadn't been able to smell him, he might have lost track of the boy.

Again and again, he caught himself looking over his shoulder, expecting at any moment to hear the rumble and backfire of the old pickup truck weaving its way down the hillside. But no sound came from above except for the whisper of the wind. It wasn't until they reached main road that Nick felt it was safe to talk...or ask questions.

"Mind telling me what you carry this for?" he said, tossing the bottle of deodorizer back to Conor.

"Yeah, I mind." The young silver fox told him. There was no defiance in his manner, no attitude, only a simple matter-of-factness; he didn't even jam the bottle back in his pocket, instead almost casually slipping it back where he got it.

Even so, Nick could see that young fox's amber eyes were blazing like the vents in a coal furnace, but then abruptly the fire seemed to dampen.

"I can tell you what I don't have it for," Conor told him, "I don't have it for anything illegal; that good enough for ya?"

Not quite, but it would have to do; Nick had bigger problems at the moment, everyone at the Carrot Days Festival had bigger problems at the moment; he could feel it in his bones.

"Okay kid, we need to figure out what those Guilford coyotes are up to and pronto. Let me tell you what I know and then you tell me what you know, okay?"

"Okay," Conor nodded and Nick described what he'd heard outside the vendor's gate on that first day of the festival. Most of it the young silver fox already knew, the thefts, the vandalism, the crop-dusting service. But there were at least two items of information he hadn't been aware of before now. First the deal the County had made with Sky-Yote Crop services to spray those illegal catnip fields...and how it had all come a cropper. Secondly...

"So the Guilfords came looking for that Fielding guy, right in the middle of last year's Carrot Days? Yeah, that sounds like something they would do."

Nick felt his ears prick up again.

"What do you mean kid?"

"From what I heard," the younger fox answered, poking a thumb up the hillside, "That whole family is strictly Old Testament."

"Old...what?" Nick's ears were standing up even higher, and his head was tilting sideways again.

The younger fox waved as if gesturing at an invisible blackboard.

"Old Testament, you know, eye for an eye, mess with me and I'll mess with you, and I won't give spit what happens." His expression became earnest, "You know the type; you're a cop, right?"

"Ri-i-i-ight," Nick growled. Oh yes, in his two years with the ZPD, he'd put cuffs on more than a few of that type of animal.

But then Conor sighed and looked away for a second. He seemed to be trying to make up his mind about something. Finally, he met Nick's gaze again.

"I'll tell you how I know that, and everything else I got, but you gotta give me something first, big guy. I need you to promise me, one fox to another, that nothing's gonna happen coz of what I bring out."

Nick raised a paw in a reluctant Ranger-Scout salute, "I swear, no matter what you tell me right now, you won't be in any trouble." He didn't like having to make this pledge, but he had no time, and therefore, he no choice.

"Okay," Conor nodded and then told him the story of what had happened during his rehearsal with Erin, how Amanda had called and tried to cyberbully the young bunny-and how he'd successfully turned the tables on both her and Craig. To the young fox's apparent surprise, Nick was bothered not at all by the admission that he'd hacked into Amanda's computer; in fact, he found it rather amusing. But when the kid went on to tell him about the video he'd substituted for the one of Erin's onstage meltdown-the one that showed Craig firebombing a produce-stand-okay, that was where Officer Nicholas Wilde drew the line. His ears went back and his neck fur stood up in quills.

"You saw that and you never reported it?" he demanded.

"No!" Conor shot back, with that fire in his eyes again. "If I'd done that, Craig would of thought it was Erin who snitched him out. And you heard what I said back there; that whole family's a bunch of revenge-headed jerkweeds."

Nick started to say something else, but pulled up short...not because of what Conor had just told him, but because the kid was suddenly face-pawlming himself.

"Crike! How the heck did I...? Listen Nick, I got something else to tell you, something I heard at the dance; the Guilford family got smacked with an eviction notice this morning."

"What!" Nick's ears hard turned into steeples again, "Are you sure about his, kid?"

"Yeah, I'm sure," the younger fox answered, bitter with self-recrimination, "One of Erin's girlfriends overheard her dad talking about it...and he's a sheriff's deputy."

"Dangit!' The word burst out of Nick like a sprinter jumping off the blocks. He had suspected all along that the Guilfords were out for some kind of payback on the Carrot Days Festival. The only thing missing had been motive-and Conor had just supplied it.

Except...okay, he had a motive, but what was the means; just how was the Guilford clan planning to exact that retribution?

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the young fox's voice. "What's that you got there, big guy?" He was still mad at himself and was trying to pre-empt the even greater anger he felt certain was coming from the other fox.

Nick wasn't angry but the trick worked anyway. What was the heck was the kid talking about? And then he realized, the folded cardboard box was still there, tucked beneath his arm. Whoa, he'd forgotten he still had it.

He pulled it out and showed it to the younger fox.

"I found this in the back of the pickup truck," he said, and then anticipating an objection he added quickly, "there were at least two dozen of them back there."

Conor leaned close and squinted. "What is it?"

"Haz-Mat container," Nick told him, "see those diamond-shaped labels? The bigger one is for poison and the smaller one means flammable liquid. That number there is the UN identification number, tells you exactly what kind of Hazardous Material was in this box."

Conor looked at him with his head tilting. "How is it you know all this, big guy?"

The red fox shrugged, "Like you said kid, I'm a cop...and the transportation of Haz Mat is strictly regulated." He turned the box around and studied it again, noticing for the first time that there was a third diamond shaped emblem, this one also in white and showing a stalk of wheat crossed out by a black 'X', meaning keep this stuff away from any food products. "Wish I knew what the heck was in here," he muttered rhetorically. No product name was listed on the box, only a systemic name; to Nick it looked about as simple as a calculus equation.

"Lemme see," Conor said to him, making 'gimme' motions with his fingers. Nick passed him the box and he studied it for a second.

"I dunno what this means either," he said, giving it back after a few seconds "But I think I can find out."

Nick tilted his head once more. "Come again?" he asked.

"Online," Conor answered him, "I got my laptop back at the van, come on."

A moment later, he was seated in a camp chair with the computer propped on his knees and Nick looking over his shoulder. "Hey don't crowd me, right?" the kid growled testily.

"Excuuuuuse me," the red fox answered, raising his paws and taking a step back, "Will this take long?" he asked.

"Are you kidding?" Conor answered, not looking up, "Okay, let's try the numbers first, UN 3015."

He typed, clicked, and clicked again.

"Ohhh-kay, it's something called a-a-a Buyyyy-Prid-Lee-Um pesticide, whatever that is, toxic liquid, flammable at a flash point of 23 degrees Centigrade. Let's see what that is in Furrenheit."

He opened a new tab, typed and clicked again.

"All right, the stuff is safe as long as it's kept cooler than 73 degrees Eff."

Nick let out a small growl; it wasn't especially hot out tonight, but it was definitely warmer than 73 degrees. "Okay, so we know it's a pesticide, what's that other number, 6.1?"

The young fox typed some more.

"The 6 means it's a poison, we knew that already. The point-one means it's nasty stuff, don't eat it, don't inhale it; don't even get it on your skin."

Once again Nick felt his neck hairs starting to rise, but this time out of fear rather than anger.

"Okay," he said, trying not to sound skittish. "Now the big question, what is this stuff?"

Conor typed again, but much more slowly. It seemed to take a maddening amount of time, even more maddening when the young fox hit the return key and got back a message reading, 'Not Found.'

"Dang!" Nick snarled, but then the kid held up a paw.

"Wait, I think I got it down wrong. Yeah, forgot the second comma, lemme try again."

He did, and this time he got back a full page of hits.

The first two headers were written in an incomprehensible scientific-jargon, but the third entry was from Trikipedia, easily understood.

"Okay the trade name is Harequateline." Nick rolled the word on his tongue for a second. Something about that name was unpleasantly familiar.

Conor meanwhile had clicked to open the page and was scanning the text.

"Huh, it's not a pesticide, it's an herbicide, a weed killer. Oooo," he looked up for a second, "this is some wicked-bad stuff Nick, it's banned in Ewerope and even over here it's not supposed to be used for weed control around any comestibles, whatever that mean...oh right, food crops." He looked at the screen again, "Check this out, if you get any on you, your fur falls out and it doesn't grow back for a whole year, sometimes not at all."

Nick leaned close with his ears working. "Whoa, why do they still even use this stuff?' he asked, "And what are Guilfords doing with it?" he wondered.

They don't use it," Conor told him sardonically, "At least not whole lot anymore; it says here that about the only thing it's used for these days is illegal crop eradication."

"Then why...?" Nick started to say, and then, "Oh, my God!"

That was it, the last piece of the puzzle, the last dot to be connected.

A year ago last spring, Sky-yote Crop-Dusting had lost a contract to spray for illegal catnip fields, and the Guilfords had come to the Carrot Days Festival looking for a reckoning. This year, they'd been evicted from their property, a much bigger offense, and now one of them was on the hillside overlooking the Carrot Days Festival, running a reconnaissance mission on the Big Dance...in a truck filled with empty boxes of a defoliant that was only supposed to be used against illegal crop-fields!

"N-Nick? What is it?" Conor's voice was both breathless and quivering. He had almost figured it out himself.

Nick grabbed him by the arm.

"I know kid, I know what the Guilford's are planning; they're going to spray-bomb the Big Dance with Harequatiline."

Conor leaped from his chair, freeing himself from the red fox's grip and sending the laptop tumbling.

"No! Erin's still in there!"

Nick grabbed his arm again, as much to steady himself as the younger fox.

"And so is Judy, come on!"