The Capitol Zoo prided itself on bringing all the exotic specimens of the districts right here to city. From their own backyard of one, to outlying twelve.
For ten they had a number of the west's most impressive on display. A trio of wild paints - the handsome stallion and his harem of two. A pack of dusky coyotes. A whole field of chirping groundhogs.
But it was the buffalo Wyatt returned too most often.
There was a bench just outside their enclosure and he could sit and watch them. The sunlight gleaming off their dark, curved horns and their the wide, wet noses. As they shook their great, shaggy hides and bellowed low to each other as they grazed.
Once upon a time, in a world long gone, he had hunted them. Had valued them for the coin their skins and their meat could put in his pocket. Now,...now he was just happy to be near them. To know something had survived.
Today he sat on the bench, hunched forward, his elbows on his knees, his jaw shadowed with several days growth and working gently as Howard's rabbit's foot worried between his fingers like rosary beads. His eyes tracked the newest member of the herd - a calf that hadn't been there when he'd been sent to the last arena - as it gamboled about, bouncing on stiff-legs.
Capitol Zoo and Aquarium | Post-Arena
For ten they had a number of the west's most impressive on display. A trio of wild paints - the handsome stallion and his harem of two. A pack of dusky coyotes. A whole field of chirping groundhogs.
But it was the buffalo Wyatt returned too most often.
There was a bench just outside their enclosure and he could sit and watch them. The sunlight gleaming off their dark, curved horns and their the wide, wet noses. As they shook their great, shaggy hides and bellowed low to each other as they grazed.
Once upon a time, in a world long gone, he had hunted them. Had valued them for the coin their skins and their meat could put in his pocket. Now,...now he was just happy to be near them. To know something had survived.
Today he sat on the bench, hunched forward, his elbows on his knees, his jaw shadowed with several days growth and working gently as Howard's rabbit's foot worried between his fingers like rosary beads. His eyes tracked the newest member of the herd - a calf that hadn't been there when he'd been sent to the last arena - as it gamboled about, bouncing on stiff-legs.