Day 64: Deer and Wolves

For the second time in as long as Mei could recall, Gabu woke before he did. He and the other two wolves left early the following morning, but not before saying goodbye. “Stay safe,” Mei told them, since he couldn’t quite bring himself to wish them luck.

When Mei went to the clearing where the philosophy group usually met, he again found Kuro-san waiting alone, not joining Greta, Darrel, Leo or any of the other group members in their conversations.

The other goat greeted him as he arrived. “Hello, Mei-san. Tell me, how long have you known Takkan-sensei for?” He talked slightly hurriedly, not bothering with the usual pleasantries Mei would have expected from him.

“Hi, Kuro-san,” Mei said. “Um, Takkan? I met him about two months ago.”

“I was just wondering, since you’ve known him longer than I have, whether you think today would be a good day to—” Whatever Kuro-san was going to say, he didn’t get a chance to. Takkan arrived just then and Kuro-san stopped talking.

“Greetings, my lovely philosophers!” Takkan said as he assumed his position atop the rock.

“Good afternoon, my lovely Takkan,” Leo called back. A few people laughed.

“Has anyone been applying any ethics to their daily lives since we last met?” the fox asked.

“I helped a baby duck who was lost,” someone said.

“Not bad,” Takkan said. “One Virtue Point. Anyone else?”

No one else had anything to say, so Mei said, “I found a way for Gabu, Jess and Gon to get by without taking as many lives as they normally would.”

“Fascinating,” Takkan said. “Come up to the front and tell everyone about it.”

Mei, a little self-conscious, walked to the base of the rock Takkan was standing on and turned to face the much more experienced philosophers (plus Kuro-san) gathered around him. “You see, wolves normally do a lot of their hunting in packs. You track down a group of goats, deer or other large animals, you block off their escape, and you catch a few of them for the entire pack to eat.” The other group members, mostly herbivores, didn’t seem too pleased with the detailed description of how wolves hunted.

“That way,” Mei hastened to explain, “only a few animals have to die and everyone in the pack gets to eat. Gabu, Jess and Gon don’t have a pack, so they’ve had to make do with hunting smaller animals individually. A few days ago, I had the idea for all three of them to team up and hunt larger animals in the eastern forest. That way, only one animal had to die to keep all three of them fed for an entire day.”

There was a long silence following that, eventually broken by Darrel asking tensely, “What kind of large animal did they hunt?”

Mei looked apprehensively at the stag and the other two deer next to him. They were all much larger than Mei himself. “Um, they said they killed a doe.” Greta and Leo both grimaced at that, more than Mei would have expected them to out of mere sympathy for a member of their own species.

Darrel’s face remained fixed. “A doe. In the eastern forest.”

Leo turned to him. “Darrel, honey, it isn’t her. It can’t be.”

“You don’t know that.”

Mei was filled with dread. “There’s something else I should tell you.”

“What?” Darrel said coldly.

“They’re doing it again. Right now.”

As quickly as if a wolf were here now, Darrel turned on the spot and galloped out of the clearing, heading east. Leo gave a brief, pained look to Mei and followed after him. When they had gone, everyone’s eyes returned to Mei.

Mei looked to Greta, the only deer left now, for an explanation.

Greta sighed. “Darrel has a wife in the eastern forest.”

“What?” Mei said. “But I thought he and Leo were...”

“They are, and so is she. I’m not the best person to explain it.”

Mei didn’t understand, but that wasn’t the point right now. “Oh. Oh no. And I sent wolves after her. She might be...” He looked around the crowd, desperate for someone to reassure him, not knowing if he deserved reassurance. Kuro-san refused to meet his gaze. Somehow, that hurt even more.

A vulpine voice sounded from above and behind him. “An ethically sound plan. Well done, Mei. You get one Virtue Point.” Mei turned to stare at Takkan in disbelief. He did not feel virtuous right now. “I will admit, it’s unfortunate that a member of our group may have been adversely affected by your decision, but is that really any worse than someone you’ve never met experiencing the same loss? Does possibly being your friend’s wife make this doe’s life any more valuable than any other person’s wife or husband?”

“This isn’t the time, Takkan,” Mei muttered.

“On the contrary,” the fox said, “what better time to philosophise than when people’s lives are on the line? When else does it actually matter?”

“It’s not as simple as you think it is,” Mei snapped at Takkan. “You haven’t grown up with the constant threat of being eaten, or something happening to your friends or family. You can spend every minute of every day thinking, but you’ll never understand how much we have to lose.”

“Calm down, Mei. Takkan’s right,” Greta said. “On balance, even if what we fear is true, your actions have caused more good than harm. I would have done the same.”

“Good point, Greta,” Takkan said. “As I’ve said many times, utilitarianism is a poor solution to most moral problems, but I believe it may be the right choice in this particular case. Let’s bump your Takkan Points up to one hundred and ten, shall we?”

Most of the other group members didn’t look convinced.

“I...think I should leave for today,” Mei said. No one said anything to stop him. “Greta, if you see Darrel before I do, tell him I’m sorry.” The deer nodded. The entire group remained silent as Mei walked out of the clearing and returned to Moonrise Hill.

When Gabu returned several hours later, Mei was relieved to hear that today’s hunt had been a failure, not a single deer to be found. He told Gabu what had happened, and Gabu was suitably horrified to learn that he might have killed someone a friend of his cared about.

Mei didn’t get much sleep that night, which was how he knew that Gabu stayed with him the entire time, even though the wolf’s stomach rumbled occasionally due to him going slightly too long without food.