A. Blinken... Fall and winter when I was 17 Granny and I put meat on the table with a .22 rifle. Granny and Grandad Aaron established a cramped little apple and plum orchard a few dozen steps up a south facing side canyon. The quail and rabbits and deer that came there in fall and early winter were like free range farm critters, and it was natural enough for us to harvest some.. One night I shot a doe and she went up canyon and I couldn’t find her. The next morning Granny marched me up canyon to make sure she was dead. We followed a deer trail way up, where the creek gets so narrow and steep you have to pick every step, and finally, winded, we pulled ourselves up on to the ridge. I remember the cold burn of the wind up there, and the view of the creek tumbling down the boulder strewn granite gash that is its home, the haze of wood smoke, the hills in cascade and far below, the river winding between the mountains. A few more paces and over the ridge we saw the doe, down, dead and coyote chewed, but now there were fourteen raccoons, or "masky rats" as Granny calls them, nimbly picking tidbits from the carcass. Granny pulled me down and we watched. The older ones ate, but the younger ones fought and tumbled. To me it was just play, but Granny saw other things. "They’re out late, the coyotes must have hung around," she whispered. "There isn’t much to eat right now; they’re trying to load up on last minute fat. The two big ones are moms, probably sisters. They’re nice and fat on my chicken feed and branch picked apples. The three older ones are their daughters from last year, see, they don’t rank too high, bein’ neither mother nor kit. They’ll get knocked up this winter. Males that age aren’t tolerated, and they’ll die if the winter is harsh, but moms let the older girls pick scraps. Look at the four little ones that are always fighting, see? Those are males. Those two are brothers, you can tell because their mask is pinched above the nose, see? The boys won’t all get to mate, so they’re trying to establish who’s who now. The other two are a little bigger, but these two are meaner, see, they bite. The rest are probably daughters, since their play is shorter, see? They wrestle a little over that piece of lung, but they break it up, trade off more; they might have to cooperate on something some day. They want to wrestle some, but stop before anyone’s feelings get hurt, like girl cousins do." One of the girl kits went to the carcass and a big one gave her a bloody lump of venison. She hung back a little but the other girls noticed she had it and rushed her; a quick fight ensued and one of the females turned and boxed a kit, ending the fight. The second female moved away a little, but came back. "Well," Granny chuckled quietly, "now we know who is queen, and who her children are. That little fight ended the truce between the moms, see? The second mom is getting some choice bits, she’ll leave soon." "How do you know?" "Because, raccoons are like people, these are neighborhood mothers in a grocery store. They know each other, but aren’t close, and they tolerate each other’s children to a point. The girls fought for the reasons people fight, they see one of their own grade getting something they didn’t. The moms don’t break up the boys’ fights because boys are expendable, and don’t contribute anything but a quick roll in the hay and a belly full of the next batch of coons, and they want their boys to kick ass and get laid. One male is enough for the whole neighborhood. Girls are different, they have some value for the next batch of kits. Our lives are no different; we make decisions on the same rules of flesh and blood, feedin’ and breedin’ and kin; our mothers hope, those mothers hope. Well, A.B., you should be able to nail three or four before they skedaddle; take the moms and the older sisters first, and maybe the kits will die this winter or get et by coyotes. The last thing I want is a gaggle of rabid, thievin’ masky rats just over the ridge. Better hurry, see, that mom is gathering her kits to leave." I’ve thought of those raccoons often over the years, at high school football games, in jail, in the Army, and especially when I see the news. Like the raccoon sisters, we don’t gang up on the dispensers of wealth and livelihood, but we fight viscously with our litter mates and cousins. Some of us have more value than others.  Finally we’re all just rabid, thievin’ mask rats if we get too close to the wrong person’s grain.