By all rights he should have been, the break of dawn having yet to paint the stark walls of his bedroom with warm morning light, the birds outside his window silent... except for the chickens. At a distance too great to be heard from indoors, if not for the fact that he liked to keep his window cracked at night, they clucked and crowed in raucous distress, rousing the man from his slumber.
With the rumbling cough of a smoker, he slipped from the sheets, rising to step back into the jeans he had discarded on the floor the night before. His short-lived attempt at quitting had failed miserably, with the emotional stressors that had recently entered his life, and he stuffed a lighter and the pack of the day into his back pocket, figuring he would use the opportunity to smoke once he took care of whatever had gotten into the coop. Stepping barefoot into his boots at the back door and lifting a length of weighted rope from the coat rack over his shoulder, he left the house and headed at a reasonably brisk pace in the direction of the ruckus.
Assuming the offender was nothing more than a fox or raccoon that could be chased off or relocated with no harm to either it, or the chickens-- they didnât see much of the islandâs monsters around those parts-- Vaughn was rightly startled when, not more than ten feet from the coop, the door and gate to the run both burst open in rapid succession, a figure cloaked in shadow, unmistakably human, escaping with the notoriously pissy rooster hot on their heels. Hens spilled from the enclosure in their wake, but rounding them back up again would have to wait-- he had a thief to catch.
Taking off at a sprint after them, Vaughn slid the lasso from his bare shoulder, whipping it in a tight circle and working it high over his head with the ease of experience before letting loose, roping the culprit by one of their long legs. After a sharp jerk on it to cinch the loop, they crashed into the dirt, and was immediately assaulted by the indignant rooster-- aptly named Asshole-- his spurs brandished with murderous intent. Luckily for both his victim and Vaughn, who had to fight the damn bird off every time he drew the figurative, and occasionally literal short straw and was forced to collect eggs, he knew how to chase him off. For the most part.
With a shout to go on, get, waving the arm that didnât grip the rope wildly in his direction, the rooster was eventually dissuaded from sating his bloodlust, holding his longtime nemesis with one beady, moonlit eye that promised retribution in the morning as he strutted back toward his flustered brood. With a derisive click of his tongue, Vaughn turned his attention back toward the person at his feet-- a man, he assumed, from their size-- kicking at the bottom of the shoe he had noosed to rile them into turning over and giving him a good look at their face.
