Coyote

With far-off yips and howls their voices sang me out of sleep. The refrain of coyotes begins with the cautious yelps of one, swells into the crescendo of many, and abruptly yields back to nocturnal silence. And in its notes: a veiled question.

I stared up at the whitewashed planks of the faint ceiling, listening to the primeval chorus in the surrounding hills. I moved back through my memory, sluggishly through that thick fog, toward a frail light that glimmered desperately in the depth of my mind. It seemed that I would lose it—and this frightened me, because above my forgetfulness hung a specter that would not leave. Remember, it said, and I tried, closing my eyes and grasping through the murk. 

It happened: The veil yielded and I saw all at once—saw myself moving quickly and seeing the world through the eyes of another, as if in a prior life.

In the dusk of a winter evening, snow fell and built up, and I ran across mountain foothills. Down long, winding draws filled with sharp thickets, across exposed shoulders that curved smoothly, and up to lichen-pocked ridges. My dexterous feet struck the surface of the deep snow, sinking halfway in. I pulled my chest and hind quarters forward and down into the soft powder, and launched myself in a graceful arch. Crashing down, spraying snowflakes, soaring, loping with an open mouth, feeling hot and alive in the frozen air.

It was a joy to move across the open land blanketed by chest-high snow. But another power drove me: a grim presence that floated everywhere. It was invisible but easily felt—a thrilling buzz in the air that portended a wild fury growing near. Knowing the signs well, I panted and rustled to lower ground.

But on the way down from a saddle between two mounds, I stopped my breakneck race with a shower of pure white. Someone was there, to the left of my quick path. I scanned the long, dusky hillside that faced away from the setting sun. From its snow, dark-blue in shadow, two eyes stared back at me.

We sized each other up quickly. She was older and wiser than I—a survivor with an unwavering gaze. I held her look because we did not know each other yet. 

She seemed satisfied and leapt down the hill toward me, the plume of her tail pointing up. I braced myself and moved toward the stranger, knowing I must bring all of myself to the confrontation. There is no hiding or concealing—our kind sees through everything. You must show up as you truly are, and be bold. But even that may not be enough…

She did not shrink or falter as we converged—standing tall, gray eyes piercing into my heart. I granted her the proper obeisance, sinking inside the snow a little before the elder. She walked around me with the poise of a huntress. We smelled and learned of other places. Her fine snout exuded the entrails of a skinny rabbit, a delight to my ravenous belly.

Her curiosity was puffed out suddenly by a dismissive sniff. Satisfied and finished, she was ready to traverse again. 

Solitude is our nature and love. Yet at times we do bond, move, and hunt in pairs… My heart leapt in hope. My legs flexed, flesh and muscle quickening at the prospect of an alliance.

Her eyes narrowed furiously. She growled and spit, lowering her head. The message was a crystal clear one.

Planted in growing snow, I watched her leave. She ascended the dark-blue hill in a few powerful leaps and vanished.

Regret? No. Not our style. Besides, a danger continued to swell and darken the skies above. I danced to it, running down a draw that wound between two long hills. This path leading to lower elevations felt favorable.

Light vanished and stars gleamed coldly. All at once, threat and warning manifested and clapped my face with a gust. In the air I smelled the ice and jagged peaks of lands farther away than I had ever traveled. There was a brief calm…

With a loud wail, a sudden wind tumbled into me like a rockslide, raking my skin with icy nails. I stumbled and crawled down to a patch of brambles, across snow that was already crusting with ice under the stormy air.

I found a wide crack in the powder where a stream had carved a rut. Dropping in and burrowing into one side, I wormed my body away from death’s caress.

Curling, tucking my head into my tail, the thick hide of my back barred the storm from entering my humble cave. Its breath was colder than all the winters I could remember, sharp with the wrath of the frigid lands that had sent it. The wind seemed to single me out, to concentrate all its ferocity on the warm, gray spec in a sea of chilly white. I shivered and squeezed deeper into the snow. I held onto the meager heat of my hungry body, guarding it jealously. My eyes grew heavy, my breathing slowed; the livid world drifted away into the distance…

I opened my eyes later when it was still nighttime. The belligerent visitor had gone, perhaps back to his icy home. But not before burying me.

I shifted, shook, and crawled out of the snowdrift. The hills had changed: not a whisper of a wind and the air was cool but reasonable. The sky was pellucid like a lake of ink, speckled and glimmering with stars. And over the valley at the bottom of the foothills hung a majestic sphere.

She bathed the immaculate lands, irradiating the glittering white blanket with her pallid yet resplendent glow. I could see the ground around me as good as in the daytime, but my eyes remained on the beautiful queen in the sky, the one who made us thirst and run and fight.

And I heard the calls of others. One behind me, then several in the valley, and finally sounding from everywhere. Looking up at the white circle, I let a cry escape my teeth. We sang to her with love and frustration in our throats, feeling the splendor, the expanse, the mystery…

Why have you sent us down here mother? To travel, to hunt, to go cold and hungry, and love the freedom of an open plain and warm summer rains… To kill and mate and wander under your radiant nocturnal sky… Why? We asked in chorus and grew silent. The hills were quiet. No answers fell on us, only the profound impulse to stay a little longer and be a tiny part of the grand mystery, with all its bliss and agony. I opened my mouth and panted at the heavens, in rapture and frustration. 

The others held their voices too. Lowering my head, I trotted back to the little snow cave. The burrow had grown icy in my absence. I bent down to crawl inside and away from the frosty air—to close my eyes and rest briefly from our mother’s quiet music, a melody that all creation dances to. 

The choir sounded again, soaring out into the hills and mountains. Unable to help it, unwilling to resist, I abandoned my den and turned to look back up at the pale face glowing down on her world. 

Ecstatic, I filled my lungs with warmth, to chant once more… 

But my eyes opened then, and I stared up at the white planks of the ceiling above my bed.

Distant cries drifted in from the realm of dreams and the land surrounding my home. Listening to the joy and pain echoing across the hills, I turned my head. The big moon hung there, not too far beyond my window, nearly filling the entire glass. It was full and ecstatic and poured all of itself out for the wide country below. The shaggy poets who had awoken me erupted with another serenade to that beautiful sphere. I wanted to run outside and join them, to love her, and to hurt… But I knew that my body and soul were not made for such primeval nights.