Coyote Moon

A story by J. Aaron Courts

I let the girls walk to the bus stop by themselves again today. It was still dark and a cast of clouds teasing rain masked every star in the sky. The Harvest Moon was visible as a hazy splotch behind the screen of clouds and not the crater pocked orb one expects when it’s full. It wasn’t chilly. Not one bit on this October dawn in South Texas where only two seasons exist, hot and hotter, and at 0614, the temperature sat somewhere in between.

That was the text that woke me up and the exchange that got my blood pumping.

I had said goodbye and my I-love-you’s when the girls left for school, closed the door behind them, and as my wife pointed out, let them walk in the dark to their bus stop up the hill, not alone but with the coyotes.

My neighbor had warned us about some just yesterday.

I told my wife about our neighbor’s message when I got home, and she mentioned our dog, Bear, was acting strange every time she took him outside. His hackles were raised earlier in the day, but everything seemed normal to her. Later, he prowled around, which isn’t really his way, and so she brought him back inside.

The coyotes had visited our home. Our front yard and snooped around our vehicle. Our front porch and snooped around our door.

I had a run in with a small pack of them myself last year. The girls had gone to bed, and I was in the garage throwing darts, listening to an audio book, enjoying a few fingers of scotch by myself. The garage door was open, and a blend of neon lights spread across our concrete drive and disappeared into the night much closer than I would’ve expected under a similarly full moon. I’d just picked a moth out of the glass and tried to sip the tan and brown wing dust that spread across the surface like oil—moth dust has a taste and it’s not good, but I’m not wasting a 21-year aged scotch on account of a little moth dust.

I tilted the glass, so the whiskey came to the rim and then narrowed my lips against it. I sucked in air as fast and hard as I could to drag the top layer toward and into my mouth. I was gonna spit it out and enjoy the finger or so that remained. It’s a technique I’ve had to develop because the only thing moths love more than my neon is a neat whiskey. I’ve developed the technique, not mastered it, and a bunch went down the wrong pipe.

I regained my senses and wiped tears from my eyes then picked up my final dart and prepared to close out the board. I extended my arm and focused on double 16, and that’s when I heard the clicking. I knew what it was—claws on concrete clicking behind me. I swear, a shadow scurried across the wall in front of me too, but that’s not how light works, so it must be my imagination.

“Bear, lay down.” More clicking. “I said lay—” I threw, and two thoughts struck me at once, both as sure as my dart struck the cork. 32 points-game over, and I’d left Bear inside.

The multicolored light closed in on me, and I felt myself being pulled out of the garage. Not literally, you see, but the sensation. I was pulled backward while the garage stretched before me like an old shotgun house, and the dart board went from seven feet and nine and one quarter inch distance to fifteen and then thirty and so on. My vision ever narrowing on the shrinking dart board ahead. Well, that’s what you get for huffing scotch, I thought.

And then I stopped sliding backwards and I was right where I’d been the whole time. Exposed. My back to the darkness. My back to the clicking claws and whatever beast walked on them behind me.

I turned around slowly. Could I reach the hammer on the wall beside me? Why’d you throw the dart when you know you heard clicking? Why, when a shadow pushed itself through light to let you know its master is there? All of this crossed my mind in a second. No, half-second, but the long half that stretches on forever while you turn to an abyss and face the lurking unknown.

A coyote stared at me. It wasn’t the largest I’d ever seen, but it wasn’t the smallest either. And it wasn’t afraid. Nor was it alone. Two more walked from the shadows, one lit pink and blue from the neon sign on the left wall and the other illuminated red from a sign on the right. All three faces smiled at me under pointed ears turned forward and fierce eyes locked on me.

Marine killed fighting three coyotes in his garage!

That was the headline I imagined.

The coyote at point took a step forward. Its paw crossed the threshold of the garage, and I heard the little tick our door’s motor makes when the laser beam that keeps the thing from closing on someone is broken. Even if I reached behind me and tried to close the door, it wouldn’t. They could rush me now at will.

The stairs that lead to a small bridge connecting our home and detached garage were a few paces to my right. Wait, I could dart up them and fight the pack from an elevated position, in a narrow pass, preventing them from enveloping me and attacking from multiple sides, effectively fighting one at a time. My own garage Thermopylae.

Maybe if I coaxed the brave one a little closer, I could close the door and only have to deal with one.

The coyote took another step so that both of his front paws were on the raised floor of the garage. It’s not much of a rise, maybe an inch to keep out rainwater, but the wild canine grew six inches if it grew one.

I took a step forward myself and steadied my mind and body for its full weight when the bastard lunged.

“Okay,” I said. “Fuck it. With hands.” I raised them both in front of my chest, open, palms slightly turned inward and relaxed, ready to grab the thing by its throat and break its neck.

The coyote lowered his head as if he was going to charge.

“If that’s what you shits want, let’s get on with it.”

Marine kills three coyotes in his garage.

I can’t explain what happened next other than they sensed my initial surprise had steeled and turned to anger. Whatever the case, a long moment passed, and they backed up at the same time. The pink and blue one and the red disappeared first, then the big one, and I heard them scurry through the bushes toward my neighbor’s house.

My neighbor and I spoke about the incident the following day, but I can’t imagine he believed me. Still, it’s true. The Coyotes here are different.

I walked backwards to where the garage door switch is mounted on the wall and felt for it. I kept my eyes on the dark edge of light as the door rattled shut and don’t think I breathed again until it was finally closed.

I’ve heard them many times since. Yapping and running around the brush near our house. I take Bear with me to the garage now and let him lie down in the drive and listen to his little cousins run wild in the night, and that seems to have worked. In fact, I’d forgotten about the incident until this morning when my wife woke me with the text.

“You let them walk up with the coyotes!?!?!”

But it was all I could think about then, and I grilled myself. Jesus, Aaron! How long have they been up there, alone in the dark? Did they even make it to the bus stop?

I threw on my shoes and shorts. I didn’t worry about a shirt. “Bear, let’s go boy.” Nothing. He must have fallen back asleep too. “Bear! Let’s go, boy.”

He slumbered to the door.

“Dammit, dog. Let’s go!”

I clipped on his collar and grabbed the leash but didn’t hook it. I wanted him to be able to run straight at them if they were outside. I just…

I just wanted to be able to pull him off if they were already…

We took off at a jog. “Good, boy,” I said, as he ran ahead of me into the darkness. “Find sister.” I could hear his claws clicking up the drive, so I knew where he was. Though his gait is broader and his steps much heavier, the sound still made me think of the neon coyotes from the year before. I ran faster. “Find sister, Bear. Find sister!”

I charged into the cul-de-sac and slid when I hit the loose gravel, nearly wiping out completely. I steadied myself with my palm and tore it up but didn’t fall, and my feet regained purchase. But still, I couldn’t see the girls at the top of our hill and panicked.

“It’s dark, Aaron.” I think I said it out loud but can’t be sure. “You won’t see them.” In truth, I couldn’t have seen them anyway. The path is steep and curves to the right from where our house sits, so the bus stop isn’t visible until you crest the hump about two thirds up the hill.

Air brakes sounded, and I saw blinking yellow lights in the sky above where the girls should be waiting.

I ran harder.

Bear was out of sight.

“Have a good day, Emory.” Thank God, Isabella’s voice. “Oh, Bear,” she said “Who let you out?”

I stopped sprinting and caught my breath. A few paces later she saw me too. “Hey, dad. You came up. Emory just got on the bus.”

“Yeah, Bear wanted to say bye,” I lied.

“Oh, okay.” She extended her arms to give me a hug and said, laughing, “You already said bye, dad, but thank you.” Our sweet girl. “Hey, look at the moon.”

I turned and the clouds had separated enough for the full moon to create shadows of everything, and Bear began to growl. Three of those shadows ran back into the brush.

“What is it, boy?” Isabella asked. “Is that stray cat teasing you again?”