Coyotes by Jim Bates, iced tea

 His brother pointed to the scrub brush area to the left. “The coyotes come down from the hills at night to hunt.”

“Cool!” his older brother said. “I’d love to see them.”

“If we’re lucky maybe we will.”

The two of them were sitting on the younger brother’s back patio watching a sunset turn from fiery orange to molten red. The wind, a gale during the day, had abated now to a whispering calm. By common acknowledgment, the two brothers quit speaking and were silent, listening to the nighttime quiet enveloping them.

Suddenly the silence was broken. An ethereal call pierced through the night like a sharpened knife. It was followed immediately by a wild howling, the rising up of a primeval lament high into the sky, spreading out across the land, echoing off the dark shadows of a long-forgotten time.

Off to the left was a motion. One, two, three, dark shapes came into view loping along, hunched over and secretive, heading down out of the hills. The two brothers watched as the coyotes stepped daintily among flood-cast pebbles and rocks. They were roaming as a pack, and they were hunting.

The brothers sat back and smiled at each other. They didn’t have to speak. Instead, they watched as the coyotes drifted into the night. The breeze picked up and carried with it a whiff of their musky scent, their desert wildness. Then, in a blink of an eye, they were gone. Only furtive tracks of their nighttime passing remained, ghostlike and serene, a fleeting vision of their wild wonder. The wind was blowing harder, but they were in no hurry to go inside. The night was young, and the coyotes were on the hunt. Seeing them was an incredible gift that they would love to see again.

With silent acknowledgment both put on their jackets to ward off the chill and settled in to wait. Who knows? The coyotes just might return. And if they did, the brothers would be waiting for them. Just one more glimpse, that’s all they were hoping for. Just one more. Man, that’d be so cool.

About the author

 

Jim lives in a small town in Minnesota. He loves to write! His stories and poems have appeared in over 500 online and print publications. To learn more and to see all of his work, check out his blog at: www.theviewfromlonglake.wordpress.com. 

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