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In sunshine, their coats would be tan with reddish highlights and a peppering of black hairs Here they were the patinated gray of old sil­ver Subtly their eyes gloith a moony madness

Solely because it appeared to be the boldest of the trio, I pegged the nearest coyote as the pack leader It was the biggest speciested much experience in the hunt

Experts advise that, when confronted by an angry dog, you should avoid eye contact This constitutes a challenge to which the aniressively

If the canine in question is a coyote pondering your nutritional value, the experts will get you killed Failure to make eye contact will be read as weakness, which indicates that you are suitable prey; you ht as well offer yourself on a platter with double spuds twice in Hell and an order ofeye contact with the pack leader, I tapped one of the bot­tles against theit I was left holding the neck, jagged shards protruding from my fist

This would be a less than ideal weapon hich to confront an adversary that had the stiletto-packed jaws of a dedicated carnivore, but it was e them with such confidence that they would have a ht need to reach the open back door of the Chevy was a three- or four-second hesitation on their part

Letting the door fall shut behind me, I moved toward the pack leader

At once it bared a wicked clench of teeth A low vibrous groarned me to back off

Ignoring the warning, I took another step, and with a sharp snap of my wrist, I threw the intact beer bottle It struck the leader hard on the snout, bounced off, and shattered on the pave Itfro itself to present a united front with its two co uarded route to the open back door of the Chevy Unfortunately, a full-out run for cover would require that I take my attention off the pack

Theat reater than the distance between me and the open door - and they were far quicker than I was

Holding the broken bottle in front of ed sideways toward the idling Chevy, counting every inch a triumph

Tatched with obvious curiosity: their heads raised,Curious but also alert for any opportunity that I ht shifted toward their hind legs, ready to launch forith their powerful haunch muscles

The leader’s posture troubled me more than that of the other pack ainst its skull, teeth bared but not its tongue, this individual stared at me intently from under its lowered brow

Its forepaere pressed so hard against the ground that even in the wan ht, its toes spread in clear definement With the for­ward knuckles sharply bent, the beast seeh I continued to face theer, but tocould not have frayed my nerves as effectively as their bated breath, their expectant silence

Halfway to the Chevy, I figured that I could risk a rush to the back-seat, throw myself into the car, and pull the door shut just in tirowl to my left

The pack now numbered four, and the fourth had stolen up on me from the back of the Chevy It stood between ht, I snappedht silvered a ribbon of drool that slipped from the lips of the pack leader

Tothe gruht now but ready to shift into high gear, and at the periphery of my vision, I saw it creep toward me

THIRTY-EIGHT

THE DOOR OF THE QUONSET HUT LAY A DAUNTING DIS­tance behind me Before I reached it, the pack leader would be onatile, a woefully inade­quate weapon, good for nothingby a sudden overwhel marinated meat by the time they took a bite of me -

- but then the nasty custorowl and let out a subht of me, as one, tradedposture, stood quite erect, ears pricked and cupped forward

The change in the coyotes’ demeanor, so abrupt and inexplicable, iuardian angel had cast a rapture ofme a reprieve from evisceration

I stood stiff and stupefied, afraid that byI would break the spell Then I realized that the coyotes’ attention had shifted to so uardian was a pretty but too thin young woman with tousled blond hair and delicate fea­tures She stood behind and to the left of me, barefoot, naed but for a pair of skimpy, lace-trimmed panties, slender arms crossed over her breasts

Her sht Beryl-blue eyes, lustrous pools, s to a ed to the community of the restless dead

The lone coyote on otten, the fight gone out of it The beast regarded her in thefor a word of affection froht, the first three coyotes were not as humbled as the fourth, but they, too, were transfixed by this vision Although they hadn’t exerted themselves, they panted, and they licked their lips in­cessantly - two signs of nervous stress in any canine As the woman stepped past me and toward the Chevy, they shied from her, not in a fearful way but as if in deference

When she reached the car, she turned to me Her smile was an in­verted crescent of sadness

I stooped to put the broken bottle quietly on the ground, then rose with new respect for the perceptions and priorities of coyotes, which seereater importance to the experience of wonder than to the demands of appetite

At the car, I closed the back door on the passenger’s side, opened the front door

The woh she was as

deeplyseen, years after her death, as I was atory of her own creation,

As lovely as a rose half bloo prohteen when she died, too young to have sentenced herself for so long to the chains of this world, to such an extended lonely suffering

She must have been one of the three prostitutes ere shot by an unbalanced man five years earlier, in the event that had closed Whispering Burger forever Her chosen work should have hardened her; but she seemed to be a tender and timid spirit