Let’s get real here: nature is beautiful. It’s also cold, cruel, and violent.
The truth is that nature is only beautiful to human beings because, except for a few exceptions, they’re at the top of the food chain. They stand in the woods and, again except for a few exceptions, they don’t have to worry about some larger animal devouring them. On the other hand, for bugs and birds and smaller animals, a forest can be very much like Hell itself. Nobody’s ever heard of social mores in a forest. If you’re weaker, you become prey. The newly born are just as likely to be eaten as the old and slow. The only things in the forest that never know fear are the things that can’t be killed.
Having lived in Coyote Hollow for so long, and having been surrounded by the woods for as long as I can remember, I can definitely tell you that I’ve grown up to respect them. It’s like wading into the ocean: at some point, you have to accept that you’re no longer in your element. You are no longer the alpha-predator.
My house sits near the very center of Coyote Hollow, which means there’s woods almost completely surrounding it. It’s one of the most charming things about living in the South: there’s plenty of flora to balance out the cement and bricks. But in the end, it means you have to keep a sharper lookout. You also have to be careful not to attract unwanted attention.
My neighbor, for whatever reason, had a predilection for collecting noisy birds. He bought himself a rooster and from then on at all hours of the day we’d have crowing. Not satisfied with this one constant noise, my neighbor decided to also buy himself a goose. I wish I was making this up. My brother Spencer and I agreed that he should invest in a duck and a turkey and start his own Aviary Orchestra.
One morning, however, I was woken up not by a rooster’s crow by a shrill, agonized scream.
By the time I’d ran outside, the screaming had been replaced by approaching police sirens.
It was a good half hour before the cops showed up on my doorstep to ask questions. I felt bad because I couldn’t tell them anything. They told me plenty, though. My neighbor’s wife had come into her kitchen expecting another ho-hum morning of fixing breakfast. When she looked out the window into the yard, she saw her husband, laying in the middle of the yard. It wasn’t until she ran out into the yard that she saw the pool of sticky red surrounding her husband’s body. His throat had been torn open.
The police concluded it was yet another coyote attack. They figured my neighbor had been up at all hours and caught one going after his rooster and goose and for some dumb reason had run outside to chase it away and instead got attacked. The rooster and goose laying in pieces in the yard seemed to go a long way toward proving that conclusion.
It occurs to me that even though this is the fourth story I’ve shared about Coyote Hollow, I’ve never actually talked about the coyotes themselves.
The coyotes for which the town is affectionately nicknamed are the alpha-predators occupying the woods around the town. They are the creatures that don’t have to fear being killed, not unless someone has a shotgun.
Call me bad, but I have to laugh when people act as if coyotes are just dogs who live in the wild. I mean, yes, technically that is what they are, but frankly speaking you’re an idiot if you think you can just go up to a coyote and offer it Kibble. These kinds of people seem to be fuzzy on the meaning of “feral.” They make look like man’s best friend, but they are as dangerous as they come.
They’ve occupied the woods surrounding our town for centuries. The Creek Injuns had countless legends about them and those legends have been passed down through the generations like a fire that never goes out. In most of these legends, the coyote is a crafty, intelligent trickster. Like nature itself, it’s strictly amoral and dedicated to only one thing: survival.
Spencer happened to be visiting that weekend and I told him the whole story. It’s very rare that Spence gets chills, and this was one of those rare occasions. He asked me if they were doing anything about it, and that was when I decided to share an idea with him. My neighbor’s widow had worked with the police department and issued a large reward ($50,000) for anyone who could kill the coyote who killed her husband. Spencer found this stupid because for one, how the hell are you supposed to find a single coyote out in those woods? And secondly, where did our neighbor’s widow get that kind of money?
I had answers for both. As far as the reward was concerned, her husband had left her a substantial amount in insurance and inheritance. Clearly, peace of mind was much more important to her than money. And when it came to finding the coyote… well, when they found my neighbor’s body, he’d had something clutched in his hand. Rigor mortis had set in and it had been crushed somewhat as a result but the cops were still able to identify the object as a coyote’s eyeball.
So… we were looking for a one-eyed coyote, and the reward was more money than Spence or I had ever had or even seen in our lives. Spencer’s answer? “Let’s do it.”
I’m not a hunter. The one time I DID go hunting, it was for quail and the only one I managed to shoot flew into a tree and I never caught it. I’ve never really seen the point of hunting when we have supermarkets and restaurants, but I’m not one of those people who says we should never hunt at all. Live and let live is my motto. Spence had a lot of experience with it. One of his co-workers was an avid hunter and had taken him on a number of excursions. He’d taught him a lot of the basics; how to track, how to hide one’s presence effectively, how to shoot properly… he’d even begun to teach him how to dress and butcher his kills for food. It was for all these reasons that I’d approached Spencer with the idea and I was really pleased that he agreed. Even with an offer of $50,000, I wasn’t sure if he’d agree to something so dangerous.
We went to the Bass Pro Shop in Macon to stock up on all the necessities: tent, sleeping bags, cooking pots, kits to start fires, etc. We went to Kroger for Bear Creek soup mixes and then popped into the Coyote Hollow library to get a current map of the woods.
In the interest of not continuing to draw out my story, I’ll skip to when we happened upon the clearing.
Every forest has clearings, but this was a strange one to be sure. Clearings are very rarely uniform in shape. This one was perfectly round. The trees around the clearing seemed to turn away from the space, like someone turning their eyes away from something they’d rather not see. Spencer and I are skeptical by nature but we know a bad omen when we see it, but after a whole day of tracking on empty stomachs and with all four of our eyes set to shut at any moment, we decided to make that clearing our base camp. We reasoned that hunger and exhaustion had made other people do far stupider things.
A couple of bowls of Bear Creek later, we were sound asleep in our two tents. We’d debated on sharing a tent, but we figured two tents was better. I tend to snore like a pig with a head cold and we figured if one of us had to go to the bathroom during the night, it’d be nicer not to worry about waking the other up.
We were both sound asleep when the barking began.
Anyone who’s ever had a dog knows what it’s like to be brought out of a deep sleep by a loud bark; this was far more than that. The barking was rhythmic and seemed to echo from all directions. I honestly couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
I felt a bit less frightened when I heard the chuck-chuck of the shotgun. Spencer had brought along Big Al, his twelve-gauge, named for our father because it was just like him: huge and explosive. Spencer is downright surgical with that damned thing, so I knew if anything came at us we’d at least have a fighting chance.
We didn’t so much jump out of our tents as slowly creep out. Shotgun or not, the last thing you want to do is make a sudden move anywhere around a wild animal. Spencer motioned at me to silently ask if I saw anything. I shook my head and he did the same.
Another bark sounded. This one was much louder. Much closer.
Neither of us jumped, but we certainly took pause. I felt my heart start to beat faster as I expected a mouth of razor sharp teeth to come tearing out of the trees from any direction at any moment. With Big Al at the ready, Spencer made a move to look out from his tent into the woods surrounding us. It was the first time in our entire lives I’ve ever seen him look so scared. Very slowly, I stood up and looked in the same direction that he was.
The coyote was there, alright. It was definitely the one we were looking for. Upper lip pulled back in a menacing snarl and its single eye filled with rage and intent to kill. That we could have expected. What was absolutely unexpected was how it was standing on its hind legs as it inched toward us.
“The gun, dude! Shoot it!”
Spencer shook himself out of his stupor and aimed the gun at the thing’s head. As the first blast went off, the thing bounded to the right, the buckshot blowing a whole the size of a tire out of the side of a tree. Five shots left.
By the time Spencer had racked the gun, we were standing alone in the clearing again. At least, it would’ve looked like we were to anyone who happened upon us. If there was one thing I was sure of at that point, it was that we were NOT alone.
Spence and I kept our eyes in opposite directions with me looking directly behind wherever he was. As soon as I spun around, I saw an enormous mound of silver fur bounding its way to us.
“DOWN!!!”
Both of us ducked just in time for the Thing to miss us. I felt its warm breath tickle the top of my hair as it leapt over us. It skidded to a stop a few feet away from us and Spence aimed and fired again, and again the goddamned Thing bounded away. Four shots left.
When you’re at that level of fear, you go beyond the usual fight-or-flight response. Your senses reach their zenith and you become hyper aware of everything around you. It’s a sense that’s been with us since we crawled out of the primordial slime and it’s the only thing that saved both of our lives. We both heard the slight crunching of leaves and grass coming from beside us and we both ducked. The Thing’s hind foot hit Spencer in the face, knocking him off his balance and throwing him hard to the ground. The shotgun fell out of his hands and rolled out of reach. I wish I could say I immediately went for it, but my eyes were glued to the “coyote.”
After it got its bearings, it looked at me and I swear before Christ it licked its lips. Then it got up on its hind legs again. Its whole body shifted as it changed its source of equilibrium and it never took its eyes off me. Not for a second.
“GET THE GUN!”
Spencer’s voice hit me like a truck and I scrambled for Big Al. I steadied and prepared for the recoil just as the Thing leapt at me. The buckshot hit it full in the chest. I felt warm, wet liquid hit my face and it wasn’t until I smelt iron that I registered it was blood. I was too in shock.
It was a coyote I’d hit in the chest. By the time it hit the ground, it was something else. I can’t really explain it. Spencer got up and we both approached the body. Laying before us was the naked, gnarled body of an old woman.
The police were called. The sheriff of Coyote Hollow happens to live across the street from us, so we made sure to call him first. I was surprised at the lack of shock on his face when he and his deputy came onto the scene of the shooting. No charges were filed, thank goodness. It was clear the Hollow PD wanted to keep it quiet; out of sight, out of mind.
As I said at the start, when you go out in to the woods you have to accept that you’re no longer in your element. Man has been domesticated for centuries. The woods are no longer our home. Out there, you are completely subject to the whims of nature, and nature is cold, cruel, and violent.
The only thing that frightens me more than nature are the things that exist outside of it.