resident of an oyster shell, fights drunken psycho bikers for fun, wins
prizes for ballroom dancing this sounds like a bro we want with us when
we go back to Wyvern.” I said, “Yeah, my big worry has been what we’ll
do if there’s a tango competition.”
“Exactly.” To Sasha, Bobby said, “You think he’d be up for it?”
She nodded. “I think Doogie’s always up for everything.” I expected to
find a police cruiser or an unmarked sedan behind the garage, and
unamused authority figures waiting for us. The alley was deserted.
A pale gray swath of sky outlined the hills to the east. The breeze
raised a chorus of whispers from the windbreak of eucalyptus trees along
the canyon crest, as if warning me to hurry home before the morning
found me.
“And Doogie has all those tattoos, ” I said.
“Yeah, ” Bobby said, “he’s got more tattoos than a drunken sailor with
four mothers and ten wives.” To Sasha, I said, “If you’re getting into
any hostile situation, and it involves a super-huge guy covered with
tattoos, you want him on your side.”
“It’s a fundamental rule of survival, ” Bobby agreed.
“It’s discussed in every biology textbook, ” I said.
“It’s in the Bible, ” Bobby said.
“Leviticus, ” I said.
“It’s in Exodus, too, ” Bobby said, “and Deuteronomy.” Alerted by
movement and by a glimpse of eye shine, Bobby snapped the shotgun into
firing position, I drew the Glock from my shoulder holster, Sasha pulled
her revolver, and we swung toward the perceived threat, forming a manic
tableau of paranoia and rugged individualism that would have been
perfection if we’d just had one of those pre-Revolutionary War flags
that featured a coiled serpent and the words Don’t Tread on Me.
Twenty feet north of us, along the eastern side of the alley, making no
sound to compete with the soughing of the wind, coyotes appeared among
the trunks of the eucalyptus trees. They came over the canyon crest,
through the bunch-grass and wild flax, between bushy clumps of
goats beard.
These prairie wolves, smaller than true wolves, with narrower muzzles
and lighter variegated coats, possess much of the beauty and charm of
wolts, of all dogs. Even in their benign moments, however, after they
havfhunted and fed to contentment, when they are playing or sunning in a
meadow, they still look dangerous and predatory to such an extent that
they are not likely to inspire a line of cuddly stuffed toys, and if one
of them is chosen as the ideal photogenic pet by the next resident of
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, we can be reasonably sure that the Antichrist
has his finger on the nuclear trigger.
Slinking out of the canyon, among the trees, into the alley in the
earliest ashen light of this cloud-shrouded morning, the coyotes looked
post-apocalyptic, like the hellish hunters in a world long past its
doomsday. Heads thrust forward, yellow eyes glowing in the gloom, ears
pricked, jaws cracked in humorless serrated grins, they arrived and
gathered and turned to face us in dreamlike silence, as though they had
escaped from a Navajo mystic’s peyote-inspired vision.
Ordinarily, coyotes travel overland in single file, but these came in a
swarm, and once in the alleyway, they stood flank-to-flank, closer than
any canine pack, huddling together rather like a colony of rats.
Their breath, hotter than ours, smoked in the coolish air. I didn’t
attempt to count them, but they numbered more than thirty, all adults,
no pups.
We could have tried to get into Sasha’s Explorer and pull the doors
shut, but we all sensed that any sudden movement from us or any show of
fear might invite a vicious assault. The most we dared to do was slowly
reverse a step or two, until our backs were to some degree protected by
the pair of parked vehicles.
Coyote attacks on adult human beings are rare but not unknown.
Even in hunting pairs or in a pack, they will stalk and chase down a man
or woman only if desperate with hunger because a drought has lowered the
population of mice, rabbits, and other small wildlife.
Young children, left unattended in a park or in a backyard adjacent to