Even years later, the details live within me. Coyote roadside. Nose angled westbound. Frost clung to the blood-stained fur. Bone visible from beneath a shroud of loose, torn muscle.
These were flashes. Close-ups. Each from a different drive.
Two days I left her there, unable to look away. Each time I drove past, my foot grew limp against the gas pedal, the direction of my eyes pulling my steering wheel toward the shoulder as I slowed. The coyote possessed a magnetism that pulled me to her. I dreamt of running alongside her. Of crossing the road only to turn around and watch her not quite make it. I woke with the heave of a sob rattling in my chest, still seeing myself at her side, a corona of blood circling her, soaking into the dirt. I blinked the image away, fighting the urge to rise and go to her. I had not yet. Still, I understood this as an inevitability.
On the third day, I slowed to a stop along the side of the road. The passenger tires of the Outback popped as I eased them onto gravel. I left the car running, a pocket of warmth to return to out of the cold. The regular clacking of the vehicle’s hazards a metronome growing fainter as I stepped away. Afternoon sunlight breathed against my back, despite the need for gloved hands and the crunch of frosted grass.
With my boots near her head, the coyote appeared much smaller than I’d expected. Her gore stood out sharply against the snow-dusted ground. Even in the frigid air, the rancid smell of death hung heavy. The coyote’s limbs curled around her body stiffly, though the back two had been nearly ripped clean of flesh. Her leg bones gleamed in a thin layer of ice. With untrained eyes I could see at least one of them was broken. Muscle and fat spilled from the flayed torso, frozen solid against the matted fur.
I knelt at her side, gently closed her glassy eyes. I placed my hand along her muzzle in a gesture of comfort. The captivation the coyote held me in thrummed in my chest, rising like a tide. Up close, eyes closed, I could almost look past the sharpness of her features. If I looked carefully enough, I saw the sable shepherd pup I’d buried years ago who bore the same coloring. I sung softly, a lullabye I had once rewritten for that pup. The song was a familiar one. As I sung, I smoothed the hair back on top of the coyote’s head. I wondered at what vehicle had struck her. What kind of cry she gave. If it had been fast. If she was alone.
Through the tears, I thought I saw the barest movement. I swiped my eyes clear, breath still and tight beneath my ribs. Discounting the obvious injuries, from the loll of the coyote’s head and the chill she held—I knew her to be dead. Movement was an impossibility. Some part of me hoped I was wrong, aching to abandon all logic. Why did she draw me here, I thought, if not for something extraordinary?
Again, a weak movement. Beneath the coyote’s ribs, tucked between her front legs. I tried to reason with myself, waiting as nothing happened. Only a rodent or other small vermin scavenging for a bite to eat. most likely. I took a deep breath, shaking my arms to encourage blood flow. The cold had seeped through my layers. I remembered the heat waiting for me in the car, but I could not forgive myself for leaving without knowing for certain. Without doing whatever the coyote had called me there to do.
The stiff joint resisted more than I expected. When the coyote’s leg finally gave, the crack resonated up my arm. I winced, bending it out of the way to reveal a pair of pups curled around each other. I stared at them. One appeared to be dead, the neck stuck at an odd angle, back still. The other did not seem to move either. Still. I leaned closer to find the slight rise and fall of the rhythm of its breath.
A laugh bubbled up, out of my disbelief, only to die a quick death in my throat. I understood the coyote’s wish, then. Her pup would not survive another night with what was left of her. I stripped my winter coat off and spread it over the ground. The coyote’s leg moved easily the second time. I rested her paw on my shoulder while untangling the live pup. It very closely resembled the mother. Swaddled in my winter coat, I held it to my chest as I spoke, patting the coyote a final time.
“Okay, mama. I’ve got your baby. You rest now.”
Pulling away, I cradled the bundled pup on my lap, talking low into my phone. I called several wildlife sanctuaries. The local ones were at capacity or unable to accommodate a predator. The others were too far to drive or didn’t sound trustworthy. I couldn’t stomach the thought of that resilient pup making it through two frozen nights, surviving on the warmth and shelter of the limbs of its dead sibling and mother only to find mistreatment or neglect in a rehabilitation center.
Today, the pup is full-grown. I wouldn’t call her domesticated. She only slept in the house as long as she needed the bottle, but even now, she doesn’t leave the woods around my home. I spend the evenings roaming those woods, and many times, she lopes along at my side or follows a few feet back. To this day she bears striking resemblance to her mother.
At night, I sleep alone. In my dreams, we all run—the pup, her mother, and I. Sometimes she’s small, sometimes grown. Her mother is always whole. Together, we cross highways and crop fields, careless in our shared trajectory. It doesn’t matter where we go. Our snarls flash in turn beneath the inky sky. Our howls harmonize. On the move, we outrun everything but each other.