BUFFALO LIGHTS: Maryland to New Mexico – Part III, Chapter 3, “Day of the Coyote”

I don’t know how much longer I’ll keep this up, but here you go, another free chapter from BUFFALO LIGHTS, the book I wrote about moving to New Mexico. “Day of the Coyote” describes a real-life drama in a high mountain valley involving a blizzard, coyotes, and newborn calves. I think it conveys the flavor of what it was like to live in San Cristobal, where the wilderness is literally just a stone’s throw away.

These posts are chapters from a published book. To access preceding chapters and the introduction, please visit the Buffalo Lights category page. (The official synopsis is here.) This is a high-quality paperback, and I’ll bet you need a copy, so click on the image below to order.

This one is pretty long, so I’ve divided it. Be sure to click through to find out if the coyotes eat the poor little newborn calves! (Enjoy…)

Part III: San Cristobal

Chapter 3: Day of the Coyote

I stood at the door, looking down the valley.

Hobbes the cat lay on the rug, oblivious to the jays and juncos feeding outside. I wondered if he was well.

The morning sun illuminated the golden-brown winter grass and sage. The simple fences of my neighbors’ fields ran crossways to the direction of my gaze, stair-stepping down toward the highway and the gorge. Here and there smoke rose from newly lighted wood stoves. Big black cows grazed nearby by a stand of scrub oaks, and farther down the valley I could see a pair of horses. Suddenly far away something moved, running right to left across a narrow, overgrazed pasture dotted with manure: a coyote!

They’re quite numerous here, of course. We’ve often seen individual animals, sometimes running right past our front door, and every now and then they serenade us after dark. About three nights ago I was up late at my desk in the bedroom. My wife had just turned off her reading light and sunk down beneath the comforter. (She doesn’t mind my working in the same room, unless I type too loudly, and I often work long hours after she’s gone to sleep.) Suddenly I thought I heard a telltale noise. Rising and walking to the door that led out to the porch, I opened it a crack: “Yip-yip-yip-howl, yip-howl!” blasted in from very close by through the still frosty air.

“That’s enough!” said the familiar voice from the bed, and I softly closed the door. As if the cat would run outside after hearing that, I thought. Somehow I got back to work, but it wasn’t easy.

That was three days ago. Now I stood sipping my coffee, watching a gray-brown beast lope across the field in broad daylight! Nervy critters, those coyotes. I picked up a nearby pair of binoculars just to be sure: oh yeah, coyote all right. And what was going on in the north end of the field from where he had come? Through the lenses I saw a dozen black and white magpies on the ground and a pair of ravens wheeling down to join them. Scavengers! But I saw no carcass or trash, nothing to attract either birds or coyote.

By this time my wife had joined me and picked up a second pair of binoculars. We watched the ravens now. Then I noticed the big dark brown horse in the next field down looking this way, moving back and forth, obviously agitated. What happened next was no less exciting for being predictable. Out of the brush in front of the horse burst another coyote, running around in circles the way excited dogs do. Three others, moving steadily but not running from the opposite end of the field, then joined this one and all four soon disappeared into the trees by the creek at the south side of the valley.

It wasn’t just the sight of the animals, but where we had seen them: three pastures down from the house, right in the middle of our little valley community. Not exactly normal, especially in a place where coyotes are only a little less popular than California license plates. I was actually surprised to have observed the brazen intruders for so long without hearing gunshots.
The weather forecast that afternoon called for “numerous snow showers,” and the drama unfolding to the west made it completely impossible to sit at my desk at the opposite end of the house. While huge black cows grazed 50 feet from the big glass doors, we could see snow raking the plain 40 miles away. I knew what would happen next and planted myself on the futon couch facing the glass door so I could watch.

Before long the low-hanging dirty gray cloudbank had crossed the gorge and blotted out the sun. Soon the air was filled with tumbling flakes, tiny and gentle at first, then swirling sideways gusts of heavy snow that whitened our surroundings in the twinkling of an eye. Suddenly something happened that made me rouse myself to stand at the window in awe: a break in the clouds appeared, and all at once the sun was blazing through, backlighting the blizzard! What a scene: wind-driven snow, brilliant sunshine, clouds and sky now allowing a view across the open spaces, and in the middle of the snowy pasture, the big black beasts snuffling around ignoring it all. A few minutes later the clouds closed in again around the setting sun, the snow tapered off, and I was standing there watching one lone vaca negra about a hundred feet away in the adjacent pasture, looking solid and alert in the deepening gloom.

Alertness isn’t a quality you ordinarily associate with bovines, but this one was definitely watching something. Sudden she moved, purposely and faster than you’d expect, toward a clump of snow-covered brush. Yes! A smallish coyote trotted out, then disappeared behind some trees. Oho! The big black cow watched for a moment, and then took off again in apparent pursuit, not running, but fast enough — when you’re that big, the threat of catching up suffices. I quickly lost sight of her, and then spied the coyote high-tailing it across the far end of the field, heading up the valley somewhere behind our house. Smart fella, I thought to myself.

It was nearly dark outside. Just then my wife, still standing by the door, called out, “Oooh look, there’s a little one!” I walked over to see for myself. At first all I could see was the huge black bulk moving through the bushes, but then I saw a truly tiny black calf trotting close behind. Well, no wonder! If calves were being born nearby, the blood and afterbirth might have attracted the coyotes and those scavengers down the valley, something we wouldn’t have spotted with binoculars.

The cat purred and rubbed against my leg. I picked him up and scratched his chin as he closed his eyes and went limp against my chest. No mother to protect you, I thought — and a good day to stay inside.

Related posts:

1. BUFFALO LIGHTS: Maryland to New Mexico – Part III, Chapter 1, “Full Coyote Circle”
2. BUFFALO LIGHTS: Maryland to New Mexico – Part III, Chapter 4, “New Mexico Slow”
3. BUFFALO LIGHTS: Maryland to New Mexico – Part I, Chapter 5, “Dreamwatch”
4. BUFFALO LIGHTS: Maryland to New Mexico – Part I, Chapter 2, “Blood Rites”
5. BUFFALO LIGHTS: Maryland to New Mexico – Part III, Chapter 2, “Wood Heat”