Thin Dogs At Night

Michael Northrop

It was January of 1991, and I had just finished watching the Persian Gulf War begin on TV. I was 20 years old and home for the holidays. The first images of the conflict, anti-aircraft fire lighting up the sky over Baghdad, had interrupted dinner. I'd just poured that bright-orange Wishbone french dressing on my salad and french fries-I was in the habit of pouring it on everything back then-when the newsbreak came on. My mom, my aunt Pat, and I got up and walked over to the TV in the next room. Someone, probably me, had left the set on with the sound down low, but the broadcast had abruptly gotten louder. The newsmen were shouting. I turned up the volume and sound and information filled the room. We stood and watched the globes of light shoot up toward the top of the dark screen, where our planes were. Everything was tinted green by the night-vision lenses of the cameras. I moped around after dinner, convinced that I was going to be sent off to die in some desert somewhere. No one knew yet that the ground war would last just 100 hours. To clear my head, I went for a long walk down Main Street in my small, New England hometown. The air was clear and cold and smelled faintly of chimney smoke. The sky was ink black, with countless distinct stars. A full moon reflected off the clean snow and lit the landscape to the point where it looked more like twilight than night. Everything was quiet and there was no traffic. I took a right at the town hall and headed up Mt. Riga. I had just turned the bend above the old Civil War cemetery and was maybe 60 yards past the last streetlight when I became aware of a sound like a knife being repeatedly punched into a sack of grain. I looked into the open field on my right and had to blink for the moonlight captured on the long, level sheet of snow. Trotting back and forth in front of me was a large, thin dog with outsized ears and a sharp, angular snout. It was a coyote, maybe 20 yards away from me, maybe less. It's a rare, jarring thing to see a large predator in the wild. It was moving with a high-stepping trot, its thin paws piercing the snow-cover an making that stiletto sound. Every 10 or 12 feet, it would turn within the length of its body and retrace its steps. All the while, it was staring straight at me. I expected its eyes to glow but they didn't, cat's eyes do that, these eyes were dark. I knew the coyote was looking at my face because its big, bat-like ears remained at all times parallel to mine. I just froze and watched the animal's rolling, metronome motion. It was almost hypnotic. And then, abruptly, I turned my head one more tick to the left. I don't know if I'd seen them or sensed them, but just behind and to the side of the first coyote were two more, both standing stock still in the snow. The first one had been snake-charming me, holding my attention. I felt cold can find s way through the fence, they'll kill everything, regardless of how much they can eat. They're not supposed to kill people, but then, Iraq wasn't supposed to invade Kuwait, either. Two cliches came to mind: Shit happens and dogs can smell fear. So I guess that's one cliche and one pseudo-scientific mixed metaphor. Still, I didn't want to seem fearful. I filled my lungs to shout at the coyotes, but all that came out was a choked, gaspy burble. The first coyote sort of stutter stepped, cocked its head in the way that puppies do, and then straightened up and continued pacing. The other two didn't move so much as a whisker. I looked down for something to throw, a stick or a stone, maybe. Some fireworks would have been ideal. What I found was a crushed Pepsi can on the side of the road next to my left foot. I drew back my foot and kicked and the can went skittering across the road. The coyotes, first the one, and then the other two, broke toward the dark mystery of the tree line, covering the distance with long, sleek strides. They'd disappeared completely before the can came to a full stop in the snow on the other side of the road. I just stood there for a moment, profoundly cold, and then walked briskly home. I laid awake in bed that night, not thinking of the Persian Gulf, but straining to hear the coyotes sounding out their hunger on the mountain. I was never food for them, just something to watch until something smaller came along.