Silence in the face of evil is evil itself.
The Coyote Story
(When Good becomes Evil or When Beauty become Ugly)
Please read this story before watching the short video…
It was usually in the morning or right before dusk that the coyote trotted through our yard. Either she came from the woods behind our house heading to the swamp across the road or she was heading the other way. If I saw her out of my office window I would stop my yoga or what ever I was doing, then hurry to the family room to watch her pass by. She had a busy spirit moving swift and smoothly through the gap in our hedge back into the oak hammock. Often the coyote paused to check out our fig tree for ripe fruit, plucking the low figs and even standing on her hind legs to reach the higher fruit. What a pleasure it was to watch her come and go. On one occasion she paused long enough for me to photograph her. When I got a good look I was stunned by her beauty and colors. Not just grays browns and whites but unexpected colors God sprinkles on his wild creatures. The coyote was good and a pleasure to watch.
Skye, our Golden Retrieve, loved the figs too. It was late in the morning as I look out the family room window to see the coyote and Skye facing each other a couple yards apart behind the fig tree. When Skye turned her back, the coyote would stealth-fully creep within a foot of Skye’s rear end. Skye sensed this. She would swing around causing the coyote to leap back a several feet. I realized that Skye thought she had a new playmate. While the coyote, wild as she was, had darker intentions. Quite naturally the coyote figured Skye would make a fine feast. Although the coyote was out weighed by twenty pounds, Skye was no match. The coyote knew that. I knew it too.
I quickly went to my office pick up Grandpa’s 22 WRF (similar to a magnum) rifle with a couple shells. Out the back pool door I slipped. The coyote was still sizing Skye up waiting for an opportunity to attack. Skye was still oblivious to the menace facing her. I crept to a spot on the pool deck where the plumbago bush hid me from view. The coyote must have sensed that I was there. She walked out from the cover of the bush looking straight at me. I prayed that the Lord would make my aim true and my shot sure and deadly. After a slow deep breath I focused on her chest and pulled the trigger. She leap straight in the air whipped her head around, landed and disappeared through the hedge. Figuring I had missed I waited several minutes before checking. Hoping I would find blood and a blood trail, I walked to where she was when I shot. Little or no blood. I began tracking where she had dashed. I kept looking for blood. Through the viburnum hedge then into the woods a few feet, I looked ahead. There she lay under the oaks. I approached and could see that she was dead. The bullet had entered her left chest exiting on the right side, passing through her heart and lungs. The entrance wound was almost invisible behind her left shoulder. The exit wound which is visible in the photo, indicated that the bullet passed through her heart and lungs. She did indeed die quickly, probably with little pain. She had run by nerve and muscle reflex only about thirty yards.
I loaded her on to the bed of my riding mower, drove down our road to an open field. There I laid her in a clearing to let mother nature’s critters take care of her. After several months I returned to find all that remained of her was her skeleton. I took her skull home, cleaned it up and kept it. Notice in the photo of the skull that her right upper canine (tooth) is cracked and fractured. If coyotes are like humans that would have been painful.
At first I welcomed seeing her and I admired her beauty and wildness. But when she became a threat I had to protect Skye. I am Grateful that my shot was true…Skye lived two more years after this incident.
It is a bit uncanny how Lexi, our new dog, looks like a hybrid of the coyote and Skye…