Strange Behavior

Jimmy, our neighbor, called yesterday and asked if we’d like him to cut our five-acre field. I said sure. He’d done it for us over the years.  My husband was sleeping after a 24-hour shift at the hospital, but had earplugs in and wouldn’t be bothered by the noise of the tractor and brush hog.  He came up around 2 pm and started cutting. When I went out at 3:50 to drive down to the bus stop for the kids, I let the dogs out. Jimmy was just finishing up.

We were back within ten minutes and Jimmy was gone. The kids went right to work on their homework and I was getting dinner together. We had to eat early, because my son had soccer practice. The dogs started barking, so I looked out the window. I could see something that looked like a dog out at the far end of the fresh-cut field. I decided it was a coyote and called the kids over to see him.  I went up to tell my husband to look outside, but he was fast asleep and didn’t move, even when I gently touched his arm. He looked so exhausted that I left him and went back downstairs. The dogs kept barking, but were staying within the bounds of the invisible fence.  I grabbed the camera and took a few pictures from the porch. They weren’t very good, because I was too far away, but I wanted to be able to show my husband.  It looked like the coyote was hunting. I remembered a study I’d read about recently that had showed that wolves mostly ate rodents. There were lots of mice and moles in that field.  I’d never seen a coyote before and thought it was really cool.  I snapped three pictures and hurried back to the kitchen to turn the potato and zucchini pancakes.

My son finished his homework first and was annoyed at the dogs, so he went out to call them.  They were still barking and carrying on.  He yelled for me, because out terrier had gone past the invisible fence and was approaching the coyote. I ran out and told my son to stay put on the porch. As I ran toward them, calling the terrier, our beagle mutt followed me. I changed my mind, realizing I would have a hard time handling both dogs, and called the boy to help me.

“Grab Buddy and take him back to the house,” I shouted. He ran hard across the field and grabbed him by the collar. Buddy tried to get free, but my son yanked and pulled and smacked him once. I looked back and saw the beagle on his back being submissive.

I turned to get the terrier, Beau, and he and the coyote were disappearing toward the road. Oh no, I thought. I ran toward them, calling Beau, worried he’d take off or get in a fight. He quickly came around the corner, panting. “Good boy,” I said and called him to me. We went back to the house. With the dogs safely inside, we returned to homework and dinner. I was still checking my daughter’s homework while we ate. She had had work to do in every subject.

We finished eating and I told my son to hurry.  “Daddy can check the rest of your work,” I told our girl.  “Tell him about the coyote when he wakes up.” I said as I was opening the door to go out.  

“Why?” she asked from the kitchen.

“So he can look outside and see him.” I replied.

“He’s gone,” she said.

“But he might come back to feed some more,” I said.

“Whatever,” she mumbled.

We were at soccer practice until it got dark at 7:30 and got back home around 8:10. As we walked in, my daughter came to the door. “Dad shot the coyote,” she said.

“What? Why would he do that?” I asked.

“Yeah, right,” my son said.

“He said it was acting funny,” she replied.

We walked upstairs and I looked at my husband in disbelief. My eyes were filling with tears. “Did you shoot it?” I asked.

“I thought you wanted me to. It was acting really strange. It kept hanging around. I thought you’d be relieved,” he said, walking toward me, reaching out.

“It was hunting,” I said, my voice rising as I pushed him away. I looked around for my daughter.
“Didn’t you tell him?” I asked her.

“Tell him what?” she asked.

“That it was hunting! The field had just been mowed and it was hunting mice! That’s why it was hanging around!! I took pictures of it,” I said as I looked for the camera.

“I didn’t know,” my husband and daughter both replied.

Holding the camera, I looked for the adapter to plug into the computer and download the pictures, but couldn’t find it. I wanted to show him that it had been harmless, just hunting mice, as if proving it was harmless would change the outcome.  I slammed the door on the computer desk in anger and frustration and stormed down the stairs and out the door.  Outside, I cried and groaned and gasped for air, wanting to turn back time and wake my husband up at 5:00 to tell him about the cool coyote feeding in the field.

How could this have happened? How could she have let him kill it? Was she so oblivious that she had missed the whole thing or was she so fearful that she had decided it was dangerous in spite of my excitement at watching it?  I cried in anguish over the senseless killing, standing at the edge of the field where I had last seen the coyote.

After a short while, I heard my husband calling me.  “Honey, where are you?’ he called.

“I’m over here,” I called back, trying to calm down. I turned and walked slowly toward him.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his head hanging down.  My mind swam with thoughts of him talking about the guys killing coyotes at the hunting camp, because they preyed on the deer.  They just liked to kill. But, we only kill what we eat. He always said that. We only kill what we eat.  He wasn’t like the other guys. 

“I never meant to upset you. I thought you would be really happy. I was trying to protect us and the dogs and cat.”

“It’s her,” I said. “It’s the way she talked about it. She made you think I was worried, but I wasn’t.”

“It’s not her fault. I didn’t understand. I didn’t know that the field had just been cut while I was sleeping. I thought maybe it was cut yesterday while I was working and I hadn’t noticed.  I didn’t think about it.  It’s not her fault.” He reached out and drew me into his arms. “You thought you were going to wake up tomorrow morning and get to watch it hunt again,” he said.

“Yeah, I did.”  We hugged each other and felt the confusion of misunderstanding and the sadness of death all around us. We slowly walked back to the house.  It was very dark and quiet.

I went upstairs. The lights were all off. I went into each of the kids’ rooms and kissed them good night, trying not to blame my daughter. Maybe she had missed the whole thing. She had been busy with her homework.  Maybe it was an innocent mistake.

My husband made us each a drink and we sat down in our usual spots. I felt numb. His eyes were red rimmed and tired.  We talked about what had happened and tried to make sense of it. Then, out of words, we picked up books and newspapers, trying to resume our normal routine of reading before bed.  Still hurting, we went to bed early. 

I dreamed that the kids and I were walking to the mini-van, our old mini-van that we got rid of last year. My son asked if he could drive. He was around ten, like now. I said, “Yes, but just a little,” and got in the back. He went to the driver’s seat and did something I couldn’t see. He put something in the back trunk area.  His sister got in the front passenger seat.

The van started moving. It was swerving a bit. After a few minutes, I said “Stop, that’s enough.” He didn’t stop or answer and I started shouting.  Somehow, I got out of the van and ran around to the driver’s side. I was very upset and kept shouting, “Stop”.  My son and daughter had pushed their seat-backs all the way back and were lying flat, completely reclined, all strapped in. The steering wheel was gone. That was what my son had put in the trunk area. He said that it was in his way. As I was seeing all of this and trying to stop the van, a lady drove by and said, “Watch out! There’s a police car right behind you.”

I reached in and pulled the emergency brake.  The police car stopped behind us and an officer got out. I was yelling at my son to get unbuckled and get out so we wouldn’t get in trouble. The officer went over to my daughter on the other side and started talking to her as if she were the mother. He talked funny and seemed really slow and confused about what he was supposed to do. The kids got out of the mini-van and a crowd was gathering around us. The officer kept saying, “Well, I don’t know. Let me see. I just don’t know.” I was very worried, but he never paid attention to me. He kept saying it to my daughter. After a while, we just walked away. I put the steering wheel back where it went and got in to drive. That’s when I woke up and remembered the night before. I still felt numb, so numb and sad.