Coyotes Among Us

The Coyotes have struck in the heart of Jimtown.

It was bound to happen.

We've been hearing their laughter on the hills behind us all winter.

You go out to grab an armload of wood and they sound as if they are just beyond the reach of the door light.

You call for the cat and she comes.

On Sunday morning Lloyd and Noreen found a dismembered deer down at the bottom of their lane - right along the road we walk to the beach.

By all accounts it was a pretty gruesome sight.

There's probably no tidy way to get eaten alive.

But Jimtown, like Londoners during Hitler's Blitz, took it stoicly.

The deer come to the rough country that separates us from Mahoneys after their frenzied fall mating each year to hide from old man winter.

This winter we'd all seen more than previous years.

Invariably there'd be the seven under Glen and Maureen's oak tree rooting through the snow for nuts. Driving past the mayor's garden, across from Gerard's, they'd run along beside you through the open fields and just for a moment their elegance in flight would quiet your rambling mind.

Inevitably hunger drove the coyotes down from the hills too. 

Going out for a smoke in the middle of the day, Buddy Doucette locked eyes with one not 20 yards from his house. They sized one another up and the animal soon made a casual turn back towards the waiting hardwoods.

A closer examination later showed the coyote was investigating rabbit tracks amongst what will be, come spring, one of Addie's well respected flower gardens.

Buddy spotted three coyotes this winter on his peninsula in Ogden Pond.

Normally, we hear the beasts but rarely see them.

And their voices strike us like a chill chord played on an old memory.

A memory from a time when the world was not entirely answerable to man.

And on Sunday we were all reminded that it's still not.

So we warned our children that the natural world is a cruel place and even our little beach side community is a member of it.