HE DIDN’T THINK there would be anything under the rabbitbrush. But as he came in to pull the trap and stake he saw her, a late-season coyote with a strong red color, stronger on her face, chest and haunches. The hot spring sun reflecting off the late snow had frizzled and burned her pelt like a cheap permanent. She pulled back from him with a gape that showed her teeth, she cringed and twisted in submissive posture, the yellow eyes fixed his. She looked at him. The crimped red hair, the extraordinary expression on the animal’s face, in her body language, mingling appeasement, fear, anger, threat, resignation, pain, horror, and more, the terrible and thrilling sense of her life’s imminent end.
The fur was no good. Red, yes, but singed and rubbed. The foot didn’t look too bad. She hadn’t been chewing on it anyway. Quickly he threw the kneeling tarp over her head, twisted it tight so she couldn’t lunge at him, and pried the trap open. The foot was swollen, but still warm, there was still circulation. He got up and pulled the tarp away in almost one motion. She was gone.