Open Season at the Farnival

Floyd and Sara

On the last day of March I realized that I needed to buy a gun.

Up until this week I took a lot of pride in the fact that I don’t own a gun, nor have I ever, even though I’ve lived for the past ten years in rural Tennessee on a road remote enough that they don’t even bother to plow it when it snows. But that all changed four days ago and owning a firearm has become a priority.

I didn’t change my mind because I’m afraid for my own safety. I’m getting one to protect my dogs from predatory coyotes that have suddenly crossed turf boundaries. On Monday, two coyotes, as big as German shepherds, came after Sara and Floyd.

It seems ironic to me now that last week I wrote about howling with Bentley and used the sentence “I can’t get enough of it,” when referring to the coyote’s eerie keening. As Donna, ICHBA’s founder, would say, “karma’s a bitch.”

In the coyote’s defense, eleven days after the spring solstice is late for us to be walking in the woods in Cedar Hill. Normally, any humans or dogs living at the Farnival stop going beyond the backyard’s fence line from early March until mid-October because the ticks and chiggers thrive. In the hottest months, it’s impossible to get more than a few feet down the bluff before we find those tiny black bloodsuckers creeping across our clothes or even worse, our skin. Ticks like to nestle in the deepest, darkest nether-regions of bodies – armpits, groins, butt cracks, and ear lobes – sucking blood until they bloat and drown on it, spreading all kinds of infectious, life-disabling diseases in the process.

At the latest, we’ve been known to venture down to the dry creek until the very day of the spring solstice, but on March 31st, eleven days past that deadline, because it’s been so cold this winter, I decided it was still safe to walk the dogs in the woods. I was a little worried about ticks, but never, for one second, did I think that thirty minutes later I’d be hollering at two coyotes hunting down two members of my pack.

I wear headphones when I walk in the woods, and I’ve been warned, more than once, about how stupid it is to listen to music when I’m alone, but there’s nothing more inspiring than hearing Eminem or Tupac’s old school music in the solitude of the forest. When I first started going in the woods, with no one besides the dogs, Mason got me a walkie-talkie that was hard to juggle when I was trying to manage three or more dogs on leashes around an uneven forest trail, and besides, when he isn’t home there isn’t anyone to hear me cry for help anyway, so why even bother. As a compromise and because I think it’s sensible, I do (when I remember) carry my cell phone in a pocket, just in case, even though it gets erratic service under the thickness of the trees.

Monday began as normal: work, chores, then a structured walk with the dogs before breakfast, I had our foster dogs, Meadow, Jim Bob, and Rosie, on leashes and let Sara and Floyd run free on our wooded property, which is our usual routine. Sara and Floyd have been members of our pack for five years now, and I trust them to be untethered in the forest. They roam out of sight but not far, and, besides a few occasions when they got caught up in the excitement of chasing deer, they come back when I call for them.

On the third lap of our quarter-mile trail, I heard, through the muffle of music, a sharp screech that could have been machinery from the sawmill a thousand feet up the road or a cry from an animal, like Sara or Floyd. It was hard to tell because I was absorbed in the Foo Fighter’s live version of Everlong. Meadow, Jim Bob, and I stopped or more appropriately, we froze, four-month-old Rosie, oblivious to the strange sound, still happily tugged like she had a chance of getting ahead.

I pulled out my headsets and waited.

There was nothing but the lengthening silence, maybe an occasional bird or squirrel chattering in the cedar trees. I tucked my ear buds under my collar and wondered whether a thorn bush had snagged Sara or Floyd and or if it really had been from a table-saw at the mill.

Four hundred yards later, at the furthest edge of our property, I heard several fast and heavy creatures moving across the dead-leafy floor. My first thought was deer. Then I saw Sara, black shape darting towards me, wearing a frantic expression on her snout. She’s thirty-five pounds but young and fast, and she was sprinting, hell-bent on outrunning something, like the earth was crumbling behind her. I mean balls-to the-wall, open throttle running.

Behind her, a tree appeared to shift positions, as though moving, and then two coyotes seemed to emerge from the bark, like tree trunks that broke apart and shape- shifted into brown-gray wolf-like creatures the size of German shepherds. One was chasing down Sara and the other had Floyd in his sights. But neither wild dog displayed the frenetic urgency of my domesticated dogs, instead they seemed otherworldly calm, weaving and bobbing around the trees, almost levitating over bushes and snags.

I don’t know if they didn’t see me because they were so intent on attacking Sara and Floyd, or maybe they did detect me and didn’t care, but we got close enough to each other that I saw the ears (smaller than a shepherd’s) the lush, woodsy-colored fur coat, the exotic yet familiar eyes.

The funny thing is that my heart rate didn’t accelerate by a millimeter. I’m not fearless. I hate thinking about death, cockroaches and big-enough spiders will make me squeal, and heights can bring tears to my eyes, but the only thing I felt as I stood there, watching the coyotes emerge from the woods, as though they had been a part of it, was fascination.

At least that’s what I felt until the coyote closest to Sara caught up to her and bit at her hind flank. Sara squealed, a sound like before, only quieter.

My interest instantly flicked to anger. I yelled, only once, a sharp warning of “hey,” and both wolves stopped, clearly saw me, did an about-face, and dissolved back into the forest’s depth as completely as they had appeared. Thankfully, they were frightened as hell of humans.

Floyd and Sara, even without leashes, stuck to my side like glue as we marched back to the house as fast as I could manage with three dogs learning leash etiquette and excited about seeing wild coyotes in our backyard. Sara had wet bite marks on her hind, but thankfully no teeth penetrated her thick undercoat.

When I got back to the house, I called the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, Region Two, responsible for taking care of Middle Tennessee. A kind woman named Jennifer told me they didn’t trap, kill, or transport coyotes, but that it was “open season” all year around. When I asked what open season meant, she said I could kill them during any season as long as it was on my property. When I explained that I don’t know how to shoot a gun let alone hunt, she advised me to find someone from my local church that does. I didn’t want to push her over the edge, so I didn’t explain that I was an atheist that doesn’t belong to a church. Jennifer continued, in a soft southern accent, saying that the coyote population all over the state of Tennessee is exploding, and that spring is the worst time of year because the yearlings are getting booted out of the den to make room for this season’s pups. Plus, new homebuilders are clearing out the woods, destroying the coyote’s territory, and so they have less room to roam. She said to expect more encounters with wild dogs in the coming years.

After I talked things over with my husband, Mason, we’ve decided to take shooting lessons at a local range before we buy a gun, but there’s no doubt that this fall when I return to the woods, I’ll be packing heat. I don’t think I would have ever made that decision if I didn’t see two coyotes hunting down Sara and Floyd on the last day of March. Getting a gun isn’t about protecting me; it’s about protecting my pack.