Coyote

My mom, though she doesn't feel the same way nor approve of my feeling this way, understands my urge to rescue animals. She says that when I was a kid, I could whip up a little animal emergency box or jar home with branches, leaves, tissue paper, etc. so fast it made your head spin. She, on the other hand, worries about my safety: Watch out you don't get bit. What if you catch a disease? Careful, you could drown. I can see her point. Rescuing animals is like riding a motorcycle- compelling to do yourself but lousy to have to watch your loved ones do.

Anyway, she knows I've been rescuing left and right lately and, when I was home visiting her over the holidays, she thought I was kidding her when, while driving to the store, I said I saw a pigeon that might need help. I have a good eye for the sad, still form of an injured animal.

As I drove on to the next place that I could make a U-turn, I saw another sad, still form. It was a coyote laying in the median. Mom really thought I was kidding when I told her about him. I continued on back to where I had seen the pigeon. It was in the shoulder of the road, dead and past help. It looked like it just sat down and died but more likely it was clipped by a car as it flew by and died of internal injuries.

Back on the road, we soon came to where the coyote was. I stopped the car next to it and we all- my dog, my mother, and I, looked out the driver's side windows at it. It was dead, too. It was lying on its side like any sleeping dog and its dusty dog-feet pads looked painfully like any dog's. It hadn't been dead long and it looked as if someone had placed it on the median, which was a nice thing to do.

We looked for a long time in silence. My dog seemed subdued by the sight. As we drove away, it occurred to me that we were really lucky the coyote was dead because if it wasn't, I'd have to rescue it and I'd be trying to put it in the trunk.