That hard six
Coyote, that timeless trickster, is an agent of chaos. But chaos can be a powerful tool to setting things right, as a brief encounter with a slightly wayward farmgirl soon proves...
Coyote, that timeless trickster, is an agent of chaos. But chaos can be a powerful tool to setting things right, as a brief encounter with a slightly wayward farmgirl soon proves...
Okay. So I am still writing. Here's proof. It's a story about chaos, and how one coyote can undo that chaos. Vaguely. Also there's a collie lass wearing cutoffs. Not sure how well this works but a promise is a gosh-darned promise and I said I'd get this up! Thanks to Rechan for the idea, to Spudz for invaluable feedback and editing, to an endowment of coffee from the Oslo Kaffebar, and to the continued support of Viewers Like You.
Released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. Share, modify, and redistribute -- as long as it's attributed and noncommercial, anything goes.
"That hard six," by Rob Baird
Dust kicked up by the coyote's footfalls puffed indignantly, and drifted down in lazy patterns by the side of the old dirt track. It was the middle of August; he could not have told you the year, and sometimes it seemed to him as though they all ran together. He settled into time like the dust did: aimlessly.
Nor could he have told you the name of the tune he whistled, which he had whistled in centuries past and would whistle in centuries to come. Bright and cheerful. Always the same tune; never the same notes -- that was how he liked it. There was power, the coyote thought, in chaos.
Pleasant chaos, though. The chaos in the bursting of a dandelion's seeds. Or a swarm of fireflies on a warm night. Or the branching, fragile crystals of a snowflake. Generative chaos. Beautiful. Beautiful like the dark grey clouds that roiled above him, and threatened at any moment to give voice to the pent-up tension of a waning summer afternoon.
A few thousand feet up, currents in the sodden air swirled, and clashed, and fought with one another. They formed little eddies, and in the eddies water clung to invisible motes of dust, and the motes met, and became friends, and the droplets swelled until the air could no longer hold them up and they tumbled earthwards.
The first raindrop, big as a marble, pelted the dust in front of the coyote. The second went wild into the grass. The third, better aimed, struck him right on the black tip of his ruddy-grey nose, and his muzzle wrinkled reflexively before settling into a grin. His golden eyes flicked upwards, and danced.
He stopped whistling not because he was no longer amused by the scene but because it could not be heard -- nothing could be heard but the roar of the rain. A dozen steps later, and his boots were sinking into sticky mud churned up by the torrent. It cascaded in sheets from the brim of his sodden hat. It made a mockery of his brushy tail.
The tail wagged anyway, and the wagging quickened at the booming rumble of nearing thunder.
It only stopped when he heard a voice, and turned to see that a pickup truck had pulled up beside him -- ancient, but without a spot of rust on its graceful fenders. The driver was a black and white sheepdog, and she had said: "Goin' somewhere?"
"Haven't decided yet." He had to raise his voice, but even shouted it was youthful and warm.
"Want a lift? No time for walkin'; storm like this."
Their eyes met, and in that glance the woman had the briefest flash of insight: the sudden knowledge that he was not just any wanderer. It was in this flash that she decided to take him further than the next town, which had been her original plan.
The coyote saw more. He saw the decision in motion. And what had come before:
A playful argument over whose turn it was to go into town to pay the bills (aww, but you always make me do it...).
Fighting with the truck's starter (one more damn thing to worry about).
Stopping by the general store to pick up a pack of cigarettes (I wish dad would quit).
A conversation (looks like rain -- yep, but we sure do need it -- y'hear me arguing? -- nah, just drive safe) with the withered store owner.
A figure, trudging by the side of the road as the heavens opened.
Rolling down the window.
The present moment perched, like a pebble at the top of a mountain. And now he saw her life unrolling, tumbling between possibilities. Her name was Sarah. In four months her boyfriend would propose. In six years their son would be the energetic highlight of his first grade class. In twenty years she would be posing for a picture with a tall young man wearing an army uniform that looked very good on him.
Not bad, not bad. "Guess you're right. How far are you headed?"
She pretended to consider the question. "A little ways, yet. C'mon, hop in, it's startin' to get into the truck." And she shoved the door open, letting the coyote pull himself inside. "What were you even doing out there?"
"Ah, you know. Making my way cross-country."
The Border collie eyed him skeptically. "Looking for work?" He could've been college-aged, or a bit younger even, but something about him made his age very hard to place.
"Just traveling. Summer's a good time for that. Dryer," he said, and gave her a rueful grin. The cab smelled of rain, and thunderstorm, and wet dog.
She put the truck into gear, and started it back down the increasingly muddy road. "Uh huh. You got a name, traveler?"
"Teko. You?" he asked.
"Sarah McGill. Ron's daughter."
"I'm not exactly from around here," the coyote admitted. "Should I know who that is?"
"The McGills are one of the oldest families in the county," she said. Her tone of voice suggested she was echoing someone else's words, and in a way that said the self-importance was now several generations into obsolescence. "Anyway, we're related to Governor McGill, but dad's just a farmer."
By her description, "just" still meant an estate of some import -- rolling acres of productive farmland, and the McGills' own prized breed of sheep. Theirs was a small kingdom, he supposed, but they were quite proud of it anyway.
The truck, as she went on, was thirty seconds from striking the pothole that would sink it up to its front tire in mud and leave them stuck until a tow could be summoned. The coyote did not know this -- not exactly. He didn't know what it was that made him tilt his head, pointing out the window. "Hey, what's that?"
She glanced over, and as she did so the pickup swerved, almost imperceptibly, and missed the pothole by a foot or so. Straightening them out again, Sarah shrugged. "Probably a cooper's. Not big enough to be a red-tailed. We get cooper's hawks sometimes -- they like goin' after the pigeons. Poor bastards don't even know what hit 'em." Her grin suggested no particular sympathy.
"Guess I don't see many of them on fenceposts."
"Ain't exactly flying weather." The rain had started to let up, but it still smeared the old windshield in thick, solid pelts. "Where are you from, anyway?"
"Utah," Teko said, without thinking; he could've said anything and it would've been just as true. "City called Provo, south of Salt Lake."
"Bit far from home?"
"I don't like staying in any one place too long."
"Must be nice, seeing the world. Well..." She glanced over, and the coyote lifted one damp ear. "Most of the time, anyway. Do you go south for the winter, like the hawks?"
"Last winter I spent in Mexico, yeah. Just long enough to do some work and move on..."
What sort of work, he did not say. The Border collie next to him leaned into the wheel, her muscles bunching in struggle against a truck conceived well before power steering. They turned onto a side road, and she shifted down a gear. "You interested in any now?"
"Depends, I suppose? What do you have on offer?"
"Always stuff to do. Need to move some of the irrigation pipes. Oughta think about movin' the flock down a paddock. Oughta think about puttin' up some new fencing. Dad's got all these ideas, but... well, he's getting on..." Sarah shrugged. "'Least it's been a good year for the rain."
"I noticed," the coyote said, and brushed his still-wet muzzle.
The collie smiled, and peered forward through the windshield -- already, the thunderstorm was breaking, and to the west cracks of blue could be seen in the clouds. "Well, the prairie isn't here for your comfort. Last three years, the water table's dropped four feet. Gonna have to sink new wells, one of these years -- dad an' me thought we were already gonna have to..." Sarah took a deep breath, and sighed, shaking her head at the tribulations of a shepherd's life.
The farmhouse stood at the end of a long, straight road that had once been graveled. She pulled the truck to a stop, and when she turned the key the engine died with a reluctant cough. Teko let her get out first, and then followed her lead past an untended flowerbed whose roses were rough and hard-hearted.
Poking her sharp white nose through the door, Sarah raised her voice. "Dad? Dad!"
Light footfalls on the stairs heralded the arrival of a second figure -- younger by a few years, and lilac-colored to her sister's stark black and white. "He's out walkin' the fence. Seventeen's down again."
"He need help?"
"Huh uh. Daddy found it 'fore the sheep did, this time. Who's your friend?"
"This is Teko. He was hitchhiking up 50." Sarah shrugged. It was the sort of shrug, shared between friends, that added: like an idiot, but what can you do? "Itinerant labor. Figure we can get the new fenceline up, with some help..."
A moment's pause dragged on, and on, and then -- seeing that no introduction was forthcoming -- the younger collie rolled her eyes and extended a paw. "I'm Jessica Wynne."
Her sister snorted. "She was just 'Jess' until she went to college and started puttin' on airs."
"You hush," Jessica Wynne growled, with a frown just on the friendly side of siblingdom. "Sarah's mad 'cause she got kicked out -- plus, she can't write. I'm gonna be a poet, so, I have an eye for these things."
"Nice to meet you," Teko said. For a poet, with deceptively dainty paws, the collie's handshake was firm -- he held it for a second, and glimpses flashed past his keen eyes. A piano recital, and a grown woman with the same bronze-furred coat, applauding fiercely from the front row. The pair of them, dutifully frosting freshly baked cookies. Sweeping snow from the porch. Laughing on opposite sides of a carefully tended rosebush.
A grim-faced man in a white gown. A hospital room -- the harsh, antiseptic smell filled the coyote's nose. Puffy white clouds in a too-lovely azure sky, and the sun shining over freshly turned earth. Claire McGill was many things to many people...
Teko, Sarah and Jessica Wynne standing in the foyer of the farmhouse.
The future.
In two years she would finish her degree -- in agricultural economics, not English literature. In seven, she would find herself standing terrified at an altar. In eight, back in a hospital room, and blinking with bewilderment at her newborn child. In ten, before a sympathetic judge, granting sole custody. In fifteen, at the front desk of a dentist's office in town, typing up appointments.
Less promising, Teko thought. But he felt, in the warmth of that handshake, so much potential...
It would take some chaos.
For now, though -- as suddenly as if a clapboard had been shuttered -- the present moment snapped into focus. Jessica Wynne smiled. "You too. Sarah, you want to help with dinner, or are you thinkin' it's just going to appear before you like a magical gift? Louhi already stole the Sampo from us, Seppo."
The older colliegirl gritted her teeth at the way her sister stuck out her tongue. "I don't know what that means. Anyway I want to check out the truck. Didn't want to start at Chuck's, and... been idlin' rough. Hope it's not the alternator again..."
"No." Teko did not know why he had objected, nor why he continued. "Sounded like the fuel filter, maybe. You check that recently?" When Sarah shook her head, he glanced back towards the door. "I can take a look, if you want."
The two collies exchanged a glance, and then Sarah reached into her pocket, pulling out the keys and tossing them in a shallow arc. "Go crazy."
Really, the coyote was blessed with no particular knowledge of early 1950s Chevrolet pickup trucks, but he had a keen sense of intuition. It was, in any case, keen enough to know that it wouldn't serve for Ron McGill to catch him alone in the house -- not that anything untoward was happening, but a single father's mind would work in paranoid ways...
The truck was old, but the engine bay marked it as the property of someone who had taken relatively good care of it. Nothing was rusted; nothing bent. There was only one problem, which was the fuel filter. Or, perhaps, two problems, the first of which being that he did not know what a fuel filter was, or did, or where it might be located.
He started from what he knew: an engine had pistons, and those had to be big, which made them easy enough to find. The pistons took in fuel. That meant the fuel had to be conveyed to them, and that meant... his long fingers traced the lines until he was cross-eyed. Yes. This one. It was made of glass, and when he carefully unscrewed it he caught the unmistakeable scent of petrol.
The glass bowl was full of sediment, which he took to be a sign of some disrepair. There was also a metal filter, which he was in the process of examining when a gruff voice next to him startled the coyote from investigation. "Who the hell are you?"
Ron McGill had once been Sarah's inky black, but age had faded his face a speckled grey. His eyebrow was raised expectantly, and well-muscled arms rested crosswise on his chest. Teko took him in, and offered something that was close to the truth: "Just a wanderer, I suppose."
"Wandered onto my farm?"
"I was walking up US 50 when the rain started. Your daughter took pity on me."
"Hmph. Always was a soft touch," the older man grunted, although he didn't seem to doubt the answer.
Gambling, the coyote chuckled. "I guess I looked pretty miserable. Anyway she mentioned some trouble with the truck, and I figured I could take a look..."
"And?"
Teko held up the filter. "In awful poor shape. You wouldn't have a replacement, would you?"
Ron snorted. "For that thing? Nah. Been meaning to get around to it for a while now, though. Just let it soak in some carb cleaner an' it'll be good as new."
"You have some?"
"Yeah, in the garage." He jerked his thumb towards the house -- his arms were uncrossed now, Teko noticed -- and indicated that the coyote should follow. "Sarah's got a mind of her own, sometimes. Pickin' up strangers. I guess I should thank you for the help, though..."
"Just good to get out of the rain. And she mentioned you might could use some help around here..."
The old Border collie rolled his eyes. "I bet she did. We can take care of ourselves." But his movements, when he reached down to twist and open the handle of the garage door, had the halting of age to them, and when he straightened up it was awkwardly stiff. "Don't know why she's got so little damned faith."
"More of that soft touch," the coyote suggested. Ron McGill grunted again, and then silently poured a measure of cleaner into a dingy mason jar. "I can be moving on, anyway. Storm's cleared. If you'd like."
"Might as well stay for dinner, at least," the elder McGill sighed. "If I know the girls, they've probably already put out another plate. Don't get much company." He didn't protest when Teko moved to close the garage door for him, though the coyote let Ron go first on the walk up to the house.
"Hey, dad," Sarah called from the kitchen. "I see you met Teko. Any luck with the Chevy?"
"Filter," Ron said gruffly. "Fulla crud. Ain't I been saying it? Two months I been sayin' it..."
"Well, then it's good somebody took care of it, isn't it?" she told him primly, to arrest his further protestations. "Now y'all get washed up. Jess and I are almost done with supper."
"Chicken," Jessica Wynne explained, when the two returned, and forked the meat onto Teko's plate carefully. It was lightly breaded with something crumbly and store-bought.
"It smells delicious. Not lamb, though?"
Sarah answered: "Not yet. And that's a bit more work than Jess wanted to get into, I think. Dinner roll?" She held out a wicker basket full, and the coyote took one with a gracious nod. "When it's time, we'll have more lamb than you can shake a stick at. Enough to make you want to go vegetarian."
He took this as an offhanded remark, until Jessica Wynne gave a sharp sigh. "I was just trying it out, okay? Sheesh. Say grace so we can start already."
When Sarah had done so, Ron set the tempo of dinner -- quick, devouring the chicken breast with single-minded intensity. Teko, who knew a thing or two about eating on the go, had yet to finish buttering his roll when he saw that the older man had finished his in three large bites.
But he supposed that there wasn't much time for leisure, on a working farm. It was up to Sarah to make a game effort at conversation, and this while her father was starting on his second piece of chicken. "So I was thinking, if we had some help..." He paused, and looked up. "You've been wanting to divide paddock E in half for three seasons now. Said you didn't want to do it without help..." When he didn't answer, she explained for Teko's benefit: "It's hard to get reliable help out here."
"Used to be you could," Ron muttered. "Damned immigrants..."
"Of course, what daddy doesn't say is the damned immigrants are the only reason we're turning a profit," Jessica Wynne interjected. Her father shot her a sharp look. "You might not think about it, but Americans don't eat much mutton, ordinarily. But the Indians and the Muslims and whatever, the Greeks and all? They eat a bunch of it. Price of lamb has been skyrocketing over the last few years, all 'cause they haven't decided to all start eatin' hamburgers and t-bone steaks."
Teko sliced off a thin piece of chicken, and skewered it while waiting for Ron to answer. When none was forthcoming, he twisted it on his fork. "Nothing wrong with that, right? I mean, chicken's nice and all -- this is real nice." He held it up for their inspection, and then ate it, as if to prove the point. "Delicious, you know? But it's hard to go wrong with a good rogan josh..."
"Some of us wouldn't know," Jessica Wynne said. "Daddy doesn't eat Indian food."
"Don't like pemmican," the old dog grunted. Teko heard Sarah snicker, and glanced up to find the collie grinning. Her sister's eyes were narrowed in irritation.
"Jess's time in the big city exposes her to cultures that we commoners don't appreciate." Sarah's explanation did not seem to mollify the other dog. "Italian is about as foreign as we get here. That and Mexican food. I make some okay tamales. Well, at least dad thinks they're okay."
"They're good," Ron agreed. He seemed willing to speak only in bursts of a word or two at a time -- curt; functional. His chicken was finished, and he pushed the plate back a few inches. "Look, stranger. You need work?"
"Well, I'm willing to help out, anyway..."
Ron nodded. "Could use an extra set of paws, to be honest. And a little honest work's the least I can do to thank you for gettin' round to my truck. Always seems like 'one more thing' 'round here..."
"Well, you and Teko can get ahead of it," Sarah suggested. "Jess, why don't you go get the basement set up, huh?" She looked at her sister only long enough to bare her teeth and furrow her brow at the lighter girl's glance of protestation. "Go on, now. Sorry, Teko. My sister can be a bit..."
Teko shook his head, to say that he had no idea what was meant by this.
"She's just not always on the same... wavelength, I guess. She's real smart... I mean, that's what her teachers and stuff say. Me and dad can handle the books and all, but like... all her poetry and stuff? Way over my head."
"Gets it from her mom," Ron said.
"Yeah." Sarah's agreement was a little muted. "Well. Mom and her weren't really cut out for the farm, maybe. I --"
"Claire did fine here," her father cut her off, sharply. "Long day ahead of you tomorrow, son. Best get on settlin' in."
Teko stood, and Sarah started to follow -- he caught the subtlest dip of her father's muzzle, bidding her to stay. Instead, she pointed down the hall. "Take the second right. Or just listen for the sound of Jess cursin' down there an' you'll find it."
Jessica Wynne was, in fact, cursing, although it was under her breath. She didn't notice his descent until Teko had hit the second stair from the bottom, which creaked and gave away his presence. At this she turned, and one of her folded ears tucked back. "Hey."
"Hey."
The colliegirl had an afghan folded over her forearm; she glanced down at the heavy fabric, which seemed the heavier for her expression, and then shrugged it onto an overfull hamper with pained indifference. "Just tidying up for you."
Teko nodded his thanks, and bent to examine the blanket, which had been stitched with great care. "It's beautiful." Jessica Wynne smiled a wan, distant smile. "Yours?"
"Mom and I used to make them, yeah. Well..." This time the smile, born of memory, was stronger, and lingered. "Mom made them, and I got in the way."
Teko lifted the corner of the bright blanket, feeling the soft wool between his fingers. There was a warmth to it -- the warmth that flows into things handmade from the hands of the makers, that represents a faint, hopeful glimmer of their spark -- and for a moment Claire McGill lingered on Earth again, beneath the pad of his finger. "You made a lot of 'em?"
There were other shawls, he saw, draped here and there through the room -- others, still, must've been given away to family, or sold at market or from a stand next to the general store. Jessica Wynne shrugged. "Yeah. It was kind of a hobby of mom's. 'That Taos shit,' dad used to call it." Shaking her head, the collie folded up another afghan and added it to the hamper. "She knew I liked the colors, though... she made the dyes herself, you know?"
"Is that difficult?"
"Making them isn't," she said. "Making them pretty is. 'Taos shit,'" Jessica Wynne repeated, scoffing. "I love dad, but sometimes... well. Anyway, the wool took some working. But what can you do?"
"I don't know," the coyote admitted. "I'm kind of ashamed to say it, but I don't really know what sheep are outside of something to put in a gyros."
Jessica Wynne grinned. "Mostly they're just that. Anyway the wool of our sheep is pretty coarse, too, 'cause they aren't bred for it. Want to see?"
Teko scratched aimlessly at the base of an ear. "The wool? The breeding?"
She rolled her eyes. "The wool. Here." She tossed him a bundle that proved to be a spool of yarn, which had lain undisturbed for some time and which Teko would charitably have called fragrant. "Feel how coarse it is?" He stroked it between thumb and index finger, and tried to gauge this for himself. "I mean, compared to like a Delaine or even your ordinary Targhee?"
"Well..."
"Fine, any merino?" When even this proved insufficient prodding, she took the yarn back with an exaggerated huff. "City boys," she snorted -- mostly, Teko imagined, because it was the first encounter in some time where she had been on that side of the conversation. In any case, she followed it up with another grin and remained close, leaning against the railing of the staircase. "You really don't know anything about sheep?"
"Gyros," he repeated. "Indian food."
"Oh, you poor thing," Jessica Wynne snickered. "You don't know what you're missing."
"Yeah?"
The collie smirked. "Yeah. Close your eyes and picture it! Brave Winfield P. McGill, granted these fertile, virgin acres of prime western countryside -- and here all he's just like you! Not a damned idea what to do with any of this! I mean, wasn't like the Indians were doin' nothin' with it, right? Better find something else. And what better than... than..." Her bright tone shifted abruptly into something dry: "Open your damned eyes."
She had wrapped an off-white shawl about her shoulders -- it was far too large for the slender collie, and the effect as it bunched up was to give the shawl an air of woolen fluffiness. It called attention, too, to her delicate muzzle, and her plum nosepad. She licked it absent-mindedly, waiting for his answer, and it was this he focused on for a moment before venturing, distractedly: "Sheep?"
Suddenly Jessica Wynne was animated again, spinning to discard the shawl with a dramatic flair. "Sheep? Why, what a fantastic idea! Why didn't I think of that? And it's just the sort of thing an enterprising young lad like Winnie McGill could get some financing from, courtesy of the head honchos back in Washington DC! And of course, our friends back in Auld Scotland to lend a lamb 'r twa!" Her accent was deliberately atrocious; her smile just as deliberately fetching. "And before you know it, McGill sheep are bein' bred from Santa Fe to Cheyenne and Clyde Earnest McGill is sittin' in the statehouse!"
"Fascinating!"
"Oh! I haven't even started!" Her eyes were bright, and wild. "Wait 'til I recount in agonizing detail winning the grand prize three years running at the territorial stockshow! An' the time when great-granduncle Walt was on the very same train one Mad Dog McCallister and his dastardly gang robbed!"
Teko had no idea what she was talking about. "The very same?"
"The very same. Uh. Well, I mean, he busted a couple dozen between here and Kansas City, but it was one of the very same trains that he may have robbed."
"Or his dastardly gang? Should I have heard of this person?"
"Well," Jessica Wynne drew herself up to her full height, which could not have been more than five foot four, and crossed her arms. "Speaking of blue ribbons, I can tell which of us took honors State History in sixth grade and which of us didn't."
He stuck out his tongue. "I was in a different state. You want to hear about the Mountain Meadows Massacre?"
"Another time. You're ruining the flow of my story anyway. Where was I?"
"Train robberies."
She furrowed her brow, and stroked the soft fur of her muzzle thoughtfully. "Trains? Very important out here, back in the day. Oh! Yes, yes, that reminds me! When the great blizzard of '07 came in, and there waren't nah trains fer weeks 'n' weeks, well, now, McGill sheep with their hardy winter coats just hunkered down and they lived through it! And McGill collies, with their hardy winter coats, they just hunkered down and they lived through it! And all our neighbors froze or starved or went bankrupt, then somethin' about the Great Depression and 'those Montadale bastards' taking our glory mumble mumble blah."
Teko lifted his eyebrow, not certain he'd heard correctly. "Hell of a finish."
"Yeah, well. You try having it for a legacy." Something about this conclusion momentarily jarred her; she glanced down at the hamper, and then sighed. "Ah, sorry. I know I can be a bit... I... ah, I dunno."
"No?" It was the same way that Sarah had trailed off. 'A different wavelength,' she had said.
Jessica Wynne was more blunt: "Weird. Sarah says that, anyway." Presently, though, she was content to replace it with something more direct, and which left her sister out of it: "Anyway, I ought to be more respectful about our past and stuff. Gave me a roof over my head, at least."
The coyote smiled. "And mine, apparently."
"Yeah, for as long as you're useful." The colliegirl's good mood, briefly banished, had returned; she gave him an impish smile. "We tell the roosters that, too. So you watch yourself."
"I'll be careful."
"You'll be --"
The door to the basement opened, and Sarah cut a soft-focused shadow that tumbled languidly down the steps. "You got everythin' set down there, Jess?"
"Yeah," Jessica Wynne called back. "It's just a sofa. Didn't take much rocket surgery."
"Well, get on up and get the dishes taken care of, yeah?"
The Border collie sighed softly. Her eyes darkened to the shade of robin's eggs, and then she shook her head. "Sure. Comin'."
Sarah waited until Jessica Wynne had slipped past her, and descended casually -- though she was not so graceful, nor so light, as to avoid the same creaking board. "Gotta fix that, too," she grumbled. "Comin' down 'round our ears. This'll do, hoss?"
For the first time, really, he looked around the basement -- crowded with boxes, most of them covered in afghans and yarn. Jessica Wynne had cleared off the sofa; a folded blanket and a pillow converted it into something like an ersatz bed. If nothing else it was more comfortable than the side of a road: "Yeah, it'll do fine."
"Good." Sarah turned to leave, then paused midway through the turn. "You and my sis' gettin' on okay?"
"I... yeah. Sure."
"What do you think of her?"
"Oh. She seems nice."
"'Nice'? What do you mean by 'nice'?" This question was phrased more pointedly, and he felt that, in another universe, coyotes and sheepdogs might have been naturally wary of one another.
So he trod carefully. "Just... nice, that's all. Pleasant company. Takes after her mom."
This was what was needed to defuse the situation. With a quirked brow, the Border collie turned back to him, and tilted her head. "She tell you that?"
He pointed to a framed picture, perched atop one of the boxes. It was propped there, resting against the wall, and an imperceptible layer of dust said that it alone had been cleaned in recent months.
Sarah took a few steps back, until she could see it; a smile creased her muzzle. "Oh. Yeah. Mom and her were close. Happier times, I guess." Gently, Sarah's paw brushed the picture, which showed the family before a lake, with a glorious fall painted in oversaturated Velvia behind them. "Well," she finally sighed. "We'll start early tomorrow. I'll help you and dad -- hopefully shouldn't take too long. Be a full day for the two of us, but with three... just get some sleep, okay?"
The morning air was still crisp, and he could still taste breakfast on his tongue, when Ron, Teko and Sarah set out into the fields. This one had been mown, at some point in recent weeks, but was otherwise unmolested. Crickets leapt up before the coyote, and twice he heard a snake slither briskly away from his light footfalls.
"First things first," Ron said, in his laconic way, and held out a tape measure. Sarah carried a bundle of sticks, and they marked out the new fenceline post by post. It took the better part of an hour and a half, and Teko's ears flicked back for a moment at the thought that the line of stakes that stretched back behind them was the easy part of the job.
The hard part of the job arrived in a menacing contraption that Ron referred to as a 'post hole digger,' and which proved to be more or less exactly what it claimed. A pair of spades, driven suitably into the earth, clamped onto it, and removed a space large enough for a fencepost.
It was difficult work; his muscles ached as he felt they never had before, when they broke for lunch, and he winced and tried to roll some life back into his shoulders. This seemed to amuse Jessica Wynne, who grinned when she handed over a chicken salad sandwich to him. It was made, he gathered, with leftovers from the night before. He was beyond caring -- the 'thanks' was already muffled by the first bite.
"No problem. How's your first day on the farm going?"
"He's a decent worker," Ron said. The old collie slouched against the tractor Jessica Wynne had driven up on, and looked almost like worn machinery himself. "Done good."
"Tell that to my arms," Teko groaned. "My muscles are all used up."
"This is just a short fence," Sarah said; he couldn't tell if she was being serious or not. "Lucky you weren't here when we bought the upper fields off the Currans. But dad's right, sis; he's doin' okay. I pick well, don't I?"
Jessica Wynne shrugged, but when her sister was no longer looking she gave the coyote a wink, and a playful smile. It was enough to sustain him through the afternoon: he dug the post holes, while Sarah and Ron followed behind, setting the posts into place and packing dirt in to fix them.
The youngest McGill did not see fit to join them, but when they retired to the farmhouse for the evening it was to a kitchen thick with the smell of a lovingly prepared dinner. "Finally found a use for that roast," she smiled. This, and a salad fresh from the garden, and the best cornbread he'd eaten, she had crafted by herself in the afternoon.
"It's delicious," Teko told her.
"How could you tell?" His plate was already empty. "I swear you all eat like wild hyenas."
Sarah looked up briefly from slathering a slice of cornbread in butter. "Some of us work for a living."
"I keep you fed, don't I? And mostly clean. Reminds me -- daddy, somebody should wash those jeans you wore yesterday. If you bring 'em down from upstairs I'll do that. Brushy-tail dude, goes for you too. Take off that jacket and I'll throw it in the wash."
Since more food was, at the moment, not appearing, Ron excused himself to his bedroom. Teko unbuttoned his beaten windbreaker, and emptied the pockets onto the table. A bus token. The folded flyer of a concert he'd scored tickets to back east. A deerskin bag; Sarah cocked her head, and he undid the drawstring to spill six shiny white dice onto the table.
"Got 'em from a friend back home," he shrugged. The dice had seen a lot of action, but they still looked brand new. He rolled them in his paw experimentally, and scattered them on the table with a practiced toss.
"Pretty familiar with those?"
He gathered them up before nodding to Jessica Wynne's question. "Got by last summer playing midnight." Another toss; this one pleased him more, for reasons he could not quite put a finger on -- as though he was reawakening long-dormant skills. "Not bad, not bad."
"What's midnight?"
"It's a game, ma'am."
"Teach me to play?" She pulled out a chair facing him, and slipped into it. "Dad was never much for that kind of thing. Guess it's not ladylike."
"It ain't," Sarah interjected, but Jessica Wynne merely folded her paws, resting her muzzle atop them to offer her most appealing version of begging.
Not that Teko would really have resisted in the first place. He picked two dice, and deftly cast them so that they came to rest just before her nose. Two threes were showing. "You know anything about dice?"
"Read a little about craps, that's all."
"So what were the odds of rolling that hard six?"
She glanced to the dice as he scooped them back into his paw. "One in thirty-six, right?"
"Right. And of doing it twice in a row?"
The dog paused, and her ears flattened in thought. Sarah came to her rescue: "One in thirty-six times thirty-six. Uh... one in..."
"Twelve hundred ninety-six," Jessica Wynne had grabbed a calculator from one of the kitchen's drawers. She dropped into the chair again, and repeated herself. "One in twelve hundred and thirty-six."
"Three times in a row?" Teko asked, jostling the dice briskly.
"Thirty-six times thirty-six times thirty-six..." Sarah began.
"One in about forty-seven thousand," her sister finished, turning the calculator around so he could read the red digits on the display.
Before Teko could say anything, Ron reappeared, looming in the doorway. "You teachin' my girls how to gamble, son?"
"No, sir." With a flick of his wrist, the dice scattered across the table as though fleeing in terror. Tumbling. Chaotic. "Something more important."
"Yeah?"
"Yes, sir: The odds are whatever the dealer decides they are."
Six dice came to rest. Six threes faced the group. "Nicely done," Ron grunted. "You play with marked cards, too?"
"That's bush league stuff, sir, begging your pardon." He collected his dice, and dropped them back into the bag. "Gambling's for suckers, anyway. That's the real lesson."
He did not have any more such lessons to give, and so he did not protest when, less than half an hour later, Ron suggested they retire for the evening. His muscles ached, anyway -- burning so that, staring up at the wooden ceiling of the basement, it was hard even to find the energy to sleep. He was still awake, if drowsy, when the door opened, and Jessica Wynne made her way down the stairs.
The colliegirl wore a nightgown, cinched tightly enough to leave little of her curves to the imagination. She leaned against the back of the sofa, draping herself over it, and peered down at him. "You're not tired?"
"I'm so beat I can't even fall asleep," he said with a grin. "I don't know how your dad and sister manage."
"Made of sterner stuff." She returned his smile; a few seconds of silence ensued, and then, with a conspiratorial look in her eye, she leaned closer. "How'd you do that earlier? With the dice?"
"I'm a trickster," the coyote reminded her. "We do that kind of thing."
"You cheated."
"That's such a harsh word," he said. "I... creatively planned my throw."
Smirking, the collie shook her head. "Sure you did. Will you teach me?"
"It's not much of a high-demand skill."
"Neither is poetry," Jessica Wynne pointed out. "But I like that, too."
"Yours, or others?"
"Both. I write some poetry. I want to be a writer. That's what I'm going to school for. 'Til dad makes me change to something..." She sighed, shaking her head. "Something 'useful.' Home ec, I guess. Agribusiness."
"Tell him 'no' and stick with it?"
"I've had twenty-one years to get to know dad. You've had less than a day. Hey -- scooch," she ordered, and prodded his foot, beckoning him to free up room on the sofa. Mindful of his sore back, Teko shifted position, and Jessica Wynne swung herself carefully over the arm of the chair to settle onto the freed cushion. "Can I ask you something else?"
"Sure."
She looked away from him, towards the picture of their family. "That thing you said, about... the odds being whatever you want."
"Yeah?"
"It was almost like a metaphor..."
Had it been? Teko flicked an ear, and pretended he had no idea what she was talking about. Her sister and father had taken the statement straight -- or glossed over it altogether. Only Jessica Wynne had been so perceptive. "Yeah?"
"Are you saying we gotta... we gotta make our own odds? Like, we gotta be the dealer?"
"Sort of. I mean, sometimes you have to take charge, sure. Sometimes you have to follow. But the more important thing, the way I see it, is at least you have to know who the dealer is. I don't think there's such a thing as the 'impartial hand of fate.' Chaos is just order waiting to happen."
"You're an optimist," she laughed quietly; she was still looking out into the room, crowded with the ghosts of her past.
And he laughed, too. "I've been called a lot worse."
The morning's work was easier. The fence wire came in big spools, and although unrolling them took some manual labor, it suited the coyote's muscles far more than the post hole digger had. Between the three of them, they made quick work of the new fence -- which was not, in Sarah's words, intended for "anythin' real serious."
They finished before lunch, in the early afternoon, and Ron offered modestly genuine thanks for the coyote's help. He would, he said, have to go into town to visit the bank; Sarah offered to go with him, and the coyote watched them depart in silence.
The McGill's farm was mostly managed pasture, but a line of trees cut through it in a meandering pattern that suggested running water. Curious, Teko picked his way through the field, and found a stream of middling size, whose languid waters suggested it had come a long way, and was tired from the heat of the sun. Taking off his boots, he dipped a foot into it, and found the water to be about as warm as it looked. A crawdad scuttled away from the intrusion.
"It's runnin' a bit low this year," a voice said.
He glanced over his shoulder. Jessica Wynne was dressed for the dog days of summer. Denim shorts, the same pale-blue color as her eyes, did little neither to cover the colliegirl's long legs, nor to obscure the steady wag of her feathery tail. Her shirt was tied off to bare the white fur of her belly, and the sleeves were rolled up with a deliberate haphazardness. "It's nice enough. You come for some fishing?"
"Already made lunch," she said, and stuck out her tongue. "I was bringing it to you when you decided to up and wander off down here. Can't say I blame you, though -- nice to get some shade, right?"
"It is," he agreed. "And it's beautiful out here. Nice and quiet..."
"Ah, city boy," she sighed, and when he sat down on the sandy bank she sat next to him, producing a box with a pair of roast beef sandwiches, a thermos, and two slices of cherry pie. "At least we can feed you out here."
"Provo isn't exactly New York City, you know."
"Have you been to New York?" Teko nodded, and Jessica Wynne smiled. "Well, that's one of us. We went to the state capital a couple times, after mom got sick. I don't remember much of it, but... that's the biggest city I've ever been to."
"I'm not sure you're missing out." Teko took a big bite of the sandwich -- it was simple fare, but blissfully filling after the morning's exertion. The thermos, which she unscrewed for him, was filled to the brim with ice-cold milk. "It's a lot of work out here. But this place offers its own rewards..."
She picked at the crust of her own sandwich. "If you say so."
"You don't like it?" The collie shrugged. "You must like parts, at least."
"Parts, sure. Waking up on a spring morning when there's still just a little bit of frost? Or like, down the river aways, in the summertime... or this creek... you'd bring a fishing pole, sure, but mostly you just go to trail your feet in the water and crack open a cold one and chill with your friends from school... or -- or fresh corn from Jeb Fox's place? Nothing like it. But... farm living?"
"Not for you?"
"I heard dad tell Sarah once that... mom's problem was she couldn't leave Albuquerque behind. He never woulda told me that. God, I'm looking forward to classes starting again in a couple weeks... one more year, you know?"
"Then what?"
She kicked off her sandals and slid lower down the bank, so that the current tugged at her fur. Little fish darted this way and that, in momentary agitation. "Dunno. Dad's been making sure I have enough credits to get a degree in agribusiness, too, if I stretch. Focusing on English lit, though."
"Love you some Chaucer, huh?"
"Yeah. The shepherd's tale," she snorted, and wrapped her sandwich back up, going for the pie instead. "Did you go to college?"
Teko shook his head. "A year, but then I dropped out to do this wandering thing. I... ought to go back." As with many things -- with his name, and his hometown, and his history -- the coyote said the first thing that came to his mind, and assumed that it was true.
"You should. You seem like a smart guy."
"You get that from the dice?"
The collie snickered, and shrugged one shoulder, lightly. "Well, it took talent, right?" Then she lay back to sprawl on the warm bank, licking cherry pie filling from what had, scant minutes previously, been snowy white fingers. "'The odds are what the dealer says.' You're so philosophical, ears."
"'Ears'?"
"Well..." She propped herself up lazily on an elbow. "'Teko' doesn't really suggest any cute nicknames, and you got those funny-big ears."
He leaned forward to look at his countenance, reflected in the water of the stream. "They're not that big," he said, although they were noticeably larger than the collie's. Her silver-brown ears, which naturally bent at the midpoint, had been unfolded by gravity to lay flat against the sand of the bank.
"Big enough. What would you go to school for, do you think?"
"Agribusiness."
Jessica Wynne rolled partway over, and gave him a playful shove. "C'mon."
"Philosophy, I guess. Or something wild, like... ancient Latin military campaigns. Or, uh, or Roman architecture. I could be an expert on lost marbles. More than I already am. Degree and everything."
She nodded. Then she said nothing further; her blue eyes were closed, and for a time he wondered if she might not have drifted off. But her words, when she spoke again, were clearly articulated. "I think I've been lied to. Uh. Or... creatively planned, to coin a phrase. It's kind of awful."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know why I'm telling you," she continued, as though she had not heard his question. "I haven't told anyone else, and I hardly know you. Maybe you seem trustworthy." Finally she opened her eyes, and turned her head to look at him. "Are you?"
"Close enough."
"I'm twenty-one years old. My life ought to be full of possibilities. I oughta feel like... like the whole world is mine for the taking. Instead I... when I think about my life I think about the hospital mom died in. I think about a long corridor, and rows of closed doors, and the only way out is... well..."
Teko furrowed his brow and looked at her in surprise. "You've considered it?"
"Never," she reassured him. "I just want to know what I'm doing here." When he didn't say anything, she let the sounds of the afternoon fill in for conversation, until the sound of the running water and twittering birds swelled to become unbearable. "How do you know? You personally, I mean?"
Sometimes, the coyote felt aware that he was unstuck in time; that he had no real sense of belonging, or purpose. That he was merely the tug of chaos momentarily resolving into brief points of order, the way he had described it the day before. He took a few seconds to contemplate an answer.
"Well?"
"I think of myself," he started slowly. "Like a beetle, crawling on a branch of a tree. Like that one." He pointed towards one of the oaks that towered above them, thick with late-summer foliage.
"A beetle," Jessica Wynne murmured.
"When the beetle comes to a branch, there are two ways to think about it. One is that his choices are expansive: two now, two at the next branch, and so on. Thousands of choices."
"The other?"
"The other is that his journey is becoming limited. Every choice he makes narrows the path before him. Out of thousands or millions of possible endings, he only gets one. Every branch makes it clearer which one that is."
The colliegirl's foot twitched, stirring up silt and scattering the fish that had gathered curiously about her. "You can pick your end goal?"
"Sort of. But the beetle can only see one branch ahead. Maybe two. It's impossible to know from the base of the tree which path will take you to a specific leaf."
Jessica Wynne smiled wistfully. "You don't get to choose to roll a hard six."
"No. Not unless it's a rigged game. Not many of us get to rig 'em. But I think, you know... if something is always tugging the beetle towards one branch, it doesn't make it any clearer where he's going to end up, 'cause the thing tugging him can't see that either. It just removes his choice -- the agency, if you will, of a particular moment. But that kind of agency is very important. It's the only one we're guaranteed. Your chance to start something."
"Mom used to say that getting started was the hardest part. I can't even finish. Not my degree, not hashin' it out with dad and my sister, not my poetry... there's a blanket down in that basement. Last thing we worked on together. I told mom I'd finish it, but..."
"You should," Teko smiled. "I bet you're talented -- more than you give yourself credit for. The poetry, too. But I wasn't really talking about planning things. More about those split-second things that jump up at you, that you aren't expecting. Life turns on those little moments of chaos. Can be for the better, if you want."
Jessica Wynne laughed. "You are an optimist." Then, her eyes dancing, she went on: "But I like that."
"Comes from trusting that the world will work out. Just act. Just roll the dice. You gotta roll 'em or you're not playing."
"You're saying do something impulsive, then?"
"It's underrated. Impulses are pure."
She considered this for several long seconds. Then she shoved him again, and when he went down with a grunt she pounced him flat on the bank before he could rise.
"What are you --"
"What's it look like?" she snickered. "Rolling." Her warm paws dug into his chest firmly, as she peered down at her prize.
Teko met her sky-blue eyes, and decided that while discretion was the better part of valor, valor was the better part of nothing worthwhile. The coyote's fingers skimmed the fabric of her shirt, and then met the plush fur of her back, twining through it contemplatively. "And?"
She clicked her muzzle, grinning toothily. "Alea. Iacta." Deft fingers worked the buttons of his shirt open. "Est." A sly wink, and she arched her back to press her soft nosepad to his. "The die is cast."
And as long as she was casting, he was game to play along. He tugged at the knot tied in her blouse until it came undone, and slipped the garment from her shoulders. She rolled them lightly, shrugging off the blouse, and with her chest bared the coyote spread his paws to catch her breasts, downed in silky white fur. The colliegirl shivered, and when he teased her nipple to stiffness between his long fingers she muffled a quiet moan by pressing her lips deeply against his own.
His tongue skimmed her, seeking entrance, and she tilted her head to nuzzle closer as he slipped it into her muzzle, tasting sweetness as their tongues met, and danced. Sharp pressure from her fingers bunching into his fur served to ground him. But for this reflexive clutching every movement she made was fluid. Smooth. Purposeful.
Even as their muzzles locked together in a fiery kiss he felt her paw slide lower. Warmth palmed his crotch, squeezing the imposing bulk trapped by coarse jeans. Teko's groan spilled from her muzzle hotly, and she pulled from him, panting, giggling breathlessly. Getting up -- eyes still focused on him, and looking very predatory for a sheepdog -- she unfastened her shorts and pulled her legs from them one at a time.
The bronze fur of her sides extended down to her legs, to where it faded swiftly into the creamy white of her thighs. It had looked good, matching the denim -- but it looked better without it. Only a pair of dark cotton panties broke the spell cast by her well-groomed fur. Then she slid these down, too, and the coyote's amber gaze followed every newly bared inch.
The whole movement took seconds. Maybe less -- then she was straddling him again, tense thighs warm at either side of his hips. Settling into his lap, she ground against the bulge between his legs, and from the way she bit at her lower lip the colliegirl seemed to take pleasure in the helpless way he shuddered.
It was the way of shepherds, to demand such obedience from their charges.
The fly of his jeans closed with three buttons. She undid the first. The second. Then she tilted her head at him. "Ears," she said. "You'd stop me, wouldn't you? If I, uh. I went too far?"
"What's too far?" he asked. The beetle can only see one branch ahead.
Jessica Wynne snickered, and undid the last button. "Good point." The fly sprung open, and he felt his boxers just as swiftly dispensed with -- pushed down his tan-furred legs to some distant irrelevance. It freed her up to drop back down, rolling her hips in a slow movement that trapped his stiff length between them and teased him through velvet fur and slippery, inviting warmth.
Teko tried to say something by way of protest at the sudden pleasure, but all that came out was a growl. And she was, suddenly, so sure of herself -- so deliberate, doing it again, and again, until his hips gave a reflexive buck that jolted her, and she snapped her teeth, grinning ferally.
She curled forward, lifting her hips and dipping her muzzle to pin his broad ear between her nose and the warm sand of the bank. "Alright," she purred to him. "I get the message." Teko felt her fingers tug his length gently, holding it straight up. She lowered herself slightly, and the coyote felt his tip nudge at smooth, wet heat. Her lips parted easily to him, and they both gasped as he slipped just inside the yielding, silken vise of her sex.
Then she settled down in one graceful, fluid movement and he felt her involuntary growl shuddering against his ear as he entered her, pushing deep, deep into her body. Teko clenched his jaw, and waited for the sensations to ebb to something more bearable. She was so warm, so snug around him...
She pushed herself up with her paw, and looked down at him. Between ragged pants she grinned, rather triumphantly, and worked her hips a half-inch or so, sliding him through her sodden, clinging folds. "Hard six, huh?" she teased. He felt her tail waving against his legs, and the flexing muscles of that wagging shifted her in inviting, twitching pulses around his shaft.
"Well," he said. His paws traced her spine and came to rest at her firm rump, squeezing playfully. "Maybe a bit more."
Tensing, she slowly raised her hips again, and he saw her eyes darken with the ache of emptiness as he slipped from her, until neither of them could bear it anymore and she dropped down to take him once again, all the way inside. A second time. A third. A fourth, and again his hips jerked of their own accord, pushing firmly up to meet her downward arc. An oath every bit as unladylike as gambling escaped her pretty white muzzle.
Alea iacta est. Jessica Wynne put her paws at his shoulders and started to move in earnest, riding the prone coyote swiftly. Her eyes closed and she growled in delight, forcing him deep in firm, rhythmic movements of her lean body. Her breasts heaved with her rocking, and her uneven breaths, and when he lifted his paw from her rear to caress them she shuddered, urging him on with a heady moan.
No more wordplay. No teasing -- just deep, pleasured gasps and groans as they worked together, increasingly swift and urgent and needy. Her claws dug into his chest, quivering as she took him forcefully, exacting every last jolting current of raw pleasure from their coupling.
Teko arched his hips to help her, and he didn't stop when he felt her movements grow halting and strained. Her teeth were gritted; her folded ears were back and trembling. "Teko," she whined. He found he liked the sound of his name, called like that. "Oh -- oh, yesss..." The sound trailing in a sibilant whimper. She came to a halt, trying to start again, every inch a struggle against shouting nerves. "God -- Teko -- oh --"
And with a yelp her back arched, and he felt a rush of warmth, and the snugness of her walls squeezing hard around his throbbing length, gripping at him, her muzzle open now in a wordless shout -- lifting up towards the sky as though she might howl. She bucked atop him, riding out the waves of her peak, and he used the paw at her rump to steady her until she had calmed to something less wild.
She came to rest in his lap -- pushed firmly down to meet him, where their bodies joined in fur now thoroughly sodden. The grin she gave him was dazed and giddy, and it broadened when he rocked his hips to remind her of his stiff length still buried to the hilt in her.
"Did you --"
"Are we tied?" That thick bulb of flesh had already started to swell, though not enough to lock them together.
She worked her hips slowly up and away to free it with a wet slurp, and then shook her head. "No... d'you wanna be?" Jessica Wynne's question held a deceptive innocence.
And she was in absolute control. Teko nodded. "Yes," he said. It was almost begging.
Giggling, the colliegirl pushed herself back down, grunting softly when his knot slid back inside. Her tail was wagging again, and to this she added a deliberate, slow rippling of her muscles that coursed down his sensitive cock in waves that fetched a growl from him. She pulled away again and repeated the movement, keenly sensitive of how much more effort it required. "God, it's so big..." she murmured to him.
This time when she tried to lift her hips he raised his own to follow, keeping him buried deep, and she got the idea, settling for a firm, rhythmic grinding that teased the coyote's shaft until there was no way either could be fooled into thinking he could withdraw. "Jess," he groaned -- he had no time for the syllables of her full name.
"Go on," she breathed. The tooth-gritted tension was back on her muzzle; her thighs spasmed, the muscles taut as she ground against him to toy with the knotted shaft locked inside her. "Go on, come for me..."
The coyote bucked lightly; both his paws grasped at her hips, grabbing her just on the firm side of possessive roughness. Pleasure flickered -- caught -- exploded beyond his control as he groaned again and gave into it, pushing up and against her with the first spurts of his warm seed.
The colliegirl let out a high bark at that final thrust, pressing back to meet it, and as he jerked quickly in her tightly gripping sex she whined -- dimly through the blissful haze he felt her shuddering as she climaxed again around him. He held her close, pumping his warm essence deep, until the spurts began to slow and, emptied of strength, they collapsed together in a heap.
"Jesus, Teko," she muttered. "You have no idea how much I wanted that..."
"None?" he asked, as tired as she was. "You almost howled, there at the end. You'd make a good coyote..."
She raised her head, lifting an eyebrow. "You come when you're called. You'd make a good sheepdog." Then she sighed, and snuggled down and into his chest. "I'm glad you stopped by. Think you'll..." She failed to blink back the yawn that escaped into his chestfur. "Stick around?"
Not that he had much choice, at least for the next half-hour or so. "You want me to?"
There was no answer. She had gone pliant, and limp. It was not, on reflection, such a bad idea.
He opened his eyes to find evening light, honey-thick and golden, spilling through the trees. And the sound of frogs at the water's edge. And a boot. And a leg. A pair of legs. He followed them warily, glancing upwards to find their owner.
Sarah's eyes were narrowed to slits. "Sleep well?" she asked, coldly.
"Well enough." The deadweight above him was still quiet, curled into the tawny fur of his chest. Jessica Wynne's ears were splayed contentedly, and he did not want to wake her.
"Are you two... indisposed?"
"What do you mean?"
The black and white dog bit her lip, and her ears twitched. "Are you..." She took a deep breath, rolling her eyes, and forced herself to the words. "Are you still knotted to my sister, Teko?" The question came out as a hiss, between gritted teeth.
As subtly as he could, he shifted his hips experimentally. "No."
She raked her fingers through her hair. "Small favors," she muttered, and then bent over, raising her voice to a stern growl. "Jess!" The object of her shouting mumbled something wordless and muzzy that was lost in the coyote's fur. "Jessica Wynne McGill, get the hell up."
Finally, one eye opened. "Sarah?"
"Get up." The lilac collie did, a little unsteadily, and Teko took advantage of the brief change in focus to tug his jeans back on, buttoning them hurriedly. "What were you thinking? Jess, I swear, sometimes..."
Consciousness was beginning to work its way back into her drowsy mind, and the younger collie waved her paw to brush the complaint away. "Leave me alone, Sarah. Wasn't any of your business."
"Yeah? And if dad had found you?"
"Wasn't any of dad's business either. Two consenting adults." She pulled her shirt back on, although this time she buttoned it normally. Her lovely pelt disappeared beneath the rumpled checks, and he stole a final glance before it vanished all the way. "Get over yourself. I'm not twelve anymore."
Sarah's lip curled, and her eyes had the same dangerous look as the sky before a thunderstorm. "We'll talk on the way back to the house. Teko, I think it would be wise if you made yourself scarce."
"Hey, don't be like that. He --"
"He nipped your ear hard enough leave a mark, and your clothes are a mess. It's pretty obvious what happened. Dad's already going to kill me, I know that -- but that shotgun has two barrels, Jess. Come on, now."
"She's right," Teko admitted. "Might be a good idea if I... you know..." He looked towards the edge of the fields, which hid the road from view.
Jessica Wynne seemed ready to protest; then her ears drooped. However misguided she occasionally was, Sarah had a point: nothing good could come of his return to the farmhouse. They were, he suspected, already overdue for dinner.
The young collie looked between her sister and the coyote. Then back again. Then she smiled, and closed the distance, throwing her arms around Teko and pulling him into a tight hug. Her muzzle locked to his, a crushing, warm pressure, and when she reluctantly pulled back the smile had widened to a grin.
"Be seein' ya," she said.
And he grinned back, for he had seen the future, in snapshots.
An argument between two sisters, one that had been waiting for ten years, burning meteor-bright -- then collapsing, exhausted, into familial intimacy. I know I've been treatin' you like a kid and yeah, but you've always looked out for me and dad's never really let her go, either, Jess.
A conversation across a wooden desk, with a bored guidance counselor. Twelve credits left for a degree in agricultural economics with a focus on business planning. Well, if you reconsider, you can do it in only a semester.
A sharper argument. Shouting. The phrase throwin' your damn fool life away.
A one-way Greyhound ticket. A straining, overfilled duffel bag, with just enough room for the coarse wool of a half-finished afghan. Service to Denver, Salt Lake, Reno, and points west.
The bustling energy of a third-floor walkup on Guerrero, a little ways south of 16th. Paychecks spent on postage stamps and envelopes mailed to faceless editors in distant cities, and on cheap ballpoint pens, and on Japanese noodles that came in palettes.
And on a payphone, just off the park, and the question through the line that finally became: Well... are you happy there, at least?
Checking the postbox every day. Thin envelopes. Bills. Form rejections. Then: I'd be interested in seeing more of this. Or as Teko would've thought of it: not bad, not bad.
Slinging drinks at a bar in the Mission, scribbling thoughts in a spiral notebook. Teasing meaning from the pick-up games at Duboce Park, and the drizzling rain in winter slanting against a bus shelter, and the sound of foghorns in the morning. Practicing rhythm by herself, with friends; on hapless patrons in a basement coffee shop. Walking down University Avenue to the pier on a cool evening. Rolling a nearly empty pen between her fingers, and then taking it up again to scrawl one final line.
Eight years later, a young woman stood at the front of a room filled with people wearing stylish, well-fitting clothes. She had already decided that New York was not her cup of tea. But she tapped the microphone, and they looked up raptly. I don't know how I ended up here, she said, and thought of a beetle making its way along a gnarled branch. But I know who to thank for it. A grey-muzzled dog, awkward in his rented suit, lifted tired old ears, and smiled from the front row -- and applauded louder than the rest of them when she bowed to accept a shiny brass plaque.
Somewhere, a thousand miles away, on meandering roads that led nowhere and everywhere, a coyote whistled brightly.