Wildlife Management I

All the trees kept their own counsel without any wind to speak of,

until one lone limber pine began gesticulating wildly, as if it

suffered from its own inner cyclone.

It was like a lunatic in the

courtroom of other trees.

We forgot about the sunset and the dark

coming on across the plain.

Then the reason appeared: a mother

antelope had twin newborns backed into the tree and fended off a

pair of coyotes who darted in and feinted out, knowing she

couldn't defend them both.

The girl I was with shrieked, "Do

something!"

I thought of the rifle back at the house.

I thought of a

litter of coyote whelps in a den somewhere nearby.

I thought of the

three-hundred-yard sprint to the tree.

The mother antelope would

be first to bolt, and those coyotes would have the aplomb to make

off with both twins.

I said no.

The antelope struck out with her

forelegs, she butted the coyotes back, until one of them got the

chance they had orchestrated and caught a twin and trotted off,

dangling it by the nape as gently as if it were her own.

Copyright Credit: James Galvin, "Wildlife Management I" from Everything We Always Knew Was True. Copyright © 2016 by James Galvin. Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org.

Source: Everything We Always Knew Was True (Copper Canyon Press, 2016)