Close encounter

John Nieto's "Blue Coyote" is perfect art for this clear, bright winter day. I haven't been sleeping well, a combination of an earache and the antibiotics to treat it have kept me up and down, so Rosie had to wait until 10 a.m. for me to get my butt in gear for a "big" walk. The snow is beautiful and the sun is making for higher temps than we will have again for a while. I didn't really intend to go very far, but the day called us further and further out. Against my own policy I left without leash in pocket, letting Rosie bound freely in the snow.

First we tracked the red fox that walks up along the treeline on the North side. My theory is that there is both a male and a female, but they do not travel together this time of year, so I need to get photos at each sighting~ not always easy. The fox tracks crossed back over into the brook and we had people and dog tracks from neighbor's who run their dogs out here too. Off the beaten path was unmistakable coyote track, and if I thought about it hard I might have guessed they were the freshest there. We followed those across the open snow drifts in the meadow then joined the trail again at the brook and pond, where Rosie plunged her face in the snow, searching for the mice and voles.

Snowmobilers came through a day or so back and I briefly considered following their tracks off the property, but I was mindful of not having a leash and turned back to look for deer tracks on the South trail, on the "Abbe" side. Deer cut through the trees there and often find a bit of open water that trickles across the path there, and I hadn't seen deer since the weekend snow.  The "herd" is only 7 or 8, but this year an impressive 8 point buck trails the does and last year's twin fawns. Rosie was lagging behind me, just as I entered the trees past the pond. First I heard a yip, then a howl. Unmistakable. Coyote. VERY close.

Now I adore a close wildlife encounter, but I had just been thinking food might be scarce for the fox and coyote with the freeze and the snow cover. I threw off my hood to hear better. I don't hear well on a good day, and I am temporarily pretty deaf in the bad ear. Another howl. The critter had to be within 25 yards, hidden by the old Christmas tree growth. Rosie was oblivious, face in the snow still, intent on her hunt. I needed us to be in the open fast. I kept thinking about a hiker and dog I met on the trail in Massachusetts in November. She had a stand-off encounter with a full family group...a pack...the day before we met up.

I called Rosie in a way that caught her swift attention. She sensed my urgency and did not look behind me. Good. I did not want her to catch sight of the coyote, and I know it could see and smell us just fine. I picked a more playful tone and started running, calling her and looking back. Good girl, good, good dog. Rosie veered once away from me and the coyote, but she was glad for a game if I was playing and quickly rejoined me. It was going to be hard, telling the story to Donna later, to confess I left without the leash. I would have dropped it so the two of us could run without tripping each other up, but it would have held her to me should she become curious about the critter.

Nothing followed us. I stuck to the wide open and made my way home, distracting Rosie with a frisbee I had dumped off to pick up on the way out, and I spent plenty of time looking back as I caught my breath.

She is napping now. Our late day walk will be up closer to the houses. Not that coyotes don't come close to the houses, they do. If I step outside they freeze, and we watch each other until one or the other of us has to move on. But Rosie is not yet a year, and I am not ready to know how that goes if she is with me. For today I am grateful her puppiness kept her distracted.

I remember the first time I saw John Nieto's paintings, in a gallery in Sante Fe. I hadn't been painting or drawing wildlife for a while, but the bright brushwork slaked a thirst I forgot I had. His colors are luscious and I recognize his work from any distance, for all of the two and a half decades since my first look. So I will take my coyote encounter, and this dry, bright day that reminds me of walking in snow in the high desert country, and finish the fox moon series I started months ago. Hopefully this will be a once-in-a-blue-moon kind of experience, an awe-inspiring close call that keeps me mindful of the wildness of life even in this tiny pocket of space.