Scarlett Rose's Arc

Chapter 3 of 57

The rancher brought the lame mare over the next morning, and by the third dusk she was grazing easy in the flat pasture behind Scarlett's cottage. Scarlett was on the porch with a mug when she saw the coyote for the first time. It stood at the tree line where her yard met the ridge. Lean, gray and tan, ears up. It looked at her. It did not run. The mare lifted her head. She shifted her weight off the sore hoof and snorted. The coyote sat down. Scarlett set the mug on the rail. If the mare bolted and hurt herself worse, the rancher would haul her home tomorrow. Five mornings gone. She walked to the shed for the rifle her father had left her. She did not load it. She carried it down the porch steps with the barrel low. The coyote stood when she came into the yard. It did not bare its teeth. It took three steps toward her, stopped, and looked back at the brush. Then it looked at her again. It whined once, high and thin, like a dog at a door. Scarlett stopped walking. The coyote trotted a few paces toward the brush and looked over its shoulder. Waited. Trotted again. Waited. "You want me to follow you," Scarlett said out loud. She felt foolish. She followed anyway, the rifle broken open over her arm the way her father had shown her. The coyote led her along the fence line, past the finished posts, to a shallow wash under a fallen cedar. Scarlett smelled them before she saw them. Two pups, maybe six weeks, curled together in the dirt. One had a strand of rusted wire wrapped tight around a back leg. The leg was swollen. The other pup licked at the wound and whimpered. The mother sat down five feet away and watched Scarlett. Scarlett laid the rifle in the grass. She took her pocketknife out slow. She talked the whole time, soft nonsense about biscuits and coffee, while she cut the wire free. The pup yelped once. The mother did not move. She carried the hurt pup back to the porch in her apron. The mother followed at a distance and waited at the tree line. Scarlett cleaned the leg with warm water and iodine and wrapped it in a strip of clean sheet. She set the pup in a shallow box with a rag and carried it back to the wash. The mother came forward when Scarlett stepped away. She nosed the pup. She looked at Scarlett once more. Then she picked the pup up by the scruff and moved both babies deeper into the brush. Scarlett walked back to the pasture. The mare was grazing. The rancher would come at six. She had something to tell him now, and a reason he would want to stay for the telling.