
The Coyote
At one point we startled a coyote who was eating a jackrabbit while two ravens watched from a safe distance away. We froze and he stood looking at us, reluctant to leave his food but wary of humans. We didn’t move or make a sound and he slowly bent his head, picked up the rabbit carcass with his blood-soaked muzzle and trotted into the depths of the shadowy canyon with the intestines dangling from the torso. The ravens flapped noisily up into the air to keep an eye on the movable feast and then floated lazily on the updrafts above the coyote as he moved, unseen by us, down the canyon.