Gadarene Coyotes Part 1

* To the best of my recollection this story is true and occurred in 1973. LLR

Gadarene Coyotes      

When I came to full consciousness I was already sitting straight up in my little, single bed with my head about 1 foot away from the sloped roof of my small attic bedroom. Everything was completely silent so I wasn’t sure what had woken me up. 

Suddenly I heard it. A blood curdling howl followed by a bunch of barking. I was very familiar with who was making the barking but the howling was something I couldn’t identify. 

The barking ruckus was being made by our two young farm dogs. My naughty terrier, Trapper and my brother’s sweet German Shepherd, Husky who was still very much a puppy. But just as my slightly foggy brain was trying to identify the howl another one split the dark night. Then another. Then another. I had been sitting in my bed long enough. I paused for just a few seconds to get into my slippers and shrug into my blue, furry duster. I rushed down the stairs of our small farmhouse and jumped from the landing missing the two bottom steps (which were nonexistent) and landed, BOOM, onto our living room floor.

When I landed on the floor my mother turned to look at me. Every light in the house was on, including the front porch light.
She responded with, “I figured all the noise would wake you up, my little Cookie Monster.” Which is exactly what I resembled in my blue duster. 

“I could tell the dogs were barking but I can’t tell what is making all the howling. It certainly doesn’t sound like wolves. Too high pitched and pathetic for that.”

Mom shook her head and looked at me. “How did you get so smart about nature, when you’re just a seven year old city girl? Take a look outside the front door but don’t open it!”

I almost tiptoed to the door and noticed that the inner one was open but the screen door was still shut with it’s metal latch firmly clipped shut. As I came to the door Trapper and Husky looked up at me from their places on the porch with anxious looks on each of their faces. I sensed they were waiting for me to issue a command. Then another howl cut through the night, gave me goosebumps and my eyes immediately looked up to seek the source. And that’s when I saw them.

We had a very large front yard approximately 30 meters long and at the end of the cut grass there was a forest in a semi circle around it. And just at the edge of where the grass ended I could see several coyotes slinking through the woods. Their eyes glowed as they reflected the lights from the house and porch. The dogs were growling, barking and whining but as young as they were they were still waiting for me or Mom to give the command to release them to go and attack. But I knew it was a command I had no intention of giving. Just from my brief glimpse of the front yard forest I could see at least 6 coyotes. This was very puzzling to me.

I turned to Mom and asked, “Are those coyotes I'm seeing?”

“Pretty strange, right?” she responded.

You see, while a wolf will travel in a pack, coyotes are very much cowardly loners. They are not hunters, they are scavengers and even a small child like me could easily scare them away. So why were they in a pack, standing their ground and actually trying to lure our two little dogs off the porch?

Even though it was still early autumn and no snow on the ground, my dad had not come home from work that night and Mom was not comfortable using one of his rifles. But no matter how much light flicking, noise making and cooking pot banging we did, those coyotes just would not leave! And we were also having a very difficult time trying to keep our dogs from dashing into the fray. They were not tied up and we eventually managed to get them into the house and through to the kitchen porch for them to sleep out the remainder of the night. We left all the porch lights on and headed back to bed ourselves.

The next evening when Dad finally made it home and we were discussing the events over supper he simply refused to believe our version of what had happened. He would not believe they were coyotes.

“Firstly,” Dad began, “ Coyotes don’t travel in packs. And they would have no interest in our dogs. They would probably be after small animals like chickens. But since we don’t have chickens and only beef cows, they wouldn’t even bother to make a stop at our farm. You probably just caught sight of a couple wolves passing through.”

I was as angry at my father as I had ever been. It was bad enough that we had been left to deal with this by oursleves, but to treat it with such a flippant attitude and act like we were too stupid to know the difference between a wolf and a mangey coyote. Arrg!

Mom and I exchanged glances and knew that if it occurred again, we were on our own.

*Click on LINK below to read the conclusion in Part 2.

LINK to Gadarene Coyotes PART 2