I want to know if I’m being watched while I work in the garden or mow the field. I want to find their outlines when I scan the edges of the meadow. Carpenter ants and powder-post beetles, flying squirrels and foraging deer, gray squirrels fattened on acorns and birdseed, plenty of roaming bear - these were the known parts of the package, along with what we could see for rot in the sills, what we hoped was solid framing behind the new siding, and what we couldn’t quite follow in the network of old knob-and-tube wiring.īut at the thought of a pack of coyotes - a gang, a family - another sensation crawls across my skin, like knowing someone is behind a door before a hand can slam it shut. I hadn’t reckoned on their presence when we made an offer on the place.
Their very existence makes this place seem risky and wild. Yet tonight comes a cry that I wasn’t expecting, that hauls me out of sleep, a chorus of wailing above a percussion of yips, excited and eerie and twitching my heart.Ĭoyotes. (Oct.After two months in this old house, I think I know the night noises at last - the knock and scramble of mice in the walls, the huff of wind across the chimney, the bristle of windows within their loose frames. His illustrations are equally accomplished, ablaze with color and abounding with the angular symbols and forms of the Pueblo people's pottery and textile designs. As always, McDermott offers up a splendid tale, perfectly paced for an amusing read-aloud. The feckless Coyote's subsequent spectacular tumble from the sky burns his tail and lands him first in a puddle, then in the dust. They soon tire of his rude, boastful ways, however, and cash in on the loan mid-flight. Coyote's ``nose for trouble'' leads him to a playful flock of crows, who indulge his wish to fly by lending him their feathers. The fiery colors of the Southwest's rain-parched landscape serve as backdrop for the antics of Coyote, whose vainglorious wish to fly like the crows and be ``the greatest coyote in all the world'' sets him up for a mighty fall from grace. McDermott (Raven: A Trickster Tale from the Pacific Northwest) continues to mine the rich vein of Native American folklore, here unearthing a lively Zuni tale.
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