2. Joe

Chapter 2

Joe

I'd discovered by accident that I liked reading these books. I'd passed by a used bookstore before I left home, and the only book the dime in my pocket could buy was from the romance rack. The paperback was small enough to fit into my back pocket and one glance at the cover gave away what the book was about.

At first I was embarrassed. I tore the cover off that first book so no one would judge me if they saw it. But then the pages started to come out, too. After that, I tried taping over the cover with newspaper or a page of a magazine. Finally, I made a solid enough fake cover from a hardback I found on the bus that I could slip over any book I was reading. Thankfully, nobody was ever around me long enough to notice I'd been reading On the Road for a year.

Since that first book, I was addicted to reading those romances. I guess you could say I was "coming of age" when I first discovered them, so the books provided a lot of good material for me during those years. Las Mesas, where I grew up, didn't encourage reading, especially steamy books like these. Now that I was on my own and away from that toxic cesspool, I was free to read whatever I wanted. And the books I liked were almost literally a dime a dozen.

I had just gotten a good fire going and pulled my book out to read before bed when I heard a twig snap. I'd camped enough to distinguish between the sounds of a falling twig and a snapping twig. Something was out there.

My eyes scanned the dark and quickly honed in on a deep pocket of darkness between two rows of the pawflower crop. I hadn't seen any people since I started camping here two nights ago, but it was foolish of me to think that a large pawflower crop wouldn't be guarded. Still, it was set back far enough from the road and delicately hidden by trees and landscaping, that I thought maybe I could go unnoticed.

My heart was pounding in my throat as my eyes continued to bore into the shadows. I was sure that the sound had come from that spot. I sniffed the air, hoping my abnormally keen sense of smell that the kids in Las Mesas used to tease me about would finally come in handy.

But there was nothing. The wind was blowing away from me, which was either lucky for whatever was in the shadows or intentional.

I'd always had a way with animals, so I wasn't worried about that. They just seemed to trust me. All except for birds, at least. But there wasn't a bird in there. What I worried about was a person, or even worse, people. I was just about to grab my pack and make a run for it when my fire popped and a flame shot up, just bright enough to cause a glint of light to reflect on a set of eyes in the shadows. Thank fuck. It was a dog.

I reached into my pack and fished around for the smoked salmon. "Hey there!"

The animal was still and silent, probably hoping to be invisible in the dark.

I held out a piece of fish, waving it in the direction of the animal. A moment later, a large creature came slinking out of the shadows. A coyote! My hand froze for a moment, unsure of how smart an idea this was, but then the animal lifted his head and looked right into my eyes.

Any fear I felt instantly vanished.

He had the most soulful eyes of any human or animal I'd ever seen. They were a deep amber color that reflected an intelligence that caught me off guard.

"Hey there!" This time, I threw a piece of fish so it landed halfway between us.

As the coyote slinked toward the meat, eyes still locked on me, I registered just how big he was. The coyotes I was used to seeing were comparable to medium-sized dogs, but scrawny and skittish. As the light of the fire reflected off his thick fur, his large paws pressed firmly but gracefully into the earth. He neared the fish with his eyes still on me, he took a long and careful inhale in my direction.

I must have passed some kind of coyote test, because after he breathed in my scent, he relaxed. As if he'd known me my whole life, he delicately picked up the salmon in his gleaming, white fangs and then wolfed down the fish. Once it was gone, he cocked his head and looked at me curiously as if waiting for more.

I couldn't help but laugh as I fished the bundle of newspaper out of my pack and slid it a little ways away from me. Slowly, I opened it up to reveal my entire stash of salmon that I'd smoked the week before.

His ears pricked up as he looked up at me, then back to the salmon, then at me. He seemed to be asking permission. Had this coyote been around humans before?

I nodded and gestured to the fish. "Help yourself, buddy."

With what could only be described as a happy trot, he leaned down toward the fish and dug in. My fingers itched to reach out and pet him, but I wasn't an idiot. He might've been an odd coyote, but he was still a wild animal.

A wild animal who likely had a pack nearby.

He stopped eating about halfway through the meat and carefully dragged the newspaper between his teeth until it was between us. Then he settled down on my blanket next to me and relaxed.

I was stunned. I'd never seen a wild animal act this way before. This coyote must have been trained to interact with humans. There was no other way to explain why he was acting that way.

On his stomach with his head up, he watched the fire with me. His presence brought a deep feeling of peace, and before I even realized I was doing it, my hand was behind his ear, scratching.

I felt him push into my hand, and his eyes closed into happy-looking slits. His mouth opened into a goofy dog smile and his tongue lolled out. Definitely someone's pet.

I scratched behind the other ear, and he rolled onto his back so I could reach his belly. I laughed. "Okay, boss. I see how it is."

His tail thumped against the blanket as I scratched his belly, mesmerized by how soft his fur was for an animal out in the wild. It was definitely one of the weirder experiences I'd had, and yet, it felt totally normal at the same time, like we were old traveling buddies.

After a while, he scooted the newspaper closer to me, then looked at the fish and then back at me.

"You want me to have some, too?" I almost fell over when he nodded. "How did you do that? Can you understand me?" I immediately felt like an idiot for asking such a dumb question.

He cocked his head and grinned.

WTF? I ate a piece of fish and shrugged. Then, not knowing what else to do, I opened my book and read aloud to him.

He settled his head between his paws and closed his eyes with his ears perked up, listening.

I wondered if it possible to get high from sleeping next to pawflower because I actually thought that coyote was smiling at the funny parts of the story. But then again, pawflower had never affected me, so it would have been a first, for sure.

I kept reading until the coyote's breathing fell into a deep rhythm and his legs started to twitch. Once he was asleep, I reached over to stroke his soft fur. I didn't know where he'd come from, but it felt like a sign that the worst part of my journey was maybe coming to an end.

Carefully, I got up to put out the fire, stamping out the coals and kicking dirt over the embers. Then I unrolled my sleeping bag. It wasn't too chilly, but I still unzipped the bag enough that I could settle it partly over my sleeping companion, even though the warmth from his body radiated over to me.

I smiled and scooched closer until his fur touched my forehead, and I could hear the gentle rhythm of his breath. And within a few minutes, I fell into the best sleep I'd had in a long time.