Ellen Datlow - Tails of Wonder and Imagination

Dawn is no surprise. I wait.

Around noon, Mr. Jimmy Ray Ruggles comes out onto the deck. He looks even younger in jeans and a rumpled t-shirt. He walks down the lawn, Mr. Phelps a deferential step behind. Mr. Jimmy Ray Ruggles’s face is more rumpled than his shirt. I glimpse in his eyes the same fear that filled his daughter’s less than a day ago. I know the swing that Mr. Jimmy Ray Ruggles has been riding for the past twenty hours. I want to know what has happened to Caitlyn.

“It was near here,” Mr. Jimmy Ray Ruggles says in a weary, angry voice.

“That cat is long gone, with his booty,” Mr. Phelps says. Hopes.

“I’ve got to look. I’ve got to know what it was, Phil.”

Mr. Jimmy Ray Ruggles gets down on his hands and knees to peer under the oleanders.

I am waiting, where I always was.

“By God, the damn cat’s still here!” he hisses. “I can see the wrapper too!”

“There won’t be anything left.”

“Dammit, Phil! They can analyze even little bits, molecules maybe. I’ve got to know what—” His voice breaks. “That’s all right, kitty. I just want the paper.”

He sticks his hand under the bush. I see his pale face. I see Mr. Phelps peering over his shoulder, twice as worried.

“Jimmy Ray, that’s a big cat. He could have rabies. He could scratch or bite you—”

“I don’t care! It’s for Caitie.” His hand reaches the crumpled orange paper in front of me with the two lumps of mashed food on it.

I sit very still and let him take it. He slowly draws it away, seeping fear. I am sorry that I am such a scary dude.

Then he is gone and Mr. Phelps is staring at me through the spiky oleander leaves with as much hatred as I have ever seen.

“Black devil!” he says like a curse.

I am not sorry that I am such a scary dude after all.

I wait again. I want to know.

But the house is empty and the hours pass. I am hungry, but I wait. When I am thirsty, I slink out to lap up some sprinkler water. Then I return to my post.

The odds are that I will never know, just as they are one hundred percent that I will never tell. But I wait.

I am rewarded at dusk, when the desert sky bleeds a Southwest palette of lavender and peach… and orange… that developers can only dream of.

Two men on the lawn. Lights in the house.

“Tell me,” Mr. Jim Ray Ruggles is saying, and I think the iron tone in his voice could force even me to talk.

“Tell you what?” A nervous laugh.

“The dead coyotes. You said you were handling it. How? Phil, how!”

“Jim—”

“It was with poisoned food, wasn’t it? And somehow Caitie got into it. Listen, you can tell me now. Caitie will be fine, thank God. She’s still unconscious, but the doctors say she didn’t get enough poison to cause permanent damage. They hope not, anyway. Listen, I won’t blame you. I know you’re devoted to Peyote Skies, like I am. Maybe too much. Tell me.”

“All right.” Mr. Phelps sounds empty. The men walk toward the oleanders, toward me. “I never dreamed, Jimmy Ray—I just wanted to discourage the damn coyotes, and it was working. We haven’t found any dead ones since a week ago. I salted the Big-o-Burgers. Somehow, one of the… traps… fell out of my pocket yesterday and I never knew. Caitie swooped it up, and I never saw—”

“Don’t you remember? She’s always loved Big-o-Burgers,” Mr. Jimmy Ray Ruggles says softly.

Mr. Phelps’ voice is breaking now, but this theatrical touch does not break Midnight’s Louie’s heart. “I was going to stop soon.”

“But… thallium, Phil, an outlawed poison! With no taste, no smell, a poison that never degrades even though it’s been illegal for decades. Didn’t you realize it could kill more than coyotes—pets, children? Where on earth did you get it?”

“I own some old houses in town. The carpenters back then used it as rat poison, inside the walls. It was still there. I figured it would fool the coyotes; they’re too smart for anything else. I swear to God, Jimmy Ray, if I had known it would hurt Caitie I would have cut off my right arm—”

“I know. I know.”

Mr. Jimmy Ray Ruggles has stopped directly in front of me. “I suppose that big ole black cat is dead from it by now, but thank God he fought Caitie for it. Thank God we found him and a sample of the poison so they could treat her.”

His shoes turn, then go. Mr. Phelps’s do not.

“Black devil,” he whispers to the twilight air.

I accept my plaudits with silent good grace and finally depart.

It takes me a full day to recover my strength, and placate my defrauded appetite. I am satisfied that no more coyotes will be sacrificed on the altar of Peyote Skies, and that the developer’s daughter will be well, but I do wish that Mr. Phelps would find the fate he deserves. I fear that the scandal would hurt Peyote Skies too much for even a fond father to pursue the matter.

Then I begin to worry about my payoff. I am, after all, not doing charity work. I dash out to the desert on the nearest gravel truck to find that Happy Hocks is as peppy as ever (alas!) and that these coyote clan types have never heard of the strange old dude who commissioned me.

So I am soon languishing beside the carp pond at the Crystal Phoenix again, feeling that I have been taken in a shell game, when I spot a familiar profile on the sun-rinsed wall.

“I thought you had headed for the hills.”

“Foolish feline,” the big-eared coyote silhouette answers. “I always keep my bargains. I merely had to insure that you had done as agreed.”

“And then some. Where is my reward?”

I watch the shadow jaws move and hear the harsh desert voice describe a site that, to my delight, is on the Crystal Phoenix grounds.

“Once all of Las Vegas was desert,” the coyote says, “and my ancestors had many secret places. You will find my cache behind the third palm on the east side of the pool.”

“Where?”

“In the ground. You will have to dig for it. You can dig?”

“I do so daily,” I retort.

“Deep.”

“What I can do shallow, I can do deep.”

“Good. Goodbye.”

With that terse farewell, me and the coyote call it quits.

I spring for the pool area. I dodge stinking tourists basting on lounges, dripping coconut oil between the plastic strips.

I count off palms. I retire discreetly behind one and dig. And dig. And dig.

About a half-foot down, I hit pay dirt. Coyote pay dirt. Excavating further, I uncover my treasure. Then I sit back to study it.

I regard a deposit of small brown nubs. Of pods, so to speak. Of coyote dung intermixed with a foreign substance: the button of the Mescal cactus, called peyote by the Indians. I have been paid off, all right. In Coyote peyote, both forms. Apparently this big-eared dude thinks that his leavings are caramel. The worst part is feeling that it serves me right for trusting a coyote.

By nightfall I have retreated to the ghost suite of the Crystal Phoenix to salve my wounded psyche. It does not soothe the savage soul to have been taken to the cleaners by a dirty dog. A yellow dog. By Don Coyote. Maybe the mescaline is worth something, but not in my circles. I do not do drugs, and my only vice, catnip, is a legally available substance. As for coyote dung, it does not even have a souvenir value.