“Yes,” Kirsten answers.
“You all right?”
Kirsten murmurs something in assent, then says, “You?”
“Better.” Koda turns, her hand still in Kirsten’s. Together they descend the slope, take their places in the back seat of the truck.
Together. Going home.
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
THE MORNING LIES gentle on the land as Koda steers the big truck out of the base. Dew spangles the buffalo grass that has grown up at the edges of the road, and the air that streams through the open windows carries its moist fragrance underlaid by the rich smell of earth. High above, a pair of ravens tumble down the depths of the sky, circling each other, giving chase, their calls ringing clear over the bare foothills. Kirsten leans from her window to get a better look. “Ravens, right? Courting?”
Koda grins back at her. “Ravens, courting. A-plus.”
A small smile curves Kirsten’s own lips. “Must be spring or something, huh?”
“Must be.” Taking advantage of a long, straight stretch of road, Dakota leans over and kisses her lightly. Kirsten’s mouth tastes of coffee, with a lingering hint of honey from the morning’s biscuits.
An intimate silence grows up between them, and Dakota marvels again at the way their thoughts seem to fit easily together, mortice and tenon, as if they have known each other from the womb. Not even with Tali has she ever known this wordless intimacy, something she has shared until now only with Tacoma. She watches now as Kirsten sips from the mug between the seats, then passes it without speaking to Koda. She drinks gratefully. She says, “I’m going to miss this. If we ever get stable again, you’ll be re-elected for life if you can make a trade agreement with Colombia.”
“Liberté, egalité, café?”
“You got it.”
At a crossroads—what used to be a four-way-stop—Koda turns onto the farm road that will lead them up toward the ridge where Wa Uspewikakiyapi is buried. They will approach it from the other side, the paved track belonging to the deserted Callaghan ranch; as long as there is still gas, the pickup is too valuable to risk to the axle-busting ruts of the cross-country route. Koda leans out, stretching to get a view of the truckbed. “How are they doing back there, Kirsten? Can you see?”
Kirsten turns in her seat, wriggling loose for a moment from the safety belts to peer through the cab window. “A bit. They look okay.”
Today is the spring equinox, and a day of freedom. Behind them in the truckbed, Manny and Tacoma watch over the two large crates holding Coyote and Igmú. Coyote, being Coyote, had followed a trail of chicken innards into his carrier without a moment’s hesitation. The bobcat had had to be coaxed and gentled, coaxed and gentled time and again until Tacoma could give her the final small push and Koda had fastened the door behind her. From what she can see in the rear-view mirror, Igmú still crouches, hissing, in a corner of the cage. If she ever again willingly approaches humans or metal man-things, it will be a triumph of curiosity over rage.
And that is all to the good. The world has changed, and new ways of living with the non-human world must be found. But the danger will never disappear entirely.
As she takes the turn-off that leads to the Callaghan gate a jackrabbit, still sporting patches of white winter fur, streaks across the asphalt in front of her, startling a flock of ring-necked pheasants from the grass at the other side. Kirsten gives a small, delighted exclamation as they rise, their wings drumming the bright air. They wheel out over the meadow, the sun catching the brilliant emerald feathers of head and throat, splitting the light into rainbows like a nimbus about them. “Oh my god,” she breathes. “What was—” Abruptly her voice sharpens. “What is that?”
Directly ahead of them, precisely in the middle of the cattle guard, lies a low shape of grizzled fur. Perhaps a meter long and two-thirds as wide, it swells up on its bandy legs, its lips curled back from teeth like roofing nails. It hisses, thrusting its squat body toward the truck, then rocking back on its haunches with a low growl.
Koda brakes the pickup about ten feet short of the gate. “It’s a badger. And he’s right bang in the middle where I can’t go around him.”
”But I thought they were, well—smaller,” Kirsten protests. “Like weasels.”
“City girl,” Koda teases gently. “This is a full-grown old man, and he’s defending his territory.”
“Yo!” comes Manny’s voice from the back. “What’s going on up there?”
“Badger in the gate!” Koda yells back at him and leans long and hard on the horn.
In response, the badger inflates himself further, the black and white stripes on his face wrinkling into a snarl, and lunges a foot toward the truck. The difference in distance is small, but it is enough that his teeth seem at least twice as long. His claws, curling at the ends over the bars of the cattle guard, could pass for daggers.
Koda leans on the horn again.
The badger swells, fur bristling, and feints at the pickup a second time. Kirsten flinches back in her seat, then gives an embarrassed grin. “They don’t eat trucks, do they?”
“Nah,” says Koda. “Just tractors.” And she shoves her elbow down on the horn a third time.
The badger does not budge. The truck rocks suddenly, and Manny runs past the cab, halting halfway between the front bumper and the gate. “Hoka!” he yells, waving his arms windmill fashion. “Le yo! Beat it! Ekta yo gni! Amscray!”
The badger snarls again, pushing up on its short legs and swiping at the air in front of his face with a set of claws like the prongs of a front-loader.
“Manny, dammit!”
“Get back here, you idiot!” Kirsten’s shout mingles with Tacoma’s as Koda leans on the horn again and guns the engine.
“Shoo!” yells Manny, undeterred. He waves his hat in a figure eight in front of him
The badger does not even twitch. An awful stench pervades the air, not so sharp as skunk spray, earthier, muskier. Manny flaps his hat again, this time in front of his face, coughing. “Please?” he chokes. “Le yo? Pretty please?”
From the back of the truck comes a soft, high whine, followed by a yip. Coyote, wanting out. The badger’s head tilts for a moment. Then he bares his teeth at Manny again, growling low in his throat.
“Get back in the fucking truck, cuz!” Tacoma bellows. There is more thudding and rocking in the cargo bed, Tacoma getting to his feet and aiming a rifle loaded with a trank dart over the roof of the cab. “Damn, I don’t know which of you dimwits to shoot!”
Coyote whines again, giving a series of soft yips. It is a greeting, not an alarm. Koda scans the meadow, from the line of trees along a low ridge to the woods and the drop-off of the limestone outcropping on the other side. No other coyotes are visible. None answers their returning brother’s call.
I wonder. . . .
Abruptly Koda comes to a decision. Kirsten reaches out to stop her as she opens the driver’s door, a frown creasing her brow. “Dakota—“
She grins in answer. “I’m going to try something. It could go wrong, but I think— Look in the glove compartment and hand me that pistol, would you?” Kirsten complies, and Koda deftly slips a small tranquilizer dart into it. “—I think I know how to defuse this situation. Come back and give me a hand, will you?”
Kirsten follows her out the left-hand door, her puzzled disapproval an almost palpable pressure between Koda’s shoulders. At the back bumper, Koda lowers the tailgate and pulls Coyote’s cage forward. His mouth hangs open in a doofus-dog grin, tongue lolling. He yips again. “Okay, boy” she says, “I get it. I think.” Tacoma spares her a swift glance, also grinning, then returns to keeping a bead on either the badger or their cousin.
Koda is not quite sure which. Igmú has made herself small in the corner of her carrier, her eyes wide with stress. Another reason to get this over with.
Kirsten helps Koda to maneuver Coyote forward, then lift the cage down. Another series of yips punctuates the rapid swing of his abbreviated tail, its syncopoated rhythm rattling the heavy wire mesh to either side of him. Scooting the carrier along the tarmac and around the double wheels on the passenger side, Koda commands, “Manny, step back. Now.”
Manny shoots a glance at her over his shoulder, a glint coming into his eye as he realizes what she’s about. Carefully he takes a step backward and to the side, then another, until the hood of the truck bulks large between him and the badger. With one hand, Koda takes the trank-loaded pistol from her belt. “Tacoma, keep him in your sights,” she says. “Just in case this goes wrong. I’ll cover Coyote.”
“I’m on it.”
”Okay. Here goes.”
With her free hand, Koda slips the latch of the carrier, flinging the door wide. Coyote is out onto the road with a bound, making for the badger at a stiff-legged trot, stubby tail down, head tilted to one side. He whines, low in his throat.
Without warning, the badger seems to shrink. His haunches go down and his head comes up, black button nose snuffling the breeze. He cants his head, small ears cupped forward. He grunts.
“They know each other!” Kirsten whispers, her eyes wide. “You knew!”
“I guessed,” Koda corrects her with a smile. “Watch.”
At the grunt, Coyote raises his head. He yips, twice, and walks straight up to the badger. Still grunting, Badger lifts his muzzle for a mutual sniff. Coyote’s tail resumes its swing, and he stretches, leaning on his extended forelegs, rump high in the air. His tongue lolls from his open mouth. Springing to one side, then, he yelps and prances a few steps down the road beyond the cattle guard. With a last suspicious look backward, Badger lumbers around, and they disappear into the tall grass together.
“Aww,” says Manny. “Off into the sunset. Ain’t that sweet?”
Koda swats at him as she climbs back into the driver’s seat. “It’s sunrise, cuz. Get back in. We’ve still got to drop Igmú off someplace safe.”
Back on the road, Kirsten takes another mouthful of the coffee, offering it to Dakota. “It’s still warm.” Then, “How did you know to let the coyote go there? Couldn’t they have gotten into a fight?” Koda drinks, then sets the mug down again. “They could have, if they hadn’t known each other. That’s why we kept the trank guns on them.” She shrugs. “Nobody knows why, but sometimes badgers and coyotes form what can only be called friendships. They become hunting partners; one flushes the prey, the other catches it. When Coyote kept making ‘I’m home’ noises, well—“
“Can you talk to them?” Kirsten asks abruptly. “To the animals?”
Dakota studies her for a moment. Kirsten’s face is open and earnest. Carefully she says, “Not exactly. Sometimes I can communicate with a particular four-foot, but it’s not usually with words. Why?”
Visibly gathering her courage, Kirsten says, “When we let the bobcat loose down by the stream can you tell her—” She pauses a moment, then finishes in a rush, “Can you tell her I’d appreciate it if she didn’t eat any raccoons?”
Koda allows the question to swirl around in her brain for a long moment, hoping it will settle and make sense. When it does not oblige her, she says, “I think I’m missing something here. You want to tell me what it is?”
“No,” Kirsten says, firmly. “You’ll think I’m crazy.”
A quick glance away from the road tells Koda that Kirsten is serious. With a twist of the steering wheel, she pulls the truck over to the side of the tarmac and brakes. Turning to face the other woman, she says, “Canteskuye, I know you’re not crazy. You’re a scientist. You’re probably the most rational person I know. Now, what does releasing Igmú have to do with raccoons?”
Kirsten stares down at her hands, clenched in her lap. Pale sun sidelights her face, outlining her profile in a thin ribbon of light. She raises her eyes for an instant, drops her gaze again. “I had a dream,” she says. “There in the woods. A couple weeks ago or so.”
“A dream,” Koda echoes. “About raccoons?”
“A raccoon. He— That is, we had a conversation.”
A fist thumps on the top of the cab. “You okay up front? Is there a problem?”
“We’re fine, Manny” she calls, not elaborating, then turns back to Kirsten. “Okay. You had a conversation.”
“With a raccoon. I had a conversation with a raccoon. In a dream.”
“And?”
Abruptly Kirsten turns to face her. Her expression is almost pleading. “I was sitting under a tree with Asi. There was a raccoon by the stream, there on the rock where I found you—later. When he’d caught a fish, he came over to me and talked to me.” A small grimace passes across her mouth, is gone. “I don’t know when I fell asleep. I don’t really know if I fell asleep. But when he left and I woke up”—her hands describe small, aimless circles in the air “—came to, whatever—there were tracks in the snow. Those were real.”
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