TOM LINED THE CROSSHAIRS of his Ruger’s scope on the hump of tattered gray-and-brown hair. The arched back peeked above the snow bluff, moving ever so slightly, the head of the creature likely burrowing in search of a meal. It was mid-winter when the snow was deepest and food scarce. Animals had to be resourceful. Perhaps a field mouse that had not survived last week’s sub-Arctic cold spell, or berries from an early flash freeze, were preserved under that crust of snow.
Tom needed to break the dead quiet of lightly falling snow to get the animal to raise its head and body into range. He reached into his overalls and retrieved a carpenter’s pencil from the front pocket. He held it between his pointer and index fingers, middle finger on top, and slowly formed a fist.
A sharp “snap” pierced through the cold air.
The animal’s head rose. Tom smiled. This is what he was looking for. The telltale pointed ears formed a u-shape on the top of its head. It had a calico pattern of reds, grays, whites, probably more whites than it would have in spring. The center of the ears and nose were black. Its yellow eyes squinted, focusing in the direction of the noise.
Tom breathed, returned his hand to the grip, and his finger to the trigger. The scope hairs bobbed up and down over his target with each breath, but as he calmed the hairs steadied. He focused until he was sure he couldn’t miss, then held his breath. Two thoughts entered his mind.
First, was it true, as his grandfather told him when he was young, that scope crosshairs were made from the thread of a black widow spider’s web?
Second, unless he missed, this would be coyote number 80.
Tom breathed again and tried to clear his mind of those thoughts. They were distractions from a clean shot.
He squeezed the trigger and remembered back to a time when his grandfather spoke the rules:
Aim small, miss small.
Let the shot surprise you.
A “crack” rang through the woods, off the tall Ponderosa Pines and hillside and back through Tom’s earplugs, muffled into his ear drum.
Silence. Not even a whimper.
A dusting of snow fell from nearby branches, glittering flakes trickling down before Tom. He refocused the scope where he had just shot. The head was gone.
#
Tom stood from the dugout he’d formed in the snow. He picked up the cardboard twenty-round ammo box, now minus one round, reached back and slipped it in his buttpack. He straightened his wool parka, tan with synthetic white fur inside, his favorite for this part of the north country even though the fake fur at the collar and pocket flaps collected too much snow when he laid prone to shoot. He slung the Ruger’s leather strap over his shoulder to stow it on his back, tapped his boots to clear the tread of packed snow, situated his handwarmers in his gloves, and pulled the gloves up against the jacket’s cuff gaskets. He was ready to collect his kill.
Tom could tell it was a decent shot, only instantaneously painful, when he crested the bluff. A hollowed red area was what was left of its eye and socket, the back of its skull blown out and speckling the snow with a red-orange mist, a combination of blood and brain matter. The contrast always struck him.
“Beautiful,” he said under his breath. “But mounting will be difficult.”
Tom pulled a plastic bag from the roll in his pocket, grabbed the carcass by the hind legs, and dumped it into the bag. The plastic bag then went into a burlap sack, which he hoisted over his other shoulder. He turned to the dugout and eyed his route home, through the thicket, across the frozen pond that showcased cattails in the summer, along the foothills of the mountains that held Raven Pass at a high elevation, to home. Lots of time to ponder spider webs and how to repair and mount the shattered skull of number 80.
#
The high-pitched yawing cries woke little Tommy from his sleep.
He knew these sounds; they were cries of celebration. It meant they had made their kill. They would eat well and for that they rejoiced with shrieks of happiness.
The door to Tommy’s room creaked open. The familiar yellow nightgown, with alternating tiny red and blue flowers in polka-dot, moved into the doorway.
“It’s okay Tommy, it’s just the jackals.” Even at his age, with posters of Star Wars and space shuttles still on the walls of his room, he knew they weren’t jackals. The reference to the “American jackal,” was just a nice way—his mother’s way—of referring to the sleek, sly, devilish coyote.
“I know. Is it still snowing?” He said.
“A bit. Maybe tomorrow there will be enough for you to go sledding.” She approached his bed and ran her fingers through his brown hair. It clumped together with sweat, making it darker.
“Maybe.”
“It’s full moon. Lots of light for the jackals to hunt. With the winter we’re havin’ they’re creeping closer to town. The O’Learys said they got into their sheep earlier this week. Jackals couldn’t hoist the sheep, even the smaller ones, over the barbed-wire fence. But they tried. Mr. O’Leary found one of his partly chewed, dead sheep lined along the fence. Poor thing.”
“They’re coyotes, Mom, not jackals.”
The cries resumed. These were fainter. Moving away, likely dragging away their kill.
“Go back to sleep, sweetie. They’re done for the night.”
Tommy rolled to his side, careful not to nudge Blue, his six-year-old miniature Schnauzer, off the bed. Blue was named after the iridescent blue color his fur gave off in just the right evening light. He trembled under the sheets as the yowls and yips faded into the night.
#
Tom kicked off his boots in the mudroom of his cabin and set down the burlap sack while he stowed his gear. He’d clean the Ruger later. For now, he had to work on the skull.
He had lopped off the head a while back with his Estwing axe, freshly sharpened before number 80. The walk was far, through too much snow, to carry the full carcass. Plus, there was an abundance of blood leaking from the body. He left the remains near the frozen pond, the most likely place critters would come in search for water and then food. Bears were still hibernating, but a mountain lion or even raptors would probably scoop it up, devour the meat, entrails, tongue, and eyeballs—a delicacy to them, along with whatever else could be cleaned off the bones, and return the remainder to environment through their excrement, in turn fertilizing the land through the never-ending cycle of life, death, and rebirth.
He set the skull on his basement workbench, constructed of unfinished pine two-by-fours and chipboard. Using his Airforce survival knife, he slit the skin and peeled it off the skull. He set the “mask” to the side. He’d tan it later and perhaps sew it to the hood of his parka. No, he’d do that with the very last one, number 100. Then he’d be satisfied. Then it would be over.
Tom used a long-handled lemonade spoon to scoop around the inside of the skull and free the brain, at least what was left of it. He turned the skull and thumped it, dislodging the leftover white curdy mass onto his bench. That went into a bag in the freezer along with other bits of skin and fur. He then placed the skull in his glass aquarium. In three days the beetles would pick it clean.
* * *
“Good job, guys,” Tom said as he reached into the glass. The beetles scurried to the sides and into their cardboard egg crate hideouts as he picked up the skull and bone fragments. He removed the remaining oils by degreasing with hydrogen peroxide, which had the additional benefit of brightening everything. He spread the pieces on his workbench.
“Just like putting together an owl pellet,” he said to himself. He reflected on Tommy, sitting at a workbench not unlike the one he sat before, with an owl pellet containing hundreds of tiny bones in foil provided by his Scoutmaster. A jigsaw puzzle of sorts. He missed those simple days, when supergluing back together a mouse skeleton from the pellet was his only worry. Not the daily grind, bills, responsibility. Not the revenge that still consumed him.
Tom reached for the green bottle of Zap-A-Gap glue. Its medium consistency was perfect for the larger pieces. Less is more, he rehearsed in his head. A few drops and the pieces were in place. He turned to the pink bottle of Zap-A-Gap. The thin stuff, applied with his fly-tying bodkin, kept the tiny pieces together. It didn’t have to look perfect; its display would be too high to notice most flaws. Admittedly, he welcomed the show of violence exhibited by some cracks and imperfections.
Back upstairs, he opened the door to the narrow hallway he had built between his cabin and freestanding garage. He flipped the light switch. A few flickers and the hallway lit up in its glory.
The dark-gray walnut walls were illuminated by the glow of skulls. Seventy-nine of them, so far, to be exact. Coyote all. The stark-white of the skulls glistened under individual bulbs hung from the ceiling by thin chains and positioned immediately before each one. He walked past the skulls in order, each similar, but ranging in size and fragmentation. They were mounted on lacquered pinewood plaques and bore sequential numbers.
As he walked, he gazed at each numeral and corresponding skull, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and so on, alternating from odd to even on the sides of the walls. At 80 he stopped. He reached up and positioned the skull on the hook screwed to the plaque. He stepped back to admire.
“Beautiful,” he said. Glancing down the hallway at empty plaques 81 through 100, his brow creased and he sighed.
He was closer, but he still had a ways to go.
#
Tommy woke again, this time to the lick of Blue’s tongue on his cheek. Blue had saved his life, he and his mother were sure, from night terrors Tommy had been having for years. They started when he first learned, at the ripe age of eight, that his father had died as a soldier, not in a boat accident as his mother had always told him.
“Freak accident. Your father, Uncle Dale, and Dale’s drinking buddy Larry went fishing. They were trying to get to the far-side of Silver Lake where they’d heard the mackinaw were holding in deeper water, boat engine at full throttle,” she had explained while her left eye twitched. “Larry was in the open bow, Dale was steering, and your father was sitting on top of the passenger chair. Something happened; the propeller malfunctioned or something, causing the boat to suddenly lurch to one side.” Her eye twitched again. “They all went overboard, but the boat spun around in a circle, no one manning it, and the hull struck your father in the head.” Twitching.
Tommy came to understand his mother’s eye twitch when he found a Santa outfit in the crawlspace. He asked if Santa was real. She responded, voice racing to explain, but all he heard were garbled words while that left eye twitched like it had been rubbed with salt. Later, the truth finally came out. Uncle Dale, with bright red nose from too much whiskey, said that Tommy’s dad died in Nam and it wasn’t a good death. In fact, he was tortured.
Mom maintained Dale’s story was the liquor talkin’, but he knew she was lying. The twitch always gave away the lies, but Mom also twitched when she was just plain nervous. When the terrors became routine, almost nightly, Tommy’s mother took him to the doctor. In those days, treatment was simple: “Just make sure he gets enough exercise and get him a dog. A pooch will give him the emotional support necessary to keep him healthy and quell the nightmares,” Doc said.
Blue licked him awake from night terrors more times than Tommy could remember. Always by his side, in the mountains hunting, on the river’s edge while fishing, and in his sleeping bag during campouts in the backyard. Blue never struck him, even when Tommy had to pull ticks and thorns from his paws after excursions in the woods. He was the boy’s best friend.
#
On a small piece of paper, Tom inventoried the contents of his olive-drab canvas buttpack:
-Chicken-ala-King MRE
-MRE powdered coffee, 1 sugar and 1 creamer
-freeze-dried peaches
-three-piece chow set
-folding pocket stove
-6 solid-fuel tablets
-iodine water-purification tables, 37 left
-Zippo lighter, fully fueled
-12 matches in olive-drab green waterproof match box
-flint fire starter
-mylar emergency blanket
-Victorinox pocket knife, red handle, white cross
-mini first-aid kit
-1 bundle paratroopers’ cord
-more plastic bags
-1 box Hornady Superformance Varmint .204 Ruger 40 Grain Centerfire Rifle Ammo, only 2 rounds left
#
Tom knew when he started his path of revenge and destruction since his first kill that he didn’t need to shoot every one of them. He was civilized, after all. One hundred coyotes and he figured he’d be square. Running low on ammo and the roads to town still dangerous from recent snowfall, he’d ration these last couple rounds. Mountain Men survived out here on trapping alone before the turn of the century. He’s set a trap, a violent way to go for sure but not instant, with a little extra suffering he knew their kind deserved for however long it took to finally expire.
Tom set the trap with peanut butter as bait, the trap’s razor teeth facing each other offensively across the jaws. The teeth were rusted, not that it mattered. The meat wasn’t good and no one in this Country eats dog anyway, even if coyote are a few evolutionary steps away from the domestic hound and wolf. Still, dog is dog.
Number 98 was pierced by the teeth at the snout. This one was wary indeed; he almost made it, almost pulled his head back fast enough to escape as the jaws of death clamped the end of his mouth and nose. Nothing some drops from the green bottle of Zap-A-Gap couldn’t handle, though. Small red bubbles fizzled around the holes pierced into the coyote’s muzzle by the teeth, where it inhaled and exhaled its last breaths. Larger bubbles must have inflated and then popped because spatter coated 98’s forehead and surrounding snow and turf.
Tom released the trap, wiggled free the narrow snout which had started to stiffen and freeze onto the metal teeth. He dropped the whole carcass into the plastic bag and then the burlap sack. It was large enough to yield a respectable pelt. He’d return the meat to the environment later.
#
Tommy woke from another nightmare, not from Blue’s licks, but from the screams in his head of his father while the enemy broke his bones. This time, in this dream, they had cuffed him and, with hands behind his back, hung him by his full body weight so that his arms were inverted up and behind his head, cracking his shoulders in the process.
Even bundled in a fluffy comforter Tommy was cold, colder than usual. Blue was not by his feet. Probably rolled head to tail by the living-room stove soaking in warmth. He looked out the window to the thermometer mounted on the outer flange of the sill. The mercury registered just below zero Fahrenheit. He pushed the Indiglo button on his wristwatch watch. 2:13 a.m..
Then, a faint boom. It startled him at first, but the noise came from the top of the house; he knew it to be the trusses contracting in the roof. They were natural, welcoming contractions, preventing damage as they accepted the adjustments of the house to the dropping temperatures.
Another noise. Faint again, but becoming louder. Cries. Not human baby cries but the ones he hated. Mother came to the door again, the flowers of her nightgown swishing as she turned to his room.
“Jackals again, sweetie.”
“Mom, they’re not jackals.” Tommy flopped his arm on the bed in disgust.
“Coyotes again, sweetie.” She cracked the door open a bit more to see him.
“I know, Mom.”
More cries. Louder.
“Where’s Blue?” Tommy said.
“I thought he was with you.” Mom folded her robe over itself, bow-tied the belt. Her eye twitched. “He was by the backdoor so I let him out to pee. I figured he’d made his way back through the doggie door and was under your covers.”
Tommy threw off the comforter, jammed his feet into his house moccasins, and raced to the back door.
Standing at the glass slider door, he scanned the winter abyss. He saw Blue’s tracks going out, but not back over to the adjoining garage with the doggy door. There was nothing out there but white, glistening snowcrust, the kind that could support a small dog’s weight, but would crush through if walked on by a human. Or a coyote.
Tommy turned on the security floodlights at the back door.
Two tiny white reflections, peered back at him. But they were spaced wider than Blue’s, on something bigger. Maybe a female in heat. Young Tommy understood enough about the birds and the bees to know how a pack would often send one in to lure and then ambush prey.
The white reflections multiplied, the eyes of many beasts now looking toward the house.
“Mom, the coyotes.” Tommy half choke-said. He could feel pressure coming up from his chest and his throat contracting as adrenaline pumped through his body.
“I’ll get the rifle,” she said. Her feet pounded through the hallway to the garage.
Tommy opened the back slider and a cold blast hit his face. The back of the house faced an open field, so it received the heavy gusts. He inhaled and the dry cold air burned the back of his throat.
“Hey!” he yelled at them.
The eyes stared back towards him. They weren’t howling anymore. They weren’t crying.
From the corner of his vision, he saw the small familiar eyes he was looking for. Flickering as they looked to Tommy and then back to the beasts. Blue had about a school-bus length to go to reach the door.
Mom had not yet returned with the rifle, but there was no time. Simultaneously, Tommy flew open the slider, Blue ran, and the eyes—the beasts’ eyes—enlarged as they came towards the house. Snow kicked up behind the animals and Tommy hollered.
Tommy, Blue, and the coyotes converged. The predators took Blue by the leg as Tommy grabbed his collar. He pulled and the collar slid off Blue’s neck. The dog license and rabies tag jingling as Tommy tossed the collar to the side.
Snarls from the beasts. Yips from Blue. Tommy yelled at the animals and back to the house. “Mom, hurry!”
A shot rang out and one of the coyotes to the far side of Tommy yelped and dropped, then inverted its back in death, soon to be buried by the wind drift. The predators scattered and Tommy again grabbed for Blue. Not much to hold onto with his short hair. Tommy dug his fingers into the back of Blue’s neck, trying to find the fatty skinfolds, the scruff, that mother dogs use to carry their pups. At Blue’s age, the folds were less pronounced, but they were there. Tommy latched on and Blue whimpered.
They returned, biting into Blue’s legs.
“Move, Tommy, move, so I can shoot,” his mother yelled.
The beasts pulled, Tommy pulled, Blue yelped, and Tommy’s heart stopped when his grip slipped and all that remained was a handful of fur.
“Move, Tommy!”
The beasts retreated with Blue. Tommy fell to his knees. The shots rang out over his head and to the sides as Mom unloaded, almost randomly, into the darkness.
Mom ran to Tommy and helped him up as the howls and cries of celebration faded into the night. He turned to her, wiped the accumulating snow off his face as the tear tracks on his cheeks froze. He held his fist in the air, the iridescent handful of blue fur reflecting in the moonlight, and screamed into the night.
#
The green pointed canopies of conifers dotted the landscape when Tom set out for 99. Most of the snow had melted except the north side of slopes and boulders. Birds back from southern climates, and their screeching chicks, brought new melodies to the woods. The forest was alive with life, new and old. The recent rains surfaced earthworms from their tunnels. They laid on the trails like limp noodles. The birds would feed well. So would the coyotes off the newly born, mostly fawns and rabbit litters.
Tom had ditched his white winter gear for tiger-stripe BDUs. It was still cool this early in spring, so a pair of thermals was in order, especially if something happened and he got stuck in the woods overnight. Spraining an ankle, or worse, could mean a frozen death.
He structured a blind behind a fallen moss-coated log. It was just the right height to position the Ruger. Dew dripped from nearby spider webs and the soil was moist, too moist to lay upon for long. He laid his poncho down as a dry barrier. The crinkles of the plastic material gave his position away, but after time, five minutes, maybe ten, the forest would forget about him as long as he remained still.
About when the birds returned to chirping the head of 99 came out of a burrow. It had made a den under a tree stump, probably carved out by a skunk or racoon and adversely possessed by 99. He figured the former as he detected a slight odor—likely the skunk’s last defense before evacuating the burrow.
Tom placed a round into the Ruger and slid the bolt to chamber it. He slowed his breathing. The crosshairs went up and down until he finally zeroed onto 99’s head. It was looking back into the burrow, then to its surroundings, then back to the burrow. Number 99 was apprehensive about something.
The shot wasn’t ideal as the animal’s crown was barely above the stump. Too little area exposed. If he missed, it would be a while before the animal resurfaced. Maybe a day. Too long for Tom to survive in the cold, even Spring-time cold.
Tom returned to a relaxed position and eyed his immediate surroundings. The dripping dew on the spider web a few feet away began to drip more heavily. Droplets flicked to the mossy soil below the web. The spider—a black widow—was traversing her web causing the droplets to fall. She was poisonous for sure, but she was a few arm’s lengths away so Tom was safe for now. Plus, she would not leave her web, even to kill a fleeing mate and make herself a true widow.
Tom returned to the scope. 99 looked down and up and down and up and then did a full head turn surveying the landscape. 99’s apprehension was apparent now. A pup surfaced from the burrow. Same colors as the mother, but with an orange puff on top of its head.
“I can finish this today,” Tom whispered to himself. “99 and 100 in one outing.”
Still no clean shot for either, however.
#
Tom relaxed. He looked back to the spider web. The widow was moving more forcefully, undulating the web as she walked. He peered closer. Spiderlings, perhaps hundreds of them, were moving to the far side of the web.
#
Tom went back to the scope. The mother coyote was cleaning the pup, licking Orange Puff’s ear hairs strait, and then combing the puff with her paw. Orange Puff returned the licks to its mother’s face.
#
Tom opened his left eye, the one he squinted when looking through his scope, toward the web. The widow had traversed the web. The spiderlings fled to the far corner.
#
He closed his left eye and returned his right to the scope. The mother and pup were out of the den. The mother, rodent in mouth, moved away from the pup and with her back to it, concealed the rodent barely under the soil. She returned to the pup and signaled it to move by nudging its rear with her snout. The pup ventured forward, sniffing, pawing the soil, learning, until it found and uncovered the rodent.
“Facilitating,” Tom whispered under his breath, a word he learned long ago describing how animals—decent animals—teach their young.
#
He reopened his left eye. The web was undulating violently. The widow had its spiderlings congregated in the corner with nowhere to retreat.
#
Through the scope, Tom could see the mother coyote’s crown. A shot to her and the pup would crouch but not flee from her side. The second shot would be easy. The crosshairs were on the mother, finger on the trigger. Tom dialed back the power magnification of his scope. Both were now in view, side by side. The mother was again preening the pup, presumably praising it with licks for finding the rodent on its first lesson. She then allowed the pup to paw and play with its reward.
#
Back on the web, the spiderlings clinged and some fell to the forest floor. To safety. The widow had the first ones in her jaws. Each small enough to be consumed in a couple bites.
“Shitin’ bastards eat their own young,” Tom whispered.
#
Through the scope, the mother looked up. Tom’s best shot.
“Not missing like Mom did,” he said to himself.
The mother coyote’s head then returned to the pup, preening yet again with licks—not unlike Blue’s comforting licks—the pup pawing back playfully.
#
On the web, the widow’s jaws clamped over her spiderlings while they stacked up on each other with nowhere to go.
#
Tom powered-up the scope lens. The mother’s head was back in the cross hairs. Tom’s finger on the trigger.
Aim small, miss small.
Let the shot surprise you.
The pup’s snout and tongue entered the scope’s view. It continued to lick its mother.
“Ugh,” Tom exhale-gasped and he dropped his trigger hand to the log with a thud.
The widow felt the reverberations through the web and paused consuming her young. The birds stopped chirping and Orange Puff’s mother looked back towards Tom, through
the scope and into his eye.
#
Tom walked through his hallway counting the mounted skulls as he passed them. He approached plaques 99 and 100. He reached up with the Ruger, holding it by the seat and pointing downwards. He placed the strap on the hook of 99. On 100 he hung his boonies hat.
Tom turned, walked back to the hallway light switch, and flipped it off. The bulbs flickered to darkness but the light glow of the skulls remained. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to stop living young Tommy’s revenge. But for now, he was willing to try.
— MICHAEL CARTER
Michael Carter is a writer and occasional photographer from Montana. His stories appear regularly in literary magazines and journals, and his most bothersome flash fiction was collected in Boneyard Tales (Greenbelt Press 2022). He has also published a cover feature with Mystery & Suspense Magazine and won the Molotov Cocktail‘s 2022 Flash Monster Contest. He enjoys fly fishing, RVing, and walking his dog Hubbell. He’s online at www.linktr.ee/mcmichaelcarter.