Rose in a Storm

by Jon Katz

  While Sam checked the deicers on the water tanks, which would go out if the power went, Rose lay down and studied the sheep, looking them over one by one, challenging the difficult ones, giving them plenty of eye.

  Sam got back into the tractor and hauled straw up to the pole barn and spread it around to make warm bedding for the sheep, then he stuffed the wooden feeders. As he drove, Rose ran alongside the tractor, barking at it, trying to herd it, perhaps, or move it to a different spot. Sam yelled at her to get away, but these were commands she ignored, or perhaps simply didn’t hear. Sam was never sure, though he had his suspicions.

  Because there wasn’t enough room to drive the tractor up to the goat pen, which was up a slope and beyond a narrow gate, Sam had to carry hay there by hand. He made a half dozen trips to stow bales under a flimsy plywood roof. He suspected the snow would cover them up quickly—the roof was designed as protection from rain, not blowing snow, but it might keep enough snow off that the goats might have half a chance to dig the food out.

  Rose watched but kept her distance. She had as little use for goats as she did for barn cats, and they were almost completely incorrigible, ignoring her, or even taunting her, if she tried to move them. The goats were potentially functional, part of Sam’s experimentation with organic milk and cheese. Still, he disliked them almost as much as Rose did, as they were loud, obnoxious, and nearly impossible to control. They were a world apart from his beef cows, who loved nothing more than to graze quietly, off by themselves.

  Sam had also sold spinach and carrots to farmers’ markets in New York and Philadelphia. He used to talk to Rose while they worked, outlining the business plans he and Katie were developing. Farming needed to grow food to survive, in addition to raising dairy cows. He said farmers had to change, and that he intended for Granville Farm to try different things. He knew, of course, that Rose didn’t understand what he was saying, but she clearly liked being consulted, having Sam’s attention, and she cocked her head intently as if she were getting every word.

  Since Katie’s death, though, Sam rarely spoke to Rose about his business plans, or much else.

  He rarely spoke at all.

  Sam put the plow attachment on the tractor, then drove it back into the barn. If the forecasts were right about the size and severity of the storm, he wouldn’t be able to use it for at least a few days. Sam had heard stories of storms like this—they were overwhelming, paralyzing. So much snow fell, and so fast, that it became impossible to get hay or water to the animals. He had seen photos of livestock frozen to the ground where they stood, hunger and cold draining the life from them.

  AS THE MORNING progressed, and the storm drew nearer, Rose’s instincts were kicking in, stirring memories and images in her mind. She pictured, in her diverse mental inventory, the hawks, raccoons, weasels, badgers, foxes, and coyotes that, if pressed by hunger, would circle the farm, probe the fence, scramble over drifts once the storm arrived.

  While Sam parked the tractor, Rose lay her head on the ground, her tail curled up around her. She wondered about the old wild dog she often saw running around the woods. She wondered where he was, and what he would do in the storm.

  She heard a sound out in the trees. It was not far from the barn, but Sam could not have heard it. It might have been the wild dog, or it might have been one of the coyotes that were out hunting the night before. Rose had been dreaming about them, hearing their soft footpads tracking in the night.

  She lifted her nose to the flood of smells that was the world, and one that was becoming stronger. She could smell things outside even when she was in the farmhouse, and she could absorb and sift scent over great distance, through woods and storms. As scents entered her awareness, images appeared to correspond with them.

  Earlier, she had caught the scent of snow on the wind, and ice, and then deer, then the old wild dog that ran through the woods, then eggs in a nest, a hundred kinds of scat, and raccoons and chickens, and the dead and frozen petals of flowers and dead leaves, and rabbits and mice. Some of the scents she caught could be miles away, and she couldn’t necessarily tell how close they were, but she knew if a smell was within her range.

  Now the smell was becoming clearer. It was the scent of coyote, sharp, musty, mixed with blood, fur, saliva, mud, grass, and brush—all of which flashed through her mind as images when she scented them. From the smell, she could tell the coyote was far off now and deep in the woods.

  But it had come close, right across the road.

  THREE

  ROSE KNEW—THOUGH SAM DID NOT—THAT THERE WAS A coyote den across the road in the woods, practically in the shadow of the farmhouse.

  She ran down to the road beside the farmhouse. She never stopped to look for cars or trucks, which only registered when she heard their sound. When they did get her attention, she herded or chased, then tried to run them off.

  Sam was always excited and unhappy when she was near the road, yelling at her to come back, or to stop when she chased after cars and trucks. She did not understand his alarm. Rose was attuned to Sam, and obeyed almost all of his commands instantly, but this was one command she often disregarded. Her instincts overwhelmed her experience, even her judgment.

  It was about midday now, and it began to snow again. Rose sensed the heavy flakes of snow before they landed on her—she could hear them falling, far up in the clouds—and began to settle on the ground. Unlike the light fine snow of the night before, these flakes were thick, wet, and they landed with a soft hiss. Rose heard them as quiet thuds, and they fell more rapidly than any she had ever seen. They began to stick to the path, and the wind began to rise, making the flakes swirl. When she had first crossed the road, she could see far down the path, but now, just a minute later, she couldn’t see more than a few hundred yards.

  She was headed down past the meadow, through the driving snow, into the trees.

  RUNNING THROUGH THE WOODS, Rose heard raccoons and cows, and far away the barking of dogs. She also heard the wind whipping through trees, the sounds of the snow falling, the skittering of animals beneath the surface of the ground.

  She heard bugs, worms, bats sighing in trees—rabbits asleep, termites gnawing, plants shrinking and changing. And beyond that—cars, trucks far off, tractors, airplanes. As she ran, she was constantly sifting and sorting the sounds, organizing them, figuring out which were close, which far, what was work, what wasn’t, what mattered, what didn’t. She saw all that she needed to see, little else.

  The forest was a pinwheel to her, spinning sounds and sights and smells, whirling things that stimulated her. They were stories, they brought out memories, excitement, opened the vast and ancient library in her mind.

  When Rose ran through the woods, often early in the morning or late at night, when Sam was asleep or busy, it was a dazzling, exciting world to her. At those times she felt alive, powerful, at peace, the colors, cries, and smells pouring through and into her, absorbing her. Rose remembered, stored, sorted. She could recall any of them in an instant, and together they made the most beautiful and intense pictures, vivid image streams of life.

  Rose did not see only leaves and trees and bushes—although she saw those, too—but also too many other tales to count. She saw bright and dark colors, the glare of the sun and the cool light of the moon, and she heard the sounds of paws and hooves, the flapping of wings, the burrowing of moles and mice and chipmunks and the slithering of frogs and snakes. She heard cries, squeaks, yips, the sounds of birth, death, panic, flight, the sounds of leaves growing, dying, decaying, leaving their mark, sometimes individually, sometimes as an unremarkable mass.

  ROSE WAS SEEKING the coyote, the leader of the coyotes, and she knew that he was seeking her as well. He would have known of her presence the second she crossed into the woods, and he would either be waiting or not.

  An image of their first meeting flashed before Rose. It had happened when she was younger, confident in her work and strength. She had come across this coyote pup, lost and disor
iented in the woods. She had stared at him, given him the eye, looked around to see if there was a mother. He had been playful, grabbing sticks, tossing them in the air, growling and running in circles, oblivious to the fact that, away from his pack, he was in danger.

  Rose had seen a fox, watching up on the hill, and she had growled, stared it down, chased it off. She stood still, while the pup had drawn closer, and she had nuzzled him and led him toward the rocks where she knew the den was. It was something she had seen her mother do—to her, and to the other pups.

  When the mother returned to the den, the coyote pup had run to her, then paused and looked back at Rose. That was the moment Rose and the coyote first became known to each other. After that encounter, she and the pup had an understanding. From then on, they’d cross paths in the woods several times a season.

  THERE HAD BEEN that one night, well before she had found the pup in the woods. It was clear in Rose’s memory, had shaped her consciousness. She remembered it often, still trying to understand it.

  It had been a very different kind of day from this one, hot and sticky, with a bright sun that gave way to a nearly full moon. The moon lit up the sky and the ground, sprinkling the farm and the woods and fields with shadows. There was no breeze, the air was still, and sounds and smells moved freely and far through the night. Like most animals, Rose was always restless when the moon was large. She rarely slept on such nights.

  When the moon was this big, the forest was mad with activity, the coyotes, foxes, owls, and other animals of the night signaling to one another and to the moon, in hoots, barks, and howls. Rose loved this eerie and ancient symphony, and once or twice had looked up at the moon and howled herself.

  She had spent the day running in the heat, with a long tongue, and then sat down in the creek to cool herself. At night, Rose could not get comfortable in the closed-in farmhouse. On hot nights she often went to the porch, where she would hop up onto the cushion on the wicker chair and sleep, occasionally lifting her head, hoping to snare a breeze. This night, when the breeze carried the howls from the far meadows, she was almost lifted off the chair, as if hypnotized.

  She left the porch, jumped over the short front fence, and headed out into the woods to follow the sounds. They were high, playful, and were almost immediately answered by howls, yips, and barks. It seemed this night that they were calling to her, and she set out to find the source.

  Rose would never leave her work: There was nothing beyond the farm that was better or more important. But that night she trotted through the forest, mesmerized by the sounds, cutting through the shadows, the bushes, the moss, unnerving the owls, scattering the mice. She went on to the stream, which was shallow and easy to run across. She had never been so far from the farm without Sam’s company, yet she felt no hesitation or timidity now. It felt almost like running home.

  At the same time, though, the journey made her uneasy. This was not her world.

  At some point, Rose slowed and went into a work crouch, listening, watching, sniffing carefully, aware of every movement and sound and smell around her. She proceeded slowly, almost at a crawl, so softly she could not hear herself. Aware of the light and shadows cast by the bright moon, her ears were back, her tail was down, her eyes were wide as an owl’s. She was alert, ready to fight, freeze, or run. The sounds were near enough now that she knew precisely where they were. She was close.

  She startled some rabbits, who bounded across the brush in front of her. After a little while she came to the edge of a vast, broad meadow, bounded on two sides by a creek. Nestled under a stand of tall trees, she saw what she had come to see. She was transfixed.

  She moved no closer, pressing herself flat to the ground.

  It was a large gathering of coyotes, several dens and their pups scattered in a rough semicircle near the creek. There were all sizes and ages and colors, some a yellowish brown, others tawny gray, some whitish in color. Some of their tails were scraggly, some bushy; most had pointed muzzles. A few outside the circle seemed frightened, and tucked their tails between their legs, skulking at the outskirts of the group, staying near the woods.

  Most had gathered right by the creek. An animal lay dead and dismembered right by the water—it smelled to Rose like a large turkey. Puppies yipped in high-pitched voices, chased one another, and stole each other’s sticks and food. Mothers yipped and called for their children. Some of the males sniffed one another and the air, and looked up at the moon, barking, yipping, sometimes howling in long, piercing cries that soared across the meadow and were eaten up by the deep woods.

  To Rose, they seemed carefree, joyous. Although these were strange emotions to her, she did recognize them and had seen them in some of the other animals on the farm.

  She had never seen her mother play. She had seen her siblings play when she was a puppy and recognized it for what it was, but didn’t grasp the point of it, or its feel. She did not hang around with other dogs. She did not relish tug-of-war or chase balls.

  In the nearly full moon, glittering off the creek and lighting up the meadow, the coyotes stood out, backlit. Rose could hardly take her eyes off them.

  The coyotes moved in circles, back and forth. They threw twigs in the air, raced in circles around one another, again and again, as if each one knew where to go, what to do. The older ones stayed in the center, the younger ones moved chaotically on the fringe.

  Their speed was dizzying, and their howls and yips piercing and strange. Their eyes glowed, and they drooled and shook, their spittle and fur flying in the light.

  It was clear to her that this was not work, and not really play either, but something old and deep and free. They tossed pieces of the dead meat into the air, and chased after them, pausing to share and roll in the scent and blood.

  For the first time, she had some sense of the drama of food. Hers was given to her, but the coyotes had to find theirs, and this, more than any other thing, was what shaped the difference between her and them. She had her work, but food was their work.

  Rose stared motionless at the group for a long time, nearly until first light, and then, backing away slowly until it was safe, turned and began the long run back to the farmhouse, the yips and howls echoing in her mind.

  She was not cautious now, but free herself, sure of where she was going, unafraid of being seen, scattering the night creatures of the forest as she ran faster and faster.

  It was about a year later that Rose had encountered the coyote pup on the path. After that, when she and this young coyote met in the woods, usually by chance, they didn’t avoid each other as dogs and coyotes usually did. They sat and stared at each other, sometimes for minutes, then moved off. There was no fear, no aggression, no wariness between them. They had breached the wall between the two species, connected in the parts that were the same.

  The coyote pup had grown, had become the leader of his den. He kept away from the farm, and kept his pack away, too. Like dogs, coyotes understood the rules and usually followed them. Even though they were feared and hunted, they understood that hunting prey in the woods—young deer, rabbits, turkey—was safer and easier than venturing near humans, fences, and dogs.

  TODAY, as the storm approached, pictures rushed through Rose’s mind, driving her out into the woods. In a storm like this one, there was only one rule: Survive. And there were few better survivors in the animal world than coyotes. The young leader would do what he had to do for his den, and Rose would do what she had to do to protect the farm.

  They were both working creatures. Unlike the farm animals, Rose respected the coyote enough to come find him in the forest, to study him. She was curious.

  Rose had heard, smelled, and seen the evidence of the coyote’s work and ferocity and skill: bones and fur and signs of struggle all over the woods and paths near the farm. She understood the running tracks that suddenly stopped, and the drag marks into the forest. She saw the ability of coyotes to work together, in a way that was different from any of the other animals she knew, in
cluding dogs.

  The farm animals almost never worked together, and were especially helpless against predators who did. Almost all farm animals hewed to the laws of the domestic animal—fight or flight. If they could do neither, they simply accepted their fate and perished.

  When coyotes went to work, she saw, they functioned as a unit, efficiently and ruthlessly, communicated clearly through howls, barks, and yips. They killed quickly, going for the throat, dismembering, collecting pieces of their prey, hauling them off to their dens. Rose saw their stories in the sounds, smells, and tracks of the woods. Images of their lives ran through her mind.

  Rose often ran with the coyotes in her mind.

  AS THE SNOW began to accumulate on the leaves and the upper branches of the trees, as the sky darkened, Rose came to the place where she expected the coyote to be waiting for her. She saw—sensed—well ahead of where she was that the coyote was here, and that he was aware of her. She came to a stop, seeing his eyes first. He had sensed her arrival as well.

  He was sitting near a fallen tree, waiting for her, as she’d known he would be. He would have been aware from the second she came onto the path that she was coming, would have heard it and felt it through his paws. The storm had brought them both out.

  Rose understood this encounter was out of the routine. In blood and memory, she was much closer to a coyote than a sheep. But her time working on the farm had honed a powerful protective instinct. The coyotes threatened the sheep. In that sense, they were a danger. Linked though they were, their lives had taken them in very different directions.

  Like all dogs, she gloried in the familiar, was wary of the unusual. And she had always recognized Sam’s intense reaction to coyotes. Mostly, he was unaware of them, but when he did see or hear them he seemed angry and threatened, reaching for a gun, grabbing a flashlight, scanning the woods and the pastures.