The last coyote

I had to be out in the North Ranges at 6am this morning for a lengthy inspection. I drove my little work ranger around the base of the hills, at the edge of the dry lakebed, and the sun rose copper red behind smoke from a fire in the North. The light was dim, but not dark.

As I drove slowly over an unfinished road re-pave, a coyote wondered out of the desert in front of my truck. I stopped. He stopped and sat down. We stared at each other for an eternity. It felt like he looked in to my soul. It felt like we were the only two beings left on Earth. The last man and the last coyote.

With a Yip, he finally stood up and walked away.

I drove on.

Morning

The sun was up in the clear and bright blue sky, hanging over the Eastern hills and warming the morning. What was probably the last of the sporadic cold winter storms had moved through the day before, and and a mist hung above the desert floor. It enveloped the base of the hills and stretched across the dry lake bed, giving everything a dreamy quality, almost like something you would see in a movie or read in a book.

He looked at the road out of town. Normally it seemed like it stretched endlessly across the empty desert, but now it disappeared in to the haze. He looked back at his car, his only possession. and new it was just a matter of time. 

Okay dear reader, I’m not sure where this came from, but it came. It popped in my head this morning as I was driving home from my girlfriends and saw the mist that was caused from yesterdays rain evaporating. I kinda like it, seems to be the opening of a story. Maybe more will come later.