Don’t Shoot!

My husband was going to shoot him when we first saw him on the monitor. John was by no means a hunter. Or a killer. Although he had killed chickens before I met him. To feed the three growing boys he had with his first wife. At that time, they could not afford to buy meat at a grocery store. Now that he was doing better financially and all his children were grown with their own families, John sees no necessity in killing to eat. He prefers to let someone else do the killing. It was not something he enjoyed doing.

However, the security camera placed around our home in the mountains caught a predator in the murky sunset lighting. I say predator because we had smaller dogs in our family. What we saw was bigger and not acting like a domesticated animal.

So John got his gun.

We have several guns in our home for protection – not killing. I won’t touch them, even though I quite enjoy firing one, including semi-automatic refiles. I enjoyed shooting too much. I didn’t tempt myself with all that power.

The guns were only kept in the house. To defend us. There would probably be little use for them, but just in case … A stranger in our home was too intimate a threat to not have a defense. Although the death penalty for stealing or looting wasn’t what my husband or I believed in either. We counted on fear working both ways.

After John retrieved a gun, he looked at the monitor once again to see where the animal was. As the night vision began to kick in, what John now saw, with a little more clarity, gave him pause.

“I don’t think it is,” he told me.

“You don’t?” I asked, looking more closely too.

John shook his head. “But I’m going to check.” He made his way out of the house and went outside. Our dogs, laying on their beds in front of the woodstove, didn’t even bother to raise their heads as he passed. They were happy basking in our home’s warmth.

I continued to stare at the monitor, knowing which side John was coming from off-camera. Raising its head from the ground it had been sniffing, I saw the creature look in John’s direction.

My fear heightened slightly for my husband’s safety. And also for the animal. I wanted to protect our dogs, but I still felt empathy for this other living being whose ground we had built a house.

Since we moved to the woods, we had peace with the wildlife. They had left us alone, and we had left them alone. We fed the birds and deer. We had cut down some dead trees and planted some things that usually don’t grow in the woods. But overall, nature had adjusted to our house’s presence filled with our creature comforts – internet, WIFI, a wood stove, blankets, pillow, chairs, and sofas. Most of which our own indoor domesticated “creatures” enjoyed very much!

The animal on the monitor made to flee in the opposite direction from John. Yet stopped mid recoil. It continued to look in John’s direction, its silhouette very still now.

After a few long moments, John appeared on the monitor, his hand out. The gun was nowhere in sight. As he slowly approached the creature, it lengthened its neck to him. When John’s hand and the animal’s nose touched, I held my breath, anticipating what would happen now.

It seemed to sniff his hand. Finding what it needed, it moved closer to John and began sniffing his feet, legs, groin, torso.

I started breathing again and took off to see IRL what was happening. Our dogs managed to get off their beds to follow me. Both John and I were outside now. They wouldn’t be left behind.

When I made it to the screened-in porch, I called out to John. “Are you ok?” I didn’t hear any gunshots, snarling, or grunting. But I wanted to make sure nothing horrible had happened in the time between my leaving the monitor and going outside.

“I’m fine,” I heard him call out. “It’s not a coyote.”

“It’s a dog?” I asked, feeling enough relief to step out from the protection of the porch. Closing the door, I left our now yapping dogs there.

“Yes,” John confirmed. “And he looks like a ‘Harley.’”

“What?” I asked, confused.

“He doesn’t have a collar, but looking at him, I’m pretty sure his name is ‘Harley.’”

I smiled. My husband had two Harley Davison motorcycles. All his t-shirts, jackets, and boots were branded with the HD name, shield, or insignia. He was a fan. Evidently, so was our new dog, whether “Harley” liked the motorcycles or not. (He hated the noise they made.)

John walked back – gun holstered – through a dusky, evening light with a tall dog that was lean, long-legged, and had a bushy tail but not as bushy as a coyote’s. That tail was now wagging. As man and dog came closer, I could see the dog was brown-colored and panting, quite happy at John’s side.

After giving me a passing glance, the dog went up to the screened-in porch door and observed the two dogs inside. They all sniffed at each other through the door. Seemingly satisfied, our dogs moved away, bored already by the evening’s excitement.

When John and I reached the door, Harley looked up at us as if to say, “Could you please let me in and open the door. I don’t have hands.”

I reached over, turned the handle, and pulled open the door. Harley walked in nonchalantly and greeted his new brothers. John and I followed him.

That was how our family rescued a “coyote,” who looked like a “Harley.”