Foxes and Fireworks

The dogs were down, and all was warm and toasty. It was a few hours after dusk and all was well. We were tucked in, reading in bed after a nice dinner and a long day. I was enjoying the luxurious, relaxed feeling of being in a good book, slowly sliding down the pleasant glide path into dreamland. Then we heard something.

The sound was faint at first, then came closer, filling the room faintly like evil smoke coming in the corners of the windows. It was a complex, wild howling that sent shivers through us and made us flip down the books and stare at the wall to concentrate.

The yawling wails sounds rose and fell, like death screams for disembodied spirits, or a special effects sound machine being dismantled with a vicious pair of pliers. Yet these were no electronic sound effects. These eerie, scary, wrawling yips and screams were being made by live creatures, unseen, prowling, surrounding us in the darkness.

Even though we were inside our stone fortress, the primeval fear lit up like a mortar shell – it felt like these things could come flying through the doors and windows into our cozy bed. Daisy went on full alert, black fur raised along her spine, watching the entrance. She was dead quiet, eyes and head darting towards any change in the sound. When she doesn’t even growl it’s serious.

It sounded like this:


Being The Man, I got up bravely leapt out of bed and marched out the bedroom door to the hall and over to the door that goes outside. Yanked it open decisively. Wanted to hear better. Find out what this was all about. Instantly the space was filled with loud howling and screaming, wild yips like demonic spirits on holiday. Holy Crap. I’d never heard anything like it before.

Except that I had. Several days before, I’d been out in the field and heard a similar wild sound erupt from the forest just up the hill. Right in broad daylight and chillingly close. It was an exceedingly strange experience, and it stilled me.

Later that day I’d spied Dale, our neighbor farmer who looks like a wizened pirate straight from Central Casting, driving his tractor through a nearby field. I went over to ask if he knew what the hell that was all about. His dull green, 14 foot tall 1,200 horsepower tractor shuddered to a dieselly halt (well I exaggerate –it’s actually only 56 HP – but the wheels are as tall as I am and it’s a damn big machine). Dale shook out a smoke and lit it, looking up the hillside through a squinting eye weathered by thousands of hours in the sun, and drawled, “Coyotes feeding their pups. They get real excited, when Mom and Pop come home with fresh meat. There’s a den of them over t’other side of George’s farm.”

“But it sounded so damn LOUD, Dale!” I was still a little shaken. Just a tad. “Like they were right up there beyond those trees!”

“Prob’ly an echo,” he opined in his typically imperturbable manner. Nothing much gets Dale going unless it’s someone interfering with his farming, and then watch out. We jawed about it for a bit then he said he’d be getting on with his farming. He flashed his brilliant boyish grin, which is always kind of pleasantly jarring on a face that looks like one of those three-toothed gnome dolls made of dried apples topped with wild white hair, and rumbled off.

I recalled this conversation as a fresh crop of fluttering yips penetrated my eardrums. I muttered to myself, “that’s no echo.” These night-prowling hairy scary beings were right there in the yard, invading our space, and scaring the hell out of us.

I pulled on a robe, shoved my feet into my Frogman all-weather neoprene slip-on boots ($44.50 from Duluth Trading Co.), grabbed my Remington 22, fumbled in a clip, and marched out to the wide front porch, every inch the stalwart defender of life, wife and property.

I stood there shaking a little (from the cold), and peered around. They were still out there, yelling and howling and trading insults. To the left about 40 yards away, over by the telephone pole in George’s field, one of the grey ghosts started a devilish doxology. He’d let out a rippling phrase and the others would yip and howl back from all their positions. Night spirits worshipping who knows what goblins.

The ringleader stayed put and the others seemed to be moving around, sounding for all I knew as if they were in the yard and around the barn. Angling for a good layout for an attack, maybe. Couldn’t tell how close they were but they sounded as if they were just yards away.

I could imagine them bounding up the stairs, wild black wraiths, intent on biting into my throat, taking me down. There was nothing between me and those over-sized canine teeth but my gun. I imagined them swirling around in the invisible inky dark like predatory wolves, setting up the kill. And the kill was going to be me.

I lifted the rifle, pointed it at the phone pole. I could almost see that coyote, could almost aim right at him. My finger wrapped stealthily around the trigger, ready for action.

Now this was profoundly stupid. First of all I couldn’t actually see the telephone pole, much less the animal. You never, ever shoot into the darkness, especially where you can’t even see a target. Second, even a really skilled hunter has trouble getting close enough to a coyote to shoot. Third, pointing that gun was plain pointless. It was just a primeval defensive motion, a gesture.

They weren’t about to attack me. In fact they could have cared less.

I was later told that those coyotes were just out having a good time. Tom Elliot, now a state wildlife biologist, spent seven years as a full-time coyote hunter in a neighboring county. “Fact is, I lived closer to them than my own family” he told me, then chuckled softly, “which is why I don’t hunt them any more.” I detected a bit of wistfulness in the comment. It’s a funny thing about real hunters and their attitude towards game. There is a deep respect, almost a kind of love, between the hunter and the prey.

He went on, “Let me tell you one thing about those sounds you heard. If you could hear them, they were letting you hear them. They live all around you, but you’ll never know it unless they are just out socializing. They don’t howl when they’re hunting.”

Oh. We’d eavesdroppped on a coyote social event.

This information left me feeling pretty silly, flat and unsatisfied. I also felt ticked off that they partied through our pleasant sleep and across our property, got our dogs riled and no doubt had the chickens terrified. I decided to look further into coyotes.

Coyotes don’t attack humans. According to Eastern Coyote Research, there has only been one coyote-caused fatality in all the recorded history of North America. In contrast, there are 4.7 million dog bites each year in the US, with over 1,000 people a day going to emergency rooms, leading to 15-20 deaths a year. You can tell this info came from a coyote advocate site.

Coyotes do eat cats and dogs. Pets aren’t their normal food, but they’ll have a beagle for lunch if one comes into range and they’re hungry. Normally nocturnal hunters, coyotes rarely come out in the daytime (except in suburban areas but that’s another place and story).

But at the time, I didn’t know all this. Out there on the porch, gripping that gun, I stood guard until the marauders had moved on down the way, across Raymond’s fields and away into the dark blue night and silence. Then I went back to bed.

Three weeks later it happened again. Nancy was petrified. Once again I went out, this time freshly informed, more out of curiosity than fear. That night I just listened. Them there wily coyotes seemed to be moving down the hill, as if on patrol through part of their range.

Considering the fact that Nancy threatens to leave the house each time she hears those scary howls, and the 10 chickens, 3 cats and 2 dogs we have living here on the edge of the forest, it was time to Do Something. I called Darrin.

Darrin and I conferred, and conceived a Plan. In the first stage, he’d come up very early one morning with a special calling device and a buddy who like him is an experienced hunter and a crack shot. They’d set up the calling device and take up positions, “up there on the hill, upwind,” explained our intrepid hunt director, “Coyotes always circle around downwind so they can come up on their prey undetected.”

The FoxPro caller is pretty high tech. It’s got a powerful speaker and hundreds of pre-recorded animal cries, howls, yips, barks, chirps, gobbles, cheeps, rustlings, moans, and other animal intonations. Pick the animal, pick the attractive tones of the female in heat or the probing sounds of the intruding male, press the button, and “they come a-runnin’, or they’re s’posed to, anyways,” as Darrin put it. It’s controlled by radio so the hunters can be well away, out of olfactory range. “It even has a furry tail that flips around and looks like a coyote tail,” said Darrin.

They were to arrive pre-dawn, set up and see if they could call in a male in the barely visible morning light. The idea was to kill the male, the purpose of which to remove a key player and warn off the others.

Did I say kill? As in kill the poor coyote? Yes, I did. I emphatically do not want to have my chickens, cats or especially my dogs killed for a coyote luncheon. It is clearly not possible to sit down and talk reason with these hunters. I figure that if they won’t leave we will evict them by any means necessary, the sooner the better. It’s us agin’ them.

Darrin, not one to cause unnecessary cruelty to the wild animals he works with daily, concurs. He won’t use foot traps, but he will shoot coyotes and he’ll use snares. He’s had success with both.

Dawn came early and went. No sign of Darrin, no yips or yells, no shots. No hits, no runs, no score. He and buddy were out there alright but nothing worked. No coyotes came. Contacted later, he ruefully reported only one result, “We did call in a fox, though.” Typical result when coyote hunting in field and woods. Just too many hiding places and the opponent is too wily. “Those damn foxes really get in the way,” he said disgustedly.

A few weeks later, we heard the coyote chorus again, and again Darrin responded. Phase Two. This time, he’d come up alone, at night. He’d go away’s up in George’s cornfield, up near the treeline, set up the caller, move upwind and try again. I quickly spotted the obvious flaw. It was in the waning moon phase and there would be no moonlight. Feeling pretty savvy, like a real country boy, I rather cockily asked, “OK, but how are you going to see? It’s pitch black out there this time of the month!”

“Red light beam,” grinned the ever savvy Darrin. “Coyotes can’t see in the red spectrum. I point my red light, spot the animal, then flip on my high power hunting light and shoot before they can react.”

He showed me his rifle. Looking vaguely like a lightweight field version of something the Terminator would carry, this was a business-like gun with camouflage patterns covering the stock and barrel, a long sighting scope, another tube for the red beam emitter, and a squat, compact halogen light for lighting up the target. With optics, reticles, batteries, sighting adjustments, light sources, and various tubes and stealth graphics, this was a far cry from Daniel Boone’s musket.

On the evening of the appointed day, we shut the chickens in their coop, blockaded the cats in the barn and got the dogs in. Had some dinners, I guess. I forget. Long about 9 PM we went out onto the porch. Just to get some air. Of course I was curious to know if we could hear the caller, or hear any shots, etc. Nothing much happened.

Then we sensed more than saw a little flash of red light, a long ways away, high up on the hill over in George’s cornfield. Then silence.

Then a faint yip. And again. Then silence. Hunting involves a lot of silence, I guess. There was a fair amount of it that evening.

We sat there, breath not exactly bated but feeling like vicarious partners on the hunt.

A Yip! “I bet that’s one of them, come to investigate!” I whispered excitedly. “Hope so,” muttered Nancy, shivering a bit. More flashes of red. Darrin moving his red light around. I could just imagine him getting one of the critters in sight. We didn’t move a muscle.

All of a sudden the sky exploded into brilliant flashes of light. It was like the Fourth of July on the Capitol Mall in Washington, D.C. Skyrockets, flares, exploding shells. Cascades of straw-colored streamers in the sky. Crimson explosions and magenta dots of light floating down. Kaboom!

We looked at each other, dumbfound. “What the hell is that!” we said, almost simultaneously. It wasn’t Darrin, that’s for sure.

About 20 degrees off to the right, over the far ridge and down the valley, someone was lighting off tons of fireworks. Right in the middle of the night, for no apparent reason. We could see flares of colored light edging the outline of the ridge then from behind would stream up a rocket and then we’d see another massive explosion. These were serious fireworks! Not like you buy in a box for the 4th. Professional grade. Huge.

It went on for a long time. Boom! Boom! Flashes and flares. Had to admit it was a pretty nice display but our enjoyment was marred both by the inexplicability of it, and concern for Darrin, up there in the dark.

I could just imagine poor Darrin high on the hill, cold and hunkered down, stealthily having set up his caller and hidden in the bushes, now gnashing his teeth as the coyotes ran miles away. I felt for him, just imagining his frustration and fury at having the hunt spoiled by this extremely odd, bizarrely untimely aerial display.

About 15 minutes after it was over, we heard a knock on the door. Darrin, come to report.

I asked him, with a hint of mano-a-mano compassion in my voice if he wasn’t ticked off about the fireworks, and wasn’t it really WEIRD?

He just looked at me.

I looked back. “The fireworks,” I said, “wasn’t that strange? I bet it drove all the coyotes into the next county.”

He gazed back at me, with an odd tilt to his head, as if thinking, what are you talking about, and said, “What fireworks?”

Dumbfounded for the second time that night, I bugged my eyes out, and then realized he was serious. I explained what we’d seen. Told him about the way the sky was lit up for miles around. The sounds of exploding fireworks and the far-away whistle of rockets going up. The cascades of brilliant showering colors filling the night sky.

He shook his head slowly with that down-gazing attitude that out here indicates deep commiseration about the many unsolvable mysteries of life. Then he glanced up and said, “Never saw ëem. Never heard a thing!”

It was my turn to stare. A mystery indeed. My mind rocketed around trying to resolve it – but he was closer, he couldn’t possibly have missed – but the noise – how could he not... Then I realized I’d never solve this one.

I let it go, gathered up and asked the obvious question, “How’d you do?”

He gazed out, gathering his memories of the night and said, “No coyotes. But I did call in a couple of foxes, a little red fox and bigger grey. Those damn foxes. Always getting in the way.”

And with that he grinned, picked up his rifle, and drove away home.

We never did find out what those fireworks were all about. Nobody else we asked knew anything, either.