One at a time, a pack of coyotes, inching closer.
Every time I think they’ve lost interest, moved on, a twig snaps or the thick growth of saplings on either side whispers of an intruder.
Sharp barks break out from one side, then high-pitched yips from another. A couple of howls, eerie and distant.
Testing my perimeter. Testing me.
It doesn’t help that their night vision far outperforms mine. But the glowing eastern horizon evens the playing field until the canines move off at last.
Could’ve been worse. Could’ve crossed paths with a mountain lion or grizzly. Or most dangerous, a bull moose.
Still, as the sky brightens and burns, I’m relieved to have my rifle.
Nature didn’t play fair last night. Traps turned up empty. Nothing to lug home.
Doesn’t matter. It still provides. Just on its own time.
Back home, the Rhode Island Red hens strut around their coop, clucking their morning chorus. Fluffing feathers, squawking, preening, and fighting over roosting bars.
I grab the metal bucket I keep by the front porch and collect their eggs. A dozen beautiful brown ones.
Soon flames lick over cedar in the fire pit where I cook my morning meal. The smoke fills my nostrils, earthy and rustic with warm balsam overtones. I flip my brown Carhartt collar up against the high-elevation chill as I cook.
Salt pork sizzles in the pan, grease crackling and flying, then some of this morning’s eggs with big yellow yolks the color of daffodils. A pot of hot coffee already sits next to me. I drink it black and gritty.
The San Juan Mountains glow red and majestic as the sunlight hits them. An eagle pierces the quiet overhead, broad wingspan blocking out the sun for one breath.
But after daybreak, songbirds rule the airwaves. Warbling, chirping, singing, doing whatever the hell they do. Never been a birder or anything like that. I just like the way nature sounds.
The kind of silence that isn’t really silence once you learn how to listen to it. That helped after the world fell apart.
Following breakfast and cleanup, I chop wood until the Carhartt and gray flannel come off and steam rises from my skin. I like tasks I can measure, complete with my strength and bare hands. That’s what I trust.
The rest—civilization, people, all of it?
Hell no.
Because they don’t take the time to understand. And I don’t feel the need to explain.
Never have.
I pile wood by the fireplace in my one-room cabin. Everything tidy, ordered. The Marines sharpened the worst parts of me—especially the need for control.
Standing in the shadow of the trees, still shirtless, I hear a high-pitched buzz whiz past my head. I slap my hand to my shoulder and pull back a blood streak with a little black body.
Mosquitoes. Never did like them. One of nature’s inventions I may never figure out.
Though, really, there are plenty of those.
The woods go quiet first. Takes me half a cup of coffee to notice.
I don’t like when that happens.
Could be a big predator on the move, something not right. My eyes scan, ears straining, body tuning in to the feeling of something nearby. Maybe watching.
Learned that from hunting and the Marines. When you’re being watched, you can feel the laser-focus, the intent.
But nope. It’s worse.
