Coyote Read Online Free PDF Page A

smart. As she began to walk up the sidewalk she heard a scrabbling and a clicking in the wreckage behind her. She saw the dog, standing on top of an overturned door, watching her, ears pricked. She stopped and looked at it. It looked back at her. Well, she supposed the dog could do what it wanted. She continued walking.
    Reaching the top of her block, she turned right, intending to tread familiar paths on her way out of her neighborhood. Soon she heard the dog’s footfalls behind her. It trotted past her, then stopped a few steps in front of her, standing sideways across the sidewalk. She stepped toward it and its ears laid back and she heard the familiar low growling again. She turned onto the lawn of the next house, intending to go around, but the dog moved to block her with a snarl.
    Standing, she watched the dog. It was looking down the street, in the direction she was headed, as much as it was looking at her. It was still growling. She looked down the street herself. She didn’t see anything different down there.
    If she went the other direction, it would mean going up and over a large hill, instead of around it, but that made no real difference to her. Both paths would lead her in the general direction she was thinking of, and a person couldn’t walk around the Portland area without going up and down hills constantly. Perhaps that was why Portland had never become the bicycling mecca that its eco-conscious citizens had wanted it to be.
    But again, no matter. She was on foot, and in shape, and for every uphill there was a downhill on the other side. She turned left instead and began walking up the steeply rising street, satisfied that this road would meet her primary goal of keeping her from being anywhere near the school she had seen last night.
    The dog seemed satisfied. At least it had stopped growling. As she walked, it came up beside her, sometimes looking at her, and sometimes looking around at the ruined houses they were passing.
    After about a block, she stopped, looking at the dog.
    “You shouldn’t come,” she said.
    The dog looked back at her.
    “You shouldn’t follow her. She will never be anything to you.”
    The dog continued to stare. Well, the dog could to what it wanted. She began to walk again.
    And the dog began to follow. It seemed they were together now.

2
     
    She left the neighborhood, headed generally south and east, aiming for a highway she knew of down in the next valley. She thought she might follow the highway east into the countryside. Perhaps outside of these densely populated suburbs of Portland there would be less devastation, or more survivors. It seemed as good a way to go as any.
    The dog still followed her. She still didn’t know why. Three times during the day the dog had again stood in front of her, growling, seeming to warn her off from a threat it sensed ahead. She had taken wide detours around the areas the dog had mistrusted. Perhaps the dog had saved her some trouble. Perhaps it had made her walk several extra miles because it was frightened of shadows. There was no way to know.
    Afternoon was beginning to fade into evening as she was walking down the middle of a lonely, twisting road. The road swept in a long curve down a hill, through a gloomy tunnel of trees, to arrive at the highway she had been aiming for all day. Once again the dog stepped in front of her, growling, this time looking off the road, up the hill, to her right. She stopped, following the dog’s gaze. She saw nothing. She looked up and down the road, as well as off the other side of the road, where the hill dropped steeply to a small canyon. Nothing. Still the dog looked up into the forest.
    This time it was too far to turn back or go around. She had no desire to go crashing down the slope into the canyon on her left, or climbing up the hill to her right and into the forest. Neither did she want to go back the way she came, adding several more miles to her route. Not when she was within 500 yards of