The Wood Wife by Terri Windling (the false prince TXT) 📕

stopped at the border,” Maggie admitted. “I’ve always been an ocean lover, myself. This land is completely alien to me.”

Lillian looked at her through narrow eyes. “Give it time. This mountain wanted you here,” the older woman said cryptically.

Maggie, amused, just smiled.

“So,” Lillian said, changing the subject and shifting the raccoon to her other knee, “Fox tells us you’re a writer?”

“That’s right. And did he tell you I’m planning to write a biography of Davis Cooper? Davis knew I wanted to, and now he’s left all his papers to me. I’m assuming this means I have his blessing. You and your husband must have known him for many years. Would you be willing to talk to me about him?”

“I don’t see why not. Leastwise, as it seems it’s what Cooper would have wanted. But let me speak to John about it first. Today I gather you’ve come over here to talk about the man’s favorite subject? Be careful. You get him started on coyotes and you may have to stay the night.”

“I heard that,” said John as he came out of the house with a tray of four glasses and a sweating glass pitcher. He set it on the table, pulled up a chair, and sat down beside his wife.

Fox reached over and handed him the plastic container of scat that he carried. “This is what we wanted to show you. Something got into Cooper’s house last night. The tracks on the floor looked canine to me, but none of them were clear enough to identify precisely. Juan reckons something may have come in after some smaller animal—there was a bit of furniture knocked over, some scratching, a lot of leaves and debris. Then in Cooper’s office there was urine, as if the territory had been marked. And a lot of this stuff. I mean a lot. Not just one or two animals in there.”

John looked at the container, and sniffed it. “What did it smell like in the room?”

“Unpleasant.” Fox shrugged.

“Just unpleasant?”

“Pungent. The way dog shit smells when it’s fresh.”

John looked at the container, puzzled. “Can I keep this? I hate to admit it since I’m an old hand at tracking, but I can’t tell you what this is. I’d like to take it down to the university lab, see what they think. I can tell you what this isn’t, though. It’s not coyote scat.”

“No?” Maggie said.

John shook his head. “You say there was a lot of urine? If it had been coyotes, the smell would have knocked you right out of your socks. It’s like ammonia—completely overpowering. Besides which, coyotes don’t behave like that. They’re not going to go into a strange human habitat. We’re their primary predator; they’re much too smart, and too wary. At a guess I’d say you had someone’s dogs in there. It wasn’t our two; they’re too old for that kind of mischief. I don’t imagine it was Bandido either. Maybe someone came up the mountain with some dogs.”

“That’s an unsettling thought,” said Fox. “Why would a stranger send dogs in there?”

John shrugged. “Maybe just some hunter’s hounds, running game into the house and trying to flush it back out again.”

“A hunter?” Fox said, his expression alert. “What about our young friend, that cretin I had the run-in with?”

“Well now, I have spotted him around—down there by Redwater Springs. But he doesn’t run any dogs, does he? Still, you never can tell,” said John.

“Is there hunting permitted here in the canyon?” Maggie asked.

“No there isn’t, but that never stops a determined poacher,” Lillian said with disgust. “So you be careful, back in the mountains.”

“You know,” Maggie told them, “I’m actually glad to hear it wasn’t coyotes. I like seeing them around.”

“So do we,” said Lillian. “They’re beautiful creatures, aren’t they? God’s Dog, that’s what the Indians call them.”

“And Trickster,” said John. “In our local legends, they’re sometimes the hero, sometimes the villain, and most often a kind of divine Fool.”

Maggie said, “I saw one up close in the yard yesterday morning, right up beside the house.”

“Skinny little fellow? With one bad eye?” John asked her. “I know the one. He’s been around here too. He visits Cody, our tame coyote.”

“You have a tame coyote?”

“Well, as tame as coyotes ever get, which isn’t very,” Lillian put in. “They’re wild creatures. They’re built to be alert and wary; too independent for domestication. But Cody’s different. She’s nervous of strangers but she’s come to trust John and me, in her fashion.”

“Would you like to meet her?” John asked Maggie.

“I sure would. If that’s all right?”

“You go on, old man,” said Lillian. “I’ll stay here with the ’coon.”

John led Fox and Maggie through a gate in the wall, past a stable and back to a series of outbuildings enclosed by fenced-in runs. The runs contained animals of various kinds, a pair of mule deer, a tiny kit fox, a pronghorn antelope with a splint on its leg, an eagle with only one wing.

“We belong to a wildlife rescue and rehabilitation group,” John explained. “People call up with sick or injured critters on their land, our doc fixes them up, and then we supply four-star hotel service until they’re ready to be reintroduced into the wild.”

“This is their idea of a quiet retirement,” Fox told Maggie, “hand-feeding wild animals, and fishing drunk teenagers out of the creek.”

“Damn straight. What are we supposed to do? Put our feet up and watch the TV? Look here, this is our litter of bobcat kittens. Aren’t they the prettiest little gals you ever saw? Some big brave idiot shot their mama. Trophy hunter. Just took the head and left the rest, including the kits. They were still trying to suckle. We’ve had them for a couple of weeks now—we lost the little male at the beginning but his sisters look like they’re going to make it. They’re so dern cute Lilli wants to bring them in the house—but of course we can’t. I don’t want them to get too comfortable with humans,