Street Shadows

by Claire Gilchrist

  Jagger walked slowly to the edge and looked over. Scruff stared at him, his eyes wide. Then Jagger turned back to him with a wide smile, his teeth gleaming in the darkness. “He’s dead. Come and see.”

  Trembling, Scruff turned and took a few steps to stand by Jagger’s side. He peered down into the darkness. A shadowy form was lying at the bottom of the pit, legs splayed at odd angles. Nothing moved. There was no way a coyote could survive a fall like that. Scruff felt suddenly nauseous, and his stomach heaved. Jagger made a move toward him, and he stiffened, thinking the larger coyote was about to push him over, too. But Jagger just touched him gently with his nose and gave him a nod of approval. “Good work.”

  Scruff stared at him, realizing slowly that this had been the plan all along. Jagger had lied to Scruff, using him to distract Lamar so that he could take him by surprise. Scruff felt his stomach knotting. He looked away from Jagger quickly, staring down into the dark pit. If Jagger knew how horrified he was about this, he might turn on Scruff. He tried to steady his breathing and appear normal.

  Scruff knew he needed to say something. “Thanks,” he attempted. It came out as a squeak. He tried again. “Did you plan that, the whole thing?” He tried to sound admiring.

  “Yes. But if I told you, you wouldn’t have cried so convincingly. Sorry I had to hurt you.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll be okay.”

  “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

  Scruff didn’t reply. Even yesterday, these words would have meant a lot to him. But now, he couldn’t help but feel that he was standing next to someone he didn’t know at all. He needed to get away from Jagger and get some space to think.

  “So … what’s next?” he asked.

  “You’ll find out,” Jagger replied, grinning. “Let’s go.”

  He turned and trotted back toward the housing subdivision. Scruff turned and followed him slowly, his mind working on ways to get away without Jagger realizing why.

  “I’m a little hungry. I think I’ll just do a bit of hunting on the way home,” he ventured.

  Jagger stopped and turned to look at him, his eyes suspicious.

  “We can hunt together on the way,” he replied, with a note of finality.

  Scruff decided to go along with it for the moment, and to try to find out more about his plan. As they trotted together, his thoughts raced. If Jagger had lied about this, what else had he lied about? Why had he really adopted Scruff? He immediately thought of Pica’s family. Was it true? Had they killed his parents? He suddenly realized that he didn’t know who to trust anymore. He had a sudden, compelling need to find Pica and warn her. Even if her family was awful, he didn’t want anything to happen to her. He had to figure out how to get away. He took a shaky breath, and trotted off after Jagger.

  TWELVE

  STILLNESS

  Pica

  The hillside coyote family waited through the darkness until the night began to think about becoming day. It was almost unbearable, but Pica didn’t want to make it worse for her mother by saying anything. Besides, she couldn’t think clearly with her body throbbing. Each moment was agony — either she was aware of her own physical pain, or she was thinking about how this whole problem was mostly her fault. If she hadn’t gone to the construction site in the first place and injured herself, she wouldn’t have had to stay back from the hunt. And if she hadn’t left the den site to try hunting on her own, Jagger wouldn’t have found her alone.

  “It wasn’t your fault.” Her mother was lying next to her, and spoke gently as if she could read her thoughts.

  “I’m sorry,” was all Pica could say in reply.

  “Jagger has a history of aggression, and if it wasn’t this time it would have been another. We should have driven him away long ago. We took chances we shouldn’t have.”

  Sage raised her head. “I’m glad that we aren’t like that.”

  “You can’t be too nice, though,” argued Kai. “You see what can happen? I agree with Mom. We should have done something a long time ago.” He was angry.

  “Well, it’s not easy to know the future,” Gree replied. “We can’t go around injuring every coyote who makes a play for our land. Coyotes come through all the time hoping to hunt near our den site, and if we went after all of them we would all end up with leg injuries.” She looked at Pica and licked the side of her face lovingly. “It’s all about reading their body language and trusting your gut instinct. Most of them move on easily as soon as you stand up for yourself, and never give it a second thought. We made a mistake with Jagger. He didn’t follow the code, and we misread the situation.”

  “What code?” Sage asked.

  “When a coyote wants to challenge for land, he or she will approach the head of the pack that lives there and challenge them. It is direct and face to face. They battle it out to decide who is stronger, fitter, and more deserving.”

  “To the death?” Kai breathed.

  “No, not often. Usually, after a few moments, it is clear who the fitter coyote is, and the other one submits.”

  “Have you fought like that?” Pica asked. She was very interested — her mother had never talked to them about this before. She had seen them both stand up to coyotes who were passing through the territory, but never in her lifetime had she seen it come to a physical confrontation.

  “Yes. A few times. But it never went very far.”

  They were all silent for a while, thinking about Jagger, and how different this new confrontation was. The sky continued to lighten and there was still no sign of Lamar.

  Scruff

  It was dawn before Jagger fell into a sound sleep. As promised, he had helped Scruff to hunt, finding and killing a young, injured raccoon. As they feasted on it, rather than making his stomach feel better, tearing into the flesh made Scruff feel even sicker. He found it difficult to meet Jagger’s eyes. He kept thinking back to Lamar’s body dropping away from him, into the darkness.

  After they had eaten, they went back under the porch of the abandoned house. Scruff attempted to talk to Jagger.

  “So, what are you going to do now?”

  Jagger looked at him sharply. “Don’t you mean, what are we going to do? Or have you lost your courage, runt?”

  “Sorry. What are we going to do now?” Scruff hoped to sound convincing.

  “You’ll find out in the morning.” Jagger’s teeth glinted white as he grinned. He scratched the dirt, turned a couple of times, and flopped down. Scruff stared at his back, angry. Jagger was acting like he was the only one who mattered, and Scruff was nothing to him. Scruff wondered again why Jagger had adopted him in the first place. He was now too afraid of the larger coyote to ask.

  Scruff waited until he was sure that Jagger was fully asleep. He saw the large paws twitching and heard the low, deep breathing. Slowly, carefully, he got up and left the porch. As he reached the edge of the property, he glanced back at the hulking form lying under the porch. It didn’t move. He padded softly down the alley, got to the fenceline, pushed through, and walked slowly down the hillside toward the den site. A deep sense of guilt and dread gnawed at him. He didn’t know why he felt the need to warn Pica’s family, but somehow his body kept moving in their direction.

  In the dim light, he saw a cluster of grey shapes in the grass. He heard Gree’s warning bark and they stood then, tails and hackles raised aggressively. He saw one shape still on the ground — Pica. That was odd. Was she injured? He continued on down the hill slowly, unsure of why he was there. Why did he feel the need to help this family … who had never helped him? He stopped a few feet from them, facing six pairs of hard, angry eyes. He looked down. Then Gree gave a low, threatening growl that broke the silence.

  “What?” She could barely get the syllable out.

  He swallowed. Then he said it all in a single, quick breath. “Jagger killed Lamar and now I think he is going to come after you.”

  The words hung in the air, overinflated, blocking everything else out. It was as if so
meone had hit pause on the scene, bodies frozen in shock. Then, a long intake of breath, and a slow, keening wail. Gree threw her head back and cried out. The wail was high and thin, and sounded harsh in the early morning quiet. Then, Taba joined in, and the pups, too. Scruff bent his head down low, buffeted by the pain and the sadness contained in the chorus. The cry continued for about thirty seconds, and then trailed off.

  “You.” Gree stared at him with such a deep hatred. “You helped him.” It was not a question.

  “I … I didn’t mean to … well … I guess I did,” Scruff stammered. He glanced quickly at Pica. Her large, brown eyes registered horror, and he looked quickly away. He started again, trying to explain the situation. “Last night, well —”

  “I don’t care what excuses you have.” Gree spoke bitterly. “Tell us what you came to tell us, and then get away from me.”

  Scruff spoke quickly and urgently. “He won’t tell me what his plan is, but I know Jagger wants this hillside. I think he is prepared to do anything to get it. He killed Lamar last night, and —” He paused as he saw Gree flinch with pain at the mention of Lamar. He breathed out, and started again, “— and I’m pretty sure that he is going to continue with some kind of aggression. I don’t know what he is planning.”

  Gree looked at him for a few moments, her eyes burning with anger. “Thank you.” She spat out the words. “Now go.”

  Taba growled, and took a threatening step toward Scruff.

  “I’m sorry.” He didn’t know what else to say. Lamar’s body falling flashed through his vision again. Taba growled again, more aggressively this time.

  Gree shook her head. “You will never be welcome anywhere near us. If you ever come near us again, I will rip your throat out.”

  He looked down the line of coyotes. They all stared at him with hatred. He took one last glance at Pica. She looked like she was in shock. Scruff knew he had no choice. He turned and galloped away. He could barely feel his feet on the ground as he headed through the golf course and across the road. He didn’t know where he was going, but knew he had to get far, far away so that Jagger wouldn’t be able to find him. He wondered what the Hillside Pack would do. Would they stay and fight? Would they flee? His breath came hard and fast as he pushed faster and faster, following a railway track, not bothering to even look at his surroundings. For the first time since he was born, he was truly alone in the world.

  Gree

  After Scruff left, Gree concentrated on breathing steadily, trying to calm herself and figure out what to do. She looked at her children, who all looked to her for guidance, fear in their eyes. She felt numb, as if a part of her had been ripped out. Lamar was dead. She couldn’t believe it. She felt terrible, knowing that she hadn’t done more to dissuade Lamar from trying to take on Jagger. They should have known how dangerous it would be.

  She weighed her options. If they stayed to fight, only she and Taba were strong enough to stand up to Jagger. They stood a good chance, two on one. However, Jagger hadn’t been attacking in the usual, direct way. He was sneaky. He could wait until they had to split up to get food, and pick off one of her pups, or Taba. Even her — she was strong, but she was still smaller than Jagger. And then there was Pica. She glanced at her daughter, who had lain back down, obviously in a lot of pain. She couldn’t hunt, and couldn’t keep up with them. When everyone got hungry, they would have to leave her behind, alone, to go hunt. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing another from their pack. They had to leave the hillside — it was the only way she could see to avoid losing another life.

  “Okay.” She turned to look at her children. “We have to go; otherwise we’ll be in danger. We can’t stick together all of the time, and Jagger will do what he did with Pica, find one of us alone and attack us.”

  “But Mom!” Dane protested. “We can’t just give up.”

  “We aren’t. In the spring, when you and the others are bigger, we can come back and challenge him. We just have to find somewhere to survive the winter.”

  They were all quiet, thinking. Although none of them wanted to leave their home, they knew that what she said made sense. “We have to leave now, because Pica is going to be slow. We need to get her somewhere where she can recover safely.”

  Pica looked up at her mother and nodded. “I understand.”

  “Okay. We leave now.” Gree turned toward the road and began walking slowly. The others formed a line behind her, Taba taking the rear behind the limping Pica. Gree resisted the urge to look behind her. She didn’t want to have to see the first rays of the early morning light casting a glow across the hillside. Her home was gone, and she needed to use all of her energy to make sure that they found a safe place to stay until they could regroup and help Pica get better.

  THIRTEEN

  SCHOOL

  Pica

  The Hillside Pack travelled through the dawn and, as the sun slowly rose in the sky, tried to get some distance from the golf course. Rain pelted them, trickling through Pica’s thick fur and sliding down the sides of her face. They couldn’t travel quickly because Pica had to hop along, her good front leg tiring more with every step. She felt cold and then hot, shivering as she walked.

  Pica was barely aware of where they were going, but she knew they were farther than she had ever been before. At one point, they were in an area with lots of low buildings. Trucks came and went along the front the buildings, so they headed around back, where it was quieter. Pica saw a dirt patch behind a Dumpster and flopped down with a groan. She felt the wet concrete soaking her fur. The others lay down, too, resting quietly next to her, licking the dirt out of their paws.

  “Mom — we can’t just let him drive us away!” Kai broke the silence.

  “We have no choice.” Gree looked off into the air beside him, not making eye contact with the pups. She seemed distant, and Pica knew that she was still reeling after the death of Lamar.

  “But it’s our home! And there are six of us!” Kai was becoming hysterical.

  “We have no choice,” Gree repeated.

  “But he killed Dad! We can’t just let him have our land. We have to fight him.”

  “Shut up, Kai!” barked Dane. “Stop it. It’s not like any of us wanted to leave.”

  Gree looked at them. Her expression looked broken as she tried to compose herself. “It’s okay. I’m angry, too. I know it hurts to just leave like that, but he is larger than any one of us right now. We risk a lot by attacking him. I’ve already lost enough …” Her voice broke and she took a short breath before continuing, “I refuse to lose anyone else.” She paused, taking another, deeper breath. “It’s not forever. But we have to wait until you are all bigger and stronger. We can return and take it back — but not now.”

  Kai was silent, his face angry. Pica understood his feelings. She felt a rage, white-hot in her belly, wanting nothing more than to tear Jagger and Scruff to pieces. But she was still small, and so were her siblings. And although Gree was an excellent hunter and very smart, she simply didn’t have the same mass and muscle as Jagger did. If they all coordinated an attack, they might have a chance, but it was far more likely that one of them would be injured and Jagger would escape.

  They lay in silence for hours as the rain tapered off. Pica looked over at Gree, who lay still, staring at the side of a building. A few moments later, Gree rolled to her stomach and stood up, stretching. “We should keep moving. I don’t think Jagger is coming after us, but I still want to put some more distance between us. We need to find some food, too.”

  They continued on through the grey afternoon, sticking to areas without many humans or cars. At the edge of the industrial buildings, they found train tracks, and followed those for a while. Pica’s good leg was getting so tired that pains began to shoot up toward her shoulder. One of her leg muscles twitched and then cramped up. She tried to put some weight on her bad leg, but cried out as she remembered why she was holding it up. The ground around her swam, and she almost lost her balance. Taking a de
ep breath, she forced herself to keep going. Sage looked over at her with concern.

  “Where are we going?” she heard Sage ask Gree.

  “I don’t know yet,” Gree answered. “We need to find somewhere safe to sleep, with food nearby.”

  Despite the gravity of the situation, Pica’s siblings couldn’t help having fun. They tried balancing on the railway and jumping the crossties. She watched Kai’s face, deep in concentration, as he teetered on the track. All four paws were in a line, claws out but of no help on the slippery metal. He took a tentative step forward, then another.

  “Hey, I’m finally —” he began, but then all four paws jumped in the air and he fell off, an expression of surprise on his face. “Hey!” He cocked his head to the side. “It’s rumbling!” he yelped. “What does that mean?”

  “A train is coming.” Gree was serious. “Everyone, get away from the tracks. In those bushes, there.” She indicated some bushes in the deep ditch at the side of the tracks. Sage leapt first, a small squeak of fear escaping her. The others quickly followed. Pica found the spot next to her. She could feel her sister’s body shaking.

  The rumbling feeling intensified, and with it the sound of something big approaching. It got louder and louder, until it seemed like it couldn’t get any more intense. Then, wind blew back the bushes, smacking them in their faces, and there was a piercing horn that seemed to poke fire into her ears. A bright light shone so hard into their eyes that they shut them to stop the pain. Pica yelped in panic, closing her eyes and flattening her body against the earth. She pressed against Sage, unable to think. The sound continued for a long time. Eventually, she felt brave enough to crack her eyes open and watch the giant metal cars go past. When it was finally over, they all stared at the back of the train, smoothly moving away from them along the track.