THE CONSPIRACY OF MAN AND COYOTE
THEN came an early spring. Geese returned from the south. The sadness in
their honking had given way to the exaltation of rebirth. The snows
melted almost in a day. Hundreds of wild ducks populated the many
sloughs in the hollows, and filled the delightful evenings with the soft
calling of their love-making. In the still nights or as she lay through
the rest periods which she now so strangely needed, Queen kept her ears
pricked high to catch the last faint sound of every love call and the
air now almost always vibrated with some one form or another of these
calls.
White-black, still a playful colt, thrilled her with his presence or the
touch of his lovely nose; but something sweet and remote was
mysteriously laying hold upon the love in her heart. She liked to half
close her eyes and doze, floating as she dozed, on the waves of this new
emotion. It seemed a joyous feeling all her own and unlike any joy she
had ever experienced before. It was a joy she felt within, a joy that
expressed itself best in dreaming rather than in the activity that her
other joys had always stimulated.
She liked to wander away by herself. White-black would follow her about
a good deal and sought to arouse her old play spirit; but when he
realised that he could not influence her any more as he used to, he
learned to let her alone. She seemed to have lost her agility and
preferred to be on the outskirts of the circle of the herd where she
could move about with less excitement. She liked to wander around the
small ponds and listen to the croaking of frogs, always lingering till
the night shadows lay thick over all things and she heard the ineffable
half murmur, half song of wild ducks, as they paddled along in the
stillness of the night.
Often by day she would stop her shuffling gait and with her nose down
among the blades of grass, she would watch the little sandpiper,
wondering what he meant with his heart-rending _pee-weet_ and his
eternal seeking. Sometimes she would stand for a long time and watch the
brown curlew and listen to his persistent, lugubrious complaint. All
these sounds, these melodious cries of strange little souls, somehow
responded harmoniously to voices and emotions in her own soul, and she
looked upon them as fellow beings of the wilds she loved, knowing each
by the sound of his voice.
So too the woods interested her, though she had never penetrated them
very far, because the woods were confining and she loved the open where
one could see and run in all directions. Yet she loved the trees because
these new emotions which had mysteriously come to her made her more
observant than she had been. She realised more fully than ever before
that woods and plains and skies had moods in each of which they were
different, and these revelations broadening her outlook upon her
surroundings made her, in a way, more capable of joy.
To White-black she was a puzzle. Yielding to her desire to be alone and
interesting himself in other friends, he nevertheless kept an eye on
her. There came a period in which he missed her entirely. Day after day,
he went looking for her and then one day he found her in the woods, on
an open grassy spot, cut off from the plains by a small pond and a thin
wall of poplars. She was licking a small black colt that was trying very
hard to stand on its long, shaky legs.
White-black was so glad to see her he began to neigh excitedly and caper
about the water’s edge. Then, wading across the pond, he ran toward her;
but she sprang between him and her baby with an angry whinny, ears down,
eyes glowing and her lips curling threateningly. He stopped a few paces
from her and whinnied placatingly; but she threatened him again and he
was afraid to approach. He gazed at her from where he was for a few
minutes, then like a man who, failing to understand, shrugs his
shoulders, he lowered his head and began to graze, looking up
occasionally to see if she had changed her attitude in any way. At last,
discouraged, he walked to the pond, took a long drink, waded across and
disappeared.
For several days Queen kept to herself in her own little pasture in the
woods. She knew just where the herd was and what they were doing at all
times for she watched them almost as anxiously as she watched over her
little son. Her baby grew stronger every day, spending most of his time
romping about the limited space, learning to use his awkward legs; and
as he grew stronger, the desire to return to the herd began to make
Queen restless.
At last she led the little fellow carefully around the pond, but just as
she reached the open space she saw the herd gathering as if danger
threatened. She stopped short, raised her beautiful head and with one
long nervous sniff took in the whole situation.
Man again!
She could not see the horseman, but she heard the faint, far away patter
of hoofs and the scent of man trickled through the air. She turned about
and looked at her little one who was innocently indifferent to what
worried her and extremely interested in the open space of which, being
behind her, he had caught but a glimpse. She knew that if she attempted
to join the herd and fly with them, he could not follow her. She could
hear, as she tried to decide what to do, the sudden clamour of
hoof-beats as the herd broke into a race for safety. She did not even
turn to see them go. With utmost haste she glided under cover.
She was not content with what safety the little pasture offered. As if
she had been a creature of the woods, she picked her way through thorny
shrubs and under heavy branches, till she came to a secluded spot that
satisfied her and there she lay down to regain her composure.
For almost a week she lived like a deer, hiding in the woods and coming
out by night to graze and to seek the herd which she hoped would return.
Then as the days went by and she had come upon no trace of man in the
air of the open prairies, she ceased going back into the woods, and
divided her time between her baby, feeding, and looking wistfully and
hopefully over hill and hollow for her lost companions, calling,
calling, calling till the solitudes echoed with the anguish in her
heart.
Her interest in the small living things that went about the daily
business of their little lives revived and the anxious searching of the
plains often gave way to an absorbed study of her little neighbours. She
came upon a mother duck, one day, who was waddling down the old buffalo
trail with a brood of tiny little ducklings, only a few yards away from
her. Queen slackened her pace when she saw that the mother duck was
getting excited, and watched them. The old duck walked on as rapidly as
she could, turning her head from side to side as she scrutinised Queen
first with one eye and then with the other, and though she did not seem
to consider her a very grave danger she called her little ones and
swerved off the path. The old duck was apparently leading them to the
slough, but she hadn’t gone very far when a lean and hungry-looking
coyote shot out from a cluster of rosebushes.
Instantly there was a frantic whir of wings and while the mother duck
flew almost upon the coyote, the little ones scattered, dropping down
under bushes or flowers or disappearing in gopher holes. Queen was too
much worried about her own baby to notice at the time what happened to
the duck. She sprang protectingly toward her foal and then when she
looked up she saw the coyote running eagerly after the duck, who acted
as if one of her wings were broken. Flopping with one wing she cried
with fright and half flew, half ran on ahead of him. The foolish coyote
thought she was wounded and licked his chops as he ran, anticipating a
good meal.
The old duck appeared to be losing; but always just as the coyote was
about to seize her she flew off with a cry. Thus she led him far away
and out of sight. But before Queen had started off again for the slough,
she saw the anxious mother duck come flying from the opposite direction.
Queen turned from her to where the coyote had disappeared wondering
whether he was coming back. The joyous peeping of the little brood who
appeared in all directions at the first call of their mother, reassured
her and she followed them down to the pond.
The duck and the little ones set sail as soon as they touched the water,
and paddled away triumphantly to the centre of the slough where among
the rushes no foolish coyote could threaten them. The lesson of duck
wisdom impressed itself deeply on Queen’s mind in a series of pictures,
and she sensed acutely the trick the duck had played upon the coyote.
She hated the coyote because she feared him. The very sight of him made
her uncomfortable and she did not let the little one out of her sight
for an instant. Even when she drank, the image of the beast would come
into her mind and between sips she would raise her head and stare all
around her to make sure that he hadn’t come back; for from that time on,
she seemed to expect him to show up at any moment.
Long as the days were at this time of the year, they succeeded each
other rapidly and each day added to the weight of loneliness on Queen’s
heart. Ducks came in great numbers, returning from their sojourns into
the land of motherhood with flourishing broods. Gophers appeared
everywhere. The saucy little fellows would sit up on their haunches a
yard away from Queen’s head and defy her with their queer little barks,
which betrayed much more fear than defiance. The colt would look at them
with his large, round eyes, sometimes making an attempt to approach them
but as soon as he came too near they fled. Coyotes began to show
themselves more and more often, and every time Queen came upon one, even
the clear memory of the duck playing her trick could not prevent her
heart from throbbing with fear.
A variety of flowers appeared, one kind giving way to another, and the
sloughs on the open began to shrink daily. The woods retained their
ponds, cool and clear, and in the darker corners, among the tall
poplars, there were still shrunken drifts of snow.
In spite of the abundance of food and water, in spite of her growing
interest in her baby who played about her in perfect contentment, and
played more and more delightfully, Queen’s longing for her companions
reached overwhelming proportions and at last she started away from those
solitudes in search of the herd.
For several days she travelled toward the east along the wall of the
woods. She came to where the woods ended and a vast treeless plain
stretched away beyond vision. From the pointed end of the woods, an old,
partially overgrown buffalo trail cut diagonally across the prairie,
running comparatively straight southeast. There she remained for a few
days as if unable to decide which way to go. Then, one day, when she had
followed the buffalo trail for several miles she came upon signs of the
herd. This puzzled her, for experience had taught her not to go south;
yet here was unmistakable evidence that they had gone south; and _they_
were her goal. Despite her disinclination to go in that direction, she
went on eagerly, moving each day as far as her colt would go without
protest, and resting when he refused to go any farther.
One evening, long after the woods had faded out of sight, when her baby
balked at the daily increase in the distance she urged him to make and
deliberately lay down on the path, she saw what seemed to be two horses,
grazing. Queen broke the stillness with an impassioned whinnying that
puzzled the little fellow. The fact that she was standing with her back
to him and whinnying so frantically interested him. That she might be
calling to any one but himself was entirely beyond his experience.
Feeling that she was looking for him, he got up and sidled up to her,
touching her neck with his little nose. Queen bent down and covered him
with caresses; but to his dismay, she soon returned to her calling,
keeping her head high and looking away into the shadows.
The darkness obliterated the two horses and Queen, unable to stand
still, started away again, the little fellow complaining plaintively as
he lumbered after her. When, however, he lay down once more, she yielded
and there they spent the night.
Her night’s rest was a troubled one. What with other emotions tormenting
her, there was a strong scent of man in the air that kept her awake and
watchful. When dawn came at last, she saw the two horses, still grazing
but much nearer to her. Beyond them she saw two black mounds, like
malignant growths on the body of the plains. In these mounds, she knew,
lived man.
She was afraid to go any closer to the mounds so she called loudly to
the two horses who finally responded by starting in her direction. When
she saw them coming, she hastened to meet them, despite her fear. She
whinnied loudly as she went and when the foremost of the two horses
replied to her, his voice sounded familiar. Who it was she did not know
but she started toward him on a gallop and as soon as she touched his
nose, she remembered the old sorrel work-horse of the spring lake in the
bowl-like valley of her childhood.
Where he had been, how he had got up there, what he was doing, these
were facts Queen could not find out, nor did she experience any desire
to find out. Life to her was somewhat of an abysmal night with
beautiful, star-like gleams of understanding. The past to her was an
ally of death not to be thought about and the future became important
only when it turned into the present. The sole value of the impressions
that she carried in her memory lay in the help they offered for the
understanding of the impressions that the present was making and Queen
never wept over them.
There was the old sorrel before her! The memory of what he had been to
her, inundated by floods of time and other experiences, had gone out
like the stars at dawn. But now, certain odours and sounds and qualities
too delicate for words, like the evening that follows every dawn,
brought the stars back to her sky and she strove to express the almost
inexpressible satisfaction she experienced.
The other horse was a stranger and so Queen was wary of him. She sniffed
noses with him suspiciously and kept away, refusing to allow him to go
near her colt whereas the old sorrel sniffed all over him without her
protest.
But the pleasure she derived from the momentary satisfaction of the
longing for companionship, inadequate as it was, had its price. Her
excitement was so great that she did not notice the coming of another
horse with a man on his back, till he was already dangerously close.
With an anxious call to her little one she dashed away in the direction
from which she had come. The two horses went with her.
It was not long however before she saw the man through the corner of her
eye, urging his straining horse, apparently to get ahead of her. Queen
was not running as fast as she could, for she knew that her baby could
not keep up with her. But the sight of the man at the side of her
bewildered her. She leaped out of his way, leaving him a hundred feet
behind only to realise at once that her colt was not with her. She swung
off to the side and turned to see the man driving the old sorrel, his
companion, and her own colt off towards the black mounds.
Her eyes fairly bulging out of her head, her lips frothing, Queen leaped
back after him, calling frantically to him as she ran. As soon as the
little thing heard her, he turned to run back, but instantly the man
threw a rope and caught him round the neck, hurling him to the ground.
The two horses ran on toward the mounds, but the man stopped, dismounted
and battled with her frightened, crying baby.
The desire to hurt was foreign to Queen’s nature, but when she saw her
foal on the ground struggling with the man who was apparently getting
the better of it, she ran toward the monster with murder in her heart.
The man saw her coming and with the other end of his long rope he struck
her head a terrible blow. She jumped back in terror. Before she had
aroused enough courage to make another attack, the man had completely
tied the little thing so that it could not move a limb and, mounting his
horse again, he rode away.
Queen rushed to her little son with a sense of relief but that feeling
soon gave way to one of painful solicitude. She had her baby and the man
had left, but the baby was helplessly tied. It was changed with a change
like death. The monstrous two-legged creature had cast a spell upon it.
She ran around it frantically, called to it encouragingly, licked it
tenderly, then ran off a few paces, urging it to exert itself and follow
her.
Then to her horror, she saw the man coming back. This time he had the
sorrel and his companion with him. She grew desperate. She bit at the
rope with nervous haste, trying to drag her colt away with her, but her
efforts resulted only in hurting it and at the first cry of pain, she
stopped. Until the man was so near that he struck her with the long
binder whip which he had brought with him, she would not leave her baby
and then she only kept out of reach of the whip. Finally, in
desperation, unable to decide upon anything that she might try to do,
she stood and watched; while the man was busy, preparing the ropes on
the stone boat which the two horses had been dragging after them.
One thing at once hurt and puzzled her, and that was the nonresistance
of the old sorrel. There he stood covered with the bewildering straps
with their glittering buckles, making no attempt to run from the man nor
to help her. He did not even call to her.
She tried to make out how the man succeeded in holding the two horses
though he was not even looking at them. Her deliberations, however, were
suddenly interrupted by the man’s leaving the stone boat and going to
her little one. When she saw him drag the colt to the stone boat, she
went mad again and rushed at him with bared teeth; but as soon as he
straightened himself and turned to her, she fled.
Her hatred included the old sorrel when she saw him start away dragging
her baby off. She sprang at him from the side and nipped him savagely.
The old fellow got frightened and backed up almost stepping upon the
helpless little colt on the stone boat. The man got angry. He jumped
from the stone boat and with his long whip struck her with all his
strength squarely upon her tender nose. The pain took her breath away.
She reared on her hind legs in a fit of agony, then dashed out of reach,
and the man drove off with her colt.
Bewildered by her anguish, she ran after him, rending the air with her
cries, zigzagging from one side to the other. When the man reached one
of the black mounds, his sod barn, Queen remained at a distance, running
around the place in a wide circle and running steadily as if she found
relief in activity.
The man disappeared in the black mound, but when Queen ventured nearer,
for fear that she would again attack the old sorrel, the man poked his
head out of a hole in the wall and yelled at her; and she turned and
ran. When she started for the barn again, the man came out altogether.
She was forty rods away when she turned and as she did so she heard the
strong, healthy call from her colt, muffled by the confinement of the
barn; but apparently free as if he were untied. She replied with all her
strength and ran toward the barn, stopping a hundred feet away and
watching the man, as he fastened the barn-door securely.
She saw him unhook the horses from the stone boat and then drive them
over to a queer-looking instrument that lay near the house. Then she saw
them start away with the plow dragging behind the horses. They were
coming toward her so she loped away to the right. When she stopped, she
saw that they were not following her but were going off toward the
south. Considerably relieved she watched them go till they were lost
from view behind a hill.
She trotted up to the first of the two mounds, the man’s small, sod
house and cautiously sniffed about for a few minutes to make sure that
there was no other man about. The odours there were unendurable, but
everything was motionless, and at a call from her little one, she ran to
the barn. For a while she ran round and round it as she called, then
suddenly she spied his little head through a hole in the wall. She
attempted to thrust her head in. She just managed to touch him with her
hot lips, but the fear of the evil-smelling barn forced her to withdraw
her head, in spite of her desire to keep touching him. She had the
feeling of being trapped herself and immediately loped away again. A
thorough examination of the house and the plains, however, assured her
that she was still free and that the man was not returning.
Again and again she thrust her head into the hole, and despite the
nauseating odours she prolonged her caresses every succeeding time that
she put her head through the window. Yet she realised that that was not
giving her back her baby. At the same time the touch of his beloved head
intensified the fire in her heart and she began desperately to seek some
way of getting him out.
There was a pile of manure back of the barn which sloped upward till it
almost reached the flat, straw roof. She ran around the barn in an
attempt to find some opening and every time she came to the heap of
manure she was forced to enlarge the circle she was making. With a look
in every direction, to make sure the man was not returning, she suddenly
started up the pile of manure and carefully stepped upon the roof of the
barn.
She had only taken a step forward, though, when she felt the roof giving
way under her feet. This frightened her and she attempted to turn back
much too hastily. Before she could get back to the pile of dirt, half
the roof together with a part of the wall caved in, dropping her down
into the barn on top of the débris. She was very badly frightened.
Without stopping even to look for her colt, she leaped over the
remaining portion of the wall taking half of it with her.
She did not turn to see what she had accomplished but fled in terror
over the fields. When her courage returned, she looked back and happily
discovered that still the man had not returned, nor was there any other
sign of danger. On the other hand her little colt was now standing near
the broken wall, his head and shoulder sticking up above it, calling
frantically. She then hurried back with all her speed, caressing him as
if she hadn’t seen him for weeks, and urging him, in her dumb way, to
come out.
He tried very hard to get over the barrier, but could not make it. To
show him how to do it, she jumped in again and as she jumped she knocked
another layer of sod into the barn. Then as she was about to leap out a
second time she heard a familiar whinny behind her. Turning nervously,
she made out in the gloom of the other end of the barn, two horses, one
of them her mate. Poor White-black was standing listlessly in a
cage-like stall, securely tied to the manger. His voice was weaker than
it had ever been, and his calling seemed strangely half-hearted. A great
desire to touch his nose came over her, though the fear of the barn, the
frightfully nauseating odours and the slippery, dirty floor, all urged
her to fly before some mysterious force should seize her and hold her
there. All she was able to do was to call to him from where she stood
trembling near the opening in the wall, ready to jump at the first sign
of danger. The sound of her own voice in the confines of the gloomy barn
terrified her. With a single bound she leaped over the broken wall,
taking so much more of it with her, lowering it so decidedly that the
little fellow was able to climb over it.
With a last heartfelt call to White-Black, appealing to him to follow
her as he used to follow her in the days that had gone, Queen raced once
more toward the haven of the north, ran against all feeble protest of
her little son, ran till the loathsome mounds vanished from the
undulating plains.
In a hollow where a spring slough had turned much of the earth into mud
and then had partially dried up, Queen drank, fed her baby; and, because
he would go no further, she grazed while he rested. She felt very unsafe
and gazed incessantly and fearfully toward the hilltop behind her. Two
images she expected to see coming over the brow every time she looked
up. She expected and feared to see the man coming after her and she
expected and hoped to see White-black. Neither came, but both haunted
her stormy mind and allowed it no peace.
Fear urged her to be off and away but every time she started, her little
fellow refused to go with her. He would raise his head painfully from
the grass and call to her but he would not get up. He had not taken all
the milk there was for him and he acted very peculiarly, but Queen’s
fear was implacable. She pretended to leave him and ran all the way up
the other slope of the hollow. He called to her in a frenzy of fear, but
though her heart beat fast for him, she did not reply and when she began
to disappear over the summit of the hill he got up in haste and ran with
all his strength till he found her but a few feet from the summit. She
whinnied to him lovingly but continued her trot and he wearily followed
her.
A peculiar note in his cry, some distance farther on, made her turn
round to look at him. She saw him touch his shoulder with his little
nose and as he touched it she saw a swarm of insects fly off from the
spot. She walked back to him and discovered a deep gash that ran across
his breast and up his other shoulder. The hideous cut was covered by
lumps of coagulated blood and the insects settled back on it as soon as
he withdrew his nose.
She proceeded at once to lick the wound till she found it was bleeding
again and stopped, bewildered by the dripping blood. But the bigger
problem presented itself anew. She looked up suddenly and spied, on the
horizon in the direction from which she had come, a black moving object.
She was certain that it was the man coming after her and springing
forward a few paces stopped suddenly when she found that her colt was
not following her. She stamped her foot frantically, calling to him with
more terror than urge.
He started bravely after her, but the more he ran, the more his wound
opened, and the coagulation that had taken place and was trying to take
place failed to save him. Queen, who loved him with magnificent passion,
did not know that her running was killing him. What could she have done
if she had known? The man was fast gaining in the chase. Man always
gained, save where death entered the race and death was slowly defeating
this man.
At last, the little fellow dropped, exhausted. When she hurried back to
caress and to urge him on, she knew that he could go no further. The man
had disappeared behind a hill. Queen ran back with a mad, desperate
impulse to bar his way to her little son. The image of a mother duck
flying into the face of a coyote, flashed through her brain. She ran
down one hillside and up another, her throbbing sides wet with
perspiration, and in the valley below that, she saw him.
He was somewhat to the right of her. Seeing her he turned to the left.
She, too, turned left and she ran trying to keep a hill between them. As
soon as she heard him coming over the hill that was between them she
raced over the next hill. In that way she led him several miles north,
then running for the first time as fast as she could go, she fled west.
On the top of one of the hills, she stopped finally and looked back. She
saw the man turn homeward and before he should see her, she dropped down
into a valley and there she started back to her colt, running now as
fast as ever, though her sides were white with foam. When she got to a
second hilltop and found that the man had disappeared and that there was
no trace of him in the air, she loped along a bit more easily.
The belated summer evening was coming at last. The sun, very red and
big, lowered on one side of her and high in the heavens the moon grew
brighter. She came to a slough and drank. She gulped the water a moment,
then raising her noble head, pricked her ears and listened, the water
dripping from her mouth. It seemed to her that she had heard a coyote
somewhere in the distance. She grew troubled and fearful again, running
in her confusion beyond the hill where she should have turned.
Instead of going right back she turned south and when she ran into the
trail of blood that his open wound had left on the grass, she was quite
some distance away from him. But she was on his trail and with her nose
low to the ground she trotted along hopefully till she was suddenly
startled by the hideous cry of a coyote. She stopped, completely
terrified, and listened. A cry of a second coyote, nearer, responded to
the first from the other side of the hill before her.
With a few bounds she was at the top of the hill. Not a dozen feet down
the slope sat a coyote over the lifeless body of her colt. He had eaten
a great deal and was heavy with meat. He was so completely surprised
that he could not move for a moment. It was too late to move. She was so
close to him that he was afraid to turn. He bared his teeth in a feeble
effort at defiance and snarled, but Queen was too furious to think of
herself. With all the strength of madness she hurled herself upon him
and over him, leaping away in terror and carrying with her the sensation
of hoof crushing bone. When she was quite certain that there was nothing
pursuing her, she thought he had run away and so nervously trotted back
to her baby.
She came back cautiously a step at a time, her eyes gleaming like
burning coals, her skin quivering with fear. She saw the black shadowy
mass that was her colt and then she made out a second black mass beside
it. A few steps nearer and she began to feel that she had rendered the
coyote motionless, but when she got quite close she saw the beast’s hind
legs kick backward in the throes of death. Queen did not know that he
was dying, but she did know by the motionlessness of his head that she
had him at a disadvantage and she approached with less fear and beat at
him with her hoof just as she had many a time beaten a hole in the ice
over a pond.
Finally she revolted against a task so foreign to her nature and turned
as if with sudden realisation of something overwhelmingly terrible, to
the almost unrecognisable body of her foal. But she only sniffed once
and sprang away with a snort and cry. Round and round the hilltop she
ran expressing the agony in her soul with loud and plaintive, fearful
calls to which there was no answer in all the infinity of space.
The odours were maddening. The place became unbearable and in her soul
the desire for the companionship of the herd flared up like a great
light in the torturous darkness. It was as if she saw them somewhere in
the gloomy spaces and running would bring her to them. So she loped and
trotted northward, all night. At dawn, too weary to continue on her
feet, she lay down to rest and as she rested she cropped the grass about
her. A few hours of rest and she was ready to continue her anxious
journey.
When toward noon she came to where the familiar woods appeared on the
horizon Queen accelerated her pace. It was there in that woods that the
beloved little thing had come to her, and she loped as if she expected
to find it there again. Forgotten were all the aches in her muscles.
What pain of body can outweigh the pain of mother mind at the loss of
her baby? Deny the animal all the finer emotions you like! Mother love
is too obvious a quality of the lowest animal life to be denied.
But the moment Queen saw the familiar trees, the moment she entered the
shadowy, fragrant atmosphere of the woods where the little thing had
been born, the image of it, wandering about elusively in the solitude,
came plaintively calling into her soul and she turned back upon the
trail of sorrow. Back over the plains she ran, as if her speed could
save it, ran as if some evil man creature were carrying it away, running
off with it, ahead of her, just out of sight.
An overwhelming sense of bodily weariness came over her at sundown and
she lay down to sleep; and all through her heavy slumber, she pursued
her elusive baby and struggled with monstrous man and hungry coyote.
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