Fiction | October 08, 2013
The Blood Old and Strong
Alex Taylor
When they lost the first calf it was April, and Waldreve knew even then what it would all come to and that it wasn’t just any coyote they were after but a big male this time. Its track was larger than any Waldreve had seen before, printed in the muddy creek bank where they found the first calf stripped to cage bones and hide, and the dog that made it was not alone. It kept a pack of at least a dozen others. All that summer, Waldreve spent his nights on the porch and listened to them howl the moon down as they tore calves right from their mother’s teat, the alpha dog’s voice bolder and louder than the others. He knew then that he would kill the coyote and all of his offspring.
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