uncle tim's

Tobias Snow began to wander out to that place of confluence at an early age.
It was a wondrous cusp of geography where ocean met land, and there did exist an edge of reality that seemed to be in a constant state of becoming. That often misty world was neither land nor sea, but to Tobias it possessed a visceral truth. He would go off without notice, and return feeling calm and rooted. Prior to this solitary pursuit he had hiked there often with his older brothers Jeremiah and Samuel. They would walk there to gather herring in the spring, or to look for treasures that may have washed ashore from grounded schooners in the winter.
In April of 1888 he left his house in late afternoon. He followed the paths and deer trails that skirted among the necklace of fresh water ponds that were now freshly thawed. They shimmered in the early spring light. As he was approaching that point where pines and oaks thinned, where the sand of the dunes spilled and leaked into the forest, he saw the coyote lying across the trail. A patch of blood-red sand spread out from under the animal's neck. The coyote's chest rose and fell in a very slow rhythm. Her wide eyes followed Tobias carefully. Otherwise she was motionless.
"They caught you at the chicken coop old girl?" Tobias asked softly. Then he sat in the sand and reached out his hand. Tobias stroked the animal's rear legs and watched her eyes relax and look away. Gradually Tobias moved closer and lowered himself completely until he had placed his head on the coyote's ribs. He felt the perfect pattern of her breath. Whether she was unable to move, or chose not to, Tobias did not contemplate.
Tobias watched the clouds begin to glow pink and move across the April sky. Then he heard the sound of a lone peeper coming from Ryder's Pond.
The coyote inhaled deeply, the let out one last breath.
Tobias's head lay still, and he listened as the sound of awakening peepers joined their sentinel and gradually filled the woods, drowning out all trace of winter.


PEEPERS