Bestiary

He had deliberately parked his Jeep right below a halogen lamp, and his first thought was to check the tires. After that run-in at Temescal Canyon, he was only too aware of all the crazies loose in L.A.

He got into the car and started for home. At least at this hour — he checked the clock on the dashboard and saw that it was after 10 P.M. — there wouldn’t be much traffic. The Santa Anas were blowing, hot dry winds off the desert, stirring up the scents of dry sage and dry mesquite and dry soil. Dry everything.

He put on the radio, but he couldn’t really concentrate on it; instead, he kept turning over in his mind the last hour, much of it spent jousting with James Running Horse. He’d done his best to keep his temper, but he was so weary of this endless debate, this ongoing controversy between science and religion, which played out everywhere from the textbook wars over evolution to his own freedom to examine a precious and rare hominid artifact. He wished he’d said something more when Running Horse had demanded that the bones of this “honored ancestor” be returned to his tribe. Who was to say these bones were ever honored? Much of the evidence suggested that the La Brea Woman had had her skull crushed with a blunt instrument, and it was quite possible that her male counterpart had met an equally violent fate. Far from being honored, these people might have been murdered, or brutally sacrificed, and for all we knew today, their fondest wish, their dying wish, might have been to get away from their bloodthirsty fellow tribe members altogether.

On the private drive up to Summit View, Carter saw not a soul — even the patrol car was missing, off on its rounds perhaps — and only the porch light was on at his own house. He opened the door quietly, in case everyone was asleep, and crept up the stairs. The night-light was on in Joey’s bedroom and he poked his head in there first. Champ, asleep on the crocheted rug that lay beside the crib, immediately raised his head, but upon seeing Carter just thumped his tail on the floor and waited for his ears to be scratched.

Carter looked into the crib and, just as he expected, Joey’s little gray-blue eyes were wide open and looking right back at him. “One of these days,” Carter said, leaning down to give the baby a wet smooch on his little forehead, “I’m going to catch you with your eyes closed. I’m going to come in so quietly that even you can’t hear me.”

Joey looked at him as if to say, Highly unlikely.

In the bedroom, Beth was propped up against the pillows with the TV on low, but she was fast asleep. Carter glanced at the screen — it was the same channel The Vorhaus Report was broadcast on, though now it was showing something about the dangers faced by illegal immigrants from Mexico. He picked up the remote, which was lying next to Beth’s hand, and flicked it off. The second he did, she stirred and opened her eyes.

“When did you get in?” she mumbled.

“Thirty seconds ago.”

“You were great, much better than that other guy.”

“He had a three-piece suit.”

She cleared her throat and sat up higher in the bed.

“But you’re taller.”

He laughed and took off his shirt. His arm, where Geronimo had cut him, was healing nicely. At least it had been a clean cut.

“Your boss’ll be pleased.”

“Gunderson’s never pleased. He’s just sometimes less unpleasant.”

“You hungry?”

“Nah, I ate at the museum before going over to the show.”

“Tell me you didn’t eat at one of the specimen tables, with all the bones and stones around you.”

“I ate with a very interesting guy that I’ve just recently met.”

Beth groaned, “Don’t tell me — the La Brea Man.”

“You said not to tell you,” Carter said, hanging up his shirt and then his pants.

Beth harrumphed. “I’m starting to think that James Running Horse had a point.”

Carter went into the bathroom, showered, put some antiseptic on his forearm, and by the time he came out in fresh boxers and a T-shirt, the lights were off and Beth was fast asleep again. He debated going downstairs to read for a while, but suddenly the day caught up to him and he fell on his back onto the bed. The air-conditioning was humming softly, and the room was almost completely dark.

He closed his eyes, tried hard not to think about The Vorhaus Report or Gunderson or even the La Brea Man, and succeeded eventually in alighting on some harmless memories from his boyhood — fireworks on the Fourth of July. He yawned, stretched his long legs out on top of the sheet, and let his mind just drift. Firecrackers, corn on the cob, catching fireflies in the backyard…

How long he’d been asleep he couldn’t even guess, but way off in the distance, as if from a world away, he thought he heard a dog growling… then a short bark. He was hoping it would stop — he was so damn comfortable — or that Beth would get up and see what was wrong. But when he heard it again, another bark, more frantic this time, but abruptly curtailed, he realized he’d have to get up himself and see what was wrong.

He dragged his legs off the bed, got up, and stumbled toward Joey’s room. His bare feet stepped into something wet in the hallway, but in the dim glow of the nursery night-light all he could see was what looked like a dark stain on the white wall-to-wall carpeting. Oh man, he thought, this was going to be expensive to clean up, whatever it was, nor did he want to have to tell the owner of the place about it.

Best leave that to Beth, he thought.

Crossing the threshold, he tripped on something, something heavy and furry, and when he looked down, he could see that it was Champ, that he was lying on his side… and his throat was torn out, hot blood spilling toward the door. His breath stopped, and when he looked up again he could see eyes — three or four pairs of them — staring at him from all corners of the nursery. They were yellow and malevolent, and the worst of them, the ones that were fixed on him the most intently, belonged to the big gray coyote who had led the pack.

And who was now inside Joey’s crib. Standing over him, panting fast.

How… Carter’s mind could barely accept what he was seeing. A warm draft blew up the stairs and onto the back of his legs; he could hear the front door banging, loose and open, in the foyer downstairs. Had he…

He didn’t dare move.

The other coyotes were perched around the room, one on the crocheted rug that Champ used to occupy, one on the window seat, a third in the corner near the closet, nosing now under the dresser.

Carter didn’t even want to shout to Beth — he didn’t want to do anything that might disturb, in some unpredictable way, the terrible tableau before him.

Not until he had figured out exactly what to do.

The leader’s jaws were wet with blood — Champ’s, no doubt — but Carter could see that Joey was so far unaffected. He was lying on his stomach, eyes open, in a blue sleep suit. His little toes curled, and Carter could see him now lifting his head to get a better look at this big stuffed toy that was sharing his crib.

No, Carter thought, no… don’t move. Please God don’t move.

The rank smell of fur and blood permeated the room.

The leader lowered his head, until his snout was just inches above the baby’s head. But his eyes remained on Carter, as if taunting him.

Carter inched closer, hoping that he might get near enough to make a lunge for the baby and get him. But the coyote on the rug stood up on all fours, and with his head down and back arched, snarled loudly.

Carter looked around for anything he could swing, but there was nothing. Even the lamp on the dresser was only a little round ginger jar in the shape of Dumbo.

Joey gurgled, and perhaps sensing his father was in the room, started to make noise. Happy, meaningless burbles. He kicked his legs.

The coyote in the crib growled, and snapped in Carter’s direction; his yellowed fangs, one of them badly broken, glistened wetly above the baby’s back.

The others were on full alert now, and Carter could sense them moving closer from all directions. His mouth was so dry he could barely speak, but in a low voice he said, “Okay now, okay now… that’s right, that’s right,” as he moved another few inches toward the crib. “Yeah, that’s right…”

But just when he was close enough to pounce and grab his son, the alpha coyote raised its hackles, then