roared, “Close the door! It’s colder’n a well-digger’s hind pockets out there!” and David closed it.
Clouds ran before a biting wind. The desert was colorless under the hard metal sky. The wind had scoured a curtain of dust off the alkali flat and held it against the ragged skirts of the Fox Range. Snow dusted the peaks, coloring them the same gray as the sky. The regular
“There’s Imogene, at any rate.” David pointed up the hill behind the stop. Imogene was making her way down through the sage, a spiny branched skeleton of bitterbrush, nearly as tall as she, held over her shoulder. She caught sight of them and waved her arm in a wide arc above her head.
Huddled in the doorway away from the cutting wind, Sarah waited while David, covering the ground quickly with long, loping strides, met Imogene and shouldered her burden for her.
They reached the porch and he swung it down, balancing it on its stump. Blackish limbs thrust out asymmetrically. It gave off a tart, acrid odor that smelled of the outdoors. Sarah hugged herself and waited for Imogene to explain.
“This,” Imogene said, “is a Christmas tree.”
Sarah’s face fell. “Noisy forgot.”
David turned the snarled bush from side to side. “Put an angel on the top, and who will know the difference?”
Noisy had become suddenly busy poking the fire when they came in bearing the Christmas bush. “Noisy’s getting old,” Mac said, his voice heavy with sorrow. “It’s good he’s knocking off come spring. Mind’s going. He’d be forgetting the routes, next thing you know, and dribbling folks all over the desert.”
The bush was enthroned on an overturned washtub in the corner away from the fire. It would be decorated on Christmas Eve.
After supper, David excused himself to “see a man about a horse.” Just after he let himself out, Karl, chuckling to himself, waved Sarah over to the window. Wondering what the excitement was about, Mac, then Noisy, then Imogene joined them. When David closed himself into the privacy of the outhouse, there were six pairs of eyes watching him. He was about to get his wish concerning Karl’s coyote dog.
Moss Face had followed David at a distance, slinking from bush to bush, keeping to the shadows. As soon as the door closed, he crouched down low behind a hump of earth and waited. Sarah laughed excitedly and Karl winked at her. “Oh, you two! You never tire of this,” Imogene reproved, but she was covering a smile with her hand. Soon the half moon swung out and David emerged into the cold blue evening light. Moss Face flattened his ears and wiggled his hindquarters in preparation. With a bound he was upon David, a happy growl deep in his throat, worrying David’s trouser cuff.
To the immense delight of his audience, David reacted to the onslaught of his shadowy attacker with a great leap in the air and a heartfelt bellow of fear. He was halfway to the house before he heard the laughter.
The night stage from Fort Bidwell arrived after dark, carrying six passengers, one complaining loudly of backache and permanent internal damage from the jostling he had received. He was a slender, white-faced man with a neat goatee, dressed in the confining broadcloth and tight clothes of the Eastern cities. The harsh, windswept desert had shaken him, and he hid his fear with bluster. The others were too cold and tired to do anything but push close to the fire, sip Sarah’s strong, hot coffee, and sniff at the savory smells coming from the kitchen.
David sat back from the bar, playing a quiet game of poker-matchsticks were the only stakes Imogene tolerated-with Noisy and Ross, the driver of the Bishop stage. Karl had come in from the tackroom-bedroom he’d fixed up for himself on the leeward side of the barn. He was near the end of the bar on one of the two stools where he could see through the open door into the kitchen. Occasionally he’d lean over the marred wood of the counter and call to Sarah in a stage whisper, “Missus, how you doing? I can wash up in a minute and lend a hand.” Moss Face had curled himself into a neat circle that just fit within the four legs of Karl’s stool.
Lamps burned along the walls and on the white cloths of the tables that the woman had pushed together to form one board for the evening meal; the room hummed with conversation. Imogene emerged from the darkness of the stairwell and stopped a moment to enjoy the scene, so warm against the bleak desert beyond the windows. Just then Sarah came out of the kitchen, her face flushed with cooking, carrying a platter of seaming venison ringed with small potatoes. Karl was quick to take it from her and carry it to the table.
The food was hot and good and the company cheerful with the season. The talk was of home and of times past. Even the man from the East forgot himself and, after being assured the northern Paiutes were not on the warpath, relaxed and joined in the lighthearted talk around the table. Afterwards, the company spread out to checkers, cards, and quiet conversations by the fire.
Around nine o’clock, Ross and his swamper left to bed down in the barn, the female guests retired, and the little Easterner excused himself for the evening. As he let himself out the front door to visit the outhouse, a stealthy four-legged shape slipped out after him. Karl nudged Sarah’s chair with his foot and nodded toward the door. She looked up just in time to see Moss Face’s long feathery tail disappearing into the night. Grinning at each other, they rose as one and went to the window. Imogene rolled her eyes heavenward and groaned. David joined Sarah and Karl, then Mac came, and Noisy. Soon the two remaining guests, unable to resist the sly glances and mysterious chortlings, came to swell the ranks.
Unaware that he had an audience, the man looked over his shoulder and peered into the darkness, starting at every small night sound. A coyote howled from a distant hill and he quickened his pace, trotting through the sage until he reached the safety of the outhouse.
“A coyote’d be more scared of him than he is of it,” Mac snorted.
“He’s got a coyote stalking him now, Mac,” Sarah reminded him. She giggled and pressed her face near the glass, cupping her hands around her eyes to block the reflections.
The outhouse door swung closed and, true to form, Moss Face glided over the mound of dirt to the side and hunkered down. Mac and Noisy nudged each other, and the two strangers, unable to make heads or tails of the spectacle they were witnessing, craned their necks to see out the window.
A few minutes passed, the outhouse door opened, a widening ribbon of black cracking the weathered wood, and the New Yorker emerged from the darkness, still buttoning the fly of his trousers.
“You avert your eyes, Sare,” David whispered.
Sarah blushed but kept her face pressed against the glass, her eyes on the tuft of fur, spiky and inky black in the moonlight, where Moss Face crouched.
The coyote waited until his victim was several yards from the outhouse. Then, low to the ground, as quick and silent as the cloud shadows, he darted from his hiding place. Growling at the last instant, he threw himself on the man’s feet with a puppy’s delight, sniffing and snapping at the hem of the trouser leg.
The result was spectacular. First the little New Yorker screamed and threw both arms straight in the air like a man held at gunpoint. In a moment he recovered himself and attempted to run. Doggedly, Moss Face hung on, wagging his rear end and pulling in the opposite direction. Tripped up more by his own fear than by the ministrations of the coyote puppy, the man fell to his hands and knees. Encouraged by the success of his game, Moss Face let go of the trouser leg and ran around in front of his chosen playmate to jump at him and bark.
Inside, the six onlookers howled. David laughed so hard his eyes were wet, and Sarah bounced and murmured “Shh, shh,” between fits of the giggles.
Terrified by the eye-level view of his assailant, the New Yorker screamed again and scrambled to his feet. Moss Face danced back and raised one paw, his all-purpose and only trick. Fumbling in his coat pocket, the Easterner pulled out a lady’s handgun and fired. Moss Face scampered several feet away, turned, lay on the ground and rolled belly upward to prove his innocent intentions.
Sarah pounded on the glass, crying, “Mister, no!”
Karl shoved Mac and David aside to get to the door.
The frightened man fired again and the little coyote was still.
Karl threw open the door so hard that one of the wooden panels broke as it struck the wall. He was upon the little man before the fellow had recovered from the fright his own gunshots had given him. Karl snatched him up as though he were a toy, one fist knotted in his shirtfront, the other twisted through his belt, and held him off the ground. Sarah, her face as white as the face of the moon, pushed past her brother and grabbed the gun from the
