Leaves tumble in the breeze, both overfoot and from the trees, in autumnal flower. Brent jogs down the path where he last saw Kevin, but there’s no sign of him. A howl pierces the air, off to the southwest. He moves toward it, leaving the trail, thinking in his mania that Kevin is playing a game.
   He feels the rhapsody of running again and speeds up a notch, hoping to outmaneuver his friend. The baying reverberates from the west, closer. Brent answers with his own yowl. There it is again, even closer, and he answers again, imitating it more precisely.
   Abruptly, we’re here.
   In a small clearing, under tall birches and maples, Kevin arrives from the northwest, perplexed. “Were you howling?”
   Brent, lathered in a dirty sweat, wipes his face with his shirt. “Not as good as you.”
   Firm with foreboding, “But I wasn’t.”
   “Sure you weren’t,” Brent laughs at the apparent put-on.
   “I swear I wasn’t.”
   “I was following it to you.”
   “I heard an animal – somebody’s dog? – and I was moving away from it. Then I heard you and came this way. That other one sounded kinda dangerous.”
   “If it wasn’t you then …”
   A growl from the trees behind Kevin rattles them. A huge, dark gray, wolf-creature approaches with eyes inflamed, teeth bared, and frothy lips twitching. It sniffs at the men and snarls its rage.
   Kevin finds words first. “Oh, shit.”
   “Show no fear.”
   They both stare at the animal, afraid to blink. It stares right back at them.
   “Isn’t that with mountain lions?”
   “But don’t run.” Brent swings his left arm, a couple strands of gauze rippling from it.
   The canid closely tracks the moving arm with his muzzle, but turns to Kevin’s reply. “I can’t outrun that.”
   It steps closer to the pair, its full face of fur is matted and wet with drool and tears. Twisted lids half reveal yellow eyes askew. Its lower jaw hangs, teeth glistening with the blood of a fresh kill.
   “I think I can handle him,” Brent asserts with steely intent.
   “You think you can handle him? I think that’s the speed talking there, Brent.”
   “We can take him.”
   “Yah-hah!” Kevin says, “You hold his legs and fangs, and I’ll kick him in the ’nads. Do not try to take him.”
   The animal paces predatorily but without a clear target, hardly aware of more than the warm flesh before it. It’s consumed by a wild wrath.
   “What do we do?”
   Kevin, without much credence, “Maybe we can scare him off.”
   The two men nod in agreement. They scream and wave their arms, yelling obscenities, but the animal is only annoyed by the unnecessary noise. Trying to bark, it chokes, and this angers it further. Its menacing growl loudens.
   Dropping the pack of paints to one hand to make a weapon, Brent sets to pounce. “If you help, we can get him. Trust me.”
   Head wagging vigorously, Kevin implores, “Aw, hell no.”
   But Brent roars and charges at the animal. It snarls ferociously as it too attacks. Before they collide, a stride apart, a shot rings out.
   A small puff of smoke wafts through the trees. A man comes from the southeast, calmly walking into the clearing with a pump-action shotgun resting on his arm.
   “Are y’all okay?”
   Recovering from his shock at the shot, Kevin realizes that Brent and the animal are both down. “Brent? Did you get hit?”
   The stranger is stupefied. “Are you kiddin’? I shot the coywolf.”
   Kneeling at his friend’s side, Kevin searches for any injury. “Brent!”
   Brent pulls himself up from the forest floor, wiping off some leaves. There’s a red one that he’s seen before, but he’s too excited to recognize it. “I’m fine. Something knocked me down.”
   The gunman claims, “It wasn’t me.” He opens a can of beer and swigs.
   Kevin regards him uneasily. “And how reliable are you?”
   Antagonized, the newcomer in his trucker hat and jean jacket strolls over to the motionless wolf. His cheek is large with a wad of chewing tobacco, and he spits a sepia glob side-mouthed. He taps the carcass with the barrel of his gun and then flips the furred body, exposing the meaty wound in its chest and blood pooling on the leaves. “See?”
   “It wasn’t lead shot,” Brent confirms. “What was it?”
   All three look around. “Maybe you tripped on a root,” the interloper suggests.
   Kevin estimates, “If you hadn’t, maybe that hole would be in your chest.”
   Still bewildered, “I don’t think I tripped on anything. Wait.” Brent notices the red leaf, but flouts its familiarity.
   “No way I woulda shot ‘im. That coywolf took the hit clean. Your friend was nowhere near it. Besides which, I just saved your lives. So you can quit tryin’ to hang that on me and maybe even say thank you.” The stranger takes a drink of beer. To the dead canine, with a superior chuckle and another spit, “I got you, you son’bitch.”
   Kevin, needling, “Friend of yours?”
   “He’s no friend of yours, I tell you what. This cur’s been making trouble everywhere. And you had no chance till I came along.”
   Brent’s irritated enough to forget the red leaf. “I don’t know about that.”
   Contemptuously, the shooter picks up a stick and jams it into the wolf’s mouth, peeling back a lifeless lip. Foamy saliva oozes into the blood. “You see that? Rabies. If you thought you could take a wolf of this size, you maybe want to think again. But if you think anything other than a big gun or a big bear can take a rabid coywolf, you might want to give up on thinkin’.”
   “What’s he doing here?” Brent asks. “Aren’t wolves extinct in the U.S.?”
   “Nope.” After another syrupy spit of chew, “There’s still some packs in the Rockies and in Wisconsin. Every so often, one’ll wander, especially if he’s got rabies. But this here is a coywolf, a coyote/wolf hybrid. The coyote has expanded his range since we tamed the West.” The man casually draws his shotgun up on Kevin and Brent. “Now – what are you two doin’ here?”
   Brent’s newly dismayed by the new danger. “What?”
   “Hold on, Tex.” For his stomping grounds, Kevin disputes, “This is the state park.”
   “Yeah, point that someplace else.”
   Through his gooey brown smile, “Big fellah, you are high as the sky on somethin’. And your long-haired, faggoty friend? I saw him on the news.”
   The two travelers exchange quizzical glances, Kevin’s hair only at his collar.
   “Could be I’ve captured a fugitive from justice. So why don’t you get walkin’ and we’ll give the sheriff a call?”
   Kevin is incensed, “And tell him what, ya drunk redneck?”
   Squaring off, Brent raises his fists. “Yeah, BillyBob! At least drop the gun and face me like a man.”
   The stranger’s eyes get a gleam perhaps more jeopardous than the coywolf’s. He takes a last drink of beer and tosses the empty can. “Well, whaddayaknow? Trespassers threatening me on my own land.” He gives the shotgun a pump. “You’re lucky you’re White,” and with a disturbing slur of a squint to Kevin, “mostly.”
   Now Kevin is ready to fight as Brent chastises, “Your land? We didn’t cross any fences or roads, you racist puke.”
   An order comes from the trees to the northeast, “Drop the shotgun, Ray!”
   With a glower of guilt, “Shiiit.”
   “Do it now!”
   The man gingerly rests his gun on the ground. “Easy, Alan. I was just messin’ with ’em.”
   From the trees, with Ray in the sights of his rifle the whole way, a park ranger walks up. He’s Latino with sharp eyes and a hard-line mouth. Taking the shotgun, he empties it of the last shells and pockets them.
   He lectures, “Ray, goddammit, I don’t care how far back your clan held this parcel. The park runs all the way to the Manetowa Trail and you know it. It’s been that way since before you were born.”
   Ray nods through the diatribe. “I hear ya. But I saved these two’s lives. The least they could do is thank me.”
   “Thanks.” Brent is sincere, if alienated.
   “Yeah,” Kevin ratifies, “I was feeling extremely grateful until you aimed that gun at us. Thanks for shooting the wolf though. And – sorry for calling you a redneck.”
   Guffawing, “Hell, I am a redneck,” Ray spits again. Then, with neighborly warmth, “And I was just messin’ with ya.”
   The ranger holds up the shotgun, handing it to Ray. “Mess with ’em on your side from now on, and take that beer can with you!”
   “All right, all right, Alan! You don’t have to get all riled up about it.” Ray’s smile gets bigger. “I’ll catch you two later.”
   The friends mark his exit while the ranger walks to the coywolf. He stands next to the body, contented but pitying. “We finally got him.”
   Kevin inquires, “You’ve been after him a while?”
   “Yup. He’s been running wild through the park for weeks. He kept to himself before he showed symptoms of rabies. Musta never stayed in the same place twice. Hope he didn’t infect any of the other animals.”
   Looking at the gruesome canine, Kevin agrees, “Me too.”
   “He was close to getting us. I was still more scared of Ray,” Brent admits.
   “He plays by an older rulebook. Sometimes he forgets we’re not in the settler days any more.”
   “I’d never guess that from the gun … or the offhand racism.” Kevin chides.
   “Until they make racists illegal, we’ve got to cope with them too, but Ray’s not likely to do you harm. I’m gonna get this carcass buried before any other animals get into it. Is your hand okay?”
   Brent tucks in his frayed bandages, “It’s nothing. There’s a dead deer back along the trail too.”
   “I dealt with it. You didn’t touch any of the animals at all, did ya?”
   Kevin and Brent shake negative, disgusted. The big man adds, “No way.”
   “You take care of yourselves then, and be good.”
   “You too. And thanks for the help.” Kevin segues, “Come on, Brent.” He readies another cigarette.
   “Alan, is it?” Extending his clammy right hand, “Brent Holland.” The ranger takes it, discreetly perturbed. “Thank you.”
   Checking his moistened grip, Alan wipes it on his pants, peering at Brent suspiciously. “No problem at all.” Then he preempts Kevin’s ignition, “There’s no smoking in the park, sir.”
   Kevin complies and saves the cig.
   “You two may want to stay on the trails in this part of the forest. Ray can be reckless when he’s had a few brews, but he’ll leave you be if you don’t stray too far south.”
   “Appreciate the warning.”
   The ranger assembles a folding shovel and begins digging a hole.
   As he and Brent pick up their hike, Kevin mutters, “That is the wrong person to be shaking hands with.”
   “What’s up? What’s the ranger gonna do to us?”
   “He would bust your ass if he thought you were high on speed.”
   “How could he know?” Brent’s still overconfident.
   “He knows the signs, his kid o.d.’d a couple years ago.” Kevin peeks behind them. “He’s a crusader when he’s not a ranger. He even tried to get Larry investigated for being mixed up with it, but the cops wouldn’t bite. They knew Alan was trying to start a witch hunt.”
   “Who’s Larry again?”
   “He’s the friend we’re gonna go see. He runs the Corn Basket Express.”
   Brent, applying the local lowdown, “That hippie pothead, shuttles the detasselers around?”
   With a nose-laugh, “That’s him. He’s a good guy. Thanks to your situation, he should hook us up.”
   “No more drugs for me, I’m through.”
   Kevin’s patient enough only to thwart naiveté. “It’s not speed, Brent. It’s pot. It’ll help you come down.”
   “I can come down without it.”
   “You could, but believe me, it sucks.”
   “Is that how you used to – to –?”
   “In the early days.”
   “Only in the early days?”
   “Once I was truly addicted, I didn’t want anything but crystal.” Kevin’s visibly pained by his hunger, if constrained, for the drug. He takes a breath. “Do you want to come down?”
   Brent, eyes still bugging, “Absolutely.”
   “It’ll help for the smoothest descent. Unless you have those bad reactions to it. You said you smoked it before?”
   “Yeah. It didn’t do anything.”
   “Even if you don’t get high from it, it will surely take the edge off. Weed and booze are different, but they have that in common.”
   “I’ll drink some booze then.”
   “No, no, no. Bad idea. Weed and speed balance each other well enough, but alcohol and speed is like gas on a fire. It’ll burn you out that much faster.”
   “But what if I get hooked on the weed?”
   Kevin stops and simpers, “Are you serious?”
   Abashed, “Uh … yeah.”
   As he continues walking, Kevin snickers. “We gotta get you enlightened to the buddha.”