The Coyote's Cry by Jackie Merritt Page B

I talked to Annie and figured out you had gone looking for coyotes, your guardian spirit. I went back to my place to get a backpack, food and water, and here I am again, all set to hike the hills and look for you. Instead, here you come down the road in this old truck, which I didn’t even know still ran.”
    â€œWhy wouldn’t it still run? It’s a fine truck.”
    â€œThat’s beside the point. Granddad, would you please turn this fine truck around and drive it back to your place? I will take you wherever it is you want to go. Besides, I have something to tell you. It’s the reason I came out here this morning.”
    â€œOh, you were finally going to tell me who in my family is dying?”
    â€œNo one is dying!”
    â€œEither you don’t know about it or think I don’t know about it.” George put the truck in reverse and stepped on the gas. The pickup shot backward, swerved to the left and ended up in the ditch.
    Bram ran after it, suddenly scared to death. He breathed freely again only when he saw George getting out of the cab, apparently uninjured.
    George called, “That old truck has more power than I remembered.” He calmly walked to Bram’s SUV and got in.
    Bram looked at the old truck in the ditch and then back to his great-grandfather, now sitting calmly in Bram’s rig. Shaking his head, he walked over to his SUV and got in.
    â€œI take it you want to leave your pickup in the ditch for now?” he said to George.
    â€œIt’s a good place to park it.”
    â€œFine.” Bram started the engine, then decided to get the worst of this meeting over with. While he drove he glanced at his great-grandfather and felt a swelling of love in his chest. “Granddad, it’s Gran. She had a stroke.”
    George didn’t respond for a long moment, then said sadly, “Gloria, my dear child. I will outlive my daughter.”
    â€œShe isn’t dying, Granddad.”
    â€œNot today, but soon,” the old man said.
    Bram knew arguing was futile. Besides, he wasn’t so sure himself that Gran wasn’t dying. She wasn’t even close to being the grandmother he had adored all of his life. She had no sparkle, no life in her eyes, no laughter just waiting to erupt, and she displayed no will at all to recover and return to even a semblance of her former self.
    â€œWhere were you going?” Bram asked quietly.
    â€œTo town. Didn’t I already tell you that?”
    â€œMaybe you did, but where in town?”
    â€œThe feed store. Since no one bothered to tell me who had fallen ill, I decided to find out for myself.”
    Bram drove in silence for a while, then brought up the subject that he knew was on his great-grandfather’s mind. “Apparently you located your guardian spirit.”
    â€œI did,” George confirmed.
    â€œAnd he conveyed the message of illness in the family.”
    â€œDeath in the family,” George corrected.
    A chill went up Bram’s spine. George’s premonitions, wherever he got them from, were usually much too accurate to ignore.
    â€œSomething quite unusual occurred when I finally found coyote,” George said then, surprising Bram, for his great-grandfather seldom detailed meetings with his guardian spirit. “He wasn’t alone. He brought fox with him, and she was a golden fox, so beautiful to behold that my eyes watered.”
    Bram recalled stories of fox, raven, bear, coyote and other animals that represented guardian spirits, heard many times in his youth. This was the very first time Great-granddad had actually seen fox, and Bram couldn’t remember ever hearing about a golden fox.
    â€œDoes fox’s color have significance?” Bram asked.
    â€œI believe it does, although I haven’t yet deciphered it,” George replied. “Is Gloria in the hospital?”
    â€œShe was. I had her brought to my place when the doctor said she could receive