Pimpernel & the Coyote Refugees

We are in receipt of two marmot and three coyote babies. The Scarlet Pimpernel (one of the coyotes) came with a genetic or congenital defect that prevented food from passing into her stomach. She would eat, then throw it up; eat again with desperation, throw it up, seeing food everywhere as she slowly starved to death (”water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink”). Trips to the vet, barium x-rays, phone calls, brainstorming. She became so weak she could barely lift her head – but she WANTED TO LIVE, as any good coyote would with their phenomenal life force. We kept her alive with IV fluids – her tiny body had bumps all over where we gave her fluids under her skin, but finally, she was only a few hours from death. I could feel her life force ebbing to that critical point of no return. Another call to the vet and he gave us his last possibility … a ligament at the base of the esophagus that is supposed to release after birth did not let go and was putting a stranglehold on any food going down. They said it was basically a death sentence. She was too young for a major operation the equivalent of open heart surgery … however … Now that we had a picture of what was wrong, we could take action. Feeding tiny amounts of fresh strained chicken soup by eye dropper every hour she beat all odds, made it through the night, and started to gain strength. She started to have the energy to run around the cabin, but we noticed her little legs bending like rubber despite being fed Vitamin D enriched goat’s milk and fresh raw egg yolks donated by our chickens. We added several hours of sunshine, and vitamin and calcium supplements for a 50-pound dog. Her legs straightened out. She is now pure hell on wheels and a bully besides – so sweet though, and so charming when she wants to be! Completely irresistible. At 4 months we’ll see if she needs the open heart surgery to correct her esophagus. But the pleasure she gets out of life! The vitality and joy – she barely touches the ground as she darts hither and thither faster than the eye can follow — so light and full of ecstasy, leaps and twirls.

The other two came in a miserable state. I have never seen an animal in such terror as little Skitter. His sister Faerytail too, though not as bad. He lay frozen in a corner for hours in one position, face frozen in a grimace of fear. His legs were drawn up tight to his body like a person in a long coma, unable to respond even to gentle washing of his tummy with a soft warm sponge. You wonder what happened. For those of you who saw Murder In The First, he reminded me of that prisoner, all twisted and distorted; or of Dov in the book Exodus, after his experiences in the concentration camps. In my more poetic moments in the early dawn, half asleep, I wondered if he held the terror of all the coyotes we have tortured over the centuries. That made me all the more determined to help him live … to metaphorically undo some of that.

He refused to eat, staring out with terrified eyes, not even closing them to sleep. He emanated a feeling that he had given up, that he had decided life was not worth living. A coyote! Jean held him for hours, reading, watching the news. I would put him under my shirt and tied it around my waist so he wouldn’t fall out. He would find the darkest tightest spot, usually under my armpit, and I would walk around doing my chores, slightly lumpy. Sometimes there were two lumps … Faerytail also needed extra comfort and contact, though at least she would eat and show some interest in life. Construction workers on the cabin looked at me oddly when I walked by, my shirt suddenly wiggling as they tried to burrow deeper. Faerytale would timidly invite Skitter to play, touching him gently with a paw. He would barely respond with a twitch.

We named him Skitter because he was so light, so fragile, like those delicate bugs skittering across the surface of water. We got him to gingerly take in little bits of food but without enthusiasm. Then one day, after trying everything we could think of to ease and reassure him without success, fearful he would waste away, we released the PIMPERNEL in the same room. She took one look, streaked over and assumed the stiff-legged dominance position over him, growling savagely with lips drawn back. He stared in bug-eyed panic and disbelief. Then in a flash he uncurled, rolled on his back, wiggled all over, peed in ecstasy and whimpered and squealed in delighted submission.

Skitter started coming out of his shell. He still wants nothing to do with humans, retreats into his frozen position at any unknown or sudden sound or movement and into a depression when Pimpernel is taking her sun bath. But his appetite is good, and he comes alive again as soon as she enters the room, enthusiastically running and playing with his BELOVED who continues to dominate him mercilessly. Coyote squeals of ecstatic submission ricochet throughout the cabin as he flips on his back with her jaws at his throat – then he seeks it out again. (Willow, our 4 year-old coyote does that with Streak, screaming across the ranch as he never touches a hair on her body. I thought it was a female drama queen thing, but my mind is being constantly broadened). In any case there is one coyote that means the world to another, that in his eyes is everything, who is precious and irreplaceable.

Additional Pimpernel Stories