Coyote

Chapter 5: Under Cover

We ran over the earth, jumped over tree roots, climbed over mountains, and did whatever we needed to do to follow the humans. The journey was long and arduous, but by the end of the day we reached the lake that the humans had floundered into as an escape route. It wasn't often that members of our species committed to quests like this. Maybe those arrogant bigger wolves would do things like this more often, but they hadn't lived in our forest for generations so nobody really knew what they would do. Only the stories of their exploits remained.

Regardless of what other animals said, we could do this. We'd find those humans and show them what for.

Their forest rose on the other side of the lake like an abandoned rockslide. It was claustrophobic looking at all those chunks of gray habitations clustered together; it was no wonder the humans had decided to intrude upon our domain. If I lived in a place like this, I would want to leave as well.

Kai stopped at the edge of the lake. "I smell them," she said, "just as I would smell a small little rat. They're out there all right, in their awful, manufactured forest of misery. At least, that's where their scent goes. They may have left already."

Mr. Rodgers growled, shaking his jowls. "We'll find them. Let's go in there and scare them right now."

"Hold on one moment. Let us not be so hasty, Mr. Rodgers," said Eli, walking in front of the older being. "Before we venture into their forest, we need to come up with a disguise. Finally, the moment I have been preparing for my entire life. We'll need disguises. Elaborate backstories! Some wire cutters. But where to find our disguises? I wonder..."

Splash! Something had jumped into the lake off to our left. We all looked and saw a human head pop out of the water. Presumably, the head was still attached to the rest of the human, but pretending it wasn't brought a wide grin to my face. Four other humans stood on the sandy shore. After the human in the water called out to them, they all discarded the strange furs they wore and jumped in as well, yelling and flopping like a bunch of salmon trapped on land, but a lot less gracefully. Their furs lay on the shore just at the edge of the tree line.

I looked at the others. The answer was so clear. We all moved closer to the unattended furs and grabbed them while the humans were busy splashing about, taking them back into our forest.

Most of the furs looked very strange and were much too large for any of us. Eli had to explain their functions to us as he remembered them from school. The shirts were all large and baggy and were impossible to walk around in. Trying on a pair of pants (why it was called a pair when there was only one pants, I still don't know) was immensely uncomfortable. The pants also made using the restroom impossible which seems very impractical to me. Shoes prevented me from utilizing my claws. We decided to hide all the shoes we found up in trees, tying them to the highest branches. That left only the hats. There were five, black, circular hats with a little nub on the top. According to Eli, these were called berets, and were very popular in Newark, a distant land filled with misery and despair. Even the name gave me chills. I put on my beret and admired myself in a small puddle. Wearing the human covering felt odd, but at least I would be unrecognizable to the humans now. They would think I was one of them.

"How do I look, brother?" asked Eli. He sat on a nearby rock and tilted his head. The beret he wore wobbled but didn't fall.

"Hideous," I responded.

"Good, good. Just like a real live human then." He addressed the rest of our group. "Alright everyone, you all have your berets? Excellent, most excellent. So. Before we enter the forest of the enemy, let's go over our cover story. We need to come up with something that won't alert the humans to our true purpose."

We huddled together, thinking. "Aha!" Mr. Rodgers exclaimed. "I have it! We don't want to scare the humans. We're travelers hoping to see their forest and admire it."

There were a few hushed murmurs of agreement, and Eli slowly nodded his head. "That certainly has potential...but is it enough to earn the trust of the humans? Does anyone else have any suggestions?"

"What about we pretend that we're lost and need help finding our way home?" suggested Kai.

We all laughed. As if we would ever get lost.

"Come on everyone," said Eli. "What do humans like? What will allow us to earn their trust?"

How did one earn the trust of a human? They liked scaring things, and they certainly liked walking through our forest like it was their own. The sun glanced off of something hanging from a tree branch near where the humans were swimming. I recognized the device as a camera, some sort of contraption that humans used to capture the souls of others and bring them home. Humans in our forest often wore cameras around their own necks, and we had quite a collection back at the school. I quickly swiped the camera from it's branch and hung it from my own neck. With my brand-new beret and camera, no one could tell me apart from a tourist. We found four more cameras for the others, and suddenly we were ready to infiltrate the human world as a group of tourists.

As we walked towards the looming forest of gray where our quarries resided, we heard the swimming humans call out behind us, searching for their berets, unaware that they were now being used in the service of our noble quest.