Even one year on, everything loves the little Trickster Girl.

Photo copyright Aji, 2019; all rights reserved.

Ashawinoodese (Coyote). She left us at 10:15 this day, one year ago.

I hate this day.

She was one of the ferals, one of the first two of their pack to show up, along with Crow. She was the eternal puppy, her growth stunted by starvation in her first two months of life. Once she found us, she recovered fast, although she never lost the starvation-induced prey drive that led her to hunt the chickens periodically. Bent-Beak and Dahlia managed to survive her depredations, miraculously.

Except for that one fault, not her own but induced by early abuse and neglect, she was the perfect pup. Her love was unconditional; you can see it in her amber eyes in this, the last shot I ever got of her, taken three and a half days before something lured her outside the gate. And yes, she was lured; she had long since learned not to go beyond it. I have my suspicions, but as with Crow and Blue, they will never be proved. Whatever hit her on that sleet-ridden day made a good job of it; she had managed to stagger back onto our land, her home, before her spirit left. It was gone when we found her. She'd gone outside only some fifteen minutes before.

Because I screw up absolutely everything, I looked at the clock wrong, and I was late this morning taking her her offerings. We give them cedar and tobacco and water, a thank-you for all that their sweet spirits have given us. In her case, the treats she loved, too, and some beautiful purple flowers: the grocery-store flowers Wings brought home for me about 3 weeks ago, lily of the incas — one of my favorites, and they last seemingly forever. There were a few live blooms left in the vase; they belong to her now.

And I wept. We could plan for most of the others; this was a sudden break, a hole ripped in my soul that will never heal. 

Since her tiny body was laid to rest in that spot, the giant blue spruce has grown fuller, with many more cones than usual; the mint and the wild raspberries thrived this year in an explosion of leaves and fruit. Even one year on, everything loves the little Trickster Girl.

We love you, too, Coyote. Your sweet spirit is never out of our hearts.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.