The Last Word On Nothing

On March 1, 2022, Yellowstone National Park celebrated its 150th anniversary. I was privileged to work briefly for the Park Service there after college, and Elise and I make a point of returning every year; our honeymoon even revolved around a backpacking trip up Slough and Pebble Creeks. Until we visited last February to cross-country ski for a few days, though, I’d never been to Yellowstone in winter. The wildlife viewing was sublime: Not only was the park unburdened by its summer crowds, the snow had pushed animals down to lower elevations, and the valleys teemed with elk, muleys, pronghorn, and wolves. We couldn’t set out from a trailhead without bumping into a herd of bison.

One afternoon, as we skied back from Tower Fall, I had an odd premonition. There was one common critter we hadn’t seen, though conditions seemed prime for its appearance: Canis latrans, the coyote. I turned to Elise and said as much. Not more than two minutes later, as though summoned, a handsome, thick-furred song-dog popped from the brush and sauntered toward us.

We were skiing uphill. The coyote was cruising downslope, adhering instinctively to the hard-packed snow of the groomed ski track, which was, after all, nothing more than a game trail forged by human animals. In her mouth she clutched a thick scrap of half-frozen hide, elk or bison — peeled off a winter-killed carcass, maybe, or snatched from a wolf pack’s victim as the larger canids snapped at her heels. Focused on her hard-won prize, she seemed completely oblivious to our presence, or, more likely, so acclimated to people that she knew we posed no threat.

She drew ever closer, the hot steam of her breath billowing from around her slab of meat, head upright and carriage noble. Now thirty feet, now twenty, fifteen, ten. We stepped out of the ski track’s grooves and into deeper snow to let her go by; as our vectors crossed, she, too, deviated a step or two from the trail, like a pedestrian courteously making room on the sidewalk. Though we could’ve grazed her luxuriant pelt with our gloved fingertips, not once did she so much as glance in our direction. Never have I seen such an intent and purposeful creature, nor one so heedless of nearby humans. Down the trail she went, around a bend, and gone, ephemeral as fog, leaving behind only a line of pawprints and a single photo by which to prove her existence.