The chickens squawked again and he hustled out the back door, letting it slam into place, a strip of white paint settling onto the porch. He huffed down to the chicken coop, the last few strands of his hair blowing high on his crown. As he ran he scanned the coop fence for damage. He couldn’t see the chickens, but knew they were huddled inside the coop, flapping their wings and panicking. He unlatched the entry gate and swung open the wire door. THE HUNT WAS ON. Gnomes hurried over to the coop, pointed the rifle into the dark entrance and peered inside. His eyes slowly adjusted to the dim area near the back wall. In the middle of his prize chickens sat a healthy coyote, as if it was doing no wrong, no wrong at all. To Gnome, a coyote was nothing but nature’s jester, a thing sent to mock him, to rile him.

“Hey, rat face!” he yelled.

The coyote turned her head, a dead chicken swinging in her jaw by its broken neck. The coyote’s eyes grew to the size of silver dollars. She leapt up a chicken stairway and onto the egg laying cages, dead chicken swinging. Gnomes pulled the trigger and bullets sprayed the coop. Each shot a cracking, icy whip. White feathers billowed into the air as the chickens clucked and knocked into each other, a pillow fight gone wrong. A clutch of his prized chickens blew past him as he continued to fire. Bullets ripped into flesh and bones cracked. Gnomes clenched his teeth amidst the muzzle flash and recoil, unfazed by the chaos. His rifle was no normal .22. No, boy. He’d had it modified by Terry Garr, a local militia member. You ain’t got no standard pea shootin’ .22 now, boy, Garr had said.

Satisfied with the barrage and the dense aroma of gunpowder, Gnomes released the trigger, saving two bullets in the clip. When the feathers settled he counted four dead chickens, and a whole lotta blood splattering the far wall.

There was no sign of the coyote.