Maybeline

I saw them up ahead, but too late, and they scattered. The three biggest darted straight into the brush, while the two smallest (youngest and least worldly?) ran on down the road a ways, before finally cutting over and disappearing from view. I pulled up at a spot where I believed all five of them had been gathered. I didn't see any of them but I sensed that he was there, Coyote, and maybe the others as well.

Planning a night on the town, are you?

"Maybe," he responded while shifting just enough that I could catch the movement. He showed that silly toothy grin again, the one I had come to expect. "We got the kids up early today, so we could show them a few things." Another one of the trio then showed himself, the same grin - unnerving really, as they both looked at me. I began to wonder where number three was.

Chicken legs, I said a little too quickly. Muscle and bone, and not much more. I gave them a smile of my own, but it only made their grins grow larger.

"Don't worry, you're not on the menu."

Oh, speaking of worry, there was a rattler out earlier, down the road where those kids ran.

Coyote shook and his grin disappeared. "Rattlesnake. Know what I don't like about rattlesnake? Those eyes, they freak me out man. Little gold ball bearings looking out. Like little round mirrors reflecting the outside world. I can't read anything in them though, can't see inside. Everything about life and living can be seen in the eyes of you humans. Same for deer's big bulging orbs. Heck, even those little black things Mouse calls eyes reveal things like fear, and satisfaction. But rattlesnake -  nothing! Nothing," he repeated for emphasis.

"I guess I oughta go check on the kids." The third one now appeared, up on the levee. He scampered down the rocks and the three began to trot away. Coyote suddenly stopped, while the other two kept on. "By the way, what song you singing today?"

One Tin Soldier, I replied immediately, thinking back a few hours into the afternoon.

"Ha," he laughed. "Corny, but fair. Good movie, though. A hero for today, that Billy Jack, fighting hate wherever it shows its face."

I wasn't surprised that he knew the lyrics, and his hoarse voice carried back to me as Coyote turned and struck off down the road: 

"... Now they stood beside the treasure

On the mountain dark and red

Turned the stone and looked beneath it

'Peace on Earth' was all it said.

Go ahead and hate your neighbor

Go ahead and cheat a friend

Do it in the name of Heaven

You can justify it in the end

There won't be any trumpets blowin'

Come the judgement day

On the bloody mornin' after

One tin soldier rides away."