Coyote Hunting

I’m going coyote hunting. The wild animal coyote, not the Bugs Bunny one and not the human ones on reality TV. I’m honestly going to go out and hunt coyotes with my personal trainer, James, but just for research purposes. 

I have nothing against hunting although I am not a hunter. I’ve always been curious about hunters and why anyone in their right mind would go sit in the woods in the cold and dark, early in the morning, hoping to kill Bambi. But just because I don’t do it and I don’t understand it doesn’t mean I want to impose my beliefs on anyone else.

James loves hunting and fishing. We had a plan for him to take me deer hunting but I don’t do anything at 0500 if it involves me opening my eyes. While I was game to go with him in the middle of the day if it was seventy degrees and sunny, deer hunting requires cold and early mornings. He tells me spaghetti made with deer meat is good and that I wouldn’t know the difference. He says deer steaks, if properly cooked, are delicious. I’ve never tried either. In my mind, I don’t like deer meat, though he brought me some deer sausage and it was surprisingly delicious.

When I started plotting out my current thriller, “Karma on the Tarmac,” I needed to figure out how to “dispose” of a decent character in my book. I worked through the usual car accidents and falls off the cliffs. I thought about guns and knives and how he could be clobbered over the head with any one of a number of different kinds of heavy objects. Poison? Road Runner cartoons ran through my mind. 

My training sessions are challenging and I whine less and work harder when we’re trash talking or having some other conversations to keep my mind off the pain. James is a smart guy and I began bouncing ideas off him. He threw out an idea that I needed to explore and it involves hunting. I came up with three viable options. 

One Saturday, James took my husband and me out to his hunting property so I could see what a deer stand looks like. Another day, he brought a different kind of tree stand out to our house and attached it to a tree in our back yard. I hoped no one from the HOA would see it and report us to the self-important HOA troll. The stand wasn’t in the tree for too long so we didn’t get caught. 

Deer season ended and James told me about coyote hunting. Coyotes live in all counties in Georgia, and will kill rabbits, cats, small dogs, poultry, and even a deer fawn, if the opportunity presents itself. I guess I’m okay with someone hunting coyotes, and one of these warm spring evenings, I’ll go along and find out just what coyote hunting entails. 

So what happens to this unnamed character in my book?  Could it be a hunting accident? Could it be a car accident? A plane crash? No spoilers here. You’ll have to read my book and find out!