City Slickers on Bicycles





As I pedaled along the bike trail, something shot out from the left of my peripheral vision. A coyote! I don’t know. Do you pronounce it ‘ky yote ee’ or ‘ky yote’? I think cowboys call them ‘ky yotes.’ Like, “I was wranglin’ cows at the back forty an’ spotted a ky yote. Shot ‘em.” Doesn’t that sound about right? But a City Slicker would say, “We stopped at a rest area and the sign talked about ky yote ees.” Anyway, that’s what I think.
Meanwhile, it shot out and hauled after Mike, who was last in our group of three. I looked back and it seemed pretty intent on catching Mike. We were cruising at around 23 miles an hour, and the coyote seemed to be pacing Mike. It was just a glance, but the dog seemed pretty mad to me.
So is it a ‘car chasing’ type of coyote, or is it out to bite Mike? I yelled to him but as he looked back, the dog was under his field of vision. The thing must have tracked him for a quarter mile. A hill loomed ahead. I knew our speed would lag. Would the coyote catch us? Would he bite Mike? Perhaps he had friends and they would all take us down. I saw that once on the Discovery Channel, so it must be true. Could we defend ourselves against the critter with our bikes? If it bit Mike would I have to suck the rabies out of his leg and spit it on the ground to save his life? If I had to do that, I would call them ‘ky yotes,’ if you know what I mean.
One of the problems with road bike riding is the person is just about naked. That animal could have a nice chunk of calf for dinner.
Fortunately, the coyote ran out of enthusiasm before we ran out of steam. What an exciting adventure for a group of City Slickers! And the bonus? We spotted another one, not two miles later. Fortunately that one didn’t try to run us down and eat us. Seems us bike riders better start packin’, if you know what I mean, buckshot. Ain’t no ky yote givin’ us no trouble, no sir.

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