Doty Dreams of Shape Shifter Woman

Coyote and I camp on the edge of the high desert at the cave called Coyote's Cupboard. We sit inside, heads nodding. Our fire dances light and shadows across the basalt. Stars burn through the sky light. Outside, the moon fingers pale light through pines that glow with a memory of the rosy sunset. Now their boughs wave and whoosh as the wind circles through these woods before swirling down the desert basin toward Tule Lake.

We cozy up to the fire, stretch under their blankets and are nearly asleep when I sit up.

"What's that rustling?" "Probably a lizard or a mouse." Firelight and shadows dance, and I start again. "What's that outside?" "Maybe deer or antelope. Go to sleep."

The cave drips. The moon travels its sky path. The fire burns down. Then a rowdy choir of coyotes yips and yowls down the basin, but Coyote is snoring so loudly he doesn't hear his cousins on their nightly rampage. As for me, a dream as vivid as a vision rattles through my brain as I settle into sleep.

Down the basin, at the park visitor center, Coyote and I watch the ranger, a beautiful dark-haired, dark-eyed woman with a smile that sends daggers through my heart. As we watch, she changes shapes. She is a lizard napping on a desert-hot rock, a desert tortoise climbing a ridge that stretches into forever, a desert mouse sniffing the night, an antelope springing through open spaces with no horizons, and finally Ms. Coyote with a smirk that makes me and my friend a little nervous. "Don't call her a rangerette," warns Coyote. "They hate that these days."

My heart follows her shapes as if they were my own moods. Then just when I'm feeling I could shape shift myself, the dream snaps shut.

I sit up. The fire is out, the stars pale, but the pines still glow.

Coyote blinks an eye open. "Whoa. Looks like something hit your dreams like a ton of bricks."

"Yes," I say. "Shape Shifter Woman was here, and I was with her, and I think we'll meet again, sometime soon."

"Well," says Coyote. "There's time, I suppose," and he drifts back into sleep.

I stare through the sky light and watch the first light of morning bring on the beginnings of a new day.

And the pine trees glow even brighter.