The compost pile had degraded in size by half and the fresh manure was firm and black inside the bin. Alex unhooked and then pulled apart the snow fencing. He felt satisfied with the work he had put into filling the bin the previous fall. Over the winter the nitrogen and bacteria had worked to create a rich manure. With the pitchfork he started pulling the manure out, spreading it on the grass in front of the bin. There was a clean, earthy smell inside.

Alex saw Bunny walking up the drive with the sun low over him. Bunny was carrying a gun. Alex turned back to the manure while Bunny walked through the gate into the yard among the outbuildings. Bunny and his stepfather were poor farmers.

"What you doing?" Bunny said coming up.

Alex stood up. The gun was a rifle with a scope. Bunny wore boots, trousers and a canvas jacket. A mess of blond hair came out from under his camouflage cap. Though he was younger than Alex and slow, he carried the gun with the muzzle always away from Alex.

"Hey, Bunny."

"Can I cut through?"

"Why not." Alex bent back down over what he'd been doing. Most of the material had decomposed well into a mass of black soil. But as he dug in the manure he found that some things had not decomposed. Old twine and tomato and cucumber stalks behaved like roots in the pile and gourds stuck on the tines of his pitchfork. On the green grass in front of the bin he separated these things from the manure.

"John around?" Bunny asked.

"He went into town," Alex said. He started to fill the wheelbarrow with manure. Bunny stood there quiet and watching.

"How's the old man?" Alex asked.

"He's up at the house."

"I haven't seen him around."

"He's been running with his old lady."

When Alex had filled the wheelbarrow he stood up again and wiped his gloves on his jeans.

"Where you off to?" Alex asked.

"I'm heading up under the ridge. Full moon."

"What you after?"

"Coyote."

"They're digging a lot along our back fence line down toward the swamp," Alex said. Bunny looked at him. "I hunted asparagus on the fence line this afternoon. They've run off the fox but not the possum or cats. They'll get onto the pheasants. If John finds any pheasants dead there'll be hell."

"Elmer seen a buck coyote cut across the field to the creek."

Alex began laying the soft gourds and the woody stalks on the bottom of the empty bin. He felt disappointed that the squashes and cucumbers had not fully decomposed. He was disappointed in himself because he hadn't simply burned the larger stalks last fall. He worried that they may have still been carrying disease or parasites.

"I haven't seen them but I know they're there."

The coyotes had returned, chasing the deer, getting into the pheasant broods and running off the red fox. In the spring the coyotes dug dens along the fence line on the west and south sides of the washes where the sun warmed the soil. They were rarely seen because they had one enemy and knew enough to stay out of his sight. They were never heard either. They came out at night, noiseless and unseen, to hunt and play. In the day they lay hidden in their dens in the cool, dark earth under their canopy of sod roots.

Finally Alex gathered and laid the twine in the bin. He was foolish to think that twine would decompose. Bunny continued to stand there looking at him. Alex took off his gloves, dropped them and then went up to Bunny with his hand out.

"Let me see what you got."