WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

This book is for sale to ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It contains substantial sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which may be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

All sexually active characters in this work are 18 years of age or older.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover Design: D.B. Story

Encounters: Urban Coyote © 2009 D.B. Story

eXcessica publishing

All rights reserved

Encounters: Urban Coyote

By D. B. Story

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A special thanks to Rocket Ralph, Ian, and Mulligan for their excellent and much appreciated proofreading.

Chapter 1—City

The Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco is centered, logically enough, at the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets. Gaining international fame as a nexus of the counter-culture of the 1960's, its appeal was an eclectic mix of cafes, head-shops, music, herbal teas, free love, (often) free pot, and tolerance—all in an affordable concentrated area. Some famous rock bands gestated here among the low rents and (sometimes) accepting neighbors.

And for those who found even The Haight's rents too pricy, or walls too confining, a couple block's walk north took you to The Panhandle of one of the nation's great urban parks. A place where the accommodations were...well...free!

Golden Gate Park is a large, green rectangle of trees, grass, bushes, lakes, and attractions—including an unforgettable Japanese Tea Garden—that stretches from the end of The Panhandle (a narrow attached rectangle in the middle of the Western Addition) all the way west to the ocean. It has housed all manner of residents for as long as anyone can remember. Bisected by Costal Highway One on its way north to the Golden Gate Bridge, the Park is both an oasis, and a community unto itself. And like any close community, it keeps its secrets.

I like to drop by when I'm in the area. While California, and this city in particular, are rapidly becoming more places to visit than to live, I'm not ready to give up on everything good there yet.

* * * *

A lot has changed from the days of The Haight's height up until now.

What was once considered free love is now recognized as little more than available, uncommitted sex. It only felt free at the time. We now admit that cheap penicillin can't clean up everything, nor The Pill prevent everything, which we once believed in our hearts as immutable truths.

While LSD was once "The only way to fly"—and still packs a wallop—the Pot/Grass/Mary Jane/call-it-what-you-will was so mild by today's standards that a modern pothead would feel he'd just been ripped off if you gave him a hit of it.

The cafes, where once decade-old Beat Poetry still ruled among the bearded men in tie-dyed shirts and barefoot braless young women congregating to just be grooving now attract a different clientele. Their original vibe died in the years after the Summer of Love, when it became painfully obvious that instead of grooving any longer everyone was just sitting around waiting for something to happen—that never did!

And "The War", that a beloved Democratic President started, and a hated Republican President ended—ended! And when it ended, amidst energy shortages and scandal, so also ended the major uniting force as well.

The draft dodgers eventually came home from Canada. The President who ended a divisive war in a way most people could accept, and opened up the door to "Red China", went away quietly with a pre-trial pardon. And Haight-Ashbury fell below the noise level of the collective consciousness as tune in, turn on, and drop out eventually equated to disappeared entirely.

So in the city that Mark Twain once referred to by memorable quote, "The coldest winter I ever spent, was a summer in San Francisco," they quietly moved on to the next new fear.

Chapter 2—Echos

Yet even now, if you stand at that famous intersection and quiet your mind for a moment as you would in preparation to listening to poetry, you can still hear the echoes of forty years past when, for some, this was the western center of the known Universe—or at least, the center of everything that mattered. Such a powerful focal point doesn't just dry up and blow away just because it isn't trendy enough anymore.

This neighborhood hasn't forgotten its soul. A few years ago a major drugstore chain tried to put in a superstore a few doors down from the intersection against the wishes of those who felt it wasn't keeping in character with the neighborhood. The fire that swept through the half-completed building one night was so fierce that for months afterwards you could still see the charred storefronts and melted plastic storefront signs three blocks away. They wisely did not attempt to rebuild.

I come here for inspiration for my writing. All the truly great stories were first told thousands of years ago, and are only being retold countless times again since. Yet a modern retelling in a contemporary context can be powerful as well.

I was once told that, "Writers write, because they can't do anything else." I'm not sure I agree with that. I write because the stories inside me won't leave me alone until I get them out. Of course, maybe that prevents me from doing anything else first.

It wasn't always this way. Once upon a time they and I co-existed peacefully enough. Then I wrote out one of them and let it be seen by a small group interesting in that type of fiction. A few people liked it, and some of them even told me so. The rest have never let me live in peace since.

Some people who like my writing tell me I have a "great imagination." Others say I have a "poetic soul". I think they're both telling me the same thing. But either way, I eke out a small income this way.

Chapter 3—Mystery

When I saw her walking down the street I was struck by a number of things simultaneously. It took me a while to sort them all out.

While not short, she barely reached what I would call medium height. Her rich brown hair was perhaps her best feature. It descended long and straight below her shoulders and swung freely in the breeze. It looked to be two shades darker than the one-piece simple brown garment she wore that fell in a straight line from her shoulders to her ankles. I saw no apparent makeup, and her young face would have been pretty, if not creased by obvious worry. There was more.

Although she looked at home in this neighborhood, unlike the hippie women of yore who seemed to pride themselves on how long they could go without a bath, this woman's hair and feet were clean even from this distance. And while she looked quite thin, barely a hundred and ten pounds I'd guess, there was enough sway in the fabric above her waist to show that she had good-sized breasts moving unconfined under her shift. Despite her lean and hungry look, she was carrying a couple of wrapped fast food burgers in one hand.

I'm a detail-oriented person, and that struck me as odd. If she were taking food home, I would have expected her to have them in a bag. Otherwise, she should have eaten them at the restaurant. This was strange either way.

I watched her approach as I sat at my sidewalk table with an empty cup of tea still in my hand. I was already looking straight her direction, so only my eyes had to move to follow her.

This woman intrigued me in ways I couldn't put my finger on. The hurried, yet wary, way she moved. So obviously alert to her environment, yet focused on some secretive destination. That she carried no purse or other items with her. And who were the burgers for, if not herself? My writer's mind wanted to tell her story, but I didn't know it yet.

She hadn't noticed me yet, despite the almost empty streets of the mid-afternoon. I felt I'd get the best look at her if I just let her keep on approaching. I sat as still as a statue, not even blinking my eyes, lest that alert her to my presence. I prayed my klutzy waitress wouldn't suddenly decide I needed a refill, banging everything in sight coming out to my table. I'd had bad timing like that ruin more than one never-to-be-repeated moment in the past.

But rather than cross Ashbury and walk the last few feet to pass by me, she turned sharply left and disappeared down that street, heading towards the park.

I don't know what prompted my next move. I've asked myself that question many times over the years that have followed, and never found a definitive answer. It was just instinct to do it at that moment.

Before I consciously realized what I had just committed to, I jammed my hand into my pocket grabbing for money. I threw a couple bills down on the table without even looking at them, and was on my feet a moment later. I covered the distance to the corner in record time.

My mystery woman was already halfway down the block, moving faster herself. Perhaps she didn't feel her speed would be so conspicuous here. Or perhaps she had other urgencies.

While not a skilled tracker, I've lived in the country and can use what's available to me. Keeping telephone poles, parked cars, and large electrical junction boxes interposed, I kept our relative distances to that half block. She only glanced back once, and didn't seem to register me.

When she reached the edge of The Panhandle, which is only a block across, and turned left towards the trees in the main park, I ran as quietly as I could to close the distance, arriving at the boundary half out of breath.

I saw her brown figure flitting among the trees, hard to spot among their brown trunks. Fortunately the human eye tracks motion better than anything else. Then she disappeared into a thicket.

Rather than crash through it after her, I quickly circled to the far side, but saw nothing.

I picked a concealed spot and watched for nearly a half an hour for her to come out, but the only activity I saw on this quiet day was when a coyote trotted out and slunk away into the depths of the park.

I finally came out of hiding and circled the thicket a couple of times. Although dense enough that I couldn't see through it, it wasn't that large. By the time I'd completed the second circuit I felt I'd been able to see every cranny inside. But no woman.

I was hesitant about actually entering it, and was turning to leave before I said to myself, "Hey, it's a public park. I have as much right in there as she does. And if she tells me to back off and leave, I will."

I still entered it carefully, rehearsing what I was going to say if I suddenly came around a bush—and right into her face.

As I crunched through the dried branches and leaves, however, all I found was trash strewn through there. Recent looking fast-food wrappers, mostly from the restaurant I'd seen my mystery lady carrying.

Now littering offends me. Particularly littering in beautiful places like this park. I don't get angry about it. When I can, I just pick it up and dispose of it properly. It's a much better, low stress, solution for me.