The very day they move into their new house, Dad builds a fence around the yard. Katie watches through the kitchen windows, hands and nose pressed against the glass, as Dad lets Thomas hold the hammer when he's not using it. Katie asked to hold the nails, but Dad said she was too small. Thomas is seven; Thomas is old enough. So Katie just watches.
"Why do we need a fence, Mom?" she sighs, letting her forehead thunk against the window.
Mom kneels next to her and brushes Katie's hair out of her face. "There are lots of scary things where there aren't any cities." She says. "Things like coyotes and wolves and foxes and wild dogs. We don't want them to just walk into our garden, right, sweetie? They'd stomp on all the pumpkins and steal our tomatoes."
Katie giggles. "But I want to give the doggies tomatoes!"
***
It takes Dad and Thomas three hours to finish building the fence. Mom makes them lemonade and cookies (she even lets Katie taste the cookie batter, which is better than building fences) and they all sit to eat by the new kitchen table. Thomas's face is all red and his hair is sweaty and sticks up, but Katie is too busy staring at the fence to mention it out loud.
"You like the fence, Katie?" Dad asks. "Thank god it's so sturdy, otherwise we'd have rabid dogs all over our yard in no time."
"What's rabid?" says Katie.
Mom smiles. "It's a great fence, Rick. And well done to Thomas for helping Dad build it."
Thomas puffs up like a proud peacock. "I'm very strong now." He informs them.
"I can see that!"
"What's rabid?" Katie repeats.
"It means sick." Dad says shortly. "Listen, Louise, I was thinking- maybe in a year or two we could dig a swimming pool 'round behind the house. There's more than enough room and it'd be great for next summer. You see how hot it gets."
"I want a swimming pool!" Thomas exclaims, instantly attentive. "I know how to swim!"
"How about you, Katie? Would you want a swimming pool?"
Katie frowns. "Was I rabid when I didn't go to school because I was coughing?"
"What?"
"You said rabid means sick."
Dad laughs. "Rabid means sick with a kind of disease that dogs have, not little girls. Don't worry."
"Oh." Katie says. "Okay. I want a swimming pool."
***
That night they sleep in their new beds in their new bedrooms. Katie likes hers a lot- it has pink walls with silver stars painted all over. Her bed is right underneath the window, so moonlight spills through the open curtains and illuminates Katie's bedsheets. She gazes up at the starry night sky and sings nursery rhymes to herself under her breath.
A soft howl pierces the silence of the night, followed by a quiet whimper. Katie sits up in bed. As soon as she hears a second howl, she climbs to her knees and peeks out through the open window. An animal's shadowy form is perched by the fence down below, its blurry face turned up towards the moon. Eyes sparkling, Katie scrambles out of bed and into her slippers and Minnie Mouse bathrobe. She turns on the hallway light and creeps downstairs as quietly as she can, reassured by the soft snores coming from Thomas's and her parents' bedrooms.
The animal is still lying by the fence when Katie opens the back door and slips outside. Despite the heat of that morning, summer nights in the new house seem to be colder than expected. Katie shivers a bit as she steps over frigid grass and comes to a halt five feet away from the creature in the dark, squinting to make out the thing's features.
"Are you a monster?" she asks, her voice high with fear. "If you are I'm going to go back inside and lock the door so you won't come in."
The animal stands up suddenly, moonlight illuminating its long muzzle, white-brown fur and shiny black eyes. Katie lets out a soft gasp. "Are you a wild dog or a wolf or a cay-oh-tee?"
The latter is the correct answer, and the coyote seems to smile at Katie for getting it right.
"You're a very pretty dog." Katie says. "Are you rabid?"
The coyote's tail twitches. She decides to take that as a 'no'.
"That's good. I don't want to talk to a sick dog." Katie sits down on the grass, slippers falling off her feet.
The coyote, as if imitating Katie, settles down on the earth beside the fence again. The little girl's face splits into a grin.
"You're the best doggie." She says.
The coyote stares at her.
Windchimes on the porch jingle as a cold breeze blows through the desert. Katie shivers again, hunching her shoulders.
"I need to go back inside." She explains. "So I'm going to pet you and say goodbye."
She leans forwards, hand outstretched, fingers only inches away from the coyote's face between the gaps in the fence-
The sound of gunshots makes her scream, jerking back from the wild dog as if the racket came from within its body. The coyote leaps up and sprints off into the darkness. Katie covers her ears and keeps screaming, curled up in a ball. She prays that the dog isn't hurt and that nothing bad happened, but her heart is beating a mile a minute.
"Katie!" she can hear her family members rushing outside. The door slams behind them.
Dad grabs her a little too roughly, turning her to face him. "Katie, god, did you get hurt?" he asks, his voice full of concern.
Katie shakes her head, tears dribbling down her cheeks. "Th-there was a d-doggie next to the fence and I wanted to p-pet it and then there w-was a b-bang and it ran away and it was s-so scary..."
"Jesus Christ." Dad crushes Katie to his chest in a hug that's too tight. "Jesus Christ. Louise, come take her inside."
Mom picks Katie up and carries her into the kitchen. She makes her a cup of hot cocoa (and a cup for Thomas, who looks as if he might cry) and then sends them back up to bed, tucking Katie in again and promising everything will be okay.
***
The next day Dad isn't home when Katie wakes up. He comes back when she and Thomas are in the middle of watching morning cartoons, his brows furrowed and his mouth pressed into a frown.
"The guy next house over was the one with the gun last night." Katie hears him tell Mom. "Old guy. Complete maniac. Thought it would be safe to shoot a coyote three feet away from a four-year-old."
"Jesus."
***
Katie watches as Dad and Thomas go outside again and nail up the gaps between the boards of the fence. She's too short to peek over it, so all Katie sees is white wood. No more desert. No more coyotes. No more wilderness until she's older and knows better than to try and test the boundaries of the fence.
