The Muddy Yard Ice Coyote

The heat in Winnipeg hit like a wet towel across the face. Benji stood at the edge of the driveway, the engine of his rusted sedan still ticking behind him. Two semesters of college had left him hollowed out. His brain felt like a browser with eighty tabs open, none of them loading. He dragged his duffel bag out of the trunk. The strap dug into his collarbone. He looked at the house. The paint was peeling around the front window. Nothing had changed. Nothing ever changed here. He kicked a piece of loose gravel into the street.

He walked through the front door. The air conditioning was broken. A box fan rattled in the hallway, pushing warm air in a useless circle.

"You are late," his mother said. She did not look up from her laptop.

"The highway was backed up near the border," Benji said. He dropped the bag. It hit the laminate floor with a heavy thud.

"Your father wants the back ditch cleared. The weeds are choking the drainage pipe. The city sent a notice."

Benji stared at her. He had been driving for eighteen hours. His knees ached. His eyes were dry. "I just walked in the door. I have not even taken my shoes off."

"The notice gives us forty-eight hours," she said. She typed something. The keys clicked sharp and fast. "Do not argue with me today, Benji. Just do it."

He did not argue. He did not have the energy. He walked through the kitchen, grabbed a pair of stiff gardening gloves from the counter, and pushed out the back door.

The backyard was a rectangle of dead grass sloping down toward Pipeline Road. The ditch was a trench of thick, black mud and overgrown cattails. The smell hit him instantly. Stagnant water. Rotting vegetation. Hot dirt. It smelled like failure. He picked up the flat-head shovel leaning against the fence. The wooden handle was rough and splintered.

He stepped into the ditch. The mud sucked at his boots. The sun beat down on his neck. He jammed the shovel into the weeds. He threw a clump of wet earth onto the bank. He jammed it in again. Sweat dripped down his nose. His shoulders burned. He hated this yard. He hated the city. He jammed the shovel down a third time.

The blade hit something hard.

It did not sound like a rock. It sounded like glass. A dull, heavy thud. The impact sent a shockwave up the wooden handle. Benji dropped the shovel. He shook his hands. His palms stung.

He crouched in the mud. The water was brown and murky. He reached his hands into the muck. His fingers brushed against something completely smooth. It was freezing. The contrast made his breath catch. The air was thirty degrees Celsius. The water was warm soup. But the object beneath the surface was ice cold.

He dug his fingers into the mud around the object. He pulled. It was heavy. He adjusted his grip and heaved backward.

The mud broke with a wet sucking sound. Benji fell back onto the grass. The object landed beside him.

He wiped the mud from his eyes. He looked at what he had dug up.

It was a coyote.

Not a real one. It was a sculpture. It was carved entirely out of clear ice. It was the size of a medium dog, sitting on its haunches, its head tilted upward. The details were impossible. Individual hairs were etched into the frozen surface. The eyes were hollowed out perfectly. The mud slid off the ice, leaving it completely clean.

Benji reached out and touched the snout. The cold bit into his finger. It was solid. It was not sweating. It was not dripping. The sun was hitting it directly, but there was no puddle forming beneath it.

"What are you looking at?"

Benji jumped. He turned around. Matti was standing on the back deck. She was wearing oversized sweatpants and a stained t-shirt. She was holding her phone.

"Come here," Benji said.

Matti walked down the steps. She stepped carefully to avoid the mud. She stopped beside him and looked down. Her jaw dropped.

"Is that glass?" she asked.

"Touch it," Benji said.

Matti reached out. She pressed her palm against the coyote's head. She yanked her hand back instantly. "That is ice. That is actual ice."

"I know," Benji said.

"It is thirty degrees out, Benji. Why is it not melting?"

"I do not know."

Matti lifted her phone. She opened the camera. "This is an absolute anomaly. The neighborhood is completely unwell. I am documenting this."

"Do not put that on the internet," Benji said.

"You cannot censor me," Matti said. She started recording. She walked a circle around the sculpture. "Listen up. We are in the trenches of Winnipeg. My brother just unearthed a literal frozen artifact. It is serving absolute zero. The heat index is irrelevant. Thermodynamics have left the chat."

"Stop talking like that," Benji said. He rubbed his temples. The headache was starting behind his eyes.

"It is modern communication, Benji. You have been at college for ten minutes and you think you are superior." She stopped recording. She tapped the screen twice. "Uploaded."

"Why did you do that?"

"Because it is weird," Matti said. She knelt in the grass. She stared into the ice coyote's hollow eyes. "It is beautiful."

The back door slammed open. Their father stepped out onto the deck. He was wearing his work clothes. He looked exhausted. He saw them sitting in the dirt.

"Are you done with the ditch?" he yelled.

"Dad, come look at this," Matti yelled back.

Their father walked down the steps. He marched across the lawn. He stopped when he saw the sculpture. His face tightened. He did not look amazed. He looked annoyed.

"Where did that come from?" he asked.

"Benji dug it up," Matti said. "It is made of ice."

Their father kicked the base of the sculpture with his steel-toed boot. The boot bounced off. The ice did not chip. "Ice melts. This is some kind of resin. Some garbage from the old chemical plant."

"It is freezing cold, Dad," Benji said. "It is ice."

"I do not care what it is," his father said. He pointed at the shed. "Get the sledgehammer. Break it into pieces and put it in the garbage bins."

"What?" Matti stood up. "You cannot destroy it. It is a monument."

"It is a liability," his father said. His voice was rising. The veins in his neck stood out. "I am not paying higher insurance premiums for a roadside attraction. If someone trips on that in our ditch, we get sued. Smash it, Benji."

"I am not smashing it," Benji said. He stood up. He was suddenly angry. The exhaustion vanished. His chest felt tight. "It is completely harmless. It defies logic. Why is your first instinct to break it?"

"Because I pay the mortgage on this dirt," his father stepped closer. "You do not get to come home and dictate how this property is managed. Break it."

"No," Benji said.

His father stared at him. The silence was thick. The heat pressed down on them. A mosquito landed on Benji's arm. He did not swat it.

"Fine," his father said. He turned around. He walked back to the house. He did not look back.

Matti looked at Benji. "That was intense."

"Help me move it," Benji said. "Before he comes back out here himself."

The Clipboard Man

They could not lift it. The ice coyote was unnaturally dense. It felt like trying to lift a solid block of lead. Benji grabbed the front legs. Matti grabbed the hind legs. They pulled. The ice slid a few inches across the grass, carving a shallow groove in the dirt.

"My fingers are going numb," Matti said. She let go and blew on her hands. The skin on her palms was bright red.

"We have to get it out of sight," Benji said. He looked around the yard. The wooden fence offered some cover, but anyone walking down Pipeline Road could see straight into the ditch.

The weather began to shift. The heavy, stagnant heat suddenly broke. A cold front slammed into the humidity. The sky above the houses turned the color of a bruised plum. The wind picked up, violently shaking the leaves of the elm trees.

Then the rain started.

It was not a gradual shower. It was a wall of water. The sudden drop in temperature and the torrential rain turned the baked dirt of the yard into instant mud. Benji felt the water soak through his shirt in seconds. He wiped his eyes. The rain hit the ice coyote, washing away the last bits of ditch muck. The sculpture gleamed. It looked completely untouched by the downpour.

"Get the tarp from the shed," Benji yelled over the thunder.

Matti ran to the shed. She slipped in the mud, catching herself on the wooden door frame. She dragged out a blue plastic tarp and ran back. They threw it over the sculpture.

"What now?" Matti shouted.

Before Benji could answer, a white municipal truck pulled up to the curb on Pipeline Road. The amber lights on the roof flashed in the gloom. A man stepped out. He was wearing a high-visibility vest over a raincoat. He held a clipboard wrapped in a plastic sleeve.

He walked down the slope toward them. He did not seem to care about the mud. He stopped a few feet away, rain dripping from the brim of his hard hat.

"Are you the property owners?" the man asked. His voice was loud and entirely flat.

"We live here," Benji said. He stepped in front of the tarp.

"We received a complaint. Bylaw 402. Unauthorized yard installations in a municipal drainage zone." The man looked at his clipboard. He tapped a pen against the plastic. "Someone posted a video online. We monitor location tags for infrastructure hazards."

Benji glared at Matti. Matti looked at her boots.

"It is not an installation," Benji said. "I found it in the mud."

"Irrelevant," the man said. "It is obstructing the culvert. I am issuing a warning. You have until tomorrow morning to remove the object. If it is still here at eight a.m., the city will remove it and you will be fined five hundred dollars."

"You cannot fine us for something we did not build," Matti said.

"Eight a.m.," the man repeated. He turned his back and walked up the muddy slope. He got into his truck. The engine roared, and the truck disappeared down the flooded street.

Benji pulled the tarp back. The ice coyote stared at him. The hollow eyes looked deeper now.

"The garage," Benji said. "We put it in the deep freezer. That hides it from the city and from Dad."

"It does not need a freezer," Matti said. "It is not melting."

"I do not care. It gets it out of the yard."

They grabbed the tarp by the corners. They used it as a sled. They dragged the heavy ice across the muddy lawn. Benji's boots slipped. He fell to his knees. The mud tasted like old copper. He spat it out. He stood up and pulled harder. His muscles screamed.

They reached the side door of the garage. Benji shoved the door open. The garage smelled like motor oil and dust. The deep freezer sat in the corner, a massive white rectangle. Benji opened the lid. It was mostly empty, just a few bags of frozen peas and a block of generic ice cream. He threw the food onto a workbench.

"Lift on three," Benji said.

They positioned the tarp next to the freezer. Benji grabbed the front of the sculpture. The cold burned his skin. It felt like grabbing dry ice.

"One. Two. Three."

They heaved. The ice coyote cleared the edge of the freezer and dropped inside with a heavy crash. The plastic walls of the freezer groaned. Benji slammed the lid shut. He leaned against it, breathing hard.

"We saved it," Matti said. She wiped a streak of mud across her forehead.

Benji listened. The garage was quiet, except for the rain hammering on the tin roof.

Wait.

He put his ear against the metal side of the freezer. The familiar, low hum of the compressor was gone. He tapped the side. Nothing.

"The freezer is dead," Benji said.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean the compressor just died. The impact must have snapped something inside." Benji opened the lid. The interior light was off. The ice coyote sat in the darkness.

"Does it matter?" Matti asked. "It does not melt."

"It matters because Dad will check the freezer tomorrow for his breakfast sausages. If he finds a broken freezer and a block of ice inside it, he will explode." Benji grabbed his hair. The cognitive static in his brain was deafening. Every choice was wrong.

"We have to take it back out," Benji said.

"Are you joking?" Matti pointed at the open door. "It is a monsoon out there."

"We take it out, or Dad destroys it tomorrow. Grab the tarp."

Heavy Water

The storm had intensified. The sky was completely black now, lit only by jagged flashes of lightning that turned the neighborhood a sickly purple. The rain was deafening. The yard was no longer grass and dirt; it was a shallow lake of moving water.

Benji and Matti dragged the tarp out of the garage. The ice coyote sat on the plastic, immobile and perfect. Benji pulled with his entire body weight. His boots found no purchase in the mud. He slipped, falling flat on his back. The rain hammered his face. He scrambled up, his hands coated in thick, black slime.

"Keep pulling!" he shouted.

They dragged it toward the back fence, aiming for the narrow gap behind the tool shed. It was the only blind spot in the yard.

A flashlight beam cut through the darkness. It swept across the rain, catching the silver streaks of water, and locked onto Benji. The light was blinding. Benji threw his arm up.

"What in the hell are you doing?" a voice yelled.

The beam dropped slightly. It was Mr. Lennox. He was standing on the other side of the chain-link fence that separated their properties. He wore a heavy yellow fisherman's coat. His face was twisted in disgust.

"None of your business, Mr. Lennox," Benji yelled back.

Lennox pressed his face against the wet metal links. He aimed the flashlight directly at the ice coyote. "Is that the thing from the video? My wife showed me. That is freon waste. I know exactly what that is. You dug up a toxic byproduct from the old cooling plant."

"It is just ice," Matti said, stepping in front of the sculpture.

"Ice melts, little girl," Lennox said. His voice was sharp, cutting through the thunder. "That is a chemical hazard. I will not have my property values decimated by a toxic art project. I am calling the environmental agency. And if they do not deal with it, I will dismantle it myself."

"You are not touching it," Benji walked toward the fence. He stopped a foot away from Lennox. The rain poured down his face. His chest heaved.

"Do not test me, son," Lennox said. He clicked the flashlight off. The darkness rushed back in. "I am coming over there in the morning. If that hazard is not gone, I am taking a hammer to it."

Lennox turned and walked away, his yellow coat disappearing into the shadows of his back porch.

Benji stood in the mud. The thunder rolled overhead. He felt a deep, twisting panic in his stomach. The city wanted it gone. His father wanted it gone. The neighbor wanted it destroyed.

"He is going to break it," Matti said. Her voice was small. The bravado was gone.

"No, he is not," Benji said.

They pushed the sculpture behind the shed. Benji covered it with the tarp. He walked back to the house. He went into the kitchen. The house was dark. His parents were asleep. He stripped off his soaked shirt and threw it on the floor. He found a heavy metal flashlight in the utility drawer. He grabbed his father's thermos from the drying rack. He brewed a pot of coffee in the dark, watching the red light of the machine glow in the black kitchen.

He poured the boiling black liquid into the thermos. He screwed the lid on tight.

He walked back out into the storm. He went to the shed. He pulled up an overturned plastic bucket and sat down in the mud, right next to the tarp. The rain beat against his bare shoulders. He clicked the flashlight on, leaving the beam pointed at the ground.

He sat there. The internal clock in his head ticked too fast. Every rustle of the wind sounded like boots in the mud. Every flash of lightning looked like a high-visibility vest. He unscrewed the thermos. He drank the coffee straight. It burned his tongue and the roof of his mouth. He welcomed the pain. It kept him awake.

Hours passed. The storm slowly broke. The rain faded into a steady drizzle. The clouds began to tear apart, revealing patches of dark, starry sky. The air was still thick and hot. The temperature was rising again.

Benji's back ached. His muscles were locked. He reached under the tarp and touched the coyote. The ice was still perfectly smooth. The cold radiated into his palm. It was impossible. It was beautiful.

He heard a sound.

It was a low, wet rustling. It came from the direction of the ditch.

Benji clicked the flashlight off. He held his breath. He gripped the heavy metal barrel of the flashlight like a club. He waited.

A shadow moved near the fence. Then another.

Benji stood up slowly. His joints popped. He raised the flashlight and clicked the button.

The beam hit the grass.

There were dogs.

Five of them. Strays. They were wet, matted, and thin. They stood in a semi-circle around the shed. They did not growl. They did not bark. They just stared at the tarp.

Benji did not move. His heart hammered against his ribs. The dogs stepped forward, completely ignoring him. The lead dog, a massive shepherd mix with a torn ear, walked right up to the tarp. It pressed its nose against the plastic. It let out a long, low whine.

The other dogs sat down in the mud. They formed a perfect ring around the hidden ice sculpture. They sat perfectly still, like they were holding a vigil.

Benji lowered the flashlight. He felt a strange tightness in his throat. He did not understand what he was looking at. He did not understand any of this. But for the first time since he had arrived home, the static in his brain cleared.

He knew he had to protect it.

Sledgehammer

The sky began to bleed gray. The predawn light was flat and cold, even as the humidity choked the air. The dogs remained motionless. Benji sat on the bucket, his hands wrapped around the empty thermos. His eyes burned with exhaustion.

The back gate creaked.

The sound was sharp in the quiet morning. The dogs immediately stood up. They did not bark, but they scattered, melting back into the shadows of the ditch and disappearing down the street.

Heavy boots sloshed through the mud.

Mr. Lennox walked around the corner of the shed. He was not wearing his raincoat anymore. He wore a flannel shirt and heavy jeans. In his right hand, he carried a long-handled sledgehammer. The iron head was rusted and heavy.

Benji stood up. He dropped the thermos. He stepped directly in front of the tarp.

"Move out of the way, son," Lennox said. He did not look angry. He looked determined. It was worse.

"I am not moving, Mr. Lennox," Benji said. His voice cracked, but he did not step back.

"I told you what this is. It is a hazard. I am neutralizing it before the sun comes up and bakes whatever chemicals are inside it into the groundwater." Lennox stepped closer. He raised the hammer slightly.

"It is not chemicals," Benji said. "It is a miracle. Do you understand? It does not melt. It is important."

"Miracles do not happen in this dirt," Lennox spat. "Move."

"You will have to strike me first," Benji said.

Lennox lunged. He did not swing the hammer at Benji, but he drove his shoulder into Benji's chest. Benji was exhausted, but his adrenaline spiked. He grabbed Lennox by the collar of his flannel shirt. They slipped in the thick mud. They crashed to the ground together.

The mud coated Benji's face. Lennox elbowed him in the ribs. The pain was sharp and bright. Benji gasped, rolling sideways. He scrambled to his knees. Lennox grabbed the handle of the sledgehammer from the dirt. He swung it in a wide arc toward the tarp.

Benji threw his entire body forward. He tackled Lennox around the waist. The hammer missed the tarp by inches, slamming into the wooden wall of the shed. The wood splintered with a loud crack.

Lennox swore. He pushed Benji off. He raised the hammer higher, aiming directly downward at the hidden shape.

"Stop!"

The shout came from the back deck.

Lennox froze. Benji looked over his shoulder.

His father stood on the deck. He was wearing his bathrobe. He looked at the ruined yard, the splintered shed, and his son covered in mud. Matti stood behind him, looking terrified.

His father walked down the stairs. He did not run. He walked slowly, deliberately through the mud. He stopped beside Lennox.

"Give me the hammer, Lennox," his father said. His voice was dangerously calm.

"This is a hazard, John," Lennox said, breathing hard. "Your boy is protecting a toxic dump."

"Give me the hammer. Now."

Lennox looked at the hammer, then at Benji's father. He slowly lowered the handle and handed it over. His father took it and threw it into the deep weeds of the ditch.

"Get off my property," his father said.

Lennox wiped mud from his cheek. He scowled. "The city is going to fine you. You are a fool." He turned and walked back toward the fence.

His father looked down at Benji. Benji stayed on his knees. His chest heaved. He waited for the anger. He waited for his father to rip the tarp off and smash the ice himself.

Instead, his father reached down and grabbed the edge of the blue plastic. He pulled it back.

The ice coyote sat there. It was flawless. The mud from the fight had splattered across it, but it slid off the frozen surface, leaving it perfectly clear.

The sun crested the roof of the house next door.

The first direct beam of summer sunlight hit the sculpture. It hit the coyote right between the hollowed-out eyes.

For a second, the ice glowed. It looked like a prism, throwing a fracture of rainbow light across the muddy yard.

Then, there was a sound. A sharp, loud crack, like a rifle shot.

Benji flinched.

The ice coyote did not melt. It did not slowly turn to water. It simply collapsed. In less than three seconds, the entire structure disintegrated into a pile of gray, ordinary slush. The perfect details vanished. The hollow eyes melted into the dirt. The water seeped into the ground, leaving nothing but a wet patch of grass.

It was gone.

Benji stared at the empty space. His hands were shaking. He reached out and touched the slush. It was just wet snow. It was warming up immediately.

He looked up at his father. His father was staring at the puddle.

Matti walked up beside them. She looked at the slush. She looked at Benji's mud-covered face.

"Well," Matti said. "The aesthetic is ruined."

Benji let out a short, sharp breath. It sounded like a sob, but it turned into a laugh. He laughed. It was a harsh, ugly sound. His ribs hurt. He sat back in the mud and laughed until his eyes watered.

His father looked at him. The hard lines around his father's mouth softened. A small, confused smile broke across his face. He shook his head. He reached down and offered Benji his hand.

Benji grabbed it. His father pulled him up from the mud. The grip was strong.

"Go take a shower," his father said. "You smell like a swamp."

"I know," Benji said.

He turned and walked toward the house. The heat of the morning was already pressing down on his shoulders. The static in his head was completely gone. He looked back at the empty puddle, wondering what else the earth was hiding.