Dispatches from a Desert Isle: Pirate(Dog)s, Part I

Today I begin a Three-Part Tale for you Scurvy Dogs...

PIRATE(DOG)S OF THE CARIBBEAN
today
Prologue
to be immediately followed by
Part I: Coyotes of the Briny Deep

coming soon
Part II: Sea-Wolf 
Part III: Foxes Tell No Tales


Prologue
Even the First Mate Oliver the Fierce appears a wee bit afeared of the dread beasts that roam this Isle!

but that may be because he's an ewok. 





Admit it, I'm right.

C'mon, look at him!

See? What did I tell you?

That's his battle gear.

ANYwho... on to the story...

Part I: Coyotes of the Briny Deep

Since I first came to this place, I have had many sightings of the Coyote de la mer. You may remember Day 2 of my captivity, when I saw several slinking off around the corner and feared they might be the familiars of my ghostly host... (I thank the stars that was not true.)




Sometimes you know they are near—no doubt stalking you, ready to strike, alone or in their fiendish pack—because you see their marks...

Agh! Moth, what are you doing?!?

By the time you see the creature itself—it is often too late to escape your doom. Here is one I spotted in broad daylight—I still know not how I managed to flee with my life.

Thar she be...

...tracking my scent before...

...giving me the evil eye!

Since she laid eyes on me, I have felt myself cursed.


Here be one swimming back to his ocean lair:

Here be their young, fiendishly impersonating the civilized dog...

...and here be their babes, 
enticing the unwary mortal towards certain doom with their unholy cuteness

The superstitious natives refer to the coyote-of-the-deep as "God's Dog" when speaking aloud of her...

...but only because they know the trickster she is and fear her devilish pranks if they speak worse...

The demon beasts gather some nights to cry their tales aloud each night under the moon—I have even heard tell of translated tales from the coyotes who live at the Desert Museum—

and the island's inhabitants tell yet more sinister stories... 

One of them even sounds a bit familiar from my childhood!

Laugh if you will, but one can scarcely escape these wily characters. 

One ran right in front of our car yesterday (!),

and oft I hear them keening their eerie songs deep into the night.

(Dear friends, I do advise you to click the link above before attempting the video below, to acclimate yourself to the eerie screams lest they give you a case of the fears from which you ne'er recover.)

You will excuse me, I hope, but I can not go on. 

My very blood is chilled unto the bone, and my heart stops almost from fear.

Thank the heavens above you have escaped the dread Coyote of the Briny Deep for now

and shall live to hear another tale

another day.

Sleep now, my children... if you can!