Winter Moon

seconds was an acknowledgment of human superiority, the animal's way of humbling itself as a commoner might do before a king, while others said it indicated that animals-innocent creatures of God-saw in men's eyes the stain of sin and were ashamed for humanity. Eduardo had his own theory: animals recognized that people were the most vicious and unrelenting beasts of all, violent and unpredictable, and avoided direct eye contact out of fear and prudence.
        Except for this raccoon. It seemed to have no fear whatsoever, to feel no humility in the presence of a human being.
        "At least not this particular sorry old human being, huh?"
        The raccoon just watched him.
        Finally the coon was less compelling than his thirst, and Eduardo went inside to get another beer. The hinge springs sang when he pulled open the screen door- which he'd hung for the season only two weeks before-and again when he eased it shut behind him.
        He expected the strange sound to startle the coon and send it scurrying away, but when he looked back through the screen, he saw the critter had come a couple, of feet closer to the porch steps and more directly in line with the door, keeping him in sight.
        "Funny little bugger," he said.
        He walked to the kitchen, at the end of the hall, and, first thing, looked at the clock above the double ovens because he wasn't wearing a watch. Twenty past three.
        He had a pleasing buzz on, and he was in the mood to sustain it all the way to bedtime. However, he didn't want to get downright sloppy. He decided to have dinner an hour early, at six instead of seven, get some food on his stomach.
        He might take a book to bed and turn in early as well.
        This waiting for something to happen was getting on his nerves.
        He took another Corona from the refrigerator. It had a twist-off cap, but he had a touch of arthritis in his hands. The bottle opener was on the cutting board by the sink..As he popped the cap off the bottle, he happened to glance out the window above the sink-and saw the raccoon in the backyard. It was twelve or fourteen feet from the rear porch. Sitting on its hindquarters, forepaws against its chest, head held high. Because the yard rose toward the western woods, the coon was in a position to look over the porch railing, directly at the kitchen window.
        It was watching him.
        Eduardo went to the back door, unlocked and opened it.
        The raccoon moved from its previous position to another from which it could continue to study him.
        He pushed open the screen door, which made the same screaky sound as the one at the front of the house. He went onto the porch, hesitated, then descended the three back steps to the yard.
        The animal's dark eyes glittered.
        When Eduardo closed half the distance between them, the raccoon dropped to all fours, turned, and scampered twenty feet farther up the slope.
        There it stopped, turned to face him again, sat erect on its hindquarters, and regarded him as before.
        Until then he had thought it was the same raccoon that had been watching him from the front yard. Suddenly he wondered if, in fact, it was a different beast altogether.
        He walked quickly around the north side of the house, cutting a wide enough berth to keep the raccoon at the back in sight. He came to a point, well to the north of the house, from which he could see the front and back yards-and two ring-tailed sentinels.
        They were both staring at him.
        He proceeded toward the raccoon in front of the house.
        When he drew close, the coon put its tail to him and ran across the front yard. At what it evidently regarded as a safe distance, it stopped and sat watching him with its back against the higher, unmown grass of the meadow.
        "I'll be damned," he said.
        He returned to the front porch and sat in the rocker.
        The waiting was over. After more than five weeks, things were beginning to happen.
        Eventually he realized he'd left his open beer by the kitchen sink. He went inside to retrieve it because, now more than ever, he needed it.
        He had left the back door standing open, though the screen door had closed behind him when he'd gone outside. He locked up, got his beer,.stood at the window watching the backyard raccoon for a moment, and then returned to the front porch.
        The first raccoon had crept