They were in no hurry. They should have stopped driving hours ago, but an inertia enveloped them. They thought of craning their necks at motels on the business loops of the few towns they had passed, the do you take dogs a small dog a small Labrador he's very good and the twenty five dollar deposit and the room with the repressed aroma of old cigarettes in the inadequate drapes even if it is a non smoker and someone's car device saying step away from the car every three minutes all night long and the Dunkin donuts and bad coffee in the office in the morning. No. So they kept on driving.
Somewhere in Arizona she began to see jackrabbits. At first they were amusing as they danced in the headlights. But they increased in number by the minute. It was her turn to drive. He was trying to sleep, his head turned at a strangulated angle and a river of drool slipping from his sagging lips.
``Jackrabbits!'' she said. He jerked awake. ``Ug,'' he said and closed his eyes.
It was hard to avoid them. She slammed on the brakes, she jerked the wheel to the left, the right but still she was hitting them. The first thud of a furry body followed by the bump as they drove over it made her want to vomit. She was desperate to avoid them. After twenty minutes of erratic driving he could take no more. He cleared his throat loudly to make sure she was prepared to listen.
``It is all right to kill jackrabbits,'' he said.
God had spoken. It was alright to kill jackrabbits. She drove on, jackrabbits falling by the wayside behind her. And behind her the coyotes dined like moonlit kings on the still warm feasts laid out daintily on the road.
Ahead of her the coyotes drifted into shadow to wait her passing. Except for one. Perhaps young. Perhaps defective in some way. One coyote continued to feast on jackrabbit fricassee as she advanced on him and at the last moment bounded away as she slammed on the brakes and turned the steering wheel and stalled out the car diagonal across the shoulder.
The man's seat belt was clasping him tight. He turned to look at his wife. ``What?'' he said.
The woman glared at her sleep blurred husband. ``I WILL KILL JACKRABBITS BUT I WILL NOT KILL COYOTES!'' she shouted and burst into tears. She flounced from the car to sit in the rabbit brush and pee and compose her mind.
The man looked out the window at the desert stars. He was professor emeritus of philosophy at an enlightened institution and there was much he understood of life, but the difference between jackrabbits and coyotes eluded him. His wife was returning to the car.
``My turn to drive,'' he said.