To What Do I Owe

We'd been playing this game for a week now. Eating dinner on the back porch, I caught a flicker out of the corner of my eye and couldn't resist a tiny smile. I looked away into the distance as I heard soft foot falls approaching. There was a tiny scraping sound, and then the feet scampered away. I let my eyes range over the distant hills and then looked at the plate I had left on the table next to my chair and the half-sandwich was gone. Mastering my satisfaction, I rolled my eyes in mock exasperation.

At first, I merely glimpsed a shape in the dappled shadows of the forest. I still hadn't gotten a good enough look to see exactly what it was. Fox? Dog? Coyote? I had tried putting out food, but anything I set out intentionally was ignored. Rejected. But if I left something on my own plate, it would get quietly snatched — as long as I wasn't looking. I began just leaving some pieces of bread crust. But I had started making a bigger sandwich and leaving half of it on the plate. I hoped whatever it was would come to trust me enough to let me get a better look before the weather turned. But I was prepared to take as much time as it took.

As I washed up after dinner, I glanced through the sliding-glass door onto the back porch as night fell. The days were...