Into the wilderness and out as top dog

Ask my husband. I’m not the kind of guy you pick to face down a coyote.

Which brings me to Naturebridge. Aidan’s in seventh-grade now, and Mr. B. takes his class every year to Fort Cronkhite on Rodeo Beach, where his students are “immersed in the wonder of science.”

Every mother volunteered to chaperone, but fathers, not so much. So Sister Shirley called me into her office: “You know why you have to go.”

No, I had no idea why, but I was raised Catholic. I don’t say, “No” to the nuns, even if “Yes” meant three days in a small room with 18 teenage boys and no soap.

The Marin Headlands, 13 miles away from the school, is not exactly the sticks. It barely qualifies for outer, outer, outer, outer, outer Excelsior. But then again, Brian’s concept of the wilderness is the distance between the blue bungalow and his Prius.

The first day, our guide, Kim, took us on a nature hike, which included estuaries, fennel, nonnative eucalyptus and lagoons. One of the boys-I-used-to-like said, “I wish we could see some wild animals,” and it was like a scene out of “The Lion King.” Brush rabbits hopped in. Black-tailed deer sprang across the meadow. River otters swam by. Turkey vultures, ravens and redtailed hawks wheeled across the bluegreen sky. After three hours of walking uphill, we found a lea of grass and Kim announced, “Time for lunch.”

Across the way, a dog trotted. As the students opened up their PB&Js, the dog edged closer and closer, and by then I grasped that the big dog was actually a coyote. As Kim stirred her brown rice with tofu, she said, “Kevin, you need to stand up.”

“This is a great nature lesson,” Kim continued. “Coyotes are all about pack dominance. So the best way of handling them is for the alpha male to stare him down and let him know who’s in charge. Go ahead, Kevin. Walk right up.”

Did she just say alpha male? Does she not read this column? How many times have I told the readers that I’m the Barney Fife of the Deputy Kingdom? But the coyote was still approaching, red brown fur, paws and teeth. Those 18 boys stopped, sandwiches halfway to their mouths. I stood up, took off my sunglasses and stepped.

Coyotes do not wag their tails. They stare. And this guy stood there, waiting.

Until about 12 feet out. Then he lay down, and looked away.

As I let out the largest sigh of my life, Mr. B, ever the English teacher, said, “And that is why the coyote is the trickster god in mythology.”

Lots of other moments. Campfires in the rain. Climbing the hillside and finding the great city of San Francisco framed by the Golden Gate Bridge. The Point Bonita Lighthouse, with a tiny suspension bridge that we walked over one at a time. I also stared down a peregrine falcon, but by that time I was as butch as Dwayne Johnson. Made it easier to get those eighteen boys to bed at night. Even if that cabin smelled like one giant unwashed foot.

Last day, we walked down to the beach, sand and seashells and driftwood, and losing all track of time. Until Mr. B. looked at his watch and said, “The parents are arriving in 10 minutes. Someone should go up to meet them.”

I volunteered because, truly, I had had my fill of seventh-graders, but no car was in the parking lot. Just me. And then the coyote. Came back, maybe to say goodbye. Maybe so he could be my totem. I’ll never know. But as he turned around, I swear he wagged his tail.

We drove back to Fran Sancisco. As each of the mothers approached, they asked whether their son had behaved, and there was a part of me willing to tell the truth, that the boys had thrown mud, played poker and learned how to pick locks. But no, the part of me who was once a 13-year-old said, “Your son was the sweetest in the group. Every night at bed time, he insisted on leading the other boys in prayer.”

Two things: (1) Inside every grown man there’s a seventh-grader who loves to run down a muddy hill into the ocean and (2) Even on the days when I’m not convinced of my own machismo, and 18 boys doubt that I’m the alpha, there’s at least one coyote out there who believes.

Wile E. Coyote. Genius.

As opened the students up their PB&Js, the dog edged closer and closer, and by then I grasped that the big dog was actually a coyote.