Coyote Blue

Coyote Hears His Heart

It is an old story, from the time of the animal people. Coyote was in his canoe, and had paddled all day and all night, only to find that he didn't know where he wanted to go. He sat in his canoe, drifting for a while, thinking that something was wrong. He wanted to do something, but he didn't know what it was, so he made some mountains and gave them names. But that didn't make him happy. He tried to think, but he wasn't very good at it, and he kept hearing a thumping noise that bothered him.

"Where should I go? What should I do? How can I think with all this noise?"

Coyote was becoming sad because he could not think, so he called out to the Old Mother, who was the Earth. "Old Mother," he said. "Can you stop this thumping noise so I can figure out where I am supposed to be?"

Old Mother heard Coyote and laughed at him. "Silly Coyote," she said. "That thumping noise is the sound of your own heart beating. Listen to it. It is the sound of the drums. When you hear your heart you must think of the drums — the sound of home."

"I knew that," Coyote said.

CHAPTER 31 There Are No Orphans Among the Crow

It was five hours from Sturgis to Crow Agency, and Coyote, back in his black buckskins, drove the whole way. Sam sat in the passenger seat, dazed, staring but seeing nothing, holding Grubb, rocking the baby in a rhythm to a pulsing emptiness in his chest and trying not to look at Calliope's lifeless body in the back. Mercifully, there was no thinking or remembering — his mind had shut down to protect him. Coyote was quiet.

As they drove through town an old warning sounded deep in Sam's mind and he mumbled, "I shouldn't be here. I'm in trouble."

"You have to go home," Coyote said.

"Okay," Sam said. He thought he should protest but he couldn't think clearly enough to remember why. "When we get there, no tricks, okay? Act human for a while, please."

"For a while," Coyote said.

A mile out of town Coyote pulled the Z into the muddy driveway of the Hunts Alone house. "Stay here," Coyote said. He got out of the car and went up the cement steps to the door. Sam looked around, seeing the house like a memory. It hadn't changed much. The house had been painted and peeled a couple of times and there were two horses, a paint and a buckskin, in the back field. An old Airstream trailer was parked by the sweat lodge and there were a couple more abandoned cars rusting in the side lot.

It all felt wrong, to have run so long to end up back where he had started — the danger that he had run from was still here, and now, with Calliope dead, he felt even weaker than the fifteen-year-old who had left so many years ago. As frightening as it had been to leave, it had been a beginning, full of hope and possibility. This felt like the end.

Coyote knocked on the door and waited. A Crow woman in jeans and a sweatshirt, about thirty, answered. She was holding a baby. "Yes?"

Coyote said, "I've brought your cousin home. We need help."

"Come in," she said. Coyote went into the house and came back to the car a few minutes later. He opened the door, startling Sam.

"Let's go inside," Coyote said. "I told the woman inside what happened." He helped Sam out of the car and pointed him to the door where the woman waited. Sam walked stiffly up the steps and past the woman into the house. He stood in the center of the living room, rocking Grubb. Coyote came in the door behind him. "Can I bring her in?" he asked the woman.

The woman looked horrified at the thought of a dead body in the house.

Sam turned suddenly. "No, not in the house. No."

Coyote waited. The woman looked uncomfortable. "You could put her in the trailer out back."

Coyote went back out. The woman came to Sam and pulled the blanket away from Grubb's face. "Has he eaten?"

"I–I don't know. Not for a while."

"He needs a change. C'mon, give." She put her own baby on the couch and coaxed Grubb out of Sam's arms. She spread the blanket on the coffee table and laid Grubb down on his back.

"I've heard about you," she said. "I'm Cindy. Festus is my husband."

Sam didn't answer. She took Grubb's dirty diaper off him and set it aside. "He's at work now, with his dad. They have their own shop in Hardin. Harry works with them too."

"Grandma?" Sam said.

She looked up and shook her head. "Years ago, before I met Festus." She brightened, trying to change the subject and the mood. "We have three other kids. Two other boys and a girl. They're in school — the little one in Head Start."

Sam stared over her head at the elkhorn hat rack hung with baseball caps, an old Stetson, and a ceremonial headdress. An obsidian-point buffalo lance hung beside it, next to an old Winchester and a Sports Illustrated swimsuit calendar.

"He's a strong baby," Cindy said, grabbing Grubb's fidgeting fists.

Sam looked back at her. "Pokey?" He looked down and away, a wave of grief washing over him. He walked to the kitchen doorway and stared at the ceiling, the first tears stinging as they welled up.

"Pokey's okay," Cindy said. "He went into the clinic last week. He almost — He was real sick. They wanted to move him to the hospital in Billings but Harlan wouldn't let them."

Cindy finished diapering Grubb and propped him up on the couch next to her own baby. "I'll fix him a bottle." She walked past Sam into the kitchen. He turned away from her as she went by. "Do you want some food? Coffee?"

Sam turned to her. "She never hurt anybody. She just wanted her baby back." He covered his face. Cindy moved to him and put her arms around him.

Coyote came in the front door. "Sam, we have to go."

Sam took Cindy by the shoulders and gently pushed her away, then turned and looked at Grubb, who was dozing on the couch. "He'll be okay," Cindy said. "I'll watch him." Sam didn't move.

"Sam," Coyote said, "let's go see Pokey."

Heading back through Crow Agency to the clinic, Sam noticed the new, modern tribal building and the new stadium behind it. Wiley's Food and Gas was still across the highway, just as it had been before. Kids were still hanging around outside the burger stand. Two old men shared a bottle outside the tobacco store. A mother led a pack of kids out of the general store, each carrying a bag of groceries.

"I shouldn't be here," Sam said. Coyote ignored him and kept driving.

The clinic was housed in an old two-story house at the far end of town. A line of people — mostly women and kids — waited outside. Coyote pulled into the muddy parking lot next to a rusted-out Buick. They crawled out of the car and walked up to the door. Some of the kids whispered and giggled, pointing at Coyote. An old man who was wheeling an oxygen cylinder behind him said, "Crow Fair ain't 'til next summer, boy. Why you dressed for a powwow?"

"Be cool," Sam said to Coyote. "Don't scare him."

Coyote shrugged and followed Sam into the waiting room, a ten-by-ten parlor with a checked linoleum floor and mint-green walls hung with racks of pamphlets. Twenty people sat in folding chairs along the walls, reading old copies of People or just staring at their shoes. Sam approached a window where a Crow woman was absorbed in scribbling on index cards, intent on not looking at those who waited.

"Excuse me," Sam said.

The woman didn't look up. "Fill this out." She handed a form and a stick pen over the counter. "When you hand it in — with the pen — I'll give you a number."

"I'm not here for treatment," Sam said, and the woman looked up for the first time. "I'm here to see Pokey Medicine Wing."

The woman seemed annoyed. "Just a minute." She got up and walked through the door into the back. In a moment a door into the waiting room opened and everyone looked up. A young, white doctor poked his head out, spotted Sam and Coyote, and signaled for them to come in. Everyone in the waiting room looked back down.

Inside the door the doctor looked them up and down, Sam in his dirty windbreaker and slacks, Coyote in his buckskins. "Are you family?"

"He's my clan uncle," Sam said.

The doctor nodded to Coyote. "And you?"

"Just a friend," Sam said.

"You'll have to wait outside," the doctor said.

Sam looked at Coyote. "Keep it under control, okay?"

"I said I would." The trickster went back into the waiting room.

"He should be in a real hospital," the doctor said. "He was technically dead, twice. We brought him back with the defibrillator. He's stable now, but we don't have the staff here to watch him. He should be in an ICU."

Sam hadn't heard a word of it. "Can I see him?"

"Follow me." The doctor turned and led Sam down a narrow hallway and up a flight of steps. "He was severely dehydrated and suffering from hypothermia. I think he'd been drinking even before he went on the fast. It leached all the fluids out of his body. His liver is shot and his heart sustained some damage."

The doctor stopped and opened a door. "Just a few minutes. He's very weak."

The doctor went in with Sam. Pokey was lying in a hospital bed, tubes and wires connecting him to bottles and machines. His skin was a brown-gray color. "Mr. Medicine Wing," the doctor said softly, "someone is here to see you."

Pokey's eyes opened slowly. "Hey, Samson," he said. He smiled and Sam noticed that he still hadn't gotten false teeth.

"Hey, Pokey," Sam said.

"You got bigger."

"Yeah," Sam said. Seeing Pokey was breaking through his fog, and he was starting to hurt again.

"You look like shit," Pokey said.

"So do you."

"Must run in the family." Pokey grinned. "You got a smoke?"

Sam shook his head. "I don't think that would be a good idea. I hear you're still drinking."

"Yeah. I went to some meetings. They said I needed to get a higher power if I wanted to quit. I told them that a higher power was why I was drinking in the first place."

"He's outside now. Waiting."

Pokey nodded and closed his eyes. "I had a couple of visions about you meeting up with him. All those years he's quiet, then I get a bunch of visions. I thought you was dead until I had the first one."

"I couldn't come home. I shouldn't have…."

Pokey dismissed the thought with a weak wave of his hand. "You had to go. Enos would've killed you. He checked on us for years, lookin' in our mailbox for letters, watching the house. He drove himself plumb crazy. He give up on you when Grandma died and you didn't come home."

Sam had listened to the last part of the speech sitting on the edge of the bed with his back to Pokey. His knees had given out at the news that Enos was alive. He stared at the door. "I don't feel anything," he said.

"You okay?" Pokey said, trying to grab his nephew's arm.

"There's nothing. I'm not even afraid."

"What's wrong?"

Sam looked over his shoulder at Pokey. "I thought I killed him."

"You busted him up real good. Broke both his legs and an arm sliding down the face of the dam. Tub a lard didn't even have the manners to drown."

"I been running for nothing. I…"

"I should of never give you that Coyote medicine," Pokey said. His breath was starting to come in rasping gasps. "I thought if I got rid of it I wouldn't be crazy no more."

"It's okay." Sam patted Pokey's arm. "I don't think you had a choice."

Pokey continued to breathe heavily. "I saw a shadow that said you were going where there was death. I didn't know where to find you. I told Old Man Coyote. He said he knew." Pokey gripped Sam's arm. "He said he knew, Samson. You got to get away from him."

"Calm down, Pokey." Sam stood and put his hands on Pokey's shoulder. "It's okay, Pokey. It wasn't my death. Do you want the doctor?"

Pokey shook his head. His breathing started to calm. Sam took a pitcher of water from the bedside table and poured some into a paper cup. He held it while Pokey drank, then helped the old man lie back. "Whose death?" Pokey asked.

Sam put the cup down. "A girl." He looked away.

"You loved her?"

Sam nodded, still looking away. "She had a baby. Cindy's watching him."

"When did it happen?"

"This morning."

"Was Old Man Coyote with you when it happened?"

"Yes."

"Ask him to bring her back. He owes you that."

"She's dead, Pokey. She's gone."

"I been dead twice in the last two days. I ain't gone."

"She was shot, Pokey. A bullet went through her spine."

"Samson, look at me." Pokey pulled himself up on the bed so he could look Sam in the eye. "He owes you. There's a story that Old Man Coyote invented death so there wouldn't be too many people. There's another story that his wife was killed and he went into the Underworld to get her. There was a shade there that let her go as long as Coyote promised not to look at her until he got back to the world, but he looked, so now no one can come back."

"Pokey, I can't do this right now. I can't listen to this."

"He stole your life, Samson."

Sam shook his head violently. "This just happened to me. I didn't make any of it happen."

"Then make it happen now!" Pokey shouted. Sam stopped. "In the buffalo days they said that a warrior who had counted coup and had an arrow bundle could move in and out of the Underworld. He could hide there from his enemies. Go, Samson. Old Man Coyote can help you find your girl."

"She's dead, Pokey. The Underworld is just old superstition."

"Mumbo jumbo?" Pokey said.

"Yes."

"Crazy talk?"

"That's right."

"Voodoo?"

"Exactly."

"Like Coyote medicine?"

"No."

"Well?"

Sam didn't answer. He was gritting his teeth, glaring at his uncle.

Pokey smiled. "You still hate it when I talk about the old ways. Try it, Samson. What do you have to lose?"

"Nothing," Sam said. "There's nothing at all."

The doctor opened the door and said, "That's enough. He needs to rest."

"Fuck off, paleface," Pokey said.

Sam said, "Just one more minute, please."

"One minute," the doctor said, holding up his finger as he backed out of the room.

Sam looked at Pokey. "'Fuck off, paleface'?" He laughed. It felt good.

"Be nice, Squats Behind the Bush. I'm sick." Sam felt something moving through him as he grinned at Pokey — something warm, like hope. "Now, quick, before you die again, you old fuck. Where do I get an arrow bundle?"

Sam came striding out of the clinic and grabbed Coyote by the arm, pulling him away from a group of kids he was lying to. What had been a paralyzing grief had changed to purpose. Sam felt incredibly alive.

"Let's go. Give me the keys."

"What's going on?" Coyote said. "Why the hurry? Did the old man die?"

Sam climbed into the Z and fired it up. "I've got to get to a phone, and I've got to get some clothes."

"What happened in there?"

"You knew she was going to be killed, didn't you?"

"I knew someone would."

"Pokey says that you can go in and out of the land of the dead?"

"I can? Oh, the Underworld! Yeah, I can. I don't like to, though."

"We're going."

"It's depressing. You won't like it."

"Pokey thinks you can bring Calliope back."

"I tried that once; it didn't work. It's not up to me."

"Then we're going to talk to whoever it's up to."

"Aren't you afraid?"

"I'm a little past that."

"Why do you need clothes?"

"We're going to Billings first, to get something."

"It's depressing. You won't like it. There's a big cliff in Billings that was a buffalo jump, but our people never drove the herds over it. The buffalo used to go up to the edge and say, 'Oh, no, it's Billings, then they'd just jump over out of depression. Nope, you don't want to go to Billings."

Sam pulled into the Hunts Alone driveway, shut off the car, and turned to Coyote. "What's in the Underworld? What are you so afraid of?"

CHAPTER 32 A Doctorate in Deception

According to Pokey, at the time the white men came, there were seven sacred arrow bundles. Each had been made by four medicine men who had the same vision at the same time. Once the bundles were made, the medicine men vowed never to gather again, afraid that if their combined power were stolen by one, he would become invincible and abuse the power. These bundles contained the most powerful of warrior medicine, able to protect the carrier from an enemy's weapon, give him the ability to travel swiftly, and escape to the Underworld in an emergency, to return later, unharmed. Of the original seven bundles, two had been destroyed by fire, two by flood, two were locked away in museums in Washington, and the last to leave the reservation was in the hands of a private collector in Billings, who had bought it from a family who had been converted to Christianity and thought the bundle might jeopardize their salvation.

At first Sam suspected Pokey's story. His choice finally to believe it was based more on heart than logic. Whether the story of the bundles was true or not didn't matter as much as the hope it inspired. Action based on hope just felt better than the paralysis of certainty.

When Sam came through the door of the Hunts Alone house, Cindy hardly recognized him. When she had first met him he seemed weak, wasted, and without reason to live. Now he was moving and talking with purpose. Sam said, "Cindy, I'm sorry about before. I don't want to impose."

"You're family," she said, and that was all the explanation needed.

"Thanks," Sam said. "We went to see Pokey. He's doing fine."

"Did they say when he can come home?"

"We're bringing him home tonight, if things go the way they should. Can I use the phone?"

Cindy waved toward the kitchen table, where the phone sat amid a stack of cereal boxes and bowls. Sam checked on Grubb, found him sleeping, and went to the phone.

The first call went out to the Museum of the West in Cody, Wyoming. Yes, they knew a serious collector of Indian artifacts in Billings; they had bought several pieces from him over the years. His name was Arnstead Houston.

The next call was to his office in Santa Barbara. "Gabriella, I need you to take the key I gave you and go to my house. In my closet there's a corduroy jacket with suede elbow patches. Load it in my garment bag with the khaki pants, a flannel shirt, and that goofy Indiana Jones hat that Aaron gave me for Christmas. Put in my blue pinstripe suit — shirt, shoes, and tie to match. Then grab my briefcase and get it all on the next plane to Billings, Montana. Buy a seat for it if you have to. Put it on the corporate card. And run the name Arnstead Houston through all our companies' client files — go to the Insurance Institute if you have to. It's a Billings address."

He waited while Gabriella put the name through the computer and came back with the name of Houston's home-owner's insurance carrier. "Give me the agent's number." Sam scribbled it down. "Call me back at this number as soon as you confirm the arrival time of my stuff in Billings." He gave her the Hunts Alone number.

He dialed the number of Houston's insurance agent in Billings and spoke in an Oklahoma accent. "Yes, I'm interested in insuring some valuable Indian artifacts. Arnie Houston recommended you." Sam waited. "I didn't figure you handled that sort of thing. Do you remember who you referred Arnie to? Boulder Casualty? You got a number for them? Thanks, pardner."

Sam hung up the phone and it rang immediately. "Hello. Five today? That's the earliest? Thanks, Gabriella. Oh, I forgot — call and reserve a car at the Billings airport. Something with four-wheel drive. A Blazer or a Bronco or something. White if they have it. I'll pick it up at five. Yes, the corporate card. Fuck Aaron. Tell him I'm on a hunting trip. And Gabby, you are incredible, you really are. I know I've never told you that before. Because it was time I did. Take care."

He disconnected and dialed another number, waited, then spoke with an English accent. "Yes, Boulder Casualty. This is Samuel Smythe-White with Sotheby's, London. So sorry to bother you, but we've a bit of a problem that you may be able to help us with. It seems we've recently acquired some Red Indian items — a bit unusual for us — and we're at a loss as for someone to authenticate them. The owner, who must remain anonymous I'm afraid, has suggested that you insure this sort of thing and might know of an appraiser. Yes, I'll wait."

Sam held the phone aside and lit a cigarette. "No, no, location is not a problem. Sotheby's will fly him to London." Sam scribbled something. "Jolly good. Yes, thank you."

He disconnected and dialed Arnstead Houston's number. "Hello, Mr. Houston. This is Bill Lanier. I'm the new head of Ethnic Studies at the University of Washington. Yes. The reason I'm calling is that I just got a call from Boulder Casualty. It seems that there is an item in your collection that has been severely undervalued and they'd like us to take a look at it to make sure the schedule of coverage is in line. Of course, the new appraisal would increase the price if you should ever want to sell it." Sam paused and listened.

He continued, "A Crow medicine bundle. Yes. This one's a cylinder, a hollowed-out cedar log. That's right. Well, sir, we'll need to take a look at it in person. We happen to have a tribal expert visiting the campus right now. We could be in Billings by five thirty tonight. No, I'm afraid he has to fly to a dig in Arizona tomorrow. It will have to be tonight. Yes, I have your address. Thank you, sir."

Sam hung up, sat back, and let out a long sigh. The whole process had taken less than five minutes. When he turned around both Cindy and Coyote were staring at him. Cindy's mouth was hanging open.

"What was that?" Coyote asked.

"You," Sam said, "are now working, indirectly, as an artifacts expert for the Boulder Casualty Insurance Company and I am now a professor of anthropology at the University of Washington,"

"I've been looking for a job," Cindy said, shaking her head. "They always make me fill out an application."

Coyote looked at Cindy. "He has shifty eyes, don't you think?"

Arnie Houston sat in his den looking at the arrow bundle on the coffee table before him: a hollowed-out log full of junk. But there was nothing quite so exciting as turning junk into money, and he was so excited now he could have peed his Wranglers. God bless archaeology. God bless museums. God bless historic preservation. God bless America!

Where else could a piece of oil-field trash with a fourth-grade education be living in a twenty-room house with a new Corvette in the garage, wearing thousand-dollar sea-turtle-skin boots and two pounds of silver and turquoise jewelry? And all of it from buying and selling Indian junk. God bless every eggheaded, gopher-hearted anthropologist that ever wrote a paper or dug a hole. Damn!

Arnie got up and went over to his bar, where he poured himself a snifter of Patron tequila — thirty bucks a bottle, but the finest cactus juice ever burned hair off your tongue. And it calms you down. Can't let them think you're in it for the money, the dumb shits: most of 'em could say howdy in thirty-seven dead languages, tell you the time a day a shaman shit two hundred years ago plus the ritual that went with it, but couldn't tell a nickel from a knothole when it came to money.

They always went to the tribal council or a medicine man when they wanted to buy something — that was their big mistake. You got to do your research. Find out what family's got something and then find the one in the family who drinks the most. When he's feeling his firewater, you be there with the cash. Presto, you got yourself a priceless Indian artifact for dirt cheap. Arnie had just picked up a whole basket of heirloom beadwork over at the Yakima res — a hundred bucks. The Yakima were just getting into crack cocaine and Arnie was in on the ground floor with investment capital. The beads had been in the families for hundreds of years and he'd already had an offer of ten thousand for them from the Museum of the West — upon authentication, of course.

Anthropologists, here's to 'em! Arnie thought. He toasted the fish in the aquarium by the bar and tossed back the Patron, then took a gamble by looking out the front window. A white Blazer pulled into the circular driveway and two men got out, both of them tall — one, an Indian in a suit, and the other in a corduroy jacket and khakis: the anthropologist. The Indian must be the expert he talked about on the phone. City Indian: making a living off of being Indian, going on about exploitation and such. Worthless troublemakers: wouldn't shoot one if I needed to unload my gun.

Arnie stashed the snifter under the bar and went to the front door. He brushed back the sides of his hair with his fingers — careful not to disturb the five strands combed over the top — and opened the door.

"Mr. Houston, I'm Dr. Lanier from the University of Washington. This is Running Elk, the gentleman I mentioned on the phone." The Indian nodded.

"Come on in," Arnie said, waving them into the tiled foyer. "I took it out of the safe and put it on the table for you." He didn't really have a safe, but it sounded good.

He led them into the den and stood by the coffee table. "Here she is."

The Indian moved to the fish tank and peered in. The professor walked around the table looking at the log, as if he were afraid to pick it up. "Have you opened it?"

Arnie had to think. What was the best answer? These fellows liked playing detective, finding their own clues. "No, sir. The fella I got it from told me what was inside, though. Four arrows, an eagle skull, and some, er…" Damn, how do you describe it? It was just brown powdery shit. "And some sacred powder."

"And who did you get it from?"

"Fellow on the res. Old family, but he didn't want me to say. He's afraid of the Traditionals getting revenge on him."

"I'm going to have to open it to determine the value."

"Quite so," the Indian said, still looking in the fish tank. The anthropologist shot him a nasty look. What was up with these two? An Indian who talks like a Brit; if that didn't just beat the ugly off an ape.

"It's okay with me," Arnie said. "Looks like them ends just come off like bottle caps." That's exactly how they had come off when he opened it.

"Jolly good, old chap," the Indian said. "The fish say that it's been opened before."

"Thank you, Running Elk," said the professor. He seemed kinda ticked.

He set his briefcase on the table next to the bundle, snapped open the lid, and removed some white cotton gloves. "We don't want to disturb the integrity of the contents," he said, slipping on the gloves. "I'd prefer to do this in the lab, but I assure you I'll be careful."

You can blow the damn thing up for all I care, Arnie thought, as long as the price is right. But what was the deal with the Indian and the fish tank?

The professor removed the end of the wooden cylinder and placed it on the table. He removed one of the four arrows and studied its length. When he looked at the point his face lit up. "My God, Running Elk, do you see what I see?"

"What? What?" Arnie said. Was this good or bad?

The Indian looked up from the fish tank. "Oh, capital! He's promised them one of those plastic bubbling scuba divers if he sells it."

"What?" Arnie said.

The professor scowled at the Indian and held the arrow up for Arnie to see. "Mr. Houston, you see this arrow point?"

"Uh-huh."

"This is a small-game point, and the flaking is not the pattern you find on Crow points from the buffalo days."

"So?"

"So, I think this bundle is from the time before the Crows split from the Hidatsa. If that's the case, this bundle may be priceless."

Arnie saw a swimming pool appearing in his backyard, with a whole shitpot of girls in bikinis sitting around it, rubbing oil on his back. "How can you be sure?"

"I'll have to take it back to the university to have it carbon-dated." The professor put the arrow back into the bundle. From his briefcase he pulled out a sheaf of forms. "I hope you'll understand, Mr. Houston, the university can't bond something like this for its full value, but I could write a guarantee of perhaps two hundred thousand until the return." The professor waited, his pen poised over the form.

Arnie pretended to think about it. In fact, he was thinking about the new swimming pool. Now it was indoors and had a big hot tub full of dollies. "I guess that will be all right," he said. The professor began writing on the form. "We should have it back to you within the week. I'll see to it personally that it's handled carefully. If you'll just sign here." He pushed the form over to Arnie.

There it was, $200,000.00 in big black numbers. It was all he needed to see. Arnie signed and pushed the paper back to the professor.

The professor closed his briefcase and got up. "Well, I'd like to get this back to the lab by tonight and start the work on it. I'll call you as soon as we know for sure." He picked up the bundle and headed for the door.

"You take care now. Thanks," Arnie said, holding the door for them.

"No, thank you, Mr. Houston."

"Cheerio," the Indian said as they climbed into the Blazer. "Oh yes, your mates said they'd like a Flipper video and a bit of brine shrimp to eat."

Arnie watched the Blazer pulling away. Boy, the old professor was sure giving Running Elk hell for something. Eggheads. He wondered for a minute why the Blazer had mud on the license plates when it was so clean everywhere else. Hell with it, it was time to celebrate. A buddy had given him the number of a little dolly who for two hundred dollars would come over in her cheerleader outfit. He'd been saving it for a special occasion and it looked like it was time to dig out that ol' number and see if she really could suck the furniture out of a room through the keyhole.

As soon as they were out of sight of Arnie's house, Sam took the Indiana Jones hat off and smacked Coyote with it. "What were you thinking? You almost blew it."

"The fish said he tricked someone to get that bundle."

"And what did we just do?"

"That's different. It was a Crow bundle."

"You wanted to blow it, didn't you? Why didn't you just hump his couch or something? Why didn't you just tell him the truth?"

"Well," Coyote said, "if your trick worked it would make a good story."

"I'll take that as as compliment." Sam was no longer angry. They had the bundle; now it was time to think about the next part of the plan. He believed what Pokey had told him about the power of the bundle, and all Pokey had ever asked of him was to be believed. He said, "Coyote, will you help me get Pokey out of the clinic?"

"Another trick?" Coyote asked.

"Of sorts."

"I'll help, but I won't go to the Underworld with you."

CHAPTER 33 Doors

Some of the color had returned to Pokey's face and someone had taken the braids out of his hair and brushed it. He opened his eyes when Sam entered the room.

"You got it?" Pokey said.

"It's in the car," Sam said. Coyote came in behind him.

Pokey grinned. "Old Man Coyote."

"Howdy," Coyote said. "How many times you died now, old man?"

"A bunch. It's plumb wearing me out," Pokey said. "The medicine man got tired of singing the death song and went home. I think he got scared." Pokey pulled a cassette out from under his covers and held it up. "I got it on tape for the next time."

Sam said, "Pokey, we have the arrow bundle. What do we do now?"

"Ask him," Pokey said, pointing to Coyote.

"I ain't going," Coyote said. "He has to go alone."

"Samson needs a medicine man to sing the bundle song."

"That's why we're here," Sam said.

"You want me? I didn't think you believed I had medicine, Samson."

"Things change, Pokey. I need you."

"Well then, get me out of here." Pokey started to sit up.

Sam pushed him back. "I don't think you should be walking."

"Samson, I done told you, I had my death vision. I don't die in no hospital, I get shot. Now help me get up." He struggled to a sitting position and Sam helped him turn so his feet hung off the bed. "You're right, I don't think I can walk."

Sam turned to Coyote. "You promised to help."

The clinic was officially closed for the day, but the skeleton staff of two nurses was still on. Adeline Eats sat in the waiting room with her six children, who were all green with flu, insisting that she wasn't going anywhere until they got treatment, even if she had to wait all night.

For the twentieth time, the nurse at the window was explaining that the doctor had gone home for the night, when she heard the hoof beats on the stairs. She dropped her clipboard and ran out of the office to see a black horse coming down the stairs, an old, half-naked man bouncing on its back. She ducked back into her office to avoid being trampled and looked up in time to see a man in a corduroy jacket running behind the horse out the front door.

The nurse ran out into the waiting room to the front door, which dangled in pieces on its hinges. She watched the horse stop beside a white Blazer and rear up. The old man, his gray hair streaming in the wind, let out a war whoop and fell into the arms of the man in corduroy. Then, as she watched, the horse started bubbling and changing until it was a man in black buckskins. The nurse stumbled back in shock. Someone tapped her on the shoulder and she jumped a foot off the ground. She came down holding her chest. Adeline Eats said, "You got room for my kids now, or what?"

Riding in the Blazer, Pokey said, "Old Man Coyote, how do I send Samson to the Underworld?"

"Just open the bundle and sing the song. He will go."

Sam said, "What happens then? What do I do?"

"My medicine ends when you get there. You will see the one that weighs the souls. Don't be afraid of him. Just ask him if you can bring the girl back."

"That's it?"

"Don't worry about the monster. The Underworld is not what you think." Coyote rolled down the car window. "I have something that I want to do. I'll be there when you return." Coyote dove out the car window, changing instantly into a hawk and flying off into the night sky.

"Wait!" Sam said. "What monster?" He stopped the car.

Pokey giggled like a child. "A horse and a hawk in one night. Samson, do you know how lucky we are?"

Sam leaned forward and put his head against the wheel. "Lucky wasn't the world that came to mind, Pokey."

Pokey had called Harlan and the boys down from Hardin. While they prepared the sweat, Sam stood at the door of the Airstream trailer trying to make himself open it. For the first time in years he was aware of his childhood fear of the dead and unrevenged ghosts and he hesitated. Since Pokey had given him hope of bringing Calliope back, he hadn't really thought of her as dead. He wanted to see her before he went to the Underworld, but he was afraid. Strange, he thought, after all these years of selling the fear of death, talking about it every day, now I'm afraid. She's not dead, not really.

He threw the door open and stepped into the trailer. Calliope's body was lying on the built-in cot by the door amid camping equipment and fishing rods. Coyote had covered her with a blanket, leaving her face exposed. She could have been sleeping.

Sam sat on the cot by her and brushed a strand of hair away from her face. She was cold. He looked away.

"I wanted you to know…" He didn't know what to say. There was no face to put on to meet this face. If she would just open her eyes. He swallowed hard. "I wanted you to know that I would do anything for you. That all this craziness was — will be — worth it if I can bring you back. I've been hiding out for my whole life, and I don't want to live that way anymore. Anyway, I wanted you to know that Grubb will be okay. My family will take care of him. I'll be with you, one way or another."

Sam leaned over and kissed her. "Soon," he said. He got up and walked out of the trailer.

Across the yard, the fire crackled and licked the sky, heating the rocks for the sweat. Pokey sat on a lawn chair, the arrow bundle in his lap, his eyes glistening orange in the firelight. Harlan was carrying rocks from the fire to the pit inside the sweat lodge. Sam stood by with Harry and Festus, watching. After the initial surprise that Sam was still alive, Harry and Festus simply fell into their normal roles of listening to their father argue with Pokey. Sam noticed that they had the lean, muscular frame of their father, the same square-set jaw. Harlan was a little thinner now, and his hair had gone gray, but otherwise, to Sam, he seemed the same.

"The boys and me have to go to work in the morning," Harlan said. "We can't stay late, Pokey. No drinking."

"I ain't going to drink," Pokey said.

Harlan dropped a hot rock into the pit and wiped sweat from his forehead. "I can't believe that doctor let you come home. Just yesterday he was puttin' your death on my hands for not moving you to the hospital in Billings."

"He's a pissant," Pokey said. "How's it coming?"

Harlan scraped another rock out of the fire and scooped it up with the pitchfork. "This ought to do it." He unbuckled his pants and began to get undressed. The others followed his lead, hanging their clothes on Pokey's chair.

Sam took the bundle from Pokey and put it in the sweat lodge, then helped the old man out of his hospital gown. Pokey crawled into the sweat lodge, where the others sat in a semicircle facing him.

"Before I drop the door, I got to open this here bundle. It's a real old one, so no one knows the right song. I'm going to have to make it up as I go along. Okay?"

Pokey held up the bundle and sang a prayer song, thanking the spirits for the gift of the sweat. He laid out a square of buckskin for the objects in the medicine bundle. "I don't know what's going to happen here, but Harlan, you and the boys got to pray that Samson has a safe journey. He's going on a kind of vision quest, but he ain't going to the Spirit World." Pokey looked at Sam. "You've seen her since you got here, right?"

"Yes," Sam said.

"And she's still in the trailer?"

"Yes."

"Who?" Harry asked.

"Never mind," Pokey said. They hadn't told Harlan and the boys about Calliope or Coyote. "Here we go." He threw a handful of sage onto the stones. When the smoke rose he held the bundle in it, then took off the cap. He began singing as he took each object from the bundle and set it on the buckskin. Sam closed his eyes and concentrated on going to the Underworld and what he had to do there.

"Heya, heya, heya, an arrow.

Heya, heya, heya, another arrow

Heya, heya, heya, another arrow

Heya, heya, heya, the last arrow.

Heya, heya, heya, an eagle skull.

Heya, heya, heya, some brown stuff."

"Some brown stuff?" Harlan said.

"Well, I don't know what it is," Pokey said. "It looks like brown stuff to me."

"Whatever it is, it's working," Festus said, pointing to Sam, who was shivering, even in the heat of the sweat lodge. His eyes were open but rolled back in his head, showing no pupils.

"I'm dropping the door," Pokey said. "Now pray for his return like you never prayed before."

CHAPTER 34 Let Slip the Dogs of Irony

The owl was still perched on the power pole.

Adeline Eats sat in her easy chair reading the Book of Job, trying to keep her dinner down. On the way back from the clinic the kids had elected to have pancakes for dinner and Adeline had eaten a mountainous stack and all the mistakes. Now the matriarchs of breakfast, Aunt Jemima and Mrs. Butterworth, were waging a bubbling battle in her stomach while her kids burned with fever and Job suffered boils.

Adeline admired Job for keeping his faith. All she had was a house full of sick kids, a husband with a peyote hangover, an owl out front, and a little difficulty reading small print through her sunglasses, and she was ready to pack it in to her reserved spot in Hell. Old Job was quite a guy, especially with God acting like such a prick. What was that about? When her sisters talked about the Bible it was all the Sermon on the Mount and the Song of Solomon, Proverbs and Psalms; never smitings and plagues. And her sisters had never mentioned that God was a racist. He sure hated those old Philistines. Adeline had a cousin in Philadelphia; she wore a little too much eye shadow, but that didn't seem a sin you should get smote and circumcised for….

Adeline's religious reverie was interrupted by a tidal surge of acid in her stomach. She put the Bible down and went to the kitchen for some Pepto-Bismol. She found the bottle and wrestled with the child-guard cap for five minutes before deciding to smite its head off with the cleaver Milo used for hacking deer joints. She was raising the cleaver when the doorbell rang like a call from the governor.

She waddled to the door and threw it open. An enormously fat white man in a powder-blue suit was standing on the steps, hat in hand, sample case at his side, grinning like a possum eating shit. He looked vaguely familiar.

"Pardon me, ma'am," he said. "I was looking for a Mrs. Adeline Eats, but I have obviously stumbled onto the home of a movie star."

Adeline remembered that she was still wearing sunglasses and her hair was piled up on her head. She lifted her glasses. "I'm Adeline Eats," she said. She peeked over his shoulder and shuddered. The owl was still on the pole.

"Of course you are. And I'm Lloyd Commerce, purveyor of the worlds finest vitamin supplement and herbal remedy: Miracle Medicine. May I come in?"

Adeline eyed him suspiciously. "Didn't you sell me a vacuum cleaner a long time ago?"

"You've got a heck of a memory, Mrs. Eats. I did have the privilege of bringing to people's lives that beam of brightness known as the Miracle. How's it working?"

"I don't know. I don't have any rugs."

"Very shrewd, Mrs. Eats. What better way to avoid dirty carpets than to avoid carpets altogether? The very reason that I have turned my efforts to a product that addresses the number one problem facing families today."

"What's that?"

Lloyd put his hat over his heart. "If you could just afford me a minute of your time, you will reap the benefit of years of research."

"Okay, come on in. But you got to be quiet. My kids are sick and my husband is resting." Adeline stepped out of the doorway and the salesman floated by her to the couch.

Adeline sat in her chair across from him. Her stomach gurgled and rolled. She stifled a belch. "Excuse me."

"Indigestion!" Lloyd exclaimed as if he had discovered the cure for cancer. "Fortune has smiled on you, Mrs. Eats. I have in my case the bee's knees of indigestion remedies." He pulled a brown bottle from his case and held it out reverentially. "Mrs. Eats, may I present Miracle Medicine."

Adeline fidgeted. "I don't know if I can afford it. I've been off work for a couple of days taking care of my kids."

"In that case, you can't afford to be without it. And with a house full of illness you can't afford to wait."

"Will this stuff cure the flu?"

"The flu? The flu?" Lloyd shook the bottle at Adeline. "The flu doesn't exist when you have Miracle Medicine. It makes them that's sick well, and them that's well better. This is no backward primitive remedy, ma'am, but the finest product that nature and modern science could come up with. Miracle Medicine cures croup, cramps, cankers, and the creeping crud."

"I don't know…," Adeline said.

"And how could you know until you try it? Why, Miracle Medicine will even raise your self-confidence, as well as doing away with excess mucus, the embarrassment of bad breath, intestinal gas, dandruff, the heartbreak of psoriasis, most mental illness, and the post-peyote dry heaves."

"I don't think so," Adeline said.

"You don't think so? Mrs. Eats, may I see your medicine cabinet?" Lloyd pulled a plastic garbage bag out of his sample case.

"I suppose so," Adeline said. "The bathrom is in there."

"Come with me," Lloyd said. He got up and led Adeline into the bathroom, where he threw open the medicine cabinet. He took a bottle of aspirin from the shelf and held it up. "What is this for, Mrs. Eats?"

"Headaches."

"Don't need it." Lloyd threw the aspirin in the garbage bag.

"Hey," Adeline said.

"Miracle Medicine makes headaches a thing of the past." He grabbed the tube of Preparation H and tossed it in the garbage bag. "Hemorrhoids are behind you, Mrs. Eats." Next went the cough medicine, the Band-Aids, some Neosporin ointment, and an old prescription for bladder infections.

"Hey, I need that stuff."

"Not anymore," Lloyd said. "Not with Miracle Medicine."

Adeline was starting to get angry. "Put that stuff back."

Lloyd lifted Adeline's sunglasses and looked her in the eye. "Mrs. Eats, you say you have a house full of sick kids. What exactly have you done to make them better?"

"I took them to the clinic but we couldn't get in. I've been praying."

Lloyd nodded knowingly. "Well you can say good-bye to prayer." He stormed back into the living room, picked up the Bible, and threw it in the garbage bag. "You don't need prayer when you have a medicine that reduces swelling, increases sex drive, and directly addresses the national debt."

"No," Adeline said, following him. "I don't want any."

He went to the crucifix on the wall, tore it off, and threw it in the bag. "Quiets coughs, promotes regularity, increases energy…"

"No!" Adeline said.

Lloyd took the 3-D picture of Jesus off the television and threw it in the bag.

"Calms nerves."

"No!"

"Cures acne."

"No!"

"Cures crabs, spiritual indecision, poison sumac, rabies, and-"

"No!"

"Gets rid of unwanted owls."

"How much is it?" Adeline said.

"Cash or check?" Lloyd said. He sat back down on the couch.

Adeline heard the bedroom door open. She turned and saw Milo coming into the living room, wearing sunglasses. He couldn't tolerate bright light for a day or two after a peyote ceremony. "What in the hell is going on out here?"

"I was just talking to this salesman," Adeline said.

"What salesman?"

Adeline turned around. The salesman, his sample case, and the garbage bag full of over-the-counter icons were gone. The brown bottle of Miracle Medicine sat on the table.

"Here honey, take some of this," she said. "You'll feel better."

She felt better already.

Sam felt as if he were passing out, then the vertigo of falling. The sounds around him faded; Pokey's voice became distant, then silent. He felt his stomach lurch, as if he had just gone into the big drop of a roller coaster, then an impact that flattened him on the ground. He looked up, expecting to see the others around him in the sweat lodge. The lodge, and everyone in it, was gone. There was nothing but blackness and the sound of his own breathing.

A thousand questions raced through his brain, but he realized that each one led to another and the best strategy was to maintain a state of automatic action and remember why he was here. He stood and squinted into the darkness. Two golden eyes were floating in front of him. He heard the sound of an animal breathing.

Suddenly a stone platform started to glow. On it stood a figure: a man's body with a dog's head, wearing an Egyptian kilt. Except for the golden eyes, he was black, so black he appeared to absorb light. He carried a golden staff tipped with the effigy of a falcon. Beside him on the platform was the source of the breathing sounds: a beast the size of a hippo, with the jaws of a crocodile on the body of a lion. It snorted and snapped at the air, flicking foam from its jaws. Behind them both stood a giant balance scale.

Despite all he had been through, Sam felt a wave of mind-blanking terror pass through him. He wanted to run, but couldn't move. With the light coming off the pedestal he could see human bones scattered around him. He realized that he was standing on his toes, every muscle in his body rigid.

The black dog man snapped his staff on the platform. "Okay, up on the scale," he said. Then he narrowed his gaze and stepped down from the platform. "Wait a minute, you're alive. Go away. We only do the dead. Out, out, out."

Of all the strange things Sam had seen in the last week, watching the dog mouth forming human speech was the strangest. It looked like the creature was trying to yak up a chicken bone. Suddenly the fear was gone. This was too goofy, like an Alpo commercial filmed in Hell.

"Are you the one I'm supposed to talk to about — about getting some help?"

"Look, I tried to warn you that my brother was going to cause you problems. I sent my agent to help you."

"Your brother?"

"Coyote is my brother. He didn't tell you?"

"No, he never mentioned a brother. He said I had to find the one that weighs the souls."

The dog man scoffed. "Well there's the scale. And here I am. Take a wild guess. Go ahead, Einstein, figure it out. I can't believe he didn't mention me." He sat down, hung his head and began scratching himself behind the ears. "He's an ingrate."

The monster growled and Sam jumped back.

"That's Ammut," the dog man said. "He wants to eat you."

Sam shuddered. "Maybe later. I'm here to ask a favor."

"You don't even know who I am, do you? That hurts. You think I don't have feelings?"

"I'm sorry," Sam said. "I'm a little preoccupied. I didn't mean to be rude." Preoccupied? Naked, in a supernatural world, talking to the dog-food god, trying to get back the woman he loved. Excuse my manners, he thought. "I'm Sam Hunter, and you are?"

"Anubis, son of Osiris. God of the Underworld." He scratched behind his ears harder and his leg began to bounce with pleasure.

"Osiris? You're Egyptian?"

"My people lived in the Nile Valley, yes."

"But you said that you were Coyote's brother."

"He didn't tell you that story either?" Anubis was irritated.

"No, sorry," Sam said. How could Calliope's life be in the hands of this neurotic canine? He decided to try to placate the god. "But I'd love to hear it."

Anubis pricked up his long ears. "It was long ago," he began. "And the god Osiris brought to the people of the Nile Valley the knowledge to plant grain, and he brought great floods to nourish the grains. With his queen, Isis, he ruled all of civilization, until his brother Set, the dark one, became jealous and killed Osiris, tearing his body into fourteen pieces and scattering them over the valley.

"But Osiris had consorted with Set's wife, Nephthys, and she gave birth to two dog-headed sons, Anubis and Aputet. When Set found the boys he put them into baskets and set them afloat in the Nile. Later, Isis found Anubis and adopted him. But Aputet floated out to sea and across the ocean to another land in the West."

Here the dog-headed god puffed himself up with pride. "Anubis was always the one bound to duty, the faithful. He found the pieces of our father and bound them together so that Osiris lived again. For that he was given the job of weighing human souls against truth, and taking people to the Underworld.

"And my brother," Anubis said, "grew up in a wild land, with the powers of a god and no sense of duty or justice. All he cares about is the stories people tell about him. And he never remembers his brother, who has saved him so many times. He never visits. You're sure Coyote never told you this?"

Sam didn't know what to say. He thought of the Coyote tales he had heard as a child, and how this seemed to fit.

"No, I was told he brought my people the buffalo and taught us how to live off the land."

"He did those things to serve himself. Without a way to live, how could they tell stories about him? He has used me for years to make his stories. Now he has returned to Earth and used you."

It all fit. "He fucked up my life and got Calliope killed for the stories." Sam was trying to control his anger. "I'm here because he wants people to tell stories about him?"

"He had to or he would end up like me." Anubis lowered his voice. "Your people don't have a word in their language for «computer» or «VCR» or "television." The children are losing the old stories, the stories of hunting buffalo and counting coup. That's not their world. Coyote was afraid he would be forgotten, like me. With the new stories he's real again. You lived the stories that will bring him back. He doesn't care about the people, only that they are talking about him. I tried. I sent my agent to help you."

Sam looked at Anubis. "The big black guy, Minty? You sent him?"

"He's mine, a dutiful son, but he doesn't know it," Anubis said. "I can no longer walk in your world because I am a dead god. I died of change. So I sent the black one to help you. He is mine like you are Aputet's."

"I'm his? What does that mean?"

"You were born for his stories. To live them, to carry them on."

"He wants little kids to hear stories about killing innocent women? That's supposed to be good for a people?"

"He doesn't care. As long as the stories are told they will hold his people together. He says people need a good bad example. It gives them pride in doing the right thing. I have always done the right thing and my people are gone because of it, swallowed up by the Christian god."

"So how does the story end?" Sam asked. "Can I bring back Calliope? She didn't do anything wrong."

"I weigh the souls of the dead against truth. If there is balance, then the soul passes on. If not, I feed it to Ammut."

The monster snarled at the mention of his name. "I'm stuck here doing this tedious work while my brother roams the world having fun. It's not fair."

Sam kept pressing. "Let me take the girl back. It's not her fault that Coyote is a jerk."

"No," Anubis said. "My brother needs to learn a lesson. He has never had to sacrifice anything."

"Let her live and I'll tell your story. You'll be remembered again. People will believe." Sam had to keep pressing.

"Like the other stories?" The god affected a whiny, mocking tone. "'Then along came Coyote's brother, who jumped over him four times, and he came back to life. I never even get my name mentioned."

"Please," Sam pleaded.

Anubis shook his head slowly. "No. Tell my brother he needs to learn to sacrifice for his people. I have done what I can do." The jackal-headed god stood and walked off the pedestal into the darkness, the monster at his heels.

"Wait!" Sam started to run after him. The pedestal went dark and he felt the loss of his love even as the ground dropped out from under him.

Just before dawn Coyote climbed into the sweat lodge and sat beside Pokey. Sam's body was shaking, his eyes still rolled back in his head. "Wait!" he screamed. He jerked, as if someone had applied a current to his body, and his eyes rolled down. The door flap of the sweat lodge was thrown open and the first light of dawn was spilling through.

"How's my brother?" Coyote asked.

Sam lunged for Coyote's throat. "You killed her for stories!" Pokey caught him from behind in a bear hug.

"No, Samson." Pokey struggled to hold Sam. "You were gone all night. Harlan and his boys left. Someone named Minty Fresh called the house for you. He said to tell you that some bikers are coming here to take the child. He said they would be here about dawn."

CHAPTER 35 Crazy Dogs Wishing to Die

The Underworld made Calliope's death real, stripping Sam of the last of his hope, leaving him like a raw, screaming nerve. He ran naked out of the sweat lodge and dove into the cooling fire pit.

"Samson, stop it!" Pokey shouted.

Sam grabbed handfuls of ashes and rubbed them on his face and chest, then ran through the yard and into the house, Coyote and Pokey close behind him.

They found him in the living room, pulling the buffalo lance off the wall. The women had taken the children and retreated to the bedrooms. Pokey could hear them crying. Coyote grabbed Sam by the shoulder. "Stop this."

Sam shrieked and swung around with the lance, slashing Coyote across the chest with the long obsidian point. The trickster fell back bleeding. Sam ran out of the house.

"Go get him," Pokey said to Coyote.

Coyote got up and ran out the front door in time to see Sam vaulting the fence into the side field. Sam jumped on the back of a buckskin horse and wrapped a hand in its long mane, then dug his heels in and smacked the lance across its hindquarters. The horse shot forward and over the fence into the road, taking a line of barbed wire out with its front legs.

"Sam, wait!" Coyote shouted. Sam pulled the horse up and looked back at the trickster. Pokey joined Coyote on the porch.

"Samson, don't do this," Pokey said.

"I'm tired of being afraid, Pokey. This is a good day to die." Sam slapped the horse's flank with the lance and galloped down the road.

"Get the gate," Coyote shouted to Pokey. He ran to the field, scooping up a handful of mud from some tire tracks as he ran and rubbing it on his face and chest. He vaulted the fence and the paint horse, spooked by the commotion, ran to the other side of the pasture. "Come," Coyote commanded.

The paint horse stopped as if it had been jerked back by an invisible rope, then turned and galloped back to the trickster. Coyote calmed it, then climbed the fence and jumped on its back.

Pokey swung the gate open and Coyote rode the horse through, up the driveway, and down the road after Sam.

Rarely does one encounter a combination of human traits quite so frightening as a psychopath with a purpose. Yet, as dawn broke in Crow Agency, forty examples of that particular perversion cruised, in a double column of Harley-Davidsons, off the ramp from Highway 90, under the overpass by Wiley's Food and Gas, and down the main street of town. Lonnie Ray Inman rode at the head of the column, followed closely by Bonner Newton on one side and Tinker on the other. Behind them were the other members of the Guild's Santa Barbara chapter, and behind them joiners from other Guild chapters who, pumped with the mere idea of self-righteous vengeance, had volunteered to come along.

Pulling into town, they were losing some of their resolve, and confused glances passed from one biker to another. They knew they were coming to the Crow reservation to get a kid who had been stolen, but now that they were here, what were they supposed to do? No one was out on the street at this hour to observe their fierce show of unity and force. It was rapidly turing into an unsatisfying experience, especially for those who were not used to wearing shoulder holsters and were a little chafed under the arms.

Lonnie slowed the column to a creep as he looked down the side streets of Crow Agency for signs of the orange Z. At the edge of town, near the tobacco shop, he signaled the column to stop. It was obvious they were about to head into open ranchland. The big bikes thundered out iron flatulence as they idled, putting up a din that rattled the windows of Crow Agency. A few lights went on in town; a few faces appeared in windows. Lonnie Ray signaled Bonner to join him for a conference. Bonner Newton was moving to his side when they heard the war cry.

Lonnie and Bonner looked down the road to see two men on horses charging them, one waving a spear over his head and screaming. Bonner was the first to recover from the shock and started to draw his pistol when a shot went off to his left and the speedometer on his bike exploded, peppering him with splinters of glass and metal.

"I wouldn't draw that." The voice came from the rooftops. "I wouldn't fucking move." Bonner looked up to see someone holding a scoped hunting rifle on them. The horsemen were still bearing down on them. One of the bikers in the column started to draw and a shot came from the other direction, taking the light off his bike. There was another one on the roof across the street. The bikers looked around. There were four men with scoped high-powered rifles pointing down on them from different rooftops.

"I can take a flea off a gnat's ass at two hundred yards with this," Harlan shouted over his rifle. "You let them popguns stay where they are."

Sam screamed again, a long rasping wail.

"He's not fucking stopping," Tinker said. He drew his Magnum and fired before Harlan put a bullet in his shoulder, spinning him off his bike to the pavement. Coyote grabbed his chest and rolled off his horse, bouncing into the ditch. Seeing that Sam wasn't going to stop, Bonner Newton dropped his bike and dove into the gutter, covering his head.

Lonnie watched the crazed horseman, streaked with ashes and sweat, bearing down on him. Sam was only a few yards away, raising his lance for the kill, when Lonnie went for his gun. Sam yanked on the horse's mane, jumping it over the front of the bike. One hoof hit Lonnie in the chest; another took off a piece of his right ear before the horse stumbled into the bikers behind him. Sam rolled free and up to his feet. He ran back to where Lonnie lay and raised the lance above his head as Lonnie's eyes went wide and he screamed.

"Samson!" Harlan shouted.

Sam put all his weight behind the lance and came down with it, screaming at the top of his lungs. At the last second he spun the lance and touched Lonnie on the chest with the butt end. "Go away," he said.

Sam stumbled away and dropped the lance.

"That's it," Harlan shouted. "Everybody just turn your bikes around and go back the way you came. We'll drop the first one that looks like he's doing the wrong thing."

The bikers looked around in confusion. Festus, Harry, and Billy Two Irons kept their rifles shouldered and trained on the column. Bonner Newton climbed to his feet. "Turn around," he said, waving his hand in the air. He looked at Lonnie. "See if Tink can ride. Let's get the fuck out of here."

Sam walked back down the road to where Coyote had fallen. The trickster was lying naked in the ditch, covered with mud, his leg bent under him. Blood was coursing from a hole in his chest and he was breathing in short, rattling pants. Sam bent over him and held his head. Coyote's eyes slowly opened. "That's the last coup," Coyote said. "You counted the last coup. It's a new world now." The trickster coughed; foamy blood covered his lips.

Sam had no anger left, no thoughts, no words. A minute passed. He heard someone blowing a car horn somewhere, and Harlan saying, "Let him through."

Finally Sam said, "What can I do?"

"Tell the stories," Coyote said. He closed his eyes and stopped breathing. Sam gently lowered the trickster's head and lay down in the ditch beside him. He heard a car pull up on the road above, but did not look up. A car door, footsteps, and hands under his body, lifting him. He opened his eyes to see a battered black face with golden eyes.

"Are you okay?" Minty Fresh said. Sam didn't answer. He felt himself being put in a car. "I'll take you home," Minty said.

Sam sat in the limo, the car door open, staring at the dashboard. Someone walked up beside him and said, "Nice outfit, Hunts Alone." Sam looked up to see Billy Two Irons standing over him: older, and just as thin, but unmistakably Billy Two Irons.

Sam managed a weak smile. "Your face cleared up."

"Yeah," Billy said. "I got laid, too. Only last week, but who's counting after thirty-five years?"

Sam looked forward trying to squint back tears. Billy shuffled a bit with discomfort. "This guy's going to take you home. I'll stop by when things settle down a little."

Sam nodded. "It was a good day to die."

"You're always trying to cheer me up," Billy said. "Don't take off again, okay?" He patted Sam's shoulder and opened the back door of the limo for Minty Fresh, who laid Coyote's body on the backseat, then closed the door.

Minty closed Sam's door, then went around and got in on the driver's side. He put the key in the ignition and paused. Without looking at Sam he said, "I'm sorry. Your uncle told me about the girl. They beat on me pretty bad and I told them where you were going. I screwed up. I'm sorry. If I could make it up…"

Sam didn't look up. "How did you get away?"

"They found my casino ID. I think the rumors about the Mafia running the casinos is what stopped them. They were afraid of retribution. I called the casino and got your office number. Your secretary gave me the number here. I called as soon as I got away."

Sam didn't say anything. Minty started the limo and pulled slowly onto the road, headed out of town to the Hunts Alone place.

Sam said, "What are you going to do with his body?"

"I don't know. I guess it will come to me, like everything else I've done in the last two days."

Sam looked at Minty, and for the first time saw the golden eyes, surrounded with bruises. "Do you know what's happened here? Do you know what we are?"

Minty shook his head, "What we are? No. I was a trouble-shooter in a casino until yesterday. Now I guess I'm a car thief."

"You didn't really have any choice. But I think it's over now. You're free now."

"Sure, throw that responsibility on me," Minty said. He grinned.

Sam reached deep down and found he had a smile left, like the last worm in the bait can. They were approaching the Hunts Alone place. Minty turned into the driveway and stopped. "Do you need any help?"

"No, I'll be okay," Sam said automatically, not knowing what he needed. He opened the car door. "Where will you go?"

"Like I said, I guess it will come to me. Maybe San Diego."

"You can stay here if you want."

"No, I don't think so. But thanks. I'm feeling like there's still something I have to do."

"When it comes to you, remember, the sacred number is four. You jump over the body four times."

"Am I supposed to know what that means?"

"You will," Sam said. "Good luck." He got out of the car and stood at the end of the driveway watching Minty drive away. What now? He hadn't died, and he didn't have a life to return to. Nothing. Empty. Dead inside.

He turned and started toward the house. Cindy and another woman appeared at the door, and waited. From the shocked look on their faces Sam realized how crazed he must look: naked, covered with soot, streaked with sweat and tears. He waved to them and headed around the house to wash himself in the barrel back by the sweat lodge.

As he walked by the Airstream he heard the door unlatch and looked up.

Calliope stepped out of the trailer. "Sam?" she said. "I had the strangest dream." She looked around the yard, then at the trailer. "I didn't just land on the Wicked Witch of the East, did I?"

Sam closed his eyes and took her in his arms. He held her there for a long time, laughing, then sobbing, then laughing again, feeling as if he had, at last, come home.

Crazy Dogs Wishing to Die

One day, a long time ago, Coyote was coming along when he saw a cowboy sitting on his horse, rolling a cigarette. Coyote watched the cowboy take a little pouch of tobacco out of his shirt pocket, and then some rolling papers. He poured some tobacco into a paper, then pulled the strings of the pouch tight with his teeth and put it back in his pocket. Then he rolled up the paper, licked it, and stuck the cigarette in his mouth. He lit it with a match.

Coyote had smoked a pipe many times, but he had never seen anything quite so wonderful as rolling a cigarette. "I want to do that," Coyote said. "Let me do that."

"You can't," the cowboy said.

"Why not?"

"You ain't got a shirt, so you ain't got a shirt pocket for your tobacco pouch."

Coyote didn't wear a shirt in those days. He looked at his bare chest, then at the cowboy's shirt. "I can make a pocket in my chest."

"Well, why don't you do that." The cowboy unfolded his pocketknife and handed it to Coyote. Coyote looked one more time at the cowboy's pocket, to get the size right, then he made a deep cut in his chest. He looked a little surprised, then he fell over dead. The cowboy got back his pocketknife and rode off.

A little while later, Coyote's brother came along and saw the trickster lying dead on the ground. He jumped over Coyote's body four times and Coyote sprang up, good as new.

"You did it again," Coyote's brother said.

"I really wanted to roll a cigarette like the cowboy."

Coyote's brother shook his head. He said, "If you're going to live around these white folks, Coyote, you got to learn. Just because you want something, it don't mean that it's good for you."

"I knew that," Coyote said.

CHAPTER 36 There Ain't No Cure for Coyote Blue

There is a saying that goes back to the buffalo days: there are no orphans among the Crow. Even today, if someone stays for a time on the reservation, he will be adopted by a Crow family, regardless of his race. The idea of a person without family makes the Crow uncomfortable. So when Samuel Hunter became, once again, Samson Hunts Alone, he found that there was family waiting for him, as well as his new white wife and her son. Pokey said, "There ain't near enough blond Indians, if you ask me."

And even as he left his old name behind with his old life, Sam maintained his shape-shifter ways, putting on each face as it was needed. Sometimes he was quick and clever, and other times he was simple, when simple served his purpose. When he spoke for the Crow to the government he wore traditional tribal dress and an eagle feather in his hair. But when he reported to his own people he dug out one of his Armani suits and the Rolex (that had long since stopped running), because that is what they needed to see. He was given the honor of pouring for the sweat, and the responsibility to carry on the old ways, and he programmed a computer to speak Crow, and using it, at the age of eighty, Pokey Medicine Wing learned to speak his own language.

And Sam put on many faces when he told the stories. When he told the old stories, of how Old Man Coyote made the world, of how he got his power to change shapes, of Cottontail and Raven and the other animal people, Sam was like the trickster himself, grinning and laughing, making rude noises, his golden eyes shining like fire. When he told the new stories — of the Crow man who had forgotten who he was, of a Japanese businessman who saved the life of an old shaman, of a black man who helped rescue a white child from the enemy, of all the tricks and machines that Coyote used to bring the Crow man home, and of the last coup — his voice took on a melancholy sweetness and his eyes went wide and bright, as if life itself was a delightful surprise. And when he told the story of the journey into the Underworld, of how Coyote's brother let Calliope live again because the trickster gave his own life, Sam became grave and dark, and those who doubted were quickly convinced when they saw the scar on Calliope's back from the bullet that had killed her. But even as Sam put on these faces and wore these personalities, he knew exactly who he was. He was happy.

After a while Calliope became pregnant and Sam's peace was again thrown out of balance. He was jumpy and nervous until the day the little girl was born and he saw that she had Calliope's deep brown eyes, not the golden eyes of a trickster. And meanwhile, as Grubb grew, he found that he could frighten his adopted father by hiding and making the sound of a coyote howling, and for this he suffered long lectures from his old Uncle Pokey about respecting his elders.

When Grubb was nine, in the time of the new grass, Sam took him to the great medicine wheel for his first fast. During the ride, in Pokey's ancient pickup truck, Sam instructed Grubb on how to enter the Spirit World and prepared him for what to expect there. "And one last thing," Sam said as he left the boy on the mountain. "If a fat guy in a big blue car comes along and offers you a ride, don't get in."

What Grubb saw on his vision, and what happened when he grew up, is a story for another time. But it should be noted here that over the years, as he grew into manhood, his eyes faded gradually from dark brown to a bright, shining gold.

"Coyote medicine will do them white folks some good," Pokey said with a grin.

END