Robert Charrette - Find your own truth

Hart gave an exasperated sigh. "Why not just ask for Howling Coyote? He certainly fits…"

A sudden scrape and the crash of Dodger's chair on the floor interrupted her remark. Finishing his abrupt rise, the elf stalked to the door and flung it open. He stared out at the rain.

Sam looked to Hart, who looked as surprised as he felt. "What's the matter, Dodger? Do you know this Howling Coyote?"

The decker's voice was soft, almost inaudible over the sound of the downpour. "I think he's dead. 'Twould be better 'twere so."

When it was obvious Dodger would say no more on the subject, Sam whispered to Hart, "Do you know why he reacted like that?" She shook her head.

"What could it be about this Howling Coyote? The name's familiar, but I can't seem to place it."

"Been neglecting the historical side of your studies again?" Sam could see by her half smile that she noticed the heat that would be reddening his cheeks above his beard. "Is the name Daniel Coleman any more familiar?"

' 'The Ghost Dance prophet?'' "None other," Dodger announced, forcing himself back into the conversation. His back remained turned to them. "Coleman was a charismatic firebrand, the leading light of the movement that resulted in the end of the United States of America, the Dominion of Canada, and the Republic of Mexico. A very influential villain. I heard him speak in the broadcast in which the Ghost Dancers took responsibility for the volcanic eruption that buried Los Alamos."

"He must have made quite an impression," Hart said. "You couldn't have been more than a kid."

Dodger shifted, as though the memory made him uncomfortable. "It was the first use of the Ghost Dance magic. Of course it made an impression."

"If you remember that, you must remember when they blew the Cascade volcanoes."

"Clearly," Dodger said bitterly. There was an uncomfortable silence for a few moments. Then Dodger collected himself and continued. "Coleman took responsibility for those as well. He was a radical and a terrorist. Were he available, I do not think you would find in him the slightest shred of humanitarian concern for one Caucasian's plight. He might have been called the Champion of the Red Man, the Awakened Ute, and the Son of the Great Spirit, but he started the Expulsion. He earned his nickname Red Braids a thousand times over.''

"Red Braids?" Sam asked. "I don't remember ever reading that. What's it mean?"

"It was for the color his braided hair turned when dipped in the blood of his enemies," Dodger said. "Not everything gets into the history books. You should know that by now, Sam."

"You sound awfully bitter, Dodger. You have a personal grudge?" Hart asked. She waited for him to respond, and when he didn't she said, "Howling Coyote was a guerrilla leader in a difficult time. He saved the Indians from an oppressive government and helped them set up their own. He helped a lot of people, and may have damn well been responsible for saving the whole fragging planet. The megacorporations were polluting and raping earth into oblivion until the Awakened magic turned back some of the tide."

"Coleman was only interested in his own people. I haven't seen the land turn green and verdant worldwide, nor have I seen the megacorps roll over and die. If Coleman was so great-hearted, where is he now? Why did he abandon his fight?" Dodger took a deep breath. "He was a butcher and an opportunist."

"He may have been," Hart agreed. "The early days of the struggle were difficult and required harsh measures. He had a kinder side, too. He was the one who brought the NAN forces to the table in Denver. Without him, there'd have been no treaty of Denver. The war might still be going on. As to what he did during the Expulsion, IVe talked to some, on both sides, who were there. If not for Coleman, the resettlement clauses in the treaty would have been more draconian. I've been told that the Aztlan faction would have slaughtered anyone of non-Indian blood. And it was Coleman who fought for the repatriation payments clause that allowed the displaced people a chance to start new lives."

Dodger snorted. "Those payments turned to smoke when measured against outstanding payments of the alleged debts owed to various Indian tribes by the various governments involved. He had power, and used it to his own ends."

"What about the education and hospital care he sponsored? Most of it made special provision for the changed, hardly a universal concern in those days. As an elf, I'd think you'd appreciate that. And what of the environmentally safe energy supplies he encouraged?"

Dodger shrugged. "Remorse? Public relations? I'm no mind-reader."

"He answered those questions in his book, Howling in the Wilderness.''

"Those were his public answers," Dodger said sourly. "He wrote the book while he was president of the Sovereign Tribal Council. One could hardly expect a truthful account."

"The book's sort of a Mein Kampf crossed with Castaneda's Yaqui Way of Knowledge. Not exactly flattering to an incumbent. I don't think it was an apologia. It was too strange for that." Dodger turned away again, and Hart subsided into silence. The set of her jaw told Sam she was not happy with Dodger's stubbornness. Dodger's hunched shoulders showed Sam he wouldn't get help there, either.

"You caught me out on tradition history," he said quietly to Hart, "but I've never been real big on political history, either. I know Coleman was real important once, but he stepped down or something. What happened to him?"

"No one knows. About, oh, I guess it's been fifteen years now, he just up and walked away into the mountains."

"Why?"

"Got fed up with the politics in the STC and the Native American Nations, I suppose. When the big push to get non-Indians off the continent didn't work out, NAN solidarity sort of slipped. When the elves and such put Tir Tairngire together and Coleman backed them, he lost a lot of credibility with some of the tribal councils because of his policy of welcoming metahumans into Indian lands. Then Tsimshian broke away, too. I guess it was too much in just one year. He resigned and left everything behind."

Once again Dodger broke in. "Or so say the official stories. There was shadow business then as well. Perhaps he had a falling out with his radical friends. Terrorists who disagree rarely settle their arguments with words."

"You think somebody killed him?" The idea troubled Sam, and not just because murder was wrong. Tending more toward Hart's than Dodger's version of the man, he had begun to think that Howling Coyote might be just the shaman Janice needed.

"Somebody might have," Dodger said. "Enough people might perceive a disgruntled magician with a history as a terrorist and a very dangerous threat." "Or a promising ally," Hart pointed out. Which was what Sam needed. "He really was a great shaman, wasn't he?"

"Oh, yes. No doubt of it," she said. "Some people think the stuff in his book about learning the Great Ghost Dance was after-the-fact fantasizing, a political make-over to improve his image as Council president. But he was more than a figurehead for the Ghost Dancers. He really did lead the Dance himself." "That would make him a very powerful shaman." "Yes," Hart agreed slowly. "Perhaps more powerful than any magician the Sixth World has ever seen." Then, after a moment, "Human magician, that is."

Sam wasn't worried about racial concerns. "Then he would know more about shamanic magic than anyone else."

Hart laughed. "Like I know everything there is to know about being an elf? Stay real. He was a man who stumbled into power. He used it and used it well. He taught a lot of other people how to use it. But know everything? Who knows everything about anything?"

"But he led the Great Ghost Dance," Sam insisted.

"Yes. And he claimed more power than any human IVe ever heard of. Knowledge may be power, but the reverse is not necessarily true."