C.E. Murphy - Coyote Dreams

My younger self had told me not to fight. Of all the people in the world, my fifteen year old punk-ass attitude-ridden self…

…had told me not to fight.

I lowered my sword, swaying in the ball of light I’d made in the heart of darkness, trying, for the first time I could remember, to really look at myself.

I couldn’t remember a time when I wasn’t willing to pick a fight. There’d been a chip on my shoulder as long as I’d been able to put two thoughts together. First it was being a gypsy in a comparatively stable world, then being a girl who was into cars. Being a stranger in a strange land when we went back to North Carolina, and God help anybody who’d gotten in my face when my pregnancy started to show. All the way through college, all the way through my job at the department, epitomized by my relationship with Morrison.

Mark had refused to fight with me.

I crouched, carefully, and put down my sword and shield, ending with my face in my hands, my stomach twisting. I wasn’t accustomed to facing anything without a weapon of some kind in hand. In hand didn’t even have to be in hand: it could be my tongue or my fist or my power. It didn’t matter. It was all something to fight with.

I could see where that reckless confrontation could look like the forerunner of doom, especially when coupled with the sign that the Navajo people had been told to watch for. I wondered if the men and women who’d fallen asleep and awakened again to prepare for the end of the world could ever forgive me for being such a mess.

I wondered, sharply, if Coyote had been one of those people, and knew that he would’ve forgiven me.

That, of all things, was what gave me the strength to put my hands on my thighs and push myself upward. I’d blown it badly enough. My heart was sick in my throat, but my younger self’s distaste and dislike weighed even more heavily than fear. I could do one thing right by her at this late date, and I wasn’t going to screw that up. Not now. Not when it was the only way I could say thank you to the girl whose childhood I’d managed to take away.

“I’m not the bad guy, Begochidi.” My voice broke, nothing more than a little laugh. “I’m just a rank beginner. I’m not the rainbow that lasts all day. I’m a healer. Maybe not a very good one, but it’s what I’m supposed to do. And I’m not going to fight you.” The laugh came back, more self-deprecating. “I hope you won’t take advantage of that by sticking a spear through my head.” There wasn’t any answer to my brief laugh. Damn. I curled my hands into loose fists, then relaxed them again. “Go back to sleep, Maker. It’s not time for you to be here yet. There’s gonna be a real rainbow that lasts all day sometime down the line, and your people are going to need you then.” I passed my hand over my eyes. “If you don’t think it’s arrogant of me, I’ll do what I can to keep an eye on things until then. I really am trying to do the right thing,” I added more quietly.

I was about to give it up as a lost cause when white light flashed and left me blinking and blinded in the dark.

Saturday, July 9, 9:39 a.m .

Voices, low and good-natured, mumbled around me in the careful pitch used for sick rooms and hospitals. Once in a while someone broke out of that, a laugh climbing up, or a discussion rising out of polite tones. There were other sounds, too: buzzes and beeps that went on rhythmically. Not the kind of thing I expected to hear in my apartment. It was all muffled, like somebody’d wrapped six or eight scarves around my head. Perhaps they had. That would explain why I didn’t seem to be able to open my eyes, either.

Instead of opening them, I yawned so hard tears leaked through my eyelashes. I couldn’t quite get a groan out, even though I felt the situation warranted one. I was sure it was too early to be up. The blankets were heavy and my head was weighed down. I yawned again and rolled over, dragging my pillow down to bury my face in it.

I tried, anyway. My wrist ran into something cold and metal. I did groan that time, and pulled my eyelids half open to see what the problem was. The noise around me stopped.

There was a metal railing about ten inches from my nose. Beyond it was a fuzzy green curtain, though the fuzziness was probably due to my lack of contacts. Between the railing and the curtain was somebody’s burly arm. The arm was attached to a hand gripping the railing. The hand was in focus, and had pale pink polish on the nails. I chuckled, or croaked, depending on how you wanted to look at it, and said, “Billy?”

The sound came back much louder than before, a cacophony of cheers and yells and general glee while a surprising number of people shoved around the bed and bent over to hug me. Gary appeared, trying to look gruff, and I hung on to his hand. “You saved me in there,” I whispered. “You and your crazy totems.”

“Weren’t nothin’,” he said, but his eyes were suspiciously bright and he held on hard when he hugged me. “You been out two days, kid.”

“Really.” I couldn’t rub my eyes and hang on to Gary at the same time, so I only squinted blearily, trying to see past him. Billy and Mel were hovering side by side, Robert poking his head over Mel’s shoulder. “I dunno, Billy.” He took a step forward, worried, and I shook my head. “You’re thinner, but going into a coma for days on end seems like a kind of drastic weight loss plan to me. Maybe you should just avoid The Missing O and all those doughnuts.”

He laughed and Mel put an arm around his ribs, hugging him. She looked better, her color back to normal and her dress cut to disguise four months of pregnancy. I could see glimmers of buttercup yellow around her, even without trying. The same kinds of shadings fell away from everyone in my line of sight, in fact, from Gary to Robert to other people from the department. Bruce was there, thin face lit up with happiness as he spoke into his cell phone, telling Elise I’d woken up. “Ask her if I can have some tamales, Bruce.” His smile widened and he nodded. I flopped back into the bed, yawning until my eyes teared again. I couldn’t be as tired as I felt. I’d just slept for two days. “Everybody’s okay?”

A wave of solemness came over the room. “Yeah, pretty much,” Billy answered after a moment.

I closed my eyes, tears suddenly having nothing to do with yawning. “Pretty much?”

Billy hesitated too long and my stomach clenched. “Who, Bill?” I sat up, knotting my fingers in the covers. I’d severed Begochidi’s link with Morrison. It couldn’t be him. Unless Barbara, in the waking world, had reached him somehow. “Billy. Please.”

“Mark Bragg still hasn’t woken up. I’m sorry, Joanie.”

A horrible combination of relief and dismay chilled me right through the gut, color draining from my skin. “What about Barb?”

“Nobody’s seen her.” Billy said quietly. “They’ve got an APB out. The captain’s been out looking for her himself.”

My heart tightened and I nodded, trying to sound indifferent as I asked, “He’s okay?”

Half a dozen people said, “He’s fine.” I got the idea my nonchalance ploy hadn’t worked. I nodded again. “Where’s Mark?”

“Down the hall,” Gary said. “Doctors don’t think he’s gonna wake up.”

I fumbled the bed railing down while he spoke and pulled the oxygen sensor off my finger. “Bring me to him.”

The same half dozen people said some variation on “Joanne,” and I swung my legs off the bed, wishing I was wearing something more dignified than a hospital gown. Mel, as if on command, dropped a robe around my shoulders, and I looked at Gary. “Yeah,” he said after a moment. “Arright. C’mon, sweetheart.”