Christopher Moore - Coyote Blue

As Lonnie approached the limo he drew a pistol from his jacket and leveled it at Minty through the windshield. Minty ducked and hit the gas. The limo revved and stopped, the back wheels of the heavy car buried in the mud. Lonnie jumped off his bike onto the hood of the limo and braced himself on the roof as he aimed and fired at the Z.

At the sound of the shot Minty looked up to see the barrel of Lonnie's pistol pointing at him through the windshield. The other bikers, unable to get past, moved up around the limo.

"You're finished, spook," Lonnie hissed. He cocked the pistol. "Move the car out of the road."

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

Lonnie jumped off the hood of the Lincoln and stuck the pistol through the window into Minty's temple. "I said move it."

"You move it," Minty said. He pushed the limo door open, knocking Lonnie to the ground. Two bikers yanked him from the car and rode him to the ground. Minty felt a boot in his kidney, then a fist in the stomach, then the blows fell on him like rain.

He heard Calliope's Z downshifting in the distance and smiled.

Sam pulled the Z back onto the pavement and floored it. "Everyone okay?" Grubb was still crying. Sam shouted, "Calliope, are you okay?"

Coyote turned in the passenger seat and reached back. "She's hit. There's blood."

"Oh fuck, is she-"

"She's dead, Sam," Coyote said.

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.

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.