Christopher Moore - Coyote Blue

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."

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.