Coyote Blue (15 page)

'While your proposed boycott of Chrysler products by the Crow tribe and other Native Americans saddens us deeply, research has determined that they do not represent a large enough demographic to affect our profits.

'Please accept the enclosed blanket in thanks for bringing this matter to our attention.

'Sincerely, Lee lacocca

CEO, Chrysler Corporation.' "

Kiro said, "Tommy, put down the letter and help me sit him up so he can drink."

Tommy said, "If he knows Lee lacocca he will be good to have as a contact, Father."

"Not if he dies."

"Oh, right." Tommy dropped to his knees and helped Kiro lift Pokey to a sitting position. Kiro held the bottle to Pokey's lips and the old man's eyes opened as he drank. After a few swallows he pushed the bottle away and looked up at Tommy. "I burned the blanket," he said. "Smallpox." Then he passed out.

Chapter 19 – Five Faces of Coyote

Blue

Ever since the morning Adeline Eats had found the frost-covered liar in the grass behind Wiley's Food and Gas there had been a screech owl sitting atop the power pole in front of her house, sitting there like feathered trouble. In addition, Black Cloud Follows had blown a water pump, all of her kids were coming down with the flu, her husband, Milo, had gone off to a peyote ceremony, and she was trying desperately to stay out of Hell. It was unfair, she thought, that her new faith was being tested before the paint was even dry.

She wanted the owl to go away and take her bad luck with it. But to a good Christian, an owl was just an owl. Only a traditional Crow believed in the bad luck of owls. A good Christian would just go out there and shoo that old owl away. Of course, it wouldn't bother a good Christian.

Adeline had come to Christianity the same way she had come to sex and smoking: through peer pressure. Thinking about her six kids and her smoker's hack, she wondered if perhaps peer pressure didn't always lead to the best habits. Her sisters had all converted and they had referred to her as the heathen of the family until she caved in and accepted Christ. Now, only three weeks after being washed in the blood of the Lamb, she was already backsliding like a dog surprised down a skunk hole. The owl.

Adeline looked out the front window to check on the owl; he was still there. Had he winked at her? She had pinned up her hair and was wearing sunglasses and a pair of Milo's overalls, hoping the owl wouldn't recognize her until she figured out what to do. She was tempted to pray to Jesus to make the owl go away, but if she did that, she would be admitting that she believed in the old ways and she'd go to Hell. There was no Hell in the old ways. Then again, she could load up Milo's shotgun, walk out in the yard, and turn that old owl into pink mist. She couldn't see herself doing that either – no telling what kind of trouble that would unleash. And she couldn't wait for Milo and ask him for help: not after weeks of working on him to leave the Native American church and trade in his peyote buttons for wafers and wine.

She ducked away from the window. One of the kids coughed in the other room. Eventually she was going to have to take them down to the clinic for treatment. But she was afraid to pass by the owl. According to the priest, God knew everything. The sunglasses and hairdo wouldn't fool God. God knew she was afraid, so He knew she still had faith in the old ways, so she was going to Hell as sure as if she'd been out all morning worshiping golden calves and graven images.

"I got bad medicine from being Crow," she thought. "And I'm going to Hell for being Christian. I should have let that old liar Pokey freeze to death." She slapped herself on the forehead. "Damn! Another Hell thought."

~* * *~

A nun with an Uzi popped up on the parapet of Notre Dame like a ninja penguin. Coyote shot from the hip, winging her before she could fire. She tumbled over the side, bounced off a gargoyle, and splattered on the sidewalk below. A synthesized Gregorian chant began to play as her spirit rose to heaven, a steel ruler in hand. Coyote strafed a stained-glass window and took out a bazooka-wielding bishop for two thousand penance points.

Sam walked into the bedroom, hair wet, a towel wrapped around his hips. "Nice shot," Sam said.

Coyote glanced up from the video game. "The red ones have killed me three times."

"Those are cardinals. You have to hit them twice to kill them. Wait until you get to the Vatican level. The pope has guilt-beam vision."

Before Coyote could look back to the screen the cathedral doors flew open and St. Patrick fired a wiggling salvo of heat-seeking vipers.

"Hit your smart bomb," Sam said.

Coyote fumbled with the control, but was too late. A snake latched onto his leg and exploded. The screen flashed
GAME OVER
, and a synthesized voice instructed Coyote to "go to confession."

Coyote dropped the control onto the bed with a sigh.

Sam said, "You did good. Gunning for Nuns is a hard game for beginners."

"I should have brought some cheating medicine. My cheating medicine never fails."

"This isn't like the hand game. This is a game of skill."

"Who needs skill when you can have luck?"

Sam shook his head and turned to go back to the bathroom. During the night something inside him had changed. Each time he thought things had reached a plateau of weirdness, something even weirder had happened. The result, he realized, was that he was now accepting anything that happened, no matter how weird, without resistance. Chaos was the new order in his life.

The phone rang and Sam, hoping it was Calliope, grabbed the receiver off the vanity. "Samuel Hunter," he said.

"You low-life, scum-sucking shithead!"

"Good morning to you too, Josh."

"You win, dickhead. There'll be a meeting of the co-op association tonight. They'll vote you back in. You can keep your apartment, but I want your guarantee that this is over."

"Okay."

"I hope you know I've lost all respect for you as a professional, Sam. The doctor says I'm going to walk with a limp for the rest of my life."

"There was a crooked man who had a crooked -"

"You broke my legs! My house is destroyed."

Sam peeked into the bedroom where Coyote was attacking the Sistine Chapel with a helicopter gunship. "Josh, I don't know what you're talking about, but I'm glad you came to your senses."

"Fuck you. I'm using up years of collected dirt to get your apartment back."

"
Townhouse
," Sam corrected. "Not
apartment
."

"Don't fuck with me, Sam. I'm in a cast up to my nipples and a sadistic nurse has been force-feeding me green Jell-O for an hour. Just tell me it's over."

"It's over," Sam said.

The phone clicked. Sam walked back into the bedroom. "What did you do to Spagnola?"

Coyote was rolling on the bed in exaggerated body English to tilt the gunship. "These birds are eating my tail rotor. I can't control it."

"Uh-oh, St. Francis released the doves of death. You're dead meat." Sam took a cigarette from the pack on the dresser and offered one to Coyote. "What did you do to Spagnola?"

"You said you wanted your old life back."

"So you broke Spagnola's legs?"

"It was a trick."

"You can't just go around breaking people's legs like some Mafioso fairy godmother."

The gunship spun out of control and crashed on the mezzanine. Coyote threw the joystick at the screen and turned to Sam. "How can I win if you keep talking to me? You whine like an old woman. I got you your house back!"

"I wouldn't have lost it if you had left me alone. Be logical."

"What gods do you know that are logical? Name two."

"Never mind," Sam said. He went to the closet and pulled his clothing out for the day.

Coyote said, "Do you have a light?"

"No."

"No? After I stole fire from the sun and gave it to your people?"

"Why, Coyote? Why did you do that?" Sam turned to point out the lighter on the dresser, but the trickster was gone.

~* * *~

Calliope's upbringing in the Eastern religions, with their emphasis on living in the now – of acting, not thinking – had left her totally unprepared to do battle with the future. She'd tried to ignore it, even after Grubb was born, but it had become more and more difficult to function on karmic autopilot. Now, Sam had entered her life and she felt like she had something to lose. The future had a name. She wondered what she had done to manifest the curse of a nice guy.

"It feels wonderful, but I want more," Calliope said.

"I don't get it," Nina said. They were cleaning up the kitchen. Grubb was scooting around on the linoleum at their feet, tasting the baseboards, a table leg, a slow-moving bug.

"I've always felt separate from men, even during sex. It's like there's this part of me that watches them and I'm not really involved. But it wasn't that way with Sam. It was like we were really together, no barriers. I wasn't watching him, I was with him. When we were finished I lay there watching the pulse on his neck, and it was like we had gone to some other world together. I wanted more."

"So you're saying you're a hosebeast."

"Not like that. It was just that I want to feel that way all the time. I want my whole life to feel – complete."

"I'm sorry, Calliope, I don't get it. I'm happy if Yiffer doesn't pass out before we finish."

"I guess it's not a sexual thing. It's a spiritual thing. Like there's a part of life that I can touch but I can't live in."

"Maybe we just need to find a house where your ex doesn't live downstairs."

"That was pretty awful. I couldn't believe Sam didn't just leave."

Nina threw a dish towel at Calliope and missed. "You had a little good luck for a change, accept it. Not every guy has to be a creep like Lonnie."

"I'm a little afraid to leave Grubb with him when I go to work today."

"Lonnie won't hurt Grubb. He was just pissed that you were with someone else. Men are like that. Even when they don't want you, they don't want anyone else to have you."

"Nina, do you think there's something wrong with me?"

"No, you're just not very good at worrying. You'll get the hang of it."

~* * *~

"I've got to get back to the house," Lonnie said to Cheryl, who was pouring peroxide on his damaged chest. She wiped away the foam with a tissue, then poked the wound with a broken black fingernail.

"Ouch! What are you doing, bitch?"

Cheryl got up from the bed and pulled on a pair of leather pants. Lonnie could see her hipbones and shoulder blades pushing against her pale skin as if they would poke through any second.

"You're always thinking of her. Never me. What the hell is wrong with me?"

She turned to face him and he stared at her breasts lying like flaps against her ribs. She pulled back her lips in a snarl and Lonnie knew his face had betrayed him. "Fucking asshole," she said, pulling on a black Harley-Davidson T-shirt.

"It's not her, it's the kid. He's my kid. I have to watch him when she goes to work."

"Bullshit. Then why won't you fuck me?" She tossed her head and her long black hair fell into her face like seaweed on the drowned.

Because you look like you just escaped from fucking Auschwitz
, Lonnie thought. He'd been with Cheryl for three months and had never seen her eat. As far as he could figure she lived on speed, come, and Pepsi. He said, "I worry about the kid."

"Then get custody. I can take care of him. I'd make a good mother."

"Right."

"You don't think so? You think that vegetarian bitch is a better mother than me?"

"No…"

"You start treating me right or I'm gone." Cheryl took a purse from the floor and began digging in it. "Where the fuck is my stash?" She threw the purse aside and stormed out of the room.

Lonnie followed her, carrying the denim vest sporting the Guild's colors. "I've got to go," he said.

Cheryl was dumping a bindle of white powder into a can of Pepsi. "Bring back some crank," she said.

As Lonnie walked out she added, "Tink called while you were sleeping. He said to tell you he took care of things."

Outside Lonnie fired up his Harley and pulled out into the street. Tinker's news should have cheered him up, but it didn't. He felt empty, like he needed to get fucked up. He always felt that way lately. At one time being a brother in the Guild, being accepted for who he was, had been enough. Having all the women and drugs and money and power he needed had been enough. But since Grubb was born he felt like he was supposed to be doing something, and he didn't know what it was.

Maybe the bitch is right
, he thought. As long as the kid tied him to Calliope he was going to feel shitty. It was time to feel good again.