Sky Coyote (16 page)

“It has nothing to do with the New Kids,” she told him. “Why indulge in vanities like fashion if simpler clothing will make my work easier?”

MacCool reached out uncertainly and brushed her hair back from her face. “I also like the way you look in white silk,” he added.

“Well, the Don Juan of the canid world has to get his beauty sleep,” I said loudly, briskly shaking the sand from my tail. “See you guys in the morning. Don’t forget to cover the still and bury the barbecue leftovers. We wouldn’t want Bugleg to find out about these swell parties.”

“Huh?” Matthias started up from where he’d begun to doze.

“They know perfectly well what we do out here,” said Sixtus sullenly, staring into the fire.

“Probably, but isn’t it fun to pretend? ‘Night, all.” Putting on my hat, I walked back down the beach toward the lights of the base. There was salt in the wind. I turned up my collar. One thing you can say for mortals: when they get together at a party, they don’t have the same damned conversation every time.

S
KY
C
OYOTE
! D
ELIGHTED YOU COULD
make it,” Sepawit welcomed me from the doorway of the sacred enclosure. It was an impressive doorway, framed by whale ribs. Do you have any idea how big whale ribs are? I stepped up to go in, but he stopped me with an apologetic little smile.

“I have to precede You walking backward. It’s customary. I know You probably don’t demand anything like that, but the shamans are so set on protocol, and my Speaker is away on business for me, so if You don’t mind …”

“No problem.” I gave him a conspiratorial wink and let him back in ahead of me.

“Welcome to our house, Uncle Sky Coyote; welcome from the north, welcome from the east, welcome from the south, welcome from the west,” he recited in a loud voice.

“Slower!” somebody hissed from inside. “Don’t babble it like that.”

“And the white wind welcomes You. And the red fire welcomes You. And the black earth welcomes You. And the blue rain welcomes You.” Sepawit looked mortified. This might take all
night. I put my paw on his shoulder and stepped past him into the enclosure.

“Thank you, all you directions and personified natural phenomena, your welcome is gratefully accepted. Well, well, and who do we have here?” I looked around at the religious dignitaries assembled before me. They looked back at me, formidably. Time for a few good guesses. I bowed to one elderly gent, portly and very distinguished in appearance, with a nice mild face like the bishop of Madrid.

“My greetings to the astrologer priest,” I ventured.

“Uncle Sky Coyote.” He inclined graciously. “You are truly with us.”

“So I am.” I turned and bowed to two more gentlemen of the same august sort, whose feathered topknots poked at the ceiling. “Reverend sirs! May your divinations produce answers. May your sacrifices find favor. May your rituals go smoothly.”

“Welcome, Uncle Sky Coyote,” they fluted. That left a couple of lean men with staring eyes. These were the ones with tattoos, knotted hair, animal parts strung about their persons, and a general look of having partaken way too frequently of certain vegetable alkaloids.

“Learned doctors,” I tried. “Best of luck in your pursuit of knowledge.” That seemed to please them. They began to rock back and forth where they sat.

So far, so good. I whisked my tail out of the way and sat down casually. Their eyes all widened. I must have sat on something sacred. I checked over my shoulder and yes, I was sitting on some kind of intricately painted skin. Okay, I’d forge ahead.

“Now, naturally enough, you don’t have to tell me why you asked me here. I can tell you. You want the truth about my revelation of the other evening. You’re all initiates, and you know there’s more here than can be understood by those who have not
traveled the secret paths.” Right? Right, guys? After a breathless pause Sepawit nodded.

“We knew that story about the white men was a cover for something. It’s the Chinigchinix thing, isn’t it?”

Who? What? I opened my mouth for a bluff while I accessed hastily, but was saved the trouble of some fast thinking by one of the shamans, who leaped to his feet.

“I am one with Sky Coyote and I speak for Him! I can tell you what is in His heart. The white men represent the followers of Chinigchinix who dwell in the south. Do they not paint their heads with white clay? And their Sun is not our own true Sun but an angry god who drives out all gods but himself and visits terrible punishment on unbelievers! Sky Coyote is trying to tell us that Chinigchinix is readying his people to invade us. So says Sky Coyote!”

There was silence for a moment as we all took that in.

“Thank you, Pahkshono.” Sepawit gave a slight cough. “Now, Coyote—”

“No!” One of the priests jumped up. “My knowledge is greater than his! You only have to look at Sky Coyote to see the truth. Has He not sat in the midst of the sky map of the summer solstice? This signifies the intrusion of celestial forces into our Middle World. And does His tail not point in the direction sacred to the autumn harvest? By this, we may know the time of the divine invasion. Plainly, the Sun is attempting to kill us by sending a great drought which is to wipe out this year’s harvest.”

All this made me nervous. I crossed my legs.

“Liar!” shouted yet another shaman. “See how Sky Coyote has negated your specious interpretation of His revelation, which is utterly clear to anyone with any
real
hermetic training. By sitting on the sky map, Sky Coyote is plainly demonstrating His
contempt for you and your dependence on astrology. Are not the stars celestial bodies like the Sun? We can infer from this that by ‘white men’ he means the stars. Sky Coyote warns us that dependence on the so-called wisdom of the stars will lead us to damnation.”

“That is precisely what He is
not
saying,” said the astrologer priest severely. “By sitting on the sky map, obviously Sky Coyote acknowledges that the same cosmic system supports those in the World Above as in our world. Even the Sun Himself must follow the preordained celestial patterns. If you think Sky Coyote came all the way down to Earth to overturn the existing order, you’re vastly mistaken.”

“And yet, isn’t that what He’s saying?” countered one of the priests. “The existing order is about to be overthrown by these white men, whatever or whoever they are. What we ought to be asking ourselves is, What is the reason? I think it must be that our people have strayed into evil ways and wrong thinking. The young have no respect for their elders, divorce is on the rise, and there is no proper respect paid to the sayings of the priests anymore. We have grown decadent. Do we not deserve this terrible punishment?”

“No!” cried another shaman. “Sky Coyote
wants
us to be irreverent. He is the spirit of divine anarchy! His message is that He will save us just as we are, in fact He will carry us away to a world of everlasting pleasure where we can sin more enthusiastically and reach ever wilder levels of chaos!”

“Now, hold it! Hold it! Hold it!” I interjected.

“Hold what?” they replied in unison.

“He said it three times,” observed one of the diviners.

“So much for a message advocating anarchy!” crowed the astrologer priest. “By ‘Hold it’ Sky Coyote signifies that we must contain ourselves and our wasteful urges.”

“You timid equivocator!” thundered a shaman. “He meant, ‘Hold on to the concept of liberation through excess’!”

“Wait—” I said.

“For what?” demanded a shaman.

“How long?” inquired a diviner.

“Where?” asked the astrologer priest.

“Sky Coyote, I wonder if I might have a word with You outside for a minute?” murmured Sepawit. I got up and went out with him. Behind us a furious discussion of my posture ensued.

“Look, er, Coyote … I’m no theologian or anything, so I’m afraid Your answer might go right over my head, but I need to know: how serious is this Chinigchinix threat? Am I going to have to organize a war party? Because if I have to, it’s only fair to tell You, we wouldn’t have a chance. The Chinigchinix cultists are fanatics, and there are thousands of them. They keep growing in numbers, too, because they forcibly convert their captives. My Speaker isn’t away on business—I’ve had him out gathering intelligence for the last ten moons, and what I’ve been hearing makes my blood run cold. The priests don’t know. The people don’t know. I’m the only one who’s put all the facts together, and I don’t know what to do. You must have come here to save us from them. Tell me, Sky Coyote, that’s why You’re here.” The poor guy was shaking.

“You’ve worked hard for my people, Sepawit. Do you think I’d let you down?” I soothed him in the voice I’d used in confessionals in Madrid. “You don’t have to worry about Chinigchinix. We’ll be safely out of here before anything happens.”

“But You have no idea how fast they move,” he rattled on. “At least—excuse me, of course
You
do. It started down south among the Tongva, at a village called Yang-Na. They had this prophet who’s supposed to have been born on Huya Island, who went around telling everybody that there’s only one god and any
one who doesn’t believe that will suffer horrible punishment. He convinced his people to fight for this god, and they’ve been taking every village in their path. All the tribes to the east have gone over, and most of the island tribes, and it’s been spreading north. They’re fanatics! They still trade with us because we make things they want, but in my opinion it’s only a matter of time before they declare holy war.”

“I know, my child,” I told him. It was a story I’d learned a long time ago. Almost the first story I’d ever learned, now that I come to think of it; and later I’d seen it acted out in Egypt, and in Byzantium, and in North Africa. One man becomes convinced he’s found a truth so important, the whole world must be forced to acknowledge it.

“And they always conquer.” He looked at me with haunted eyes. “It’s as though they really do have the most powerful god on their side. This prophet’s followers aren’t afraid of anything in battle—my spies tell me it’s because they’re all on drugs. And they say—” He looked away from me. “They say You’re the Evil One. They say You used to be a servant to their god, and that You did something terrible and were cast down among the nunasis.”

“Boy, that figures.” I shook my head. “What do you think, Sepawit?”

“I know You’re our uncle. I know You’ve always helped us in the old stories. But even in the stories You lose sometimes. What will happen if You lose now?”

“We won’t stick around here long enough to find out. Sepawit, I think you’re a brave man, and a wise man, or you wouldn’t be so scared. Will you help me save our people?”

The sound of argument from inside the sacred enclosure grew louder. Sepawit glanced over nervously. It sounded as though somebody was throttling the astrologer priest.

“Of course I will. Tell me what to do.”

“Just follow my orders. I really am going to get you all out of this, Sepawit, but you have to see to it that everybody cooperates with me. I don’t want any more argument or second-guessing out of that bunch in there.” I nodded at the sacred enclosure. “You’re the chief, after all. They have to obey you, right?”

“Supposedly,” he replied. “It would be a help, Coyote, if You could tell me which of them was right.”

“All of them, naturally,” I replied. “And none of them, of course.”

Well, how else is a god supposed to answer a question like that?

It was a lot to think about, walking home. Isn’t it funny how patterns repeat themselves? Unless you’re immortal, though, you don’t usually get a chance to appreciate just how often they repeat themselves.

I mean, there my people were, not bothering anybody, hunting and gathering like everyone else in 18,000
B.C.E.
, moving from a winter cave to a summer camp and back again as the seasons changed, regular as clockwork. The only thing we did that was in the least bit remarkable was paint on rocks and on the walls of our winter cave, and actually only my father did any painting. Aunt Druva did a lot of scrimshaw with mammoth ivory, of course, but that didn’t count.

The paintings did count, because they were almost the first things the tattooed strangers noticed when they came walking into our hunting grounds. This wasn’t a good thing, as it turned out. We had no clue why they started screaming and killing us, but I learned later that they had this god whose principal commandment was that every living soul on earth must be tattooed, or the universe would collapse. Anybody not submitting to mandatory
skin art was guilty of not doing his bit to keep the universe in place and must therefore die. Anybody who lavished art on something other than skin was guilty of blasphemy and must also die. They had developed a lot of sound theological reasons for this, I’m told, and we’d have probably listened patiently to them as we submitted to being tattooed; my people weren’t dumb.

Unfortunately the evidence that we were blasphemers was daubed all over the walls of the cliff we sheltered under in summer: leaping deer and lolloping bison in every shade of ocher and umber my dad had been able to mix. He’d been the kind of guy who just couldn’t resist a blank surface, my poor dad. The tattooed guys never even tried to convert us to the Way; they took one look at those paintings and waded in to restore cosmic order with their hatchets.