Coyote Fires 1/3
In honor of Mother's Day here in the US, I thought I'd share a story where Vern gets to be a momma (temporarily, of course.)
Back around 2010, I got it in my head to write Coyote, the Native American trickster spirit, into the Vernverse. He annoys Vern to no end, but the real chemistry is between Coyote and Sister Grace. This is more their story than Vern’s but Vern plays a vital part. Enjoy!
As soon as she opened the church doors, Grace saw him, leaning against a tree with the sunlight dappling his features. He wore tight jeans and a flannel shirt with the sleeves cut off that emphasized a lean, muscled form. His long, raven-dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail, but wisps stirred in a breeze that blew only for him. He stared at the parish with intensity and amusement, clearly aware of the effect he was having on the Rosary Ladies as they left the building. Even Rita, eight and a half months along and feeling every minute of her pregnancy, blushed and added a little swing to her step as she passed, and 74-year-old Eleanor gave him a saucy wink, which he returned.
“Who is that?” Rosara asked Grace in a hushed, admiring tone.
He jerked his head up in a nod as if he’d heard her—and he probably had.
Grace rolled her eyes. “More trouble than you want, trust me. Do me a favor, and if he’s still here in ten minutes, call the police? And the dog catcher.” She went to the man before Rosara could ask for an explanation.
The man smiled and held out his arms for a hug. “You get more enchanting each time I see you, Grace.”
Sister Grace of Our Lady of the Miracles stopped outside of his reach. “What do you want, Coyote?”
The Trickster of Native American legend whined. “Can’t I ever come on a visit?”
Grace crossed her arms and waited. Now that she was closer to him, she noticed that he smelled slightly of smoke and ash, more than was already in the air.
He lowered his arms. “Fine, but not here.” He turned and loped toward the storage shed in the corner of the church yard. Grace sighed and followed at a more sedate pace.
Once they turned the corner, he let down his glamour. He was covered in soot and ash, and his hair was slightly singed in a way that told Grace he’d been in coyote form when it had happened.
“What in heaven’s name?”
“Where’s that undersized dragon you’re stuck with?” he demanded.
“Vern is helping contain the fires along the Santa Elena ridge.”
Coyote let out a distressed howl. “Well, call him home. I need him! Someone’s trying to murder me--and they’re setting fire to the mountainside while they’re at it!”
“You know who’s setting the fires?” Her gaze shifted north where a dark gray cloud signaled fire rather than rain. Rain had been way too scarce this year, and the fires ate the drought-dry trees with voracious fury. For three days, authorities have been tamping out one fire only to have it start somewhere else. Vern had left last night to blast a fireline to keep it contained, but if someone were targeting Coyote…
“If I knew, would I have come to you? These beings are sneaky--even for me! But if we work together…”
Grace shook her head. “We should go to the police.”
Coyote barked a laugh. “You’re kidding me, right? Please, this is magic. But as a matter of fact, I did go to your police. They looked me up in that computer of theirs and threw me out! Grace, I don’t know who’s trying to kill me, but I do know where they’ll strike next. Please help me? Please?” He slouched so he could look up at her with big begging eyes.
“How far?” she asked.
He straightened and wiggled with excitement. “About an hour as the coyote runs. I hid my bauble on this side of the ridge this time, but they always seem to know where to find it.”
“This side?” If someone started a fire on this side of the ridge, they’d have to evacuate the city. “Come on! My car’s over here.”
“Yay, rides! I want to stick my head out the window.”
“Coyote!”
Together, they ran to the parking lot.
* * *
Grace paused and leaned against the trunk of an aging pine. She bumped a branch; the needles, dry from the drought, broke off and sprinkled around her. She tried to take a breath, but the air, tinged with smoke from the fires on the next ridge, tickled her throat. She coughed. She turned streaming eyes toward the red-and-black horizon. Somewhere, miles away, Vern was assisting firefighting crews from around the state. He had told her to hang out at home, pray, and not worry.
Instead I’m hiking through the mountains on some wild goose chase. How did I let myself get talked into this?
She knew how--the answer had wandered off ahead of her and was lost in the trees.
“Coyote! I’m not as young as I used to be!” she called, then took a breath through her sleeve. It helped.
“Nonsense,” came a voice just above her and she looked up the ridge to see the Trickster posed just up the slope, his hand out, his eyes shining. He winked. “You don’t look a day over a thirty to human eyes.”
She didn’t waste her breath reminding him that she was two centuries past thirty, nor did she comment on the inappropriateness of his flirting. Coyote loved women, even those consecrated to God. She did gather the skirts of her habit in one hand, take his hand with her other, and let him pull her up the mountain, however. It had been at least a century since she’d gone traipsing up and down the hills of her own bonnie Eire.
“How much father?” she demanded. She let the petulance she felt reveal itself in her voice. An emotional Magical like Coyote might respond to it.
No such luck. “It was here, somewhere! All the smoke is throwing the scent. I told you, someone is trying to destroy my treasure--and kill me with it.”
“You’re a empyre, you can’t die,” Grace puffed as she clambered over a rock.
“Fine. ‘Seriously inconvenience,’ as that overgrown drake you call a partner would say. Fire hurts me, too, you know. But I’m not letting them have my treasure.”
She grabbed a nearby tree branch to pull herself up. It snapped off. She tossed it aside, and let go of Coyote to brush off her hands. “And why is someone after this new bauble of yours?” Even though she was downslope of him, she managed to assume an attitude of looking down on him.
He threw his hands in the air. “I told you, I don’t know. It’s mine!”
“Why is it yours?”
“Because!” he snapped, but when she continued to look at him with that complacent, expectant, judging look Sister Mary Elizabeth had taught her, he quailed.
“Because…it has my scent.” He shuffled his feet in a very un-Coyote-ish display of abashedness.
“Would this be because you peed on it?”
He caressed a branch of a nearby tree, his magic making it green slightly while the branches around it lost their needles. “Maybe,” he mumbled. “Don’t remember.”
“Ah. And would that be because you were drunk?”
“Maybe.” Suddenly, he yanked the branch, sending a shower of needles on himself. “It doesn’t matter! Even if I wanted to give it back, I can’t. Someone’s trying to destroy it, and you have to help me.”
“Coyote,” she sighed.
“I smell it!” He turned and started up the hill.
“Coyote!”
She started after him, but a man suddenly crashed through the trees and slammed into Coyote.
“We have to get out of here!” He started to run, but Coyote grabbed him by the backpack. It was already partly open and their struggles opened it further.
“You took my treasure!”
“What? We gotta get out of here!” The hiker turned wild eyes to the way he’d come and pulled and struggled, but the empyre held fast.
Grace followed the hiker’s gaze. “Coyote, let him go.”
“No! I smell my bauble! Where is it?” He dug into the pack, tossing things onto the dry earth.
“Coyote! Look!” Grace pointed toward up the hill--where a small but growing line of flames was heading in their direction.
“My bauble!” Coyote shrieked. “You tried to destroy my bauble?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” the hiker screamed. “Take my gear--whatever! Just let me outta here!” Without waiting for a reply, he slipped out of the shoulder straps and tore down the hill.
Grace gave one last look at the blaze, decided she could confess her immodesty only if she lived, and reached down to pull the back of her skirt into the front of her belt. Now in a kind of loose coulats, she turned to run.
Coyote grabbed her by the waist.
“My treasure! We have to save my treasure!”
She kicked wildly, but could not escape his grasp as he trudged up the hill. “Coyote! Are you out of your mind? We have to get out of here before the fire surrounds us!”
“No! I won’t leave it to die!”
“Die? It’s alive?” Grace gasped in surprise--and took in a lungful of sooty air. As she folded over, coughing helplessly, Coyote dragged her up the hill and toward the fire.
I think the story is missing something. Like where Verne gets to be a momma.
Unless there's more coming.