Coyote turned and spied me coming. “Ah, Mr. Druid. A good evenin’ to you.”
Apparently we didn’t have to worry about using fake identities in front of this stranger. “Whatever, Coyote. Where have you been?”
“I been down to Many Farms, messin’ with the many farmers. Runnin’ some errands on your behalf while I was at it.”
“On my behalf?”
“Yeah, but we can talk about that later. How are the skinwalkers?”
“You know very well how they are, or you wouldn’t be here.”
Coyote grinned shamelessly. “That’s right. You kilt ’em for me, just like I knew you would. You got some o’ that noble shit in your aura, you know that?”
“I can’t see my own aura, Coyote, only the white glow of my magic.”
“Well, it looks like a really pompous yellow. Most self-important color I ever did see.”
“Frank is dead, Coyote,” I said, and Granuaile gasped. “You brought him in on this project, and now he’s gone because of you.”
“You’re lookin’ at it the wrong way, Mr. Druid. Two skinwalkers are gone because of him. That hataalii over there was one o’ the best men I knew. He did what was right for the Dine. And that’s what I’m doin’ too.” He turned back to his truck, and his boots crunched on the gravel of the mesa as he walked to the bed. The man who’d gotten out of the passenger side of the truck had said nothing, but a tiny smirk on his face indicated that he found our irritation amusing. His hair was long and straight underneath a white cowboy hat. He wore blue jeans and boots, a black undershirt, and a blue denim jacket over it. He held what looked like a jish in his right hand. Perhaps he was another hataalii. Granuaile followed close on Coyote’s heels.
“And what about Darren Yazzie?” she asked.
“Look, Miss Druid,” he said as he pulled a red plastic gasoline container and a thick manila envelope out of the back. Most of the good humor had bled out of his tone and now he sounded tired. “I didn’t know they was gonna get kilt. But I sacrificed myself twice and saved Mr. Druid’s life while I was at it. So I’ll be waitin’ for a thank-you note or maybe a nice batch of cookies from you. I think I’ve earned a coupla cookies.” He stalked away from the truck and headed for the nearest skinwalker corpse. The anonymous second man kept pace with him.
“I don’t make anyone cookies!” Granuaile growled at his back.
“Ain’t it time you learned?” Coyote said over his shoulder. “You ’n Betty Crocker can bake someone happy.”
Granuaile balled her fists and started after him, and I put a hand on her shoulder.
“Hold on, Granuaile, he’s just pushing your buttons.”
She shrugged off my hand and whirled to face me, pointing at Coyote’s back. “I’m going to kick him where it counts and give him a sad sack. I’m tired of his chauvinist bullshit and his cavalier attitude about people dying for him while he runs off and hides somewhere.”
“Well, you’re welcome to try that a bit later when he’s not expecting it,” I said in low tones. “Right now I want to see what he’s up to and meet this other guy, so hang back a bit and follow my lead, okay?”
She gathered herself with some effort and exhaled, letting the anger go for now. “Okay, sensei.”
We followed Coyote and his friend up to the nearest skinwalker body, the one Frank had killed with Moralltach. We stayed outside the ring of caltrops. Coyote hardly spared the body a glance. He directed his gaze above it, where the ch’iidii was. I flipped my faerie specs on to take another look. If anything, it looked worse than before. The seething blacker portion of the spirit was overwhelming the darkness of the ch’iidii.
“Ah, yes, this is one of the old ones,” Coyote said. “He’s tryin’ to break loose. Give ’im all night and he’ll probably manage it. The ch’iidii will start to disperse, and then he’ll be free to go find some other black soul to turn into a skinwalker. Can’t let that happen.”
“Nope,” said the mysterious man.
The last time I’d looked at Coyote in the magical spectrum was back at a high school courtyard in Mesa. We’d been fighting a fallen angel together, and at the time I’d found him somewhat mesmerizing to look at; he was a kaleidoscope of shifting colors, an infinite potential of shapes confined to this human form only so long as he willed it. He still looked that way, but what surprised me was that the nameless man beside him looked precisely the same.
“Hey, Coyote, who’s your friend?”
“That’s Coyote. Coyote, meet Mr. Druid.”
“Howdy, Mr. Druid,” the man said. His voice was deep, like Michael Clarke Duncan’s, a low resonant bass that you felt as much as heard.
“Hi,” I said, then frowned at Coyote. “What do you mean?” I asked. “Is he from another tribe?”
“Nope, he’s from the Dine,” Coyote replied, obviously enjoying my confusion. “You don’t know our stories as well as you should. Most tribes have only the one Coyote, but in some versions of the Dine Bahane’ — the tale of Emergence-there are two.”
“I’m Great Coyote,” the deep voice said. “Or sometimes Coyote Who Was Formed in the Water.”
“And I’m the one the Dine call Altse Hashke,” Coyote said, then tossed his head at his companion. “He definitely has the better reputation. I get blamed for everything.”
“Two Coyotes?” I said. “What should I call you? Black Hat and White Hat? I can’t call you both the same thing.”
Coyote in the white hat said, “I tell people sometimes that my name is Joe,” he said. “Does that work for you?”
“Very well,” I said, and turned to Coyote in the black hat, who’d apparently been playing me for a sucker much longer than I thought. “And what about you?”
“You ain’t gonna call me by my real name, so just keep callin’ me Coyote and that way you won’t get confused.”
It was no wonder, I thought, that Frank hadn’t been sure which one of the First People Mr. Benally was. His comment that they were “capable of trickin’ a fella pretty good” made much more sense now. To my magical sight, Coyote and Joe looked exactly the same. There was no way to tell them apart. Only in the visible spectrum did they appear any different, and I’m sure that was by choice.
“Gotta thank you, Mr. Druid,” Coyote said. “Haven’t been able to get a shot at these boys in a long time.”
Joe nodded. “That’s right. This time we should be able to take care of them.”
“Take care of them how?” I gestured at the red gasoline containers. “You going to burn the bodies?”
“Well, for a start. If we stopped there, then the First World spirits could take off,” Coyote explained.
I was lost for a moment, but then I nodded. “Oh, I see. Because they’re bound to the ch’iidiis and the ch’iidiis are bound to the bodies.”
“Right. So if we just burn ’em and disperse the ghosts, then they’ll hightail it to Window Rock or someplace, turning regular assholes into superfast shape-shifting cannibal assholes.”
“Don’t you have a ritual to combat these guys?”
Coyote lifted his hat and scratched his head. “Well, Mr. Druid, it’s all defense and no offense. It’s protection like the Blessing Way, and there’s some exorcism in the Enemy Way-but there’s nothin’ to kill ’em with. All the killing rituals are on their side-’cause they’re practicin’ Anl’iih, the Witchery Way. Sometimes we get lucky and can turn their own spells against ’em. But these guys got smart and stopped doin’ ceremonies like that a long time ago, stopped spreadin’ their corpse powder around. Ain’t a doubt in my mind these spirits were behind that. They used their speed and strength to kill people and left me an’ the hataaliis nothin’ to work with.”
“So how do you kill them?”
“You can’t kill ’em,” Joe said, his voice cut with a note of impatience. “They’re damn spirits. All you can do is send ’em somewhere else-somewhere safe.”
“An’ that means sendin’ ’em back to First World,” Coyote said. “These things have been playin’ around up here for far too long. Once we get ’em back there, they’ll be stuck.”
“Why would they be stuck?” Granuaile asked. “Is there flypaper for spirits down there or something?”
Joe laughed and squatted down on his haunches to untie his jish. “That’d be nice, ’cause then they wouldn’t bother us when we visit. But Coyote means they won’t be able to leave First World again. The doorway to Second World was closed long ago, an’ now only he an’ I can go back there an’ return again.” He peered up at Coyote.
