Part 14

“You see, my friend,” said the Owl, turning toward the Coyote, “we hold this to be a very sacred performance--very sacred indeed. Being such, these my children are initiated and so trained in the mysteries of the sacred society of which this is a custom that they can do very strange things in the observance of our ceremonies. You ask what it is that looks like foam they are balancing on their heads. Look more closely, friend. Do you not observe that it is their own grandmothers’ heads they have on, the feathers turned white with age?”

“By my eyes!” exclaimed the Coyote, blinking and twitching his whiskers; “it seems so.”

“And you ask also why they limp as they dance,” said the Owl. “Now, this limp is essential to the proper performance of our dance--so essential, in fact, that in order to attain to it these my children go through the pain of having their legs broken. Instead of losing by this, they gain in a great many ways. Good luck always follows them. They are quite as spry as they were before, and enjoy, moreover, the distinction of performing a dance which no other people or creatures in the world are capable of!”

“Dust and devils!” ejaculated the Coyote. “This is passing strange. A most admirable dance, upon my word! Why, every bristle on my body keeps time to the music and their steps! Look here, my friend, don’t you think that I could learn that dance?”

“Well,” replied the old Owl; “it is rather hard to learn, and you haven’t been initiated, you know; but, still, if you are determined that you would like to join the dance--by the way, have you a grandmother?”

“Yes, and a fine old woman she is,” said he, twitching his mouth in the direction of his house. “She lives there with me. I dare say she is looking after my breakfast now.”

“Very well,” continued the old Owl, “if you care to join in our dance, fulfill the conditions, and I think we can receive you into our order.” And he added, aside: “The silly fool; the sneaking, impertinent wretch! I will teach him to be sticking that sharp nose of his into other people’s affairs!”

“All right! All right!” cried the Coyote, excitedly. “Will it last long?”

“Until the sun is so bright that it hurts our eyes,” said the Owl; “a long time yet.”

“All right! All right! I’ll be back in a little while,” said the Coyote; and, switching his tail into the air, away he ran toward his home. When he came to the house, he saw his old grandmother on the roof, which was a rock beside his hole, gathering fur from some skins which he had brought home, to make up a bed for the Coyote’s family.

“Ha, my blessed grandmother!” said the Coyote, “by means of your aid, what a fine thing I shall be able to do!”

The old woman was singing to herself when the Coyote dashed up to the roof where she was sitting, and, catching up a convenient leg-bone, whacked her over the pate and sawed her head off with the teeth of a deer. All bloody and soft as it was, he clapped it on his own head and raised himself on his hindlegs, bracing his tail against the ground, and letting his paws drop with the toes outspread, to imitate as nearly as possible the drooping wings of the dancing Owls. He found that it worked very well; so, descending with the head in one paw and a stone in the other, he found a convenient sharp-edged rock, and, laying his legs across it, hit them a tremendous crack with the stone, which broke them, to be sure, into splinters.

“Beloved Powers! Oh!” howled the Coyote. “Oh-o-o-o-o! the dance may be a fine thing, but the initiation is anything else!”

However, with his faith unabated, he shook himself together and got up to walk. But he could walk only with his paws; his hindlegs dragged helplessly behind him. Nevertheless, with great pain, and getting weaker and weaker every step of the way, he made what haste he could back to the Prairie-dog town, his poor old grandmother’s head slung over his shoulders.

When he approached the dancers,--for they were still dancing,--they pretended to be greatly delighted with their proselyte, and greeted him, notwithstanding his rueful countenance, with many congratulatory epithets, mingled with very proper and warm expressions of welcome. The Coyote looked sick and groaned occasionally and kept looking around at his feet, as though he would like to lick them. But the old Owl extended his wing and cautioned him not to interfere with the working power of faith in this essential observance, and invited him (with a _hem_ that very much resembled a suppressed giggle), to join in their dance. The Coyote smirked and bowed and tried to stand up gracefully on his stumps, but fell over, his grandmother’s head rolling around in the dirt. He picked up the grisly head, clapped it on his crown again and raised himself, and with many a howl, which he tried in vain to check, began to prance around; but ere long tumbled over again. The Burrowing-owls were filled with such merriment at his discomfiture that they laughed until they spilled the foam all down their backs and bosoms; and, with a parting fling at the Coyote which gave him to understand that he had made a fine fool of himself, and would know better than to pry into other people’s business next time, skipped away to a safe distance from him.

Then, seeing how he had been tricked, the Coyote fell to howling and clapping his thighs; and, catching sight of his poor grandmother’s head, all bloody and begrimed with dirt, he cried out in grief and anger: “Alas! alas! that it should have come to this! You little devils! I’ll be even with you! I’ll smoke you out of your holes.”

“What will you smoke us out with?” tauntingly asked the Burrowing-owls.

“Ha! you’ll find out. With yucca!”

“O! O! ha! ha!” laughed the Owls. “That is our succotash!”

“Ah, well! I’ll smoke you out!” yelled the Coyote, stung by their taunts.

“What with?” cried the Owls.

“Grease-weed.”

“He, ha! ho, ho! We make our mush-stew of that!”

“Ha! but I’ll smoke you out, nevertheless, you little beasts!”

“What with? What with?” shouted the Owls.

“Yellow-top weeds,” said he.

“Ha, ha! All right; smoke away! We make our sweet gruel with that, you fool!”

“I’ll fix you! I’ll smoke you out! I’ll suffocate the very last one of you!”

“What with? What with?” shouted the Owls, skipping around on their crooked feet.

“Pitch-pine,” snarled the Coyote.

This frightened the Owls, for pitch-pine, even to this day, is sickening to them. Away they plunged into their holes, pell-mell.

Then the Coyote looked at his poor old grandmother’s begrimed and bloody head, and cried out--just as Coyotes do now at sunset, I suppose--“Oh, my poor, poor grandmother! So this is what they have caused me to do to you!” And, tormented both by his grief and his pain, he took up the head of his grandmother and crawled back as best he could to his house.

When he arrived there he managed to climb up to the roof, where her body lay stiff. He chafed her legs and sides, and washed the blood and dirt from her head, and got a bit of sinew, and sewed her head to her body as carefully as he could and as hastily. Then he opened her mouth, and, putting his muzzle to it, blew into her throat, in the hope of resuscitating her; but the wind only leaked out from the holes in her neck, and she gave no signs of animation. Then the Coyote mixed some pap of fine toasted meal and water and poured it down her throat, addressing her with vehement expressions of regret at what he had done, and apology and solicitation that she should not mind, as he didn’t mean it, and imploring her to revive. But the pap only trickled out between the stitches in her neck, and she grew colder and stiffer all the while; so that at last the Coyote gave it up, and, moaning, he betook himself to a near clump of piñon trees, intent upon vengeance and designing to gather pitch with which to smoke the Owls to death. But, weakened by his injuries, and filled with grief and shame and mortification, when he got there he could only lie down.

He was so engrossed in howling and thinking of his woes and pains that a Horned-toad, who saw him, and who hated him because of the insults he had frequently suffered from him and his kind, crawled into the throat of the beast without his noticing it. Presently the little creature struck up a song:

“Tsakina muuu-ki Iyami Kushina tsoiyakya Aisiwaiki muki, muki, Muuu ka!”

“Ah-a-a-a-a-a,” the Coyote was groaning. But when he heard this song, apparently far off, and yet so near, he felt very strangely inside, so he thought and no doubt wondered if it were the song of some musician. At any rate, he lifted his head and looked all around, but hearing nothing, lay down again and bemoaned his fate.

Then the Horned-toad sang again. This time the Coyote called out immediately, and the Horned-toad answered: “Here I am.” But look as he would, the Coyote could not find the Toad. So he listened for the song again, and heard it, and asked who it was that was singing. The Horned-toad replied that it was he. But still the Coyote could not find him. A fourth time the Horned-toad sang, and the Coyote began to suspect that it was under him. So he lifted himself to see; and one of the spines on the Horned-toad’s neck pricked him, and at the same time the little fellow called out: “Here I am, you idiot, inside of you! I came upon you here, and being a medicine-man of some prominence, I thought I would explore your vitals and see what was the matter.”

“By the souls of my ancestors!” exclaimed the Coyote, “be careful what you do in there!”

The Horned-toad replied by laying his hand on the Coyote’s liver, and exclaiming: “What is this I feel?”

“Where?” said the Coyote.

“Down here.”

“Merciful daylight! it is my liver, without which no one can have solidity of any kind, or a proper vitality. Be very careful not to injure that; if you do, I shall die at once, and what will become of my poor wife and children?”

Then the Horned-toad climbed up to the stomach of the Coyote. “What is this, my friend?” said he, feeling the sides of the Coyote’s food-bag.

“What is it like?” asked the Coyote.

“Wrinkled,” said the Horned-toad, “and filled with a fearful mess of stuff!”

“Oh! mercy! mercy! good daylight! My precious friend, be very careful! That is the very source of my being--my stomach itself!”

“Very well,” said the Horned-toad. Then he moved on somewhat farther and touched the heart of the Coyote, which startled him fearfully. “What is this?” cried the Horned-toad.

“Mercy, mercy! what are you doing?” exclaimed the Coyote.

“Nothing--feeling of your vitals,” was the reply. “What is it?”

“Oh, what is it like?” said the Coyote.

“Shaped like a pine-nut,” said the Horned-toad, “as nearly as I can make out; it keeps leaping so.”

“Leaping, is it?” howled the Coyote. “Mercy! my friend, get away from there! That is the very heart of my being, the thread that ties my existence, the home of my emotions, and my knowledge of daylight. Go away from there, do, I pray you! If you should scratch it ever so little, it would be the death of me, and what would my wife and children do?”

“Hey!” said the Horned-toad, “you wouldn’t be apt to insult me and my people any more if I touched you up there a little, would you?” And he hooked one of his horns into the Coyote’s heart. The Coyote gave one gasp, straightened out his limbs, and expired.

“Ha, ha! you villain! Thus would you have done to me, had you found the chance; thus unto you”--saying which he found his way out and sought the nearest water-pocket he could find.

* * * * *

So you see from this, which took place in the days of the ancients, it may be inferred that the instinct of meddling with everything that did not concern him, and making a universal nuisance of himself, and desiring to imitate everything that he sees, ready to jump into any trap that is laid for him, is a confirmed instinct with the Coyote, for those are precisely his characteristics today.

Furthermore, Coyotes never insult Horned-toads nowadays, and they keep clear of Burrowing-owls. And ever since then the Burrowing-owls have been speckled with gray and white all over their backs and bosoms, because their ancestors spilled foam over themselves in laughing at the silliness of the Coyote.

Thus shortens my story.

THE COYOTE WHO KILLED THE DEMON SÍUIUKI:

OR WHY COYOTES RUN THEIR NOSES INTO DEADFALLS

It was very long ago, in the days of the ancients. There stood a village in the cañon south of Thunder Mountain where the Gods of Prey all lived with their sisters and mothers: the Mountain Lion, the great Black Bear, the Wildcat, the Gray Wolf, the Eagle, and even the Mole--all the Gods of Prey lived there together with their mothers and sisters. Day after day they went out hunting, for hunting was their business of life, and they were great hunters.

Now, right up on the edge of Thunder Mountain there lived a spotted Demon, named Síuiuki, and whenever the people of the towns round about went hunting, he lay in wait for them and ate them up.

After a long while the Gods of Prey grew discontented, and they said to one another: “What in the world can we do? None of the children of men ever make sacrifices to us, for, whenever our children among men go out hunting, this Demon who lives on the top of Thunder Mountain destroys them and eats them up. What in the world can be done?”

“It would be a good thing if we could kill him,” said some of them.

Now, just down below the house of the Demon, in Wolf Cañon, lived a Coyote, and he had found out where the Gods of Prey lived, and whenever he wanted a feast of sinew and gristle, he went below their houses and gnawed at the bones that they had thrown away, and thus it happened that when the gods were talking together in this way he was near their doorway gnawing a bone, and he heard all they said.

“Yes,” said one or two of the others, “and if anybody will go and kill Síuiuki, we will give him our sister to marry.”

“Aha!” said the Coyote to himself. “Ha, ha!”--and he dropped the bone he was gnawing and cut off for home as fast as ever he could.

Next morning, bright and early, he began to dig into the side of the cañon below the Demon’s home, and after he had dug a great hollow in the side of the arroyo, he rolled a heavy stone into it, and found another, which he placed beside it. Then he brought a great many leg-bones of deer and antelope. Then he found a large bowl and put a lot of yellow medicine-fluid in it, and placed it beside the rock. He then sat down and began to crack the leg-bones with the two stones he had brought there.

The old Demon was not in the habit of rising very early, but when he arose that morning he came out and sat down on the edge of the cliff; there the Coyote was, battering away at the bones and pretending to bathe his own lips with the medicine-fluid.

“I wonder what in the world that little sneak is doing down there,” said the old Demon. So he put on his war-badge and took his bow and arrows, as though he were going out to hunt, and started down to where the Coyote was.

“Hello!” said the Coyote, “how did you pass the night?”

“What in the world are you doing here?” asked the Demon.

“Why, don’t you know?” replied the Coyote. “This is the way I train myself for running, so as to catch the deer; I can run faster than any deer in the country. With my medicine, here, I take the swiftness out of these bones.”

“Is it possible?” said the old Demon.

“Of course it is,” said the Coyote. “There is no deer that can run away from me.”

“Will you show me?” said the Demon, eagerly.

“Why, yes, of course I will; and then we will go hunting together.”

“Good, good!” said the old Demon. “I have a hard time catching deer and antelope.”

“Well, now, you sit down right over there and watch me,” said the Coyote, “and I will show you all about it.”

So he laid his left leg over the rock, and then slily took an antelope bone and laid it by the side of it. Then he picked up a large stone and struck it as hard as ever he could against the bone. Whack! went the stone, and it split the bone into splinters; and the Coyote pretended that it was the bone of his own leg.

“Aye! Ah! Oh!” exclaimed he. “But then it will get well!” Still crying “Oh! Ah!” he splashed the leg with the medicine-water and rubbed it. “Didn’t I tell you?” said he, “it is all right now.” And then away he went and ran like lightning round and round on the plain below, and rushed back again. “Didn’t I tell you so?” said he.

“Fury! what a runner it makes out of you,” said the old Demon, and his eyes stuck out more than ever. “Let me try it now.”

“Hold on, hold on,” said the Coyote; “I have not half finished yet.”

So he repeated the experiment with his other leg, and made great ado, as if it hurt him more than ever. But, pretending to cure himself with the medicine-water, he ran round and round on the plain below so fast that he fairly left a streak of dust behind him.

“Why, indeed, you are one of the fastest runners I ever saw!” said the Demon, rubbing his eyes.

Then the Coyote repeated the experiment first with his left paw and then with his right; and the last time he ran more swiftly than before.

“Why, do you mean to say that if I do that I can run as fast as you do?” said the Demon.

“Certainly,” replied the Coyote. “But it will hurt you.”

“Ho! who cares for a little hurt?” said the Demon.

“Oh! but it hurts terribly,” said the Coyote, “and I am afraid you won’t have the pluck to go through with it.”

“Do you think I am a baby?” said the old Demon, getting up,--“or a woman, that I should be afraid to pound my legs and arms?”

“Well, I only thought I’d tell you how much it hurts,” said the Coyote; “but if you want to try it yourself, why, go ahead. There’s one thing certain: when you make yourself as swift as I am, there’s no deer in all the country that can get away from us two.”

“What shall I do?” said the Demon.

“You just sit right down there, and I’ll show you how,” said the Coyote. So the Demon sat down by the rock.

“There, now, you just lay your leg right over that stone and take the other rock and strike your leg just as hard as you can; and as soon as you have done, bathe it in the medicine-water. Then do just the same way to the other.”

“All right,” said the Demon. So he laid his leg over the rock, and picking up the other stone, brought it down with might and main across his thigh--so hard, indeed, that he crushed the bone into splinters.

“Oh, my! Oh, my! what shall I do?” shouted the Demon.

“Be patient, be patient; it will get well,” said the Coyote, and he splashed it with the medicine-fluid.

Then, picking up the stone again, the Demon hit the other thigh even harder, from pain.

“It will get well, my friend; it will get well,” shouted the Coyote; and he splashed more of the medicine-water on the two wounded legs.

Then the Demon picked up the stone once more, and, laying his left arm across the other stone, pounded that also until it was broken.

“Hold on; let me bathe it for you,” said the Coyote. “Does it hurt? Oh, well, it will get well. Just wait until you have doctored the other arm, and then in a few minutes you will be all right.”

“Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” groaned the Demon. “How in the world can I doctor the other arm, for my left arm is broken?”

“Lay it across the rock, my friend,” said the Coyote, “and I’ll doctor it for you.”

So the Demon did as he was bidden, and the Coyote brought the stone down with might and main against his arm. “Have patience, my friend, have patience,” said he, as he bathed the injured limb with more of the medicine-water. But the Demon only groaned and howled, and rolled over and over in the dust with pain.

“Ha, ha!” laughed the Coyote, as he keeled a somersault over the rocks and ran off over the plain. “How do you feel now, old man?”

“But it hurts! It hurts!” cried the Demon. “I shall never get well; it will kill me!”

“Of course it will,” laughed the Coyote. “That’s just what I wanted it to do, you old fool!”

So the old Demon lay down and died from sheer pain.

Then the Coyote took the Demon’s knife from him, and, cutting open his breast, tore out his heart, wind-pipe, and all. Then, stealing the war-badge that the Demon had worn, he cut away as fast as ever he could for the home of the Prey-gods. Before noon he neared their house, and, just as he ran up into the plaza in front of it, the youngest sister of the Prey-gods came out to hang up some meat to dry. Now, her brothers had all gone hunting; not one of them was at home.

“I say, wife,” said the Coyote. “Wife! Wife!”

“Humph!” said the girl. “Impertinent scoundrel! I wonder where he is and who he is that has the impudence to call me his wife, when he knows that I have never been married!”

“Wife! Wife!” shouted the Coyote again.

“Away with you, you shameless rascal!” cried the girl, in indignation. Then she looked around and spied the Coyote sitting there on the ash-heap, with his nose in the air, as though he were the biggest fellow in the world.

“Clear out, you wretch!” cried the girl.

“Softly, softly,” replied the Coyote. “Do you remember what your brothers said last night?”

“What was that?” said the girl.

“Why, whoever would kill the speckled Demon, they declared, should have you for his wife.”

“Well, what of that?” said the girl.

“Oh, nothing,” replied the Coyote, “only I’ve killed him!” And, holding up the Demon’s heart and war-badge, he stuck his nose in the air again.

So the poor girl said not a word, but sat there until the Coyote called out: “I say, wife, come down and take me up; I can’t climb the ladders.”

So the poor girl went down the ladder, took her foul-smelling husband in her arms, and climbed up with him.

“Now, take me in with you,” said the Coyote. So she did as she was bidden. Then she was about to mix some dough, but the Coyote kept getting in her way.

“Get out of the way a minute, won’t you?” said the girl, “until I cook something for you.”

“I want you to come and sit down with me,” said the Coyote, “and let me kiss you, for you know you are my wife, now.” So the poor girl had to submit to the ill-smelling creature’s embraces.

Presently along came her brother, the Gray Wolf, but he was a very good-natured sort of fellow; so he received the Coyote pleasantly. Then along came the Bear, with a big antelope over his shoulder; but he didn’t say anything, for he was a lazy, good-natured fellow. Then presently the other brothers came in, one by one; but the Mountain Lion was so late in returning that they began to look anxiously out for him. When they saw him coming from the north with more meat and more game than all the others together had brought, he was evidently not in good humor, for as he approached the house he exclaimed, with a howl: “_Hu-hu-ya!_”

“There he goes again,” said the brothers and sisters, all in a chorus. “Always out of temper with something.”

“_Hu-hu-ya!_” exclaimed the Mountain Lion again, louder than before. And, as he mounted the ladder, he exclaimed for a third time: “_Hu-hu-ya!_” and, throwing his meat down, entered swearing and growling until his brothers were ashamed of him, and told him he had better behave himself.

“Come and eat,” said the sister, as she brought a bowl of meat and put it on the floor.

“_Hu-hu-ya!_” again exclaimed the Mountain Lion, as he came nearer and sat down to eat. “What in the world is the matter with you, sister? You smell just like a Coyote. _Hu-hu-ya!_”

“Have you no more decency than to come home and scold your sister in that way?” exclaimed the Wolf. “I’m disgusted with you.”

“_Hu-hu-ya!_” reiterated the Mountain Lion.