ONE TIME COYOTE WAS out hunting and he met Rattlesnake. Rattlesnake was lying in the shadow of a rock at the edge of the desert.
“Coyote, where are you going?”
“I am hunting. I am looking for a fat rabbit. What are you doing?”
“I am waiting for mice.”
Coyote sat down on a rock. He filled his mouth with air until his cheeks bulged, then let it leak out one corner of his mouth in a sort of whistling sigh.
“I’m getting tired of looking for food all the time, Rattlesnake. I spend too much time hunting. There are other things I would like to do.”
“The winter is almost over. Spring is coming. There will be plenty of rabbits.”
“Are you telling me you are doing well? I’ve seen you every day, waiting for mice. You catch nothing. Can’t you see this is foolish?”
“It’s the way things are.”
“Oh I have no time for this sort of nonsense. I must be going.”
Coyote only went off a little distance. He reached down and took a handful of pebbles and rolled them back and forth in his hand. He began flipping the pebbles casually at small targets, as though he were waiting for someone to come along or something to happen. He came back to where Rattlesnake was hidden.
“Rattlesnake, tell me, do you really mean to go on like this year after year? Doing exactly as you are told?”
“How is that, Coyote?”
“Akasitah has said how we should live, that the coyote will hunt rabbits, that he will die at the hands of Shisa. He has said that the rattlesnake will live on the ground where he can see nothing and that he too will die at the hands of the Shisa. Who are the Shisa that I must hunt rabbits and step in traps as though I had no eyes? Who are the Shisa that you are beaten with sticks when they find you? We have all done as Akasitah said we should. But Akasitah is the friend of the Shisa. He is the enemy of all others.”
“It is the other way around, Coyote.”
“Rattlesnake, I have always believed you were the one who saw things best. When times were very bad you always made us see that in time things would be better. But you are wrong now. I have watched the Shisa. They are changing. They have become worse. I have watched you wait for mice. I have looked for rabbits. There are no rabbits. I am going to see Akasitah.”
Coyote flung the few pebbles he had left onto the ground and left.
“I will see you when you come back,” said Rattlesnake. He watched Coyote go. He watched for mice.
Akasitah lived in a white cloud at the top of a mountain that rose from the desert. The climb was long and very difficult. Coyote cut his feet on the rocks and cut the flesh of his hands. He fell exhausted on his face when he reached the top. He did not move for a very long time. When he opened his eyes he saw that the top was flat and covered with grass. It was thicker than any grass he had ever heard about. In the middle there was a lake. The water was black. There was an otter there.
You have come to see Akasitah about a new way of life, said the otter. Coyote could hear him very well even though he stood far away by the lake and was looking off the other way. First you must purify yourself, continued Otter.
“What shall I do,” said Coyote, not knowing if he could be heard.
You must build a small fire of twigs and sit there by it through the night remembering all you can of your life. In the morning when you see Akasitah at first light you must say what it is you have to say quickly. You cannot come back again another time and say it again. If you are even a little afraid, Akasitah will go away. You will spend the rest of your days looking over your shoulder, running a little. If there is a trick in your heart wrapped in pride, Akasitah will take away the middle of all your thoughts. He will leave you only with the ends. I tell you this, Coyote: if you do not know why you are here, go home. In the morning it will be too late.
Coyote did not know what to think. He wanted to leave. Surely it was not this serious, only a little talking with Akasitah. He thought of the long way up. Rattlesnake would laugh at him. He would stay.
Coyote collected twigs and made the fire. The night grew colder. There was no wind. Still it got colder. The fire gave no heat and consumed no wood. Coyote curled up to keep himself warm as best he could. And he thought. He thought of all he had seen of the Shisa. He had seen their cities from the mountains south of the desert. He could see beyond the curve of the earth from those mountains. He had watched the land change under the hand of Shisa. But this is not what bothered him. In the old days the Shisa had planted, they had put things back. Now they planted nothing, they returned nothing. Each winter there were fewer rabbits. Something could not come from nothing. Each day the Shisa came closer to the desert. It could not go on forever. They had changed it. They had broken the circle and made it straight like a stick.
Coyote watched the stars. He thought of the things in the desert. He thought of Rattlesnake waiting for the mice.
It was hard for Coyote to concentrate in the cold but he spent the night in thought. He remembered the day the Shisa had come loping over the shrub hills toward the desert. They came across a gully and it was full of rattlesnakes. They yelled and beat the snakes to death with sticks. Long after the snakes were dead they beat the snakes and threw them away, kicked them under the bushes. One of them, who was a little wiser, took this as a sign and led the rest of the Shisa away.
He remembered the time the Shisa had cracked open the sacred mountain with a great machine and taken the blue heart of the mountain away in chains. That is when he moved to the desert. He knew it would only be a short time after that before they came. The wise ones were dead. In a little while he would have to walk into the trap, as though he could not see. That is what Akasitah had ordered. In the morning he would tell Akasitah it was no good.
Coyote watched the fire and listened to the stiff air resting on the tips of the thick grass until the sun rose and it lifted away.
When the first light came the fire burned itself out as though it were the sun setting. Coyote looked to the west for the last star in the black sky, to the north for Akasitah’s white cloud, to the red mountains in the east, and to the south where he saw a sign of a good day in the yellow light.
Otter was standing far away by the edge of the lake. A wind came up and rippled the water. Coyote watched him but Otter did not move. Finally Otter said, Go a little to the north and wait.
Akasitah was there. Coyote could feel the warm spot in the wind. He began talking.
“Akasitah, I have come here to ask you to change your mind. Below it is chaos because of the Shisa. In a while there will be no place to go. I and all my friends, even the mountains, they will be taken away by the Shisa. It is said that you are wise and fair. How is it that the Shisa have come to this? Must I always be a coyote to the Shisa? Can I not be who I am? I ask you to change things. Let me walk out of the traps. Let Rattlesnake up off the ground so he can see something coming. Let these things happen or we will be no more. There will be nothing left. The Shisa will take even the desert.”
There was a space in the wind.
Coyote, you see like a man with only one eye. The Shisa are like a great boulder that has broken away from the side of a mountain. The boulder makes a great noise as it comes down the side of the mountain. It tears away great chunks of earth and rock and breaks the trees like twigs, throwing up a cloud of dust against the sun and you are afraid for your life. There is no need to be afraid. It only seems this way because you have never known the world without the Shisa. You have spent your life under the boulder. I understand your fear.
Once there were no Shisa at all. When Stah-mi-atlosan sent me here I found the Shisa trapped inside the flowers before dawn. They asked to be set free and I put the sun in the sky and set them free. The rest you know. I tell you this, Coyote: they are like a boulder fallen off a mountain. Soon they will hit the earth at the bottom of the mountain and roll out into the desert leaving a little trail in the dust. The boulder will come to a stop. You can sleep on it at night. Do not worry. Go.
“Akasitah!” called Coyote. The warm spot in the wind was gone. Otter was gone. It was quiet. It took Coyote the rest of the day to get to the bottom of the mountain.
When he got to the desert he found Rattlesnake in the same place and even though it was the middle of the night he sat down and related everything that had happened and asked Rattlesnake his opinion.
“He told you everything there is to know,” said Rattlesnake after a while.
“Still it is not clear to me.”
“It is like this,” said Rattlesnake. “The Shisa have become so large they are moving back into themselves. They have become like a storm turned inside out, that hurls lightning into itself until it is very small and then there is nothing.”
“How can you be sure of this?”
“You must watch, Coyote. You are always going off somewhere; that is why you understand nothing. When the storm comes across the hills toward the desert, watch how it turns itself into nothing. It goes over the desert like a small wind. These things are everywhere, Coyote, if you will open your eyes.”
Coyote stood up and walked off a little ways and stopped.
“Where are you going, Coyote?”
“I am going to hunt for rabbits.”
Coyote went off to the highest hill he could find and sat down with his back against a rock. He scanned the horizon for a cloud and when he found one he settled down to wait.
He wondered if Rattlesnake had ever lied.