ONE TIME THERE WAS no food at Coyote’s lodge. He went over to see Bear, who always had food.
“Bear, I am hungry, what have you got to eat?”
Bear did not like this way of talking but he asked Coyote to sit down. He said he would make food. He heated rocks in the fire and brought in a large basket of water. Then he cut a strip of buckskin from his wife’s dress. When the rocks were hot he dropped them and the strip of buckskin into the water.
Coyote thought this was a silly thing to do. He wanted to tell Bear this was not the way to make food, but he kept silent.
Bear rubbed the cut place in his wife’s robe with ashes and it was whole again. When the water was boiling. Bear poured a handful of pebbles into it. Then it was ready.
Coyote thought he would not care for such food, just buckskin and pebbles, but when Bear put it down in front of him he saw that the buckskin had become juicy meat and the pebbles had become huckleberries. Coyote ate his fill and then took the rest of the food home to his family. He told Bear to come and eat with him the next day.
Bear came over. Coyote told his wife, Mole, to put stones in the fire to heat and to bring him a basket of water. He then cut a strip of buckskin from the only robe Mole had and rolled it into a lump as he had seen Bear do. Then he told his wife to put the buckskin and the hot rocks into the basket of water. When it began to boil, he poured in a handful of pebbles.
“Why are you doing this my husband?” asked Mole.
“Oh, you know me, I am always doing this. I am making a meal for our brother, Bear.”
While he was talking, Coyote rubbed ashes into his wife’s robe, but it did not come back whole again. Coyote shook his head. “I don’t understand this,” he said. “It always worked before.”
When the meal was ready Coyote poured it into bowls. It was still only boiled buckskin and pebbles.
Bear had been very patient.
He reached over and took Mole’s robe and rubbed it with ashes and made it whole again.
Then he said, “Coyote, this is my way, not yours. You are not a medicine man, you cannot do these things.” Then Bear left.
Later Coyote looked into his cooking basket. It was full of meat and huckleberries.
“Look at this, wife. I have made meat and berries like Bear. What does he know. I am as powerful as he is, he was just afraid to tell me this.”
A while later, when they had run out of food again, Coyote went to visit his brother Kingfisher.
“Kingfisher, what have you got to eat,” asked Coyote. “I am very hungry.”
Kingfisher did not like this rude way of talking, but he sent for his son and told him to go get three willow sticks.
Boy Kingfisher went out and got the sticks and came back. Kingfisher heated them over the fire until they were strong. Then he took them out, twisted them up and tied them to his belt.
He flew up onto the top of his lodge and from there he flew to the river and down through a hole in the ice. When he came up there was a fish hanging on each willow stick.
Coyote ate until his belly was round, but he saved some fish for his wife and his children at home.
“You must come over to see me tomorrow,” said Coyote.
“I don’t think I will come over,” said Kingfisher.
“Oh, you must come over. We will have a nice meal, you will like it. You come over tomorrow.”
Kingfisher didn’t want to go, but he said he would.
The next day when Kingfisher came over Coyote told his son to go get three willow sticks. When Boy Coyote came back Coyote stuck the sticks in the fire until they were hard. Then he bent them up and stuck them on his belt. Then Coyote crawled up to the top of his lodge.
“What are you doing up there?” asked his wife.
“Why, you know I’ve done this before. I am getting food for our brother, Kingfisher.”
Coyote jumped off the top of the lodge down to the river but he missed the hole and broke his neck and was killed.
Kingfisher had been watching all the time. He walked over to where Coyote lay and took the three sticks from his belt and jumped into the hole in the ice. Soon he came up with many fish. Then he stepped over Coyote four times and Coyote came back to life.
“This is my way, not your way,” said Kingfisher. “I do not imitate others like you do.”
Coyote took the fish up to his lodge and showed them to Mole and to his children.
“Look at these big fish. I caught them the way Kingfisher did. Kingfisher is afraid of my power. He told me not to do this again. He knows my medicine is strong.”
Mole cooked the fish.