COYOTE WAS TRAVELING OVER the plains and he crossed the mountains and came down on the prairie. There he found the skull of Buffalo Bull. Coyote was afraid of Buffalo Bull but he played with the skull anyway. He kicked it around and threw rocks at it. He spat in the eye sockets and kicked dust on it. When he started to walk away he heard a sound, like thunder. He looked up into clear skies. Then the sound got louder. He turned around. It was Buffalo Bull coming after him.
Coyote ran as fast as he could but Buffalo was right behind him. Coyote felt Buffalo’s hot breath on his neck and felt the ground under his feet shaking and he called on his power for help. Just then three trees came up out of the ground and Coyote jumped up and grabbed a limb of the first tree. He climbed up high in the branches. Buffalo Bull began chopping at the tree with his horns. It fell over just as Coyote was able to leap into the second tree. Buffalo Bull charged the second tree and pushed it over just as Coyote leaped into the third tree.
When Buffalo Bull began slashing at the third tree with his horns, Coyote called down, “My friend, please, you must let me smoke my pipe once more. Then I can die content.”
Buffalo Bull stopped his hacking at the tree and looked up. “You may have one smoke, Coyote. This is the way for a warrior.”
Coyote packed his pipe with fresh kinnikinick and began smoking. After a few puffs, he offered the pipe to Buffalo Bull.
“I will not smoke with you Coyote. You trampled my bones.”
“Do not kill me my friend. This is no way to act. Let me come down and I will make you a new set of horns. The ones you have now are cracked and dull looking.”
Buffalo Bull let Coyote come down. Coyote took his flint knife and some pitch wood and carved two fine, heavy horns with sharp points. Buffalo Bull liked these shiny black horns very much. As soon as he got them he forgot all about Coyote. He went and killed Young Buffalo with them. Young Buffalo had once taken all of Buffalo Bull’s cows. Now he took them back. He liked his new horns so much he gave Coyote one of the cows.
“Never kill this cow, Coyote. When you are hungry, cut off a little of her fat with your flint knife. Rub ashes on the wound. The cut will heal. This way, you will have meat forever.”
Coyote promised this is what he would do. He took the buffalo cow with him back over the mountains. Whenever he was hungry he would cut away a little fat and then heal the wound with ashes as Buffalo Bull had said. But after a while he got tired of the fat. He wanted to taste the bone marrow and some fresh liver. By this time he had crossed the plains and was back in his own country.
“What Buffalo Bull said is only good over in his country,” Coyote said to himself. “I am chief here. Buffalo Bull’s words mean nothing. He will never know.”
Coyote took the young cow down to the edge of the creek. “You look a little sore-footed,” he told her. “Stay here and rest and feed for a while.”
Coyote killed her suddenly while she was feeding. When he pulled off her hide crows and magpies came. When Coyote tried to chase them off, more came. Even more came, until they had eaten all the meat from the young cow and left only the bones.
“Well, at least I will have the marrow,” thought Coyote.
Just then an old woman came along. She said to Coyote, “You are a great chief. You should not do woman’s work. Let me cook those bones for you.”
Coyote liked this woman’s attitude. He lay down and went to sleep. When he woke up he saw the woman running off with the marrow-fat and boiled grease. He ran after her but she was too fast. Slowly he went back to his campfire and gathered up the little pieces of bone that were left. He thought he would boil them and make soup, but when he came back from the creek with water he found all the bones had turned into sticks.
There was nothing to do, he decided, but to go back and see Buffalo Bull and get another cow. When he had crossed the mountains and come up to Buffalo Bull’s herd he saw that the young cow he had killed was among them. Coyote said he was sorry, and that he would not do what he had done again. But the cow would not go back with him and Buffalo Bull would not give him another one.
Coyote went back to his village. When he got there he found everyone had moved. They had heard what he had done and were ashamed to be in the same place with him.