ONE TIME COYOTE WAS going along and he came on a village. There were a lot of people living there and there was plenty to eat so Coyote decided to stay for a while. There was a good-looking man named Not Enough Horses living in the village who wanted to get married but he wouldn’t have anything to do with the girls living there. He said they weren’t the right kind for him, not good enough.
When Coyote heard this he decided to change himself into a woman and get this man for his husband. He changed himself that way and became very beautiful. He came back into the village on a sled with his tipi and other belongings on it and two wolves pulling it. When Not Enough Horses saw her he liked her right away.
Not Enough Horses told his mother, “My Mother, she is handsome. She’s the kind I want. You must invite her over.”
The old woman said she would do this. She went over to where the girl was living.
“Niece, you must come over to my house.”
“Ho, what for?”
“My son wants to see you.”
“I will come then.”
“My son desires to marry you,” said the old woman.
“You know, so many men wanted to marry me I ran away and came here,” said the young woman. “My elder brother said to me, ‘Go away’.”
“Oh, my son ran away, too, and came here! There were so many women who wanted to marry him. That is why he ran away and came here.”
“Oh, that is very interesting,” said the young woman.
They went to where the old woman lived and there she saw the young man. He was very handsome. They got married and lived together for some time. Young Woman was a good worker and this made the man happy. Then Young Woman decided to go away. She had had children but she had not let anyone see them. When she left, she left the children behind and when the old woman and her son went in to see them they saw they were wolf puppies.
“Oho!” cried the old woman. “That person was Coyote!”
She was laughing as she wrapped the wolf puppies up in blankets. These were what Not Enough Horses had got for children. All the people in the village were now laughing at him.
They said, “Truly, this is a great thing this man has accomplished. This conceited young man has managed to take a man for his wife! Now we will have something to laugh about!”
They had such a laugh over all this that the young man left the village. He was ashamed.
While he was traveling along he said to himself, “I don’t care what sort of woman I marry, what she looks like. Coyote has put me to such great shame.”
In a little while he came to a lodge. He stood outside until the woman inside said, “Come in.”
“I have come to take you for my wife,” he said.
She was too skinny and not good-looking at all. It was dark inside the lodge and he couldn’t see well, but he took that woman for his wife. When they slept together he felt very bad because he could feel how bony she was.
In the morning they loaded up her sled with all the things from her lodge and they left that place. They went back toward his village. He was ashamed of the way this woman looked, but he thought at least no one would laugh at him any more for having married Coyote now that he had married this ugly woman.
When they got into the village, his wife got out of the sled. But she wasn’t skinny any more. It was Coyote again.
He said, “Hey, young man, are you the same one who married Coyote that other time?”
Everyone in the village began laughing.
Coyote got that young man twice.