ONE TIME COYOTE’S WIFE had a lover named Wolverine, but Coyote didn’t know about it. He and his wife were out hunting one day when they came on Wolverine’s lodge. They went inside. Wolverine was alarmed but Coyote didn’t know who the man was.
“What are you hunting?” said Wolverine, looking at Coyote’s weapons.
“Oh, anything that I see. I hunt whatever I can get.”
“What are you hunting now,” asked Wolverine. He was anxious to see if Coyote knew about his sleeping with his wife. He kept putting the question to Coyote until Coyote said, “I am hunting Wolverine” in order to shut him up.
This frightened Wolverine, and he went outside his lodge. Coyote and his wife came out too. They went down by the water where Wolverine was standing.
“I think my canoe is longer than yours,” said Wolverine. “Pull your canoe over and let’s measure and see.”
Coyote got his canoe and pushed it over to where Wolverine was. They were putting their canoes together to see which one was the longest when suddenly Wolverine grabbed Coyote’s wife, jumped into his canoe and paddled away. Coyote went after them and was about to catch up when Wolverine brought a fog down and Coyote got lost. He paddled around and around, but he could find no trace of his wife. Finally he gave up and paddled home.
He was very sad. Coyote lay under his blanket for a long time wondering how to get his wife back. Finally he went down to his canoe and asked his canoe paddle where his wife was. The canoe paddle answered, but with a mumbling voice, so Coyote couldn’t understand what it was saying. He grabbed the paddle and said he would break it in half if it did not speak in a way he could understand. The canoe paddle went on mumbling. Coyote took it over his knee and bent it until it almost broke he was so angry. But the canoe paddle kept mumbling in the same way and Coyote threw it in the bottom of the canoe.
He went back and lay down under his blanket and thought about the whole thing again and, when he had thought it through, he went back to his canoe and asked the paddle where his wife was. Finally he understood the paddle. The paddle told him his wife was in a village called Clouds Laying Down, on a big lake to the north.
Coyote spent one whole day defecating around the shore. From all this excrement he made warriors and canoes. His friends Marten and Fisher joined him and one morning they all set out.
When they came to Clouds Laying Down they saw a long house in the fog and they put ashore and went inside. All the people of the village were in there. They looked out between the logs at the other warriors, sitting in their canoes in the fog on the lake.
While they were sitting there Marten and Fisher began walking around on the ceiling of the lodge and walking across the walls. The people wondered at this and asked Coyote how it was done. Coyote said he gave Marten and Fisher this power by cutting out their intestines and defecating in the cavity. This made them light enough to go anywhere. Some of the people said they wanted this power but Coyote said he couldn’t give it to just a few people.
He would have to give it to everyone or to no one. All the men decided they wanted this power, to be able to walk around anywhere. Coyote told them to come and line up on the beach. When they had lined up he walked along and disemboweled each one. When he was finished, they were all dead. Wolverine was among them. Coyote took his wife and went back to the place where he lived.