CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Horse Thief

 

THE WOMAN IS off doing her... well, he doesn’t know? She hasn’t smoked another cigarette, so it’s probably not that. It’s likely some woman thing. She’s got to, and this is all just a guess, fix her makeup, pee for the hundredth time, adjust her bra, have her period, milk her bosoms, or maybe just sit on the toilet and cry.

Of course, Coyote—‘Kai,’ he told her his name was—isn’t very good with women.

He’s made love to thousands of women. Most of them human. All of them acquiesced to his charms, his wiles—it’s not magic. He has magic, yes, but that’s not what brings them to his bed (or to a patch of field, or to a rock in the middle of the woods, or to an ice floe, or to a... well, where hasn’t he done it? A gazebo. He’s never made love in a gazebo. He makes a mental note: have wild rumpus in gazebo). The women come to him because they want to ride the Ki-yote Express. They want to feel his howls reverberate down through their lady parts and up through their teeth. They want to trap him, make him theirs. Ha, ha, ha, ladies. Good try. Good try.

Everybody wants to trap the Coyote. But nobody can.

Ah-ha-ha. So many women.

And he still understands them not one fiddly whit.

He wants to make love to this one, too. She’s a bit older, but certainly pretty. Her skin is like milk. Her hair is like fire. Primal and comforting, in equal measure.

In his pocket, his member twitches.

But that’s not why he’s here.

At present, Coyote stands in the parking lot of a Conoco gas station in Missouri, the morning sun coming up over a flat blasted brown nowhere nothing patch of dirt that surrounds him and stretches off in all directions. The highway a pale ribbon cutting through it all. Tractor trailer grumbling by.

He waits for the woman.

Coyote leans back against the Mustang and pulls out his phone. He sends a text to someone in his address book listed only as ‘E.E.’

The text: The golden thread is unbroken.

The thread. Sometimes: the chain, the rope, the ladder. He’s even heard it spoken of as a frequency, as a signal, but to him it’s always been the golden thread. A thread is delicate. Easy to tear a thread in twain, and yet, the golden thread always remains, strung between all the gods of his ilk. They never know what will come down the thread or what the instructions will be when it comes to them. They never know the outcome or even the why. They only know that they do what they must because the golden chain must remain unbroken and what it demands must be done lest the whole thing come falling down.

The world. Suspended by a thread.

A beautiful image.

It almost gives him a boner, honestly.

Then again, a spring breeze gives him a boner. See also: a car honking, the smell of coffee, the stink of beaver pelts (not a metaphor, except when it is), a sneeze, a cough, a hiccup, a cricket chirping, peyote buttons, scorpion venom, the sound of flip-flops on a heavy woman walking along the boardwalk next to the beach...

It all gives him a boner. He has a boner for this entire world and its contents.

Other deities seem to hate this place. Those mopes. They dismiss it. They treat it like it’s a... a prison. Exiled here, thrown down (or in some cases, dragged up) from their places of import. Each seeing themselves as a pretty necklace around a beautiful woman’s neck that was suddenly yanked from her neck and thrown into the gutter forever.

But Coyote likes the gutter. He likes this gutter, this world, most of all.

It has hamburgers! And pornography. And remote control cars and Swisher Sweets cigarillos and cat videos and fast cars and loud noises and gazebos and lust and love and charity and books and soft human women with imperfect, asymmetrical breasts.

Oh! And phones with the ability to text message.

This, Coyote decides, is what Prometheus stole from the gods.

A text comes in, bing-bing:

 

DO NOT LOSE THE THREAD

 

Ahh, Old Man Shu. For such a tiny fellow, he’s always so loud in his text messages. Time and again Coyote has told him: “You don’t have to type in all caps,” but Shu just shrugs and smiles that pinched little smile like he knows something nobody else knows (which is kind of their gig, isn’t it?). Coyote figures he should just be happy, since some of the others don’t tweet at all. Like that asshole Monkey King. What a sonofabitch.

As Alison comes back out of the gas station, Coyote texts back:

Not going to lose the thread shut up.

Reply:

 

GOOD

 

Are you sure I can’t bed this one?

Reply:

 

YES

 

Well, fuck-buckets.

Alison eyes him warily. She has the keys; he’s been letting her drive.

“I didn’t know if you’d be here,” she says.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You seem like that type. I don’t know.”

He just laughs and hops in the car.

 

 

WEST. LIKE THE strange man—‘Kai’—said.

The sun comes up. Orange like an egg-yolk, then a bleached yellow like the pith of a lemon beneath the zested rind.

They don’t talk much. The man whistles. Fiddles with the radio now and again—often singing along, smoking out the window and laughing at jokes apparently only he can hear. For now the radio is just static warbling between fundamentalist Christian stations and country music. He spins the dial, catches some hellfire-and-brimstone snippet—

“Oh, how miserable your pleasures will be, when you must crawl through hellfire for an age...”

Kai snorts. Shakes his head.

“Not a church-goer?” Alison says.

Another snort. He sweeps his arms. “This is my church.”

“The inside of a Mustang?”

He laughs. “The whole world.”

“Oh. Cool.”

“You people think you know God. Or the Devil. That amuses me.”

“You people?”

“Americans. White people. Same thing.”

“You’re not American?”

“I’m a bit older than that.”

“You’re Native American, then.”

To this, he says nothing. Offers her only a wink.

“Don’t judge us too harshly,” she says. “We try to do okay. And we’re not all like that. Just the loudest among us.”

“Then you shouldn’t let the loudest speak. You should get louder!” He shrugs. “Or shut them up with duct tape.”

“Maybe. But we are who we are.”

He smiles. “Good thing, too.”

It’s then she asks, because she must.

“Are you human?”

Another wink.

“Okay, seriously,” she says, “no coy winking, I want to know. Are you human? Is this real? Is this really happening? Who are you?”

“I told you. I am Kai. Beyond that: what does it matter? This word, ‘human.’ It’s not a meaningful word. I’ve known some humans who were less than human. Sub-human. I’ve known humans that were better than the angels, stronger and smarter than all the gods in all the heavens. I’ve known some animals that were the nicest people I’ve ever met, and I’ve known some gods that were more human than human. Human is just a sack of skin. It’s just the flavor of your meat, like pork or beef. Don’t worry about that word. Human.”

Her hands tighten around the steering wheel. “You didn’t answer the question.”

“I often don’t.”

“Oh.”

He clears his throat, flicks his cigarillo out the window. “Hey. Don’t suppose you want to have a quickie?”

She’s about to be appalled, to refuse and say no, double no, hell no—

But before she can:

Woop-woop.

Strobing cop lights. Red, blue, back and forth. The wail of sirens.

“Oh, what the hell? I was doing the speed limit. I’m in the right lane.” She flicks on her turn signal. Kai gives her a quizzical look.

“What are you doing?”

“Pulling over.”

He flips the turn signal back off. “Just gun it.”

“What?”

“This car has pep. It’s like if a horse had sex with a rocketship and this is its baby!”

“I’m not outracing the police.”

He sighs. “We’ll be fine. Vertical pedal on the right. Come on. Chop chop, vroom vroom.”

“Wait. Why are they pulling me over? Do you have outstanding tickets or something?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care.”

“What are they going to see when they pull your license plate?”

“License plate? That’s not my license plate.” He shrugs. “This isn’t even my car.”

“What?”

“Oh. Yeah. We stole it. Did I not explain that?”

“We?”

“You’re driving. Actually, I’m not even in the books. So, legally speaking, it’s pretty much you, not we.”

“Oh.” She feels the blood drain from her face. “Oh, no. I’m not a car thief. I don’t... I don’t do this.” It’s like her whole life is a train on a rickety trestle that’s creaking and swaying, the tracks starting to fall apart beneath her.

She again puts on her signal and this time lets the car drift over to the shoulder. As the car slows, her heart races.

Kai just shakes his head, clucks his tongue.

The cop pulls in behind her. The sirens no longer wail, but the strobe continues. Red, blue, red, blue, sweeping over the car.

Cars pass on the highway. Alison can feel the eyes of rubbernecker drivers watching her, in the same way she’s watched dozens of others get pulled over.

Shame sends blooms to her cheeks.

“Okay,” Kai says. “I didn’t think it would come to this but... you never know, so.” He goes rustling in his pocket, pulls out something that looks like a foot-long desiccated strip of beef jerky. Like something a dog would chew on. He hands it to her.

“What is this?”

“It’s my penis.”

She doesn’t drop it so much as fling it at him.

He bats it back at her like it’s an errant volleyball.

“You’re going to need that,” he says, frowning. “Take it. It has powers.”

“This is all some kind of strange joke.” She feels queasy. “I’m not taking it.”

In the rearview, she sees the cop step out of the car.

She turns back to Kai, starts to say, “You have to explain to him—”

But nobody is there.

Alison is alone in the car.

Knock, knock, knock.

The cop. Military-looking type. Aviator sunglasses. Stubble.

She rolls down the window.

She sees the crooked strip of jerky sitting on the passenger seat. The cop is speaking to her, but she can barely hear him. All she hears is the whoosh of traffic, the rush of blood in her ears, the sound of her own breath—tight, shallow, fast, panicked.

Alison closes her eyes.

Then she knows what she has to do.

 

 

COYOTE SITS ON his haunches and watches as the cop loads her into the back of the cruiser. She didn’t use the weapon he gave her. It would’ve been so easy. It would’ve done all the work for her. Sprayed him with blinding coyote urine. Animated and beaten the cop about the head and neck. Then slithered away like a snake while they made their getaway.

Coyote’s got a great penis. It always gets him out of trouble.

Of course, half the time, it’s the thing that got him into trouble, but whatever.

For a while she sits in the back seat. The cop roves back and forth on his radio. In the car. Then out of the car. Does a walk around the Mustang, checking it for... well, whatever it is that a cop would look for in a stolen car.

Alison stares forward until, finally, she lifts her head and looks out the window.

She sees him out there. Their eyes meet. He wonders how puzzled she must be, seeing not the man, but the animal. A ragged, skinny coyote with tortoiseshell fur. And a cigarillo sticking out of its muzzle. Recognition flares in her eyes.

He really thought she had it in her to make the brave choice. The interesting choice. She’s made so many before now, he just figured...

It was the penis, wasn’t it? That took it one inch too far.

Coyote pads away. Stalking the margins of the highway for a while until he’s out of sight and can hide behind a berm of earth covered in dead grass.

There he becomes human again and pulls out his phone.

To Old Man Shu he texts:

I think I lost the thread.

Shu texts back:

 

IS IT BROKEN?

 

I don’t know.

 

THEN FIND OUT.

 

Coyote figured that would be the answer.

Besides, the cops have his penis, so he’s going to need to get that back.