Coyote blue

that."
    "No! No, don't do that." Sam had guessed the Indian's identity the day before when he'd opened the medicine bundle, but he had hoped it would all go away and he would find himself the victim of a childhood superstition. Religion was supposed to be a matter of faith. Gods were not supposed to jump on your desk and snarl at you. They weren't supposed to sit in your office smoking cigarettes. Gods didn't do anything. They were supposed to ignore you and let you suffer and die having never known whether your religion was a waste of time. Faith.
    Sure, the gods were a badly behaving lot in stories – jealous, impatient, selfish, vengeful, smiting whole races of people, raping virgins, sending plagues and pestilence – and even as gods went, Coyote was a particularly bad example, but they were supposed to stay in the damn stories, not show up and hump your homely secretary until she made monkey noises.
    "What are you doing here?" Sam asked.
    "I'm here to help you."
    "Help? You ruined my business and got me kicked out of my home."
    "You wanted to scare the diver so I scared him. You wanted the girl so I gave her to you."
    "Well what about all the cats at my condo complex? What about my secretary? How did that help me?"
    "If I was not meant to have ugly women and cats they would not be so easy to catch."
    It was the kind of backward, perverse logic that had irritated Sam as a child. Pokey Medicine Wing had been a master at it. It seemed to Sam at times as if the entire Crow Nation was trying to define a silicon-chip world with a Stone Age worldview. Sam thought he had escaped it. "Why me? Why not someone who believes?"
    "This is more fun."
    Sam resisted the urge to leap over the desk and choke the Indian. It was still "the Indian" in his head. He hadn't yet accepted that he was talking to Coyote, Chief of the Without Fires. Even with the overwhelming evidence of the supernatural, he searched for a natural explanation for what was happening. A lifetime of disbelief is not easily shed. He tried to find some parallel experience that would put things in order, something he'd read or seen on PBS. Nothing was forthcoming, so he speculated.
    How would Aaron react if faced with this situation? Aaron didn't acknowledge his Irish heritage any more than Sam admitted his own Crow roots. What if a leprechaun suddenly appeared on Aaron's desk? He'd affect a brogue and try to talk the little fucker into putting his pot o' gold into tax-deferred annuities. No, Aaron was not the person to think of in a spiritual emergency.
    Coyote smiled as if he had read Sam's thoughts. "What do you want, Samson Hunts Alone?"
    Sam didn't even hesitate to think. "I want my old life back to the way it was before you fucked it up."
    "Why?"
    Now Sam was forced to think. Why indeed? Every time Sam hired a new agent he glorified his and Aaron's lifestyles. He would take a bright, hungry young man for a ride in the Mercedes, buy him lunch at the Biltmore or another of Santa Barbara's finer restaurants, flash cash and gold cards and expensive suits – plant the seed of greed , as Aaron called it – then give the kid a means to pursue his germinating dream of material bliss while Sam collected ten percent on everything he sold. It was part of the show, one of the many roles he played, and the car, the clothes, the condo, and the clout were merely props. Without the props the show could not go on.
    "Why do you want your life back?" Coyote asked, as if Sam had forgotten the question.
    "It's safe," Sam blurted out.
    "So safe," Coyote said, "that you can lose it in a day? To be safe is to be afraid. Is that what you want: to be afraid?"
    "I'm not afraid."
    "Then why do you lie? You want the girl."
    "Yes."
    "I will help you get her."
    "I don't need your help. I need you gone."
    "I am very good with women."
    "Like you're good with cats and couches?"
    "Great heroes have great horniness. You should feel what it is like to pleasure a falcon. You lock talons with her in the sky and do it while you both are falling like meteors. You would like it; they never complain if you come too fast."
    "Get out of here."
    "I will go, but I will be with you." Coyote rose and walked to the door. As he opened it he said, "Don't be afraid." He stepped out of his office and closed the door. Suddenly, Sam leapt to his feet and headed after him. "Stay off my secretary!" he shouted. He ripped open the door and looked into the outer office where Gabriella, her composure regained, was