Coyote blue

walked out of the room. Momma followed.
    "He don't mean it, baby. He really don't."
    "I know, Momma."
    "Where you going?"
    "Back to Vegas."
    "You call when he sobers up. He'll want to talk to you."
    "Call me if you need me, Momma," he said. He kissed her on the forehead and walked out.
    She called him every week, and he could tell by her whisper that Nathan was home, was fine. It made him fine too – not M. F. Cool, just M.F., the one who handled things. All that was missing was the feeling of being needed, essential, bound to duty.
    Sam had said, "You have a mother, don't you?"
    Minty steered the limo off the next exit, across the overpass, and back on the highway, headed back to King's Lake.
    ~* * *~
    It had taken Steve, the Buddhist monk, only a half hour to put the car back together. When Sam tried to figure out a way to pay for the repairs, Steve said, "All misery comes from desire and connection to the material. Go." Sam said thanks.
    Now he was driving the Z into Utah. Calliope was asleep on Coyote's lap. Coyote snored. Sam passed the time trying to figure out how long it would take to get to Sturgis, South Dakota, the location of the rally that the Guild was going to. About twenty hours, he thought, if the car held together. From time to time he looked over at Calliope and felt a twinge of jealousy toward Coyote. She looked like a child when she slept. He wanted to protect her, hold her. But it was that childlike quality that frightened him as well. Her ability to dismiss facts, deny the negative, to see things so clearly, but so clearly wrong. It was as if she refused to accept what any reasonable adult knew: the world was a dangerous, hostile place.
    He brushed a strand of hair out of her face before looking back to the road. She murmured, and came awake with a yawn. "I was dreaming about sea turtles – that they were really dinosaur angels."
    "And?"
    "That's all. It was a dream."
    Sam had been thinking about it too long, so there was anger in his voice when he asked her, "Why didn't you call me before you went after Lonnie?"
    "I don't know."
    "I was worried. If it weren't for Coyote, I would have never found you."
    "Are you two related?" She seemed to be ignoring his anger. "You look a lot alike. He has the same eyes and skin."
    "No, I just know him." Sam didn't want to explain, he wanted an answer. "Why didn't you call me?"
    Calliope recoiled at his harshness. "I had to go get Grubb."
    "I could have gone with you."
    "Would you have? Is that what you wanted?"
    "I'm here, aren't I? It would have been a hell of a lot easier if I didn't have to chase you across two states."
    "And maybe you wouldn't have done it if it was a hell of a lot easier. Would you?"
    The question, and her tone, threw him. He thought for a minute, looking at the road. "I don't know."
    "I know," she said softly. "I don't know much, but I know about that. You're not the only man that ever wanted me or wanted to rescue me. They all do, Sam. Men are addicted to the wanting. You like the idea of having me, and the idea of rescuing me. That's what attracted you to me in the first place, remember."
    "That's not true."
    "It is true. That's why I had sex with you so soon."
    "I don't get it." This was not at all how Sam had expected her to react. His brief moment of self-righteousness had degraded into self-doubt.
    "I did it to see if you could get past the fantasy of wanting me and rescuing me, to the reality of me. Me, with a baby, and no education, and a lousy job. Me, with no idea what I'm going to do next. I can't stand the wanting coming at me all the time. I have to get past it, like I did with you, or ignore it."
    "So you were testing me?" Sam said. "That's why you took off without telling me?"
    "No, it wasn't a test. I liked you, but I have Grubb to take care of now. I can't afford to hope." She was starting to tear up. Sam felt as if he'd just been caught stomping a litter of kittens. She took Grubb's blanket from behind the seat and wiped her eyes.
    "You okay?" Sam asked.
    She nodded. "Sometimes I want to be touched and I pretend that I'm in love – and that someone loves me. I just take my moments and forget about hope. You were going to be a moment, Sam. But I started to have hope. If I'd called you and you had said no, then I would have lost my hope again."
    "That's not how I am," Sam said.
    "How are you, then?"
    Sam drove in silence for a while, trying to think of something to say – the right thing to say. But that wasn't the