Coyote blue

answer either. He always knew the right thing to say to get what he wanted, or had until Coyote showed up. But now, he didn't know what he wanted. Calliope had declared wanting a mortal sin. Talking to a woman, to anyone, without having an agenda was completely foreign to him. Where was he supposed to speak from? What point of view? Who was he supposed to be?
    He was afraid to look at her, felt heat rise in his face when he thought about her looking at him, waiting. Maybe the truth? Where do you go to find the truth? She had found it, let it go at him. She had laid her hope in his hands and she was waiting to see what he would do with it.
    Finally he said, "I'm a full-blooded Crow Indian. I was raised on a reservation in Montana. When I was fifteen I killed a man and I ran away and I've spent my life pretending to be someone I'm not. I've never been married and I've never been in love and that's not something I know how to pretend. I'm not even sure why I'm here, except that you woke something up in me and it seemed to make sense to run after something instead of away for a change. If that's the horrible act of wanting, then so be it. And by the way, you are sitting on the lap of an ancient Indian god."
    Now he looked at her. He was a little out of breath and his mind was racing, but he felt incredibly relieved. He felt like he needed a cigarette and a towel – and maybe a shower and breakfast.
    Calliope looked from Sam to Coyote, and then to Sam again. Her eyes were wider each time she looked back. Coyote stopped his snoring and languidly opened one eye. "Hi," he said. He closed his eye and resumed snoring.
    Calliope bent over and kissed Sam's cheek. "I think that went well, don't you?"
    Sam laughed and grabbed her knee. "Look, we've still got twenty hours on the road and I'm going to need you to drive. So get some sleep, okay? I don't trust him at the wheel." Sam nodded toward Coyote.
    "But he's a god," Calliope said.
    " 'As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods;/They kill us for their sport.' "
    "What an icky thing to say."
    "Sorry. Shakespeare wrote it. I can't get it out of my mind this week. It's like an old song that gets stuck."
    "That happened to me once with 'Rocky Raccoon.' "
    "Right," Sam said. "It's exactly like that."

Chapter 29 – Shifting
    Sam drove through the day and into the night and finally stopped at a truck stop outside of Salt Lake City. Calliope and Coyote had been awake for the last few hours, but neither had spoken very much. Calliope seemed embarrassed about talking to the trickster, now that she knew he was a god, and Coyote just stared out the window, either lost in his own thoughts or (Sam thought this more likely) absorbed in some new scheme to throw people's lives into chaos. From time to time someone would break the silence by saying, "Pretty rock" – a statement which covered the complete observational spectrum for Utah's landscape – then they would lapse into silence for a half hour or so.
    Sam led them into the truck stop and they all took stools at a carousel counter among truckers and a couple of grungy hitchhikers who were hoping to cadge a ride. A barrel-shaped woman in an orange polyester uniform approached and poured them coffee without asking if they wanted it. Her name tag read, Arlene . "You want something to eat. honey?" she asked Calliope with an accent warm with Southern hospitality. Sam wondered about this: no matter where you go, truck-stop waitresses have a Southern accent.
    "Do you have oatmeal?" Calliope asked.
    "How 'bout a little brown sugar on that?" Arlene asked. She looked over rhinestone-framed reading glasses.
    Calliope smiled. "That would be nice."
    "How 'bout you, darlin'?" she said to Coyote.
    "Drinks. Umbrellas and swords."
    "Now you know better'n that – come into Mormon country and order drinks." She shamed him with a wave of her finger.
    Coyote turned to Sam. "Mormon country?"
    "They settled in this area. They believe that Jesus visited the Indian people after he rose from the dead."
    "Oh him. I remember him. Hairy face, made a big deal about dying and coming back to life – one time. Ha. He was funny. He tried to teach me how to walk on water. I can do it pretty good in the wintertime."
    Arlene giggled girlishly. "I don't think you need any more to drink, hon. How 'bout some ham and eggs?"
    Sam said, "That'll be fine, two of those, over easy."
    Sam watched Arlene move around the counter, flirting with some of the truckers like a saloon