Coyote blue

now, old man?"
    "A bunch. It's plumb wearing me out," Pokey said. "The medicine man got tired of singing the death song and went home. I think he got scared." Pokey pulled a cassette out from under his covers and held it up. "I got it on tape for the next time."
    Sam said, "Pokey, we have the arrow bundle. What do we do now?"
    "Ask him," Pokey said, pointing to Coyote.
    "I ain't going," Coyote said. "He has to go alone."
    "Samson needs a medicine man to sing the bundle song."
    "That's why we're here," Sam said.
    "You want me? I didn't think you believed I had medicine, Samson."
    "Things change, Pokey. I need you."
    "Well then, get me out of here." Pokey started to sit up.
    Sam pushed him back. "I don't think you should be walking."
    "Samson, I done told you, I had my death vision. I don't die in no hospital, I get shot. Now help me get up." He struggled to a sitting position and Sam helped him turn so his feet hung off the bed. "You're right, I don't think I can walk."
    Sam turned to Coyote. "You promised to help."
    ~* * *~
    The clinic was officially closed for the day, but the skeleton staff of two nurses was still on. Adeline Eats sat in the waiting room with her six children, who were all green with flu, insisting that she wasn't going anywhere until they got treatment, even if she had to wait all night.
    For the twentieth time, the nurse at the window was explaining that the doctor had gone home for the night, when she heard the hoof beats on the stairs. She dropped her clipboard and ran out of the office to see a black horse coming down the stairs, an old, half-naked man bouncing on its back. She ducked back into her office to avoid being trampled and looked up in time to see a man in a corduroy jacket running behind the horse out the front door.
    The nurse ran out into the waiting room to the front door, which dangled in pieces on its hinges. She watched the horse stop beside a white Blazer and rear up. The old man, his gray hair streaming in the wind, let out a war whoop and fell into the arms of the man in corduroy. Then, as she watched, the horse started bubbling and changing until it was a man in black buckskins. The nurse stumbled back in shock. Someone tapped her on the shoulder and she jumped (a foot off the ground. She came down holding her chest. Adeline Eats said, "You got room for my kids now, or what?"
    ~* * *~
    Riding in the Blazer, Pokey said, "Old Man Coyote, how do I send Samson to the Underworld?"
    "Just open the bundle and sing the song. He will go."
    Sam said, "What happens then? What do I do?"
    "My medicine ends when you get there. You will see the one that weighs the souls. Don't be afraid of him. Just ask him if you can bring the girl back."
    "That's it?"
    "Don't worry about the monster. The Underworld is not what you think." Coyote rolled down the car window. "I have something that I want to do. I'll be there when you return." Coyote dove out the car window, changing instantly into a hawk and flying off into the night sky.
    "Wait!" Sam said. "What monster?" He stopped the car.
    Pokey giggled like a child. "A horse and a hawk in one night. Samson, do you know how lucky we are?"
    Sam leaned forward and put his head against the wheel. " Lucky wasn't the world that came to mind, Pokey."
    ~* * *~
    Pokey had called Harlan and the boys down from Hardin. While they prepared the sweat, Sam stood at the door of the Airstream trailer trying to make himself open it. For the first time in years he was aware of his childhood fear of the dead and unrevenged ghosts and he hesitated. Since Pokey had given him hope of bringing Calliope back, he hadn't really thought of her as dead. He wanted to see her before he went to the Underworld, but he was afraid. Strange, he thought, after all these years of selling the fear of death, talking about it every day, now I'm afraid. She's not dead, not really.
    He threw the door open and stepped into the trailer. Calliope's body was lying on the built-in cot by the door amid camping equipment and fishing rods. Coyote had covered her with a blanket, leaving her face exposed. She could have been sleeping.
    Sam sat on the cot by her and brushed a strand of hair away from her face. She was cold. He looked away.
    "I wanted you to know…" He didn't know what to say. There was no face to put on to meet this face. If she would just open her eyes. He swallowed hard. "I wanted you to know that I would do anything for you. That all this craziness was – will be – worth it