Coyote's Daughter Page 6

  Chapter Six

  Jack licked my face as I fought to clear the ringing in my head.

  "It's okay, boy. I'm all right."

  At least, I hoped so. I pulled myself up and reached down to touch my leg. That was a mistake. My ankle peeked out puffy and red from under the cuff of my jeans.

  I whimpered as I crawled back to the even ground of the trail; Jack nosed me along with every wince.

  A thick stick was the best brace I could find to help me. I drew myself up, and found no sign of the snake in the dust.

  "Jack, did you see it too? Did I dream it?" I remembered the laugh I heard when I struck my head. "Or did Shriveled Corn Man make me see something that wasn't there?"

  The thought of the sorcerer reminded me of the clay figure and I tore off my backpack to check on it. The spare shirt I had rolled it in appeared to have given it plenty of padding. I felt it for broken pieces, but the statue seemed fine.

  I braced myself to walk, worried that the pain in my ankle wouldn't let me get home before dark. I tried to guess how long the path would take to hike, but couldn't come up with an estimate for my new, slower speed.

  The worry was for nothing, because around the next turn, past a pale-green sage bush, the trail ended. Just ended. The trail previously had continued on to the main irrigation canal, where I would have followed it home. Now it simply stopped, and a vast expanse of open ground lay before me as far as I could see. No path, no canal, no way home.

  I stood with my mouth open like a fish, then took a step off the trail into the open space. Before my foot hit the ground, a tan blur streaked by, and a lean coyote crouched before me. I stumbled backwards into Jack, hissed from the shooting pain from my ankle, and then pulled myself together.

  "Coyote? Is that you, old man?" The coyote in front of me made no motion or sound of recognition, but something in his eyes made me think he was laughing at me. Jack peeked out from behind my legs, then darted back, as if he could actually hide there.

  "Ash said you're a trickster. If I'm not supposed to go out there, can't you just tell me?"

  I took another step toward the end of the path, but scrambled back again as the coyote—Coyote?—snapped at me. He closed his teeth on air, but I could imagine all too clearly what those long yellow fangs would feel like in my already sore leg.

  I remembered Ash's warning. Stay on the path. Was something out there? Was the phantom snake nothing more than an attempt to scare me away from the trail, and into whatever danger lay out there? Did Coyote stand before me, or Shriveled Corn Man?

  While I stood there lost in questions, the sun slid closer to the horizon.

  "Either way, we can't go this way right now. If we don't go somewhere, we'll be caught out here in the dark."

  I hoped it was the right decision, and turned my back on whoever, whatever, it was that blocked the way home. We made our slow way back to the village. We didn't see Ash, and my leg hurt too much to explore. The blow to my head hurt now, like someone stabbed me in the eye with a sharp stick. I hobbled along, one eye closed against the headache, skip-stepping to keep my weight off my bad ankle.

  I stood in the middle of the village square.

  "Ash? Ash, I need you, please come out."

  No answer. I wanted to sit down and think about what to do next, but feared once I sat I wouldn't get back up.

  I decided to climb up to Ash's hut. Earlier in the afternoon the gentle hills around his home had been inviting. Now they felt like cliffs covered with jagged stones and loose dirt. Every time I slipped, I jarred my ankle, and the pain in my head flared.

  I heard the trickling of the small stream before I saw the hut, and nearly cried in relief. Jack and I pushed our way through the leather flap, and I tried to order my thoughts to explain to Ash why I had failed in my mission to get the statue out of his world.

  But Ash wasn't there. The fire was cold, and the hut was entirely empty.

  I dragged myself inside anyway. Where could he be? Jack flopped down next to me. I loosened his harness, and rummaged through the saddlebags on his pack to get out his bowl and water, and a packet of soft food.

  "Here you go, Jack." He glanced at me, then continued his feast. "You've been such a good boy today, and what a weird day it's been."

  The sunlight was about to die, and I didn't want to be alone in the dark. I brushed the ashes off the flat stone under the smoke hole, and went outside to gather up a few twigs and pine needles, and a couple larger branches. I cleared as large of an area as possible around my new fireplace, in case sparks jumped out, like they did at home once, and ruined one of Dad's favorite rugs with burn marks.

  Remembering remains of the fire in the Bosque, I shuddered. Here the consequences could be more than a rug destroyed. Whole swathes of forest could burn. I was terrified of the possibilities, but I needed the light and the heat.

  The twigs and pine needles caught from the match in an immediate whoosh. The flames made me feel less alone, as if they created a link between my ape ancestors and me when they first discovered fire, and huddled around it to ward off the darkness.

  My folks were never going to let me leave the house again after this. They must be crazy worried by now. I wished there was a way to tell them I was okay, but there were no phones here. I got out my notebook again, in hopes that writing would soothe some of the worry.

  Writing by firelight wasn't easy. When I think about all those great authors from the past who at night were confined to oil lamps or candles, I'm amazed they wrote anything at all. The flames flickered from almost bright enough, to not quite, and the shadows on the page danced, and it was hard on the eyes.

  I pulled out a squished cheese sandwich from my bag, and ate it anyway. I drank some water and put the half-empty bottle by the doorframe to remind me to refill it from the stream before I left in the morning. The way my head ached, I wasn't sure how good my memory was going to be.

  The crawl to the door was agony. My ankle throbbed constantly.

  "Jack, we've got to do something about this." He seemed to agree with me, but offered no suggestions. I sighed. "I guess I'm on my own."

  I hate going through other people's stuff. Like how Dad always looks uncomfortable going through Mom's purse, even when she asks him to get her wallet or something. But I needed to find something to wrap up my ankle. It might be too late to get the swelling down, but I could at least give it more support than my tennis shoes provided.

  I found a short length of soft leather, and a braided cord. Not ideal, not the type of bandage the school nurse would have put together. But I wrapped it around my ankle anyway, tied it off, and the pain eased, even if only in my imagination.

  Jack went outside, then came right back in. I looked at my watch and, yup, it's almost exactly when I usually let him out before bedtime. Jack may not have known where we were, but he knew the routine.

  So did I, but I wanted to wait up for Ash. Nothing else in our routine was going to be normal tonight. I liked Ash. He seemed like a nice boy with a good heart. But I didn't want to surprise him.

  Jack sprawled beside the dying fire chasing rabbits in his sleep, paws flopping in the air, nose twitching. He appeared to think this was a grand adventure. I smiled and stroked his silky ears gently, so as not to wake him.

  I banked the fire. We didn't need the warmth; the hut did an amazing job of keeping the heat in. I would never have thought a house with a hole in the roof for smoke and a leather flap over the door would be so cozy. Now it made the perfect little camp.

  I sat by the embers and thought about my folks, and Ash, and the mystery of Shriveled Corn Man, and what on earth we were going to do about any of it. I dozed off that way, sitting up with my bad leg stretched out in front of me. When I woke, the fire was out, and it was still night, and there was no Ash. I dragged myself over to his bed of boughs, and dropped back into sleep immediately. As I had hoped, I dreamed about the old man and woman.

  * * *

  They sat together under th
e large cottonwood tree in the village square. I ran up to them. "Please, help us! I don't know where Ash is, and I can't get home, and . . ."

  Embarrassed, I broke down crying in front of them. The old man looked away, but Spider Old Woman stood and walked forward and let me cry against her dark dress. She smelled like strange plants I had never seen, exotic spices and dust.

  I thought about who she was, how Ash had described her, a strange mythical being, powerful, but constrained by rituals. She didn't seem like that now, just like someone's grandmother, and she held me gently. That feeling lasted for a less than a minute. She patted my shoulder roughly and took a half step backwards.

  "Enough of that. We haven't the time for such indulgences." Her voice was crisp, cold.

  "Thank you. I'm sorry, but a whole lot has happened at once and I'm scared."

  "We are well aware of what has happened, child. This was not the plan."

  She returned to her place under the tree, and gestured for me to sit in front of them. Now that all the emotional stuff was over, Coyote watched me again.

  I knelt, grateful that in the dreamworld my ankle wasn't in pain.

  "Coyote, was that you at the end of the trail today? Why wouldn't you let me go home?"

  He laughed, and rubbed his hand through his messy brown hair. It stuck up in all directions, worse than before.

  "Girl, there was no going home for you. The path was blocked when you fell to the side of the trail. If you had tried to find your own way, you would have been lost forever.

  "The land between the realm of Ash's village and your own is filled with shifting sands. Not only shifting in the wind, but between a multitude of worlds, an infinite number of realities. Here they are only a step away from one another. It is possible to learn to walk them, go from one to the next, but you have no training, and would have blindly run, lost forever, in worlds far from your home and family. Only the path is a direct connection."

  "So," I stopped, and gulped. My throat tightened and threatened new tears, even as I tried to force the words out. "Does that mean I can't ever go home?"

  "Of course not, child." Spider Old Woman's voice was brisk now, with none of the sweetness she had shown moments ago. "We forged the first path, we can forge it again. But we need time, and we need Shriveled Corn Man not to be a nuisance while we work. It is a delicate task, like sewing together two of the finest, thinnest veils you can imagine, without running the needle into any other fabric, even though there are countless other veils between them."

  I couldn't imagine how that would work, but I could see what she was getting at.

  Spider Old Woman continued, "We can do it, but not right now."

  "Why can't you, I don't know, squish Shriveled Corn Man? Aren't you just as strong as him, or gods, or something?"

  Coyote laughed so hard I saw his shape start to waver, flowing back and forth between skin and fur, his nose flat and small one moment, stretched out to a muzzle the next.

  "What a wonderful trick that would be, if we were gods. We're not exactly gods child, just very, very old."

  "Old?"

  "Yes, we are old and strong beyond the strength of any living one, that is true. But with that strength comes a balance. There are many things in which we cannot directly interfere, rituals that must be kept. If we did not have boundaries, and agree to live within them, we would become no better than Shriveled Corn Man."

  I thought for a moment. It made a certain sort of sense, if there was logic to magic, and crossing worlds, and sorcerers turning people into cornhusk dolls.

  "But what am I supposed to do now? I tried to get the oxuwah Ash gave me out to my world, and couldn't."

  I reached for my backpack, but it hadn't followed me into the dreamworld.

  "Keep the oxuwah as safe as you can. Try to help Ash, but if you can't, then you must be the one to wear down Shriveled Corn Man's power, make him pull his magic from his very soul."

  "How? I don't know how this works!" I said. "I have no magic of my own, I don't know how to do magic, and I don't have the slightest idea how to wear him out. I'm not the right person for this."

  "The day approaches. You should go back now." Spider Old Woman rose gracefully to her feet. "We know this will not be easy or pleasant for you. But if Ash is defeated, you are the only one left we can use. There is no one else."

  * * *

  I was still following the old couple through the village, protesting, when I woke. Ash's bed of boughs was more comfortable than I had expected, and I had slept well past sunrise.

  I sat up and braced for the headache to stab into my eye again, but it was only a dull ache, nothing compared to yesterday's agony.

  "Now for the real test. How's my ankle today, Dr. Jack?"

  Doctor Jack looked at me like I had gotten up on the crazy side of the bed, and went outside to do his business. He was probably right, but I didn't think there was a sane side, not as long as I was trapped there.

  I stood up, and transferred some of my weight to my swollen ankle. Not quite healed yet, but I would be able to walk without the stick.

  I took the water bottles outside, and refilled them at the stream. I hoped the water was clean and wasn't going to make Jack and me sick as, well . . . sick as dogs.

  That was much funnier to me than it should have been, and I laughed all the way back into the hut. Jack clearly thought I was still crazy, but was willing to put up with it for a little dog food.

  I thought about food as he ate, and I dug out another sandwich. If we were going to be here for a while, food would become a problem. I had to find Ash.

  I wrapped up half my sandwich for later, and eyed the apples. As much as I'd love one, they would last longer than the sandwiches and I should leave them alone for now. I checked out the side pockets in my backpack, and found three energy bars squirreled away from previous walks. It wasn't much food, but I was sure we'd be home before we ran out.

  Before I put Jack's harness on him I paused. How long could he wear it without it giving him sores? It wasn't made for all-day, every-day use. How long until the straps rubbed him raw?

  I unpacked the little saddlebags and moved his supplies into my pack, then put the harness back on him. It would at least be lighter now. I didn't have room for the harness in my pack, but I feared it would fit soon enough as we ate through our supplies. I wrapped his leash around my waist and then sat in the dust with Jack's head between my hands.

  "Alright Jack, here's the scoop: we're in a strange place, and there are bad people around, and we've got stuff to do. I can't be holding your leash all the time. You're going to have to be good all on your own. Stay with me, but if I say run, run away, okay? I don't want you on the leash, where it can get tangled with something."

  He looked at me with solemn brown eyes. I had lost my mind, but nights of talking with the shapeshifting Coyote made me wonder how much Jack understood. And now that we were here, in this place where magic worked, did he understand me more than when we were at home?

  "Right, I'm crazy. But be good, okay?"

  * * *

  I walked down the slope to the village and Jack trotted beside me. The climb that seemed so steep and treacherous last night was a gently rolling slope this morning. Birds trilled, the clear bright sky soared above me, and if it hadn't been for a bitter old sorcerer wreaking revenge on a village, with me stuck in the middle and trapped in another reality, it would have been a lovely day.

  As we approached the outlying houses I slowed. I wasn't sure how to go about finding Ash. With my ankle, climbing up and down ladders all day checking the inside of every room was going to be difficult and painful, if not impossible. I didn't know the layout of the village well enough to make a plan, where the logical place to start would be, what hiding places might exist. I stopped, thought about it for a bit, and then muttered apologies to my ankle and trudged back up the hill.

  About a quarter of the way up, I turned back to face downhill. From this height I had a good overview,
and made a quick sketch. The village was laid out in a rough oval. The houses weren't laid out on a grid like they would have been at home, but a beaten trail stretched from the path that once had come in from the split tree, and continued through to the open space with the large cottonwood, and out of the village into more hills.

  I checked my compass, and the hills seemed to be east of where I was. Having a compass was a great idea, but a better one would have been to practice with it so I knew how to use it properly.

  The village was at its widest around the open square, and tapered off at either end of the path. I decided I would start at the end of the path nearest the split cottonwood tree, work my way up the western side of the village, and then back down the eastern half. It wouldn't do any good to search if I was sloppy and haphazard. I'd just waste time and miss Ash in some obvious place.

  As I walked back down the hill, my thoughts drifted to what I would be doing if I were at home. Breakfast smells would fill the house, and chatter with my parents about their day, and plans of what to do, maybe read a book and get dinner ready later. It would be so normal.

  Mom and Dad must be frantic with worry by now. I wished I could get a message to them, let them know I was okay, just tangled up in weirdness. They would know what to do, how to fix it. My eyes got wet and sticky, and my throat felt tight. Then I stumbled on a rock, and the stab of pain through my ankle snapped me out of my daydream.

  Not now. I felt like a traitor, but it would be stupid to let homesickness get me hurt. In my head, I gave Mom and Dad a hug, and tried shove all my terror and fear about what they must be going through into a little box, and then did my best to focus on where I was going.

  The first house was silent. I remembered how thick the walls were, but if Ash was inside, I would hear him, or he would hear me. I'd heard that darn raccoon after all.

  "Ash? Ash, are you there?"

  I counted to ten silently. No answer. I wished I had chalk, but in the absence of it, I took four rocks from the ground and stacked them by the wall. At least this way I wouldn't check the same room twice.