The little girl had a fever. Her mother had bathed her and wrapped her with an herb blanket, but still her fever grew. A blanket of fresh herbs woven together was the only medicine available in the remote corner of the reservation where they lived. Their house situated against the edge of the desert landscape. There was no real road to where they lived and the mail, what little they received was in a box at the postoffice they picked up on their monthly trips to town. Naanally used what medicine she had on hand, and the occasional visits from the tribal medicine man, who was also trained as a paramedic was the only modern medicine available to their family.
After two days little Papu-ay’s fever finally broke and Naanally found her covered in cold sweat. Naanally gave her a bath and dried her off, the little girl’s eyes stayed closed and she lay there silent. Naanally thought Papu-ay must be feeling better, although she still slept, and Naanally went to sleep then, she had been awake for two days caring for her little daughter, stroking her head while she slept and waiting for the fever to break. Comforting her with cool rags on the child’s head and singing songs to her in her soft, melodic voice.
She meant to close her eyes and rest for just a few minutes, but she fell into a deep sleep and did not awake until sunrise. When she opened her eyes. Looking over at Papu-ay’s bedroll she realized the little girl was gone! Vanished! No one in the village had seen her leave.The hunters met in the center of the village and divided up into 4 groups to go in each direction to look for her.It didnt take long for the group moving north to find her tracks out in the desert. Naanally went with them, north into the desert.
They followed her trail but after a day of searching didn’t find her.
Returning to the village they found the girl asleep sitting on the ground next to her house. Her father fan toward her and called her name repeatedly, she didn’t move. She sat staring into the distance, her eyes focused into the desert. She didn’t blink, she barely breathed as though she were frozen on the spot. As he drew closer he saw she had a puppy on her lap. Looking closely at the puppy he realized it was a coyote pup.
He bent down to pick her up off the ground where she sat but she didn’t move, as he wrapped his arms around her she started to sing softly in a language no one could understand. She continued to gaze steadily into the distance, her eyes glassy like she was in a trance. Her voice rose and fell, and she began to stroke the puppy on her lap singing in the strange language. Her father stepped back from the child, his child. He looked around at the other men and his wife who were standing there and there was a light of fear in his eyes. Several of the men spoke softly together and walked away from the village to find OekkoeKee the medicine man. He lived outside the village in a cave built in the side of a cliff.
They told OekkoeKee the story about the little girl and he quickly packed his drum and blanket into a small bag, slung it over his shoulder and followed the young men back to the village. As they walked up towards the village they could hear the girls voice still singing in a language no one knew. OekkoeKee laughed to himself. He knew what she was singing, he had heard that song before in journeys into the Other World. He walked up to the child and she stopped singing, opening her eyes and seeing clearly she looked up at him and said
“Hello Grandfather” and smiled up at him.
“He smiled back at her responding “ I can hear in your voice you have met my friend”
“Yes, grandfather, he is here with me, he called me into the desert and then brought me back here, he gave me this” she said as she held up the puppy to the old shaman.
“Oh very good, very good, I will sit now and drum so I will step over the doorway into the next place and speak with him.”
At that he walked a few steps away from the girl and sat reached into his bag, unfolding his blanket on the ground and taking his drum out sat down on the blanket. He began to drum, softly at first and then louder. His body swayed with the drum’s throbbing and soon he began to sing softly, so quietly no one there could make out the words he sang.
The medicine man kept beating the drum and chanting softly. He hit the drum hard 3 times.
Gdoom, Gdoom, Gdoom !
the drum sounded and then he slumped onto the ground, lost in his trance. The drum fell silent but the chanting continued. The puppy on Papu-ay’s lap began to yelp and jumped up dancing in a little circle. Yelping and leaping. Perhaps he saw the spirit as well.
As the drum fell silent Oek-koe-Kee awoke into his dreaming. All around him was night and darkness. He stood and stretched his legs, looking around he noticed the girl was gone, the people were all gone, the coyote pup still lay where the girl had been sitting, the medicine man knew that he was walking in the world of the spirits and that in the world of the living it was still day and the sun was shining in the sky. He stood and studied his surroundings then walked into the house in front of him. The door was open, the room was covered in blackness as he entered, his eyes quickly adjusting to the dark he could make out the shape of a man seated at a table across the room. He watched the man carefully, wary if he made any sudden movement. But the man sat, half hidden by the cloak of darkness, as the medicine man watched the man, if he was a man, opened his eyes and they glowed green in the darkness, they glowed with an inner light, like the eyes of an animal in the night.
The light of the moon came through a window and fell on the dark figure. OekkoeKee knew who it was, the body of a tall thin man with the head of a coyote. Coyote Man. OekkoeKee had seen him before, in his journeys and in his dreaming. Coyote Man leaded forward putting his elbows on the table.
“I have come to heal the girl.” Coyote Man said.
“But why?”OekkoeKee asked.
“Don’t you want to know my terms?” the Trickster spirit asked.
“”I will not bargain with the Trickster spirit” OekkoeKee said.
“You know the girl will die from the fever, it is up to you” Coyote Man replied.
“The girl must give me blood and bone, then I will save her and teach her to heal her people, I will teach her sorcery long forgotten by humans, you know I can, will you do the ritual? I will teach you how.”
“What are you asking me to do?” OekkoeKee asked.
“I need bone for my dog and blood for my necklace.” Th
Then a shaft of moonlight again came through the window, this time it lit upon the necklace around CoyoteMan’s neck.OekkoeKee saw the necklace was made of tiny bones tied together.
“You will cut her little finger, the little finger of her left hand, it will not bother her once it is healed. I will cover her mind and it will not hurt her, she will feel nothing. You will let the blood drip into a bowl. As the blood touches the sides of the bowl it will disappear, the bowl will remain clean, that is how you will know I have accepted your gift. Then you will cut off the tip of the little finger and place it in the bowl also. It too shall disappear and the bowl will remain clean. I will keep my part of the bargain and she will be a great healer. I will teach her myself. I will teach her what you have forgot.”
As Coyote Man stopped speaking the room again went dark.
“Is that all you want?” OekkoeKee asked, he was suspicious of Coyote Man.
“I will feed her finger to my companion and when he shits it out i will add it to my necklace.”
“I will go back and do as you have asked me. But no tricks from you.”
“There is no trick this time, you will help me and I will help you, the girl has now seem beyond and there is no turning from her vision, she will see even better than you! She has a place now in both worlds.” the spirit said. Suddenly a large coyote stood next to the table, eyes glowing and fangs flashing as he began a deep howl that vibrated through OekkoeKee’s spirit body.
With that OekkoeKee awoke, the sound of howling still ringing in his ears. His chanting stopped as he started to move around rousing his mind and body back into this world. He placed the drum on his blanket and stood up stretching his body. He walked over to Pappu-ay and set the puppy aside, lifted her in his arms and carried her into the adobe.
He looked at Naanally before saying “I need a clean bowl and some water”
“What did you see ?” she asked him.
He said nothing and she went to get a bowl and water as he had asked.
“Leave us now” he said to Naanally. “ I have made an agreement with the Spirit of Coyote, if I do not honor the agreement this child will pass to the next world”
Naanally paused and looked back and forth between her child and the medicine man. She felt her heart tighten “Do nnt hurt her” she whispered.
“I just honor the agreement, I was told she would feel no pain, it is a little thing, her finger tip is all the spirit wants. He told me she would feel no pain” he assured her.
A tear ran down Naanally’s face. She knew this was life or death, and would never question the agreement between the medicine man and the spirits. She turned and left the house, a knot was in her stomach but she wanted her child to live.
OekkoeKee took his knife and made a small cut in Pappu-ay’s finger as the Coyote Man had told him to. He watched her blood drip into the bowl. The drop of blood began to drip down the side of the bowl then it disappeared! The bargain was true and good. Two more drops of blood fell into the bowl and they too vanished. With a quick snap of his fingers OekkoeKee cur her finger at the knuckle the tiny fingertip fell into the bowl and instantly disappeared, eaten by the spirit animal that had been there with the Coyote Man.
But OekkoeKee had no time to marvel at what had happened before his eyes. He quickly reached into his pouch and tied a small bundle of herbs and a piece of cloth around her finger to staunch the wound. He carried the child back outside where he had found her. He put her back in the exact same place. The puppy climbed back on her lap and she started singing again stroking the coyote pup, Her eyes glazed over looking off into the distance, OekkoeKee waited nearby for the child to awake from her trance. He found a place to sit nearby where he could watch her from a distance and hide himself from the sun which was now high in the sky and blazing down from above.
Night fell and still the child sang in the language of the gods. Finally dawn came and with the dawn the child awoke from her trance. OekkoeKee stood up and walked over to where she now stood, the coyote pup walking around her feet. She held up her hand and looked at it.
“So it is true” she said.
“What did you see?” OekkoeKee asked her.
I saw the desert, I was flying through the air, high up off the ground. I flew north, that way,” and she pointed towards the north. I flew through the air and I crossed a river. I saw a large stone come up through the ground and then the ground opened and unfolded into a low hill. I stopped flying and landed on that hill to rest and this puppy came and lay next to me at the top of the ridge. I started singing to the puppy and then I was back home sitting here. Grandfather Coyote said he had carried me here on his back.
Grandfather Coyote, he came to me and stroked my hair and told me I would go back to the light, and that he would give me a friend, this little coyote dog. And that he would take a little bone and a little blood and all would be alright, he said he would come back and check on me. Then he shape shifted into a giant coyote dog and another coyote dog was with him and they howled together for awhile and then ran off to the north towards the mountains and disappeared.
“You are very brave, you were not afraid of Coyote Man?”
“No I wasn’t afraid of him, he wanted to help me go back home” Pappu-Ay answered him. Her face was very serious and she looked at him with large, dark eyes.
“Come, let’s go see your mother and father. They have been worried about you. You have been gone for many days now”.
With that he put his arm on her shoulder and they walked into the adobe where her mother was already standing watching. She retold her story of what she had seen and her mother only stared back and forth between her little girl and the old shaman. He just nodded his head at Naanally listening to the story again.
He spoke when Pappu-ay was finished and said that yes, Coyote Man was who he met in his journey to find Pappu-Ay. That he too had seen the spirit Coyote and that was who he had made the deal with. He told them both about the instructions he had received from Coyote and that the finger tip wouldn’t hurt Pappu-Ay. Because that was what Coyote had promised him.
Naanally was only confused where the coyote pup had come from.
“A gift from Coyote Man” was all that OekkoeKee would say, and that the pup now belonged to Pappu-Ay.
With that OekkoeKee turned and packed his blanket in his bag and turned to walk home. As he reached the crest of the first hill, Pappu-Ay ran up to him, “ Oh wait!” she said running on her short legs. “Here, I forgot, Grandfather gave me this to give you! Hold out your hand” which he did , and she reached into her pocket and placed something round into it.
“Thankyou” OekkoeKee said. He opened his hand only to reveal a large round piece of turquoise.
“Thankyou, Coyote Man must like you!” was all she said then she turned and ran back towards the village where her mother was waiting.
