Coyote Blue

Chapter 32~33

CHAPTER 32

A Doctorate in Deception

According to Pokey, at the time the white men came, there were seven sacred arrow bundles. Each had been made by four medicine men who had the same vision at the same time. Once the bundles were made, the medicine men vowed never to gather again, afraid that if their combined power were stolen by one, he would become invincible and abuse the power. These bundles contained the most powerful of warrior medicine, able to protect the carrier from an enemy's weapon, give him the ability to travel swiftly, and escape to the Underworld in an emergency, to return later, unharmed. Of the original seven bundles, two had been destroyed by fire, two by flood, two were locked away in museums in Washington, and the last to leave the reservation was in the hands of a private collector in Billings, who had bought it from a family who had been converted to Christianity and thought the bundle might jeopardize their salvation.

At first Sam suspected Pokey's story. His choice finally to believe it was based more on heart than logic. Whether the story of the bundles was true or not didn't matter as much as the hope it inspired. Action based on hope just felt better than the paralysis of certainty.

When Sam came through the door of the Hunts Alone house, Cindy hardly recognized him. When she had first met him he seemed weak, wasted, and without reason to live. Now he was moving and talking with purpose. Sam said, "Cindy, I'm sorry about before. I don't want to impose."

"You're family," she said, and that was all the explanation needed.

"Thanks," Sam said. "We went to see Pokey. He's doing fine."

"Did they say when he can come home?"

"We're bringing him home tonight, if things go the way they should. Can I use the phone?"

Cindy waved toward the kitchen table, where the phone sat amid a stack of cereal boxes and bowls. Sam checked on Grubb, found him sleeping, and went to the phone.

The first call went out to the Museum of the West in Cody, Wyoming. Yes, they knew a serious collector of Indian artifacts in Billings; they had bought several pieces from him over the years. His name was Arnstead Houston.

The next call was to his office in Santa Barbara. "Gabriella, I need you to take the key I gave you and go to my house. In my closet there's a corduroy jacket with suede elbow patches. Load it in my garment bag with the khaki pants, a flannel shirt, and that goofy Indiana Jones hat that Aaron gave me for Christmas. Put in my blue pinstripe suit  -  shirt, shoes, and tie to match. Then grab my briefcase and get it all on the next plane to Billings, Montana. Buy a seat for it if you have to. Put it on the corporate card. And run the name Arnstead Houston through all our companies' client files  -  go to the Insurance Institute if you have to. It's a Billings address."

He waited while Gabriella put the name through the computer and came back with the name of Houston's home-owner's insurance carrier. "Give me the agent's number." Sam scribbled it down. "Call me back at this number as soon as you confirm the arrival time of my stuff in Billings." He gave her the Hunts Alone number.

He dialed the number of Houston's insurance agent in Billings and spoke in an Oklahoma accent. "Yes, I'm interested in insuring some valuable Indian artifacts. Arnie Houston recommended you." Sam waited. "I didn't figure you handled that sort of thing. Do you remember who you referred Arnie to? Boulder Casualty? You got a number for them? Thanks, pardner."

Sam hung up the phone and it rang immediately. "Hello. Five today? That's the earliest? Thanks, Gabriella. Oh, I forgot  -  call and reserve a car at the Billings airport. Something with four-wheel drive. A Blazer or a Bronco or something. White if they have it. I'll pick it up at five. Yes, the corporate card. Fuck Aaron. Tell him I'm on a hunting trip. And Gabby, you are incredible, you really are. I know I've never told you that before. Because it was time I did. Take care."

He disconnected and dialed another number, waited, then spoke with an English accent. "Yes, Boulder Casualty. This is Samuel Smythe-White with Sotheby's, London. So sorry to bother you, but we've a bit of a problem that you may be able to help us with. It seems we've recently acquired some Red Indian items  -  a bit unusual for us  -  and we're at a loss as for someone to authenticate them. The owner, who must remain anonymous I'm afraid, has suggested that you insure this sort of thing and might know of an appraiser. Yes, I'll wait."

Sam held the phone aside and lit a cigarette. "No, no, location is not a problem. Sotheby's will fly him to London." Sam scribbled something. "Jolly good. Yes, thank you."

He disconnected and dialed Arnstead Houston's number. "Hello, Mr. Houston. This is Bill Lanier. I'm the new head of Ethnic Studies at the University of Washington. Yes. The reason I'm calling is that I just got a call from Boulder Casualty. It seems that there is an item in your collection that has been severely undervalued and they'd like us to take a look at it to make sure the schedule of coverage is in line. Of course, the new appraisal would increase the price if you should ever want to sell it." Sam paused and listened.

He continued, "A Crow medicine bundle. Yes. This one's a cylinder, a hollowed-out cedar log. That's right. Well, sir, we'll need to take a look at it in person. We happen to have a tribal expert visiting the campus right now. We could be in Billings by five thirty tonight. No, I'm afraid he has to fly to a dig in Arizona tomorrow. It will have to be tonight. Yes, I have your address. Thank you, sir."

Sam hung up, sat back, and let out a long sigh. The whole process had taken less than five minutes. When he turned around both Cindy and Coyote were staring at him. Cindy's mouth was hanging open.

"What was that?" Coyote asked.

"You," Sam said, "are now working, indirectly, as an artifacts expert for the Boulder Casualty Insurance Company and I am now a professor of anthropology at the University of Washington,"

"I've been looking for a job," Cindy said, shaking her head. "They always make me fill out an application."

Coyote looked at Cindy. "He has shifty eyes, don't you think?"

-=*=-

Arnie Houston sat in his den looking at the arrow bundle on the coffee table before him: a hollowed-out log full of junk. But there was nothing quite so exciting as turning junk into money, and he was so excited now he could have peed his Wranglers. God bless archaeology. God bless museums. God bless historic preservation. God bless America!

Where else could a piece of oil-field trash with a fourth-grade education be living in a twenty-room house with a new Corvette in the garage, wearing thousand-dollar sea-turtle-skin boots and two pounds of silver and turquoise jewelry? And all of it from buying and selling Indian junk. God bless every eggheaded, gopher-hearted anthropologist that ever wrote a paper or dug a hole. Damn!

Arnie got up and went over to his bar, where he poured himself a snifter of Patron tequila  -  thirty bucks a bottle, but the finest cactus juice ever burned hair off your tongue. And it calms you down. Can't let them think you're in it for the money, the dumb shits: most of 'em could say howdy in thirty-seven dead languages, tell you the time a day a shaman shit two hundred years ago plus the ritual that went with it, but couldn't tell a nickel from a knothole when it came to money.

They always went to the tribal council or a medicine man when they wanted to buy something  -  that was their big mistake. You got to do your research. Find out what family's got something and then find the one in the family who drinks the most. When he's feeling his firewater, you be there with the cash. Presto, you got yourself a priceless Indian artifact for dirt cheap. Arnie had just picked up a whole basket of heirloom beadwork over at the Yakima res  -  a hundred bucks. The Yakima were just getting into crack cocaine and Arnie was in on the ground floor with investment capital. The beads had been in the families for hundreds of years and he'd already had an offer of ten thousand for them from the Museum of the West  -  upon authentication, of course.

Anthropologists, here's to 'em! Arnie thought. He toasted the fish in the aquarium by the bar and tossed back the Patron, then took a gamble by looking out the front window. A white Blazer pulled into the circular driveway and two men got out, both of them tall  -  one, an Indian in a suit, and the other in a corduroy jacket and khakis: the anthropologist. The Indian must be the expert he talked about on the phone. City Indian: making a living off of being Indian, going on about exploitation and such. Worthless troublemakers: wouldn't shoot one if I needed to unload my gun.

Arnie stashed the snifter under the bar and went to the front door. He brushed back the sides of his hair with his fingers  -  careful not to disturb the five strands combed over the top  -  and opened the door.

"Mr. Houston, I'm Dr. Lanier from the University of Washington. This is Running Elk, the gentleman I mentioned on the phone." The Indian nodded.

"Come on in," Arnie said, waving them into the tiled foyer. "I took it out of the safe and put it on the table for you." He didn't really have a safe, but it sounded good.

He led them into the den and stood by the coffee table. "Here she is."

The Indian moved to the fish tank and peered in. The professor walked around the table looking at the log, as if he were afraid to pick it up. "Have you opened it?"

Arnie had to think. What was the best answer? These fellows liked playing detective, finding their own clues. "No, sir. The fella I got it from told me what was inside, though. Four arrows, an eagle skull, and some, er..." Damn, how do you describe it? It was just brown powdery shit. "And some sacred powder."

"And who did you get it from?"

"Fellow on the res. Old family, but he didn't want me to say. He's afraid of the Traditionals getting revenge on him."

"I'm going to have to open it to determine the value."

"Quite so," the Indian said, still looking in the fish tank. The anthropologist shot him a nasty look. What was up with these two? An Indian who talks like a Brit; if that didn't just beat the ugly off an ape.

"It's okay with me," Arnie said. "Looks like them ends just come off like bottle caps." That's exactly how they had come off when he opened it.

"Jolly good, old chap," the Indian said. "The fish say that it's been opened before."

"Thank you, Running Elk," said the professor. He seemed kinda ticked.

He set his briefcase on the table next to the bundle, snapped open the lid, and removed some white cotton gloves. "We don't want to disturb the integrity of the contents," he said, slipping on the gloves. "I'd prefer to do this in the lab, but I assure you I'll be careful."

You can blow the damn thing up for all I care, Arnie thought, as long as the price is right. But what was the deal with the Indian and the fish tank?

The professor removed the end of the wooden cylinder and placed it on the table. He removed one of the four arrows and studied its length. When he looked at the point his face lit up. "My God, Running Elk, do you see what I see?"

"What? What?" Arnie said. Was this good or bad?

The Indian looked up from the fish tank. "Oh, capital! He's promised them one of those plastic bubbling scuba divers if he sells it."

"What?" Arnie said.

The professor scowled at the Indian and held the arrow up for Arnie to see. "Mr. Houston, you see this arrow point?"

"Uh-huh."

"This is a small-game point, and the flaking is not the pattern you find on Crow points from the buffalo days."

"So?"

"So, I think this bundle is from the time before the Crows split from the Hidatsa. If that's the case, this bundle may be priceless."

Arnie saw a swimming pool appearing in his backyard, with a whole shitpot of girls in bikinis sitting around it, rubbing oil on his back. "How can you be sure?"

"I'll have to take it back to the university to have it carbon-dated." The professor put the arrow back into the bundle. From his briefcase he pulled out a sheaf of forms. "I hope you'll understand, Mr. Houston, the university can't bond something like this for its full value, but I could write a guarantee of perhaps two hundred thousand until the return." The professor waited, his pen poised over the form.

Arnie pretended to think about it. In fact, he was thinking about the new swimming pool. Now it was indoors and had a big hot tub full of dollies. "I guess that will be all right," he said. The professor began writing on the form. "We should have it back to you within the week. I'll see to it personally that it's handled carefully. If you'll just sign here." He pushed the form over to Arnie.

There it was, $200,000.00 in big black numbers. It was all he needed to see. Arnie signed and pushed the paper back to the professor.

The professor closed his briefcase and got up. "Well, I'd like to get this back to the lab by tonight and start the work on it. I'll call you as soon as we know for sure." He picked up the bundle and headed for the door.

"You take care now. Thanks," Arnie said, holding the door for them.

"No, thank you, Mr. Houston."

"Cheerio," the Indian said as they climbed into the Blazer. "Oh yes, your mates said they'd like a Flipper video and a bit of brine shrimp to eat."

Arnie watched the Blazer pulling away. Boy, the old professor was sure giving Running Elk hell for something. Eggheads. He wondered for a minute why the Blazer had mud on the license plates when it was so clean everywhere else. Hell with it, it was time to celebrate. A buddy had given him the number of a little dolly who for two hundred dollars would come over in her cheerleader outfit. He'd been saving it for a special occasion and it looked like it was time to dig out that ol' number and see if she really could suck the furniture out of a room through the keyhole.

-=*=-

As soon as they were out of sight of Arnie's house, Sam took the Indiana Jones hat off and smacked Coyote with it. "What were you thinking? You almost blew it."

"The fish said he tricked someone to get that bundle."

"And what did we just do?"

"That's different. It was a Crow bundle."

"You wanted to blow it, didn't you? Why didn't you just hump his couch or something? Why didn't you just tell him the truth?"

"Well," Coyote said, "if your trick worked it would make a good story."

"I'll take that as as compliment." Sam was no longer angry. They had the bundle; now it was time to think about the next part of the plan. He believed what Pokey had told him about the power of the bundle, and all Pokey had ever asked of him was to be believed. He said, "Coyote, will you help me get Pokey out of the clinic?"

"Another trick?" Coyote asked.

"Of sorts."

"I'll help, but I won't go to the Underworld with you."

CHAPTER 33

Doors

Some of the color had returned to Pokey's face and someone had taken the braids out of his hair and brushed it. He opened his eyes when Sam entered the room.

"You got it?" Pokey said.

"It's in the car," Sam said. Coyote came in behind him.

Pokey grinned. "Old Man Coyote."

"Howdy," Coyote said. "How many times you died 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 if I can bring you back. I've been hiding out for my whole life, and I don't want to live that way anymore. Anyway, I wanted you to know that Grubb will be okay. My family will take care of him. I'll be with you, one way or another."

Sam leaned over and kissed her. "Soon," he said. He got up and walked out of the trailer.

Across the yard, the fire crackled and licked the sky, heating the rocks for the sweat. Pokey sat on a lawn chair, the arrow bundle in his lap, his eyes glistening orange in the firelight. Harlan was carrying rocks from the fire to the pit inside the sweat lodge. Sam stood by with Harry and Festus, watching. After the initial surprise that Sam was still alive, Harry and Festus simply fell into their normal roles of listening to their father argue with Pokey. Sam noticed that they had the lean, muscular frame of their father, the same square-set jaw. Harlan was a little thinner now, and his hair had gone gray, but otherwise, to Sam, he seemed the same.

"The boys and me have to go to work in the morning," Harlan said. "We can't stay late, Pokey. No drinking."

"I ain't going to drink," Pokey said.

Harlan dropped a hot rock into the pit and wiped sweat from his forehead. "I can't believe that doctor let you come home. Just yesterday he was puttin' your death on my hands for not moving you to the hospital in Billings."

"He's a pissant," Pokey said. "How's it coming?"

Harlan scraped another rock out of the fire and scooped it up with the pitchfork. "This ought to do it." He unbuckled his pants and began to get undressed. The others followed his lead, hanging their clothes on Pokey's chair.

Sam took the bundle from Pokey and put it in the sweat lodge, then helped the old man out of his hospital gown. Pokey crawled into the sweat lodge, where the others sat in a semicircle facing him.

"Before I drop the door, I got to open this here bundle. It's a real old one, so no one knows the right song. I'm going to have to make it up as I go along. Okay?"

Pokey held up the bundle and sang a prayer song, thanking the spirits for the gift of the sweat. He laid out a square of buckskin for the objects in the medicine bundle. "I don't know what's going to happen here, but Harlan, you and the boys got to pray that Samson has a safe journey. He's going on a kind of vision quest, but he ain't going to the Spirit World." Pokey looked at Sam. "You've seen her since you got here, right?"

"Yes," Sam said.

"And she's still in the trailer?"

"Yes."

"Who?" Harry asked.

"Never mind," Pokey said. They hadn't told Harlan and the boys about Calliope or Coyote. "Here we go." He threw a handful of sage onto the stones. When the smoke rose he held the bundle in it, then took off the cap. He began singing as he took each object from the bundle and set it on the buckskin. Sam closed his eyes and concentrated on going to the Underworld and what he had to do there.

"Heya, heya, heya, an arrow.

Heya, heya, heya, another arrow

Heya, heya, heya, another arrow

Heya, heya, heya, the last arrow.

Heya, heya, heya, an eagle skull.

Heya, heya, heya, some brown stuff."

"Some brown stuff?" Harlan said.

"Well, I don't know what it is," Pokey said. "It looks like brown stuff to me."

"Whatever it is, it's working," Festus said, pointing to Sam, who was shivering, even in the heat of the sweat lodge. His eyes were open but rolled back in his head, showing no pupils.

"I'm dropping the door," Pokey said. "Now pray for his return like you never prayed before."

***