Sky Coyote (36 page)

“White men?” somebody ventured fearfully.

“No!” I replied, though it was true.

“The spirits of the dead?” tried somebody else.

“No! No, my own dear nephews and nieces, I saw not one, not two, not three, but four big sky canoes! The very same sky canoes that are going to carry us away from here!”

This made for general excited babble from most of them, though some thoughtful souls fell silent and stared. I raised my paws again.

“And they are
beautiful
sky canoes too!” I went on. “Wait till you see them! They shine like polished abalone shell. They’re bigger than the council house. They’re all enclosed, so the wind won’t blow us overboard on our journey. The sea won’t even splash us. There are fine seats inside these canoes and, best of all, they have what you have never, ever seen in any other canoe in your lives: latrines!”

This impressed everybody.

“You mean—”

“Yes! No need to worry about falling off while the canoe is moving. No need to cross your legs until you reach your destination.
A beautiful private room instead, with a door that closes and plenty of hygienic accessories!”

“How do you get all that in a canoe?” demanded Nutku, clearly taken with the idea.

“Sky Magic, friend. So! My Sky spirits are waiting for us out on Raven Point. Each of you needs to go back to your house now, and pack a bundle for traveling. Yes, you can eat breakfast first. But don’t bother to wash dishes, don’t worry about banking the fire, don’t even stop to fasten shut your doors when you’ve finished. Just grab those bundles and be back here in an hour!”

It took slightly more than an hour, but they did it. In the time between, the security team from the base arrived, sent by Lopez for crowd control in the event of panic. I can’t say I wasn’t a little annoyed by this: I mean, I’m a persuasive guy and I know how to do my job, right? But they did look impressive lined up behind me, I had to admit. A whole squadron of immortals as green as trees, as silent as a forest at my back.

When finally the whole population of Humashup had returned with their luggage, I cleared my throat and barked: “Let’s all line up now! Families first. I want all the families in groups. Next, the single or divorced men. Single or divorced women next. Ladies, that’s so you can watch their behinds as they walk!”

With a little help from the security teams, they were lined up in no time. I took my place at the head of the line and turned back to address them.

“Are we all ready? Good! I’ve composed a little song in honor of the occasion, and we’ll sing it as we march along, all right? Here we go!”

So that was the way they walked out of time, my people of Humashup: singing, and they never looked once behind them. But I kept my eyes on the village as we went along, walking backward most of the way, and I swear I saw the thatching on the houses blow away, their upright poles collapse, everything crumble. The ghosts took it over. My village died again, the old life died again. It was the year 1700, and time was running out for the old ways, the little tribal villages under the trees. A couple more centuries, and there wouldn’t be any Stone Age left anywhere, would there? Except in my memory.

Then the town was out of sight, and we climbed up a canyon and wound across the green hills in a line, and the hard spring wind came up off the ocean and buffeted us all.

Sepawit strode at their head, holding his child tight in his arms, staring into the uncertain future. Ponoya trudged beside him, carrying the pack with their belongings. After him came a few married couples and several old folks carrying grandchildren, teenaged aunts and uncles pulling toddlers by the hand, big sisters or brothers carrying tiny babies, thin wary children on their own.
Yes, there was little Kyupi lugging the baby I’d saved, with the two young boys tagging after. Farewell, Raven, they sang.

In the next group came the rich men, Nutku and Kaxiwalic and the rest of the guys, and their cloaks were made of otterskin and they hefted skin bags full of money. Bracelets of money rattled on their arms, money swung in pendant loops about their throats, and they shuffled with careful steps so they wouldn’t lose any. I wondered if they’d packed their makeup and ceremonial costumes. Then came the shamans and priests, decked out in their feathers, bodies painted with signs to keep the world in balance, searching the sky for trouble. Last came the plain men, hunters, fishermen, and laborers, ragged or naked. Farewell, Raven, they sang.

The women came last. The well-born ones were skirted in deerskin, the poor ones in woven plant fiber, and all carried their lives on their backs. Some few carried infants. Some others wore a little money of their own. There were my groupie cuties, Puluy and Awhay, carefully dressed for the occasion, thrilled to trade the past for a new scene. There was the artist Skilmoy, angry about something again, and there was Anucwa, sagely giving her advice on what to do about it. Behind them they were leaving a hundred tasks undone for all time. Raven, farewell, they sang.

Get a good look at them all, because they’re going away forever.

They stopped singing when we came in sight of the ships, and some of them stopped in their tracks. There was the holoproduced vision of the Rainbow Bridge, arching above the transport pad, its other end vanishing into a golden cloud far out over the sea. Some of my Chumash looked scared, but the security teams closed right in to push them along.

“Look!” I barked, prancing, frisking in circles. “Look at the
lovely ships! Not only does each and every one have its own latrine, but we’ll all get delicious food and drink on board, served by beautiful Sky Ladies who will wait on you with smiles. I can hardly wait, can you? Come on!”

So I led them at last to the transport pad, where the ships sat like silver ducks. Here were the anthropologists, out to meet us with open arms. Green arms with goose pimples, but open anyway.

“Look, spirits, I have brought my nieces and nephews for a ride in the Sky Canoes!” I saluted them.

“Welcome, Children of Coyote!” they cried. But the people hung back, staring up at the gleaming ships.

“They don’t look like canoes,” ventured Sepawit. “They look like that flying tube the War Helmet Nunasis had.” He meant the Martian from our latest matinee. “Are you sure they’re safe?”

“Of course they’re safe! I’m going with you myself, aren’t I? Would I ride in them if they weren’t safe? You’ve all heard stories about what a coward I am.” Inspiration hit me. “And, you know what else? There’s
heating
inside those canoes.”

This brought a look of longing to many faces, including the anthropologists’. Nutku pushed through the line.

“Well, I’m through freezing. I want to see what it’s like inside one of those things,” he said. That got them moving, because of course his fellow kantap members had to come too or lose status, and naturally the priests and shamans couldn’t appear afraid, so they pushed forward up the boarding ramps, and as the leaders went, so went the townsfolk.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Backing around the side of a ship to get out of the wind, I bumped into someone. A cup of something hot was pressed into my paw. I gulped gratefully. Black coffee laced with aguardiente, wow.

“Swell!” I gasped, handing the cup back to Mendoza. “Burns all the way down. Say, what are you doing up here?”

“Turning to ice, same as everybody else. Came up to watch the end of it all.” She had the hood of her cloak pulled so tight about her face, she looked like a nun.

“No, no, it’s a new beginning!” I cried cheerily, overcompensating because it didn’t feel like one. “The good people of Humashup are out, they’re filing up the ramps, my bags are already packed and on board, and I know for a fact that the commissary at Mackenzie Base serves great food. Little Joseph is a happy Sky Coyote!”

Right on cue, it came into our line of sight, a canoe negotiating the surf and boulders below us to strike out into the open sea.

“One of your Indians appears to have changed his mind,” observed Mendoza delicately.

It was Kenemekme, the poor dope. He was leaning way forward, inexpertly paddling a dugout he must have made himself, it was so crudely chiseled out of drift log. He was naked. All he had with him besides the paddle were flowers. Some kind of yellow flowers, he’d picked hundreds of them, they filled his canoe and hung over the sides, and a few bobbed yellow in his wake, floating in the sea foam. My muzzle hung open in astonishment.

“Coreopsis gigantea, Eschscholzia californica
, and—let’s see, that’s
Oenothera hookerii,”
Mendoza said, peering at him, shading her eyes with her hand. “He must have been up all night gathering those. Shouldn’t you be raising some kind of alarm or something?”

On one particularly enthusiastic backswing he noticed us, and stood up to wave. The canoe nearly capsized, but he steadied it somehow and gave us a crazy smile. He was shouting something. Mortals couldn’t have heard him through the distance and the wind and surf, but we received him clear as anything.

“Uncle Sky Coyote! I’ll meet You there! Don’t worry, I know the way! But the beauty is shining out there, shining and shining beyond the world, can’t You see it? I have to go find out what it is!” he cried. Then he plopped himself back into his canoe and went paddling on out to sea.

“If I remember Company policy correctly,” Mendoza continued, watching me, “you’re supposed to sound an alarm so the security teams can decide whether they’ll go with option one, which is to rush out there and recover the escapee, or with the never-talked-about option two, which is to have a sharpshooter pick him off and thereby eliminate any loose talk or loose ends.”

“I think I’m going to make an executive decision,” I found myself saying. “I think I’m going to let that one get away.”

“But heavens, whatever shall we do? He is already in the catalogue. Ah, but we’ve taken samples of what matters of him, so I suppose that doesn’t pose a problem after all. Perhaps you think he won’t survive to tell anyone about us, in that wretchedly un-seaworthy boat? You may be right. I estimate his chances of not drowning in the next three hours at seven hundred and fifteen to one. Though if the prevailing winds let up, he may have a better chance, and
might
make it to one of those islands out there in the channel. On the other hand, some of those islands are inhabited by worshipers of Chinigchinix, who are, as I understand, religious fanatics. If he lands on the wrong island, babbling about visions he received from Coyote, he’ll be killed as a heretic. Though if he lands on the
right
island, he might be hailed as a new prophet and tell all kinds of tales we don’t want him to tell. What does a Company man do in a situation like this, I wonder?” She watched me, coldly amused.

I yawned a wide coyote yawn. I shrugged.

“Hey, he won’t last an hour in that thing.”

“And if you send out an emergency team to pick him up, it’ll delay takeoff. Sound decision, I guess …”

“I think so. Anyhow, you know what I always say? In a hundred years, who’s gonna care?”

She was still laughing at that as I took back the coffee and had another hit. “Mm, good. Whoops—there go the boarding lights. Time for me to beat it. Well, Mendoza, it’s been truly great working with you again after all these years. Keep in touch, okay? Vaya con Dios.”

I
WAS KEPT BUSY IN
the next few minutes explaining to the sixty-five Chumash on our ship just how safe things were. When I was finally able to buckle myself into a seat and look out a window, I saw the base personnel assembled to watch the takeoff. There was Bugleg, eyes streaming with tears from the cold air and the pollen count, looking on unhappily as Lopez gave firm orders. Only the brass and the specialists were there, of course; all the techs were busy packing up equipment or dismantling the modular dome. Nobody was staying a second longer than was necessary, except for Mendoza. She was still standing there sipping her coffee, but she was staring away, fascinated, at the wild mountains of the interior. She looked up and raised her cup in a farewell gesture as the ship began to rise. I felt the climb speed up, and she seemed to sink into the earth as California dropped away below us. And there, quite a ways out to sea, I saw Kenemekme still bobbing along in his canoe full of flowers.

It really would have been more trouble than it was worth to go after him. Would he really have been happy at Mackenzie Base? He had his quest to find the beauty that was shining beyond
the world, and he was sure to enjoy it more than orientation seminars and learning to drive loaders. The plain daylight around him was probably the closest he’d ever come to his mystical goal, but maybe he wouldn’t live long enough to realize that.