Tricked (5 page)

The road was extremely rough in places. Discarded tires bore mute testimony to the fact that the thin layer of sand covered sharp rocks. We crossed a one-lane metal bridge that spanned a narrow defile—a flash-flood canyon that eroded anew every time it rained and the water trailed off the bare rock of the mesa—and, shortly after that, Coyote directed us to pull over onto a cleared patch on the left side of the road. There, the mesa rose up steeply in a sort of terraced fashion until it flattened out again, then two magnificent buttes jutted up almost like the dorsal fins of some massive, mad creature, an avatar of erosion swimming in sand. The flash-flood wash we had crossed no doubt began between those buttes. In the other direction, the plateau was flat and covered with various bunch grasses and a few stunted trees, all the way to Kayenta and beyond. We took some canteens with us and began hiking up the mesa toward the buttes.

“First thing I need you to do,” Coyote said halfway up, “is make a nice smooth graded ramp here to speed up the construction of a road. Down there where the car’s parked,” he pointed to the flat, arid plateau, “we’re
going to build the work camp that will eventually become a town. And once we build the factories for our solar and wind companies, it’ll be a proper city. A carbon-neutral one too.” He put a hand next to his mouth and whispered as if he were sharing a secret, “I learned that carbon-neutral shit from a hippie in Canyon de Chelly.”

We continued to hike until we crested the first terrace. The next layer, sort of like a wedding cake, loomed on either side. We walked west down a valley dotted with scrub cedar for about a quarter mile, until Coyote stopped and spread his arms wide to indicate the northern butte face. “Here is where you make my people rich,” he said. “Move the gold underneath this mesa. We’ll put the entrance to the mine in that little cave right there.” He pointed to a small depression at the base of the butte that qualified more as a niche than a cave.

I shook my head. “You know, Coyote, this makes no sense geologically. You can’t put gold underneath this kind of rock. Geologists will scoop out their eyes with a melon baller and ruin their shorts when you start hauling precious metals out of here, because it will put the lie to everything they know. Then you’ll have prospectors searching for gold underneath every chunk of sandstone around the world and getting pissed when they don’t find any.”

“I don’t care, Mr. Druid. This is the place.”

“It has to be here? We can’t pick a spot elsewhere on this huge reservation that makes more sense in the natural world?”

“It has to be here. I’ve gotten permission to build here from the Kayenta chapter, I’ve gotten you permission to live here while we do it, and my workforce and business connections are all in Kayenta. This here is where we change the world, Mr. Druid.”

As we were hiking back down the hill, three white work trucks rolled up behind the car. They were full of people in jeans and orange T-shirts, some wearing cowboy hats and others wearing hard hats. One man in a hard hat started giving directions, and the workers moved to get stakes and sledges out of the truck beds along with surveying equipment and one of those portable toilets. A woman and an older man stood next to the man in the hard hat. They weren’t wearing orange shirts, and thus I concluded they weren’t technically part of the work crew.

All three of them were very happy to see Coyote. They shook hands and traded smiles full of affection for one another. Their faces turned expressionless, however, when Coyote began to introduce the white people. He remembered our fake names, thankfully.

“Reilly and Caitlin Collins,” he said, “this here is my construction foreman, Darren Yazzie.” The man with the hard hat nodded at us and mumbled a “Pleased to meet you.” He was a well-muscled fellow in his mid-twenties, his eyes mere slits in a sort of perpetual squint from working outside all the time. He wore his hair long and braided in the back in a single thick queue.

Coyote pointed next at the woman, who appeared to be in her late twenties or early thirties. She wore a thin
black Windbreaker over a yellow polo shirt. Her hair was pulled back and tied in a simple ponytail, and she had a pair of eyeglasses with thick black rims resting on her nose. A hundred subtle cues of body language told me that there was a keen intelligence behind those eyes; I knew she was important to this project before Coyote said a word. “This,” he said, “is Sophie Betsuie, the head engineer.”

“Hello,” she said, shaking our hands firmly. “Nice to meet you.”

The elderly gentleman had character carved into his face, arroyos and washes of years trailing above and below his mouth, around his eyes, and down his neck. His black cowboy hat sported a silver band set with turquoise in the front, and he had a buttoned-up broadcloth shirt tucked into his jeans. He had a giant chunk of turquoise floating at the base of his throat, because he’d apparently missed the memo that said bolo ties were out of style and quite likely had never been in style at all. His belt buckle was an enormous silver job worked in fine detail, though I couldn’t say what the design was, since I didn’t take time to examine it carefully. I was too distracted by his aura, which had the telltale white light of a magic user in it.

“That’s Frank Chischilly,” Coyote said. “He’s a
hataałii
.”

Oberon asked as I shook hands with Frank.

No, he said
hataałii.
In the Navajo language, it kinda sorta means a medicine man
.

Excellent question
.

“I’m honored to meet you, sir,” I said.

“Likewise,” he replied. To Granuaile, he didn’t offer his hand but rather tipped his hat and said, “Miss.” His voice was scratchy and warm, like a wool blanket.

“What brings you out here, Mr. Chischilly?” Granuaile asked before I could.

“Well, he has to be here,” Coyote explained.

“Oh,” Granuaile said, nodding, then added, “Sorry, but why does he have to be here? I’m not too clear on what that thing was you called him. Are you a tribal official, Mr. Chischilly?”

“Nope,” he said, a faint trace of a smile on his chapped lips. “I’m here to do the Blessing Way ceremony, once we get a hogan built up there.”

“Cool!” Granuaile said, a huge grin lighting her face, and then it disappeared, replaced by uncertainty as Frank’s vague amusement vanished. “Oh. I mean … I didn’t mean to assume. I would love to watch, but I’m not sure if that’s allowed. I actually don’t know what the Blessing Way ceremony is, so forgive me if I just sort of stepped on your toes there, I feel really stupid if that makes you feel any better, and—”

Chischilly raised a hand to stop her stream of apologies and gave a shrug. “Hey, it’s okay with me if it’s okay with Mr. Benally.”

Before I could ask who Mr. Benally was, Coyote said, “It’s okay with me.”

Interesting. Granuaile and I pivoted on our heels to face Coyote with our eyebrows raised, and Oberon said,

“Thank you,
Mr. Benally
,” I said, emphasizing the name.

Sophie Betsuie chose that moment to ask, “Is this your dog? What’s his name?”

“Snugglepumpkin,” I said.

Sophie snorted in disbelief but recovered rapidly, wiping
a nascent grin off her face. “Oh. That’s really his name?”

But why?

I nodded somberly. “That’s his name.”

“Oh. Well, that’s … simply … 
adorable
.” Sophie put her hands flat on her thighs and bent her knees a bit as she looked at Oberon. Her voice took on that saccharine-sweet tone people use when they talk to something they think is cute. “Yes, you’re adorable, aren’t you? Are you a good boy, Snugglepumpkin?”

Oberon wagged his tail and came over within petting distance.

“Oh, yes, you
are
a good boy, yes, you
are
.” She stopped making sense and instead made high-pitched squeals of delight as she scratched Oberon’s giant head; the rest of us stood and watched as a woman with an advanced degree completely lost her mind.

Okay, explain to me what you’re doing
, I said.

He sounded particularly smug about that last part.

Oberon, you shouldn’t have done this
.

When she snaps out of it she’s going to be embarrassed, and we just met her
.

Bark once and she’ll stop out of surprise
.

Oberon barked.

“Oh! You’re getting excited, aren’t you, Snugglepumpkin? I’d better stop, then.”

“So how long you think it’s gonna take you to get that road graded for us up to the top of the mesa?” Coyote said, redirecting us back to business. “I wanna start buildin’ that hogan as soon as possible.”

“Should be good to go by tomorrow morning,” I replied.

Sophie frowned. “I beg your pardon? You’re going to have a functional road built to the top of that mesa by tomorrow morning?”

This was also news to Darren Yazzie, whose workers would presumably be accomplishing all this. “Wait, how are we gonna do that? We don’t have the right equipment out here.”

Whoops. Coyote had already clued me in that these people weren’t aware of his true nature—or mine—but I’d answered him without adjusting for “normal” ears. I covered brilliantly: “Uh—”

“I think we’re talkin’ ’bout two differ’nt things,” Coyote interrupted, a sly smile on his face and a glint in his eye that told me he was enjoying my mistake. “Don’t mind Mr. Collins here. He’s just a geologist. Completely worthless when it comes to buildin’ shit. He can ’splain the fuck outuva rock though, heh heh.”

I shot Coyote a glare while Granuaile coughed to hide a laugh. Darren and Sophie confined themselves to smiles, but Frank Chischilly chuckled hoarsely.

See, this is why I enjoy Oberon’s constant commentary. Much of the time it’s a bit distracting and funny
enough that I might laugh inappropriately in the face of people who can’t hear what he says. But in this case, it saved me. If he hadn’t been around to point out that I looked irritated, I might have said something stupid and escalated things with Coyote. Instead, I excused myself by saying, “It was nice to meet you all, and I hope to speak with you later. I have some work to do right now though.” I turned and strode up the incline to the base of the mesa, Oberon and Granuaile following in my wake.

Typically you never get your goat back
, I explained to Oberon.
So you’re left with two choices. Either you let it go and get another metaphorical goat, or you try to get their goat in a sort of eye-for-an-eye revenge thing. Most people get another goat
.

“That was an interesting encounter,” Granuaile observed, once we were safely out of earshot. I grunted sourly, and my apprentice laughed. “You’re going to build that road tonight out of spite, aren’t you?”

I grinned, amused that she could read me so easily. “If I can get the elemental to cooperate, I will. Then I want to see our so-called Mr. Benally explain it to Sophie and Darren, because I’m supposed to be a geologist who can’t build shit.”

“I think it’s funny how he messes with you,” Granuaile said.

“You do, eh? Well, we’ll see how you like it once he starts playing his tricks on you. They’re not always harmless tricks, you know. There’s a dark side to all tricksters. Coyote laughs at other people’s misfortune more than anything else, and this little name and occupation game of his could be the setup for something bigger down the road.”

Granuaile’s amusement faded. “We’re protected against him, though, aren’t we?”

“Protected how? You mean magically?” I snorted. “Coyote doesn’t need magic to trick us. The only thing we can do is try to stay ahead of him. Gotta be smarter than the anthropomorphic canine.”

No, I said that Coyote’s a dog in the shape of a man
.

Anthropomorphic
.

“Crap,” Granuaile said. “Now I’m going to be paranoid about him pulling something on me.”

“Ehhhxcellent!” I said, steepling my fingers together like Mr. Burns on
The Simpsons
who’s always talking to Smithers. Then I switched genres. My voice took on the high nasal tones that comic-book villains tend to have when adapted for the Saturday-morning cartoons. “You should cultivate paranoia, because they really
are
out to get you!” I dropped my hands and resumed walking and talking normally. “He’ll notice that, by the way. He’ll smell your anxiety and fear, so you need to relax without appearing to be consciously relaxing.”

“Right, sure. Now that we’re talking about it I won’t be able to.”