COYOTE CROSSES THE OCEAN
© 2009 Rick Hutchins
After Coyote played a great trick on Turtle, he decided to hide high up on the mesa for a while until Turtle got over his anger. While he was up there, he heard a cry for help on the wind and he recognized the voice as being one of the People.
It came from far across the Big Water where one of the People, named Talltree, was on a boat that had been caught in a storm. The boat had been washed up on the shore of an uncharted atoll and in the morning the men on the boat saw a great stone city rise from the sea near the atoll. And then they saw a gigantic monster the size of a mountain come up from the water and come toward them and they fell down upon the deck of the boat weeping with fear.
Talltree was a brave man who had traveled far and faced danger and been to war, but this giant monster was too much for anyone, so he cried out at the top of his voice, “Please help me!”
The wind carried his voice across the Big Water and the Big Desert and Coyote heard him. Coyote never ignored a call for help from one of the People, so he ran very fast and leaped from the edge of the mesa and he leaped so strongly that he went up above the clouds and came down across the Big Water and landed on the small atoll where Talltree was being threatened by the mountain monster.
When Coyote saw the mountain monster, he couldn’t believe his eyes. He had never seen a giant creature with wings like a bat on its back and tentacles like an octopus coming from its face. Even the spirits of the strange animals that lived in the world in that long ago time before this time were not as strange and terrifying as this.
“What is your name, Giant?” asked Coyote. “And why do you come up out of the Deep Water?”
The mountain monster seemed not to hear Coyote or was ignoring him and still kept coming toward the atoll.
“I am the great Coyote!” Coyote shouted. “I am strong and powerful and I will kill you if you do not go back under the Deep Water!”
But the mountain monster did not answer Coyote and came closer and closer to the atoll and looked bigger and bigger with every minute that passed by. Coyote thought it was very rude of this giant to ignore him and besides the monster reminded him of rotting carrion and disease and he very swiftly decided that he hated it. So Coyote thought of a trick to play on the mountain monster and used his power to make himself just as big as the mountain monster.
Growing so big was hard work and it made Coyote weak, but he pretended he was still strong to scare away the mountain monster. But the monster was not scared and still did not speak and still came closer to the atoll.
By now Coyote was afraid that this giant was too much for him, but he would not give up while he could still think of tricks.
“You are going to be sorry now,” Coyote told the giant bravely.
Then Coyote grew even more, and he strained and pushed and kept growing until he had no more strength and he was so big that he was able to snatch up the mountain monster in his jaws and chew him to pieces. But the giant tasted like rotten carrion and disease and that made Coyote terribly sick and Coyote vomited the pieces of the giant into the ocean where they sank to the bottom.
“That should keep him busy for a while,” thought Coyote.
Then Coyote was so weak and sick that he shrank to his normal size and fell from the sky onto the beach where Talltree ran to his side.
“You saved me,” said Talltree gratefully.
“Now I must die,” said Coyote and his head fell back.
But Talltree did not want Coyote to die so he wrapped him up in his shirt and brought him back to the boat where he fed Coyote fresh water and meat. Then Talltree and the other men sailed the boat back to the coast and then Talltree borrowed a car and drove Coyote back to his desert home.
“Coyote saved me,” Talltree told the other men. “Now I will save Coyote.”
After a long while, Coyote regained his strength and was able to run and hunt and play tricks on all the other spirit animals again. In his gratitude, he gave Talltree the power not to grow old.
To this day, Coyote and Talltree are alive and remain good friends.
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