Week 10 Story: Coyote, Wile E.

Author's Note: For this week, I decided to adapt the story of "The Theft of Fire" from the California and Old Southwest unit. This story tells the tale of how a coyote helped humans get access to fire which had previously been secreted away with a couple witches in the East. For the most part, the story itself remains the same here as it was told in the unit. The change I made was in giving the narration to the coyote.

--------------------

"Thank God for this fire," Jack spoke. "It'd be a miserable night without it, even with these thermal sleeping bags." He wasn't wrong. Out in the Pecos wilderness it got pretty cold pretty fast once the sun went down, and their little hiking party of three was woefully unprepared. They were worn out, dehydrated, and now freezing. The trip was off to a wonderful start.

"Mind if I join you?" a voice spoke from the darkness.

The hikers jumped up in a fright, scanning the back and forth across the horizon, searching for a figure in the shadows.

"Down here," the voice called out again in a somewhat amused tone.

Looking down at their feet, the hikers were surprised to see the source was a small coyote. "Y'know what, sure. I'm too tired to question the whole talking coyote thing right now...just don't try to drop any anvils on us," Jack replied, speaking for the group.

The coyote let out a small chuckle at that as he got settled among the party of humans. "Thank you," he spoke. "And you know, you should actually be thanking me for the fire..."

"I'm sorry, what?" Jack and Susan exclaimed simultaneously, the third party member, Alex, giving a quizzical look that mimicked the others' statement.

"Yes," the coyote answered. "After all, it was my plan that gave the gift of fire to you humans."

"Okay, I've gotta hear this," Susan spoke up. Jack and Alex nodded in enthusiastic agreement.

"And I will happily oblige," the coyote responded. "It's the least I can offer, you letting me keep warm here and all. Plus, you know coyotes love a good story." As he said this, the coyote popped up onto his hind legs and began walking around the fire as if it came as naturally to him as prowling on all fours. The hikers looked at each other and shrugged. There was already so much going on, did it really need an explanation?

"Alright, so let me lay the scene," the coyote began, gesturing with his paws like an eccentric camp counselor might when telling a ghost story. "It was a long time ago. Long before you, or your parents, or your parents parents, or your parents parents parents were even close to being born. Back in those days, all animals could walk and talk like me...nowadays there's only one of each of us (so you folk lucked out!)"

"Anyways. There were only a few humans at that time too, and they didn't have fire. The gods didn't trust 'em with it, thought they might get too powerful. The only fire on Earth was that which came from lightning, and a tiny bit of fire that had been entrusted to a pair of nasty, old witches. I felt bad for the humans 'cause the weather wasn't milder or anything...no it could get just as cold, actually maybe colder than it does these days, and all they had to keep warm was blankets. So, I said to myself, 'I'll go steal some fire for them!' and I set out to find the witches."

"It didn't take too long to find them, being that they were the only source of smoke in the world at the time. Getting fire from them though, that was another matter. I walked up to their camp and asked to sit and warm myself, much like I did with you, and being just a coyote, they said okay. I figured I could sit around till they went to sleep and grab a branch or two, but as it turns out, witches don't sleep. I had to figure out something else."

"I went and talked to a human buddy of mine and my other animal friends, and I told them my plan. The next night, same as before, I went and asked to sit by the fire, but this time, my human pal attacked the witches and tried to steal the fire. He didn't succeed of course, but he wasn't meant to. While they were chasing him off, I grabbed a long from the fire and made a run for it. By the time those old hags realized what happened, I already had a hell of a head start. I can't run forever though, and this is where the other animals come in. Right as the witches were about to catch up to me, I passed it off to my good friend, the Bear. And right as they were about to catch him, he passed it off to his friend, the Deer. And she passed it to Owl, who passed it to Rabbit, who passed it to Fox, so on and so forth until it reached our good friend, Beaver. Beaver used his teeth to cut his way into the Tree of Life, and he deposited the last tiny, smoldering bit of charcoal into it. From that day on, every tree that has ever grown has had a little spark of fire in it, which is why if you rub two pieces of wood together, they spark up!"

All three hikers were bursting with questions. At this point, they couldn't believe their eyes or their ears for a myriad of reasons. They couldn't even think what to ask the coyote first, his story couldn't be real (quite frankly, he himself couldn't be real, right?). That was when Alex spoke up, "I'm pretty sure we're all thinking the same thing here, but I think I'm gonna save it for tomorrow. Let's just take the talking coyote at face value for the moment and get some shut eye." 

Jack and Susan shrugged. "Eh, might as well."

The gang was sorely disappointed to find the coyote still there and still talking when they woke the next morning.

Prairie Wolf by Carl Rungius. Source: Santa Fe Art Auction

--------------------

Story Source: Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest by Katherine Berry Judson (1912)