Coyote Blue Read Online Free PDF

like you."
    "Then be like you." Pokey turned away from the boy and lit another cigarette. "You make me angry. Give me your knife and I will show you how to dress this deer. We will throw the entrails in the river as a gift to the Earth and the water monsters." Pokey looked at Samson, as if waiting for the boy to doubt him.
    "I'm sorry, Pokey." The boy unsnapped the sheath on his belt and drew a wickedly curved skinning knife. He held it out to the man, who took the knife and began to field-dress the deer.
    As he drew the blade down the deer's stomach he said, "I am going to give you a dream, Samson."
    Samson looked away from the deer into Pokey's face. There were always gifts among the Crow – gifts for names, Sun Dance ceremony gifts, powwow gifts at Crow Fair, naming ceremony gifts, gifts for medicine, gifts to clan uncles and aunts, gifts for prayers: tobacco and sweet grass and shirts and blankets, horses and trucks – so many gifts that no one could ever really be poor and no one ever really got rich. But the gift of a dream was very pure, very special, and could never be repaid. Samson had never heard anyone give a dream before.
    "I dreamed that Old Man Coyote came to me and he said, 'Pokey, when everything is right with you, but you are so afraid that something might go wrong that it ruins your balance, then you are Coyote Blue. At these times I will bring you back into balance.' This dream that I dreamed I give to you, Samson."
    "What does that mean, Uncle Pokey?"
    "I don't know, but it is a very important dream." Pokey wiped the knife on his pants and handed it to Samson, then hoisted the deer up on his shoulders. "Now, who are you going to give this deer to?"

Chapter 6 – A Malady of Medicine
    Santa Barbara
    "Look, Sam," Aaron said. "I can see that you're not thrilled about the buy-out. So be it. I understand that you've put a lot into this agency. I can give you forty cents on the dollar, but you'll have to take a note. I'm a little cash poor since Katie made me put that trophy room on the house."
    Sam looked down from the deer head. "Aaron, I didn't hire an Indian to attack Jim Cable. I still had half of the deal wrapped up with Cochran, which would have put me in the door at any time in the future to close Cable. I wouldn't have jeopardized that."
    Aaron took two hand mirrors out of his desk drawer and began to juxtapose them to get a glimpse of the back of his head. Sam was used to this – it was Aaron's hourly balding check. "Cochran's secretary saw the Indian get out of your car," Aaron said matter-of-factly. Then, looking back to the mirrors, he said, "I've been mixing Minoxidil with a little Retin A and that stuff the Man from U.N.C.L.E. sells on TV. Do you think it's working?"
    Sam thought of the feather on the car seat. He was sure he'd locked the car; there was no way the Indian could get in without setting off the alarm. "I don't care what anyone saw, I didn't hire the fucking Indian to attack Cable and I can't believe you bought their story without asking me." The anger felt good. It cleared his head a little.
    Aaron put the mirrors down on the desk and smiled. "I didn't buy it, Sam. But if it was true you can't blame me for taking a shot at your shares."
    "You greedy little fuck."
    "Sam." Aaron lowered his voice and took his "fatherly" tone. "Samuel." A little wink. "Sammy, hasn't my greed always been in your best interest? I'm just trying to keep you sharp, son. Would you have had any respect for me if I hadn't tried to make the best of a bad situation? That's the first thing I taught you."
    "I don't know any Indian. It didn't happen, Aaron."
    "If you say it didn't, it didn't. You've always been straight with me. I don't even remember the time you cut all the cords off those smoke alarms we were selling because that lady wanted cordless models."
    "You told me to do that! I was only seventeen years old."
    "Right, well, how was I to know she smoked in bed?"
    "Look, Aaron, I'll find out what happened