No matter how good kissing Aaron Morris had felt, his faithful
coyote sidekick was too high-maintenance to justify the risk....
"The thing I liked best . . . was the skillful way Native
American legend was woven together with modern life. . . . [T]his
heartwarming story of affection and belonging is well worth reading
more than once."
-- Tangent Online
Read an Excerpt....
“This was a gathering place even before
the white man came,” Aaron said quietly, leaning lightly against the
little wall. “The river people called it Wah-gwin-gwin--place of
rushing water.”
“It’s--extraordinary.” There should have been a better word,
but my senses were too highly wound for me to come up with it. The
wave-cooled breeze tickled mischievously below my hemline, which ran
from several inches below one knee to several inches above the
other--but at the same time, the air between me and Aaron pulsed
with magnetic intensity. My subconscious had just time to whisper
like calls to like before the attraction drew us together, my lips
meeting his as his arms encircled my shoulders, tentatively at first
but then with careful firmness.
All too soon, lack of oxygen--and practice--forced us to break
the kiss. “I think,” Aaron said in a dazed tone, “that I’ve been
very, very lucky.”
“That makes two of us,” I replied, only slightly less muzzily.
“But it is not luck,” said a third voice, rumbling out of the
darkness, “if it results from wisdom and good judgment rather than
from pure chance.” We both whirled, detaching ourselves from each
other’s arms, as a coyote nearly the size of a Volkswagen Beetle
trotted noiselessly out of the trees, its tail flicking back and
forth while moonlight shimmered against its silver-gray fur.
Aaron was first to recover his wits. “Koyoda Speelyi!”
“At your service,” replied the giant talking coyote, nodding
at both of us in turn, “and pleased to be so. You have done very
well.”
My eyes--all I could seem to move reliably just then--flicked
from the coyote to Aaron and back again. “Wait a second,” I said, my
voice gaining strength word by word. “You called it--him--Koyoda
something-or-other. Who is he, and what’s going on here?”
Koyoda Speelyi,”
said Aaron, his voice a
tangle of emotions I couldn’t decipher. “Most stories now told or
written down call him only Coyote or Trickster, but the oldest tales
of the Klickitat--my people--name him truly. He is the voice and the
will of Sahale Tyee, the Great Spirit, in the world below.”