"Hey!" Sam shouted.
Gabriella looked over the Indian's shoulder at Sam and held one finger in the air as if marking a point, then pointed to the message pad on the desk. "One call," she gasped. The Indian pulled her to him in a particularly violent thrust and Gabriella grabbed his shoulder with both hands, popping her press-on nails off and across the room like tiddlywinks.
Sam shook off his shock, ran forward, and caught the Indian around the neck in a choke hold. The Indian pumped wildly in the air as Sam dragged him off Gabriella and across the outer office. He fell over backward into his office with the Indian still squirming in his grasp and it occurred to him that unless things turned quickly to his advantage he was in serious danger of being humped. He rolled the Indian over on the carpet and pinned him, facedown, while he looked around for a weapon. The only thing in reach was the big multi-line phone on his desk. Sam released the choke hold and lunged for the phone, catching it by the cord. He swung around with it just in time to hit the Indian in the face as he was rising to his hands and knees. The phone exploded into a spray of electronic shrapnel and the Indian fell forward onto his face, unconscious but twitching against the carpet in petit-mal afterhumps.
Sam looked at the broom of colored wires at the end of the cord where the phone used to be, then dropped it and staggered to his feet. Gabriella was standing by the door, smoothing her skirt down. Her lipstick was smeared across her face and her hair was spiked into a fright wig of hair spray and sweat. She started to speak, then noticed that one of her breasts was still peeking out of her dress. "Excuse me." She turned and tucked herself in, then turned back to Sam. "I'll hold your calls," she said officiously, then she pulled the door closed, leaving Sam alone in the office with the unconscious, naked Indian.
"You're fired," Sam whispered to the closed door. He looked down at the Indian and saw a bloodstain spreading around his head on the carpet. He didn't seem to be breathing. Sam fell to his knees and felt the Indian's neck for a pulse. Nothing.
"Fuck, not again!" Sam paced around the desk four times before he fell back in his leather executive chair and clamped his hands on his temples as if trying to squeeze out a solution. Instead he thought of police and prison and felt hope running through his fingers like liquid light, leaving him dark with despair.
A growling noise from the floor. Sam looked over the desk to see the body of the Indian moving. He started to breathe a sigh of relief when he realized that the body wasn't moving at all, it was changing. His eyes went wide with terror as the arms and legs shortened and grew fur, the face grew into a whiskered muzzle, and the spinal column lengthened and grew into a bushy tail. Before Sam could catch his breath again he was looking at the body of a huge black coyote.
The coyote got to its feet and shook its head as if clearing its ears of water, then it leapt on the desk and growled at Sam, who rolled his chair back until it hit the wall behind his desk.
Sam pushed himself up by the chair arms until he was almost standing against the wall, desperately trying to put even a millimeter more between himself and the snarling muzzle of the coyote. The coyote crawled forward on the desk until its face was only inches from Sam's. Sam could feel the coyote's moist breath on his face. It smelled of something familiar, something burnt. He wanted to turn his head away and close his eyes until the horror went away, but his gaze remained locked on the coyote's golden eyes. He wanted to scream but there was no breath for it and he found his jaw was moving but no sound was coming out.
The coyote backed away and sat on the desk, then raised its lowered ears and tilted its head to the side as if perplexed. Sam felt himself take a breath and the strange urge to say "Good doggie" came over him, but he remained rigid and quiet. The coyote began to shake and Sam thought it would attack, but instead it threw back its head as if to howl. The skin on the coyote's neck began to undulate and surge and took on the shape of a human face. The fur receded from the face, then away from the front legs, which became arms, then down the back legs, which lengthened into crouching human legs. As the fur peeled it lost its black color, turning the burnt tan of a normal coyote. It was as if a human was literally crawling out of a cocoon of coyote skin, the black color becoming black buckskins trimmed with red feathers. A minute passed in what seemed a year as the transformation took place. When it was finished the Indian was crouched on Sam's desk wearing a coyote-skin headdress that had once been his own skin.
"Fuck," Sam said, falling back into the chair, his eyes trained now on the golden eyes of the Indian.
"Woof," the Indian said with a grin.
Sam shook his head, trying to get the image to go away. His mind was still rattling around in chaos trying to put this into some sort of meaningful context, but all he could do was wish that he would pass out and that his kneecaps would stop jumping with adrenaline.
"Woof," the Indian repeated. He jumped from the desk, adjusted the headdress that moments ago had been his skin, then sat in the chair opposite Sam. "Got a smoke?" he said.
Sam felt his mind lock on to the request. Yes, he understood that. Yes, he could do that. A smoke. He reached into his shirt pocket for his cigarettes and lighter and fumbled them out, lost his grip, and sent them skittering across the desk. He was scrambling for them when the Indian reached out and patted his hand. Sam screamed, the high-pitched wail of a little girl, and jumped back into his chair, which rolled back until his head snapped against the wall.
The Indian turned his head to the side quizzically, the same way the coyote had, then took the cigarettes from the desk and lit two with the lighter. He held one out to Sam, who remained pushed back in the chair. The Indian nodded for Sam to take the cigarette, then waited while Sam inched forward, snatched it out of his hand, and quickly retreated to his position by the back wall.
The Indian took a deep drag on the cigarette, then turned his head and blew the smoke out in rings that crept across the desk like ghosts.
Sam had curled into the fetal position in his chair and looked up only to cast a sideways glance at the Indian when he took a drag from his own cigarette. It occurred to him that he should feel silly, but he didn't. He was still too frightened to feel silly. When his cigarette was half gone he started to calm down. His fear was draining away, being replaced with indignant anger. The Indian sat calmly, smoking and looking around the office.
Sam put his feet on the floor, scooted the chair back under the desk, and set what he hoped was a hard gaze on the Indian. "Who are you?" he asked.
The Indian smiled and his eyes lit up like an excited child's. "I am the stink in your shoe, the buzz in your ear, the wind through the trees. I am the-"
"Who are you?" Sam interrupted. "What is your name?"
The Indian continued to grin while smoke trickled between his teeth. He said, "The Cheyenne call me Wihio, the Sioux, Iktome. The Blackfeet call me Napi Old Man. The Cree call me Saultaux, the Micmac, Glooscap. I am the Great Hare on the East Coast and Raven on the West. You know me, Samson Hunts Alone, I am your spirit helper."
Sam gulped. "Coyote?"
"Yep."
"You're a myth."
"A legend," the Indian said.
"You are just a bunch of stories to teach children."
"True stories."
"No, just stories. Old Man Coyote is just a fairy tale."
"Should I change shapes again? You liked that."
"No! No, don't do that." Sam had guessed the Indian's identity the day before when he'd opened the medicine bundle, but he had hoped it would all go away and he would find himself the victim of a childhood superstition. Religion was supposed to be a matter of faith. Gods were not supposed to jump on your desk and snarl at you. They weren't supposed to sit in your office smoking cigarettes. Gods didn't do anything. They were supposed to ignore you and let you suffer and die having never known whether your religion was a waste of time. Faith.