© 1998
Iktomi was a smallish male coyote about three and a half hands at the shoulder if you measure with fingers loosely closed. His coat was a rusty brown with a few patches of balding mange. He had a flash of white that spread from his chest up to the left side of his muzzle and his left front paw was white too. His right ear was split where the alpha male in his pack took exception to Iktomi's attention to one of the females.
With his feelings hurt and pressure in his testicles he had set off northward over the prairie grasslands looking for a more receptive milieu for himself, his appetites and his talents.
He had eaten a mouse two days before this. All he had had since was a couple of grasshoppers and a taste of raccoon scat that wasn't very good. He had slept in a culvert under the railroad till noon and had to move on when some little boys saw him and threw rocks at him. He traveled in hedge rows and under cover of night and whenever he saw any other creatures he was still 'til he understood whether he could eat them or they could eat him.
This evening he had seen a doe with two fawns. He chased them but he was all alone and so small that the doe turned and faced him down. He got a nasty clip in the eye with one of her hooves.
The moon came up. It was full and bright so it was hard to see the stars. All that light made Iktomi nervous. Still he could not hold back a lonesome howl. He hoped some lonely pack who needed a talented and randy top dog might give him a tumble. He was more afraid, though, that some farmer with a shotgun would hear him. Still, after the first one, he couldn't resist keeping it up.
He got cold quickly at night out in the open, if he didn't keep moving, so he set off at a trot. He thought, how pleasant it would be if he were back in his own pack. If only he had had the sense to keep his pecker in its sheath when the Boss was around. How easy it would have been for the eleven of them to run down those three deer today. The Boss might have given him the nudge to tell him he was to be the one to lie in wait while the others drove the deer toward him. He would have suddenly leaped up out of the grass and grabbed one of those delicious little beauties by the throat. Oh, he could taste the blood. It made saliva run from his mouth.
Then, after they had eaten their fill, they would have gotten together and howled at that lovely moon. Maybe he would have gotten to sleep next to Sheba, the white yearling bitch. Oh, what torture, he could smell her.
The Boss might have called for a day of dancing and feasting. Like the one after the famous chicken house raid with everyone prancing and showing off. lktomi had danced on his front legs for a count of seven. No one in the pack had ever done that trick before.
He learned it sneaking up on a dance at an Ogala encampment on night all by himself. His uncle had stolen an excellent pork chop from an old blind dog at that camp. lktomi had circled carefully avoiding the horses and the boy guarding them. With a stiff walk and a low growl he had thrown a scare into a young pup. But lktomi became so entranced by the dancing and the drums that he forgot his appetite and stayed almost too long. The camp dogs started scouting at first light and he had the dickens of a time evading a big black sucker who must have been two thirds wolf and the other third devil.
Instead of comforting him, these memories made Iktomi homesick and lonely, but he was warming up and making good time. Clouds came up and obscured the sky so it was hard to see which way to go. Of course, with a nose and ears like his, he had no real problem.
Then he heard it: a muffled drumming. A familiar beat the one he had heard at the Ogala camp. He had taken it home to the pack along with his forepaw stand trick. They loved the beat and here it was again. Could it be his imagination?
He lifted his white foot off the ground, pricked up his ears, sniffed, then locked on to the sensory signals. He moved cautiously a few feet from the wagon ruts he had been following. He stopped by a large rock and lifted his leg. It wasn't so much that he had to relieve himself. He just wanted everyone to know that someone was here with whom they would have to contend.
He leaped a ditch of muddy water. There he found the ravaged bones of a long deceased buffalo, all in a heap and alongside them a mighty skull. The skull throbbed with beating drums. It was mostly bleached but had a greenish cast and quite a moldy odor. Shafts of scintillating light came from the eye socket and nostril holes illuminating the surrounding tall weeds with flashes and shadows. The rhythmic thumpings of drums and of many tiny feet were irresistible to the lone traveler.
Iktomi saw the outline of a tiny door in the forehead of the skull and he tapped on it with one claw of his white foot. After he knocked several times and started to grow impatient, the tipsy door mouse finally tore himself away from the punch bowel and came to answer.
lktomi's plea was so woeful that the door mouse took pity on him and checked with his supervisor. The supervisor, who was trying to pick up an attractive big eared lady mouse in a minuscule skirt, did not bother to take a look for himself.
The door mouse had lktomi go to the back of the skull to the hole that the buffalo's massive brain stem had occupied. lktomi was able to wriggle his not overlarge head inside through that back door.
Iktomi's head erupted through the base of the skull into the dancing throng. Imagine how his canine teeth must have looked to the half-drunken mice dancing on the great floor of the buffalo's brain pan. As he became aware of these tasty morsels all around his head Iktorni's eyes rolled; he salivated and his jaws snapped reflexly.
The spector sent mice scurrying in panic. Their escape formed a sudden pity-patting wave as they frantically poured over one another out the eye sockets, down the nostrils and from under the maxilla of the eternally patient buffalo.
lktomi found himself not only alone but now crowned with somebody else's skull which was 12 sizes too big for him. He could barely lift it off the ground. He went staggering back through the muddy water of the ditch and along the rutted road, great horned skull wagging and bumping until he was so tired all he could do was to lie down and whimper.
A raccoon passed by and ignored his crying. A fox heard him and circled warily at a distance. A lioness sniffed him but lktomi smelled so bad of mouse piss that she didn't bother to eat him. Old Joe Whittaker came by and swore again to give up drinking his dinner but he took no pity on the stupid dog with the Halloween mask.
Finally Iktorni saw Grandfather Rock out of one corner of the buffalo's eye socket. He apologized to the old limestone rock, witness to the passing of many ages. He said, "I'm sorry I didn't think to ask your permission before I left my mark on you but please could you help me out of this thing?"
Old Grandfather Rock said, "Sure, go ahead and bang your skull against me."
Iktomi swung his head hard against the gray rock with no result except for a resounding clang that echoed without mercy inside the buffalo skull and inside his own. He stood back, ran head first into the rock and got only a pain in his neck. Finally he combined these maneuvers and the skull fell away in shards. Iktomi staggered, his ears rang, his eyes swam, the night sky seemed to whirl about him but he was free. The rock added another tale to his store and for several days lktomi had the worst hangover of his life.