"Don't have to with this one. Nobody ever had medicine like this. I ain't never showed it to anyone before."

"What are those teeth?"

"Coyote teeth. Coyote claws, coyote fur. I don't tell people about it anymore because they all say I'm crazy, but my spirit helper is Old Man Coyote."

"He's just in stories," Sam said. "There isn't any Old Man Coyote."

"That's what you think," Pokey said. "He came to me on my first fast, when I was about your age. I didn't know it was him. I thought it would be a bear, or an otter, because I was praying for war medicine. But on the fourth day of my fast I looked up and there was this young brave standing there dressed in black buckskins with red woodpecker feathers down his leggings and sleeves. He was wearing a coyote skin as a headdress."

"How did you know it wasn't just somebody from the res?"

"I didn't. I told him to go away and he said that he had been away long enough. He said that when he gave the Crows so many enemies he promised that he would always be with them so they could steal many horses and be fierce warriors. He said it was almost time to come back."

"But where is he?" Samson asked. "That was a long time ago and no one has seen him. If he was here they wouldn't say you were crazy."

"Old Man Coyote is the trickster. I think he gave me this medicine to make me crazy and make me want to drink. Pretty Eagle, who was a powerful medicine man then, told me how to make this bundle and he told me that if I was smart I would give it to someone else or throw it in the river, but I didn't do it."

"But if it is bad medicine, if he is your spirit helper and doesn't help you…"

"Does the sun rise just for you, Samson Hunts Alone?"

"No, it rises all over the world."

"But it passes you and makes you part of its circle, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, I guess so."