The Shape of Love, Continued

 

Julia’s black eyes twinkled, but she wasn’t quite smiling.
“You know that Coyote is a liar?” said Julia.


    Julia tucked her small leather clad legs up tightly underneath her chair. Billy, sitting in her lap, looked around the room imperiously. Jessie and Beth waited, wondering what she had in mind.
    “That bull is not a bull. I’ve heard of him, but never saw him before today,” she said, not helping a whole lot yet. Now, she was smiling.
    “Oh, Auntie, if he wasn’t a bull what was he,” laughed Beth.
    “You see, many years ago, when we were still semi-nomadic there was a man who angered Coyote. I think he actually had tricked Coyote somehow. I think it had something to do with a girl that Coyote wanted for himself. You know, he is a man really, or something like a man anyhow? Well, this man, Klah, which means left handed by the way, rescued the girl, Sakari, sweet, from Coyote. He married her and brought her into his Hogan, keeping her hidden and safe. They were happy for a year. Very happy."

    "Then what happened," asked Beth.
    “Well, that’s what the old ones told me anyhow. Now Coyote wasn't willing to steal a married woman. He has some standards. But he was really mad at Klah for besting him. So, he caught him one day out hunting alone. He said a chant that made Klah stand still and he did some more magic then. He told Klah, “I will give you a choice. I will kill you now, or I will turn you into a bull. You will roam the earth as a bull, and you will be a bull until you find the gate I have hidden for you to find. If you find it and go through, you will be Klah again and may go home to Sakari and have children and eat her food in peace. Of course, Klah chose to become a bull and search for the gate back to manhood.
    “Klah, the bull/man has never found the gate in all these years. Personally, I don’t believe there is a gate at all. I think that was just another lie. Now, Sakari waited her whole lifetime for Klah. She did not marry again. She had no children, and she ate her food alone.

    “When she died, Coyote told Klah, just to torture him and remind him that even if he found the gate, that his hope for a life with Sakari was lost. Then, her brother’s children buried her high among the rocks. Her spirit became a dove. You might hear her sometimes calling to Klah in the early morning and sometimes at night.”
    “There isn’t much pasture around here, Aunt Julia,” said Jessie. “How does he survive. Where does he drink?”
    “It seems impossible, doesn’t it,” said Julia. “But you saw him, alive as you or me. I’m not sure he eats, though we did see him drink.”
    “But, Auntie,” said Beth, “is Coyote still out there also?”
    Julia had closed her eyes and began humming a little tune to herself. She rocked back and forth a little bit.
    “Isn’t there some way to help Klah become a man again,” asked Beth. Jessie looked a little amused at her question.
    “As soon as he became a man, he would go to his fathers,” said Julia.
    “But that would be a good thing,” said Beth. “This is an evil thing that he is forced to endure. He is not alive as a man, or among the spirits of his loved ones either. I wish we could set him free!”
    “Perhaps it could be done,” said Julia, opening her eyes and looking seriously at Beth. Julia seemed pleased at what she saw.
    “I have an idea,” said Jessie. “Now, we know something the old nomads didn’t know, even as wise and serious as they were. We know that there is a Spirit that Coyote can never withstand. He is only a wandering lie upon the face of the earth after all. An unclean spirit.
    “Since we know Klah’s name and his fate until now, we can pray for his release from Coyote’s wicked spell. We can ask Creator to untie those knots. It is a simple matter to Him,” said Jessie.
    And so, they did. Putting their hearts together in mercy they cried out to the Infinite in the Name of the One, as we are also taught. Things were done in the Spirit that night, the freeing of an innocent captive of an old old enslavement.
    Then Julia took her cat and her cane and slipped out to bed in her old home.

     Jessie and Beth went quietly to bed, so as not to wake their sleeping daughter in her little cot.
    Far away, up in the rocks, a spotted bull became a man, who wept with joy as he went to meet those he loved.

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