Fish Tails

by Sheri S. Tepper

  Coyote heard no door or gate closing. No sound of anything shutting. The opening was just that. Open. Open or not, he wasn’t going in there. Nothing the stinkers had done had told him anything worth reporting on, not yet. Even though he needed to find out more, he still wasn’t going to do a stupid and use a human hole into that mountain. If the mountain was a dead volcano, there was probably another way in.

  He got to his feet, stretched his legs carefully, one at a time, and descended the rock pile to take a closer look at the cliff. On this side of the ridge, it actually made a little . . . dip, a kind of curve away from him. Also, this side had holes in it that couldn’t be seen from the other side of the ridge: holes not big enough to be human entrances but big enough for coyotes. He sniffed at one or two, no human smell. Good. No stinker smell either, which was even better. Now, if he just weren’t so tired and thirsty. Very tired; very, very thirsty. He lay panting for a time, considering what else he might try. Around him the trees spoke with soft-­wind voices. As his panting slowed, the voices grew louder, not wind sounds but real voices—­much muffled by echoes. Definitely human.

  He arose resentfully and tried to locate the sound source. It had no direction. It was as loud if he faced one way as the other. He closed his eyes and looked at the cliff again. This time a shadow on the cliff wall before him looked different. Part of it was behind the other part. There was an opening behind it. A man would have to stoop over to get in there. Then he’d have to keep going, because he wouldn’t be able to turn around!

  It was wide enough for Coyote, and he could turn around anytime he needed to. After the second turn, it was completely dark but the voices were clearer: no words, just the murmur of saying, asking, answering. Like chickens did. Cluckety-­cluck-­cluck? Clu-­awcketty-­clawk! When chickens did it, Xulai said it was conversation. “Nice grasshopper, warm sun, ooh, beetle. Yum.”

  He pushed his left side against the wall and moved along it. The tube got larger the farther he went. A sudden pain in his foot stopped him, and without meaning to, he whined. The whine went off into the darkness, echoing.

  He didn’t have time for a curse howl. And this wasn’t the right place! Instead he muttered one of Abasio’s short curse words and lay down to investigate his left rear foot. A sharp stone. Something like a sharp stone. It hadn’t cut him, yet. No blood.

  “Thanks be to God,” he said solemnly. That was a man-­saying, one that Abasio, Bear, and Coyote had talked about. And Blue Horse, too. Not Rags. She said god-­talk bored her. Recently some of the talking animals had decided that if men had a god, then animals should have them, too. The humans’ god was something like humans, only invisible, bigger, stronger, wiser, everything-­er than humans were. So now some of the talking creatures had created their own gods. Blue said some of the horses at the farms north of Wellsport had a horse-­god, a wind-­swift Stallion Lord that led his mares and foals across the sky, their hooves making thunder and striking lightning sparks from the sky. Abasio said hooves made sparks only if horses were shod, so the sky horses had to have a blacksmith up there somewhere—­a sky farrier. Humans, some of them, prayed to their god. Some ­people did it constantly. Praying was telling the god stuff. The animals had decided a long time ago that since gods were supposed to know everything, telling them stuff was a waste of time, so it must be that the ­people were just lonely. Xulai said that was the real reason most gods existed. ­People got lonely and scared and needed someone to talk to.

  Coyote muttered; digging his teeth into the crevice between his toes, getting his teeth on whatever it was he’d stepped on. There. Not a stone, something metal-­tasting, small, sharp; no blood on it or on his foot, which was a good thing. The thing was mostly smooth, but his tongue felt rough places on it. He spat the silvery thing against the wall of the tunnel, picked up a few small stones to cover it, peed on them well enough to find it easily, and lay back down, still thinking of deities.

  Horse-­gods. Blue said he’d never heard of an animal deity who actually helped any animal. Abasio said human gods didn’t really help ­people either. When something nice happened, though, men said their god did it, and when something bad happened, men said they were being punished. But some men did bad things all the time and never got punished, so evidently the god got distracted a lot. No matter how useless gods were, men still made up lots of them, even evil ones. Animals had enough trouble without inventing a trouble god. Coyote had tried to create a picture in his head of a coyote-­god. He couldn’t do it. He had thought up a good god howl that would sound like wind, a great wind with a . . . million coyote voices in it. Suppose he got a really big pack together and taught them the howl, would the coyote-­god appear? If it did, what would Coyote pray for? In-­visibility, in-­smellability, in-­hearability. Now, these would come in very useful! Think of the chicken coops he could raid!

  Not that he would. Of course. Not if anyone was watching. However, if there happened to be a coyote-­god listening, he, Coyote, would be grateful for water. And something edible!

  He yawned, and the yawn woke him slightly and encouraged him to get his legs under him. This was not the time to go to sleep. He needed to see what was to be seen—­assuming there was light in here somewhere. At least he could find the voices and find out what they were all about. Then he could sleep. The tunnel was smooth-­floored. He could trot along it at a fairly good rate—­definitely one of those routes Abasio had called a lava tube. Though it curved, it did not seem to branch, not on the side he was staying on. His breathing had its own echo. If the way branched on the other side, the echo would be different. The way wasn’t steep either, which was another blessing. It simply went on into the mountain, sloping very gently upward—­all lava tubes did, because the melted stuff had run downhill. The air was flowing in the same direction he was going, coming in from behind him, carrying only a tiny odor of the stinkers. Air was good, footing was good, but the darkness was absolute, so he went slowly, keeping his fur against the side of the tunnel as he walked steadily onward. That was another Abasio trick. If you were in the dark, keep to one side of whatever place you were in. If you had to get out, turn around and keep your other side in touch with the wall. And of course keep smelling and listening . . .

  And listening! Had he heard a plink? And a trickle! Maybe there was a god of coyotes! The sound came from up ahead, in the direction he was going. Yes! His eager nose encountered a film of moisture sliding down the side of the tunnel, accumulating in a long, narrow hollow at the bottom of the wall before seeping out through a crack about a paw and a half above the bottom. He lapped it up, waited until it filled again, and drank it all, and three more times. That was better. Hunger would wait, but thirst didn’t wait for anything. The water had a volcano taste. Sharp. It wasn’t his favorite water taste—­that would be either fish or frog, preferably with green stuff—­but it wouldn’t hurt him, he knew that.

  His widely opened eyes caught a flicker, like a darkness gulping a lighter shadow. It came again. Firelight. He slowed, crept forward around a corner. What might be firelight and daylight, both, and then a suddenly glaring white light from something else, and a windy, rushing sound! Like a storm coming! The tunnel ended a short distance ahead at a coyote-­sized, egg-­shaped gap, little end upward, bottom nicely scooped for a coyote to lie in. He crawled the last little way, turning his head sideways to poke one eye over the edge without his nose showing.

  He was looking down and across at a sizable cavern! On the floor was the thing he’d seen first: a flicker of firelight. ­People, fire, and . . . some kind of machines! Coyote shuddered, remembering machines from the war at the Place of Power! Some of them were wheel things that ran by themselves. Even after the Place of Power had died, there were some wheels-­by-­themselves-­runners going back and forth among the Edges.

  The cavern was round, roundish. Not smooth round but like a huge, lumpy half bubble. If the floor was a circle, he couldn’t see the part that w
as under him and behind him. So, his recipe would say it was like a very big bubble and he was looking down from more than halfway to the top of it. He could see the sky through a stone-­toothed, star-­centered hole to one side of the top. He could tell it was the west top because of the star. It was called the morning star, or the evening star, either one. Abasio had taught him why this crazy star stayed so close to the sun: it wanted to mate with the sun because it was in heat. That was a human joke that didn’t make sense even when ­people explained it. It was the first star you could see at night and the last one to blink out in the morning. The strange white glare came from lamps on the lower walls—­that is, the ones he could see. The part he couldn’t see might be empty. The men didn’t even look in that direction.

  A line of pens stood along the cavern wall, each pen holding stinkers, assorted sizes, none really small. Male or female? Some had hair on their faces; some didn’t. Two of them were different, more like the one Bear had killed. They even had bows, like the hunter. Did that mean anything? He counted. Two paws equaled ten stinkers in each pen.

  The three he had followed were just now entering the cavern. Coyote counted ten pens; that was one foot, twice on each toe, another foot of pens, and two more feet. Four double feet of pens, each pen with ten. He whispered it to himself, remembering it. A man came in holding a long rod connected to something he had strapped on his back. Abasio had a thing like it, made out of stiff cloth. A kind of bag to put things in, when he didn’t have the wagon. To pack things in. He called it a pack. “Packing” was like “making,” only push instead of drag. Maybe push harder, too.

  The voices from below got louder. The men were looking at what they were doing, they didn’t look up. Coyote eased himself forward so he could put his long nose over the edge and use both eyes. The stone was as dark as his fur. If he didn’t move, if he kept perfectly still, chances were they could look right at him and not see him.

  They were working around a . . . built thing. How would he tell Abasio about it? He had to find words in his “compatible vocabulary.” First, it was lying flat on the floor. It looked like a . . . kind of gate made out of metal. Bars very close together going one way, another set going the other way like . . . like Xulai’s grill over the fire! Grill! The grill thing was lying flat, and under it was a curved shininess. It looked like a bowl, like Xulai’s big bowl she made green food in. He yawned and closed his eyes. Just for a minute.

  Coyote had never figured out why men ate green food all the time. Coyotes ate green food only when they had pain in the middle. Abasio said dogs did, too. Horses, sheep, and goats and other creatures like them ate green food all the time, but why did men eat green food? The thing down below looked like Xulai’s bowl for green food, only this one was metal. Xulai’s bowl was made of clay baked in an oven, and he, Coyote, was not to stick his nose into it. Said Xulai.

  He was dozing off again! Hunger could do that. Make you sleepy. His head jerked up. The two stinkers with the bows were being let out of the pen, and they came over to the inside edge of the bubble, the part Coyote couldn’t see. After a little while there was a splash! There was water back there! Then he saw others with bows, more like the first ones. He counted them on his feet, one double front foot, two double front feet, that was two eyes, then one double back foot, two double back . . . no. Almost two double back feet but one was missing. That was one face of double feet. Abasio would help him figure it out. All his feet one face around except one missing, and THAT was the dead one, for sure. All of the hunters got to go wherever the splash was.

  At one of the pens, the man with the pack was pushing at the stinkers with the long rod thing that had something like two fingers on the end of it. No. Finger and thumb. Like pinching. The human said something loud. The creature in the pen took its clothes off. Each one had a shirt-­jacket top that wrapped around and fastened, trousers that tied in front, and boots. That was all. The man took each thing and laid it next to the pen. The clothes were black inside. Like the cloth Abasio used to cover the chicken coops to keep them from getting wet.

  Coyote felt his nose wrinkling again, felt his ears flatten, the way they always did when he saw something nasty or dangerous. Without their clothes the stinkers were . . . were just . . . nasty! The naked one howled: a foot-­in-­the-­mouth-­complain-­roar. Not pain. Like he had his head in a hole. The human pushed at him with the long rod, making him move out onto the grill. The thing’s feet didn’t go through! So there had to be something else on top of the grill, something he couldn’t see from up here. The grill thing was holding up something else. Maybe mesh. “Mesh” was the word for the stuff on the chicken coops. With its clothes off, the stinker looked like a ball of white fat with darker worms in it. Dirty white with squirmies. Nasty!

  Some things were nasty for Coyotes, even though Xulai said she’d never seen anything nasty enough that a Coyote wouldn’t eat it. Abasio had told her that was an insult, so she apologized. It was not a proper apology. She didn’t lie down, belly up, and whine while he sniffed her, so it was NOT a proper apology. It was only a human apology, just saying “sorry.” Coyote would rather Xulai had lain down belly up so he could give her a good sniff, but female humans were funny about being sniffed.

  His head jerked. He’d been dozing again! Sniff dreaming. He wondered if other creatures dreamed in smells. He did not want to sniff that thing on the grill. Water came out of the end of the rod the man was holding. Steam billowed out, so it could be hot water. That was why they wore those long coats! The human was washing the white stuff off the stinker. The white stuff was falling on the grill in thick chunks; then it got soft and dripped down into the bowl while the stinker turned around and around, making a kind of wolf-­owl-­eagle noise, like two pieces of metal rubbed together howl-­screech-­scream on and on while the stuff on it came off and dripped down. Off its head, too. It didn’t have any of the stuff on its face or feet or hands. Everywhere else, though.

  With the white stuff off, he looked like a human man, more or less. If the flabby, dangly part in front worked the way it did in humans, this stinker was a male. That part was not tidy. Coyote liked that word. “Tidy.” Neat. Coyotes had neat ones. Dogs did, too. Horses, sometimes, except when they got all excited and then they were just disgusting. Like puppy poop dangling all the way to the ground! Humans’ parts were no better, at least men’s parts weren’t. That’s why they had to wear clothes. It would be very painful crawling over rocks or through thornbushes with that dangly thing hanging there. And women’s baby-­milk parts! Why didn’t they shrink back neatly when the puppies . . . babies were weaned? No, they stayed dangly, just like men’s parts, and they had to wear clothes. They didn’t have fur. Naked skin with no fur made no sense at all. Except for frogs. And fish.

  Coyote stayed where he was while the next one was washed off. This one had no dangly part. Maybe it had breasts, he couldn’t tell with the general flabbiness. And it was round! Like it had pups inside! Coyote gagged. More of them? The whole world needed none of them, not more of them! And here came the stink! Coyote saw it rising up toward him. A kind of gray cloud in the air. All the ­people down there had masks over their faces, masks with tubes and things over their noses. Coyote had only his paws to put over his. It wasn’t bearable! He turned and trotted back down the tunnel. The air was flowing up the tunnel toward the cavern! Abasio said hot air went up, so the air in the cavern was warmer, right, and the hot water made it warm, too, and it went up and out that hole at the top. That’s why they had the fire! To make the air go up! And the air from the tunnel would flow up behind it! It was going past him, now, on its way out. It would be unbearable only if he put his nose over the edge. He sometimes wished he had a face like Abasio’s. Abasio would be able to put his eyes over without putting his nose over!

  On the other hand, Abasio couldn’t smell anything. Coyote didn’t know why human ­people even bothered with noses. They weren’t designed very well. The man said
men were made in the image of their deity. Whoever made the deity ought to be ashamed! “Ashamed” was what pups felt when they soiled the den and got nipped for it. Humans ought to be ashamed with noses like that.

  He lay quietly, head on paws, facing away from the opening as he dozed, the sounds from below telling him the washing was going on, variations in howls telling him different ones were being . . . washed. Some voices were more howl-­y—­female maybe? If the round one was having . . . young ones, it meant the things mated. Coyote gagged. The idea make him feel like he’d eaten grass.

  Eventually, the howling stopped. A very loud metal clang brought him back to the hole. The stink cloud had gone out through the top, and something was sliding out under the grill. It went out until it covered the bowl and dropped with a whoosh-­clang sound. The wagon door went whoosh. The kettle lid went clang. So this was a big lid! With the bowl covered, the smell was . . . not so bad, and after a bit it was almost gone, but there was a noise . . . Howling? Screaming? Very high and shrill, like the tiniest birds, only lots of them: maybe like a bunch of bugs yelling, many, many little tiny voices. Yes, like a . . . a huge swarm of those sting-­y ones: gnats! The pens were full of naked, washed stinkers covered with dark worms that sounded like gnats. Well, maybe not worms. Squirmy things. Skinnier than worms. Not as thin as hair, though. All over their bodies, these things that squirmed and wriggled and lashed about, screaming. Worm fur. That’s what they were, worm fur! The men pushed the clothes through the bars. The stinkers smelled the clothes! They could identify their own clothes by smell! Coyote didn’t believe anything that smelled that bad could smell anything else. He would ask Abasio for a word for that! When they all had clothes on, the noise stopped. The worms didn’t like the light! That was why they screamed!