10. The Coyote and the Indian Fire-Bringer

One cold winter’s day, long, long ago, when the Coyote was the friend and the counselor of the Indian, a Boy of one of the tribes was ranging through a mountain forest with a big, gray Coyote. The poor Indians ran naked in the snow or huddled in caves in the rocks, and were suffering terribly in the cold. The Boy said, “I am sorry for the misery of my people.” “I do not feel the cold,” said the Coyote. “You have a coat of fur,” said the Boy, “and my people have not. I will hunt with you no more until I have found a way to make my people warm in the winter’s cold. Help me, O counselor.” The Coyote ran away, and when he came back, after a long time, he said, “I have a way, but it’s a hard way.” “No way is too hard,” said the Boy. So the Coyote told him they must go to the Burning Mountain to bring fire to the people. “What is fire?” asked the Boy. “Fire is red like a flower, yet not a flower; swift to run in the grass and destroy, like a beast, yet not a beast; fierce and beautiful, yet a good servant to keep one warm, if kept among stones and fed with sticks.”

“We will get the fire,” said the Boy. So the Boy and the Coyote started off with one hundred swift runners for the far-away Burning Mountain. At the end of the first day’s trail they left the weakest of the runners to wait; at the end of the second day the next stronger, and so for each of the hundred days; and the Boy was the strongest runner and went to the last trail with the Coyote. At last the two stood at the foot of the Burning Mountain, from which smoke rolled out. Then the Coyote said to the Boy, “Stay here till I bring you a brand from the burning. Be ready for running, for I shall be faint when I reach you, and the Fire-spirits will pursue me.” Up the mountainside he went. He looked so slinking and so small and so mean, the Fire-spirits laughed at him. But in the night, as the Fire-spirits were dancing about the mountain, the Coyote stole the fire and ran with it fast away from the Fire-spirits who, red and angry, gave chase after him, but could not overtake him. The Boy saw him coming, like a falling star against the mountain, with the fire in his mouth, the sparks of which streamed out along his sides. As soon as the Coyote got near, the Boy took the brand from his jaws and was off, like an arrow from a bent bow, till he reached the next runner, who stood with his head bent for running. To him he passed it, and he was off and away, and the spiteful Fire-spirits were hot in chase. So the brand passed from hand to hand and the Fire-spirits tore after each runner through the country, but they came to the mountains of the snows ahead and could not pass. Then the swift runners, one after the other bore it forward, shining starlight in the night, glowing red in the sultry noons, pale in the twilight, until they came safely to their own land. There they kept the fire among the stones and fed it with sticks, as the Coyote had said, and it kept the people warm.

Ever after, the Boy was called the Fire-bringer, and the Indians said the Coyote still bears the mark of fire, because his flanks are singed and yellow from the flames that streamed backward from the firebrand that night in the long ago.—Adapted from “The Basket Woman,” by Mary Antrim.