"De.Lint,.Charles.-.Coyote.Stories" - читать интересную книгу автора (De Lint Charles)

Coyote shakes his head and takes a sip of his Jack. "You are one crazy skin," he
says.

That Coyote he likes his whiskey. It goes down smooth and puts a gleam in his
eye. Maybe, he drinks enough, he'll remember some good time and smile, maybe
he'll get mean and pick himself a fight with a lamp post like he's done before.
But one thing he knows, whether he's got money or not's got nothing to do with
omens. Not for him, anyway.

But a lack of money isn't really an omen for Albert either; it's a way of life.
Albert, he's like the rest of us skins. Left the reserve, and we don't know why.
Come to the city, and we don't know why. Still alive, and we don't know why. But
Albert, he remembers it being different. He used to listen to his grandmother's
stones, soaked them up like the dirt will rain, thirsty after a long drought.
And he tells stories himself, too, or pieces of stories, talk to you all night
long if you want to listen to him.

It's al ways Coyote in Albert's stories, doesn't matter if he's making them up
or just passing along gossip. Sometimes Coyote's himself, sometimes he's Albert,
sometimes he's somebody else. Like it wasn't Coyote sold his Rolex and ran into
him outside Joey's Bar that day, it was Billy Yazhie. Maybe ten years ago now,
Billy he's standing under a turquoise sky beside Spider Rock one day, looking
up, looking up for a long time, before he turns away and walks to the nearest
highway, sticks out his thumb and he doesn't look back till it's too late. Wakes
up one morning and everything he knew is gone and he can't find his way back.

Oh that Billy he's a dark skin, he's like leather. You shake his hand and it's
like you took hold of a cowboy boot. He knows some of the old songs and he's got
himself a good voice, strong, ask anyone. He used to drum for the dancers back
home, but his hands shake too much now, he says. He doesn't sing much anymore,
either. He's got to be like the rest of us, hanging out in Fitzhenry Park,
walking the streets, sleeping in an alleyway because the Men's Mission it's out
of beds. We've got the stoic faces down real good, but you look in our eyes,
maybe catch us off guard, you'll see we don't forget anything. It's just most
times we don't want to remember.

This Coyote he's not too smart sometimes. One day he gets into a fight with a
biker, says he going to count coup like his plains brothers, knock that biker
all over the street, only the biker's got himself a big hickory-handled hunting
knife and he cuts Coyote's head right off. Puts a quick end to that fight, I'll
tell you. Coyote he spends the rest of the afternoon running around, trying to
find somebody to sew his head back on again.

"That Coyote," Jimmy Coldwater says, "he's always losing his head over one thing
or another."

I tell you we laughed.

But Albert he takes that omen seriously. You see him drinking still, but he's
drinking coffee now, black as a raven's wing, or some kind of tea he brews for