Coyote (Dust Devils #2)

1. Prologue

Somebody had been eating my food for three weeks, and tonight he was going to do it in front of me.

I'd kept count. A dozen tortillas on Tuesday. Half a wheel of cheese the Tuesday before that. Not one spoonful of my beans, which I took personally.

I stood in the kitchen, gripping one of my good cast-iron pans by the handle, listening to the thief rummage around in the pantry. Pearl stood at my side, growling low, but whatever was on the other side of that door either didn't hear her or didn't care.

I crossed the floor with the pan up and put my free hand flat on the pantry door and caught myself holding my breath. Pearl's growl climbed.

I pulled the door open.

A boy crouched on the second shelf with a sack of tortillas crushed against his chest and one filthy bare foot braced on the flour bin. He came around toward me all at once with a knife already in his hand.

His knees were sharp under his jeans, his hair matted flat on one side, dirt worked into his neck.

His eyes found mine and held them, and my stomach dropped.

I'd seen eyes like that across this same table, the first year Rafe was home, when he ate with his back to the wall and never put down the fork.

He'd found every exit in my kitchen before he found my face.

Pearl pressed hard into my leg, growling so deep I felt it through the floor.

"Quiet," I told her.

The boy brought the knife against my jaw and let out a low growl of his own.

"You stab me in my kitchen," I said, "and I'm going to be real unhappy about it."

Something moved under his shirt. I shifted my grip on the pan before I'd thought about it, ready to swing, and then a narrow reddish-brown head slid out over his collar and tasted the air between us.

I lowered the pan. "That's a snake."

His arm crushed the tortillas closer. "She's mine."

"I wasn't going to take her."

"You were going to hit me."

"I was going to hit whatever's been cleaning out my pantry. I didn't know it was a kid."

His stomach growled, long and loud in the quiet kitchen. Pearl tipped her head at the sound.

"You hungry?"

"I can take care of myself," he snarled. The knife stayed against my jaw.

"I didn't say you couldn't. I asked if you wanted a burrito."

His eyes moved from the pan to my face and back again. "I don't take charity."

"Good. I'm not offering any."

I set the pan on the stove, turned my back on him, and reached for the eggs. Three clear chances at my throat and he hadn't taken one.

Rafe was asleep upstairs. If I had it wrong, he'd come down in the morning and find me on my own floor, and he'd never forgive either one of us.

Behind me, the shelf creaked. His bare feet touched the floor one at a time.

I lit the burner. The gas caught blue, and I cracked eggs into the pan. Butter and chile warmed the kitchen while I pulled down the beans and cheese.

"You drink coffee?" I asked.

He came half a step closer and pulled air in through his nose. "Yes?"

I put beans into the grinder and stopped with my thumb over the switch. "This part's loud. Cover your ears."

He gave me a look and didn't move.

I ran the grinder.

He came up off the floor with both hands clapped over his ears, knife and all.

I lifted my thumb off the switch.

He glared at me.

"I warned you." I shook the grounds into the filter. "Those tags they sew into the back of new shirts drive me half out of my head. I cut every one of them out. I can't do crowds. I talk too much when I'm nervous, which I'm doing now, if you hadn't noticed."

He lowered the knife another inch.

"Rafe says I've got no idea when to stop. He's right. I never have." I held my hand out behind me, palm up. "Pass me two of those tortillas."

He looked at the bag, then at me, then back at the bag.

"Keep the rest. I'll make more."

He opened the bag one-handed and set a tortilla in my palm from as far away as his arm would reach.

I filled it with eggs and beans, grated cheese over the top, and stopped with the salsa spoon in my hand. "You take it hot?"

He lifted one shoulder.

I spooned the salsa on heavily, rolled the burrito, and held it out.

He took it in his free hand with the knife still raised in the other and ate like he thought I might change my mind and snatch it back. I turned toward the stove and started another so he wouldn't have to eat under my eyes.

Pearl left my side and lay down a foot from his knee. He watched her settle and kept eating. When he finished the first burrito, I put the second one on a plate and set it on the floor beside him without asking.

He stared at it.

"Nobody's keeping count," I said.

I'd put it on the floor like he was Pearl. He didn't seem to mind, and I decided not to look too hard at how I'd known he wouldn't.

That was enough. He picked it up and ate.

I poured two cups of coffee and set one beside his foot. "Sugar's on the shelf behind you."

He didn't move while I watched. I turned back to the pan. The tin opened, the spoon went in three times, and the cup scraped off the floor.

The snake came out while he drank. She poured down his arm and hung her head over his wrist, aimed at my plate.

"She got a name?"

He stopped chewing. "Nimue."

"Nimue." I didn't reach for her. "She take mice or eggs?"

"Both."

"There's a carton in the refrigerator. Put a couple in your pocket for her."

He looked at the refrigerator but didn't move toward it.

A board creaked over our heads. Then another.

"Sierra?" Rafe called from the top of the stairs. "Who are you talking to?"

The boy came up off the floor. The knife rose with him, and Nimue pulled tight against his throat.

"Easy," I said. Then I raised my voice. "We've got company. Come down and meet him."

His head snapped toward me.

"I don't lie to Rafe," I told him. "Not for you. Not for anybody. But I'd put that knife down before he comes through the door. He's not going to hurt you. He's not allowed to, not in my kitchen."

Rafe came down one step at a time and stopped in the doorway in his undershirt. His hair was loose from its braid, and I wanted to fix it and kiss him, and tell him the boy was ours. But I stayed where I was.

He looked at the boy, the knife, the snake, the empty plate, and the second cup of coffee.

Then he sighed. "Sierra."

"I know."

"We've talked about this."

"I know that, too."

"You said that last time." He looked at the knife, not at me. "And the time before."

Rafe crossed the kitchen and stopped beyond the reach of the knife. Then he lowered himself onto his heels, folding all that size down until he looked up at the boy instead of down.

"That's a gopher snake," he said. "We had one in the tack room three years straight. She kept the mice down better than the cats did."

The boy said nothing, but his eyes left the back door and settled on Rafe.

"You know she can't hurt anybody," Rafe said.

"People don't know that. That's what she's for."

The corner of Rafe's mouth moved. "What do we call you?"

The boy looked at me before answering. "Coyote."

"Coyote." Rafe rose, his knees cracking, and stepped back to give him room. "All right. You finish eating. Then you wash. After that, you and I will talk."

He took my cup out of my hand, drank it, kissed the top of my head, and went upstairs to get dressed.

The knife lay flat on the table now, with the boy's hand resting over it.

"You got family anywhere?" I asked. "Anybody looking for you?"

He shook his head once.

"Nobody at all?"

"Nobody that's looking."

I cracked another egg into the pan.

"Percy," he said.

I kept my hands moving and my eyes on the stove. "That your name?"

"My mamma called me that. Nobody else."

"Where's your mamma now?"

His fingers tightened around the empty coffee cup. "She went down into the arroyo. The water came up fast, and she didn't come back out."

My hands stopped. "I'm sorry, Percy."

He picked up the last piece of burrito and held it tight. But he left the knife on my table.

When he'd finished, I showed him the room off the wash porch. It had a cot, a clean sheet, a wool blanket folded at the foot, and a door that locked from the inside.

"This room is yours tonight," I said. "Nobody comes through that door without asking. You can lock it against me too. I won't take it personally."

He stood in the doorway without crossing it. He looked at the cot, the ceiling, the one small window, and back into the hall.

"I can't sleep in there. The roof's too close," he said after a moment. "You can't see what's coming through a roof. Mamma said sleep where you can see every way somebody might come at you."

"All right," I said again.

I took the good throw off the couch and the pillow from my side of the bed, carried them out to the porch, and dropped the pillow onto the swing.

"I don't sleep on the floor," I told him. "My back's too old for it. But I'll stay out here until morning."

He watched me settle onto the swing, still looking for the trick.

There wasn't one.

Rafe shut off the light upstairs. Rafe hadn't come out to say goodnight. He'd never once told me no. He'd never once told me yes, either.

A coyote called from the ridge, one long note that broke at the end.

Percy stilled. Then he walked to the edge of the porch, tipped his face toward the sound, and howled back.

It wasn't a good imitation, too high in the middle, breaking at the end. The coyote called again anyway.

Percy answered until he ran out of breath. Then he looked at me, waiting to see what I'd make of it.

"That was loud," I said. "But I've heard worse."

He almost smiled.

Pearl came out and settled on the boards. Percy looked at the rug by the door where the dog usually slept. When I said nothing, he lay down on it and curled around Nimue. Pearl moved close enough for her back to touch his and closed her eyes.

Rafe would want him in the house. Rafe could want that in the morning.

I stayed awake on the swing until sunrise, making sure nothing reached him.