“Safe is good,” I told him. “Not all the time, no. Sometimes, though, it is better than water in the desert.”
He made a rude noise.
I thought more about rules and werewolves. I glanced over my shoulder, but I couldn’t see Honey’s house—or any other house for that matter. Coyote was definitely doing something. I hoped that Adam went right back to sleep and hadn’t heard me open the back door. He’d be worried.
“Rules keep the people I love safe,” I said, thinking about Adam. “It is important to me that they are safe.”
He nodded like I had said something smart. Then he said, “And when rules don’t keep them safe, we break the rules.”
I could agree with that—and almost did. If it weren’t for that little bit of smugness on his face, I would have. I wonder what rules he was contemplating breaking.
“Admit it,” he said when I didn’t say anything more. “Admit it. Keeping all the rules is boring. Tell me you don’t want to short-sheet Christy’s bed—or put ipecac syrup in some of that too-delicious food she is always cooking.”
“I’m not childish,” I told him. “And I’m not petty.”
“No,” he agreed sadly. “More’s the pity.”
“And how do you know how good her food is?”
He just smiled and kept walking.
I took a deep breath. Time to ask him about the walking stick. I’d given it to him as a gift, and he’d taken it as a favor. I wasn’t sure how he’d react when I asked for it back.
“There he is,” Coyote said, sounding delighted, and he broke into a sprint, the stupid lamb bouncing with his stride.
I ran as fast as I could, but Coyote stayed ahead of me. I couldn’t see who it was, but I wasn’t surprised when, after a minute or two, the path turned, and there was Gary Laughingdog sitting in the middle of the road with his back to us. I stopped beside him, but Coyote had walked around so Gary couldn’t avoid looking at him.
“I hate you,” Gary said with feeling. He threw a small rock and nailed a T-post on the side of the road. He picked up another, tossed it into the air, and caught it on the way back down.
Coyote threw his head back and laughed. “I wondered how much longer you’d stay locked up in the gray box. You didn’t used to let them hold you for so long.”
“Knowing I was safe from you there,” Gary said, throwing the rock in his hand with barely controlled violence, “I planned on staying inside as long as I could. My conscience drove me out before then.”
“Conscience,” mused Coyote. They looked alike, he and Gary Laughingdog. “I wonder where you got that?”
“Quit tormenting him,” I said sternly.
Gary twisted half-around to look at me. “Go tell the sun not to rise.” He stood up and dusted off the back of his jeans. “Looks like you got too interesting, Mercy. But did you have to let him include me?”
“I have a gift for you both,” said Coyote grandly. “Come along, children.” He started off down the road.
“We might as well,” said Gary in the voice of experience. “If we don’t, something horrible will come out of the night and chase us. We’ll end up dead, or doing exactly what he wanted anyway. Cooperation saves all of us a lot of trouble.”
Coyote snickered.
“What?” Gary said, sounding aggravated.
Coyote turned around and walked backward. He held up a hand. “You.” He held up another hand as far from the first as he could. “Cooperation.”
Gary sneered at him. Coyote sneered back, and I saw that Coyote’s eyes and Gary’s were the same shape. Then the moment was over, and Coyote turned around and faced the way he was going.
Gary started to follow, but I stepped in front of him and stopped, shaking my head. I waited until Coyote was far enough ahead of us so we could talk in relative privacy before starting down the road. Relative, because I was certain Coyote could still hear us; he wasn’t that far ahead.
“Why aren’t you asleep?” I asked Gary.
“Because I’m a fugitive from the law, and there was a lawyer sleeping in the same room with me,” he said with feeling.
“Kyle wouldn’t have turned you in.”
Gary shook his head. “Eventually, he’ll realize who I am, and, if he doesn’t want to lose his license to practice, he’ll have to turn me in.” We walked a little while, and he said, “I don’t really want to get any of you in trouble for harboring an escaped prisoner. I’ve done what I needed to do, told you what I knew, and it is time to make myself scarce. It isn’t the first time I’ve been on the run from the law.”
He looked down at his feet, then gave me a rueful smile. “Though most of the time I’ve deserved it more. I can head over to one of the Montana reservations, and they’ll let me stay until the state of Washington decides it isn’t so concerned with some idiot held on a nonviolent crime. If I’d walked while on parole, they might not even look for me. Once the fire dies down, I’ll get a fake ID and show up somewhere else as someone else. About time to do that anyway.”
“All that was true earlier when you said you’d spend the night,” I said.
He looked at me, then away. “One of your wolves saw me looking at Honey and told me about her husband. That’s who she’s got following her around, right? She’s not going to be able to see anyone else until she lets him go.”
I’d had the thought that it was Honey’s fault that Peter’s shade was still hanging around, too. “Probably not, no,” I agreed. “He died not very long ago.”
“She’s interested in me,” he said. He flashed me that grin again, but I saw behind it to how alone he was. “I’m not just being vain, though I own that as well. But it hurts her that she’s interested, and I think she’s been hurt enough. It was time for me to leave.”
Coyote began whistling a song that sounded suspiciously like “London Bridge Is Falling Down.”
“Screw you and the horse you rode in on,” Gary yelled, and Coyote laughed. To me Gary said, “So I’ll leave. I’ll become someone else and maybe stop by in a few years.” He didn’t mean that last sentence, I could tell, and he knew it—so the lie was for himself and not me.
“Fingerprints?” I said. “DNA? Facial-recognition software? Hard to lose yourself in this day and age.” That had been the main reason that the werewolves had finally come out to the public.