Reaching into his bag, Pale Horse pulled out a waterskin and drank eagerly, allowing tiny splashes to reach his face and wash away some of the desert. As he lingered in the sensation of the cool water flowing down his throat, his mind began drifting over the previous night's writing in his journal, words that seemed to arise from something too far in his soul for him to reach through any conscious effort.
I once pondered upon the great architect of words, he remembered writing. I once asked if it was possible to build a bridge with a vocabulary at once so strong yet so weak. In his mind, Pale Horse could see himself sitting in the glow of the fire, furs wrapped about him to keep himself warm in the chill of the desert night, and he could envision the look on his face, the glare in his eyes, as he simply let the pencil flow across the page. Night after night, chanted like a prayer or dream song, I asked the question aloud. 'Is it possible to build a bridge from a vocabulary at once so strong yet so weak?'
The horse whinnied and shook its head as if to question his rider. Suddenly, Pale Horse became aware that they had stopped moving, that in his reverie he had pulled tight the reins and caused them to slow to a halt. Clicking his teeth and gently pushing his heels into the side of the animal, he prodded the horse to move again.
"Almost time, my friend," he said to the horse, placing an appreciative hand on the horse's neck. "Almost time for your water and your oats." Pale Horse smiled at the creature that had been his friend and loyal servant for so long on this journey, this journey that never seemed to end. His thoughts drifted over the time he'd spent wandering, searching, sometimes aimlessly, for an elusive goal, a something he couldn't quite understand. And as his thoughts floated over the journey, he found himself returning again to the journal entry. I never heard an answer, he wrote, or I was simply to afraid of it to hear a voice penetrating the desert sand, saying, 'You build your own bridges. It is you who is steel and iron, or it is you who is sand and chalk with water flowing beneath your supports.'
****
Pale Horse saw it in the distance as he rode through the desert. At first it was no more than a black shape, no different in appearance than the stones and scraggly cacti in the increasing swirl of wind and sand. But as he neared, the horse began to shiver and refused to move forward, instead dancing from one leg to the other, seeking to confuse what it saw as a threat. Finally, the figure rose and began to speak in dark, raspy tones.
"Pale Horse," it said, moving closer to the rider. Pale Horse looked stunned and surprised, not only not expecting to see another soul but also startled that the figure knew his name. However, from within the walls of his heart, words began to form and quickly moved through his lips.
"Yes Coyote," Pale Horse said, "it is me." The sounds were a surprise, something the rider did not understand. Yet, at once, they became as true and as natural as the sun and the stars and the moon above in the sky. "Yes Coyote," he said again, "it is me."
Coyote stood up on his back legs and narrowed his eyes to slits. Slowly, the figure emerged from the sand, his scraggly black fur gleaming in places in the sunlight. Suddenly, he began laughing, his gaunt body and his chest shaking with each bellow. What had seemed so strange and frightening to Pale Horse now seemed friendly and familiar.
"Nice to see you in this wasteland," Coyote said, moving closer to Pale Horse, who struggled to steady the horse beneath him. "Not too many come this way these days, my friend." Coyote cast a hungry eye upon the rider's saddle bag. "The water, what there is of it, is drying up." Coyote came closer still, and the spittle on the sides of his muzzle began to show itself.
Pale Horse smiled and slowly reached into his saddlebag for beef jerky. "Why are you still here, then?" Pale Horse asked, and he teased Coyote, threatening to throw the food into the wind, only to grab it again before it fell. "Not much seems left to stay for."
"Maybe I'm too much a creature of habit," Coyote replied, moving closer still. "But then, Pale Horse, aren't we all?" Coyote sighed. "I should've gone to the hills long ago." His front paws moved slowly towards Pale Horse's outstretched arm. "God knows," he growled lowly, "this place is not a happy memory for any." Suddenly, he lunged forward, grabbing the jerky and falling to the ground, wrestling the food, playing with it, as it was prey. "Crow, the Others, all that is left is me." He tore a long strip of meat. "And, of course, there is you." He sat upon the ground, slowly chewing.
Pale Horse laughed gently and lifted his head, searching the horizon, trying to find any clue to where he should go.
"Until I saw you crossing the sand," Coyote continued, "I thought I was all that was left. Nice to see a fellow traveler." The last of the jerky was consumed in a great gulp, and the animal stood and moved closer, close enough for his fangs, for his claws to be clearly seen. Again, the rider reached into his bag and threw another strip of jerky towards the hungry desert dweller.
"I should have chosen somewhere else," Pale Horse muttered. "Maybe this was foolhardy. Maybe this was a gamble." The rider focused his blue eyes into the Coyote's yellow ones. "But I had to come. Of that, I am certain."
Coyote eyed the rider with both admiration and pity in equal blend. He bit again into the strip of jerky. "May I travel with you," Coyote asked just as the wind grew appreciably in strength. "At least as far as where you are going, anyway?" A piece of bread left Pale Horse's hands, and the figure chased it down like a rabbit on a prairie.
"I would never deny the request of a desert dweller," Pale Horse said reluctantly after a long pause. Again, his eyes searched the horizon. Now and again, a familiar voice echoed through his head. You build your own bridges, the voice echoed. Without word or warning, Pale Horse pushed his heels into his horse's side and moved it into a slow gait.
Coyote followed, part of the bread still in his paws. "May I be so bold," Coyote said, crumbs taking to the wind. "Why in the name of the Fathers are you here?"
Pale Horse smiled bitterly, never once taking his eyes from the rapidly blurring horizon between earth and sky. "With a complicated question, there is never a simple answer."
Coyote spread open his arms as he walked beside the horse, gesturing to the great desert around them. "We have nothing but time," he growled, laughing at the same time.
Pale Horse cast a dark glance upon his traveling companion. "I am here," he said slowly, "because the light in my heart is . . ." He paused. "My beautiful woman is going home, Coyote. My spirit knows her soul, my soul knows her heart, but my heart won't let go of even one small word of love." Pale Horse looked back up at the tempests brewing along the darkening horizon.
Coyote stopped, frozen in place by overwhelming disbelief. "You're in this desert because of a woman?" He started moving again, laughing and coughing out clouds of inhaled sand. "Quests of the mind," Coyote emphasized, "quests of the soul, quests for total enlightenment..." He balled his paw and shook it in the air. "These, my friends, are reasons for coming here. But a woman?"
Pale Horse looked sadly upon his companion. "It is as good a reason as any. Beyond that, though, I don't know what I'm trying to find here. I'll just know when I find it."
Coyote laughed more, but then his jolliness began to subside as memories caressed his heart. "I once had a woman," he said, "A real woman, mind you. Not one of the Others." He placed his paws upon his breastbone and sighed. "Ahh, she was beautiful, Pale Horse. As white as the sand, a jewel of the desert." He smiled, revealing rows of sharp teeth. "So beautiful, especially in the dark shadows of the night, but I had to sacrifice too much." Coyote laughed quietly to himself as Pale Horse looked on with sadness and amusement. "Keeping her was too much of an expense. Even had I found the gold the Old Prospector sought to find, I never could have paid enough to keep her."
"To love my woman is no sacrifice," Pale Horse said after a long interval of silence. His eyes again scanned the horizon for signs of something he knew in his soul. "But to ask for it in return," he sighed. "To even reveal it...to seek fulfillment..." Pale Horse tried to think of her without pain, the dark skinned woman in flowing eastern robes, the one his heart cried for without an audible sound. "Coyote," he said as he turned to look at his companion, but the creature was gone. He quickly stopped his horse and looked around him, trying to see through the ever more fierce swirls of sand. Finally, with great effort he could see Coyote upon the ground.
He lay upon the desert sand, kicking and hoping and hollering, gasping for air and twitching as if in seizure. Without consciously thinking, Pale Horse turned his horse and rode back to his comrade, grabbing the waterskin and jumping down. Coyote looked at him in delirium, panting and screaming. Inwardly, Pale Horse prepared himself for the worst. Lowering his waterskin, he prepared to pour the liquor of life upon the creature's lips.
Without warning, Coyote leapt from the ground, knocking Pale Horse face first into the sand. Dazed, spitting sand from his mouth and blowing it from his nose, the rider saw the creature jump upon the horse. Coyote turned to look and howled a long, triumphant howl.
Pale Horse coughed up sand and then cried, "What are you doing? That's my horse! Come back!"
Coyote laughed a growling laugh. "You try walking across the desert for eons, my friend," he cried. "Then, tell me with a straight face that you wouldn't steal another's horse!" He dug his hind feet into the horse, and though it was near panic, it obeyed its new master's commands, leaving Pale Horse to run after them in the growing sandstorm.
****
The sky grew dark both because of the growing storm and because of the approach of night. He'd lost sight of them an hour earlier, but the tracks remained distinct enough to be followed. Where are you going, Pale Horse thought. If you truly wanted to leave me behind, you could do so.
Pale Horse noted the quickening darkness. Why so obvious, my friend?
As the darkness grew and as the sand transformed into a thousand knives, tearing at Pale Horse, searing his lungs, the reasons became clear. Nearby, there stood a tower of rocks, their peaks vaulting high into the desert air. Though he could not be sure, the tracks seemed to lead there. And as he trudged through desert winds, something began to stir in his soul. A distant bell called to him, called to his heart.
Called from the rocks.
This is what I was looking for, Pale Horse thought, his heart pounding. After trudging through the desert for weeks, searching aimlessly for what he didn't understand, the very place he sought loomed before him. Finally, he reached the formation, easily finding passage into a clearing within the tower. It was a natural harbor of rock, a place of refuge from the storm. It was also already inhabited.
Coyote sat in front of a growing flame, a fire that danced higher, consuming paper and wood Pale Horse recognized as being from his supply. Nearby, his horse stood in the shadows, quietly eating a bag of oats.
"Thank you for nothing, you bastard," Pale Horse yelled. Coyote glared at the rider across the flames, his face distorted by the heat and smoke and shimmering in the dancing light..
"You're here, Pale Horse," he muttered lowly. "Express your gratitude for my finding your destination." He motioned with his right paw for Pale Horse to sit, and after pausing and pondering and staring at his animal companion, the rider took his seat by the flames. Already, the air behind him was becoming chilly as the sun sank into night. "So," Coyote said in a less than friendly tone, "any answers in your head yet?"
Pale Horse shook his head, standing and walking to his horse for food. He returned to the fire with strips of beef jerky. Above them, the wind howled and cursed at the rocks, and the sand blasted away at the tower to no avail. Coyote and Pale Horse sat in the relative tranquillity of the harbor of rock.
"Then what are you going to do, Pale Horse?" Coyote asked, staring intently into the face of his traveling companion.
"Sit here," Pale Horse replied, "perhaps an hour, perhaps a day, perhaps a month..." Coyote closed his eyes, baring his fangs as he carefully meted out words with growing lack of patience.
"I do not speak of our present circumstance," Coyote replied. "What are you going to do about this...female...you long for." Pale Horse leaned back from the fire, wondering if the growing heat was from the flame or from his own imagination.
"You don't understand, Coyote," Pale Horse whispered, his eyes focused on the flames. "You don't know the difficulties involved. No, Coyote, she flies to her home, perhaps by the morning, and I..."
"Yes," Coyote growled, his eyes becoming tiny yellow slits, "go on."
"I don't know how to stop her, Coyote," Pale Horse continued. "How could I possibly keep her near me? She is her own being, her own compass and guide. She is...she is..."
"You're a coward!" Coyote suddenly barked across the flames, leaping upon his hind legs. "You're a drinking man afraid of a glass! You want this other person, you NEED this other person that you come here, and yet..." Caught off guard, Pale Horse fell back upon the ground, stunned by the vehemence of Coyote's words.
"What," Pale Horse mumbled, "what is going on here?"
Coyote hunched over and bristled his fur. His eyes glowed a ghostly red in the light of the flames. The wind howled above them, and a chill air began coursing through the tower.
"Yes, Pale Horse," Coyote hissed. "You are a drinking man afraid of glass." Coyote neared him as he tried to move, but already the rider sensed he was cornered. "Tell me, friend, are you half-empty, or half-full?"
****
The fight was brutal and little more than one sided, the victor never being in doubt. Coyote beat Pale Horse with his fists, tore his flesh with his claws and teeth. Coyote howled in the harbor, and his voice echoed and danced along the red rock walls.
"You're a fool, Pale Horse!" Coyote screamed between blows. "A weak, weak fool!" The rider flew against the walls, his head snapping against solid rock. "You come here seeking rapport with what is around you!" The animal kicked at Pale Horse's ribs. "You seek answers to understand, but your eyes do not see!" A well placed kick knocked the rider into the fire, sending him screaming towards the shadows. "You have done nothing but fail, nothing but fail!"
Pale Horse fell against the rocks, letting their cool harshness permeate into his wounds.
"I came this way because you called me, again," Coyote said in a mocking tone of voice. "And yet these are the things you have to say." Suddenly, Pale Horse's journal appeared in Coyote's furry paws. "'My dark woman has gone home,'" Coyote said, speaking from the journal though his eyes never left his prey. "'My spirit knows her soul, my soul knows her heart, but my heart won't let go of one...small...word...of love." Coyote spat upon the ground, tearing that page from the journal and throwing it upon the flames. "It's too late this time, Pale Horse, too late to run away from what you've brought upon yourself again!"
On the rocks, Pale Horse slowly sank towards the sand, blood trailing behind him on the wall. In carefully measured strides, Coyote moved in closer.
"It is too late," Coyote continued, "to grasp that which you've felt so close too. Too late to hear that which you long so deeply to hear." The journal fell to the desert floor as Coyote seemed overwhelmed by the words. And then, with great ferocity, he tore into Pale Horse again.
****
The beating continued long into the night, so long that Pale Horse had stopped noticing the pain. When Coyote finally stopped, when the creature retreated into the shadows beyond the fire, the rider fell first to his knees, and then slowly leaned forward to collapse upon the desert sand. The heat of the fire burned, the touch of the light burned, the sound of Coyote breathing burned, and the salt and sand of the desert floor burned and cauterized Pale Horse's skin.
Barely conscious, Pale Horse wasn't sure at first what Coyote was doing. Slowly, however, as the creature moved again, he could hear him whimpering softly to himself. Coyote approached, tears in his eyes, his bloodied paws held high to either side of his body.
"Why," Coyote whispered, sadness upon his face. "Why do you do this to yourself? Why do you keep coming back to this place?" Coyote fell upon the ground and crawled on all fours towards the horse. It was panting, frightened, standing in the shadows beyond the fire, yet Coyote was able to reach it and grab a waterskin. He turned, and crawled back towards Pale Horse who still lay motionless upon the ground.
"When you come here to this place, you fail," Coyote cried softly. "'I once pondered upon the great architect of words,' you said. 'I once asked if it was possible to build a bridge out of a vocabulary at once so strong yet so weak.'" Coyote turned Pale Horse over, holding his neck and allowing drops of water to fall upon his scarred and bloodied face. The creature then stood and approached the fire, paused, and then allowed drops of the fluid of life to fall upon and extinguish parts of the fire, the ashes sizzling and popping.
"You asked the question, Pale Horse," Coyote continued, "asked for the lesson. The answer is given, always given, but never listened to. You won't believe." The light of the fire died down with each drop of water, plunging the harbor of rock into greater darkness. "'She flies to her home in the morning...I can't stop her...I can't possibly keep her.' Through all of your questioning, through all of your hoping, through all of your continuous questing time and again over this same sacred ground, did you ever think to ask her to stay?"
The last of the water flowed and the last of the fire faded into night. Pale Horse could not see, but the sounds of Coyote and the horse leaving were clear and distinct.
"Will you ever listen," Coyote whimpered, "or will this happen to you again and again until there is nothing left of your soul but a shell?"
In his soul, in his heart, Pale Horse could already feel the seeds of the quest, the desire to find out growing again.
"Goodbye, Pale Horse," Coyote whispered sadly as he disappeared. "I fear I shall see you again."
Pale Horse was shattered--broken and satisfied upon the desert floor.
The End . . . Again
Jeff Williams is attempting to forge in the smithy of his soul the uncreated consciousness of all
people. In the meantime, he haunts railroad yards and airport observation decks (and has yet to
see an MD-11 in flight!!!) and scribbles cryptic notes on slightly-used paper napkins. He
brainstorms these abstruse anagrams into the tales that you've just been reading. Jeff can be
reached at jtwrccc@aol.com.