Just Another Desert Sunset: Coyote series book 1, #1

By nikki broadwell

Coyote wants to be human, but when he's granted his wish he finds out it's harder than he thought. He doesn't understand the behavior of these two-legged creatures who walk by him smelling of rosewater. He tries not to listen to Raven's dire predictions about his future, the bird's insistence that it is his karma to be a coyote.

 

When Coyote meets Sara all bets are off. Her sun hair and sky eyes draw him to her in ways he's never experienced. But what he'd hoped for is dashed when he discovers the shaman's cruel trick—he will always revert back to animal form as soon as he falls asleep.

 

When the shaman's mutilated body is discovered on a mountain trail, animal control goes after the lone coyote that's been hanging around. Despite Sara's claim that the coyote saved her life, Coyote cannot escape the roaring beasts or the stinging dart that puts him into darkness.

 

As is this wasn't enough, Sara is coming up against her own problems. Her estranged husband is blackmailing her.  She doesn't want to go back to Duluth with him but she feels she has no choice.

 

Are the feelings between Coyote and Sara strong enough to bridge the enormous distance between them or will Raven's predictions come true?

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Airmid Publishing
• Release date: May 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536594683

nikki broadwell

Nikki Broadwell has been writing non-stop since the early 2000's. From the time when she was a child her imagination has threatened to run off with her and now she is able to give it free rein. Animals and nature and the condition of the world are themes that follow her storylines that meander from fantasy to paranormal murder mystery to shapeshifters--and along with that add the spice of a good love story. 

Book preview

1

Coyote watched the sky turn from yellow to rose, deepening into an indefinable rich hue that reminded him of the over skin human females wore on their hairless bodies. There was something about this magic dusky time right before he began his forays into the dark to catch his dinner that made him want to howl. He licked his lips, the anticipation of food and females mingling in his coyote mind.

Coyote, why do you stare at the horizon? Raven asked, looking down from his perch in a palo verde tree. It’s just another desert sunset.

Coyote smelled the fire before he caught sight of the flames burning hot and bright in the black desert night. He approached slowly, all his senses on alert. What he saw had him confused for a moment. It looked like a man sitting cross-legged on the ground but at the same time a coyote seemed to be superimposed over the body.

Come closer, the man/coyote invited.

Coyote was far enough away that it surprised him that the person could see him, but he did as he was asked, moving in toward the fire. As he drew closer, he realized that the man was wearing a coyote skin over his shoulders, the animal head resting on top of his human head. He had heard of these skin walkers who took the pelts of his brethren to use in ceremonies. It disgusted him but at the same time he was fascinated. There was power here and magic that drew him like the moth that was drawn to the fire.

I have been waiting for you, the man continued, his unfocused eyes reflecting the flames. You have a burning need that I can help you with.

Coyote watched the flames in the man’s eyes, noticed the rattle in his right hand, the sharpened spear on the ground to his left. His eyes looked like black opals as the firelight danced within them. How did this man know what was in his heart? Because it was true, he wanted to be human, had wished it from the time he was a tiny pup.

Sit by me, Coyote, and I will tell you a story.

Well, Coyote liked stories and so he did as the man asked, coming by him and settling onto the ground at his feet.

The man stared at him for a long moment before he began to shake the rattle rhythmically, causing Coyote’s eyes to droop. "There was once a coyote who wanted to become a man, but before he could be granted his wish the shaman asked him for three things."

Coyote pricked up his ears. He wanted to become a man. He waited to find out what those three things might be.

Now the first task was easy, to bring the shaman six tail feathers from a Raven. Coyote did it in a day, carrying the tail feathers he had stolen from Raven in his mouth. But the second, now that was a bit more difficult. He was to bring the skins of three rattlesnakes and they could not be the same species. Well, Coyote headed off, his senses on alert for something dead. But after a month of trying, he was only able to find one skin shed by a diamondback. When he brought it to the shaman the shaman told him it wasn’t enough. And so, Coyote headed out again, despondency settling over his hunched shoulders. But as luck would have it, he found a dead snake the next day, killed by one of the motorized beasts that humans used to get around. He skinned the sidewinder with his sharp teeth, being careful not to damage the pattern, knowing that the shaman wouldn’t accept it if it wasn’t intact. After delivering the skin, this coyote headed toward the mountains. There he would find the final snakeskin he needed.

Coyote looked up, waiting for the shaman to continue. He was anxious to find out the end of this story and maybe make his own bargain with the medicine man. Finally, the shaman began again, his voice rising and falling as he continued to shake the rattle.

Coyote woke when he felt the deadly prick of the fangs on his leg. It was a tiger rattlesnake that he had disturbed from its slumber and it wanted him out of there. Limping away he realized that he would die of this wound unless the shaman could save him. And so he found his way to the cave where the shaman slept, waking him with a howl that ricocheted off the walls.

The man put the rattle down, the sudden silence startling Coyote who opened his eyes wide.

Now this shaman was a decent man and when he took a look at this coyote, he knew the animal had very little time. ‘Even though you have not fulfilled your promise I will give you what you wish,’ he told the animal, pressing something against the coyote’s mouth. ‘Eat this,’ he said, ‘and you will be a man.’

Coyote waited for more of the story but the man was silent, staring into the flames as though Coyote wasn’t there. He couldn’t talk or ask questions but he wanted to know how it ended. When he let out a series of yips the man looked his way. I know—the story is unfinished. But you can complete it if you are true in your desire to be a man.

Coyote watched him, trying with all his might to let the man know that he was sincere. After a long while of Coyote staring into his eyes, the man nodded. As you might have guessed, I am the shaman in the story. And if you fulfill the one remaining task you will have your wish.

Coyote nearly danced with joy. This need to be a man had plagued him off and on for so long. Whenever he saw the humans in the distance, he wanted to walk on two legs, to ride in their strange machines, to touch the pale smooth skin of the females of their kind. It would be easy to find the last snakeskin.

You must bring me a star, the shaman continued, as though this was the simplest thing in the world.

Coyote wanted to howl in frustration but he kept his jaws closed. Why would the shaman give him such an impossible task?

Now don’t be discouraged, the shaman said, noticing his tail go down, his ears drooping. Think of it like a riddle.

What was a riddle?

Coyote stood on the hill with his ears pricked to the wind. There was something back there on the trail. And from the pungent overripe smell, it was human. His recently acquired ability to shape-shift had him confused. Should he become the man or just head across the hill and disappear into the brush? But before he had a moment to puzzle this out, he had changed, his nose growing shorter and shorter, his upright ears disappearing, legs lengthening and becoming two instead of four. Looking down he noticed the tight jeans and the gray tennis shoes that encased his feet. A loose plaid shirt flapped around his arms in the breeze. How these humans could stand this cloth on their skin was beyond him. He wanted to rip the cloth from his body but he knew this would cause problems. He had seen the police cars, the handcuffed humans in the back seat who had done nothing but take their clothes off or let their water go where people could see them. The looks in those men’s eyes haunted him.

He thought of the shaman and the task the man had given him two years before that had allowed him to make this shift. In the end it was easy since the entire area was ‘riddled with stars’. A man who called himself a geo-something had told him this. Is that why the shaman had used that word? According to the geo-man, meteors were always falling around here, their blackened remains what he ended up carrying back to the shaman.

Coyote had learned a lot by listening to the human packs that wandered the desert spouting the wisdom they gathered from the sheaves of paper wedged between two hard covers. He had seen these discarded in the dumps when he was foraging, had tried to discern the contents, but he couldn’t read. Lucky for him the humans liked to show how smart they were by the endless stream of sounds that came from their mouths. A lot of what they said made no sense, but some of it stuck.

The shaman had seemed irritated when he arrived with the meteorite, as if he had expected Coyote to never figure this out. It was a very long time before the shaman granted him his wish, warning him that it could be revoked if he abused his newfound ability. Coyote had waited patiently until the shaman finally gave in.

Coyote no longer trusted the shaman, especially after the star incident and also because the wish he granted was not the one Coyote had hoped for. Yes, he could become a man, but he couldn’t stay a man; once he fell asleep he would always revert back to his animal self. It had been a trick after all.

Standing his ground, he watched the female approach. She was staring down at her feet and didn’t look up until she was almost upon him. Oh, she said, jumping back. I didn’t see you there.

An expression of surprise and yes, fear, crossed her features, something he was glad to see. He wouldn’t want it any other way, he thought, narrowing his eyes. After all, he was still Coyote. She was moving past him now, her nervous gaze on him as she skirted around where he stood. She was afraid, but there was a hidden part of her that he knew was interested. He could tell this by watching her twirl a lock of her long hair around her finger. Humans were easy to read.

Her wide hips moved rhythmically, the little piece of material straining across the area that stuck out behind her, a place he longed to nip. Her long slim legs emerged from beneath, darkened by the sun. He could hear the skin of her upper thighs moving against each other as she walked. The boots she wore were made from an animal; he could smell them from where he stood. He licked his lips causing her to flinch slightly.

In that moment he needed to make the decision to befriend her or go on his way. She was pretty for a human, with dark hair pulled back from her round face, and curves that did something odd to his breathing. Where are you going? he asked in what he hoped was a pleasant tone; half the time his words came out in a low growl, scaring anyone within listening distance.

She turned back, her little rosy mouth opening in a round shape, one hand fluttering to her hair. I…I walk here nearly every day. The trail goes to town, she said, the sentence rising up at the end. Do you live in Black Base?

He pulled his lips up as he’d seen humans do, the skin of his face feeling funny in the odd configuration. This expression would mean something very different if he was in animal form. No. I live out there. He pointed toward the mountains rising behind them.

But there are no houses out there.

I don’t need a house.

When the woman frowned and turned to go, he said, My name is Istaga. What are you called?

I’m Velana, she said, and then she walked quickly away from him as though afraid he might do something scary. He had to admit a couple of things had crossed his mind.

He didn’t stop her although he knew he could, just watched until she disappeared over the ridge that led toward town. His instincts had to be suppressed to carry off this human thing. It wouldn’t do to get arrested.

As humans went he was not a good-looking man. His nose was too long, his eyes too close together and yellow, which made him appear furtive and untrustworthy. This had happened before, this turning away, the backward glance that said ‘stay away from me’. Mostly it happened after they got a good look at him. But he couldn’t change his human appearance; it was as much a part of him now as his coyote form. Lately he’d presented himself to several human females with the same result. Women just didn’t find him appealing. Was this another of the shaman’s cruel tricks?

The last time it happened he determined it was the hunger in his eyes. If they didn’t want him to be interested, why did they expose their long shapely legs and cover their top curves with material that strained and pressed, revealing what lay underneath? They confused him, these female humans who walked past smelling of rosewater.

Sighing, he became his animal self again, loping through the dry grass and passing by mesquite and cactus as he headed toward the mountains. After the night’s hunting he would reconnect with his pack and meditate on why he was so intent on interesting a female who was not his own kind. They haunted him with their dark lashed eyes, the mixture of fragrances that drifted into his nostrils. His interest in his own species had diminished with his fascination for these two-legged creatures. Why was it always the human females that plagued his dreams?

Raven watched Coyote shape-shift, the attention his human shape paid to the woman. The look in his eyes was nothing short of ravenous. If the idiot wasn’t careful the police would pick him up for being a stalker. It was time to have a talk with him again. Surely this behavior was out of character for his kind and should be halted. It had been going on for months, ever since the dumbass learned to transform his animal body into human shape. Damn that shaman and his meddling. What was Coyote’s interest in these strange-looking beings? He certainly couldn’t expect to have a relationship with one of those…those devious, and truly ugly creatures. Wind ruffled through his glossy black feathers and he let it take him, soaring on an updraft and then gliding toward the mountain. Later tonight he would pay the pack a visit. Maybe they could talk some sense into Coyote.

Coyote was on another trail, his body again that of the human Istaga. He had picked this name after learning that it meant ‘coyote man’. He certainly couldn’t tell people his name was Coyote, especially since the word in human circles had come to mean a person who helped immigrants get across the border from Mexico. How did he know this? He’d been listening to conversations way before the shaman had given him the ability to shape-shift. He also knew that coyote had other bad meanings that seemed to refer to what he thought of as survival techniques, like being sneaky or greedy. He couldn’t deny them—they were part of his nature. The only thing to do was keep them hidden as much as possible.

His meditation the night before had brought nothing to mind aside from a morbid curiosity about being human. He was bored with his life, tired of the daily activities of the pack. They played with each other and rollicked around in the dirt like a bunch of morons without a clue. He was sick of resting out of sight until nightfall. He wanted to know what it was to be human. What was it like to mate with one of those two-legged creatures that smelled like flowers? He licked his lips, imagining how it would be done.

His experience with his own kind had become strangely dissatisfying, as though he no longer belonged. He hadn’t found a mate within the pack and seemed to spend most of his hunting time alone. The pack had shunned him lately, as though they were slowly pushing him out. He didn’t mind it, really. Considering their hunting patterns, he thought he did better sneaking up on his prey instead of the infernal braying that the rest of them engaged in. No wonder the wildlife scattered to the four winds when they came along. For him the silent approach worked best; he had caught several cats in the last few days. He smacked his lips remembering the sweet taste of their flesh. It was a mystery to him why their owners allowed them out at night. Despite stories to the contrary, they weren’t very fast and always seemed stupidly curious when they saw him. All the better for him, he mused, but something niggled at the back of his mind. This uneasiness about his behavior had been happening more often lately and he didn’t like it. Was that another of the shaman’s cruel tricks?

His conversation with Raven the night before had left him feeling upset and unsure of himself. The bird had said he was playing with fire; humans were not to be trifled with. If they found out what he was doing he would be killed in an instant, either that or thrown into one of those lightless boxes where they kept criminals. And more than that, Raven had continued, everyone around here had guns. Hadn’t he noticed the long barrels on racks in the trucks that went by on the roads? Did he think these females would put up with his ogling? One of these nights some angry man defending his woman would go after Coyote with a gun, and that would be that.

After those words Raven had fixed him with his dark eye, asking why he couldn’t be satisfied with his life. It was his destiny, the bird said, waxing philosophic, to be born into coyote form. He needed to embrace what he was and stop tempting fate. Coyote thought that was rich considering it was Old Man Coyote who had created the world, forming people and every other creature, including crows, out of mud, but he let Raven finish his speech, pretending to listen.

Two humans headed toward him on the dirt trail, their arms interlocked. They were male and female and from the look of it, mated; he could always tell. The female seemed wrapped up in some dream of her appearance, her thoughts about the night creams she used and staying young and alluring. She was terrified of the sun and what effect it was having on her skin. The man thought of nothing, only his physical being alert to her perfume and the feel of her skin against his. Istaga nodded when they drew close but the man eyed him with suspicion, moving off the trail to let him pass. Great Corn Mother, would no one give him the time of day?

In town he headed for the local pub. It was time to use the paper money he had found on the trail the other day and get himself one of those liquid refreshments all the men drank. He walked in, letting his eyes adjust before following another man to the flat wooden area. He waited and listened before he handed the bartender the money, nodding to indicate his preference just as the other man had done.

While he waited for his beer his attention went to the two women who came in. They had long smooth light-colored hair that hung down their backs, t-shirts that stretched across the tops of their bodies and shapely legs that made him feel tingly all over. He stared at them with his mouth open until one of them held up her hand with the third finger extended. He had seen this gesture before and knew it signaled anger.

When he turned back to the bar, the man behind the counter raised his eyebrows, shaking his head. You need to be more discreet, the bartender said in a low voice. These ladies don’t like possible stalkers.

Istaga moved the corners of his mouth up in the expression that usually calmed things, and then tipped up his bottle, taking a hefty swallow. He didn’t really like the stuff but it seemed to quiet something in him, tamping down the need to growl and bite when another male entered his personal space. The only problem was that it also loosened something else and made him want to press his body against the females, an urge that he fought to suppress. He couldn’t keep his eyes off them when they walked by; their sweet smells made him weak with longing. What was a stalker?

2

Sara Thatcher was working in her garden when she heard the call of the coyotes. It was early for them, barely sunset. Normally they came by around midnight or even later and sometimes not until very early in the morning. She made sure her cat was inside before resuming her weeding, her ears attuned to the advancing yips and howls of the pack that reminded her of a bunch of women talking in a foreign language.

She hadn’t lived here long but she considered these wild creatures her friends, happy when they ran by her house. There was one coyote she had seen several times roaming by himself. He looked like a German shepherd, beautiful, with a ruff of dark fur around his neck. He had watched her as she was driving down the dirt road, his yellow eyes unafraid. She wondered if he was part wolf, being so much larger than the others. She had read that wolves and coyotes were mating now, probably due to loss of habitat and mutual need. He was either one of these crossbreeds or a throwback, or possibly the alpha male, imbuing the pack with his stronger genes.

Sara was not a native of this area, had only moved here a year ago, leaving a bad marriage and negative friends and family behind in Minnesota. She had found this remote spot in the desert by accident, sure that it was providence that brought her to it. The manufactured home sat at the base of the mountains near the small town of Black Base and the rent was very low. Lucky for her there was Internet out here, a necessity, since her livelihood derived from creating websites. Thank goodness she didn’t have to sit in an office all day, instead doing all her work from home.

Black Base didn’t have much in way of stores, only a small grocery, a post office, a diner and a bar. There were weekly farmer’s markets a few miles away, but she was determined to grow the vegetables she needed. After all, the sun shone nearly every day—how hard could it be? Unfortunately, her carefully planted basil had holes in the leaves from caterpillars, her tiny carrots and beets had withered before they became an inch high, and the tomato roots had been chewed off by some burrowing creature. Lettuce couldn’t stand the heat at all. It was time to buy some pots and regroup. Maybe a kind person down at the farmer’s market would give her some advice.

Her marriage had been dead for some time before she moved, her very wealthy lawyer husband turning into an even bigger jerk as his riches grew. His newest interest had been other women. Her own mother had taken Raleigh’s side, telling Sara that she was being selfish and immature. Let the man have his flings, her mother had told her. She should be happy for the support and the luxurious lifestyle. Thank goodness no children had come from their seven-year union, Sara mused, shaking her head.

She thought about how they’d tried at the beginning, all their attention on making a baby together. That had been in the early days before Raleigh had shown his true colors. But somehow it never happened, a problem Raleigh had assured Sara was because of her. But when she talked it over with her gynecologist and had some tests done, her doctor assured her that she was a healthy and fertile woman. When she shared this news with Raleigh he’d gone into a rage, refusing to admit that the problem could lie with him. From then on there had been no more discussion about it, and come to think of it, that’s when he began sleeping around.

It had taken seven years for her to find the strength to leave him, and even then she waited until he was away on one of his so-called business trips. She had planned her escape for weeks, making secret arrangements with a man on Craigslist to buy his older, cheaply priced pick-up. It was a cold day in February when she picked up the truck and drove it home. After that, she and her friend Allen loaded her bed, (a wedding present from her parents), a table and chairs she had bought with her own money, all her clothing, and a few dishes and pots and pans. It seemed fitting when it began to rain, the sky turning sullen and dark. By the time she rolled out of the driveway the temperature had dipped towards freezing. Despite the weather and the rain her heart felt light for the first time in years, her wave and yelled good-bye to