# In the Reign of Coyote/Coyote's Ride on a Star

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COYOTE'S RIDE ON A STAR
NE day the children had been attempting to act La Pastorela, the sacred play which they saw presented every Christmas Eve at San Francisco. They found it easy to take the different parts in turn, but they had difficulty with
the scenery. They had fashioned a star of sunflower petals, to represent the golden Star of Bethlehem, but the petals faded and curled up, and the star was not much of a success.
"Let 's go to Wantasson. Perhaps he can fix us a star of real fire," proposed Juanita.
"Of course he can't," answered Antonio; "but we can ask him to do something for us."
"Make you a star?" and Wantasson removed his irons from the fire and sat down in the doorway. "I don't think I can make a star. A man would better leave stars alone. Think what the star did to Coyote."
​"To Coyote? Why, what did a star do to Coyote?" and the children's interest was transferred from their play to the prospective story.
"Well, it was this way." Wantasson spread out his feet and rested his shoulders against the door, and then he began his story.
After Coyote had gotten fire and salmon for the animals and had destroyed their enemies, he began to feel proud of himself.
"I have more brains than any of the other animals," he said. "I ought to have more privileges than the rest of them."
Just then he noticed the stars glimmering above. "That 's what I want," he thought,—"a ride on a star. All the other animals can walk on the earth, or run on it. I ought to have something better. I ought to have a journey on a star."
He went to the top of a hill and called to the evening star: "Come here, Bright Star. I want to take a ride on you."
The evening star only winked one eye and did not move any nearer.
"Did you hear me, O Star? I am the great Coyote. I have obtained heat and food for the animals, and have killed their destroyers. Now I want to journey around the world. Come nearer so that I can jump on you."
​The evening star moved slowly away and smiled in silence.
At the next sundown Coyote mounted the hilltop again, and again called to the star. This time the evening star answered in the soft still voice that stars use on summer nights: "No, Coyote. You must remain on earth. Great as you are, you could not stand the pace of the stars."
But Coyote would not be content. Every night he whined and howled and craved and entreated, until at last the evening star became weary of his prayers.
"Well, jump on and be quick about it," it said, in the keen brisk voice that stars use in frost time.
It approached the hilltop a moment and then glided off. Coyote leaped and barely caught hold of it with his front paws. The star began whirling through space so fast that poor Coyote could not draw himself up onto its surface. He had to exert all his strength to hold on at all.
The star whirled along through the coldest regions. Coyote's paws became numb and frozen. At last they could not feel any longer, and he tumbled to the earth. It took him ten snows to get back, and then he fell so hard that he was flattened out as thin as a hazel bough.
​Ever since his fall he has been thin, and every evening he goes up to the hilltop and reproaches the star for its harsh treatment.
"I think the evening star might have waited long enough to let him get comfortably on it," commented Juanita.
"So that 's why the coyotes howl every night," observed Antonio. "I should think they 'd be tired by this time."
"Oh, Coyote does not get tired. He is not like man. That is why man is so great—because Coyote did not get tired when he was making him."
"When Coyote was making man? Do you mean that Coyote made man?" The memory of his catechism weighted Antonio's word with doubt.
"Oh, have I not told you that story? No, I can't tell it now. Your Señor Padre wants these spurs fixed for this evening. You come to-morrow, and you will hear about it."