Kesh Read online

  When Kesh arrived, she said,” Kesh, Taylor George, from across the street is here.” Kesh didn’t see anyone in the doorway. Then he looked down. Outside the door a broad, flat path cut through the snow leading to the badger that waddled into the entryway. Mrs. Jones closed the door behind Taylor and said, “Would you kids like some hot chocolate?”

  The badger answered, “Yes, please. Thank you, Mrs. Jones.”

  At the kitchen table, Kesh sipped his cocoa and watched Taylor work on what looked like a big coffee mug full of squirming white mealworms. “So, you know?”

  “Oh, yeah. I’ve known since that day you came home with that policeman. Don’t you remember seeing me?”

  “I guess so, but I didn’t think you could see me. I mean, I thought you could only see the Kesh me, not the coyote. Besides, I wasn’t sure what I was seeing that day. It all felt like a dream.”

  “Boys never think anybody else knows anything. There are a lot of us kids who know what’s going on Kesh, and most of us are girls.” She paused, dipped her sleek snout into her cup, chewed and swallowed. Then she said, “Have you heard about the factory?”

  “What you mean?”

  “I mean, mister big ears, Louis Garou is going to be busing kids out to the factory starting tomorrow. From what I hear, he’s already gotten fifteen or more kids signed up. And that includes Carl Reid, the mayor’s son, and Stephanie Nichols.” When that statement didn’t get an adequately outraged response from Kesh, she added, “Stephanie Nicols. You know, tall, skinny as a wire, perfect teeth. Her mother is Andrea Nichols, State Representative Andrea Nichols! Mister Garou is going after all the kids with rich and powerful parents. That’s why you don’t know, I suppose. I don’t expect him to be knocking on our doors any day soon. Anyway, before you know it, the kids will be humongous fans of the factory, and their rich moms and dads will go out of their way to make Mister Garou happy. You know what that means?”

  “Yeah. That means Garou will be able to make the factory as big as he wants, and it means he’ll be able to take whatever property he wants. Even if people don’t want to sell their houses, it won’t matter. The county will take their houses and their land and sell it off to Garou. It also means he’ll be able to keep poisoning the river and the countryside. He’ll be able to do anything he likes.”

  “It’s more than that, Kesh. A lot of us know what’s going on, you know, the greenhouse effect, global warming and the melting glaciers and all that stuff. We’re not as dumb as grown-ups think we are, and we know we’d better do something before it’s too late. Did you know that a kids’ movement just closed two factories near the capitol? It’s happening all over the world. Kids are learning to see, and a lot of grown-ups are beginning to catch on too, but Garou and a lot of other people like him are working like crazy to find ways to make people blind again, to stop them from seeing the truth.”

  Kesh was impressed. Taylor had always been intimidating, but now she was almost a force of nature. “How do you know all of this?”

  “I just do. Don’t you worry about what I know, Kesh Jones. Worry about what we’re going to do to stop him.” She smiled and added, “big ears.”

  Kesh sighed and shook his head. “Why do you think Garou is doing this? I mean, he lives here too. Why would he want to ruin everything?”

  “He’s greedy and mean. Maybe he’s nuts. Who knows what’s up with people like him? Listen Kesh, you and I aren’t going to make Louis Garou Mr. Green Earth, so we’d better just get to work on what we can do. Like, I want to know what’s going to happen to those kids. I mean, Garou is rich, but they’re not stupid, at least most of them aren’t, so it’ll take more than cake and gift certificates to Stereo City to convince them to be on his side.”

  Kesh’s face went pale. “Oh my God! Garou is going to do the same thing to all these kids that he did to Kiran.”

  “Kiran? Who’s Kiran?”

  “Kiran Curtis.” Kesh told Taylor about the meeting with Muskrat, the other two coyotes and about their run in with Garou and his men. He said, “Garou caught Kiran and did something terrible to her.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not sure what he did, but it was really bad. Kiran was pretty messed up when we went to see her, you know, forgetting what happened and all. Mostly, she looked really scared, and she is totally not able to transform into her coyote spirit. I don’t think she even remembers who she is deep inside. Jesse said he thinks she’ll be okay, but I don’t know. She just seemed so lost.”

  The badger grunted. “I’ll see what I can find out. Sometimes girls are more willing to talk to other girls about these things.” Then the badger did a double-take and stopped chewing. “Did you say Jesse? Do you mean Jesse Madosh?”

  “Yeah. What’s wrong with that?”

  “You can’t really mean Jesse Madosh! God, Kesh. He’s trouble. Why are you hanging out with him?”

  “Why not?”

  The badger grunted and rolled her eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding! Jesse Madosh is only the meanest, dirtiest, creepiest kid in school. And what does he have to do with this?”

  Kesh felt his hackles rise. He took a deep breath and willed himself to ignore Taylor’s comments. “Do you even know Jesse, I mean the real Jesse?” She shook her head and nipped a grub in half. “I know you don’t. Jesse is a coyote, like me, but not like me. I mean, he’s awesome. And, he’s a good guy. People just don’t know him. Besides, you, more than anybody, should know that it’s not right to judge him because he’s Indian.”

  Taylor looked at her cup of increasingly slimy, increasingly dead mealworms, sighed, and looked at her friend. “Okay, big ears, you’re telling me the scariest kid in seventh grade is just misunderstood because he’s got brown skin. Well, I get my share of that too. It’s not always easy being one of five black kids in town, and three of them are my brothers.”

  She sniffed and shuffled over to Kesh. “Okay, I’ll buy that if you say so. I guess I wasn’t being completely fair, and your new buddy Jesse Madosh is a saint.”

  She doesn’t sound completely convinced, thought Kesh, but she’ll come around.

  “Did your awesome friend Saint Jesse say what he thought happened to Kiran?”

  “Neither of us knows for sure. But it seems logical to me that Garou would’ve used some kind of chemical on her. After all, that’s what he makes in his factory, and my dad says a lot of the stuff coming out of that place is pretty nasty.”

  Taylor let a half-eaten grub fall to the floor. “Oh my god Kesh! I bet Garou tortured Kiran, then injected all kinds of horrible drugs into her. Poor Kiran.”

  Kesh shuddered. He suddenly felt a little like vomiting, and he wanted to cry. He had considered the possibilities before, but hearing Taylor say out loud what he had been thinking, made it seem more real. But he didn’t cry. Kiran, and everyone else, needed him.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Christmas Eve, a Snake, a Spider, and a Coyote

  It’s Christmas Eve. I had a kind of dream, maybe a vision this afternoon. I wasn’t sleeping or anything, but it just came to me. I saw a pure white coyote, surrounded by flames. The coyote paced, looking for a way through. He searched, moving more and more frenetically back and forth. He stopped and looked directly at me, then raised his head and howled pitifully. The white coyote was gone, and a long gray wolf stood in its place. His eyes had the look of desperation, as if he was begging me for help. His howling carried fear and pain, and I couldn’t do anything to save him. Then I woke up and rushed downstairs. I needed to talk to Jesse about the dream.

  Frantic, Kesh was on his way out of the door, ready to run to Jesse’s house, when his mother stopped him. He said, “But something is wrong mom! I just know it!”

  She gestured into the living room. The walls were lit softly with green, red, yellow and blue lights, and the air smelled like pine. “Sit down, Kesh.” She sighed. “You know, years ago when I was a reporter, I knew what was happening. I knew what Garou Chemical was doing to the land
, and, to be honest, I had pretty strong suspicions about what Louis Garou himself was doing to the people who disagreed with him. I’ve always thought I might have been able to do more, and I’ve wondered if I gave up too easily. I’ve asked myself a thousand times: did I let Garou off the hook? Could I have made more of a difference, even saved a few lives? I don’t know, but there hasn’t been a day, all these years, when I haven’t wondered. Now I feel like I’ve been given another chance, and I don’t want to blow it this time. There must be something I can do, some way I can help.”

  Kesh shook his head. “I don’t know how, mom.” Then he remembered Grandmother Spider’s words and realized it had been a lesson. “Mom, Grandmother Spider told me that each animal has a gift. Have you had any strange experiences, anything that would help you understand your power.”

  She laughed. “Turning into a snake is pretty strange all by itself, but I think I may have something.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I’m not exactly sure of how it works, but sometimes when I’m dreaming that I’m a snake, I seem to leave my body. But it’s just a dream,” She waved the idea away with her hand.

  Kesh said, “Is it?”

  “Well, it has to be. Doesn’t it?”

  Kesh said, “Can you remember what happens when you’re flying?”

  “Definitely! I kind of slide out through the roof and go exploring.”

  “Where do you travel?”

  She thought for a moment, then said, “Any place I want to go. I’ve visited my mother’s house in New Jersey and my office at the paper.” She spoke carefully, putting stress on her next words. “It’s a very real dream.”

  Kesh said, “Mom, I don’t think it’s a dream.”

  His mother’s eyes crinkled up and her face had that look she got when she was worried about something she didn’t want to talk about.

  Kesh said, “Listen, mom. Do you think you can do it now?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m not quite sure how I do it, and I don’t really know how it works.”

  “Mom, I think your snake spirit can travel through time and space; the snake can move across the spirit worlds. That means you might be able to move to other places in your snake spirit form. Maybe you can go to Jesse and see if he’s all right.”

  “Well, I still don’t know, Kesh.”

  “Mom!” He spoke with a quiet intensity that made his mother jump. “I think Jesse could be in big trouble. You have to go to see if he’s all right. You have to promise you’ll try.”

  “I’m really not sure about this, Kesh. Sometimes in my dreams I seem to fly, to go places, but I don’t know how I do it. What if it doesn’t work?”

  “Don’t worry, Mom. It’s okay. If it doesn’t work, I’ll figure something out. But you have to try. Just try. Please, just try.”

  Kesh sat back on the couch as his mother stepped into the center of the living room. She closed her eyes and, suddenly, like a collapsing coil of rope, her body simply folded and, there on the carpet was the python he had seen when this all began. He caught his breath for just a moment.

  She was gigantic and more than a little terrifying, but now he could see that the snake’s eyes were his mother’s warm, golden eyes, and even weirder, the snake seemed to smile. It was definitely his mother’s smile. Again, the snake closed its eyes and settled softly onto its coil. A languid swirl of smoke began curling upward from the great coil of python, until it reached the ceiling. Then, very slowly, it seemed to pile up there filling the space around the living room light and then. It disappeared like a puddle being absorbed into a sponge.

  He muttered a low, admiring, “Cool! You did it, Mom. I knew you could.”

  Suddenly, an ethereal serpent’s head popped back through the ceiling and in a distant whisper, a snake’s version of his mother’s voice said, “I’ll be back soon, Kesh. I love you.”

  The house was too warm, and it was late, and Kesh started to drop off. He was in that half way place between waking and sleeping when he saw a tiny greenish glow tucked inside the colored lights and forest green needles of the Christmas tree. He got up and moved close to study the phenomenon. A small spindly spider had spun her web among the decorations in the pine.

  “Grandmother Spider?”

  The creature stopped, and its tiny head turned to look at Kesh with what he could only think of as intelligent eyes. Then the creature spoke. “This is your time, Kesh.” The wind voice, so soft, yet so powerful, startled Kesh. It was a voice he had not expected to hear again.

  “It is my time to do what, Anna?”

  “It is the time to learn, boy, time to become who you are, the true coyote. Now it is time that the pupil becomes the teacher.”

  It was as if the wind had spoken from inside, as if he himself were the source, as if a fountain had opened up, and from it poured swirling columns of meaning. The winds were gentle as they spoke of the beaver and the dove; the winds blew steady and sure as they spoke of the deer and the cheetah and the albatross. The winds blew hard, sharp and powerful as they spoke of the bear, the scorpion and the tiger. The winds filled Kesh until he could barely bear the beauty and the pain of them. Then they whipped into a furious tempest again.

  Just as suddenly, the winds fell quiet. Kesh was afraid. He felt like his insides would come out, and he had lost all control of his body and mind, and he just wanted it to stop.

  His body was beginning to change. He could no longer feel his arms and legs, and his bones and flesh shifted and morphed until he was water, then stone, then something without shape. At once, the room was gone, and he seemed to be transported to a dark place where he became a small delicate creature, first waiting in the middle of a soft web, and then riding the wind on a silken thread.

  Suddenly, it was as if he was running across the African Veldt on the powerful legs of a gazelle fleeing the annual fires of the savanna. Then the scenario changed and he was one small creature skimming on delicate wings across an ocean of broad, grassy plains, one of millions of locusts blackening the skies and stripping the life from the land below. Then the scene shifted again and he was a salamander lying cool beneath a rotting north woods log. He was a swift rainbow trout running in deep, cold lake waters; then a red-tailed hawk soaring far above the desert, and a wolf stalking its prey on the Russian Steppes. His body shifted from form to form in rapid succession. Now he was a cat – now a stinging wasp – now a deadly black mamba. It was as if he could be all creatures simultaneously, and all of their tales existed inside of him.

  After a time the winds subsided, and Anna spoke softly, again. “You are the coyote, Kesh. You are the teacher. There is no time to lose now. You must have faith.” Then the tiny gray wind spider disappeared into the thick pine needles, and Kesh, dozed off.

  “Kesh. Kesh?” His mother’s insistent prodding roused him. “My poor, tired boy.”

  He smiled meekly. “Never mind that, mom. Did you find out anything?”

  She sighed. “Yes. Well, maybe I found something. I don’t know if this is real or just some kind of vision. I went to the Madosh house.”

  Impatient and confused, Kesh stared at his mother. “And?”

  She said, “I don’t really know. It’s all gone.” She breathed hard. “I’m not sure, but I think the house was destroyed by fire. Kesh, I think it may have been burned to the ground.”

  He felt panic rising in his chest. “And Jesse, where is Jesse? Where is Mr. Madosh?”

  “I don’t know, Kesh. I saw only the burned house, and even that not very clearly. It’s kind of like trying to see the bottom of a lake through several feet of water. It’s clear enough but everything is distorted.”

  Kesh’s first instinct was to run out in search of his friend, but then Grandmother Spider’s words came back to him. “You are the teacher, the true coyote you, and must have faith.” He knew what he had to do. His first stop was Taylor’s house.

  Before Kesh could knock, the door swung open, and Taylor sm
iled slyly. “I’ve been expecting you.”

  When he told her about the spider’s message, she tightened her jaw and flexed her arm, then said, “I’m ready.”

  “I knew I could depend on you. You’re going to be sorely needed this night.” Next, he visited Evan, Carl, and Stephanie. He was careful to first visit the kids who were rumored to be Garou’s first group of interns. He went to each and, one by one, whispered the song of the wind in their ears.

  Although the human boy’s body was exhausted, the coyote ran and ran without tiring, planting seeds of awareness in even the most stubborn soil. It didn’t matter where it was. The coyote spirit found willing hearts in mansions, farmhouses, and the tarpaper shacks of Shantytown. A few remained skeptical, and many were confused, but Kesh knew time would take care of that.

  Taylor and the other badgers were a tough lot, almost all fully aware of their spirits, and ready to rumble. Others were surprising. When Kesh came to Becky Kuhn, he was a little bit afraid to see her as a trout flopping around, gasping for breath again, but this time it was different. They were immediately transported to the river where Becky, no longer a fish out of water, leaped joyfully, a rainbow in the afternoon light, her glistening back reflecting the universe of the sky. That’s how it was with a lot of the kids. The ones who were ready, who had already experienced their inner selves in some way, seemed to discover their animal spirits and sought the proper elements the moment Kesh revealed himself to them.

  As the coyote flew from place to place, the boy grew increasingly weary. It was late, but he had a lot yet to do. And, he was worried about Jesse and his dad. Had they been caught in the fire? Kesh, the coyote stood on the edge of town now, wanting most of all to find Jesse, but not yet finished with this task. He knew that Garou would be beaten only if he did his job, and his work wasn’t over yet.

  He also had a strong feeling that if he did not do this, Jesse and his father would be in even more danger. He sniffed the air toward the factory, but it smelled of the same poison brew, mixed with the wood smoke from local homes. He raised his head and howled, calling to Jesse. For a moment, only a frightened dog yelped in the distance. Then an answer came from far off, but it wasn’t from south of town, where Jesse should have been. Kesh turned toward town and howled again. The response was closer now. Kesh called the third time, and a slender tan coyote appeared beneath the street lamps of the avenue.