That should come as no surprise to people who know him, which you probably don't. You probably don't even notice when you runover him on the way from Lakeview to Winnemucca, but what else is there to do between those places except runover things passed out in the road?

Where was I?

Oh, yes, Ned Coyote needed a drink but was a little light on cash so he rifled through a dumpster near the gas station and found a stick with a bunch of string wrapped around it which somebody had probably used to lay a level brick wall. It had hod all over it after all.

But Ned was enterprising, you see? He stuck a crow's feather in it and dipped it in some dirty oil standing in the parking lot and when he thought it was dry enough he found the puddle of antifreeze that Analiese had been soaking the pebbles in and observed how sort of green they were. After recovering them, he set up shop by the side of the road.

He propped up a sign, which Analiese had hand written with charcoal, "Genuine Indian Artifacts", and set down to wait.

By and by, a minivan stopped and Ned watched hopefully as a white family got out. The man came over and started to look over Ned's stock while the woman and kids walked the little yippy dog. Ned remembered he was a little hungry then but tried not to drool to much.

"What you got here, Chief?" asked the man.

"How!" said Ned knowingly.

"How kola!" replied the man with a look of worldly satisfaction.

"Heap plenty turquoise," declared Ned. "Makem good necklace. Only 50 dollars."

"Looks like colored sandstone to me," observed the man.

"Okay, you can havem, just five dollars."

"I'll give you 50 cents."

"You hard haggler for true," said Ned as he pocketed the change. "You nobody's fool. Maybe you like to see Anasazi Dreamcatcher, eh?"

"Anasazi what? I didn't know Anasazis had dreamcatchers."

"Sure, they did. Heap plenty powerful too. Make corn wilt if you don't know what you're doing."

"Let's see this 'dreamcatcher'."

"Sure thing, boss."

With that Ned carefully unrolled the stick with the string wound around it and the crow feather stuck on from an old newspaper. With feigned reverence he lifted it to the four directions and muttered something he'd heard at the last fandango on the Fourth of July.

"Piya! Shoko piya!"

"Pilamaya yellow!" beamed the man. "Does that thing really work? I mean does it make rain, Chief?"

"Sure thing, Boss. Makes your wife horny too, guaranteed."

"Oh, go on!"

"No, it true. Buckskin Charlie swear. It used in old fertility ceremony. Make plenty good babies or plenty good all nighters."

"You don't say. Is that your name then? Charlie?"

"Sure thing, Boss," replied Ned with all the authentic credibility he could muster.

"I think you're full of s**t," said the man shaking his head.

As luck would have just then a pigeon flew by low and to the right.
Analiese had released it and its mate just a moment before.

"Hah! Lookee there, Boss!"

"What? I didn't see nothing."

"There! The thunderbirds, flying on the right."

"Thunderbirds?"

But as luck would further have it, the sky quickly began to cloud up and suddenly lightning flashed and a clap of thunder shook the ground under their feet.

"Damn, you weren't s***ting me, Chief!" exclaimed the man.

"We're getting out of the rain dear," yelled the man's wife. "Aren't you through yet?"

"In a minute, honey," the man yelled back.

"Well, hurry please. We've got reservations at the Motel 6 in Elko you know?"

"Yes, honey, I'm almost done."

Ned could see the man was interested so he began rewrapping the stick reverently in the newspaper.

"Wait a minute, Chief. Does that thing really work on women?"

"Sure thing, Boss. Why only last week me take to Vegas, get date with showgirl and won car on slots."

"Oh yeah? Wait a minute! Where's your car?"

"Brother-in-law took it to Salt Lake to show Aunt Sacajooweeya."

"What was the showgirl's name?"

"Bambi!"

"Bambi?!!"

"Well, that what she said, Boss. Now I better go."

"Hold on there, Chief. Didn't you want to sell that thing?"

"I don't think so. Think maybe better go back to Vegas now. Brother-in-law return soon, not many sleeps, we go Sahara."

"Uh, listen I'll give you 20 bucks for that thing."

"20 bucks? Me no think so."

"Okay, how about I give you 200 bucks? I'm a great admirer of Native American culture. Do you take American Express?"

"Nope, just Discover, but machine busted so no take credit cards today."

"Darn, look, I got 80 bucks cash."

"Okay, Boss, but you promise to return with the rest, right?"

"The rest?"

"The rest of the 200 dollars."

"Oh yeah, right. Look, here's the money. Just give me that bundle. You really should take better care of these kinds of artifacts you know?"

"Art what?"

"Nevermind. Just take care, Chief."

"Sure thing, Boss. You have happy day. See you again. You bring rest of money, okay?"

"Yeah, you bet. We'll be back just as soon as we find an ATM, okay?"

"Sure thing, Boss."

And with that the man walked briskly back to the minivan and drove away.

Ned, meanwhile, pocketed the four twenties and walked over to the convenience store where Analiese had been setting crosslegged on the ground under a blanket.

"I got some scratch now, Granddaughter."

"Yeah, I seen you putting on the show. Nice work, Uncle Ned."

"Yeah, we better get to buying that beer now, Granddaughter, before they come back with the sheriff. You go back to the truck and pick me up here in a minute, okay?"

"Okay, Uncle Ned."

So Analiese walked back behind the store where the truck was parked with rocks under the tires to keep it from rolling away. She deftly removed the rocks then jumped into the cab and threw the truck in gear. It choked and bucked a couple of times then sprung to life in a putrid cloud of smoke.

She carefully guided it around the store just as Ned emerged with a sack full of beer. He jumped on the running board as she drove by and rolled into the bed with a clatter. But miraculously nothing broke.

Later, the sheriff's deputy would ask the store clerk if she had seen Ned. He was on foot, she told him, walking east.

"Damn that old coot. How can he just vanish in the sagebrush? You sure nobody picked him up."

"I didn't see nobody," answered the clerk. "I heard an awful noise though but I wasn't sure if it was one of those Harley hogs or the thunder."

"Well if the bikers picked him up, we'll find him in a gully with his feet and hands cut off. Those animals will kill for a five, let alone 80 bucks."

"Probably so," replied the clerk with just a hint of concern.

Miles away, up on a bluff, Ned and Analiese were surveying the scenery and chugging another beer.

"Maybe you should have bought some groceries, Uncle Ned."

"What do we need with groceries? You'd just eat them up."

"I know, [burrraaawp] but I was thinking it might get cold tonight."

"We got fire wood. What else do we need, granddaughter? Besides I still got some of that money left, you know? We'll get groceries tomorrow."

"Yeah, tomorrow. You know what?"

"No, what?"

"I was thinking we need a way to go. A direction, don't you think?"

"Hah! I'm thinking about that alright all the time."

"Yeah, well, I think I'm tired. I think I'm going to sleep awhile."

"Maybe you should tend the fire first, in case you don't wake up before dark."

"Sure thing, Uncle Ned."

Analiese made a little fire under the tailgate. It smoldered, crackled and danced in the low red light of dusk. She wrapped the blanket around her against the evening chill and watched the smoke rise into the vermillion sky, her eyelids drooping by and by in a haze that smelled of malt and hopps and magical thunderbirds roaring down the highway on their way to nowhere.