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The traders are waiting…the Old Woman seems enthralled by her conversation with the old, blind bead seller, the young girl drawing pictures in the snow with a feather plucked from her hair. The thought of overspending and being unable to produce the Old Woman’s price gives you pause. You nod to Coyote. The edges of his mouth twitch upward, and he stalks toward the pair with you trailing behind.
The sun takes a final breath before plunging its head beneath the horizon. It is later than you thought and shadows perch large, black mimes underfoot. Coyote does not walk to the pair, his strides are too measured, his torso too perfectly still. His eyes are fixed on the girl, his mouth drops open and he begins to pant. You see him begin to tremble, and you seize him by the upper arm.
“Best let this go Injun, I’ll slit yer throat in the street if ye can’t thwart yerself.”
His eyes stretch wide as canyons, yours negotiate no ground. With great and apparent difficulty he begins to take slower and slower breaths, until he’s dispelled the last of the calamity you saw animating him. He waits for you to let go, and after a moment, you do, then you both continue the approach.
The Old Woman turns to you long before you’re in range to speak. She watches you with a tired, beset expression. She does not look at Coyote. She avoids looking at him when he greets her, and when he begins to lay out your request. She avoids looking at him when he gestures in her direction, and when he shakes your Sapwi necklace. She looks only at you.
Despite the inattention, she does respond to your translator, in clipped, dreary replies that almost match his own. Coyote tells you that the old woman does indeed serve the tribe as a poisoner as well as a healer. He tells you that since she was a small girl she has woven the Oleander and Foxglove to wreath in the hair of the braves. That she has sifted the Cherry Laurel and Hemlock into tinctures for the war bows, and coatings for the long knives. Coyote tells you this, then stops. The Old Woman goes on, but he does not.
