His father yanked him up by his arm.
Ren stumbled, his eyes filled with tears of pain. He tried to get his freedom, but his father wouldn't let go. They were headed to the whipping post. Ren fought harder.
Still his father hauled him naked through the house. As they passed Coyote, who watched them with wide eyes, Ren reached for him.
"P-p-p-" He was trying to say please so that his brother would tell their father what happened and spare him his beating.
Coyote ignored him and followed them to the back courtyard. His father tied him to the post, where Ren was given twenty lashes for defiling the pool.
"You are never to go there again," his father snarled in his face, "you understand?"
Tears soaked his cheeks as his lips quivered from trying to speak.
His father buried his hand in his blood-soaked hair and wrenched it. "Do you understand me, you retarded bastard?"
Sobbing in silence, Ren nodded.
His father untied him. "Now go clothe yourself and finish your chores. If there's one thing left undone by sunset, we'll be back here for twenty more." His father stalked away and left him on the ground.
Ren tried to push himself up, but he hurt too much to stand. His limbs trembled from the pain even worse than his lips did.
He lay there for several minutes until Coyote brought him a blanket and covered him with it.
"I'm sorry, Makah'Alay. We were just having fun. I didn't know the girls would say that. We thought they'd laugh about it and tease you. We never dreamed they'd tell others you were doing something lewd."
Still, his back burned from the lashes. "W-w-why didn't you s-s-say-"
"I didn't want to get in trouble. Besides, you know how Father is. He'd have found some reason to beat you for it. There was no need in both of us being punished."
His brother was right. Either way, he'd have been beaten.
Coyote helped him to his feet. Placing Ren's arm over his shoulder to help him, he started toward Ren's room.
Halfway there, their father met them in the hallway with a smile for Coyote.
"My precious son, you're ever kind to those least worthy. While I appreciate your charity, you shouldn't have done it." He curled his lip at Ren. "You can't pamper wrongdoers after they've been punished. Otherwise, they never learn any lessons. Now let him go and take the blanket. He thought it was funny to be naked ... let him walk to his room that way."
Ren waited for his brother to say something in his defence.
Instead, Coyote nodded. "Sorry, Father. I won't do it again." He took Ren's blanket.
Ren struggled to stand alone. His eyes filled with tears, he watched as his father ruffled Coyote's hair and kissed his head.
"Come, my precious son, I have a present for you."
Kateri couldn't breathe as the raw pain of that memory hit her hard. How sad that compassion was so rare for Ren that he hung on to his brother's selfishness and defended it as good. How could Coyote have been so mean to him?
A raw, bitter fury took hold of her. Before she even realized what she was doing, she quickened her steps and shoved Sundown.
Shocked, he turned to stare at her as if she'd lost her mind. "What was that for?"
"You bastard! Why did you wait to become his friend? You know, you could have been nice to him before you were obligated to!"
"What are you talking about?" Sundown scowled. "Is she loco?"
Ren turned her around to face him. "Kateri, he doesn't remember being Buffalo. I mean, he has bits and pieces of it, but he doesn't recall much. While they have similarities and they look the same, Sundown is an entirely different man."
Clenching her eyes shut, she nodded. "I'm sorry, Ren." She looked up at the cowboy. "Jess. I just get so mad at all of them ... She turned back toward Ren. They had no right to treat you that way."
"Did you have another vision?"
She nodded. "Now I understand my grandmother. We'd be walking down the street and she'd flinch for no reason. Whenever I asked her about it, she'd say, 'It's the past, baby. For some people it's so vicious that it creates a loop of bad memories that runs constantly inside their hearts. A loop so bad that sometimes it reaches out to those of us capable of seeing it to let us know to take extra care of the ones who were hurt. It tells us to let them know that just because the world is eat up with mean, it doesn't mean we all are. That even though the past hurt them, it doesn't have to destroy their future. Give as many smiles away as you can. They're free and they make the world a much prettier place. You may not have the best clothes or the latest in shoes, but everyone has a unique designer smile that is worth millions, especially to those who need its warmth.'" She clenched her hands in her hair. "Ugh! I think Jess is right. I am crazy."
Ren ran his hand down the line of her jaw, causing chills to rise on her arms. "You're not crazy. You're coming into your powers and you don't have control of them yet. Trust me. We all think we're going crazy when it happens. You should have been there the first time I turned into a crow. I flew straight into a tree and then had to figure out something to explain away the huge bruise I had in the center of my forehead for two weeks."
She shook her head at him. "You're terrible."
"He's right," Sasha said from behind him. "When I was learning to teleport, I accidentally flashed some unknown wedding party. You talk about humiliating. And of course the powers that got me there decided to abandon me a blink later. So there I stood in all my glory, cupping my junk and wondering, 'Why me, gods ... why me?'"
They all laughed.
"I hear you," Urian said. "I accidentally turned my brother into a goat for a week. I was so scared of what my dad might do that I didn't tell him. It wasn't until my mother figured it out when she found him in my bed that he was restored to his real body. I'm really glad he had a sense of humor about it and didn't kill me. But he did guilt the shit out of me over it for the rest of his life."
Kateri felt for his brother. "Was he okay?"
"Yeah, but he did have this strange craving to chew on leather after that. At least it kept his fangs sharp."
Cabeza drew up short and motioned for them to be silent. Without a sound, Jess pulled his gun off his shoulder while she and Ren each nocked an arrow.
Off to the left something was running.
And it was headed straight for them.