December 17, a little after 2 a.m., in a suburb of Chicago

It was damn cold out – almost cold enough to convince Henry to turn around and head back to his brother’s house, but he’d promised his girl he’d be back by morning. A man has to keep his promises, after all.

The combination of bitter darkness and harsh streetlamps was starting to dazzle Henry a little. He hated this – it was impossible to see straight in the dark, really.

Henry didn’t notice the girl until she impacted the front of his truck.

Cursing and panicking, Henry braked. He jumped out as soon as the vehicle stopped and ran back to where the girl had been.

She was sitting in the middle of the road, and although her thin dress was torn, there were no signs of other injuries. Henry helped her stand. “Are you all right? I’m so sorry, Miss. I didn’t see you. It was so dark and-”

The girl raised her hand, cutting him off. “It’s alright,” she said in a rough, low voice. “I’m fine.”

“Let me offer you a lift, at least,” Henry said. The girl was barefoot and wearing nothing but a thin, now torn, dress. She had to be freezing.

Henry could barely see the girl’s face through her tangled red hair. “Alright, then.”

Henry walked the girl back to his truck and opened the passenger-side door for her. She climbed in.

“What’s your name, Miss?”

“Mary.”

“I’m Henry.” He walked around to the driver’s side of the truck, jumped in, and turned the key.

Mary heaved an inaudible sigh of relief. Henry hadn’t noticed the handprints in his grille.

“So, Mary, where can I take you?”

“7600 Archer Avenue, please,” she said, looking out the window.

“He-ey. Been a long time,” says the bartender without looking up from the glass he’s been polishing.

The newcomer takes a seat at the empty bar. “I can see you’re having a busy night.”

“Oh, yeah. The usual?”

“Nope.”

The bartender looks up. “You on duty, then?”

The other man nods and briefly fingers the brim of his hat.

The bartender nods at him. “You are allowed to take the hat off. No whiteys in here to mistake you for the Devil.”

The other man glares. He leaves the hat on.

After a pause, he asks, “So how have things been?”

It is not small talk. The bartender finally sets down his glass and runs his finger around the rim. It emits a horrific squeak.

The bartender, finally, shrugs. “Normal as can be. You know. People scrabble by out here, I see way too many of the townsfolk in my establishment on a regular basis, and, oh yeah, we have a witch.”

As if on cue, a weird air smothers the bar. The man in the hat rises slowly from the barstool. He follows the bartender’s stare to the back window.

Something not quite an animal darts off into the shadows.

“He’s heading towards someone’s house,” the bartender calls. The man in the hat waves an acknowledgement as he darts out the door.

The bartender goes back to polishing his glass. Half an hour, a scream, and a gunshot later, he puts it down for good this time and saunters outside.

The man in the hat stands over the skin-covered body of a man. Dead and in the open, the Yeenaaldlooshii looks like a drunken frat boy playing a ghoulish kind of dress-up. The bartender walks up and kicks at the last few shredded strips of decaying skin. They disintegrate in a foul-smelling puff of dust.

“You know, I’m almost insulted,” Coyote says.

The man in the hat holsters his gun, looking wry. “Like that’s unusual, First Scolder.”

Coyote laughs. “You’re off-duty now, right, soldier? Want that drink?”

The man shakes his head.

Coyote laughs again, a laugh with an edge. “Me neither.” And with a jaunty wave, he turns and heads away from the decrepit town, away from the skinwalker’s corpse, away from haunted things.

The buffalo soldier watches him go, and then, when he’s sure he’s out of Coyote’s sight, tips his hat.

Somewhere in the wilderness at the outskirts of town, a coyote laughs.