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A Solstice Carol

(Based on "A Christmas Carol", by Charles Dickens)

Ruth Pawstone stood in her oversized kitchen with her paws on her hips and surveyed her latest masterpiece.

She was a tawny rabbit with sun bleached fur, although the hair on her head was darker and streaked with grey. Her long ears fell back over her head, but did not hang straight down like a lop's would. She had a large bosom and wide, matronly hips. She was slightly overweight, but still very attractive; handsome some would say. With her fur dusted with cake flour and bits of batter stuck in her whiskers she looked like the most wholesome of television chefs.

But what she was cooking up was murder. Not that she considered it murder to kill off a bunch of the European invaders.

Ruth, or Runs With Stick, the native name that she preferred, was a member of the Cuni Tribe. Their territory overlapped several southwestern states and they tended not to recognize or acknowledge the invisible political boundaries of the foreign invaders, who were once called Conquistadors but were now called Americans. When she was young she had been a warrior, a guardian of her people like her mother and her grandmother before her. Whenever someone from outside threatened the tribe, drug dealers, bike gangs, and the like, she and her mate would paint their cheeks with sky blue indamo powder as a sign that they did not fear death, thank Mother Earth for their continued well being, ask the Sun for guidance, and then go out and slaughter the invaders. Then, as they lay dying, they would paint their victims' eyes and lips with the blue powder before cutting off their right foot.

"We are Cuni, and we are not prey." They would chant as they did it.

The Cuni believed that it was a great shame to stand before the Skeleton spirit not whole. Such a thing could prevent one from moving on to the next world. Ruth had kept a foot bone from each of her victims and added it to a heavy necklace that her Grandmother had passed down to her. Her weapon of choice for these rituals was a heavy meat cleaver, a cleaver that until today had hung in a corner of her kitchen with other unused and out of date utensils. But this morning Ruth had taken it down and sharpened it up until the edge could cut a falling hair it two.

Ruth had hung up the heirloom cleaver two years earlier, believing that her days as a guardian were done. The vengeance that had burned within her after her father had disappeared and was presumed dead. He had returned decades later, his memory gone, long after Ruth had buried her mother and her grandmother and shortly after her mate, Silver Two Trees died. With a blinding need for revenge she had been fooled into going after an innocent creature and had almost lost her soul in the process. Then she had met the spirit of her mate and parents in a dream and relented at the last minute. Later, when offered the opportunity to go after the real culprit, she had taken the advice of her dead relatives and chosen the path of peace. She had hung up the cleaver and taken up other pursuits.

She had already sold her interest in the diner and truck stop that she and Silver Two Trees had once owned so she opened a catering business in the oversized kitchen that her mother had once hoped would be overrun with grandchildren. But Ruth and her mate had been barren, and she had not taken another of her species since his death, so there was plenty of room for the specialty baked goods she made and sold, more to pass the time than from any financial need. Her husband's insurance and the sale of the diner had left her with a tidy sum. She believed that she had enough money to last forever and so she had settled down with her father to see out the rest of her days in peace.

But all that had changed a month ago, when her father stepped off a curb into the path of a speeding oil tanker.

It had happened outside of the nearby town, on disputed land where the tribe was trying to block the expansion of the oil fields. Her father, still an active protester, had tried to get others to join him in blockading the road but none were interested. The oil company had spread so much money around that all of the opposition was silenced; except for fossils like her father. He had mounted a one-rabbit protest but had miscalculated the speed of the truck when he stepped out onto the road to block it.

The inquiry conducted by state authorities, who had accepted the oil company's money to get elected, had lasted only one day. The found her father totally at fault for the accident that had disabled a valuable tractor trailer unit and thrown the company's production schedule off. In their graciousness, and because her father had no money of his own, they did not award compensation to the oil company. In fact, to show that they had no hard feelings, the company had commissioned the cake for their annual Executive Christmas party from the daughter of the rabbit whose death had held up production for a week.

And to show them how much she appreciated the gesture, Ruth had baked a little something extra inside - a twenty pound cylinder of gas and some dynamite she had left over from her warrior days.

The gas was meant to be used by Special Forces to paralyse, not kill. It was supposed to be used in hostage situations so they could put the bad guys out of action without harming the victims and then go in and sort them out. There was enough in the cylinder to incapacitate a hundred creatures, but there would only be about thirty oil executives there, along with a few assistants to serve them. Which was good, she thought to herself, since the gas was getting old and might not be as effective as it once was.

The dispersal nozzle was connected to the clone of a cell phone that Ruth had bought at a big box store far away from where she lived. It was linked to a second phone that she had bought elsewhere. Whatever she did with the one in her pocket the clone would do also. Turning on the flashlight feature would bring the invader's party to a grinding halt.

She could, in theory, set the gas flowing from anywhere where there was cellular phone service, which was pretty much everywhere these days. But she wanted to be close by because after the noise of the party died down. She intended to enter the hall they had rented with a gas mask and her cleaver and her cheeks painted blue. She would bring enough indamo powder to paint the lips and eyes of the trespassers and then she would cut off the right foot of each and every one, leaving them conscious but paralysed to bleed to death. She had left a note inside the cake for the FBI to find, threatening to do the same to all the major stockholders should the company return to this territory.

But even if something went wrong and she was unable to trigger the phone there was a fail-safe device, - a timer that would trigger the gas at noon, just before the cake was due to be cut. Five minutes later it would also ignite the fuse on the dynamite. It would take a while to piece the note back together but Ruth was sure that the FBI lab could do it. Hopefully the explosion would have as much impact on the stockholders as the foot amputations would.

Thinking of the death and destruction made her wall warm inside, and she thought about how she and her warrior partner had made love after killing enemies of the Cuni. She imagined that he would be very proud of her now.

But her reminiscing was interrupted by the sound of the bell above the door to her kitchen.

She looked up, recognizing two members of the tribal council.

"Sorry, gents." She told them. "Shops closed for the day because of a special order."

"We didn't come about the baked goods." The larger one, called Dan Two Ears, said.

Behind him a smaller rabbit named Charlie Gold Fur nodded in agreement. "Not about the baked goods." He repeated.

Ruth/Runs With Stick frowned. She had nothing in particular against the Tribal Council, although back in the day they had tried to shut down the drug running and stolen goods racket she and her mate had used to finance their war on the European descendants, even though they never sold to members of the tribe. "Then why have you come?"

Dan cleared his throat. "We heard that you might be planning something against the oil company, because of what happened to your father. Not that we would blame you." He added hastily. "But we want to make sure that whatever you do ... that it's peaceful."

"Peaceful." Charlie chimed in.

Ruth dabbed at the flour on her fur, her anger rising. "Peace? What has peace ever done for our people?"

"Our name, Cuni, means 'the peaceful ones'." Dan reminded her. "We lived in peace with the other tribes; the prairie dog, the porcupine, even the fox, for centuries before the Europeans came."

"With their guns and canon, slaughtering all who opposed them." Ruth spat.

"But we endured, and we were not prey, and we were not pushed off our lands."

"Thanks to warriors like my mother, and my grandmother, and her grandmothers before her."

Dan shook his head. "Despite the warriors, some would say."

"Despite them." Charlie emphasized.

"Look Ruth," Dan continued in a reasonable tone, "their methods might have been helpful once, but there is no need to slip back to them now. We have tribe members who are lawyers, law enforcement officers, politicians ... We can deal with this in the courts. We don't need to revert to violence."

Ruth was defiant. "The courts haven't done much for you so far. You don't see any of them in the prisons that they build with the taxes they collect from the oil revenues. You don't see them slaving on the chain gangs. Yet, every day I see more drilling rigs on the contested land, more tankers taking the blood of Mother Earth away."

Dan glanced around as if to assure himself that they were alone. "Listen Ruth, you have to give it time. Big corporations like this have gotten pretty cagey about covering their tracks. They're like coyotes, tricky and sly, and they keep things amongst a trusted few inside the company. But we expect to have access to some of that inside information pretty soon. So if you could just ..."

Before Dan could finish the bell over the door rang again to announce another visitor. This time it was her niece, Mary Swift Paws. She was the only child of the sister of Ruth's mate, and his last living relative. She was only related to Ruth by her marriage to Silver Two Trees, but despite that she often reached out to her Aunt, hoping to bring the reclusive rabbit out of her solitary life.

"Aunt Ruth!" The young doe with the sunny smile cried as she entered. "Councillors! Solstice greetings!"

"Solstice greetings." Dan and Charlie mumbled back. Ruth remained silent and frowning.

Most of the Cuni had resisted the Colonial invaders attempts to convert them to Christianity and instead of celebrating Christmas at this time of year they continued to celebrate the winter solstice. It was a time of plenty, if the harvest had been good, with little work left to do. Families and tribes gathered together at this time to dance, sing, feast and exchange gifts. Mary invited Ruth to join her and her mate every year, but Ruth always refused. She did not like to be reminded of her husband's family, or her own, of the happiness that had been taken away by death and disappearance. She preferred that the solstice pass without her.

"Remember what we said." Dan Two Ears said as he pulled one of his ears in a gesture of parting and made his way to the door.

"And Solstice greetings." Charlie Gold Fur said as he backed out behind his fellow councillor.

"What did they want, Aunt Ruth?" Mary asked after the door swung closed.

"Nothing. And don't call me aunt, or Ruth. I prefer Runs With Stick." She moved to the window as she spoke. Another car had drawn up, an oil company car, and the councillors were talking with the occupant.

"But that is so formal, aunt Ru- ... Runs With Stick. Uncle Steven never used his Cuni name among family."

"He was always Silver Two Trees to me." Ruth snapped, still looking through the window. What were the councillors doing talking to an oil company employee so soon after the inquiry?

"Well, I've come to invite you to spend the solstice with us, with me and my mate that is. We're having some friends over and ..."

"Your mate." Ruth sneered. "Isn't that the one that fancies himself some sort of archaeologist? The one you had to put through school because he was too poor, or lazy, to pay his own way?"

The young doe frowned for an instant but her smile soon returned. "Aunt, I know that you don't like Mark because he was raised off reservation and doesn't even have a tribal name. But he is the sweetest, nicest, most loving rabbit that ever existed and I wish that you would meet him and see that for yourself. If you come by after lunch tomorrow ..."

Mary was cut off by the sound of the bell. She turned to see a tall male rabbit with grey fur and a white nose standing timidly in the doorway behind her.

"Er, excuse me." The rabbit said. "Season's greetings." He looked like a local but was dressed in the uniform of the oil company employees, with his last name, Cratchet, sewn onto the pocket over his left breast.

"Season's greetings." Mary replied. Ruth did not speak but her frown deepened.

The term the newcomer had used was a generic greeting when meeting someone whose religion one was unsure of. It was the common expression used by members of the Cuni when greeting outsiders at this time of year, not that Ruth would use it, or any other such expression. By addressing the two does that way the rabbit had marked himself as an outsider, as if the oil company logo on his shirt was not enough.

The one thing that Ruth hated more than the invasive species was one of their own that worked for them. She considered such creatures to be traitors. In the old days that alone was deserving of the cleaver.

Mary had offered a paw to Cratchet and when he shook it she introduced herself as Mary, the niece of the bakery owner.

"How do you do. My name is Bob, Bob Cratchet."

"I could tell from your name tag that you were a Cratchet." Mary giggled. "That's an unusual name for a Cuni."

"Oh, I was raised in Phoenix." Cratchet offered. "I was adopted, actually, by a pair of British hares that came over to work in the high tech zone there. I, uh, work for the oil company myself. I, uh, hope you don't mind?"

"I mind." Ruth said under her breath.

"Oh, no problem." Mary said much louder. "I'm sure that you're doing everything you can to educate them on our cultural connection to the land and its resources."

Cratchet smiled wearily. "I try."

"I bet you do." Ruth mumbled

Cratchet turned to the elder doe. "Sorry?"

"I said 'What can I do for you?'".

"Oh, sorry. I'm here to pick up the cake for the Christmas party."

"They're making you work this close to the solstice?" Mary asked. "I hope that they are giving you tomorrow off."

"Just half a day." Cratchet said. "And I have to work all day Christmas because of it, but that's okay. I'm learning a lot about the business and someday ..." his voice trailed off. "Anyway," he perked up, "I'll have the whole morning to spend with my family, and that's enough."

"Oh, that's so sweet." Mary almost gushed, and then she looked at her watch. "I have to run. Solstice greetings to you, Bob Cratchet, and don't forget, Aunt Ruth," she said turning to Runs With Stick, "tomorrow afternoon at my place for a real old fashioned solstice.

Ruth thought that she was going to puke. "The cake is back here." She indicated To Cratchet after Mary had left. "I made it extra large, to celebrate the largess of the company. I hope that you have room in that car."

"It's a hatchback." Cratchet mumbled as he hefted the triple-tiered cake. "Gees, this weighs a ton. What did you make it with?"

"Oh, a little of this, a little of that. Lots of marzipan."

Cratchet shrugged. "Glad I don't have to eat it. Marzipan always gives me gas."

* * * * *

Evening found Ruth trudging down the road between her home and the nearest off reservation town. It was just past six but it was already getting dark. It had been getting dark earlier and earlier and there was barely ten hours of daylight at this time of year. Tonight would be the longest night of the year, and tomorrow would be the shortest day, the solstice. But all that Ruth cared about was that it was getting down to the freezing mark, which was made worse by a howling wind, and if she didn't get home soon she would catch pneumonia.

Ruth had gone off reservation to eat because she did not feel like making a meal in her mother's kitchen, not with the remnants of the bomb laden cake still spread around. She could have gone to the diner she once owned but the new proprietors where ardent solstice celebrators and the place was sure to be filled with light, love and laughter - three things Ruth did not want in her life tonight. So she had gone to a small dingy restaurant run by a couple of American foxes where the food was bad and the service was worse but where isolation was guaranteed.

She had ordered a bowl of carrot stew. The carrots had been over cooked but the broth had been okay. Good enough for Ruth to ask for some bread to soak it up.

"Bread's extra." The waiter had informed her.

"No bread then." Ruth had drunk the broth straight from the bowl, paid without leaving a tip and left.

She was in a continuation of the bad mood that had started with the appearance of the two councillors and gotten worse as the visitors multiplied. Mary's bubbly exuberance had done nothing to improve it and the sight of the humble lackey, Bob Cratchet, had cemented it in place. How the traitor could be so cheery about the solstice while working under slavery conditions was beyond her. She had ignored his solstice wishes as he drove off.

Ruth arrived at her door nearly frozen and her numb paws fumbled with the key as she leaned down to find the keyhole in the dark. Up close her vision was not as good as it used to be, but she knew that the lock was just to the left of the decorative door knocker depicting the head of their clan spirit that her mother had installed years ago. It was a blue-faced rabbit with feathers for ears. Ruth peered at the door for a sign of it in the dark.

Just then a car drove past, throwing bars of light and shadow across her door. She saw a face on the door where the knocker would be and drew a deep breath - she could swear that it was the face of her dead mate, Silver Two Trees. He looked just like he used to before they went in to execute an enemy of the people, with indamo blue cheeks and dark ocher under his eyes. She blinked and looked again. The car was almost gone and now the door knocker was illuminated by its red tail lights. It looked normal, blue painted wood and crow feathers intact, but the taillights made the deeper lines of the carving look like they were running with blood.

Inside the house was cold. The fire in the kitchen had died while she was out because she had forgotten to bank it. The house had no other source of heat, and the rest of the adobe structure had not been wired for electricity so a portable heater was out of the question. Fortunately she kept a small brazier ready with charcoal for light cooking and heat in the large room she slept in now. She had also bought a large antique four poster bed with a canopy and heavy drapes to keep the heat in on these cold winter nights. When she bought it her few last friends had though that she was crazy bringing something like that to their desert community but her father saw the utility in it; the desert cooled quickly at night and anything that preserved the heat was a good thing.

She took some left over potato soup from the fridge and brought it to her room. She set it down on a small side table while she lit a candle and the kindling in the brazier. Then she changed from her day clothes into a woolen night dress while the charcoal heated up. She put the ceramic bowl to warm on a tripod over the brazier while she completed her nightly toilet ritual. When she could see steam rising from the bowl she thanked Mother Earth for her wellbeing and asked the Sun for guidance before plopping down in her mother's rocker to eat her soup as the flickering candle made shadow paintings on the wall.

It was nearing the top of the hour so she turned on a battery powered radio that was tuned to the local station to listen to the news and was greeted by blaring Christmas music. She turned the volume down until the news came on because she found the carols insipid, especially the modern country and western ones this station tended to favour. She only turned it up again when she heard the familiar voice of the feline that read the news.

"Good evening and Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates it and a hardy season's greetings to all who don't." He began. It went downhill from there, in Ruth's opinion. With Christmas only five days away most of the news was about Christmas parades, Christmas shows and Christmas luncheons. The tragic story of the day was a fire that had destroyed a family's home and burnt up all their Christmas presents and where one could donate money to replace them. Like they need them more than they need a new house, Ruth thought bitterly. Even the ads were all about Christmas and how much you could save while giving. Bah, Christmas bullshit, she told herself as she turned off the radio in disgust.

She had just set her empty bowl when the wind outside rose in a howl that made the shutters shake. The howl became a cry, and smoke seemed to fill the far end of the room, where the door connecting it to the kitchen was. Ruth put her paws on the arms of the rocker to push herself up, suspecting that the wind had come down the chimney and stoked some remaining embers into flames - She would need to close the flue before the whole house filled with smoke. But before she could leave her chair the howl became a cry of anger and pain and a familiar figure appeared within the haze.

It was her dead husband, and he was painted as if going on a killing mission, just like she had imagined on the door knocker. But instead of the large butcher knife he usually carried he was festooned with cleavers, machetes, axes and Bowie knives of all descriptions.

Ruth sat back down had, her jaw hanging open in shock.

"Runs With Stick." The apparition cried. "It is I, Silver Two Trees."

Ruth blinked and rubbed her eyes but the vision did not change. "Oh, no. No, you're not."

The spirit was undeterred. "Yes, it is. I was your partner in life, and later your mate."

Ruth shook her head. "No, no, no. You're a bad dream, a nightmare." She picked up her bowl and sniffed it. "Someone spiked my soup with peyote, I'll bet."

The ghost screamed in anguish, startling Ruth into dropping the bowl. She crawled back in the rocker, terrified for the first time in her life.

"S- Silver Two Trees," she ventured when the wailing stopped, "if that is indeed you. What are you doing here, on Solstice eve?"

"I came to warn you."

"Warn me? About what? Is the oil company on to me? Do they know about the cake?" She had a fair sum of money and some old fake passports buried in a box in the desert. If the police had disconnected the gas and dismantled the bomb they could be waiting for her to send the trigger code before pouncing - just so they could prove deadly intent in court. She could get a head start on them if she slipped out during the storm.

"No, they know nothing of your plot." The ghost of her mate said to her relief.

Ruth was puzzled. "Then, why have you come?"

"To warn you about your soul, least you suffer the same fate as mine."

"My soul? Your soul? What could possibly be wrong with our souls?

"Look at me." The spirit said, raising its arms to display the dozens o heavy cutting implements hanging off it by iron chains. "I bear the evidence of my violent ways. Every time I raised my paw in anger I added another loop to these chains, another blade to my burden. They have prevented me from passing into the fifth world, and I must wear them until the Lost White Brother returns to judge us all."

The Cuni believed that the spirits had created a series of worlds, each better than the last. The first world was pure chaos and the second world almost as bad. But under the guidance of the Sun god the rabbits had progressed through them and through the third world, a world dominated by violence and wanton sex, into the fourth world, this world. It was the people's desire for peace that brought them through, as so they had adopted the anagram of the phrase in their language that meant 'the peaceful ones' as their name - Cuni.

The fifth world was a world of perfect peace without strife or want, and that was where righteous members of the Cuni went to await final judgment. They believed that the Skeleton Spirit controlled the passage between the worlds and decided who was worthy of passing straight through to the fifth. Those found lacking remained in this world as spirits, bearing whatever discomforts their sins had brought until the return of the Skeleton's brother, a pure white rabbit spirit who had disappeared while on a quest to the East eons ago.

Ruth was still not completely convinced that the apparition was not a flashback from the drug fuelled days of her youth but she decided that it was best to play along. "Why would you bear such a burden, my mate? You were a good person, a righteous person, a warrior for the people, a keeper of the peace."

"Peace?" The spirit screamed, making Ruth cower in the rocker. "We were supposed to keep the peace! Instead we dealt in drugs and stolen goods, eliminated our rivals, killed anyone who tried to move into our territory, all in the name of peace."

Ruth tried to calm him, or it, down. "It wasn't like that ... was it? Sure, we had to get our paws dirty, but it was all for a good cause. The only laws we broke were those of the foreign invaders. The American gangs would have made it much worse for our people if they had been the ones in charge. It was just business, you know? Business."

"Business! Peace was our business!" The spirit flung his arms wide and the window of Ruth's bedroom flew open. Through it she could only see the dessert at first but then the scene telescoped until she was looking at a dim street in the American town that was miles away. A group of Cuni youth were kicking and punching a lone American teen. Surrounding them, and unseen by the Cuni and their victim, was a group of Cuni warriors, including her mate. Some were dressed in modern clothes and laboured under the weight of iron chains and steel implements. Others were wearing rawhide leggings and homespun cloaks. The tools weighing them down were made of wood and stone and they were strung on ropes made from thorny plants. The spirits were all trying to pull the young rabbits off the lad, trying to stop them, but to no avail - their ethereal paws slipped right trough the solid bone and muscle as the Cuni youth continued to put the boots to their victim.

The scene reversed itself and ended with her windows and shutters slamming shut.

"We try to intervene, to turn our people from the path of violence in hope of redemption." The ghost said sadly. "But to no avail. Only a living creature may atone for their sins in life. Once death is upon you it is too late.'

Then his voice rose as he turned back to Ruth. "Listen to me Ruth Pawstone, who calls herself Runs With Stick. When I died your chains were as long and as heavy as the ones I bear, but you have added to them considerably in the intervening years. Yours are so burdensome now that you may not even be permitted to roam the forth world as a spirit. The Skeleton Spirit may send you back ... back to the third world.

Ruth was aghast. The only fate worse than being denied the fifth world was to be sent back to the previous one. It was said to be a hellish place where all manner of creatures preyed on one another, venting their lust in random couplings and using violence to achieve every end. She shuddered in fear. There would be no one there to guide her back and so she must suffer brutality until the return of the Lost White Brother, and even then salvation was not guaranteed. If she answered violence with violence, as she was wont to do, or engaged in the loveless sexual activities, as she had when the rage was upon her, she would be trapped there for eternity, unworthy of even a second attempt at life on this world.

Her ears fell limply at the sides of her head as the last vintages of hope fled her.

"Do not despair." The ghost of her mate told her. "For while I cannot save myself I have asked the spirits to help you. Three will visit you. Expect the first tonight when the hour strikes one." He began to fade as the smoke receded.

"Wait, my love! Don't go! Stay with me and forget about the spirits. I'm too old and set in my ways to change. Tomorrow I'll go to the hall where the party is and stand beside the cake when the timer runs down. Then we can be together, even if it is in misery."

"When the clock strikes one." He repeated, and was gone.

* * * * *

Ruth had fallen into a fitful sleep after tossing and turning for what seemed like forever. Each time she woke she would peek between the curtains on the bed, which she had pulled tight because of the cold, to verify that her door was still closed and here were no intruders. She was just starting to relax, thinking that it had indeed all been a bad dream when she noticed a glow seeping between the gap in the curtains. Fearing that her house may be on fire she parted the curtains and rolled out of bed just as the bell from the Catholic mission in the village chimed once.

She immediately froze in place with one foot on the floor when she saw that she was not alone.

Sitting in her mother's rocking chair was a tall, lean figure. It was dressed in a sky-blue loincloth, with black rawhide boots and leggings that were decorated with white polka-dots. In its paws it held a blue staff that had a tuft of black fur and two crow feathers attached to one end. The staff looked to have holes drilled in it at regular intervals; perhaps it was a flute?

She looked at it carefully in the dim light that seemed to emanate from it. It had a canine snout and ears, shaggy brown fur and claws. She recognized it from the spirit dolls that old females and kits sold to American tourists from booths along the highway - it was the Coyote Spirit, the trickster. When she was young she had prayed to this spirit to give her stealth and help her fool her enemies.

The spirit beckoned her to come closer.

Ruth set her other foot upon the floor but did not approach. "Are you the spirit that the ghost of my mate told me would come?" She asked.

"Yes. I am the spirit of your past. I have come to show you where you left the path of peace for that of violence."

"You needn't bother." Ruth sighed. "It was a mistake, my husband asking you to help, that is. I am too old. There is not enough time to make up for all my sins, past and present. "

"We shall see." The coyote raised his staff to his mouth - it was a flute, she saw. "Come, touch my flute."

"I cut the paw off of the last creature that said that to me." Ruth snarled, momentarily losing her temper.

The trickster just smiled and gestured. Ruth was pulled over to his side as if she was sliding on ice. Her paw shot out from her side and gripped the end of the flute despite her best efforts to keep it down.

The coyote put his lips on the end with the feathers and fur and blew one long, low note.

The room faded, there was a sensation of flying without moving, and then it got brighter, but not by much.

It took Ruth a few seconds to recognize where they were. It was the classroom of the State residential school for indigenous orphans and those removed from their homes by the child welfare agency. She had spend a couple of miserable years here while her parents were in jail, taken from her tribe's lands because she had no immediate relatives to take her in, and to punish her parents for daring to protest conditions on the reserve.

She looked around and saw a lone Cuni child sitting at a desk in the front of the classroom.

"You can approach her." The coyote said from behind her. "These are only shadows of what was. No one can see or hear us."

Ruth approached and saw that the child was a rabbit doe with sun bleached fur, although the hair on her head was darker. Her long ears fell back over her head, but did not hang straight down like a lop's would. She was slim but had strong features that would fill in over time. Although she would never be considered beautiful she might develop striking features that some might call handsome. Her face looked familiar. Ruth tried to recall where she had seen it before and then it clicked, she had only seen it in reverse, in the mirror when she washed. The child was her.

Before she could ask why the spirit had brought her here another child, a prairie dog from another tribe ran into the room.

"Ruth, Ruth! The bus is leaving! You have to hurry."

Ruth's younger version replied "I am not going, Sally Digswell. I have no one to spend the Solstice with."

The prairie dog stoked her friend's ears sadly. "I wish that you could come home with me." But that was against the rules, Ruth recalled. One either went home to relatives or one stayed in the school during the Christmas Holiday ... alone.

A voice yelled the last call for the bus and Sally said goodbye to her friend. "I'll see you in a week, Ruth. Take care." Then she ran off.

Ruth watched as her younger self shed a silent tear and went back to studying her book. She was going to suggest that they leave when another creature came into the room. It was one of the teachers, this one a dark long haired feline from New York.

"Ruth Pawstone." The feline said as she walked though the coyote to stand beside the young doe. "I heard that you are not going back to your reserve for the holiday."

"It is not a reserve, it is unceeded land." The young Ruth said and her older version mouthed the words at the same time, remembering this particular Solstice Eve now.

The feline, Miss Schmitt Ruth recalled, did not argue the point. "I'm all alone too this Christmas." She said. "My family is from Germany and this time of year they hold Christmas markets and decorate the house with pine boughs. On Christmas Eve father will bring in a small evergreen tree in a bucket of earth and the family will tie small candles to the branches and light them. Then there will be a feast and the children will open their presents."

"You don't cut down a tree?" The doe asked.

"No. A tree needs to be alive and green to have candles in it; otherwise it would go up 'poof' in a ball of flame." Miss Schmitt said with a smile. "After the holiday Father would plant the tree in the forest outside of town, before the ground got too hard. You know," the feline continued, "I have a small tree at my apartment in town but no one to help decorate it. If you like, you could come spend the holiday with me."

"My people do not celebrate Christmas." Young Ruth informed her. "We celebrate the Solstice."

The feline crouched down in front of the desk to put her at eye level with the student. "I'll tell you what. You come with me and show me how you celebrate the Solstice and I'll show you how my people celebrate Christmas. Then, before school starts again, we could both go to the park and plant the tree I have. What do you say?"

The cat's green eyes were so full of love and good will that Ruth's younger self could not refuse. She extended a paw and Miss Schmitt took it, closing the book and setting it aside with the other. The two stood and walked out of the classroom in the direction of the dormitory to get Ruth's things.

The older Ruth watched them go. "I had forgotten about her."

"And it was one of the best holidays of your life." The coyote added.

"Yes." She admitted. "We had fun. My parents were released shortly after that and I was returned to them."

"Come." The coyote said, extending his flute. "There is much to see."

The lights changed, winds rushed past and Ruth found herself in her own home, standing behind herself as her younger version hid behind a curtain, spying on her parents who were having a forceful conversation in the next room.

"But why do YOU have to go?" Her mother, Shining Moon Star, said.

"Because our brothers at Wounded Knee need all the support they can get." Her father answered.

"It is going to get violent."

"Maybe, maybe not. But if no one stands up peacefully for what is right then we all deserve to be sent back to the third world."

"I gave up the cleaver for you, Running Blue Water. I stopped being a warrior and took up pottery to bring some beauty into this life, but it is dangerous there. Let me go with you. With my cleaver I can protect you."

She saw her father wipe the tears from her mother's eyes, tears that her younger version could not see from where she was hidden. "No. Someone must stay with Runs With Stick or they will send her back to the residential school again."

He left her mother in tears and picked up his bag. There was a car full of his activist friends waiting out front for him. The young Ruth ran through the house to intercept him at the front door.

"Father! Please don't go."

He turned to the doe who was just entering her teens and ruffled the fur between her ears. "Don't worry little one. I will return. I promise."

Ruth stood behind her young self and watched for the second time as her father climbed into an ancient Chevy and drove off. But this time she knew that he would not be back for many, many years. Not until after she was grown and had buried her mother and her mate.

"Was this your worst Solstice?" The coyote asked.

"It is tied for worst with every one since then."Ruth answered.

"That is not true." The coyote touched her with his flute and the scene changed again.

They were in the diner where she once worked for an American criminal before she and Silver Two trees bought him out and took over the business of running drugs and guns across the Mexican border and fencing stolen goods. It was decorated for the Solstice and traditional tribal music was playing because her mate liked the colour and the lively air it brought to the diner. He was just leaving when they appeared. An adult Ruth, but one with no grey in her fur, stood behind him as he wrapped a scarf around his neck.

"Are you sure that you can do this alone?" She asked.

"Yes. This is a dirty one and the foreigners' police will suspect us. You need to stay here and keep the diner open. When they arrest us you can claim that I was in the back room doing the annual stock taking the whole time."

"Alright, may the Sun guide you."

He looked out onto the blustery night. "More like the Moon now."

As he drove off Ruth and the Coyote spirit followed, drifting in the air behind his car although there was no physical sense of movement. Time seemed out of whack too as the drive to the far side of the Cuni village seemed to take but an instant. He parked behind a rundown apartment building and used his big knife to jimmy the fire door open. He climbed the back stairs until he came to the third floor and then he sought out unit Three-oh-one. There he tapped lightly on the door.

"Who is it?" A muffled voice asked.

"Anderson from the oil company. I've got your payment."

When the door began to open Silver Two Trees pushed hard on it, throwing the occupant back against the far wall. Before the stunned rabbit could react her mate shut the door. Ruth and the coyote drifted through it.

Inside Silver Two trees had a skinny male rabbit up against the wall with his blade at its throat.

"So, it is true. You have been selling information about the oil deposits and the divisions on the tribal council to the foreigners. You are a traitor." The larger rabbit flung the miscreant across the room, where he came up against the door leading to the bedrooms. Silver Two Trees reversed the knife in his paw and walked slowly across the room.

"No, wait!" The skinny one cried. "You don't understand, I had to do it. I- I needed the money. I had good reason."

"Dirty money." Her mate spat as he grabbed the traitor's right foot and rolled back the sock. "What good could you do with that?" He raised the knife.

"For my son, for his medicine. He has tuberculosis."

Silver Two Trees hesitated. Tuberculosis was rampant on the lands the foreigners referred to as reserves. They were obliged by treaty to pay for the health care of those living there yet they did not provide the treatment necessary to cure such ailments, even though they wear cheap and available. Instead they sent the medicine to Africa and the Middle East to wipe out the disease there while the Cuni and other tribes suffered.

There was a soft noise from behind the skinny rabbit. A small male kit in ragged pyjamas was standing in the doorway rubbing his eyes. When he cleared them and saw the muscular rabbit with its face painted blue and the knife near his father's foot his eyes went wide, but instead of running away he jumped forward and wrapped thin arms around his father's shoulders.

"Please, please don't hurt my dad." The little one cried. "Don't chop off his foot and send him incomplete to the skeleton spirit. He's a good dad, and he's all me and my sisters have since mom died. Even if we don't have much he loves us and takes care of us."

Silver Two Tree's lip trembled as he stared into the eyes of the defiant bunny. Ruth thought that she knew what was going through his mind. She remembered this night now, remembered it as another successful mission, but one that Silver Two Trees had come back from in a disturbed state. She could guess why; they had pledged never to hurt a child, but his mate would have had to eliminate the witness.

"What is your name, boy?" The warrior asked.

"Robert, sir."

"Robert, you are a brave warrior, but you are still a boy." Silver Two Trees looked at the rabbit's father with disgust in comparison. "And a boy needs a father, no matter how brave he is. You!" He poked the terrified father. "Take your family far from here and never be seen or heard in these parts again."

Before the older rabbit could thank him Silver Two Trees turned and strode out of the apartment.

Ruth and the coyote drifted after him.

"I don't understand." Ruth said as they followed the car back to the diner. "Silver Two Trees told me that he had taken care of the traitor."

"And he did." The coyote laughed. "He got rid of him without killing him, and by showing compassion he taught that boy a lesson about strength of character. But don't worry about the traitor, he did not live for long. After he got to Phoenix he spent all the money he had on medicine for the children and ignored his own health. He died less than a year later, and his children were adopted by British hares named Cratchet."

"HA! I knew it! Like father like son. That's what you get for being merciful, another traitor working for the same oil company that has been exploiting the land for twenty years."

"Is that what you think?" The coyote said with a sly smile.

Ruth wondered what the trickster meant by that, but was distracted by their entry into the diner, where her younger self was sorting through merchandise dropped off by one of the thieves that they dealt with, a kit fox named Louis Fourpaws. She was checking to make sure that none of the goods had been reported stolen from her people.

The rules they operated under were simple - steal from the foreign invaders and Ruth would give you a good price. Steal from the Cuni and Silver Two Trees would give you the edge of his blade. So far no one had been stupid enough to test them.

She listened to her mate report on the success of the mission. Then Silver Two trees picked something out of the pile of stolen goods. It was a guitar. He strummed it experimentally.

"You don't play, do you?" Young Ruth asked.

"I did a bit, when I was a kit. It's been years though. This is a good guitar that Louis brought in, a Gibson."

Ruth shrugged. "I gave him a hundred. How much do you think we can get for it?"

"This is worth over a grand, at least." He said as idly tuned the strings. "It's beautiful, and it sounds beautiful too. I'll think I'll keep it."

"Isn't that dangerous?" Ruth protested.

Silver Two Trees laughed and pulled her against him. "I keep lots of dangerous beautiful things near me." He said before putting down the guitar and putting a paw to her breast as he kissed her.

"Was this such a bad solstice?" The coyote asked as Ruth watched her husband peel the clothes of her former self.

She turned away from the scene. "Get me out of here."

The coyote spirit obliged.

As they rushed soundlessly through the ethereal mist Ruth thought back on that day. Silver Two Trees had changed after that mission. He did not laugh or grow excited like he used to when they were hunting enemies of the people, which he did less and less as the years passed. He began talking of getting out of the illegal business of drugs, guns and stolen goods. He spent more and more time playing the guitar though, making beautiful music the way her mother made beautiful pottery. Eventually they quit the business and sold the diner ... but he and her mother died less than a year later and just a few months apart, leaving a large hole in Ruth's heart.

"Did Silver Two Trees take up the guitar in hopes of cleansing his soul with music?" She asked the Coyote spirit.

"Yes."

"Did it work?"

"No."

"Wha- what about my mother ... is she ....?"

"So many questions, but my time grows short. Look for the next spirit when the clock chimes one again."

"No! Wait! You can't ...." But the coyote was gone and everything around her turned black.

* * * * *

Ruth woke to the sound of a single chime from the mission bell. She checked her watch; it was just one, in the AM she assumed since all was dark outside her bed curtains. She shook her head and gathered her bed covers about her. She had been dreaming about past Solstice celebrations and spirits and it all felt so real, but since it was only one it must have been a dream, mustn't it?

Her mother had said that a line of cornmeal would keep spirits from crossing into your house. Maybe she should go to the kitchen and pour some across her doorway, just in case.

She was about to get up when a light powerful enough to pierce the heavy curtains ignited at the far end of her oversized bedroom. It was accompanied by a booming laugh.

"Come out, Ruth Pawstone, and get to know me."

Ears back, Ruth peeked out from under the covers between the curtains. The wall where her door should be was now filled with a massive stone fireplace. A huge blaze was burning inside it and she could feel the heat from her bed. There was a large rough wooden table to one side and it was piled with all sorts of produce and meat - fresh boiled corn, roast wild fowl, barbecued fish, and potatoes - enough to feed the whole village. But there was only one creature present other than herself.

It was a large mountain lion, with tawny fur and golden eyes, dressed in buckskins with leggings and carrying a blue staff topped with eagle feathers and a rattle. There was a bow and arrows strung across its back. Ruth recognized it as the spirit of the hunter, the provider. According to legend the mountain lion spirit only killed out of necessity, never for fun, or revenge. That last thought made Ruth shudder.

The spirit smiled at her hesitation. "Don't be shy, come in and say howdy."

Ruth forced herself off of the bed, but she stayed well away from the roaring fire. "What are you here to show me?" She asked.

"Why, the festivities of the Solstice." The lion roared good-heartedly. "It is a time of plenty, a time for feasting, dancing singing and more." He finished with a lecherous wink. "It brings folk together, you might say. Many a doe has caught pregnant after the harvest is in and the nights grow long and cold."

Ruth and her mate had been childless, despite many couplings. They never sought to find out which of them was barren, or if it was both, but the lack of offspring only helped to sour family gatherings for Ruth; solstice being the worst. It put her on the defensive.

"There is a lot of that going around, I suppose." She said in a huff. "Folk are poor enough around here that it may be the only form of free entertainment that they have left, but the consequences ... " She shook her head angrily. "More mouths to feed. More babies to trip over. More doctor bills. I'm glad I never had to go through that."

"Your life is perfect in its isolation." The mountain lion mocked her.

"I have friends, family. I can go visit them whenever I want."

"So why don't you?"

Ruth opened her mouth to answer but nothing came out.

The spirit jumped up from his chair. "Let's go see what they are up to this Solstice." He cried, poking her with his staff.

She experienced the same sense of rushing through space without moving as she had with the first spirit. In a moment she found herself standing in an unfamiliar living room.

The room was decorated in the Cuni style, which led her to believe that they had not gone far. Creatures were coming and going. Most were rabbits, Cuni by their looks, but not all. There were even a couple of the invasive species, Americans by their dress and manner. Ruth wondered who from the tribe would have such an eclectic group in their house for the solstice.

She was answered when her niece and her husband came in from the kitchen bearing bowls of corn chips and salsa for dipping them in. They worked the room, greeting their guests and pointing them toward the buckets filled with ice and beer in the corner. Then they set the bowls on a side table where other local delicacies had already been ravaged by the hungry horde.

"Mary!" A doberman called to her niece from across the room. "Jill tells me that your Aunt used to own the diner outside the village, the one on the highway."

"Yeah, she used to."

"That place had a pretty bad reputation back in my dad's day."

"So did your dad." The doberman's friend injected to general laughter.

"It's true." Mary replied. "My uncle and his wife were involved in some bad shit back then. They saw themselves as warriors, guardians of the people, but not everybody agreed with their methods. My mom, his sister, didn't. Neither did my aunt's dad. My mom told me that it got to be too much for her brother in the end. Like, he suffered from PTSD or something. He quit running guns and drugs and ... and other stuff. But he died shortly after that, so he didn't get much peace before he went. My aunt though, she never really gave up on the whole warrior thing until she came back from a trip to Canada last year. She seemed to settle down then, and it looked like she was going to start taking part in the family again, but then her dad died."

"Yeah, I heard about that." The doberman said shaking his head. "That really sucked."

Ruth noticed that the non-Cuni guest was wearing a tee-shirt with an anti-oil anti-establishment logo on it. Some kind of liberal, left-wing professional protester, she thought.

"They called your father that too, at one time." The mountain lion said from behind her.

Ruth turned on him as the group continued to discuss the evils of industrial development. "What? Can you read my thoughts too?"

"How else can Spirits know what you truly feel?" The big cat responded.

Ruth heard her name and turned back to the group gathered in her niece's home.

"That's what her parents named her, but her driver's license says Ruth Pawstone. Anyway, I wish she was here to celebrate the Solstice with us. She seems so lonely in that big house all alone. Solstice is a time for being with family and friends, to have fun and socialize. Brooding all alone at a time like this can make you a little twisted, I think.

"Speaking of which," the doberman said jumping up, "I brought twister!"

The room faded away as the friends began playing the popular game. Ruth stood by the mountain lion as several scenes of other families enjoying their feast, crying together with relatives long unseen and dancing at the tribal celebrations flashed past. When they finally settled again it was in a small apartment in the nearby town.

The apartment had an open concept with a combined living room, dining room and kitchen. A short hallway led to the single bathroom and bedrooms. It was a low rent unit in a rundown building, but the room was spotlessly clean and brightly decorated with a mix of Solstice and Christmas decorations. Ruth could smell a chicken roasting and squash cooking and a dozen other good smells.

The open space was occupied by a young rabbit, not a Cuni as far as Ruth could tell, and two does, twins of about ten years old. Ruth could see hints of Cuni heritage in them. The mother was rushing around the kitchen adjusting the temperature of the oven, stirring something on the stove and tasting something else she was mixing in a bowl. The two youngsters were making more decorations from colourful paper taken from flyers and brochures, selecting those with lots of red, gold and green on them.

"When are dad and Timmy going to get home?" One of the girls asked.

"As soon as they are done at church." Their mother answered as she poured homemade pudding into individual bowls for cooking.

"Are we going to the reservation to watch the dancing after supper?" The other child asked.

Her mother frowned, but hid it with an arm as she pretended to wipe flour from her fur. "Yes. We can go for a while."

"Can we join them? Daddy says that we it's our herit- heretic- he says that we're Cuni too."

"We'll see." But her worried look deepened.

Just then the door burst open and the rabbit that had picked up the cake on Solstice Eve entered carrying a small boy bunny on his shoulders. Now Ruth understood the mother's worried looks; she could guess what kind of reception the family of the rabbit working for the oil company would get in the Cuni village.

Bob Cratchet swung the young bunny off his back and into a chair by the heat vent. Ruth did not know who was wheezing more, the ancient furnace or the small child who seemed to be overcome with laughter. But while the furnace continued to send forth small bursts of heat the bunny's wheeze dissolved into a coughing fit.

The mother went to help her husband remove his coat quite close to where Ruth and the mountain lion were watching. "How is Tim?" She whispered to her mate.

"He's been good." Cratchet said, but Ruth could detect a lie in his voice. "In fact, I think that he is getting better."

"I hope so, we can't afford any more medicine, let alone more visits to the doctor. God, I wish that the company would pay you more, or at least provide a health plan."

Cratchet's face became sad and serious, but determined also. "That won't matter soon." He said, as if reminding her of something.

The American doe shook her head angrily. "God, I hate this, Bob. Why does it have to be you? Couldn't the council get what they want from someone else?"

"You know that the company only hired me because they had to fill a quota, and then only because I was raised outside the tribal lands. Even after years of service they still don't trust me, but I've managed to find out a bit of what they're up to. Unfortunately the real evidence is locked up in the CEO's safe. After serving drinks and cleaning up after meetings I've managed to learn the combination, but the only time that the place will be empty is when they're at the party this afternoon. Lisa, the security guards are used to seeing me go in at odd hours to fetch files and pull information off the system for the executives. No one else has a chance of getting in and out with the secret files."

The doe was not happy. "Alright, fine. Go play the hero. For what? For a group that shuns you for marrying an American? For having mixed children? For celebrating Christmas as well as Solstice? What are they going to do for you when you lose your job? Are they going to pay Tim's medical bills?"

"Lisa, honey, I'm not doing it for fame, or recognition. I'm doing it because it's right."

"Damn what's right." His mate said, louder than she intended. The children paused in their crafts and looked put their parents, a little worried and a little scared.

"Dear," he said, "for the children ..."

Her body radiated anger but she conceded to leave the argument and pour them both a small glass of wine each. "To the Solstice." She said. "And may Mother Earth bless us with health and welfare." She downed half her glass in one gulp. "We'll need it."

"And may the Sun guide us, all of us." Little Tim added.

"That's right Tim, each and every one of us." Cratchet laughed. "Now, where's that Turkey?"

His mate opened the oven and displayed a scrawny roast chicken that barely had enough meat on it for two, but she had surrounded it with carrots and potatoes and squash such as were available at the discount rack of the grocers. She shrugged, it was the best she could do.

Tim stood between his father and mother and took a deep whiff of the delicious aromas wafting out of the oven. "I'll bet no one has a feast to compare with ours." He said.

His father laughed and hugged his wife to him, trapping his son between them. "No, Tim, my tiny lad, I bet they don't." The girls joined in the group hug.

Ruth turned away from the scene of domestic bliss. "Take me away from here." She demanded.

The mountain lion moved closer, raising his staff. "Alright. My time grows short in any event."

"Wait." Ruth warded of the rod. "I understand how the coyote could show me shadows of the past, those things already happened. But if it is still the night before Solstice how could you show me the future?"

"How could the Sun and the Earth produce the people and all they needed to prosper?" The lion asked. "How could The Skeleton spirit know how to guide them from the third world, or where the door to the fifth world lies? We can see ahead in time as you can see what is right in front of you, if you but look."

"Tell me spirit, the tiny Cratchet boy Tim, will he get better?"

The mountain lion lifted his staff to the heavens and shook the rattle three times. He called out to his elders in an ancient tongue and then paused as listening to someone Ruth could not hear. After a minute he lowered his staff and then turned to Ruth. "I see an empty chair where the boy used to sit, one less place setting at the table."

"Damn it, spirit, there must be - "

The spirit threw up his arms. "Hush. My time is done and it is not for me to reveal the future beyond this Solstice. Watch for the next spirit when the clock strikes ... "

" ... strikes one. Yeah I get it. Time means nothing to you, yadda, yadda."

The mountain lion smiled ruefully. "You'll be less insolent when you meet the next spirit. Farewell Ruth - Runs with Stick." And with that everything went black.

* * * * *

Ruth opened her eyes. It was pitch black in her bed with the curtains drawn. Nothing had awakened, not the church bell, at least. But something was tugging at the back of her mind. Something that Cratchet had said.

Then it came to her. He had mentioned the council when he talked about stealing some sort of secret files from the oil company safe. Had not the council members who visited earlier hinted that they were about to get the goods on the company? Could Cratchet be their insider? She supposed he could.

Well, she thought, it's a good thing that he's going to be back at the office while the foreign settlers he works for enjoy their cake.

She heard the mission bell gong. She held her breath waiting for a second chime, but none came. Nor was there any hit of light or movement outside her bed curtains. Screwing up her courage she parted the hanging cloth and looked out.

There was nothing there. No glow, no fire, no light of any sort. In fact was darker than she expected. Hadn't there been a full moon rising on her walk home? Its light should be pouting in through the window, unless the winds had blown the clouds in to cover it.

Ruth got out of bed and went toward the window. Before she got there she stopped, startled to see that the full moon was framed in the glass, but it had turned black, as black as night. It was as if all the light had been sucked out of it. She peered out onto the street and saw that the same magic was affecting the streetlamps. When she looked closer she could see that there was a thin stream of darkness coming of the moon and every other source of light that had turned black. The streams merged outside her window and seeped through between the wall and the frame. She followed the line of dark mist across the floor and into a pool of darkness in the far corner that was so black it defied perception.

Someone, or something, was standing in that ebony shadow, she could hear it breathing.

The creature stepped out of the enveloping shadow. It was a skeleton in buckskins with a beaded cape, boots, and leggings covered with multi-coloured dots. She could not tell if it was a rabbit skeleton or not because it was wearing a grotesque mask made of dried mud painted white, with tree branch antlers. It carried a red bag in one bony paw and a gourd plugged with a cork in the other. It stood there without saying a word.

"Are you the spirit who is to show me the Solstices of the future?" Ruth asked with a tremble in her voice.

The skeleton spirit nodded.

"Can't you just leave me be? I know that you're all trying to help but I'm afraid that it's too late for me, as it was for my mate."

The creature shook its head.

Ruth held out a paw. "Then let's get this over with"

She felt the cold touch of bone and the familiar rush as the room faded away and a scene of fire and carnage took its place. She recognized the banquet hall attached to the only good hotel in town. At least it used to be attached ... now it was scattered about the main street, along with dozens of bodies and lots of broken furniture.

Ruth heard a scream that sounded familiar. "Bob, Bob! Robert!" A high pitched female voice called out.

She turned and saw the wife of Bob Cratchet being held back by a couple of state troopers. She broke free, running to a spot near where Ruth and the spirit stood before dropping to her knees. She cradled one of the lifeless bodies, and it took Ruth a moment to realize that it was Cratchet, it was so burnt and torn.

"Bob, Bob. Why did you have to go back? You had the files. You should have let the bastards cut their own damn cake." She dissolved into sobs.

The files! Ruth thought. Where were they? Did he leave then in his car?

She almost jumped out of her skin when she felt a bony paw on her shoulder. The skeleton turned her to look at a smouldering pile of paper and card stock that had been placed under the table where the cake had been before it exploded. There was not much left, and what there was was dissolving under the spray of the firefighter's hoses. By the time they had secured the scene it would all be gone.

Before she could ask how this could have happened the scene changed and she found herself in the tribal council chambers. The room was dark and there were boards across the windows. Dan Two Ears was crouched by one of them, peeking out between the boards. Charlie Gold Fur was sitting with his back to the wall, loading a rifle that he held across his lap.

"Damn it, they're still out there." Dan said. "They must know that we're in here."

"I'm not goin' down like this." Charlie muttered, checking the action on his gun. "I ain't goin' to no resettlement camp."

"Concentration camp is more like it. Damn it, why'd she have to do that anyway? She brought a year of hell down on us and there's no sign of the Feds letting up. They're convinced we were all in on it."

"We weren't in on it."

"I know that Charlie. I know. But try convincing them of it once they cottoned on to Bob Cratchet being a spy for us. They think he knew what was in the cake when he brought it there and that he set if off like some jihadi suicide bomber. His wife is still in custody and her two little girls are gone, adopted out to an American family in Tucson."

Ruth called to the councillor. "What about his boy? What about Tim?" When he did not answer she screamed it out at him. Again she jumped when the chilly paw touched her. She turned to see the skeleton shaking his head and miming deafness. She understood. The Cuni councillor could not hear her.

"What about the boy?" She implored. Can you take me to the boy?"

The light faded and then grew. It was a rainy day and the small group gathered at the welfare cemetery looked chilled to the bone. They were standing around an open grave, a very small grave, almost obscuring the chief mourner who was dressed incongruously in a bright orange jump suit. Ruth recognized the American rabbit that had been Cratchet's mate. She was standing between two large canines in Federal Marshal uniforms. Her wrists were shackled.

A pair of Cuni who worked as the cemetery grounds keepers were standing nearby. One turned to the other and said "Hell of a thing to bury your kid on Solstice."

"Yep." The other replied. "Hell of a thing."

Ruth was about to ask them which child it was, which solstice it was, but then she remembered that she could not. She turned to the spirit instead.

"Damn it!" she said angrily. "What's the point in showing me all this if I can't do something about it? There must be something I can do, someone I can talk to." She paused. "Can we go back in time? Can I talk to myself and warn me of what will happen? How can I know if you won't tell me? I know, take me to see me. I want to see if I can talk to me here, in the future. If I can then maybe the coyote can take me back to see me before ... before all this. "

She clutched the skeleton's buckskin shirt. "Take me to me, please."

Instead of fading out and flying through the space between spaces, the spirit turned on its heel and strode to the other end of the cemetery, beckoning Ruth to follow it. On the way they passed a large crypt where cholera victims were once placed. The door was standing open and there was a light coming from inside. Curious, Ruth stopped to look inside. The spirit stopped and waited patiently several paces ahead.

There were voices coming from inside the crypt. Ruth stuck her head in and saw that it was one of their old contacts, Louis Fourpaws, and three old crack whores. They were sitting around a pile of clothes and material which Louis was examining with an expert's eye.

"This stuff is not bad." He said. "Good heavy material and the patterns faded just enough." He ripped a tag that said 'made in China' off it. "I can pass it off as native goods to the rich tourists. Where did you say it came from?"

"She had 'em hanging around her bed." A female feline with only three teeth cackled. "No curtains on the winders but lots on the bed!"

"Yeah, she was a strange one." Another burnt out whore said. "Look at mine now, Louis." She said, passing over a cloth bundle.

"Nice lace work." Louis commented. "But obviously not from around here. I'll have to ship it to the coast and pass it off as Irish linen or something. Still, I'll give you twenty for it, just because I got a soft spot for the ladies."

"A hard spot you mean." The third laughed as the second reluctantly accepted her money.

"Guess it's better than nothin'." She grumbled. "Which is what it would have gone to if they had their way. They'd have buried her in it."

Louis dropped the cloth. "Buried her in it? You mean you stripped it of her while she was layin' there dead? Hey, she didn't die of anything contagious did she?"

"Naw, killed herself before the feds closed in. And good riddance to her. Ain't been able to work the streets or get any good shit since the heat came down hard around here."

"You can say that again." Louis agreed. "Look at me! Forced to do business in a bone yard. She deserves whatever hell is waiting for her."

Ruth backed out and caught up to the spirit. "Who are they talking about? Who is it that everyone hates so much?"

Her bony guide just continued walking and ignored her. She had to run to keep up with his long thin legs.

The spirit stopped in a section reserved for the poorest of the poor, where those who died unknown or in prison were buried with nothing more than a wooden marker. The graves were overgrown and unkempt, the older markers askew. But one grave was fresh, with a new marker that would have looked fresh and clean if it was not for the words "Burn in hell, Bitch" spray painted in red across it.

Ruth stopped too far away to make out the name on the board.

"Spirit." She called. "These things that you show me, are they things that mustcome to pass, or are they things that might come to pass?"

The skeleton stood silent and motionless.

"I mean, is the future set already, or can we change it? If we change our ways, if we make different decisions ... if we're sorry." She sobbed. "If we're really, really sorry. Can we ... change things ... even just a little?"

The spirit refused to give her even a hint of an answer. He just turned and strode away, past the defaced grave marker, towards the trees that surrounded the cemetery.

Ruth took two steps after it. "Tell me, Spirit. Tell me what I can do to stop this. I don't want to read the name on the board, I don't want anyone to read it, ever." She fell to her knees sobbing on top of the freshly turned earth. "Tell me. Mother Earth, Sun, all the spirits, please, tell me!"

But the skeleton was gone leaving her, perhaps forever, kneeling on a grave that she suspected was hers.

"I can change, Silver Two Trees." She prayed to the spirit of her husband. "I can change. Take me back. Take me back so I can right these wrongs. Oh please, let me go back!"

Lightning struck a nearby tree, illuminating the board at the head of the grave. Ruth saw the name 'Pawstone' carved deep in the wood and she fainted.

* * * * *

When she woke she sat straight up in bed. It was dark, but not completely dark. Light seeped in at the edges of the curtains hanging around her bed. The light was warm, natural, not like the otherworldly glow of the spirit world. Cautiously she parted the curtain and looked out.

The room was as she had left it, with the empty soup bowl on the side table beside the rocking chair and the door closed. Ruth got out of bed and went to the window.

The day was clear, the kind of clarity that comes with cold, dry air where you could make out every detail on the farthest mesas. She glanced at the sun and was surprised to see it already high in the sky. She checked her watch and found that it had stopped working with the arms indicating one. But was that AM or PM, and on which day, she wondered? The police may have found the note in the wreckage and be closing in on her right now.

She saw a small Cuni boy, his arms wrapped around his chest and his paws tucked under his arms for warmth hurrying down the road past her house. Ruth opened the window and called out "Hey! Boy! Come here."

The lad looked up at the busty doe in her clingy nightdress. He hesitated, ears back with suspicion. This was the house of the crazy doe that his older brother had warned him about, the one that as supposed to chop the feet off slow, stupid bunnies. He was pretty sure that his brother was lying - almost sure, anyway - but he was too scared to approach, and too fascinated to run.

Ruth knew that she must look quite the sight, her fur awry form a bad night - or nights - wild eyed and sweaty. "I just to ask you something." She assured the young rabbit.

He came closer, stopping twenty feet away from the house, where he could get away if she did anything crazy, she realized. "What a clever bunny." She said under her breath.

"What do you want lady?" The boy asked, impatient to be on his way this chilly morning.

"What day is it?" Ruth asked.

His face revealed that his suspicions about dealing with a crazy person were confirmed. "What day is it? It's Solstice, of course."

"Solstice! Why, they did it all in one night, bless Mother Earth!"

"Are you okay, lady?"

"Okay! I'm better than okay! I'm downright giddy!"

"It ain't catching is it?"

"You should be so lucky, my young Cuni. Tell me, what time is it?"

The lad looked at the sun and then at his own shadow on the round. "Almost noon, I figure."

"Amazing boy."

"Look, lady, solstice celebrations will be starting soon and I got to dance the part of the coyote spirit this year ... soooo, I gotta go." He turned and took a step toward the road.

"Wait!" Ruth called. "Do you want to earn twenty bucks?"

He turned back and his expression was the kind reserved for the worst of sexual predators, but he did not flee.

"What do you want me to do?"

"You know the grocery in town? The one that has the full sized turkey roaster in the window?"

"Sure. You can watch 'em turning on the spit until someone buys 'em. Makes my mouth water every time 'cause my mom's become a vegan and all we get at solstice is squash and corn. Not even a hotdog."

"You could buy a dozen hotdogs with twenty dollars. Wait there!" Ruth ran to her dresser and pulled her wallet out of the pocket of her jeans along with a pen and a scrap of paper. She ran back to the window counting out bills. It was a weekday and the town folk did not close up for the solstice like the shops in Cuni territory did.

"Here's a hundred." She tossed five twenties down and the bunny ran to gather them up. "Go buy a roast turkey, a big one. No, the biggest one! Buy the turkey and whatever else goes with it until the total is close to eighty bucks. Have it delivered to this address." She thought for a moment, remembering the number on the apartment door and recalling the address of the building and scribbling it on the paper. "The family name is Cratchet. Make sure it gets to them and you can keep what's left."

The child looked down at more cash than he had ever seen in his life and back up at Ruth. "What's to stop me from taking all the money?"

Ruth let her smiling face fall back into the frown it had worn in recent years. "You've heard of my reputation?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Then get to it, chop-chop."

The bunny was gone, hightailing it toward town on the first chop.

"What an intelligent lad." Ruth mused as she turned from the window and peeled off her damp nightdress.

Then she froze. Almost Noon! The gas was due to go off at noon!

She scrambled through her clothes for the phone whose clone was sitting inside the cake. The clock on the screen said that it was eleven fifty-five. There was not enough time to get to town and warn them, let alone disarm the cake. What could she do? Call 911? Try to get them to evacuate the hall? There was no time for anything.

Ruth had an idea. She unlocked the phone and opened the alarm function. She had selected the flashlight feature to turn on at the first alarm, and the trigger was an optical receiver taped over the light on the other phone. She had to disable the alarm or change it. At the same time she needed them to stay away from the cake, just in case they cut the wrong wire while slicing it up. Only the bomb squad should touch it now that it was armed.

Ruth looked up into the mirror above the dresser. Her fur was in disarray, her face was pinched in a grimace and she looked a little green around the gills from her experiences during the night. The image reminded her of someone, and that gave her an idea.

She disabled the alarm seconds before it was due to go off. Then she searched the music app and downloaded a particular song from the catalogue along with some sound effects. Playing them on this phone would cause them to be played on the clone also. She turned the volume up and pressed 'Play'.

Her smile returned when she did not hear any explosion from town but did hear a police siren instead. She figured that it would take a couple of hours for them to get a bomb squad in there and probably a couple more to realize that the device was inside the cake when it was assembled and trace it back to her shop. She might as well have a little fun during her last hours as free rabbit.

Ruth showered and put on a beaded dress that was the closest thing to being a Solstice dress that she had. It was a little tight across the bodice but she managed to squeeze in. She left her car at home and walked through the village to the apartment building where her niece lived.

Mary was surprised to see her aunt at the door. "Aunt Ruth, I mean Aunt Runs With Stick! I didn't think that you were coming after .... after our talk yesterday."

"Ruth is fine, dear, and I came to ask for your forgiveness for an old fool who couldn't see what was in front of her." Ruth said, taking the young doe's paws between hers.

"Of course I forgive you, even though there is nothing to forgive. Will you come in, Auntie? Join the party?"

Ruth made a token protest but allowed her niece to pull her inside. "Everyone, I'd like to introduce my Aunt Ruth."

There was a chorus of greetings and then Mary led her around the room, making individual introductions. She hesitated when she came to the doberman in the anarchist tee-shirt, knowing her aunt's adversity to outsiders, but Ruth surprised her by smiling at the dog and shaking his paw warmly.

"And what do you do?" Ruth asked after the canine told her his name.

"Not much, really." The doberman was having a hard time keeping his eyes off Ruth's impressive bosom.

"He's a civil rights lawyer." Mary informed her. "He's been sent by the Civil Liberties Union to defend the Cuni that have been protesting the oil field expansion."

"Really?" Ruth filed that bit of information away. She had the feeling she would be needing a lawyer before the day was done. "Tell me, do you know anything about trust funds?"

"Trust funds?"

"Yes, I have a bit of money set aside and I'd like to set up a fund to pay off certain under privileged families medical bills."

"Sure, that would be pretty easy to set up. When do you want to do it?"

"Oh, not right away. Today is for friends and family and feasts and fun! And speaking of fun, I hear that you are the local twister champion. Care to take on a challenger?"

The doberman let this eyes slide up and down Ruth's curvaceous figure, emphasized as it was by the tight dress before pronouncing his verdict.

"Best Solstice EVER!"

Epilogue

"Bob Cratchet! Where have you been?" Lisa said as she stood stamping her foot outside the apartment door.

Bob took his coat off wearily. "You haven't heard?"

"Heard what?

"There was a bomb scare down at the banquet hall. Someone put gas and explosives in the Executive's Christmas Cake!"

Lisa put both paws to her mouth and bit her knuckles in her shock. "Oh my God! But ... but you're okay?"

"Yeah. Crazy thing. They had me start to cut the cake and just then music started to come out of it. It was the Grinch song, you know? The one from the cartoon special."

She nodded her head but continued to gnaw on her knuckles.

"Then when the song was done there were all these explosions ... no wait ... not real explosions, just sound effects of explosions, followed by insane laughter. I think it Vincent Price from the end of that Michael Jackson song 'Thriller'. Anyway, with all the threats lately that spooked the senior management enough for them to abandon the cake, the party and the room. I had to wait outside alone for the police and the bomb squad to show up. They found a bomb and some gas that they said would have put us all to sleep before blowing us sky high. Then they questioned me for four hours because I was the one that picked up the cake."

"Oh, Bob. They don't think that you had anything to do with it, do they?"

"No. It turns out that the rabbit that runs the bakery has a history of ... well, she's not been a very nice lady in the past. They're trying to track her down now.

"Did they find the... you know."

Cratchet smiled and shook his head. "No. I hid them in the lobby before they could get there. Dan Two Ears came by as I being released and I managed to whisper the location to him. He's got records of all the bribes, all the rigged environmental assessments and all the fake boundary claims now, but he might not even need them."

"What do you mean?"

"The cops found a note in the cake, threatening to go after the stockholders if they don't make some changes. Even though no one was hurt the family that owns the controlling interest is mighty shook up. They were already taking of pulling out of the region by the time I was let go." Bob shook his furry head. "It's been a mighty strange day."

Lisa took his paw in one of hers and opened the door to the apartment with the other. "That's not the half of it." She said in a low voice.

The apartment was gaily decorated in magazine picture streamers and wild flowers from the edge of the dessert. But instead of the scrawny chicken he had been given instead of a Christmas bonus the dining table was bending under the weight of a giant stuffed turkey surrounded by all the fixings. Steam rose off it as his three children raised glasses of juice in a toast to him.

"Daddy, daddy! You got us the biggest turkey ever!"

Cratchet turned to his wife. "I had nothing to do with this."

"And I suppose you don't know anything about the doctor either?"

"What doctor?" Bob asked as his children led him to the head of the table and made him sit so they could start eating.

"Tim has an appointment with a specialist in Phoenix next week. The doctor's office just called to inform me. Apparently it's being paid for by a young ACLU lawyer because he lost a bet. Something about twister. Anyway, they already have his file from the clinic and they say that he is an excellent candidate for their new cell treatment. Robert, darling, Tim is going to be okay."

"Bless Mother Earth." Bob muttered in a daze. "Bless her for all our welfare."

Tim looked up from a drumstick as big as his head. "And may the Sun guide us ... everyone."

Ruth Pawstone/Runs With Stick and her family © Bunners