Kyle stopped, smiled a little. “I told the story to my dad once. He told me that it was a primitive attempt to explain a volcanic eruption. El Teide is an active volcano, the last eruption was a couple hundred years ago. He also pointed out that the reactions on the sun’s surface are hotter than any volcano magma.”

Talk turned to the night’s adventures, which Adam was more than capable of telling. I drifted off into a dream of a witch who changed children into great, shaggy black dogs that looked like long-haired versions of the dog I’d shot, the one who’d turned into a man. The man raised his dead head to meet my eyes with his. His eyes were the color of lava.

“Mercy,” he said. “Where is my sun?”

“Mercy, wake up,” said Adam.

I sat up like a scalded cat and winced because everything hurt—especially the burn on my cheek.

“Okay,” said Laughingdog. “Adam’s been filling us in on your night. Were you awake for all of Kyle’s story?”

I yawned. “Yep. I didn’t fall asleep until we got to our part. Sorry. Long day.”

“Fine.” Laughingdog settled back into his chair, one leg up and the other doing a restless dance on the floor. “Kyle’s story makes me pretty sure that Guayota is one of the great manitous.”

I frowned at him. “Manitou” was an Algonquin word for spirit, the spirit that lived in all things: in rocks, in rivers, in mountains. Great manitou … I made some quick jumps of logic. “When you say great manitous, you’re talking about creatures like Coyote?”

“That’s right. Mostly right. No.” He made a frustrated sound. “Coyote, Raven, Wolf, are different than manitous. Coyote is the spirit of mischief, of second chances, of adaptation—the archetype of coyotes. It is true that he shares characteristics with the great manitous. Like him, they can take the shape of people, though they are not people. They are powerful in their sphere of influence.

“Mostly the great manitous ignore us and pay attention only to those things that matter to them. The Columbia has a great manitou, I can feel it sometimes, but I’ve never heard of it manifesting itself, not even in stories.”

“You think Guayota is a great manitou, the spirit of the volcano,” I said. “Sort of like Pele in Hawaii?”

He nodded.

“So what is he doing here? Shouldn’t he be stuck somewhere within a few thousand miles of where he belongs?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he grew bored.” He shrugged. “If he were Coyote, that would be the answer, wouldn’t it? Maybe Guayota grew lonely. The only thing I know is that, although great manitous can manifest and travel for a time, they do need a strong connection to their spirit-home. Without that connection, they will return to their spirit shape and be pulled home.”