Buffalo rolled his eyes. "From what? Climbing up a tree like a scared little bitch? You think we're so stupid we don't know the difference between the gash from a boar's tusk and skinning your knee on tree bark?"
Coyote turned to the other man with them, who had retrieved Ren's blood-soaked bow and quiver. "Choo, you believe me, don't you?"
Choo Co La Tah sent a pointed stare at Buffalo. "A wise man does not question his future chief."
Buffalo snorted. "Between wisdom and loyalty, Choo, I pick loyalty and truth. One day, brother, you're going to have to choose too. I hope when that day comes that you're even wiser than you are today."
Coyote snarled at them both. "You may not believe me, but my father will."
"I'm sure he will," Buffalo muttered.
Kateri shook her head. Yeah, for all of Ren's denials, Coyote wasn't the one who had stood by him in her visions.
Only one man had never wavered with his loyalty.
"Your friend, Buffalo ... why was he always so quick to defend you?"
"He was a fool."
She laughed at his deadpan tone. "I doubt that. Tell me, Ren. What did you do to make him see the truth?"
Crossing his arms over his chest, Ren let out a long breath before he spoke. "When I was fourteen, a bad epidemic ravaged in our town. It was one of the worst you can imagine. The priests couldn't keep up with the number of deaths, and many of them were too sick to help anyone else, so bodies were piled in the street. People were starving and everyone was scared of catching it. Since I was one of the few who wasn't ill, I'd go hunt and leave fresh meat for those who couldn't feed themselves. One night, as I was leaving some for Buffalo's family, he caught me before I could get away."
Kateri was baffled by his charity, especially given how young he was and how badly they'd treated him. "Why did you help them?"
He shrugged. "I felt guilty. I never had a cold of any kind. Not even a sniffle. I don't know if it's because my mother was a goddess or my nursemaid a demon, but I was always healthy. For weeks, my father and the priests had been sacrificing to no avail, and they blamed me for bringing the sickness to the town. I didn't want the innocent punished because of me so I tried to help as best I could by leaving foodstuffs for the homes that were stricken the worst." He laughed bitterly. "Everyone thought it was Coyote who helped them. They regaled him for his charity for years afterward."
"You never told them the truth?"
Snorting, he shook his head. "No one would have believed me so I kept silent. The last thing I wanted was for my father to beat me for lying about it. When Buffalo finally recovered from the fever, he came to thank me. I told him to forget what he'd seen. Not to tell anyone what I'd done. He swore to me that he was forever in my debt, and that so long as he lived, he would be the most loyal friend ever known."
Now that sounded like the man she'd seen. "And he never told another soul?"
Ren sighed in disgust. "Stupid fool. He never listened to me about anything. He only saw the best in everyone. And he was a firm believer in the old adage that the truth was always the best course of action to take. So, he tried to tell the town who really left the food while they were ill."
"And?" she prompted when he failed to continue the story.
"His father beat him for lying."
She gaped at that. She'd ask if he was serious, but she could tell by the angry look in his eyes that he wasn't making it up. "Why didn't Coyote tell them you were the one who did it? He had to know he hadn't done anything."
"He said if they knew it had been left by me, they wouldn't have eaten it. They would have assumed it tainted. And I knew he was right. They would have, and rather than eat what I left, they'd have starved themselves to death."
Indignant rage for him darkened her sight. She really wanted to beat someone over it. "Your brother was not a good man, Ren. Had he been, he would have told your father the truth."
Still, he defended his brother's actions. "You can't tell the truth to someone who doesn't want to hear it, Kateri. Every time Coyote tried, my father thought he was being kind to me, and humble, so all it did was elevate Coyote in his eyes while it lowered me. Coyote always apologized and felt badly for it, but there was nothing he could do. I never held any of it against him until Butterfly. She became the symbol for every slight I'd been given by every person, and it was her presence in our home that made me realize I would never have a life like other men. That no one would ever welcome me as a husband. That I was only a charity case to be pitied at best, ridiculed at worst. Her presence rammed home just how much of nothing I really was in the eyes of everyone."
"You weren't nothing."
"Don't patronize me, Kateri," he growled. "You weren't there. You may have had visions about things that happened, but you didn't really see it. You definitely didn't live it. There's no worse feeling than being trapped in a situation from which you can't escape. In retrospect, I should have found the courage to walk away from all of them, but I was too afraid. I kept thinking that if this was how the people who were supposed to love me treated me, how much worse would a stranger be? Not to mention that those not related to me were every bit as cruel, if not more so. So even if I'd left, it would have been the same wherever I went. I'd be alone and outcast." His gaze cold, he dropped his voice an octave. "And I've since had eleven thousand years of moving from place to place to know just how right I was. Nothing ever changes except hairstyles and clothing."
She wanted to deny it, but she knew in her heart that he was right. People could be unbelievably cruel, and in spite of what he thought, she wasn't naive. She'd had her own share of insensitive comments over the years.
Still, there was much he wasn't telling her. "So what did you do when they married?"
He shrugged. "They didn't marry. She fell in love with Buffalo the moment he spoke up for me on the day of her arrival."
"Oh..." She cringed internally over something she hoped hadn't been blamed on him. "I take it that didn't go over well."