Kateri couldn't breathe as the raw pain of that memory hit her hard. How sad that compassion was so rare for Ren that he hung on to his brother's selfishness and defended it as good. How could Coyote have been so mean to him?
A raw, bitter fury took hold of her. Before she even realized what she was doing, she quickened her steps and shoved Sundown.
Shocked, he turned to stare at her as if she'd lost her mind. "What was that for?"
"You bastard! Why did you wait to become his friend? You know, you could have been nice to him before you were obligated to!"
"What are you talking about?" Sundown scowled. "Is she loco?"
Ren turned her around to face him. "Kateri, he doesn't remember being Buffalo. I mean, he has bits and pieces of it, but he doesn't recall much. While they have similarities and they look the same, Sundown is an entirely different man."
Clenching her eyes shut, she nodded. "I'm sorry, Ren." She looked up at the cowboy. "Jess. I just get so mad at all of them ... She turned back toward Ren. They had no right to treat you that way."
"Did you have another vision?"
She nodded. "Now I understand my grandmother. We'd be walking down the street and she'd flinch for no reason. Whenever I asked her about it, she'd say, 'It's the past, baby. For some people it's so vicious that it creates a loop of bad memories that runs constantly inside their hearts. A loop so bad that sometimes it reaches out to those of us capable of seeing it to let us know to take extra care of the ones who were hurt. It tells us to let them know that just because the world is eat up with mean, it doesn't mean we all are. That even though the past hurt them, it doesn't have to destroy their future. Give as many smiles away as you can. They're free and they make the world a much prettier place. You may not have the best clothes or the latest in shoes, but everyone has a unique designer smile that is worth millions, especially to those who need its warmth.'" She clenched her hands in her hair. "Ugh! I think Jess is right. I am crazy."
Ren ran his hand down the line of her jaw, causing chills to rise on her arms. "You're not crazy. You're coming into your powers and you don't have control of them yet. Trust me. We all think we're going crazy when it happens. You should have been there the first time I turned into a crow. I flew straight into a tree and then had to figure out something to explain away the huge bruise I had in the center of my forehead for two weeks."
She shook her head at him. "You're terrible."
"He's right," Sasha said from behind him. "When I was learning to teleport, I accidentally flashed some unknown wedding party. You talk about humiliating. And of course the powers that got me there decided to abandon me a blink later. So there I stood in all my glory, cupping my junk and wondering, 'Why me, gods ... why me?'"
They all laughed.
"I hear you," Urian said. "I accidentally turned my brother into a goat for a week. I was so scared of what my dad might do that I didn't tell him. It wasn't until my mother figured it out when she found him in my bed that he was restored to his real body. I'm really glad he had a sense of humor about it and didn't kill me. But he did guilt the shit out of me over it for the rest of his life."
Kateri felt for his brother. "Was he okay?"
"Yeah, but he did have this strange craving to chew on leather after that. At least it kept his fangs sharp."
Cabeza drew up short and motioned for them to be silent. Without a sound, Jess pulled his gun off his shoulder while she and Ren each nocked an arrow.
Off to the left something was running.
And it was headed straight for them.
"Use me for cover."
Kateri gaped as Ren moved to stand between her and whatever was approaching them. "Ren-"
"I'm immortal and I just got you resuscitated. You're a lot more important than I am. Now do what I say ... please."
Those words had her riled up until the please at the end. That one word coupled with the break of fear for her in his voice took every bit of the sting out of his sharp order. And it rammed home what he was really saying.
He who never cried, had cried over her.
"A'ight, baby," she said with a smile. "But just so you know, you get hurt, I'm opening up a can of 'Bama whup-ass on them so big it's gonna look like an LSU Bowl showdown. You hear me? Roll Tide."
Sasha turned around to face her with a severe scowl. "I speak dozens of languages and hundreds of dialects, but be damned if I caught a single word of that. Am I the only one completely baffled?"
Sundown cocked his gun. "He said he loved her. She said, 'I love you, too.' Now shush."
Sasha stood there moving his finger back and forth as if repeating her words silently in his head. After a second, he turned to face Jess. "How the hell did you get that out of what she said?"
Urian glared at Sasha. "The man speaks Southern football, now shut up."
"Southern football, my ass," he mumbled before he turned into a wolf and dashed into the woods after whatever was approaching.