Story Number 65

Coyote and The Red Ants

Phileas enjoyed the Ute's performance so much, he decided that he would stay for a few more nights and learn more about this tribe and hear more of their stories. One night, Phileas was sitting on a log enjoying some delicious food when suddenly he felt an excruciating pain on his leg "OW! OW! I've been bitten by something OW! It feels like my leg is on fire!" Screamed Phileas, Phileas was jumping around in pain and the whole Ute tribe burst into laughter and started chanting "Coyote, Coyote, Coyote" "What? Who's a Coyote?" Asked Phileas, "Oh! You don't know who Coyote is," said an old woman, "well, we must tell you the story of Coyote and The Red Ants." So Phileas, with more caution sat back on the log and listened to the old woman's story...

One day Coyote decided he would go running in the fields. He was enjoying his exercise, when suddenly he came across some ants. So he thought to himself that he would sit and watch them. They were scurrying all over, some went far away, but they didn't get lost and they came back after a while. Coyote thought it was peculiar. He said to the ants, "you are a small people, yet you never lose your way. How is that? You must teach me what you know so that when I leave my family alone I shall not get lost but will be able to go straight back to them." The ants told him, "If you want to learn this, you must promise not step on us, mess with us or ever get in our way." 

Coyote agreed and promised that he would not step on them, mess with them or get in their way. As you may know, Coyote has a short attention span and bad memory, and he was very quickly distracted by the ants other activities and he asked, "what are you doing? I see you people run to a place and then come back. I see you carrying little stones and sticks to your hole. I don't know why you do that. There must be someone in there who tells you to do it. Can you let me go down and see." "There is not enough room for you, it's too dark down there and have you forgotten your agreement already? If you try to go in there, we might bite you." Said the ants

"I'm not afraid. You are small. Even if you do bite me it wont hurt. Come on, bite me. My body is tough," said Coyote who was now sticking his tongue out at the ants,  "my tongue is tough, go on bite it, I will show you."

"You'll swallow us when we get on your tongue." Said the ant, "well if you don't trust me, you can get on my lips," insisted Coyote, "all right, if you insist," said the ant. So the ant climbed up onto Coyote's lip and bit Coyote on the tongue.

Coyote howled, put his hand up and scratched at the ant. He jumped and he kicked and he ran away as fast as he could. The ants watched and laughed as Coyote ran away screaming, "you should have kept your promise, silly Coyote, they call us fire ants for a reason."