Yellow Eyes
With Beauty before me
I walk;
With Beauty behind me
I walk;
With Beauty beneath me
I walk;
With Beauty above me
I walk;
With Beauty all around me
I walk.
"The legends of Coyote the Trickster are many and widespread, and found wherever that animal makes it's home, from the southwestern desert to above the arctic circle. Almost always are his many traits commented upon- his intelligence, his stealth, and his eating habits- which usually leave something to be desired. Often he is considered a benefit to mankind, more then a hindrance. Sometimes he takes the form of a man, and lives among the tribe before departing once more. Like a more primitive Prometheus, he is often credited with bringing fire." --Page 257, Myths and Legends of the Plains
"They say the story goes like this. Long ago a man robbed a bank, and leaving his partners to the police, fled into the vast wilderness of the Navajo Nation. It's the biggest Indian Reservation in the states. He shot a hiker that was camping too close to where he hid. The man would have died, except a coyote dragged him to the road, and jumped on the hood of a local rancher's pickup. Tradition says a coyote is the messenger of the Holy People- so the rancher stopped his truck and looked to see what the coyote wanted him to find, and that is how he found the hiker.
This got the tribal police to search the area, and a Blue Policeman came found tracks from the hiker's camp going up into the canyons. There is no water up there, and the robber didn't know the area, which is why he probably came down. They followed the tracks, there was a gunfight, as the robber ambushed the policeman, and out of the rocks the coyote appeared, and leapt onto the robber.
With a scream he tumbled over the edge of the cliff. When the policeman got to the bottom of the canyon and found him, they found the robber, dead. His head was smashed open on the rocks. Beside him was the body of the coyote. He watched and the coyote became a human boy. Stark naked. The stories say Coyote cannot die, he is too powerful and comes back. So the police officer took the boy home and told everyone he was his nephew.
The police officer had a family, grew old and like all men, eventually died. The boy he found, never did. They say his name is Billy Nez, and that's who you got over there." --As told by Jim Begay, Streams Come Together
They say if a Coyote crosses your path, you should turn back. Something bad will happen to you if you continue traveling. You will have an accident, or be killed. --Navajo Taboo
"Coyote is always waiting, and Coyote, he is always hungry." --Navajo Saying
Billy Nez is the name he claims, mostly because people expected him to have a name. His secret War name is Áłtsé Hashké [First Scolder] given to him at his manhood ceremony by his "uncle" Charlie Nez. He claims his clans are Born To Sky and Born of Earth- neither of which are an actual Traditional clan. Billy looks about seventeen years old, with a slim build and long sensitive face, he is considered handsom by most. He's looked this age for decades.
He was found alone in the winding canyons of the Big Rez and as there were no missing person reports, none of the local Sheep Camps recognized him and no family ever arrived to claim him, he was adopted by the officer that found him. Charlie Nez treated him as a little brother-clan nephew, and he became one of the family, dispite his quirks, and the skinwalker gossip that followed him.
Is Billy a miss-guided Hataalii [a Navajo shaman] Some sort of strange canine-aligned metahuman, a delusional were-coyote...or is he a true manifestation of the Yei Coyote? No one knows for sure, perhaps not even Billy himself.
As a Skinwalker, Billy Nez has certain powers considered taboo by traditional Navajos [or, okay, even just superstitious ones!] He can command other nearby canids [Coyote Clan People] speak with them, and seem to communicate through them. He often wears canid traits- a tail, paws, claws, sharp teeth, etc. While he seems to wear a mostly-human form, that he may turn fully anthropomorphic is a possibility. Billy does indeed have his own coyote pelt, though he rarely is seen with it.
Many old stories have Skinwalkers changing not only into canine forms, but crows and owls as well, considered "unlucky" at best by the traditional Navajo and, at least for owls, the angry ghost of the dead, containing all that was evil in life. The true extent of his abilities remains unknown.
He knows the entirety of the Coyote Way chant, as well as several other rites, some of which are considered extinct by tribal elders [There is no one currently alive that can perform them, the knowledge has been lost.]
