The Walker chases a rogue spirit, something dark and chaotic that broke through into the land of the living and took on the form of a coyote.Caroline and Owen have been on the move for years trying to find a place to call home. Caroline remains torn—her heart split in two. Half of her loves Owen, the other half still loves Ben. Grant travels with them, but he struggles with the weight of his … of his position as Keeper and wants to carve his own path. Everywhere they go they find a strange malice and unease waiting for them. The coyote’s handiwork.
They don’t know it yet, but all of them are travelling in the same direction. Back to Chaco Navajo Reservation . . . which is exactly what the coyote wants.
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THE COYOTE WAY Volume 3 of Vanished, the primary story here revolves around the Navajo Dejooli family. Ana was Ben’s little sister, born with heart issues, a youngster who disappeared several years ago from the Albuquerque hospital ICU while a family friend, Ben’s best friend Joey, was sitting with her during their extensive death watch. No one ever found out what happened to her body. Ana was a fey child, always happy, a girl who lived in her imagination and was loved by everyone who knew her. Ben has never gotten past the fact that they were not able to say goodbye to Ana as custom dictated. There is a Navajo ritual that separates the living from the dead that helps to accept the loss of a loved one. They were denied that closure, and it still hurts.
There are several memorable characters who carry over in the series. Carolyn Adams is an oncology nurse at the main hospital in Alberquerque, working on the Intensive Care Unit for cancer patients, which is separate from the main ICU. Dr. Owen Bennet also works with cancer patients at the Alberquerque hospital. Both also donate time to the Chaco Health Center on the reservation. The other constant throughout the series is The Walker. The Walker is a changing personality, an escort, one you will learn to appreciate as things roll along. And, of course, the crows.
THE COYOTE WAY Centered around the Native Market held in Santa Fe, New Mexico every autumn. The Coyote Way is a stand-alone novel but much richer when viewed in the series. Grant lives now with Caroline and Owen in an RV, and the adults travel over the massive Navajo Reservation treating the ill during the day at various health clinics while Grant is attending the Navajo school in Chaco. He has his first crush, a Navajo girl with a mean older brother, and his interdependent relationship with the crow Choco has matured into a part of life as he now knows it.
Many native communities nationwide are involved in a push to be prepared for the annual street sale in Santa Fe, including the Chaco school children, who are helping prepare the booth for their art to be displayed and sold. Tens of thousands of tourists attend this sale every year. The biggest part of the annual income of these families comes from these sales, and many have spent most of the year preparing items to sell. And as lovely and quaint as Santa Fe is, it is also massively crowded, especially during this week, and prime for a terror attack. Everyone has to be on the lookout for weird. And there is quite a bit of weird around most of the time, so it’s a difficult job to spot the dangers in this crowd. And there are many dangers, for our intrepid Navajo.
This series is a personal favorite. The characters are dimensional, the plot is a mix of mythic tradition and sci fi invention with a magical twist. I have read this series at least once a year since 2015 and it is fresh every time. Will particularly interest fans of the American Southwest, indigenous lore, and crows…