Coyote doesn’t have a conscience. He’s a trickster after all. If he had a conscience and thought about all the negative effects of all of his tricks, he would probably feel terrible. But he doesn’t.
But one day, like a miracle, for a short time, he did feel his conscience. He had set up a big gathering of lots of his followers. Like always, they were all together and didn’t have face talismans to protect them from the plague. They also didn’t use the cure that Eagle Joe was providing, so plenty of his followers were getting very ill, and some died.
Now you might think, aren’t their beliefs a bit extreme? They are rodents and all, so naturally they spread disease, but the plague is dangerous to them too. Any living creature struggles to stay alive. Even Coyote has taken the cure.
But here’s a weird thing about some creatures. When creatures are small they go through a phase, where no matter what their parents say, they say “No!”.
“Eat some healthy food”. “No!”.
“Play in a safe place”. “No!”.
“Don’t jump off a cliff”. “No!”.
Well, you get the idea. Now most creatures grow out of this, but not all. And Coyote understood this. So he would tell his follows not to wear face talismans or take the cure, and it would take them back to being little pups annoying their parents and other sensible creatures. But now they could say “No!”, spread disease, and get away with it. It felt good because they felt powerful and important.
Anyway, Coyote was singing about their right to spread disease, and they were cheering like mad. But suddenly a weird thing happened. Coyote understood that some of his followers would die, or be in terrible pain, or be permanently injured, because of his song about spreading the plague. He felt it inside. A miraculous moment!
So he started singing a different song, saying they should take the cure, and that he had.
But his followers got real quiet, and some even booed. They were very unhappy. So Coyote went right back to singing his usual songs, and he was never bothered by his conscience again.
It’s fun to say “No!”, isn’t it?