Read Online The Coyote Under the Table/El Coyote Debajo de la Mesa by Joe Hayes - Free Book Online Page B

jumped over the wall of Juan’s room and moved in with him. It was a white cat with black and brown spots, and Juan named it Gato Pinto. Juan was happy to have the company and shared bits of his tortillas with Gato Pinto. At night he always spread a little extra patch of ashes for the cat to sleep on. During the day, everywhere Juan went, the cat went with him. Everyone who knew Juan knew Gato Pinto.
    Then one evening Gato Pinto began digging in one corner of Juan’s room. The constant scratching annoyed Juan, so he picked up the cat and carried it back to the middle of the room. But Gato Pinto returned to the corner and continued to dig. Again Juan carried the cat away, but it returned to the corner. Juan was growing angry and was about to throw the cat outside, but then he noticed that Gato Pinto had dug up a little wooden box. He opened the box and found a paper inside.
    The next day Juan went to an old friend of his father’s to get help reading the paper. “This paper was written by your father,” the friend told him. “It says there is another box buried below the one your cat dug up.”
    â€œDoes it say what’s in the box?” Juan asked.
    â€œOh, yes. The box is full of money. Your father wanted the money to be for you alone.”
    Juan hurried home and dug deeper in the corner. He found another wooden box, and when he opened it, he saw more money than he had ever seen in his life. The friend had to help him count it.
    When they had counted the money and put it in a sack, the friend told him, “Juan, you’d better leave this place. If you stay here and your brothers find out you have all this money, they might harm you to take it away from you.”
    â€œOh, no,” said Juan. “I don’t think my brothers will do that.” He was going to return home, but Gato Pinto picked up the sack full of money in his teeth and ran away. Juan ran after him, but couldn’t catch up. All day long he followed the cat. When night overtook him, Juan built a fire and camped under a big tree. He could see Gato Pinto creeping around the edge of the circle of light made by his fire, but the cat wouldn’t come close to him.
    Juan was awakened in the morning by a rooster crowing and saw that he was near a town. Gato Pinto ran to the edge of the town with the sack of money, and then dropped it. Juan thought, Maybe my old friend was right. Maybe I should live in this town.
    Juan bought a house in the new town and settled down. His brothers never knew what had happened to him, but they really didn’t care. Several years passed. And then the brothers began to hear about a rich man named Juan who lived in the neighboring village. People said this Juan was very kindhearted and good to all the poor people of the village. And they said the rich man had a spotted cat that was always with him. “Everywhere Juan goes,” the people said, “the cat goes with him. Everyone knows Gato Pinto.”
    The brothers asked one another, “Could it be Juan Cenizas? But how could he become rich—unless he stole money that was rightfully ours!”
    The brothers decided to find out about this rich man named Juan. They knew of a girl in the market who sold parrots. The brothers visited her and asked, “Do you have a parrot that can ask questions and remember the answers?”
    â€œThat one,” the girl said, pointing at a big green parrot. “That one can talk like a judge, and it can remember everything it hears.”
    The brothers paid the girl to offer her parrot for sale in the neighboring village. They told her, “Don’t sell it to anyone except the rich man named Juan.”
    The girl did as she was told, and one day as Juan was walking home from church he saw the girl with her parrot. She looked so poor, and the parrot was so pretty, that Juan bought the bird from her.
    That evening, the parrot struck up a conversation with Juan. “Juan,”