Spider Necklace When I was small, Senior Father and me used to walk home from the field in the evenings. As we walked, he told me the legends. Mama called them “old-fashioned,” but I liked them more than the stories in the Good News Bible. My favorite legends were about the Trickster and his long clay pipe. The Trickster fooled everyone and always came out smiling. I laughed so hard when Senior Father told me stories about the Trickster because I knew the Trickster was me. One day I said to Senior Father, “I am the Triksta.” Senior Father shook his head. “No, Bingo, you’z not tha Triksta,” he said. “You’z tha runna.” Senior Father said, “The runna can run anywhere. He can run into the sky and into a tree. He can run fast, but sometime he must run slow. He can run right out tha world to tha purple Jwasa.”* He poked my head with his long finger. “Bingo, you iz special. You can run on light. You can run through dark. You can run where everything is nothing. You run foreva, and only when you stop it is tha end.”
