Saga Of The European King

Ba'al popped out from a crease in reality. He'd been talking to the local Gods for a long time. Gods don't understand time very well. They'll be talking to you and then sometimes they'll just sort of trail off and only finish their sentence to your grandson. They won't even notice a blooper like that. It was the morning and the King was brushing his teeth with one of the fingers on his wooden hand that could convert into a toothbrush. He spat into the campsite's dead fire.
“Friend Ba'al,” said the King, talking to him like an equal. “Many weeks have gone by, but that's okay. I ran into one of the President's agents, but I dealt with him. I met with the Utes, but they would not rally to my side unless I solved some puzzles and got a rattlesnake out of their Chief's room. How fare the gods?”
“The Bear Spirit was on a rampage. I had to join with Eagle and Coyote to stop him. Once Bear was killed, we could all talk. Eagle will not get involved, and Buffalo has troubles of his own now, but Bear is ready to fight for us. Coyote is on the side of the President, and we cannot hope to unseat him until we offer Coyote a better deal.”
“What does Coyote want?” asked the King as he flossed his teeth with a thread he had pulled out of another finger.
“Coyote has been Secretary Of State under the President for as long as the President has been in power,” said Ba'al. “But he burns in his black heart to be President himself, so that he can drink all day and have as many women and cigarettes and lame calves as he wants.”
“We can't have that,” said the King, “The United States will be no more once I'm through with the President. It's going to become West Europe. I'm going to build a lot of courthouses to prove it. Coyote would wreck everything if he were in charge.”
“Coyote's trickery and dark magics keep the President very powerful, Your Highness. He appears lazy, but he is more than a match for me, even if Bear fights by my side.” said Ba'al. The King though about this while he finished up with his flossing.
“Ba'al. What do you know about wine?” said the King.

Now, the United States had a lot of great things in it, as we've seen. They had Maize and alligators and crazy bear gods and rich guys and cowboys and a lot else. What it didn't have, which the King knew, was Europe's knack with wine. They just didn't know about grapes and barrels and yeast and whatever. Now, Ba'al was a god of, among other things, agriculture. The King had the muscle needed to prepare a field and then Ba'al used some of Bear's blood with some grapes he had in his pocket to raise a really nice vineyard. Then Ba'al used a god trick to make the vineyard exist in Godland, where time was weird, and before they knew it they had a harvest. The King worked in the fields to bring in the harvest and personally quashed every single grape. The King's dab hands made some fantastic barrels and then Ba'al shunted the barrels of grape juice away to Godland to age them into wine. The King did the tasting.
“Not bad!” said the King.

So, to cut a long story short, they went round to Coyote's house, got him drunk on the beautiful wines of Europe, beat him up when he passed out, put him in a sack and threw him in the river.

“Take that, Coyote!” said the King as he hugged Ba'al in triumph. “Gets them every time!” he added.

End Of Chapter 75