Short story anthology / female coyote and various tricksters.

(One found; one to go!)

There are a couple stories rattling around in my brain that I think I read in a single anthology probably themed around tricksters. I'm reasonably sure I read this anthology within the past five years, and I think it was a fairly recent publication. I don't think it was illustrated, and it was probably intended for an adult audience.

One:
FOUND: "Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight?" by Ursula Le Guin
A female Coyote character who, in her carelessly caring way, allowed a female human child (the sole survive from a plane crash, I think) to live with her in the desert. Coyote's house was ramshackle. Coyote herself was fleasome, clever, sexual, and easily bored. Coyote left her excrement all over her yard; she referred and regarded her excrement as her children and sometimes she whispered to it (them). The child eventually makes her way back to human life with Coyote escorting her up until Coyote spots a lovely bit a poisoned salmon left out to kill coyotes and couldn't resist eating it.

Two:
There was a woman combating against a man. She road out into the desert to meet him, and at her heels trotted dozen of foxes who used to be girls who had their own grudge against the man. Most of the foxes died in the combat. The woman liked riding out in the desert so much she kept right on going with the remaining foxes after the man was defeated.

I did some searching on my own, found Datlow and Windling's Coyote Road, and was sure that I'd solved my puzzle until I read it and found none of the stories match my memories.

Does anyone have any ideas as to what this anthology might be? Or even just what these short stories are? Many thanks for your help!

Original posting:
May 11, 2012, 10:18am

The first one is almost certainly Ursula Le Guin's Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight?.

However, the ISFDB listing doesn't show any obvious themed anthologies, and I don't recognize the second story, so I can't help you find the actual anthology.

That information alone is a big, big help!

I've never heard of this anthology, and I don't know the particular LeGuin story, but I went to WorldCat, entered the search string buffalo gals won't you come out tonight, and got this result. Might this be the result (which also appears here on LT as Buffalo Gals and Other Animal Presences) you're looking for? Or maybe it's something else on the WorldCat list of search results?

4>

That is not an anthology, it's a collection of LeGuin stories.

Here is a bibliography of Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight. I can't say it's complete and it has duplicate entries, but it's a start.

#&*($^$#&Q$*)&^#%(^&@#O.

I LOOKED at the ISFDB entry, and found nothing promising, which is why I said I looked at the ISFDB entry and found nothing promising. I do have rudimentary search skills.

lorax, I see no need to swear at me. I was responding to MyriadBooks, not you.

Thank you all! I found a terribly-formatted RTF online of the Le Guin Buffalo Gals and Other Animal Presences collection, and I can confirm the Buffalo Gals story is the one I'd been hunting for. Most of the stories in the full collection were new to me, but I recognized a couple of them from other anthologies (Horses! and Women who Run with the Werewolves).

I could be entirely mistaken about thinking I read it in a themed anthology. I see the Buffalo Gals story published in the first Year's Best Fantasy and Horror anthology, which published ages ago but I only acquired a copy of it within the past two years. Maybe there were a couple of trickster stories in it, and only they stuck in my memory -- I'll dig out my copy and see if I can find my other story in it.

9>

That was a headdesk, rather than profanity, and I had assumed you were responding to the thread and just deciding to ignore my contribution as useless or irrelevant, rather than that you were responding to me specifically.

ANYWAY, glad it was the "Buffalo Gals" story, and I can heartily recommend the whole collection.