One of the girls said to the other, "Look at those stars, the white one and the red one."

"I'd like to sleep with a star. They must be good lovers, real hot ones," said the other.

"Me too -- I want a star under the blanket with me," said her friend. "I'll take the red star to bed, and you can have the white one."

"All right," said her companion, and they drifted off to sleep. When they awoke, they found themselves in an upper world -- in star country. The stars were men, and they spoke to the girls: "You wanted to sleep with us. Well, here we are; let's do it!"

So they did. The girl who had chosen the red star found that he was a vigorous young man, and he kept her busy all night. She was content. Not so the other, because her star, the white star, was very old. His hair was white, and he couldn't perform very well. She said to her friend, "Let's swap husbands for a while," but the friend didn't want to.

So they lived for a time with their chosen stars. Then the one who had married the young redheaded star began to complain: "This man wears me out. It's too much; I can't stand doing it all the time." The other said, "This star lover of mine is so old that he can't do anything."

And after having stayed there for a long while, they both concluded that it wasn't as much fun being with star men as they had imagined. All the stars did was eat star food, sleep with the girls, and shine. They didn't play games; they didn't hunt. The girls became bored and homesick. It was winter, and one said to the other, "Down in our country they're playing snow-snake now. I wish I could be there."

Old Woman sat on a hole in the sky all the time. Once when those foolish girls passed by, she moved a little bit and let them look down through the hole. They saw their village and watched the people playing snow-snake. They heard singing and dancing coming up through the hole, and they felt very sad.

"How can we get down there?" they asked. Old Woman gave them plants of various kinds and said, "Twist them into fibres. Make a long rope. That's the only way to get down where you came from."

For days the girls twisted fibres into ropes. They needed a very, very long rope, and they got tired. they were lazy as well as foolish, and they said, "Surely this rope is long enough. No use working any more." They went to their two star men and told them: "We want to visit our folks down there, just for a little while. Then you can haul us up again."

Of course they didn't mean it. They had discovered that sleeping with stars was no different from sleeping with humans. Now they wanted young Ojibway men, they were so foolish and fickle.

"Hold these ropes; help us down," they told the stars. But the ropes were too short, which is what comes of being lazy. The cords reached almost all the way down, but not quite -- just to the top of a very, very high tree, the highest tree in the world. At its tip was an abandoned eagle nest, and there the two foolish ones were stuck. "Oh! What are we going to do? How are we going to get down?"

They saw a bear passing by below. "Hey, Bear, you sure must be looking for some women to sleep with. If you get us down safely, you can do it with us!" The bear saw that these girls were good-looking, but he was wise and noticed that they were also very foolish and forward. He wanted nothing to do with them. He pretended he couldn't climb, though he could easily have made it up the tree. The bear went off, not even looking back.

Next a buffalo passed under the tree. "Hey, Powerful One," the girls shouted, "get us down from here. If you do, you can sleep with us." Seeing that the girls were pretty, the buffalo didn't care whether they were stupid or not. He tried to climb up, tried a long time, but couldn't do it. He gave up and shouted to the girls, "Hooves are no good for this kind of thing. Get somebody with claws!" Then he went off.

The third one to pass by was Old Man Coyote. "Hey, friend!" the girls called down to him, "Do you want some good-looking young women to sleep with? You can, if you get us down."

"I sure would like to," shouted Old Man Coyote, "but I have a young jealous wife. She gets mean if I fool around with the girls." And he went off too.

The fourth one to pass under that tree was Wolverine, who is so ugly no girl will sleep with him. "Hey, Handsome," the two girls called, "you sure are a good-looking man. Get us down from here, and you can enjoy us."

They didn't have to say it twice; with his powerful claws Wolverine shinnied up that largest of all trees in no time. he threw the first girl down and immediately made love to her. There was no use resisting, he was so strong and greedy. Then he did the same with the second girl. He had never had such a good time, but they enjoyed it a lot less, since Wolverine was the ugliest man they had ever seen. "Friend," one girl said to the other, "I think we've done a dumb thing. When I get home I'll never sleep outside the lodge again."

"How right you are," said the other girl. "This man is truly ugly, and so rough that it really hurts. I'm never sleeping outside again, either."

But they had a problem, because after making love to them,  Wolverine always fed them and then carried them back up, willy-nilly, to that eagle's nest. He didn't want them to get away -- ever. He knew when he had a good thing.

One day when Wolverine was out hunting, what did those suffering girls see from their nest but Wolverine Woman. Wolverine Woman hadn't met up with Wolverine Man yet, and she was so ugly, truly surpassingly ugly, that no man wanted her.

"Hey, beautiful woman down there," the two girls called, "up here, Doll Baby! If you get us down and take our place in this nest, we promise you a handsome young man to sleep with. He comes up here to make love to us, but we're humans and we have to get home to our people. But he's such a nice man, we don't want to disappoint him. He should have a good woman to sleep with."

"You're absolutely right," answered Wolverine Woman, "and so generous! I sure would like to meet that handsome man." Wolverine Woman got those two girls down safely, and they hurried off as fast as they could. they had never run so hard in their lives.

At night Wolverine Man arrived, climbed the tree, and got Wolverine Woman down. He was in such a hurry he didn't even notice that there was only one woman in the eagle nest. He made love to her all night, and when dawn finally came, Wolverine Woman said, "You're not as handsome as I was told."

Wolverine Man saw that he had been tricked. "You're not a raving beauty either," he told her. "Let's stop this," she said. "Face it: we're incredibly ugly. Nobody else would have us, so let's stay together."

"I guess you're right," said Wolverine Man, so they stayed together. There's nobody so ugly that he can't find a mate.

When the two girls played that trick on Wolverine Man, it was the first time they stopped being foolish and got smart.
 
 
 
 
 

* Told by David Red Bird in New York City, 1974