Ghost Warrior (39 page)

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Authors: Lucia St. Clair Robson

BOOK: Ghost Warrior
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“Looks like they's fixin' to throw a hoedown,” Caesar said.
“I don't know what to make of it, pardner.”
María arrived with a cradleboard on her back.
“Look at this.” Caesar walked around Maria to admire the baby.
María half turned so Rafe could see the wide-eyed child
staring at him from under a shock of black hair.
“Boy or girl?” Rafe asked.
““She is a girl.”
María had brought them a gourd of stew, a sotol stalk for a spoon, and an explanation. Victorio's daughter was to participate in the ceremony of becoming a woman, she said. People had come from all over the Apacheria for it. The celebration would go on for days. It was the most sacred of their rituals. The Pale Eyes would have to leave.
As they were saddling the horses, Victorio and his number-one wife approached them. At least Rafe assumed she was his number-one-wife. She had taken charge of distributing the gifts to the women the night before. She held out a rawhide saddle pouch with painted designs on the carrying straps and long fringes. The tin cones on the ends of the fringes jingled when Rafe took it.
“This will be very useful.” Rafe tried to think of something he could give in return, but last night he had divided out all his tobacco. He had not packed clothes, and what he had was old and shabby.
“Give her my darnin' kit,” Caesar murmured.
When Rafe opened Caesar's saddlebag to look for it, he noted that nothing had disappeared in the night. He retrieved the leather packet that contained a small quilted sack with two steel needles, heavy black cotton thread wound around a peeled stick, a few wooden buttons, and a packet of straight pins. The name ELLIE was embroidered on the sack.
“I can't take this, Caesar,” he said. “It belonged to your mother, didn't it?”
“She'd be proud.”
Rafe hesitated.
“Go on. Shake a leg. They wants us out o' here so's they can get on with the fandango.”
Rafe handed the sewing kit to Victorio. “For your daughter, in honor of her special day.”
Victorio passed it to his wife, who gave the slightest of smiles, then turned and went back to work. Victorio shook
their hands the way he had seen Pale Eyes do. María continued translating.
“
Nantan
says, ‘May we live to see each other again, my brothers.'”
“God keep you,” said Caesar.
As they mounted, Victorio handed Rafe a war club. The round stone head was encased in a cow's tail which had been wet, slid over a stout oak handle, allowed to shrink in place, and tightly wrapped with sinew. A flexible section of hide was left between handle and the stone so the head moved freely. The design allowed it to deliver a skull-crushing blow without breaking off. A loop through the butt of the handle fit over Rafe's wrist. Rafe took the Green River knife and sheath from his belt and gave it to Victorio, who smiled his gratitude.
Rafe and Caesar put on the blindfolds again. This time a few young boys escorted them away. Caesar started singing to himself as soon as they were out of sight of the rancheria, and Rafe smiled.
Rafe realized that Caesar had had kinfolk even before Sets Him Free called him “Uncle” yesterday. Rafe himself had come to think of Caesar as a brother. He knew he would fight to the death for him, and that was no idle proposition. He knew that Caesar would do the same for him.
AMONG THE WILD MEN
“T
hey're mean people.” Grandmother folded the blankets as though she were wrestling them into submission. “How will you find Long Neck's wild men?” she muttered as she stuffed the blankets into the saddlebag. “They live like coyotes, just anyplace.”
This was the third time she had asked the question this morning, but Victorio answered it again. He knew she was upset by his decision to move south and take with him whomever would follow. He knew that fear had run off her smiling disposition and left this quarrelsome one in its place.
“Geronimo says Long Neck will leave a sign for us at the Place Where Rocks Are Stacked Up,” he said.
“Who's Geronimo?”
“He Who Yawns.”
“He Who Yawns! He's a coyote, that one. He persuades the young men to hunt Mexicans with him all the time. He's gotten many of them killed. He and Long Neck don't care how much we suffer because of their wild ways.”
“He Who Yawns knows the trail south better than anyone.”
“You don't like Long Neck.” Grandmother returned to the subject at hand. “Nobody likes him.”
“I'm not going to take my blankets to his lodge and marry him.” Victorio tried to make her smile, but she wasn't having it.
“Long Neck's people eat wild pigs,” she said. “And pigs eat snakes. You are what you eat. That's why the Enemy People act like snakes. If you live among them, your daughter will marry one of those wild coyotes.”
“I'm going to marry Short Rope.” Daughter looked up from the moccasin she was mending and gave Grandmother something else to fuss about.
“Short Rope's not even a warrior yet.”
“The men voted him warrior rank after the last raid.”
“You had your feast only two moons ago. You're too young to marry. You have a lot to learn about being a wife.” With her gnarled fingers Grandmother struggled to tie the saddlebag's laces. Victorio wanted to help her, but she didn't like to be reminded that she needed help.
“Your son will learn bad habits,” Grandmother scolded him. “He'll forget the proper way to behave.”
“When we find a good camping place, we'll come back for you and the other old ones. You can teach him the correct way.”
Victorio had told her that, too, but often these days she forgot what people said. She would stop in the middle of a healing sing, confused about what song came next. She had seen more than eighty harvests, so he shouldn't have been surprised, but she had always seemed unchanged and unchanging, able to go on forever.
As Victorio watched her carry her belongings to the mule, he realized how frail she had become while he was preoccupied with the troubles the Pale Eyes were causing. Streaks of white mingled with the gray in her long hair. Her wrists looked brittle as salt bush twigs. Her skin had a translucent quality, as though if she stood in front of the fire the light would shine through her, silhouetting the curved branches of her ribs.
While Corn Stalk held the mule, Daughter kneed him in the stomach to make him expel his breath so she could pull the hempen cinch as tight as possible. It held the Mexicanstyle packsaddle, a flat leather pouch stuffed with straw. Grandmother tried to fasten the broad strap that went around the mule's rump, but her gnarled fingers couldn't maintain a grip and pull, too. She let Daughter tighten it for her, to keep the load from slipping forward on steep inclines. She also let Daughter tie the saddlebag in place. Daughter and Lozen
were the only ones she allowed to help her, maybe because they had both done it since they were young and she considered them her apprentices.
The Warm Springs women had already stored grindstones, baskets of food, blankets, and water jugs near the cave where the old ones would live. Corn Stalk smoothed over the fire pit, and She Moves Like Water carried the bed-frame poles to the dance ground where people were stacking them. They could not leave the village the way it was when they lived here because if they did, whatever happened here would affect them wherever they were. If enemies attacked here, they would be attacked. If a bear left feces in the old site, they would become sick.
Victorio was relieved to see the mother of She Moves Like Water and Corn Stalk stop at the usual place near a boulder and stand with her back to them. He had an excuse now to end this discussion and leave so She Who Has Become Old could say good-bye to Grandmother.
Victorio joined the men gathering at the dance ground. They had a lot to talk about. His people had become prey here in their own country. They had to plan the route south carefully. They would discuss which tanks and springs and seeps to camp at, and where to find the caves with supplies hidden on earlier journeys. They would decide who would ride ahead looking for enemy sign, who would guard the rear, and who would take up flanking positions. Until they crossed the invisible line between the Pale Eyes and the Mexicans, they would have to travel at night using the Fixed Star as a guide. They would have to risk Ghost Owl's rapacious appetite for souls.
Lozen returned from the pasture leading her mare and Victorio's war pony. Grandmother met her with more objections.
“Granddaughter, ask Hairy Foot to send word to Father Tse'k that we want to stay here.”
“The Pale Eyes
nantan,
Cross-Eyes, won't agree to it.” Lozen knew why her grandmother was in such a state. Lozen was afraid, too, and furious that the Pale Eyes had made this necessary. “Loco went to ask the Bluecoats for a peace council
one month ago. Don't you remember? While he and his men were away, Pale Eyes attacked when everyone slept. They killed twenty-three of his people. When we find a safer place for the women and children, we will try again to make peace.”
Grumbling at Life Giver for creating Pale Eyes, Grandmother helped Lozen cut rawhide covers for her mare's hooves and tied them in place. The men had debated leaving the horses behind. Horses made noise. Horses had to eat. They left tracks easy enough for even Pale Eyes to follow. The men in council decided to start out with them, though. They could turn the ponies loose or kill them if they became a liability.
In the afternoon, with their belongings piled onto the backs of their ponies, people began gathering in the center of the village. Usually this would be a happy time. Usually the women would be heading for
*
the low country where they gathered mescal buds, and baked and dried them to make meal for the coming year. This time they didn't know when they would return. This time they were leaving the country where they had always lived, the place that White Painted Woman had given them, the place where The People first walked the earth.
The old ones' relatives helped carry their parents' and grandparents' belongings to the cave in the cliff. Fourteen-year-old Disgruntled and Burns His Finger, and thirteen-year-old Big Hand joined them. Victorio had assigned them the duty of keeping watch over the old ones. The responsibility carried great honor, but none of the boys wanted it. To make it more appealing, Victorio had given them carbines and cartridge belts with ten precious bullets in each of them. For days they had struck straddle-legged, scowling poses, the belts low on their hips, the guns held with careless bravado.
He Makes Them Laugh's grandparents refused to leave their lodge. They said if they were going to die, they'd just as soon do it in the comfort of their home. The boys helped the three sick women mount three old ponies that hadn't ended up in the stew pots yet. Lozen led Victorio's pony to
a flat rock so Grandmother and her old friend Turtle could climb onto him.
Grandmother knew why her son had left his favorite horse behind. Coyote was too old for the rigors of the war trail. Grandmother and the others could ride him if they needed to, and if necessary, he would provide meat for them.
They rode as far up the slope as they could and dismounted. Big Hand led the ponies to the upper pasture, and Lozen and the other two boys carried the ones who couldn't climb to the cave. Then she helped Grandmother and Turtle. Grandmother had to stop often, and Lozen waited with her arm around her waist. When they reached the ledge, Grandmother sat on a rock to rest, and Lozen pulled away the stones that hid the entrance to the nearby cache of food and belongings. Everyone except those who were ill gathered brush to make beds. They ate dried mule meat and parched corn with berries.
When they had settled in, they embraced the children and grandchildren. They murmured, “May we live to see each other again,” and “I will pray to Life Giver each day that He keep you safe.” They watched their families start down the slope, single-file, but Lozen stayed behind.
By nightfall Lozen and the old ones had turned the cave into a comfortable shelter with a small fire built in a rear corner so the light wouldn't be visible from below. With a weary sigh Grandmother lay down in the darkness near Turtle and pulled the blanket over her. Lozen sat at the mouth of the cave, looking out over the cliffs and outcrops sculpted into wraithlike shapes by wind and rain, moonlight and shadow. Since Lozen was old enough to understand the words, Grandmother and the other old ones had told her the names of each one of them and the stories that went with the names.
The old ones talked softly back and forth in the cave behind her until fatigue caught up with them. One by one their voices stilled. A large shadow swooped almost at eye level beyond the ledge, and the owl gave his spectral “hoo, hoo,
hoo.” In fear of Ghost Owl, Lozen backed into the cave and crawled under the blanket with Grandmother.
“You should go with the others,” Grandmother said. “They need your far-sight.”
“I'll catch up with them tomorrow. I know if enemies are around, so I can travel in the day while the rest are hiding at the Place Where The Widows Stopped To Cry.”
“Do you know why it's called that?”
Lozen thought for a long time about what her grandmother wanted her to see when she asked that question.
“Holes In The Earth,” she said finally. It was the name of the Santa Rita mine where, thirty years ago, the white men and Mexicans had invited the Red Paints to a feast and then killed and scalped Grandmother's husband and daughter, Lozen's mother. At Holes In The Earth Grandmother became one of the widows who stopped to cry on their flight back to Warm Springs.
By speaking with names, by identifying the places where the events happened, Grandmother took Lozen and the others there. The stories of those places reminded them that The People had been through bad times before. At the Death Feast they had suffered from the treachery of Pale Eyes they had thought were their friends. They had lost loved ones, but they had survived. Life had continued.
Turtle said, “They dug mescal buds again.”
Another long silence, then a second voice said softly from the darkness in the cave, “They watched their children dance.”
“Pleasantness all around,” spoke up a third.
“Good things all around,” said another.
No one else spoke, but Lozen could feel the mood in the cave shift, lighten. Grandmother had let people visit those places. They had stood there and looked at them. They had heard what the land told them about endurance and the healing effects of time.
Lozen cupped her chest against her grandmother's knobby back and put her arm around her, pulling her close. The night air was frigid, and the cave was dank. Grandmother had so
little flesh and fat left on her bones that she felt the cold more than she used to. Lozen put her cheek against Grandmother's hair and closed her eyes.
She Moves Like Water had confided to her that she feared they would not find Grandmother alive when they returned. Lozen didn't believe that, though. When she came back for her, Grandmother would flash that sly ringtail smile. She would hug Lozen and tell her stories of what had happened while she was away, just as she had always done.

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