Ghost Warrior (42 page)

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Authors: Lucia St. Clair Robson

BOOK: Ghost Warrior
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A cheer went up, and Halloran leaped onto the stage brandishing his rifle in one hand and a long hank of hair in the
other. Rafe knew Halloran. He had eyes the color of stale beer, breath like a singed cow horn, and a tanyard cur's sort of courage. If the Bear Creek Rangers and their ilk had any advantage in hunting Apaches, it was that they considered no act too low and dastardly to commit. If they did engage the Apaches, stopping the Bear Creek Rangers would be like stopping a rabid badger.
“The only way to rid our country of the treacherous wretches,” Halloran shouted, “is to make them bite the dust wherever we find them.”
The noise of the huzzahs made Rafe's ears ring and set the candles in the saloon's wagon-wheel chandeliers to guttering. When the men had hollered themselves hoarse, Halloran went on.
“When we return from our scout, every lady who subscribed with a donation to tonight's show will receive an Apache scalp to make a fall for her coif.”
Rafe wondered where Halloran had palmed the word
coif
. Probably from the fop who led the acting troupe. In any case, the women would have to be content with falls of gray hair, because the only Indians the rangers seemed to kill were old people.
He wondered if these were the men who had murdered Lozen's grandmother and the other old folks two years ago. Probably not. They had only recently mustered in, and the span of their attention wasn't great. A few days of discomfort on the mountain trails, and they would return to Central City's saloons to replenish their emptied whiskey kegs and boast about their exploits.
Caesar had found out that someone in Alamosa had told a drunken mob just like this one where to find the rancheria of Victorio's people. Rafe didn't blame them. They thought that the Warm Spring Apaches had gone south to Mexico, and the mob had threatened to kill them all and burn the town if they didn't tell. Quite likely they would have done it, since the people of Alamosa were mostly Mexicans and didn't count for anything to the Americans.
The leader of the acting troupe climbed onto the stage to
a chorus of hoots and catcalls. He wore knitted red hose with the holes darned in black thread. Over them he had on the puffed-out sort of short breeches that looked like a toadstool sprouting from around his waist, with his skinny legs as the stem. Yellowed lace cascaded from the neck of a blue velvet doublet trimmed with tarnished tinsel. He carried a skull, which meant he was taking the role of Hamlet.
Rafe leaned forward, holding on to the rafter's brace for support. He was about to hear his favorite soliloquy. Love or not, he wished Caesar could be here.
The Apaches regarded writing with a mixture of awe and disbelief. For Rafe the written word was magical, like electromagnetism or steam power or passion. He and the Apaches had something in common in that respect.
Hamlet finished and the red-haired Mrs. Dougan was giving a stirring performance of Lady Macbeth's speech, wringing her hands and crying to the rafters, when shots rang out in the street. The saloon emptied, in spite of the fact that Mrs. Dougan had shapelier ankles than the audience had dared to expect. Irish ankles, someone had observed, best served for tethering tent flies and beating surly mules.
Rafe dropped from the rafter and joined the surge out the door. At least thirty Apaches charged down Central City's main street, driving horses, mules, and oxen ahead of them. Most of the horses' reins were only looped over the saloons' hitching rails. The Apaches knew that. The frightened horses reared and yanked loose; then they took off running.
Rafe watched one young Apache leap from his pony onto Red's back and pull the rein loose from the rail. Rafe walked out into the street where he could have an unobstructed view. Red cantered off while his rider settled down to enjoy his prize.
As soon as Red sensed that his rider had relaxed his guard, he gave the warrior a view of the landscape from a surprising height and angle. He leaped up and sideways, then did a turnabout in midair. He continued to whirl, exchanging his withers for his hindquarters with the speed and agility of a ballet dancer. He finished the performance by kicking his rear
hooves so high, so hard, that he looked as though he were standing on his nose.
The Apache took graceful flight and landed on his stomach. With arms outstretched, he tobogganed under the hooves of an oncoming horse, who reared, sliding his rider back onto his rump. He recovered, humped back into place, and pulled the downed man up behind him. They all thundered off with yips and whoops, exuberant good spirits, and belly laughs that rattled the flimsy facades of the buildings.
Red sauntered back and butted his head into Rafe's chest, as though asking if he'd enjoyed the joke. Rafe put an arm around his neck. He leaned his cheek against him, and the hairs of Red's mane tickled his nose. He rubbed Red's ears and laughed softly.
TAKING HEARTS
N
o one would ever accuse a mescal plant of being deferential. Still, in a country where the pads of prickly pear latched on to the noses of hungry horses, where the finger-length thorns of the devil's-claw seeds hooked into the skin of passers-by, and mobs of cockleburs hitched rides on moccasins, clothes, and hair, the mescal was not the worst. It didn't go looking for trouble like the cholla cactus that fired balls of stinging spines, and it had a benevolent streak. The water trapped in its leaves sustained life on days like this when the ground cracked like badly fired pottery and the world shriveled and crumbled to dust.
If trouble came its way, the mescal plant could defend itself. Leaves like fat, green spearheads radiated from its center. Each blade had a double row of thorns along its edges, with a thumb-size spike at the end. It would not let anyone take its heart without a fight, and its heart was what Lozen wanted.
The mescal plants here in Long Neck's country were bigger than those she was used to. The thick red flower stalk at the center of this one was four times taller than she was. When Lozen jabbed her piñon limb into the center of the bush, a rattlesnake as long as she was slithered out the other side and into the brush.
“It was a year ago,” she murmured, to confuse the evil spirits that the snake possessed.
She lay on her stomach, pressed a leaf downward, and with her drinking tube, sucked the water that collected at the bottom of it. It was hot and musty, and she spit out the ants and beetles in it.
Lozen was used to heat, but here in northern Mexico it burned like the side of a hatchet blade held in the flames. She plaited her damp hair into a thick braid that hung to the backs of her thighs and tucked the end of it into her belt. She placed her foot between the two rows of thorns at the base of a leaf. She pressed it and several more down and cut through the leaves close to their bases. When she had cleared the way to the bone-white bud of the flower stalk, she wedged the sharpened end of her piñon limb under it and pounded the butt of it with the side of her hatchet. Stands Alone and Maria came to help.
Stands Alone and María's two youngest sons, He Throws It and Darts Around, were almost five years old. They chased the eddies of wind that raised spirals of dust and zigzagged across the ground before vanishing. When they tired of that, they stalked sparrows and cactus wrens, mice, ground squirrels, and pack rats. They caught beetles and let them grab their earlobes with their pincers and dangle as earrings.
“Look out for snakes,” María called to them. “They have powerful magic. Do not shoot them or touch them. If you happen across one, say, ‘Grandfather, I do not want to see you, so stay out of my way.'”
Daughter arrived with her baby girl in the cradleboard that Lozen had made. “Her Eyes Open said to tell you we have enough mescal.”
Lozen leaned on her stick and surveyed the broad slope where the mescal grew. Little Eagles was the season of flowers. Patches of blue, purple, orange, red, and white were woven into the yellow blanket of poppies. The blossoms of the palo verde flowed like a golden waterfall into a ravine.
Lozen, Stands Alone, María, and Daughter finished cutting the bud out. It was so big that Lozen could hardly wrap her arms around it, but she put it and the others into burden baskets and lashed them onto the pony. They called to the two boys, who raced to the packhorse and started the process of clambering aboard. Lozen and Daughter rode double with the little one's cradle hanging from the saddle horn.
They followed the other women down the sweep of country
that flowed off into the desert and away. They rode along a deep ravine filled with clouds of the tiny, fragrant yellow flowers of the white-thorn bush. They threaded through a thicket of ocatillo cactus and passed the prickly pear and stunted mesquites.
The Warm Springs women had set up camp in a grove of junipers. They had stacked the woven trays they would use for drying the baked mescal. They had hung the water jugs and the babies' cradles from branches to catch stray breezes. They had built their brush-covered lean-tos against the trunks. They had laid stones in circles for their cook fires and spread hides in the shade for the toddlers to play on.
The women enjoyed being on their own. They could build their shelters close together, and at night they could call conversations back and forth. They could tell whatever stories they wanted and laugh as loudly as they pleased.
The young girls explored the new site, looking for colored seeds to string into necklaces. They built miniature lodges and improvised grinding stones. They made cooking utensils of acorns for their dolls.
The boys were a different matter. The women needed someone to keep watch for enemies while they worked. They had had to cajole the boys with promises of new moccasins and shirts. Even then, the only ones who would agree were those like nine-year-old Sets Him Free and Wah-sin-ton, who were too young to go on raids as apprentices.
At fourteen, He Bends Over was the oldest. He came along because Knot's thirteen-year-old daughter, Mouse, had addled him until he didn't seem able to function unless he could sight on her the way a night traveler followed the Fixed Star. The women knew it, and they took advantage of him. With oblique glances at his beloved to see if she was noticing, he carried the heaviest burdens and did the hardest work. The women praised his strength and his good looks while the shy object of his passion pretended to ignore him.
Her Eyes Open had sized up the heaps of buds and figured they would need at least two pits. The women loosened the hardpan with bayonets, saber blades, and sharpened sticks.
They dug with the scapula bones of oxen or with rusty shovels. They handed baskets of dirt to others to dump in a heap nearby. The small girls carried the rocks away, but left the larger ones so the women could use them to line the bottom of the pit.
They worked until they had two chest-deep holes as long as two women. Before dawn the next morning, they built fires on top of the stones. When the flames burned down to a bed of coals, they laid on the mescal buds, turning their faces aside to protect them from the searing heat. Then they covered the pits with a layer of grass.
With a forked stick, Lozen held a mescal stalk upright in the center while the women tossed rocks around it to hold it erect. They shoveled dirt on top to keep in the heat and steam. Tomorrow, Her Eyes Open would pull out the stalk to see if the bottom of it was cooked and the mescal buds ready.
While the mescal baked, they collected yucca leaves and wove more drying trays. Lozen took Daughter to look for the plants she would use as remedies. As they walked through the undergrowth, Lozen told Daughter what she had heard countless times before.
“When Life Giver created the world, he gave a purpose to all the plants.” She pulled up a bush with small purple flowers. She broke off the root, brushed the dirt from it, and shared it with Daughter. It had a sweet taste. “If you boil the stems, the liquid is good for colds and coughs. It will cure stomachaches and pains in your muscles.” She crouched next to a vine with yellow flowers and leaves that looked like a hand.
“That's called Five Fingers,” Daughter said. “It eases toothache and sore throat. It cures ague and fluxes.”
When they had filled their bag and were walking back to camp, Daughter asked, “Grandmother, will we go home again?”
“Yes.” Lozen stared north. “We always go home.”
“
Nkah le.
” murmured Daughter. “Let it be so.”
 
 
“HOLES IN THE EARTH.” LOZEN PRONOUNCED THE NAME for the Santa Rita mines exactly so that the young ones would know the right way to say it. To speak of the Earth carelessly was to show disrespect. After a long pause she said, “The Place Where The Widows Stopped To Cry.” She rode in silence for a while, then added, “Flat Rocks Stacked Up.”
The return trip from where the mescal grew to the Warm Spring people's encampment near Long Neck's village took most of a day. Lozen passed the time naming the places between the high plateau where they had spent the last four years and their home country to the north. She did not care if anyone heard her. This was her journey. The rest could come along it they wanted. Some of the women and children paid attention. Others rode at the back of the procession, where they could talk. Each time Lozen paused, those who listened remembered what had happened there, and how it had looked the last time they saw it. In their minds, they made the journey home.
At dusk, they reached the sheer walls of the flat-topped mountain. As they rode along its base toward the single trail leading up to Long Neck's stronghold, Lozen neared the end of her own journey, the places close to where they had always lived. By now, most of the women and even the children were listening.
“
Dzil ndeez,
” she said. “Tall Mountain.”
They imagined the lavender peak outlined against the glow of the eastern sky at dawn. It was the first sight to greet them when they went outside their lodges at Warm Spring each morning.
“Shinale. My Grandfather.” That was name of the sacred spring. At its origin the warm trickle of water seemed insignificant, but it filled a basin in the rock and overflowed into the larger one below it, into the pool they called The Eye.
When Lozen said, “Bidaa', the Eye,” a collective sigh went up, like a soft, sad wind. The women remembered bathing
in The Eye's warm water in the winter. Someone sniffled. Another blew her nose.
From The Eye, water ran into the stream that had carved a slot in the high bluffs, giving an easily guarded access to the outside world.
“
T'iis bidaayu tu li ne
. Cottonwood tree, around it, water, it flows, the one.” By now the words had become a chant, a medicine song to heal aching hearts.
With the names, Lozen took them into the valley and showed them the stream that flowed through it all year. She showed them the lodges scattered in the shade of tall trees. She let them see the sleek ponies grazing on the grama grass.
Many were crying quietly now, but when she said, “The Place Of The Grandparents,” they began to sob. All had been related to at least one of the old people murdered in the cave overlooking their village.
As they neared the path to the top of the mountain, Wah-sin-ton and Sets Him Free joined them. They carried strings of quail and ground squirrels. He Bends Over waited for them all to pass, and he reined his horse to parallel Mouse near the end of the line.
She Moves Like Water led the procession. She turned in the saddle and called back, “The Water, It Is Deep There.”
The women laughed. By invoking that place name, she could have some fun with love-befuddled He Bends Over without criticizing him or naming him directly. She Moves Like Water went on to tell the story so the children could learn from it. It was about boys who let their attention wander and who suffered because of it.
“At The Water, It Is Deep There, at that very place, some boys are staying cool in the summertime.” She Moves Like Water used the present tense, as though this were a historical tale, but it was about Lozen, before people called her Aunt or Grandmother or even Lozen.
I am so old, I have become history, Lozen thought. The idea made her smile.
“Along comes a girl named Sister,” She Moves Like Water said. “This girl is like Coyote, always playing pranks.
She sees those boys sitting in the water there. She sees their clothes piled up under the cottonwood tree. She sees a wasp's nest hanging from the limb that stretches out over the stream.
“She sneaks up on those boys. When they wade out of the water, she uses her sling to throw a rock and hit the place where the nest is fastened to the tree. It falls on them. Some of the boys run back into the water, and the wasps buzz around their heads. Some run for their clothes, but the wasps cover them like a blanket. Those boys are jumping around and yelling. They're doing the Wasp Dance.
“Sister laughs at them. Then just like Coyote, she goes along. It happened at The Water, It Is Deep There, at that very place.”
Everyone laughed and looked at Lozen. She had been Wah-sin-ton's age when she dropped the wasp nest on Fights Without Arrows, Ears So Big, Flies In His Stew, and their friends. Even now, sometimes the women would make buzzing noises while they pretended to be busy at their chores. The men knew what they meant by it.
She Moves Like Water reached the place where the trail took a turn upward. The people of Long Neck's village called the area at the bottom of the trail the Rubbish Heap. The hair stirred at the nape of Lozen's neck when she passed through it. Bones and bits of leather and metal littered the place. They were the remains of Mexican soldiers who had tried to attack over the years.
Lozen could feel their spirits clinging to their sand-scoured bones. She sensed their hatred and their fear. She heard their cries when Long Neck's men pushed the boulders down onto them, but the other women were not bothered by them. They laughed and shouted back and forth along the line. The ponies' hooves clattered on the rocks, and their loads swayed as they lunged up the steep trail.

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