Killer of Enemies

by Joseph Bruchac

  How did this little bitch survive?

  Diablita Loca herself. Angry and frustrated at not having been able to dispose of me and thwart her cohort’s desires with one lethal stroke.

  Hurt her, hurt her, I am going to hurt her!

  The images of my family being tortured that followed almost made me react physically. I wanted to turn around, smash through that mirror, and get at her. But I controlled myself, aside from the hairs on my arms standing up. If I tried anything now, all my careful waiting for the right moment would be for nought.

  The Dreamer’s lair was my next stop. He was pleased when I presented him with that mirror. So pleased that he told me I could spend the next day with my family.

  “Do celebrate,” he said to me, twirling in a circle as he held his new mirror in front of him with both hands. “Have a love-eh-ly day. Tomorr-ow, to-morr-ow!”

  He actually sang those words. In a voice that was surprisingly melodious and not as sarcastic as I would have expected.

  That tomorrow is today.

  I tried to sleep last night. But it was hard to stop my mind from racing back and forth between one thing and another. Every time I did fall asleep I found myself dreaming that I was back in the middle of being attacked by the Bloodless, or watching the massive bulk of the mortally wounded giant serpent falling toward me. And in those dreams I didn’t escape. Instead I felt talons pierce my throat or I was so paralyzed that I couldn’t move and I was crushed. Just like the dreams of falling to my death that I had after defeating the giant birds, every vision that came to me in my slumber was of me losing my battle. And the worst part was that in every one of those dreams, somehow my mom and Victor and Ana were there, too. Watching me be destroyed. Me unable to save them. And I would wake up with tears in my eyes and the word “No!” on my lips.

  I’m not sure why I always have those dreams. Shouldn’t my subconscious be celebrating my victories? Is it because there is no one, not one person in the world, to whom I can express my hidden fears of failing? But I have to keep it all inside. I have to do it for Mom and Victor and Ana because they depend on my being strong. I have to seem unruffled and even oblivious to danger to the rest of the world because showing any sign of weakness or uncertainty might open me up to attack.

  I run my brush, one of my few possessions, back through my hair to straighten out the tangles from all my tossing and turning. I need to look as good as I can for Mom. She worries about how I look, knows I’m just slightly better looking than a scarecrow. But she also tells me little lies to make me feel better.

  “Lozen,” she always says, “you have such nice hair. Why don’t you let me braid it for you?” Or, “Sweetheart, your eyes are so beautiful.” Or, and this is the most obviously false of all her little fibs, “You have a beautiful face. It just lights up the room when you smile.”

  I take a deep breath and practice that smiling which seems to please my mom so much. I am also thinking hard about how to tell my family about my latest exploit. Every now and then I slip up and say a little too much, like when I mentioned how I was a little worried when that porcupine cat swung its tail and almost nailed me with its needles. This look of deep concern, or maybe disquiet, came over my mother’s face and she clutched at her stomach.

  I hate when that happens. It makes me feel guilty because I know it means she’s feeling sick with worry about me. She has enough to worry about taking care of Victor and Ana.

  Keep it light, Lozen, don’t let them think you were ever in that much danger.

  I’ve been told that our meeting will take place outside. The Dreamer has arranged for us to get together in the reward area near the gardens where there are chairs and tables set up in the shade of Haven’s few trees. These fruit trees have been lovingly tended to by Hussein and encouraged with careful drip irrigation to grow and even bear fruit. Those who have done something to please the Ones are allowed undisturbed time there—a rarity in Haven.

  When I step out into the sunlight, Ana’s already running toward me, her arms spread wide. She’s tall for her age, even if she is bone thin. The top of her head already comes up to my shoulder. She barrels into me, wrapping her arms around me tight.

  “Lozen,” she says in her voice that is as sweet as a little bird singing. “Lozen, Lozen, Lozen.”

  “Ana, Ana, Ana,” I reply, hugging her back.

  Victor isn’t running. That would be undignified. Even though he is the youngest of us three, he is very conscious that he is the only boy. The man of the family. And he wants to live up to his name, which is actually Victorio, even though Mom and I call him Victor and he’s just Vic to Ana. His namesake was one of the great Chiricahua war leaders, the brother of Lozen.

  But my little brother is walking much faster than he usually does and I can see that the look on his face says more than he intends it to. It’s a look of both happiness and relief. It tells me that he was really afraid that this time I was going to die.

  When he reaches me he can’t control himself any longer. He grabs me, too, as I open one arm to fold him into this three-person family hug that makes me feel as if my heart is going to burst.

  “I am glad you are back,” he says, his voice tight. He’s looking down to keep me from seeing the tears that I already noticed in his eyes.

  “Me, too,” I say.

  I can see that there are some new scrapes on Victor’s knuckles and a bruise on his forehead. He’s been fighting again with some of the other boys his age. Fighting with each other is something that happens a lot among the kids in Haven. Some of them start fights because they want to be like older brothers or fathers who are in the little private armies of the Ones. Some just do it, as boys always seem to do, to establish the pecking order. My blocky little brother, though, always fights for his family’s honor. And acts as if nothing can hurt him. Because of that, he’s always the last one standing. Even when it’s more than one trying to take him down.

  I touch the bruise on his forehead.

  “How many?” I ask.

  “Three of them,” he replies, looking up at me. “They said you were going to end up being eaten.”

  I just shake my head, push the hair back from his bruise and rest my palm on it.

  “That feels good,” Victor says.

  “They were throwing rocks at him,” Ana adds.

  “Only one hit me,” Victor says, as if that explains everything.

  Mom stays sitting at the table, watching us. She’s giving the three of us space to just be together. She knows how much that means to us. She’s smiling, too, but only with her lips.

  It comes to me once again that Mom is the strongest of the four of us. She never pretends that everything is all right, but she makes sure that we all make the best of what we have. She listens all the time to Ana and Victor—just as I suppose she would listen to me if I opened up to her. I know that what I do is an awful burden for her. But she never tells me not to do what I do.

  “Be careful,” is about all that she says about it. That, and “Remember what your father and your uncle taught you.”

  Ana and Victor and I walk over to the table, stumbling once or twice as we do because we are all still wrapped together in our reunion hug. When we are almost to Mom I catch sight of someone in the garden, maybe fifty feet behind the tables. I’ve hardly noticed him. It’s not just because his clothing blends in so well with the foliage. It’s also because of the way he just looks so right being there. It’s Hussein, of course. His eyes make contact with mine and he nods. It’s a polite nod, but also one that seems as if he is letting me know that he is pleased to be briefly sharing this rare moment of joy with me. It’s amazing how much someone can say with just a glance. Then he raises one hand gracefully and turns back to tending his garden.

  “Lots to eat,” Mom says, ending her part of the group hug and putting her hand on the table.

  And there is. Somehow she’s made a little feast for us, much of it obviously drawn from the garden where she works each da
y. There’s a corn and bean and squash soup, tortillas and salsa.

  And as we eat I share with them my exploits, using as few words as possible, keeping it light.

  “You know what the most dangerous thing was?” I ask.

  “No, what?” Victor says.

  I pause for effect, then point to my skinned knee. “Riding that bike. See what happened when I fell off it.”

  Victor and Ana laugh at that, but the look on Mom’s face tells me that she knows it’s more than that. But she accepts my reticence. Which reminds me again of just how strong she truly is.

  And then, as if the sun has been in a race across the sky, it’s suddenly almost evening. I’ve had a whole day to just rest and be with my mother and Ana and Victor. A day without something trying to catch, kill, and eat me. It was a day when, at times, my family and I were almost able to pretend for that we were not captives here, hostages to the mad whims of four powerful maniacs.

  Now, though, that day is done. And what will tomorrow bring?

  I look at the round object I’m holding in my hand. One of the four that Hussein gave us as he strolled by just before the time when we’d all have to go inside. Four perfectly ripe, golden apples from one of his trees. It was like sleight of hand the way he did it. He made them seem to appear from out of nowhere as he dropped them into each of our laps. No one further than a few feet away would have noticed, especially because each of us quickly put those forbidden fruits, meant only for the Ones and their closest associates, away into our pockets.

  “Have a good evening,” he said, his voice carefully polite, but with an undertone of amusement at the small larceny we were all engaging in. Then he had turned and continued on.

  My mother had smiled. A broad smile, in fact.

  “That boy likes you,” she said to me.

  My response was to knit my brows together and shake my head. But my mother, even though she was probably wrong, was undeterred.

  “He is a very nice person,” she said. Then she put her hand on top of mine. “You could talk to him.”

  Could I? Would he listen if I did?

  From the B Bloc comes the sound of a guitar. Hussein’s. He’s the only one with a guitar. I listen. For some reason I am feeling sort of nervous. What is he going to sing? A few more notes are strummed and then I hear Hussein’s voice. Though he sings his words in English, it is as if there is another language behind and beneath them, one that gives color and depth to his lyrics, as plaintive as the minor chords he’s playing. And this song is one I’ve never heard him play before. I think it’s one he’d composed.

  I am the bird who flies at twilight

  No other wings can match mine in flight

  And if I should tap upon your window

  Would you ask me to stay or just go?

  Is that song actually directed at me? I think of what Mom said. I could talk to him. It would be nice to have someone to talk to, really talk about how I feel. Someone to be that kind of a friend.

  But do I really wish that? It’s not safe for anyone to be my friend. The Ones have their eyes on me all the time now that I am their best monster eliminator—to say nothing of the fact that one of them has already tried to eliminate me. And who knows what tomorrow will bring for me?

  Don’t dwell on that now, girl. Just relax while you can. Think of other things.

  Is it possible that Hussein actually does like me, actually has noticed me despite how big I am? I mean I am at least two inches taller than him. Plus my hair usually looks like a dirty dish mop and my face is scratched and dirty and my clothes always make me look like a field hand. I give new meaning to the word disheveled.

  I take a bite of that golden apple. It’s the sweetest fruit I’ve ever tasted. Some of its juice starts to run down my chin and I catch it with one finger and lick it off. Then, as Hussein’s song continues, I eat the whole apple, even the core and the seeds, which I crack with my teeth and chew up one at a time.

  I lay back on my bunk and close my eyes. Then I open them and sit up. The words that I think he’s just sung are not just romantic. They’re dangerous. And as he sings them again, I know I’m right.

  We birds remember the freedom of another age

  A time before cruel hands locked us inside a cage

  Oh how we remember, remember the free sky

  But those who own us now, will not let us fly

  Hussein, I think. Stop singing that song.

  Doesn’t he know, as I do, that there are always people listening? People who might interpret what he’s singing as subversion and tell the Ones.

  As if he’s heard me, he strums one final chord and then is silent. I breathe a sigh of relief. Then he starts playing again. This isn’t one that he composed, as I think was the case with that first song. It’s an old tune now, one I have always loved. My father used to play that song and say, half-joking, that because of its message it must have been written by a Chiricahua Apache. Dad had a guitar. Dad even taught me a few chords. I think I could still pick out a tune or two.

  But I’d rather listen, as I am listening now while Hussein sings:

  I am a poor wayfaring stranger

  just traveling through this land of woe . . .

  That’s Haven, all right. And this world we’re all living in now is one of woe for sure.

  I’m going there, to meet my father

  I’m going there no more to roam

  I’m just a goin’ over Jordan

  I’m just a goin’ over home.

  I wish I could go home. Just click my heels like that brownskinned girl name of Dorothy in an old old viddy called The Wiz that I watched when I was nine. Or at the very least, I wish Hussein’s song could go on longer. But it can’t.

  He finishes it just as everyone in Haven hears the long bugle blast for Lights Out. Just like that, all the lanterns in our blocs are extinguished except for those of the guards in the main corridor. The enforced night silence begins. No singing or talking. It’s part of life here in Haven. There are rules. Rules must be followed. Even—or maybe especially—those that make no sense.

  I close my eyes, not certain if I’ll be able to sleep. There are so many—too many—thoughts going through my mind. I may not say much aloud, but it seems as if my internal dialogue never stops.

  Exhaustion, though, may be stronger than I thought. As soon as my eyes close I am asleep and dreaming. And for once it is not a dream of falling or being torn apart or crushed.

  There are two Lozens in my dream. One is me, watching. The other is a girl even younger than my sister Ana, a six-year-old girl with a smile on her lips. She’s barefoot and wearing a dress, a light cotton dress of the kind I used to love when I was little and I could hold my arms out and spin and it would billow round me and I’d feel as if I was a top. Everything around here is as bright and light as her smile. But she’s not alone in her dream. As she stands still for a moment to reach up into a peach tree, just like the peach tree that my mother planted in front of our house, just as she is about to grasp a ripe piece of fruit, he comes up behind her. His big jaws are slightly open, his huge canine teeth visible. She doesn’t know he’s there as he creeps closer and then . . .

  “Yiii!” Young Lozen jumps at the feel of his cold, wet nose thrust up under her dress and pressed against the back of her thigh.

  She turns and points an accusatory finger at him as he sits back on his haunches, tongue lolling out, his eyes bright with amusement.

  “Bad Lobo, bad Lobo.” She drops to her knees and throws her arms around his neck. “You bad dog, I love you so much.”

  I close my eyes just then in my dream because a wind has whipped across my face. When I open them again, I am still not awake. I’m sitting on my bunk here inside my cell, but I must be asleep because Lobo is here with me, not using his last strength to try to crawl back to me.

  Lobo. He is sitting in front of me, alive and whole. The wounds burned in his chest and side are gone. His German Shepherd and wolf fore
bears show in his massive body and the quick intelligence that gleams from his eyes. He raises his right front paw and places it on my knee.

  I stare at him in disbelief.

  “Lozen,” he says. “Don’t you know me?” He’s speaking like a human person, something he never did when he was alive. But it seems natural to me.

  “Of course I know you,” I say. My voice is thick in my throat. “I haven’t forgotten you. I’ll always remember you.”

  “Lozen,” he says. “Sometimes you are so stupid. You don’t have to remember me. Don’t you know that I am always with you?”

  Then he leans forward to rest his big head in my lap. I place both my hands on his shoulders and lean over to embrace him and whisper my secrets in his ear as I used to do every day before he was killed.

  That’s when I really wake up. It’s probably not just because of that dream. It’s also because it’s a windless night and without fans or air conditioners it can get so hot inside my cell that I get covered with sweat. I sit up and wipe the salty water off my face and out of my eyes, especially out of my eyes.

  Lobo. He’s always there in the back of my mind. It’s just so hard to think of him, to think of yet another loss.

  Dogs. Dogs are forbidden here in Haven. Not that it makes that much sense, but apparently at least one of the Ones has an unreasonable dislike for dogs.

  It’s the oldest partnership in the world, that one between canines and humans. When the first dogs decided that they would join with us, hunt with us, help care for us, stop living apart from people as the coyotes and wolves would continue to live, everything changed.

  “Our dogs made us more human,” my mother would say when she told me some of our old stories about our four-legged allies.

  Not all of them were ancient stories. She told me about how the day all the people of our Chiricahua nation, men, women, and children, even those who had not fought, but had helped the Army, were loaded into trains and sent off as prisoners of war to Florida at the end of the nineteenth century. On that day, none of us were allowed to take our dogs with us. Those dogs ran after the train for miles and miles. Even after the train was out of sight, they ran. They ran until their feet were bloody and even then they kept running. But we were sent so far away, across wide plains and rivers too wide for them to swim, that they never caught up with us. Others who saw our train pass saw those dogs following, sometimes days later. They never gave up until their loyal hearts gave out.