Power in the Blood

by Greg Matthews

  “From somewhere else. Not there. I don’t remember where, though.”

  He didn’t want anyone asking questions in Santa Fe, prompting recollections of the family that came to town on the stagecoach and left again the same day in a wagon. Someone would recall the Kindreds, and Drew wanted that name removed from his life. It was a lie to protect himself from his immediate past. It was no one’s business but his own. He was quite proud, in fact, to have lied so readily and convincingly to the man with the doleful face and long black skirts. The priest had very dark eyes that seldom blinked. Drew knew he was being studied, evaluated, and this made him nervous. He made up his mind the man would never learn anything from him. It would be a kind of game. He knew he had to match the gaze of the priest, not glance guiltily away from those darkly probing eyes. It was important to win this game of looking and looking back.

  Father Zamudio believed nothing the boy told him. The boy had not suffered greatly in the wilderness surrounding the mission, was neither starving nor perishing from thirst. Wash the dust from him and he would be no worse for his experience, whatever that might have been. He lied well, without fear, and it was this strength in untruth that Father Zamudio found disturbing. Something bad must have happened, something the boy felt had to be kept hidden. Perhaps Smart Crow should have been invited inside just this once to explain the circumstances, but that would have resulted in the old man haranguing his grandsons and Father Zamudio himself at close range, something everyone but Smart Crow wanted to avoid.

  The two grandsons were already curious about the young stranger Smart Crow brought in from the mountains, and this might prove advantageous. A boy might talk to other boys, where that same boy refused to answer an adult, or lied, as this John Bones did.

  “You are strong now? You can walk?”

  “Yes.”

  “Come with me.”

  He led Drew around the mission. San Bartolomeo was a hollow square of adobe brick to the west of the Jemez range. A heavy wooden gate beneath the arch in one wall lent the place a fortress air. One side of the square was a chapel, the second a classroom in which another priest, Father Dominguez, was teaching a lesson in Spanish. A kitchen and a dormitory formed the square’s third side, and flanking the gate on the fourth were a storeroom and the quarters of Fathers Zamudio and Dominguez. These two were the only whites; everyone else was Indian.

  Drew was taken through a small door in the gate and shown the gardens of corn and squash. A short distance beyond lay several rows of adobe houses such as Drew had seen in Santa Fe, with Indians moving among the deep shadows inside, most of them women, Drew noted. Everyone but the priests wore simple cotton garments of white, and all the males wore their hair cut short, like white men. Drew didn’t think they looked like Indians at all, certainly not like any he’d been expecting. The sole exception so far had been the old man who had rescued him, the one with the fingernails growing through his hand. Drew asked Father Zamudio about that, and learned the name of his savior.

  “His hand is this way because it is the hand of a murderer. With this hand he killed his own son. He holds it so, in the fist, to punish himself. Many years now he has done this, but the nails still grow. His regret is sincere, I think. How many men would do this to their own flesh for what they have done?”

  “Why did he kill his son?”

  “Why? Because his son became a follower of Christ, and brought his own sons here to learn our ways. Smart Crow is too proud of his past to accept this. He was in his youth a warrior who killed many men, Indians and whites. He is Apache. You have heard of these?”

  “They like to fight.”

  “He tries to win his grandsons from us, to teach them the old ways of his people. They do not wish to leave, so this makes him angry, with them, with me, with things he cannot make different. Soon he will die, without finding Christ, but we have the boys. You will meet them and talk. They have English.”

  “All right.”

  “Smart Crow has never come with mules before. Where did he find them?”

  “I don’t know,” Drew lied. “I thought they were his.”

  “He will come back and ask again for at least one of his grandsons. He thinks he has paid for one by bringing you here. That is the Indian way, one soul exchanged for another, like clay pots.”

  “Oh,” said Drew, disappointed to learn he was just an item of barter.

  He was left alone for the remainder of the afternoon, free to wander at will inside and outside the mission. Drew’s explorations revealed little that Father Zamudio hadn’t already shown him, and he realized he would have to leave. Drew didn’t believe in God anymore, but found it unsettling anyway to be within a Roman Catholic institution. Morgan and Sylvie had never said a good word about Roman Catholics. Drew understood all Catholics were the servants of a man who lived in a big town called Rome in another country across the sea. This man, a powerful king of some kind, was called the Pope, and he slept in a huge room filled with dazzling treasure given to him by his servants worldwide, who feared they would be excluded from heaven if they did not contribute wealth to the Pope’s vast palace of marble and gold.

  Drew couldn’t see any gold at San Bartolomeo; presumably it had all been given to the Pope. Morgan had always said Catholic churches kept some of it back to gild their multitude of images and statuary, but the life-sized crucifix in the chapel was carved from wood, the Christ figure painted in very realistic colors; there wasn’t even any gold paint that Drew could see.

  The Indians encountered on his wanderings around the mission either stared at him expressionlessly as he passed them by, or smiled, but the smiles were largely confined to the very young. He definitely did not belong there, and would have to leave as soon as he possibly could.

  Father Dominguez, short and round, with a beard far exceeding in length the beard of Father Zamudio, fetched Drew to supper late in the day. He was escorted to the kitchen and given a place at one of the crude benches, seated between two Indian boys. Grace was given in Spanish by Father Zamudio. Drew understood nothing but the name John Bones, mentioned twice; apparently thanks were being given to God for his safe rescue from the wilderness. The name of Smart Crow Making Mischief was not mentioned, so far as Drew could tell.

  There was a peculiar flat bread to eat, and corn, plus a kind of cornmeal mush that Drew found uncomfortably hot, but he was hungry enough to eat two bowlfuls, his mouth quietly aflame. The boys on either side of him, obviously twins, began talking, their manner excited yet shy.

  “I am Nail in His Feet. This is my brother.”

  “My name is Bleeding Heart of Jesus.”

  “Our father named us. Our grandfather killed him because he found Christ. Our mother was already dead.”

  “She died putting us in the world,” Bleeding Heart of Jesus explained.

  “Grandfather was angry with the names and killed our father,” Nail in His Feet said. “He says we must go with him and learn the old ways, but Father Zamudio will not let him inside the gate.”

  “He would never leave if he got inside,” Bleeding Heart of Jesus assured Drew. “He is a very crazy old man who will never take Christ into himself.”

  “We feel very sorry for him.”

  Drew said, “Well, he wasn’t so crazy he didn’t save me.”

  “It was to make Father Zamudio give us up to him,” Nail in His Feet insisted. “We know this about him. Many times he has come with deer, but Father Zamudio never gave us back to him for the meat.”

  “We will not go outside the walls, or Grandfather would take us away with him to the mountains.”

  “We would never see this place again.”

  “It was very funny to see Grandfather lose his deer and not get us,” Bleeding Heart of Jesus said, politely hiding a smile behind his hand.

  “Why were you in the mountains?” asked his brother.

  “I don’t remember,” Drew said.

  “Your name is Bones, truly?”

  “Yes.”


  “That is huesos in Spanish.”

  “What is it in Apache?”

  “We do not know,” Nail in His Feet said proudly.

  “We have never learned it,” Bleeding Heart of Jesus stated. “It is the tongue of unbelief. We do not want it.”

  “No,” agreed Nail in His Feet; he added, “You are a believer?”

  “Yes,” Drew said, sensing the need for another lie. “It was God that told your grandfather where to find me.”

  The twins nodded in unison. “Yes,” said Bleeding Heart of Jesus, “that is what happened, but even such a thing as this does not make grandfather seek our Lord, which makes us sad.”

  “Very sad,” emphasized Nail in His Feet.

  “It’s a shame,” Drew agreed.

  He liked the brothers. They were several years older than himself, the handsomest boys he had ever seen. Their hair hung straight to a line above their ears and eyebrows in a bowl snip, the kind of trim Sylvie had given Drew when he was little. Bleeding Heart of Jesus and Nail in His Feet gave the impression of being very young and very old at the same time. It was a pity they accepted so wholeheartedly the teachings of the church; Drew would have liked to have them as his friends, but such a thing was not possible in the light of his atheism. Drew took his nonbelief very seriously, suspecting it was the key to his new feelings about everything. The chasm between himself and the twin brothers was wide enough, they being Indians, but their piety made it wider still.

  “Father Dominguez and Father Zamudio say we will take the word of God to our people one day when we are old enough,” said Nail in His Feet.

  Drew didn’t see how this was possible, since neither boy spoke Apache.

  “We wish that day to be soon,” Bleeding Heart of Jesus declared, his voice bright with conviction.

  Drew ate, not knowing what to say.

  “Will you be here with us a long time?” asked Nail in His Feet.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.”

  “God will show you what you must do. He has protected you for a purpose. The reason is not known yet.”

  “You will know one day,” Bleeding Heart of Jesus solemnly assured him.

  “I hope so,” Drew mumbled.

  They dogged his steps the following day. Drew couldn’t understand the brothers’ fascination with him. Both boys were friendly, cheerful, clearly somewhat in awe of his fame as a person of mysterious origin, and they seemed eager to explain their own exclusive status within the mission.

  “We are Apache,” Bleeding Heart of Jesus told Drew.

  “Mescalero Apache,” amended Nail in His Feet.

  “The worst kind.” His brother sighed, clearly ashamed.

  “Then what kind are the rest of them here?” Drew asked.

  “They are not Apache; they are Pueblo.”

  “They do not like us.”

  “Grandfather has killed many of them a long time ago.”

  “Grandfather was a war chief. He was very bad.”

  “They will not let us forget.”

  “No one will talk with us but Father Zamudio and Father Dominguez.”

  “We are being tested. We see this and forgive them.”

  “We are being made strong by their silence. We have English, like Father Zamudio. He teaches no one else this. We are special.”

  “Special for the work that will be ours.”

  “There are no other Mescalero Apaches anywhere like us.”

  “No, there are none.”

  “We will make the others become like us when we are ready.”

  “Except Grandfather. He will never become like us.”

  “No, not Grandfather, but he will die soon.”

  Drew smiled at them both. He liked them very much, and felt sorry for them.

  In accompanying him everywhere, at all times, they were able to avoid classes others their age were obliged to attend. Drew attributed this apparent privilege to the brothers’ unique position as a pair of ecclesiastical teachers’ pets, until Nail in His Feet said, “Father Zamudio has been angry with us today.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you will not tell us things he must know.”

  “But I don’t remember anything,” Drew protested.

  “That is what we said to him, but he is angry.”

  “He makes a big anger,” Bleeding Heart of Jesus said, turning down the corners of his mouth.

  “He told you to ask me about who I am?”

  The boys had indeed been pestering him to try and recall his life prior to arrival at San Bartolomeo; it was Drew’s only real source of irritation with them, apart from their prattling about God.

  “Yes, many times. He must know the truth, he says. Father Zamudio believes you have not told him the truth. We do not say this.”

  “No, we do not say this,” echoed his brother.

  Drew was insulted that Father Zamudio doubted his story. It had been an excellent lie, in Drew’s opinion, and he further resented the way Nail in His Feet and Bleeding Heart of Jesus were being used as spies. It wasn’t right. It was low-down, sneaky behavior, altogether typical of a religion that made people give their money to the Pope. Even a madman like Morgan had been correct in his assessment of Roman Catholics.

  “I already told him I don’t remember, so he’s got no call getting mad with you two. You tell him that.”

  The twins exchanged a fearful look.

  “He makes a big anger,” Bleeding Heart of Jesus reiterated.

  During the silence that followed, Drew wondered how Clay would have handled a situation like this, and was shocked to discover he had no idea what Clay would have felt, said or done. Clay had become an abstraction, a face and a voice made less distinct with the passage of time. Drew had known, ever since leaving Morgan to rant at the sky, that he was on his own, but now he knew exactly how lonely his position was. Zoe and Clay were far away, probably no more capable of recalling his features than he was of recalling theirs. Watching the brothers shake their heads over the prospect of confronting Father Zamudio, Drew was even more certain than on his first day that he had no business at the mission.

  “The road outside,” he said, pointing to the gate. “Does it go to Santa Fe?”

  “Yes, to the east is Santa Fe,” Nail in His Feet said, his features brightening as the subject was changed.

  “But it is less far to a place the other way.”

  “What place?”

  “We do not know its name,” Bleeding Heart of Jesus said. “It is just a place.”

  “How far?”

  “We do not know. Sometimes wagons pass by from there.”

  “If it’s less far than to Santa Fe, how far’s Santa Fe?”

  “We do not know. We have never been there.”

  “Could I walk it?”

  “To Santa Fe? I think you could not.”

  “No, the other place.”

  “We do not know.”

  The twins appeared a little shamefaced by their ignorance. Drew smiled at them both. “That’s all right. I was just asking. It doesn’t matter.”

  They sat together that evening to eat as usual, but no one spoke. Bleeding Heart of Jesus and Nail in His Feet knew that in revealing Father Zamudio’s request for information they had lost their friendship with John Bones, yet keeping the truth from him another day would have caused them even worse torment. The brothers were without guile or cynicism; they would not blame Father Zamudio for their sadness, so it must be they who had done wrong and caused such dejection at the table.

  Drew found it easy enough to remain awake after the dormitory lamps were extinguished. Sheer excitement over what he proposed doing that night kept him alert. He was not bored while the hours passed; there was too much to contemplate, too many possibilities were invading his thoughts. The mission had been a way station, a place along the pathway to his future. He had not asked to be brought there, and he would not ask to leave.

  When he judged the hour to be around mi
dnight, Drew rose and silently dressed himself. He stole through the dormitory and crossed the square to the kitchen. There was no need of locks within the precincts of San Bartolomeo, and he crept inside. He emptied a sack of beans onto one of the tables, then began filling it with such dry foodstuffs as could be hauled away and eaten without need of pots and pans. Most of his supplies could be located by touch; Drew had inspected the kitchen pantry closely late that afternoon, until chased out by an Indian woman. He filled two goatskin water bags and slung them over his shoulder, then picked up the bulging sack.

  Fully laden, he crossed the moonlit square and carefully lifted the bar across the gate’s small door. Stepping through, he found himself face-to-face with Smart Crow. Drew should have felt surprise, but somehow did not. Smart Crow held out his bagged hand. Drew thought he was trying to shake hands with him, like a white man, saying good-bye maybe, but that was not Smart Crow’s intent at all.

  The drawstring holding the bag about Smart Crow’s wrist was sliced with a long-bladed knife. A jerk of his arm shook the bag free, and Smart Crow held the pierced hand before his own face for inspection. Apparently satisfied, he knelt by the doorway and set his curling nails against the lower sill. Drew watched without breathing as the four fingernails were hacked off with one blow to each, then the curved thumbnail which, since it penetrated no flesh, could be removed at the thumb tip.

  Smart Crow stood up and showed his hand to Drew, who continued to watch as Smart Crow’s fingers began to flex. Without assistance from his other hand, Smart Crow withdrew his truncated nails through the hand they had punctured years before. Released, the nails were set against the sill as before and shortened further. Smart Crow twisted his hand this way and that beneath Drew’s nose, making sure he saw it well. There was surprisingly little blood. Then the Indian passed through the doorway and closed it behind himself.

  Drew heard the bar being replaced, and did not know what to make of the wordless ritual he had seen. He assumed Smart Crow Making Mischief wished to see his grandsons, a need Drew could sympathize with; it wasn’t right, the way Father Zamudio had kept them apart. Drew hoped Smart Crow understood Spanish, or his visit would be wasted. He wondered how Smart Crow would find his grandsons in the darkness of the dormitory, then decided there was no point in worrying about that; it was none of his business after all. Smart Crow had done him a favor by saving him from Morgan, and now Drew had returned that favor by allowing Smart Crow access to his own flesh and blood. That must be why he had withdrawn the fingernails from his hand—the importance of the occasion: reunification with his family.