That Is Not Dead

by Неизвестный

  “I am called Walking Ghost,” he said. “I speak your Spanish. Father Gonzalez taught me when I was a boy.”

  Father Octavio Gonzalez had died two years earlier, victim of a nameless disease caught among the northern villages. He had gone forth to spread the Word and returned with the spite of the Devil in his blood. He had run the mission for many years before I was summoned to replace him, arriving just in time to witness his death. Several of his followers had abandoned the mission when he passed. Now there was only myself and five lesser priests, all of whom were absent from the place on this day. We had enjoyed great success in converting the Quechan people along the river valley.

  “Father Gonzalez was a good man,” I said, making the sign of the cross.

  “I learned of your Jesus in this place,” said Walking Ghost. “I learned the stories of his great wisdom and strong magic. This is why I have returned.”

  “I do not understand,” I said. “Do you wish to make a confession?”

  Walking Ghost shook his head, white feathers and black braids bobbing. I sensed a great urgency about him—something I had not noticed until now. My fear had subsided, allowing my perception to increase. He was troubled. Grieving. And his grief had turned to rage.

  “Three nights ago, a Maricopa war party raided my village,” said Walking Ghost. “Many men were killed, and two women.” He paused, drawing a deep breath. His eyes turned from mine to regard the tomahawk in his clenching fist. “Several children were stolen. One of them was my daughter, Laughing Rain. Another was Bright Star, the son of my brother.”

  The anger seethed from his dusky skin like invisible heat. It was difficult for Walking Ghost to put these memories into words and relive the pain. There are those among the Spanish who believe the native peoples of this land do not share the same emotions as Europeans, but I have seen that they are every bit as human as the whites who steal their land and make them slaves. They feel as we feel. They know love and pain, joy and sorrow. They love their children no less than any Spanish mother or father does, and they know too often the horrible agony of losing them. I have counseled many Quechan whose children died of fever or from acts of violence.

  “I am sorry for your loss, my son.” The words seemed hollow, even in my own ears.

  Walking Ghost looked into my face again. “War is our tradition,” he said without a trace of pride. “We raid the villages of our enemies as they raid ours, and we steal their women and children when we can. Since the time of my father’s fathers, it has been so. When I was younger, Father Gonzalez told me this was an evil practice, and I believed him. Yet how does one stop the waters of a river that has been flowing for ages?”

  I had no answer to this wise query.

  “Often a ransom is paid, and the children are returned to their own tribe,” said Walking Ghost.

  “And when there is no ransom?”

  “The children are adopted by the new tribe—the one that stole them. Yet such children are little more than slaves until they grow old enough to fight as men or give birth as women. It is not a good life for those raised in this way. Some choose death for themselves. Sometimes they earn death through defiance.”

  I began to understand the presence of the eager braves outside the chapel.

  “We have no ransom to pay,” said Walking Ghost. “So we walk the warpath to take back our stolen children. We have fasted for two days, eaten the sacred herbs, and prepared ourselves for the spilling of blood.”

  “And you come now to ask the church’s blessing?” I frowned at Walking Ghost’s hopeful face. “I am sorry, my son, but I cannot—”

  “Magic,” said Walking Ghost. “The Maricopa’s numbers are great, and they would rather kill the children than let us recapture them. We need a strong magic. I ask for the magic of the Christ. Give me this magic, Father. I will use it to bring back our children. If you do this, I will dedicate myself to the service of your Jesus, and my children will also serve him. We will…convert.”

  This last word was difficult for him to speak. I balked at the pitiful irony of his request. What magic had I to give? I shook my head and dared to lay my hand on his brawny shoulder.

  “I am sorry. I can give you no magic to help your war. The glory of Christ is a doctrine of peace. He teaches us to turn the other cheek, to love our enemies, to spurn the ways of violence.”

  Walking Ghost stood up and his anger erupted. “Your Spanish soldiers have slaughtered our people for generations! Made slaves of them! Turned their minds from the old ways and made them tillers of the soil. Your guns and your spears have pierced our hearts and driven us away from the river. You speak of peace, but you practice war like us. You are no better.”

  I stood silent for a moment, wondering if he would split my skull with his hatchet. “Walking Ghost,” I said, “do you see guns or spears in this place? We are not soldiers here but simple men of Christ. All I can give you are my prayers and my blessing.”

  To my surprise, Walking Ghost kneeled again, bowing his head.

  I performed a simple blessing, speaking the appropriate phrases in Latin, which he must have taken as some kind of mystical spell. Perhaps this was what he wanted all along.

  “Go with God, my son,” I said.

  Like a spark blown on a current of wind, Walking Ghost fled the chapel. A chorus of hooting, howling braves greeted his return to the war party. Then came the thunder of horses’ hooves as the warriors raced away from the mission to seek the village of the Maricopa.

  In the hot, dry days that followed, I heard nothing of Walking Ghost and his war party. Yet I kept them in my prayers as I had promised, even when a new crisis arose to command my attention. Father Juan Espinoza had failed to return to the mission for eight weeks.

  Ignoring the warnings of the local natives, Father Espinoza had determined to carry the Word of Christ to a distant and shunned tribe known as the Azothi. Their remote village, according to the few Quechan who would speak of it, lay deep inside a vast territory of sand dunes. No water or game was to be found in that hellish swathe of desert that resembled the great Sahara more than any of the North American territories.

  The Quechan called the Azothi the “Lost Tribe,” an appellation that I misunderstand as referring to their physical separation from the other tribes. From time to time, bands of these dune-dwellers would venture into the more populous realms to trade silver nuggets for corn, melons, and iron implements. Such a contingent of Azothi had visited the mission a week previous to Father Espinoza’s departure, although they would not set foot inside the chapel.

  Each of the Azothi tribesmen bore a singular deformity of some kind. The first was a one-armed, emaciated wretch whose lank hair was greased with animal fat and heavy with mangy feathers. The bones of his ribs protruded from his chest at revolting angles, stretching his skin to the point that it seemed ready to burst at any moment. His eyes were rimmed with red, as if he had been crying tears of blood, and his spear was thickly hung with dried scalps.

  The second of the Azothi was a hunchback. His head was bald, a condition I had never before seen among the natives, and his face was an unwholesome ruin. There were no lips at all covering his misshapen teeth, which protruded in several directions from inflamed gums. One of his eyes had been torn out, leaving a raw wound adrip with pus. This hideous fellow carried a Spanish musket, obviously stolen from some murdered soldier.

  The third strange one bore the useless stumps of three extra limbs jutting from his back, and he walked with a sideways gait akin to the locomotion of a crab. Half of his otherwise normal face was mangled—the piteous remains of a terrible burning, perhaps done intentionally to increase his fearsomeness. A necklace of ears hung about his neck, along with several talismans crafted of human bones. He carried an axe and a spear, both heavy with scalps.

  These three pilgrims stood outside the mission gate, observing our humble adobe structure with bizarre amusement. Father Espinoza went out to welcome them inside, but still they refused to enter
. Instead, the hunchback handed to Father Espinoza a curious green stone marked with an unidentified sigil. I watched from the courtyard through the open gate as the three Azothi shambled away. They seemed to be laughing, though I could not see any possible source for their humor.

  Father Espinoza stood for a long time at the threshold, staring at the egg-sized stone and its obscure glyph. Eventually, one of our brother-priests stirred him from his reverie, and he came dazedly inside to take his evening meal with us. However, the green stone continued to fascinate Father Espinoza throughout the next week. He carried it with him unceasingly even during our morning and afternoon services. One of the brothers told me that he had even taken to sleeping with the stone on his pillow. I decided to speak with him about this obsession, but Espinoza himself distracted me from such a course with the announcement that he would seek out the Azothi in the land of dunes.

  “I must convert these poor wretches,” he said. “It is my duty under heaven.”

  We applauded the bravery of his intentions, and I approved his request, against my better judgment. I knew he would defy me if I forbade him to travel among the dunes. The Azothi had cast some kind of glamour over his soul, and he felt bound to them by a morbid fascination. He would not be able to rest until he had made an effort to save them from a heathen fate.

  Father Espinoza left the mission with two mules, both heavily burdened with tin pots, casks of bright beads, and other gifts for the Azothi, as well as a good supply of water gourds and dried foods to sustain him on the journey. A single Quechan youth had agreed to guide him through the dunes, though I do not know what Father Espinoza used to bribe this fellow. Most of the Quechan would barely acknowledge the Azothi, let alone seek them out where dusty death waited among the hot sands. Taking with them the blessings and faith of the mission, Espinoza and his guide departed at sunrise.

  Two months later, Father Espinoza was still missing. Yet his guide had returned two days earlier on the back of a scrawny mule. Both boy and animal were half dead from thirst and had nearly starved to death among the dunes. The boy lay in a deep fever, raving in his native language about something that had terrified him. I tended to him myself, cooling his brow with a damp cloth and praying over his sickly body. I hoped he would not expire before telling us the fate of Father Espinoza. Missionary work was ever dangerous, and the valiant priest might be dead. I had sent him into that forbidden waste. The responsibility of it lay upon my soul—a yoke of guilt that weighed me down.

  The Quechan boy, whose name was Quick Eye, revived a bit on the third evening of his convalescence. I fed him broth with a wooden spoon. He shivered in the close air and responded to my questions with minimal answers.

  “Where is Father Espinoza?” I asked him.

  “He is…with them…“ said Quick Eye. He would not say the name of the Azothi.

  “Is he alive? Healthy or wounded? Does he suffer?”

  “Alive…” said Quick Eye. His face twitched in uncomfortable spasms. “He lives…”

  “Why did he not return with you?”

  “He is one of them now,” whispered Quick Eye.

  I was confused. “What do you mean?”

  “A piper at the gates of…the night that lasts forever…”

  “Do you mean he chose to remain among the Azothi?” I asked.

  Quick Eye knocked the bowl of soup off its table and clutched the collar of my robe. His eyes were filled with panic, his nose and mouth dribbling across his chin.

  “It lies at the center!” he panted. “The center of all! It eats the stars and vomits up devils to serve its madness. They will open the gate…Not even the Jesus can save us, Father! Not even the Jesus!”

  I could get no further sense from Quick Eye that night, so I left him to his sickbed.

  “I must go into the land of the Azothi and find Father Espinoza,” I told my brother-priests. “It is my responsibility alone.”

  They prayed for me, but they did not argue.

  In the morning, Quick Eye had regained his senses enough to draw me a crude map, yet he refused to accompany me on the journey. I could not fault him for this. The Azothi had abused him to the point of near-insanity, and the dunes had nearly killed him. Even now, the heathens might be doing worse to poor Espinoza. I knelt before the great crucifix and prayed before setting out with my own pair of mules. Unlike Espinoza, I rode on the back of a sturdy pony, my two beasts of burden tied behind it.

  Crossing the river valley, I entered the brown and cracked floor of the desert. My broad-brimmed hat protected me from the sun but not from the oppressive heat. I passed through scattered villages, meeting fewer and fewer friendly faces as I drove westward. At length, I reached the badlands, where only the lizard, wolf, and rattlesnake keep their homes. The gnawed bones of men and horses lay in the shadows of leaning boulders. I crossed a dry riverbed filled with flat, black stones. Spiny saguaros here stood taller than Spanish trees, gnarled and twisted into grotesque forms that reminded me of the three misshapen Azothi.

  After several days, I reached the border of the Azothi territory: a sea of rolling dunes where the wind swept eternally among swirling clouds of sand. I abandoned the pony, for the sand was too deep for its hooves. The mules fared better, though it was slow going. The blue sky mocked me with its crystalline purity, while I sweated and marched and rubbed sand from my eyes, nose, and mouth. At night, the cold descended and I wrapped myself in blankets, warmed by brushfires until the wind and sand smothered them.

  I lost track of days among the dunes, for each one flowed into the next, an unbroken stream of scorching torment. My faith gave me strength, for it was still mighty in those days. I navigated that sea of sand by rock formations rising like the ruins of primeval towers. These crude obelisks and Quick Eye’s map led me to a great sandy basin. There, the huts of the Azothi sat like clusters of white mushrooms about a broad black pit.

  It must be a deep well, I thought. The only source of water in this forsaken domain. That is how they can live in such a place of death.

  I stumbled from the dunes into the shallow valley at their heart. The ever-present howling of the wind was soon replaced by a strange music. Coming closer to the village, I saw smoke rising from a great bonfire, burning fiercely in the middle of the day. The famished mules trailed behind as I walked into the village, as if they sensed something unnatural there.

  My exhaustion was smothered by curiosity as I moved between the concentric rows of huts. I saw none of the deformed folk, but the music was clearer now—the sound of blaring wooden flutes and wild drums. It swirled and cascaded about the rising plume of black smoke. There was no discernible pattern to the sounds, only a twisting melody that rose and fell and rose again without pause or refrain.

  No one had come forth to greet or accost me, and I saw now it was because the entire population of the village was gathered at the ceremony of the bonfire. At the edge of the open well, the tall fire burned, and a hundred Azothi danced about the blaze in a circle of sweat and crazed activity. Many villagers held pipes to their lips, blowing discordant melodies that careened and blended into a screeching mass of noise. The drummers sat outside the circle, banging with hands and sticks against their rawhide instruments.

  I saw now the true nature of the Azothi. Like the trio who had visited the mission, they were all horribly deformed. Yet the three who had shown themselves to the outside world were the least monstrous of them all.

  An aged native capered madly, tendrils of veiny skin hanging like serpents from every part of his body, flapping and pulsing to the rush of his hot blood. Another man bore six arms instead of two, each one twisted and atrophied into little more than crooked claws. Naked backs and chests were ripe with pustulating sores. Several enraptured faces had been stripped of flesh in part or whole in ritual mutilations, their noses hacked away, leaving two jagged holes. Obscene cheekbones sprouted from red muscle, yellow teeth clacking wildly. Eyeballs bulged and rolled in the maimed faces of these living skulls, both
male and female.

  A legless and armless girl writhed like a snake upon the shoulders of a hunched and faceless youth. An impossible tongue fell like a red tentacle from her mouth, licking at the faceless one’s head, which was little more than a fleshy ovoid with a central cavity that could not be called a mouth. Canine teeth gnashed inside this orifice, and a blind tongue shot out to entwine itself with that of his limbless bride.

  On stunted legs, they ambled and danced about the flames, some with swollen lips wrapped about the ends of curling flutes, impervious to the waves of heat rolling from the blaze. The ugliness and diversity of their mangled bodies cannot be overstated. If I had had any food left in my belly, I would have expelled it immediately, but I could only wretch and heave pointlessly as the ceremony continued. I fell to my knees, clutching at my seizing stomach. Yet I could not tear my eyes away from the grotesque tribe and their hideous rites.

  A wrinkled gnome who was all head, arms, and legs without any torso ambled among the dancers. A lopsided flutist with jagged bones protruding from his torn and bleeding flesh played as feverishly as the rest of them. Some crawled on hands and knees, more like dogs or malformed coyotes than men, licking and snuffling at the ankles of their fellow celebrants. Indescribable acts of carnality were also part of the lurid festivities, and the howls of ecstasy were indistinguishable from cries of pain and torment.

  The number and variety of the lost tribe’s deformities is beyond my capacity to set down on these pages. To describe even these few memories brings a fresh pang of the nausea and revolt that overcame me then. This was a ceremony that no white man was ever meant to see. I had invaded their forbidden land, intruded on their malign remoteness. Witnessing their depravity firsthand was the penance I paid for this crime. Recalling the tale of Walking Ghost’s stolen children, I wondered how many of these Azothi had been stolen from the tribes of their true parents, adopted, and mutilated in ceremonies like this one.