And my father’s face appeared large on the clouds. He smiled to the White Eyes and beckoned. He led them towards the mountains, and they swarmed upon the land, over the sweet grass and the living rock, until the entire body of Mother Earth was covered.
The Apache nation was no more.
And as I watched this vision unfold, I knew the worst of horrors – that I had sought to avoid since Tazhi had been slain – was now upon me.
I carried Golahka’s child.
A child I could not protect from these invaders. A child I could not keep safe. A child who – if it remained Apache – was as helpless and as doomed as the rest of the tribe.
Two sunrises after Ussen showed us this vision, Chodini called his warriors to council. In the cold morning light, our chief looked aged and beaten.
“Brothers,” he said, his voice heavy with weariness, “we cannot live thus. I cannot sit idle and watch my people starve. I will go to the White Eyes to ask for peace.”
An outcry followed this speech. Ozheh, son of Chodini, spoke fervent words of protest. “My father, you cannot go! Have you not seen the White Eyes’ justice? You think they will let you live?”
“I am chief. I will do all I can for my people.”
“You think your death will aid us?”
“It may serve what they think is justice.”
“You shall not go!” Ozheh said with passion.
“I must,” answered Chodini. “And should I not return… If the council agrees, you, Ozheh, will become chief in my place.”
When Chodini set forth, he was not alone. I went with him.
“Your father can serve as interpreter,” said Chodini bleakly. “Perhaps this way the White Eyes’ chief will better understand my words.”
I had no desire to see my father; all curiosity had died with Golahka. But I could not refuse my chief’s request. Long since had we eaten our horses, and so, reduced to beggars, we would walk to plead with the White Eyes.
Ozheh took me aside before we departed. “They will not grant peace. Can you not see this?”
“I do not go to talk with them; I go at my chief’s request. I do what I must. As do you.”
Ozheh gnawed his lip and said no more. He embraced Chodini as though he wished to hold him there in the mountains, and in his eyes I saw Ozheh’s knowledge that he would not see his father again.
They laid hands upon us. Of course they did. We had scarce stepped within the gates of the fort before they stripped us of our weapons and bound us by the wrists. They did not wait to hear my chief’s plea, but forced us towards a barred room where we would not see the sky.
Imprisonment.
Unendurable.
Ahead of me, Chodini’s stride broke. The soldier nearest him jabbed savagely at his ribs, and he turned in irritation.
A cry of rage. A single shot. Silence.
My chief lay dead.
And the wail that had been trapped within me burst from my throat like the anguished howl of a wounded beast. A soldier pointed his gun at my heart; I was within a hair’s breadth of entering the Happy Place. Joyfully would I have done so. But my cry had alerted my father to my presence. Before I could move and provoke the soldier to fire upon me, Ashteh appeared, shouting words of the White Eyes’ tongue.
I little heeded the exchange that followed. I knew only that the soldier put down his gun. The bands that bound my wrists were cut, and I was given over to my father. It seemed he had told Red Face that I was his child – a captive of the Apache – who now wished to return to my own people. With this lie, he bought my life.
I did not want it.
I watched them drag away the body of my chief, knowing well they would take knives and cut trophies from his corpse. Contented, wiping his hands, Red Face walked from that place. His men went back to their tasks.
Desolate, I knelt in the dust. Return to my own people? Who were they? For what had made me Apache? Love of Golahka. Love of my chief. Both gone, what had I left? I looked at the future and saw nothing.
Into my wretchedness, my father gave an awkward cough, and then spoke. “Tell me, Siki, your mother – is she well? Has she taken another husband?”
I could do naught but laugh – a high, fevered gasp. “My mother? My mother is dead! Mexicans slaughtered her.”
His eyes at once filled with tears. Tears that flowed as easily as mine had done for the dog killed at the end of its rope.
Fury filled me. “My brother too.” I spoke without mercy; I wished to wound, to slash through his easy sentiment and bring him pain. “Yes – I had a brother. Your son. Slain as a child – hacked down by Mexicans.”
His tears dried; his face paled. My words pierced him. Now he felt a small fragment of the anguished whole.
“If you are Mexican,” I said, “you are my enemy.”
“No.” Crouching on the earth before me, my father lowered his face to mine. “Siki, listen to me. You are not Apache.”
As he said this, my anger deserted me. He spoke truth. I felt weak as Dahtet’s babe. Enemy blood filled my veins. I would have cut my vessels and let it spill upon the soil, but I had not weapons for even this simple task.
My father began to talk. “Siki… Listen to my story, then you may judge. Know all that has happened before you set yourself against me.”
I recalled Golahka’s words to him: I see there is a tale to be told, but I have no wish to hear it. No more did I. But I lacked the strength to stop the stream of words that swirled about and began to drown me in their sweetness.
“You know of the ambush, I think? On that journey – my last as a warrior – we passed by the very house I had been stolen from as a child. I remembered it. I saw the face of my mother; I recalled her death. Suddenly I knew myself to be Mexican! I was so startled by it, I knew not what to think. I was cleft from my self, or so I felt. I could scarcely contain the cry that burned in my throat. When I was sent forward to scout I walked carelessly, heedlessly, my mind full of troubled thoughts.
“I didn’t see the troops until they sprang their ambush. I had led the warriors into a canyon; we were an easy target. For this, I knew I would be blamed. And then I found I could not fight! Every Mexican face seemed to be that of my father, my mother. I stood motionless for what felt like hours. Days. Potro began to shout at me to fight, to be a man. And still I could do nothing. I fled. I suppose Potro thought I had led them there deliberately and so pursued me. He intended to kill me, Siki, as a traitor, a coward.”
Ashteh’s eyes dropped to the ground. Dull was his voice as he confessed, “I am no Apache, Siki. I was terrified to die. And so I killed Potro.
“He lay dead at my feet, and I stood there, knowing that now I could never return to the Black Mountains. Yet neither could I be a Mexican, for how could I ride against my wife? My child?
“The terrible sounds of the battle were distant by then, and after that came silence. I could see more troops approaching, and I guessed that any Apache who survived would not stay to bury the dead. I knew Potro’s body would not long be recognizable – the coyotes would see to that. And so I did a desperate thing. I hung my amulet about his neck. If anyone found him later, they would think it was I who had been killed. Ashteh died then.”
“Did you never think how it would seem that your corpse was pierced by your own arrow?” I said flatly.
My father sighed, shaking his head. “Truly, Siki, I believe I ran mad for a while. For many months I knew not what I did; I knew not who I was. Often I thought of you and your mother. But you were safe. I was an exile. And I did not want you to be without a tribe, without a people, without a name, as I then was.
“Eventually I went east, and found the white man! They saved me. They have fashioned a new world. Such buildings they have made, Siki! Such wealth … such splendour. Do you know they have houses as tall as trees! And I have heard that in some you can turn a piece of metal, and heated water will gush from a spout!”
“Is your soul so small it can be bought with
a vessel of hot water?” I asked.
He laughed, knowing no shame, and continued eagerly, his eyes glistening with boyish excitement. “It is a new nation, Siki. A fine one. And now I am neither Mexican nor Apache. I am American. In this new world, I am reborn as John Bridger.”
I said nothing, but I thought of Keste: fashioning his own tribe where he might shine with glory. I had been right in thinking Ashteh was like to him.
My father placed his hands on my shoulders. His black eyes gazed, unblinking, into mine, holding me still, unmoving, as they had in the pine tree at Koskineh. I knew then that Ussen had not only shown me glimpses of his past: the visions I had seen had been a warning of my father’s future.
He spoke with quiet fervour. “Know the Apache are doomed, Siki. The Americans will have their land, and nothing can be done to stop it. I have seen what has happened to the tribes in the east. Believe me, the Apache are powerless against the American might. There are thousands of white men – you cannot imagine how many – and more come every day. Will you not join us? You are a warrior. Choose the winning side!”
His honeyed words flowed, glinting as alluringly as the golden tears of the sun that sparkle in the mountain stream.
I was exhausted by the weight of grief I carried. How much more could be loaded upon me before I broke like a dried-out twig? I must bring word of Chodini’s death to his starved, despairing people. To Ozheh. To his wives, his children. Hear their wailing cries. I baulked at the task.
The great circle of hatred and vengeance and bloodshed turned and turned, and I could not stop it.
But I could perhaps step beyond its reach.
Clasping my head in my hands, I felt the lure. To go from conflict. To end the fight. To cease to struggle with every breath. I thought of the child within me. Was it not to this babe that I owed my loyalty now? Should not my whole being go to protecting this new life? Could I truly find a place where the child could grow? Where I could watch it play without daily fear of its slaughter?
It was temptation indeed.
I yielded.
But not before I asked, “Why did you not stay in the east? Why did you help the White Eyes against those who were once your brothers?”
My father could not meet my eyes. It was a long time before he answered.
“A man must live. I was paid to come here, Siki. And I hoped to find you and your mother and save you from the conflict to come.” He lowered his voice as though ashamed of his next words. “Besides … the land called me.”
The land.
Ussen’s land.
The earth: my mother.
Since the death of Golahka, my spirit had lain heavy, seeming dead within me. But now – even as the leaf buds burst forth in spring – it unfurled. Fresh. Vibrant. Strengthened by its sleep.
The land.
There was more here than Golahka or my chief. The wind in the trees, the wide sky above my head, the sweet grass beneath my feet. The earth, the rocks that knew me. The land, whose beating heart was the Apache. Here I must live, or die. Only here, upon this soil. For ripped from this earth I would wither and perish as surely as the tree that is torn from its roots.
I belonged to this land. As did the child that grew in my belly. To this certainty I held fast.
I rose from the dust. I gazed up at the sky, and drew in a breath of the clear air. Looking towards the fort gates, I said, “I will go back.”
My father gasped. “Siki! That way lies disaster.”
“I know it.”
“You will be pursued. Hounded. Persecuted without mercy. Hunted like the deer.”
“It matters not.”
“Siki … daughter…” My father’s voice was both desperate and uncertain. “You will die!”
“As must all men. As must you. But I will die proud. I will die free. And first I will live, and I will fight. I am Apache.”
Historical Note
This is a work of fiction, based on events that took place on the border between Arizona and Mexico in the second half of the nineteenth century. It was inspired by the autobiography of Geronimo (edited by S. M. Barrett), and the first-hand accounts that were collected by Eve Ball in Indeh: An Apache Odyssey and In the Days of Victorio: Recollections of a Warm Springs Apache. I’m deeply indebted to those of the Chiricahua Apache nation who spoke to Eve Ball and allowed her to publish their stories.
Some incidents in the book are based on real events: there was a massacre of Apache who had gone south to trade, and a subsequent battle to avenge their deaths. Apache women and children were captured and enslaved by Mexicans and then freed by warriors when their captors entered a church to worship. Apache land was invaded and stolen from them by white settlers.
However, each of the tribes, all of the characters and every place name are fictional. I’ve made no attempt to produce an accurate historical novel: this is an imagined evocation of how it may have felt to have lived through events like these. I’ve tried to be authentic as far as period detail goes, but at times I have had to stretch things in order to make the story work. If there are mistakes, I apologize.
T.L.
Acknowledgements
On a personal note, I’d like to thank my children, Isaac and Jack, who for several months had a mother whose mind was almost entirely in Arizona; my husband, Rod Burnett; my mother, Wendy Brown; and Louise Griffiths for reading the first draft with enthusiasm; Lindsey Fraser for tireless encouragement; Louise Rands Silva for cups of tea and moral support; Eugenio Navarro and Nestor for helping me get the Spanish right; Rob Harvey for advice on natural history; Averil Whitehouse at Walker Books, my editor of exceptional talent; and, finally, Leland Michael Darrow, tribal historian, Fort Sill Apache tribe, Oklahoma, whose notes and comments on the text were invaluable.
About the Cover Photograph
This portrait of Hattie Tom, a Chiricahua Apache woman, was taken in 1899 by American artist, Frank Albert Rinehart. Commissioned to photograph the 1898 Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition in Omaha, an event which brought together Apache tribes from across the American Midwest, Rinehart and his assistant, Adolph Muhr, spent two years photographing Native Americans and their way of life. It was during this time that they captured this image.
Very little is known about Hattie Tom. Born in 1886, the year her parents Chiricahua Tom and Coshey, a White Mountain Apache, were imprisoned, she grew up as a prisoner of war. She married Clement Nahgodleda, a grandson of the great chief Cochise. Both died in 1901.
About the Author
Tanya Landman was inspired to write Apache by a chance remark about warriors. She says, “The image of a girl carrying a spear formed behind my eyes, but I didn’t know if a Native American woman would have been allowed to become a warrior.” Tanya began researching and found references to Lozen, a female warrior. “The more I read, the more I found that what I’d imagined was entirely plausible.”
Tanya Landman is the author of many books for children including The Goldsmith’s Daughter, her second book for teenagers. Since 1992, she has been part of Storybox Theatre, working as a writer, administrator and performer – a job which has taken her to festivals all over the world. She lives with her family in Devon.
You can find out more about Tanya and her books by visiting her website at www.tanyalandman.com
Bibliography
Primary sources
Ball, Eve (with Nora Henn and Lynda A. Sánchez): Indeh: An Apache Odyssey (University of Oklahoma Press, 1988)
Ball, Eve: In the Days of Victorio: Recollections of a Warm Springs Apache (University of Arizona Press, 2003)
Barrett, S. M.: Geronimo: His Own Story (Leo Cooper Ltd, 1975)
Betzinez, Jason (with Wilbur Sturtevant Nye): I Fought with Geronimo (University of Nebraska Press, 1987)
Miller, Lee: From the Heart: Voices of the American Indian (Pimlico, 1997)
Opler, Morris Edward: An Apache Life-Way: The Economic, Social, and Religious Institutions of the Chiricahua Indians (Universi
ty of Nebraska Press, 1996)
Roberts, David: Once They Moved Like the Wind: Cochise, Geronimo and the Apache Wars (Pimlico, 1998)
Additional sources
Basso, Keith H.: Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language Among the Western Apache (University of New Mexico Press, 2002)
Brown, Dee: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (Vintage, 1991)
Debo, Angie: A History of the Indians of the United States (Pimlico, 1995)
Debo, Angie: Geronimo: The Man, His Time, His Place (Pimlico, 2005)
Goodwin, Grenville and Basso, Keith H.: Western Apache Raiding and Warfare (University of Arizona Press, 2004)
McChristian, Douglas C.: Fort Bowie, Arizona: Combat Post of the Southwest, 1858–1894 (University of Oklahoma Press, 2005)
Robinson, Sherry: Apache Voices: Their Stories of Survival as Told to Eve Ball (University of New Mexico Press, 2000)
Stockel, H. Henrietta: Women of the Apache Nation: Voices of Truth (University of Nevada Press, 1991)
Thrapp, Dan L.: The Conquest of Apacheria (University of Oklahoma Press, 1988)
Books by the same author
The Goldsmith’s Daughter
For younger readers
Flotsam and Jetsam
Flotsam and Jetsam and the Stormy Surprise
Flotsam and Jetsam and the Grooof
Waking Merlin
Merlin’s Apprentice
The World’s Bellybutton
Apache Page 20