by Steven Law
El Paso Way
Enrique and Pang prepared two mules and a burro for their journey. The priest thought it best to equip Pang with clothing more suitable to the desert, so Enrique gave him one of his extra serapes and, since the Chinaman had smaller feet, a pair of his older boots that he’d outgrown. For a hat they gave him a gringo’s hat, a derby, that the priest had found on a trail and brought back to the mission. It was faded brown from lying under the desert sun, but it fit and seemed more appropriate than the Chinaman’s own cap.
Pang wore the attire reluctantly, but for some reason he thought it might be a good idea to disguise himself a bit, since people would be looking for him. He even tucked his queue under the back of the serape, which, aside his personal attire, was the next most recognizable symbol of his race.
The mules they would ride, but on the burro they packed most of the food and camping supplies. Their bedrolls, canteens, and saddlebags, however, would be kept on their own mules. That way, Enrique assured Pang, if they were thirsty they would not have to stop to drink. And if they were separated from the burro, they would still have water and some jerky to eat.
Enrique filled his quiver with more arrows and feathers and sinew than he’d ever carried before. He would not have time to make new ones, nor would he worry about looking for any that went astray. This was a journey where time was critical, and the essence was not survival, but justice.
Pang mounted his mule, and Enrique checked the cinch and bridle on his own. The priest walked up to him and helped with the cinch. Enrique tried not to look at him, but when it came time to mount, he knew he had to.
The priest smiled, as he usually did, showing his teeth among the thick brown beard, but this time the smile vanished quickly and tears formed in his eyes. He grabbed Enrique and embraced him tightly. Enrique closed his eyes and tried to hold back the emotion that swelled inside him.
The priest let go and looked back at Enrique. “God be with you, my son.”
Enrique looked away timidly, then quickly let go of the priest and mounted his mule. He turned to Pang and nodded, and they both nudged their mules and headed them due east, with the burro in tow behind Enrique. He thought of looking back, but knew it was best not to. It was time to look ahead and face his destiny, with hope he would find justice, and that one day he would see the priest again.
*
From the east bank of the Santa Cruz, Enrique and Pang rode along the foothills of the piñon-studded Santa Rita Mountains. Enrique was quite concerned about Sereno, who, by the time they reached the Canelo Hills that night, was still following them. He surely wouldn’t follow them all the way to El Paso. The next morning, however, he was still there, just fifty yards to their north, disappearing occasionally, only to return later.
It was on their second day, traveling on the crest of a mountain in the Huachuca range, when Pang first saw Sereno. He stopped his mule abruptly and the mule brayed. “Did you see that?” Pang said. “Someone is following us.”
“Not to worry,” Enrique said. “That is only our watchman. Out little Tohono O’odham guardian angel.”
Pang narrowed his eyes in confusion.
“Come on, let’s keep riding,” Enrique said, “and I’ll tell you about him.”
During the story, Pang kept lagging a little behind and gawking to their left, looking for signs of the Tohono O’odham orphan again, but rarely seeing him.
“Don’t worry,” Enrique said. “Sereno is our friend, and he will come through for us when no one else will.”
That night they camped in an arroyo and by a stream, where they refilled their canteens and cooked a rabbit over an open fire. The rabbit Enrique had shot late in the afternoon along the trail. He’d stopped his mule, gotten down, and crept along the edge of mountain draw where he’d seen a rabbit run behind a cluster of gnarly junipers. He hunched low, pulled his bow from its sleeve and a short arrow from the quiver, never taking his eyes off the rabbit, then drew and released the arrow. He went after his kill and came out from behind the juniper with the evening supper.
He explained to Pang that hunting daily would be a sure way of saving the jerky, bread, and dried fruits they’d brought along from the mission. There would be emergency days—such as during heavy rains, or on Valdar’s trail, which they wouldn’t want to leave—when there would be no time for hunting. The food they packed would be used as emergency rations. But on any other day, they would eat from a fresh kill.
The first night at camp was mostly a quiet night, with very little conversation. Pang sat hunched up by the fire, often glancing in the direction of sounds from nocturnal wildlife. Enrique explained them all to him, the rodents and their footsteps, the hoot of the owl, the howl of the coyote, but Pang seemed no more at ease. On their second night, Enrique decided to help occupy Pang’s mind with conversation, in hope of minimizing his discomfort.
Enrique wanted to know more about what happened to Pang’s father, but he understood the delicateness of such matters. He thought the only way to know would be to tell Pang his own story, but all the Chinaman would do was stare at the fire and occasionally nod. The gory details seemed to get a little more of his attention, but Enrique sensed that he was uncomfortable hearing the story, so he changed the subject.
“I am very intrigued by your abilities,” he said.
“What abilities?” Pang answered.
“How you broke the crock, and the board. I would have broken my foot and hand. How did you do that?”
“It’s no different than your ability to shoot your arrows. I couldn’t do that either. But for many years we have learned these talents and with much practice have mastered the abilities.”
Enrique nodded, reached to the fire, and turned the rabbit as it roasted on a skewer.
“Do you think you could teach me?” Enrique said.
They looked at each other, and Pang shrugged. “I could try, but it will take time.”
“I understand, but I am a fast learner. In trade I will teach you to shoot the bow and arrow.”
Pang nodded. “What you want to learn is called kung fu. My father was my teacher, and when I was little he always told me that the body cannot act until the mind is first clear. That was the first lesson.”
“It seems like a wise statement, but how do you use it?”
Pang rose to his knees then sat back on his heels, and he instructed Enrique to do the same. The Criollo followed his instruction, and Pang started breathing deeply, with his eyes closed. After three deep breaths, he opened his eyes and looked at Enrique.
“The brain works best when the blood that flows through it is rich with oxygen. Daily, when we meditate, we breathe, in through the nose, out the mouth, in heavy breaths. And if a need for defense ever arises, it’s like second nature to take a heavy breath so the mind will help you in your defense.”
Enrique copied Pang and breathed deeply several times, feeling the pleasure to his lungs and the relaxation of his body. He smiled and looked at Pang. “I like this. What is next?”
“One does not learn kung fu in one night. You must master the first two lessons first, then I will give you lesson three.”
Enrique thought about both lessons, and caught himself doing the breathing exercises and thinking in a preoccupied fashion about busting the crock.
When the rabbit was cooked, Enrique tore off a leg and handed it to Pang. The Chinaman took it reluctantly and bit into it carefully, but he eventually nodded his approval to the cook. Enrique then wrapped another leg of the rabbit in a cloth, along with some bread, and took it north into the darkness and sat it on a boulder. He placed another rock on top of it, a system that he and Sereno were both familiar with.
After they ate, Enrique threw his bones into the fire and went to the stream to wash his hands and face. When he returned, Pang was cuddled up under his bedroll, his eyes still open, the embers of the fire glowing on his face and reflecting in his eyes.
“In the morning I will give you your first arrow les
son,” Enrique said.
Pang nodded, then closed his eyes, and Enrique sat back down and practiced his breathing until his own eyes felt heavy and sleep consumed them both.
*
Whenever Enrique camped in the desert, he was used to waking to the social calls of many birds, but this morning the land around the Huachuca was particularly quiet. Because of this change of nature, his awakening was peculiarly uneasy. He looked up into the coral sky to the east, and the only normal sense was the smell of the smoldering coals of the fire. When his eyes had completely focused, the first thing he noticed was that Pang was gone, as was his bedroll. Enrique walked quickly about, looking in all directions, and that’s when he saw Pang sitting on the crest of a bluff, facing the eastern sky. He was sitting the way he had when he demonstrated the breathing technique to Enrique. His posture was straight and his hands were uniform in his lap. He steadily rose to his feet, raised his hands, bent, and touched the ground, then stood in a sprawling stance, jumped, and kicked, all the while holding his hands out in front of him.
Enrique wasn’t sure what the Chinaman was doing, but he decided that it wasn’t good to worry, and went about stoking the fire and rolling up his own bedroll. After tying it on the mule, he went up to the boulder where he’d left the piece of rabbit the night before and found the rock back on top of the cloth, with the contents gone. The system had once again proven itself. With the rock back on top, Enrique was confident that Sereno had gotten the food instead of a desert varmint.
Enrique squatted next to the fire, warmed his hands, and was finishing his morning prayer when Pang walked back into the camp.
“What were you doing up there?” Enrique asked.
“Lessons one and two,” Pang said.
“I don’t remember kicking being part of those lessons.”
“That is because I did not teach you all of the lesson. Breathing is the beginning. Then the muscles must be stretched, and the blood must circulate well to feed those muscles.”
Enrique was beginning to get frustrated with the Chinaman, but he decided not to let it bother him. He stood and kicked at the fire, spreading the coals apart. “We better get riding.”
They put the blankets on their mules, tied on the pack burro, and proceeded east into a mountain draw. After riding a mile Enrique heard the unique whistle, as if a bird and mammal had joined voices, and saw Sereno dash away into hiding. This, Enrique knew, was an alert not just of something near, but of possible danger. That’s when several men on horseback began to appear on a ridge south and east of them. He stopped his mule abruptly. “Whoa!”
Pang followed suit and made his confusion apparent as he gawked aimlessly.
The men on the ridge, at least twenty Enrique counted, stood on their horses and stared at them.
“Who are they?” Pang said.
“Apache, for sure,” Enrique said. “We just don’t know how friendly.”
Enrique had learned enough about the Apache to know that it was always better to go on about your business than to ever appear frightened or aggressive. He also knew that the enemy to the Apache at this time was not the Mexicans, the Tohono O’odham, or even other warring Indian tribes, but the white man. What he did not know was how they felt about Chinamen.
He decided to keep riding and nudged his mule forward. Pang followed him.
“What do we do?” Pang said.
“We go about our business. Look at them occasionally. Let them know that we see them. If they are worried about us, then they will surround us. If not, they’ll just likely watch us ride on.”
The two rode for another mile through the lengthy draw, and several of the Apache disappeared; only two remained on the ridge. Enrique began to wonder if they were surrounding them, and then he saw a large group riding toward them.
“Keep riding,” he told the Chinaman. “Don’t let them think you’re afraid.”
“But I am afraid,” Pang said.
“Well, let that be lesson number one from me in dealing with Apache. Never show them your fear.”
Enrique was not as concerned until he saw other riders appear to their north as well, and then when he turned and looked behind them he saw more. He was sure now that whatever the Apache wanted, they’d likely get it.
When the riders ahead of them were within fifty yards, Enrique and Pang stopped their mules. The Apache got closer and spread out in front of them and behind them, and several loped their horses up the slope of the mountain base on each side of them, and all eventually stopped. They were like most Apache Enrique had seen before. Cloth headbands around their foreheads; long, silky black hair; deerskin leggings or loincloths; and moccasins. They all carried rifles. Their horses were a variety of colors—many paints, sorrels, and bays—but one particular horse caught Enrique’s attention. It was a dappled gray with a bald face and pink eyes, and it worked its way through the riders ahead of him and stopped just a few feet away. Two other riders came up from behind, and each took his place on one side of the dapple gray.
Horses snorting and whickering were the only sounds, and the seriousness on all of the Apache faces could have stopped a dust storm. What Enrique noticed most, however, was how this man on the bald-face horse kept staring at Pang. Then he looked back and forth between both Enrique and Pang and spoke in his known Spanish dialect. “Who are you people?”
Once Enrique began to speak, all eyes looked at him. “I am Enrique Osorio. I am born of this land and am a friend to the Apache. This man who rides with me is no threat to you.”
The leader studied Pang again. “I have seen his kind before, many moons ago when the white man built the trails of the iron horse. But they did not wear a white man’s clothes.”
Enrique thought about how strange the derby and serape must look on the Chinaman. “He only wears the clothes to protect himself from desert travel.”
“I am Geronimo, chief of the Nnee, and of the land of my people. Why do you tread on our land?”
Enrique had heard of Geronimo, and how he had fled the reservation and made war with the army. He had rarely heard, however, Apache refer to themselves as Nnee, which meant “the People” in their own native language. Apache was a name given to them by the Spanish, and Nnee was typically only used during conversations with their own people. Enrique understood this because the Spanish called his own Tohono O’odham people Papago, which was a name that his fellow tribesmen rejected. This meant that the Apache were fed up with the centuries of lies offered them by the Spanish, the Mexicans, and now the Americans.
“We are on the trail of Antonio Valdar. We do not pose any threat to the Nnee. We just want to pass through and make it to El Paso before Valdar does.”
“What is this business you have with the Demon Warrior?”
Enrique was not surprised that the Apache had knowledge of Valdar, and was no more surprised at the name he had been given. “Justice, Chief. Pang and I want his blood.”
There was silence for a moment, then Geronimo nodded at the men behind the Criollo and they held up their rifles. They came forward, and the ones on the hillside came down closer, and one of them cut loose the pack burro and pulled the braying animal away.
Enrique looked to Geronimo for an answer.
“The Demon Warrior is a friend to my people. You say you are a friend to the Apache, but we do not know you. We will take you back to our camp and hold a trial. That will decide your fate.”
Pang looked around nervously as the Apache men drew closer to them. “What do we do?”
“We go with them,” Enrique said.
“Maybe we should fight them.”
Enrique looked at Pang with disgust. “You try anything and you’ll get us both killed. There is no bow and arrow or kung fu that will outfight these men. We stand a much better chance back at their camp.”
Before Enrique could say another word, he and Pang were in the clutches of the men, who tied their arms tight against their torso with leather. Pang tried to fight, but Enrique’s voic
e calmed him to an easy surrender. “Don’t fight it! It will only make things worse!”
Pang was breathing heavily, but it was not an exercise. He called out in his own Chinese tongue, in words that Enrique didn’t understand, but his tone was very clear. The Chinaman was showing his anger and his fear.
*
Jackson and a man named Farrell had tracked Valdar through the Pedregosa and thought he’d probably crossed the border into the New Mexico Territory, but the trail came to a dead end. The two men studied a camp but saw no trail out.
“Where do you think they went?” Farrell said.
“I can’t figure,” Jackson said. “Either they turned back, or they are right on top of us.”
Farrell looked around him nervously. “So what do we do now?”
“We better head back and tell the sheriff.”
The two men started back, and as they passed through a steep cut in the mountains, Jackson noticed his horse’s ears twitch, and on occasion it raised its head and peered to the south.
“What’s the matter?” Jackson said, patting the horse on the neck.
The horse suddenly reared and Farrell fell from his own mount. Jackson pulled his horse back to find Farrell lying dead with a knife in his chest. He looked around to see where the knife might have come from, but before he could ascertain anything, his hat flew off and a rope fell around his chest and tightened. He was pulled down from his horse, and the spooked steed ran away, only to be captured by another lasso.
Jackson rolled in his own dust and to his back, and when he looked up, he stared into the grinning face of a man with a thin black mustache. The man reached down, grabbed him by the shirt placket, and picked him up to his feet. He pushed him back to his horse and laid him over its back, then tied his feet together.
The man pulled Jackson’s horse to his own, which he mounted, and pulled Jackson around the bend and into the rocks, where they joined two other men and what appeared to be three women prisoners. When they stopped, the man came back and pushed Jackson off the horse and to the ground.
Another man, who smelled foul from tequila, pulled him up to a sitting position. The man laughed. “You look like you’ve had a rough day, señor.” The other men followed with laughter. “So, did you find what you were looking for?”