by Jory Sherman
“Do you read the newspapers, Anson?” Dr. Purvis asked.
“Seldom. Baronsville has a newspaper.”
“I’m afraid the gap between North and South is quite wide and, while it appears, on the surface, to involve slavery, I think the reasons are much more complicated.”
“Then, why fight?” Anson asked. “Talk it out.”
“I think it all boils down to the independent spirit of the people in the South. Washington is far away from the cotton fields and the issue of slavery. People down here are isolated from the federal government. They want to govern themselves. That is, I think, at the heart of the conflict between North and South that will bring on a civil war.”
“Maybe the South has a point,” Anson said.
“Yes, we do,” Purvis said.
“Then, you’re one of those who want the South to secede from the Union?” Peebo asked.
“Not necessarily. I believe in states’ rights. I don’t believe the federal government should interfere with the decision of a state whether or not it wants to be free or hold slaves.”
“Isn’t that why we have representatives in Congress?” Peebo asked.
“To be sure,” Purvis said. “But, the North has the vote. More representatives.”
“Then, something should be done about that,” Anson said.
“Here, in this conversation, you have the very arguments brought up in the Congress,” Purvis said. “And, there seems to be no easy solution.”
Anson lifted both hands in a gesture of surrender. “If the government can’t figure it out, then no wonder some folks want to go to war.”
“Exactly,” Purvis said. “I’m afraid we must be going. We’ve still a long way to go.”
“Yes,” Anson said, looking at Lorene. She had not said much, but he had the feeling she knew more than anyone there. For one so young, she looked so wise. Those brown eyes of hers seemed deep with secret knowledge. Her faint smile was enigmatic. He smiled at her, and she batted her eyelashes, smiled back at him.
“I hope to see you again soon,” Al said, offering his hand to Anson. Anson shook it and nodded.
“Good-bye,” Dr. Purvis said.
Lorene held up a hand, gave a slight wave.
“Be seein’ ya,” Anson said, directing his statement to her in particular.
“Bye,” she murmured.
Anson and Peebo watched the small party ride away. When they disappeared from view, Anson felt a great loss. He stood there for a long time, picturing her beautiful face in his mind. He seemed frozen there.
“We goin’ to just stand here all day?” Peebo asked.
Anson turned around.
“No. Let’s get going.”
“You look smitten, son.”
“Smitten?”
“Lovesick. Over that gal.”
“Aw, no.”
“I’ve seen moonsick critters before.”
“Not me,” Anson said.
Peebo brought his horse out into the open. He climbed up into the saddle and looked down at Anson, who still stood there, a look on his face that was lit by an inner rapture.
“Son, if you want to chase after that gal, we can go after that white bull some other time.”
Anson shook his head as if bringing himself out of his reverie. “Naw, we’re going after that bull. I’ll probably never see Lorene again.”
Peebo guffawed. “Oh, you’ll see her again,” he said. “Now that you’re on a first name basis.”
“What in hell does that mean?”
“It means, son, that you’ve been bitten by the love bug and you’re gonna be mighty sick until you see her again.”
Anson sighed and walked over to the mesquite where his horse waited. Peebo was right, he knew. He could not get Lorene out of his mind. Something told him that she was the one he had been looking for all his grown life.
As they rode away, Peebo was smart enough not to say anything to Anson. He knew that Anson was not really there. His body sat atop his horse, all right, but his heart was far away, following Lorene just like a lost puppy.
42
LA MADRUGADA. DAWN. She was the dawn in Mickey Bone’s eyes, the breaking light over the dark horizon of night, the song whispered in the heart before sunrise of every new day. When he saw her again, he felt the stones in his heart melt and run like flowing lava in his veins.
“You come at last,” she said.
“I have been lost in the white man’s world again.”
Bone dismounted from his horse, stood there like a beggar at her door. He had been leading another horse and it stood there, tied to his saddle, its head drooping in the heat.
“I know. I have seen you wandering all alone in my dreams.”
“Where are all the people?” he asked, looking around the nearly deserted village hidden in the mountains of Mexico. “Where is Red Leg? And Drum?”
“There,” Dawn said, and pointed to the high stony peak above the camp, a place of skulls and skeletons, a place where the dead were taken so that they could make the journey along the star path to the other world in the night sky.
“All dead?”
“A sickness came over the village after you left,” she said, “and it was like a smoke that one cannot see, that comes in through the nose and takes away the breath. It came in the night and took the old ones and the children. It came like the wind that blows through the cordilleras and then was gone.”
“And our son, Juan?”
“He is alive, Miguel. The Great Spirit did not let the wind of death blow on his face.”
“And Big Rat? Is he dead, too?”
“No, Big Rat is alive.”
“Dream Speaker?”
“He, too, lives.”
“I will see him. Dream Speaker.”
“Do not talk to Big Rat. He talks against you. He says that you are the cause for all the sickness, the deaths.”
“Why?”
“He says you brought bad spirits to the Lipan. He says you brought death to the Lipan people.”
“That is not true.”
“Counts His Bones said the same thing as he was giving up his breath.”
“Counts His Bones is dead, too?”
“Yes. Dream Speaker says that all of the people will die. He says they are the last of the people.”
“Why did you come back here?” Bone asked.
“My heart was with the people here.”
“You were their slave before I came here.”
“I know. My heart told me to come back here. Perhaps I heard the old ones whispering in my dreams, or the young ones cry out in their sleep.”
“I want to take you back with me.”
“To the white man’s land?”
“Yes. There is nothing here. Nothing but death.”
“Perhaps I will die, too.”
“No. You will not die. I will see Dream Speaker. I will talk to him.”
“Ask him where we should go.”
“You must not stay here. Our son must not stay in this place.”
“Ask Dream Speaker. My heart has gone silent. My ears have gone deaf.”
“I would see my son first.”
“I will take your horse,” she said. “You brought two.”
“One is for you and the boy.” He handed her the reins. She walked away, leading his horse and the tied one. He followed after, still dazed by all that she had said.
The village was a pathetic sight to Bone’s eyes. The few people still alive were gaunt from hunger and the ravages of disease. He could smell death as he walked toward a small wickiup set apart from the others, following in Dawn’s wake and she so solemn and quiet, the love for her tore at his heart made his pulse quiver in his temples as his blood pounded in his heart like a small thunder. He felt fear, but could not trace its source. The fear came from no man, but from something nameless, something in the air that seemed to hang over the village like a pall.
People turned their heads away from him as Bone passe
d their lodges. The stray dogs that had once roamed the camp were absent and he knew they had wound up in the cooking pots, along with the rats and ground squirrels, the grasshoppers and the crickets. There were tiny bones scattered near blackened pots that told him of their fare: birds and field mice, and he knew they had probably eaten lizards and snakes, along with roots and sour grasses that filled the belly but provided no nourishment.
The old woman sat in the darkness of the wickiup, a structure made of sticks and stones and brush that was three sided, its back wall being the rock face of the mountain, blackened long since by the soot from the cook fires. A small boy lay asleep on what appeared to be a collection of soiled rags. Dawn sat down and motioned for Bone to sit across from her.
Bone sat down, looked at the old woman. Something about her seemed familiar to him, but he could not remember a name to go with her face. He looked at his son, sleeping so quietly, so thin and pale his cheekbones stood out beneath the skin.
“You do not remember me, Hueso?” the old woman said.
“I know you.”
“Do you remember what I am called?”
“No. It is a name I have not spoken in many moons.”
“You know her name, Miguel,” Dawn said.
“Yes, I know her name, but it is buried deep in my head. It is like a stone covered with mud.”
“I am called Little Bird. The Mexicans call me Pajar-ita.”
Bone’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. When he had last seen her, she was a buxom maiden with a round face, pretty teeth, and was always smiling, always hopping about as if she was ready to dance. Now, her teeth were carious, rotted away in her mouth until they resembled little black twigs, and the roundness of her face had melted into straight hard lines, giving her chin a sharpness that was not there before. Her hair was falling out; it was dirty and unkempt, full of burrs and sand.
“Little Bird,” he choked. “Yes.”
She had grown old before her time. She was not much older than Dawn, but she looked to be her mother or an aged aunt.
“Did you bring food, Miguel?” Little Bird asked. “Your woman brought food, but it is all gone.”
“I have some beef that has been dried in the sun, some hard little cakes of flour, what the white men call biscuits, and some dried apples. They are yours,” he said. “I did not know how bad it was here or I would have brought food.”
“I will fetch what my husband has,” Dawn said. She rose up and left the hovel, pushing aside the woven mat that served as a door. Bone saw that there was nothing made of leather inside the lodge and he knew they had boiled and chewed on what things they had that were made of tanned hides.
“Do you bring death with you this time, too?” Little Bird asked.
“I did not bring death before. Death comes and goes as it wishes.”
“That is true. But, death follows some people, do you not believe this to be true?”
Bone thought about it. Somehow, what the woman said made sense in an odd way. Death happened around dangerous people, he knew.
“Death does not follow me.”
“I feel there are bad spirits about you.”
“You feel bad, so you feel bad spirits.”
“Do not tell me what I feel, Hueso.”
“I would talk to Dream Speaker,” he said.
“He is in his place,” she said. She lifted her head and looked up.
“On the mountain.”
“Always he is on the mountain. He is a pure man. Death is afraid of him.”
He arose and met Dawn as she was coming back in with the staples he had carried in his saddlebags. She bowed her head and let him pass. “You go to Dream Speaker?”
“Yes.”
“I will be here.”
He left the lodge. He saw that Dawn had unsaddled his horse and hobbled both of them in a place where there was water, some shade from the mountain. She was a good woman, he knew.
Bone climbed the mountain, tracing the old path he had trod many times when he had gone to see Dream Speaker. It was a place close to the sky and below the opposite peak where the dead were taken.
Dream Speaker sat next to the bare flat face of the rock he favored, his legs crossed, his eyes closed. He looked very old, Bone thought. His bare skin was shriveled and wrinkled, the bones of his arms very small and visible under the thin parchment of his skin.
“Did you bring tobacco?” Dream Speaker asked. “I have a pipe.”
“Yes,” Bone said.
“Sit and we will smoke.”
“You knew I would come?”
“Do you hear those crows?”
Bone listened. He heard crows cawing in the next canyon. He could not see them. “I hear them,” he said.
“The crows told me Hueso would come this day. They saw you when you were far off. You brought two horses.”
“Yes.”
“One is for your wife and son.”
“That is true.”
“Good. Take your family away from this place of death.”
“I did not bring death with me.”
“No. Some say you did that.”
Bone brought forth tobacco from his possibles pouch, handed the leather packet to Dream Speaker. The old Lipan picked up the pipe that was next to him. He cleaned out the dry burnt grass in the bowl with a bony finger and dug out a small amount of tobacco and began packing it into the empty bowl.
When he was finished, he picked up a piece of glass and held it to the sun just above the dry tobacco. The sun beamed through the glass and smoke began to curl upward in small tendrils. Soon, the tobacco caught fire and Dream Speaker set the shard of glass down and blew on the tiny flame. He sucked on the pipe, his cheeks caving in to concave hollows. He drew smoke through the stem and then took the pipe from his mouth. He held the pipe up and offered it to the four directions, slowly blowing out the smoke in his mouth.
“Take the pipe,” he said, handing it to Bone. “Offer your smoke to clean the air of the death that has come blowing in here on the wind.”
Bone blew smoke into the air, watched it shred and dissipate. He handed the pipe back to Dream Speaker.
“You may keep the tobacco,” Bone said.
“I have not had tobacco in a long time.”
Bone watched the old man smoke. Dream Speaker closed his eyes and held the smoke in his lungs until there was little left when he exhaled.
Dream Speaker opened his eyes suddenly and watched the expelled smoke as it twisted and curled and floated into shapes and patterns until it became shreds of cobwebs and finally disappeared.
“You have been asked to kill a man you do not want to kill,” the old man said.
“That is true.”
“You will not kill this man. But, you will fight a battle that is like a war.”
“A battle?”
“That is what I see in the smoke.”
“Where will this battle be?”
“It will be at a place where you have been before. I see blood and dead men. I see many rifles, many bullets.”
“And what of me?”
“You will not die there.”
“Where will I die?”
“You will die in the arms of a friend, many years from now.”
“Good,” Bone said.
Dream Speaker looked at Bone. His eyes were covered with a thin film and Bone realized that the old man was almost blind. Yet he could see things that no one else could see.
“It will not be good. Your life will be filled with sadness, your heart will carry sadness to your wife and son before you have breathed your last breath.”
“Then, that is what my life will be,” Bone said.
“There will be no more Lipan. You will be among the last.”
“There will always be Lipan.”
“No, Hueso. There will be men with white faces who kill them all. Life is a great circle. There is no beginning nor end to the circle, but a tribe will fall off for a time and will not come back for many moon
s, many seasons.”
“I do not understand this,” Bone said.
“It is of no matter. All of the red men will one day be wiped off the face of the earth. It will be as if they never were.”
“What of the white men?”
“They, too, will one day be part of the earth, all in graves, all with the worms at them. Only the earth lives forever and it has seen many tribes come and go.”
“All of that is a long way off as we measure time, is this not so?”
“Time is a thing we who breathe measure. The Great Spirit does not measure time. A lifetime, many lifetimes, are but the wink of a firefly in the mind of the Great Spirit. Time is like the sky. It never ends and it has no measurement.”
“What am I to do then, Dream Speaker?”
“Take your woman and your son. Follow the path that you see with your eyes. Do not wander from it. Breathe the air and let the sky come into your eyes and your heart. When the end of the path is there you will see it.”
“I will go,” Bone said.
“When you return to the place from where you rode, you will encounter death again. Not your own, but another’s, one that you touched with your hand.”
“Who is this?”
“I do not know the name.”
“Not my wife.”
“No, not Dawn. Another.”
“Anson Baron?”
“I do not know.”
“Martin Baron?”
“I do not know.”
“Matteo Aguilar?”
“I do not know.”
Dream Speaker turned away from Bone and smoked the pipe. He spoke no more, and after a time, Bone stood up and walked away. No words were spoken between him and Dream Speaker ever again. He walked down the path into the dying village and looked back up to the place where the old man sat. But, he could not see him and the sun struck his eyes and blinded him for a moment.
Big Rat appeared before him. The warrior held a knife in his hands. He looked very bad. His skin was yellow and hung on his bones.
“I will kill you, Hueso,” Big Rat said.
“Go away.”
“You will die here,” Big Rat said and he took four steps toward Bone before he collapsed and fell to the ground. Bone walked up to him and heard his breath wheezing in his lungs. Then, there was a sinister rattling sound and Big Rat twitched all over and blood ran from his mouth and onto the ground.