Killer of Witches: The Life and Times of Yellow Boy Mescalero Apache

by W. Michael Farmer

  We rode slowly, careful not to show ourselves to anyone near the dark green brush. We stayed downwind and dismounted to crawl the last bowshot forward to look for enemy tracks, sniff the air for smoke and animals, and listen for the sounds of men coming from sleep. No smell of smoke or horses. No sounds except wind in brush. No man tracks, Indeh or Indah. Nobody stood there, no one to challenge, no one to fight. Near the center of the green brush and weeds, water leaked from rocks and disappeared into the sand. We circled the water place looking for man tracks, but found only those of deer, quail, and coyotes. We stopped, sat down by the spring, and ate and let the horses and mule drink and graze before we moved away to sleep.

  We looked in the supplies we had taken from the Blue Coat chief’s camp and found things I knew the Indah call “cans.” They had pictures of fruit and beans wrapped around them. We also found hard, tough bread. My mother never made bread this bad. Kah said he saw the Indah open the cans with their knives and that the pictures showed what was inside. He took a can with a picture of fruit and showed me how the Indah opened it. The fruit inside was good, the juice sweet. We ate fruit from three more cans, drank water, and filled water bladders and the Indah canteens we had taken. Giving the animals another drink, we tightened cinches and wiped out our tracks as we left. We went to a nearby hill as the sun began its ride across the sky

  We hid the horses and mule in tall brush and crawled to the top of the hill where we rested and watched the watering hole for strangers. I said, “You rest first. I’ll wake you when the shadows are short.” Kah nodded and made a nest for himself in the tall grass and lay down.

  His voice low, he said, “One day, brother, you will be a mighty warrior. Last night you attacked two Indah scouts and the Blue Coat chief and killed all. You have not yet ridden on apprentice raids, and you’re not yet fifteen Seasons of Green Leaves. Maybe the warriors won’t make you ride as an apprentice. Maybe they’ll accept you already as one of them. You saved my life and destroyed our enemies. I’m forever in your debt.”

  A breeze rippled through the grass, and I said, “There is no debt between friends. I cannot leave you to the Indah Lickoyee. My father said before I started this run that I’m now called Nah-kah-yen, the Keen-Sighted.”

  A big grasshopper landed on a grass stem near Kah’s head. He reached up and flipped it away. We do not eat grasshoppers.

  “Ha!” Kah said. “At last you have a name, and a good one, too. It’s past the time you had a man’s name. You’ll have much honor in the camp when I tell the story of what you did. You’ll need your name for the warriors to show you the respect you deserve.”

  I said, “Yes, I have pride in my new name. The warriors will use it and know who to ask to watch for them. But now let’s speak of yesterday. Tell me how the Blue Coat and his scouts caught you.”

  Kah shook his head. “I’m a fool. I didn’t do what my father told me and ran in the daytime. I thought if I returned first, no one would care if I had disobeyed his instructions.

  “I was running in a deep arroyo when I saw the Blue Coat and his scouts. We were both surprised. I turned like Rabbit and ran back down the arroyo, but the rat-faced one pulled out his reata (rawhide lasso) and caught and tied me before the others came. The other scout pulled his knife to cut my throat, but the Blue Coat chief stopped him. They tied me to the mule’s carry frame and rode on west with me tied on that mule in disgrace. I was downwind of the Indah the whole day and gagged many times from the smell of them. They stink and are very nasty people. Do they ever bathe? I prayed to Ussen to give me Power to kill them and get away. He sent you. I thanked Him.”

  I looked over my shoulder and smiled at Kah. “All you say, brother, is true. The Indah and Blue Coat smelled even worse when I killed them. I don’t know if Ussen used me to free you. We were lucky. Rest. I can see clearly the tallest mountain near where Cha camps. A good ride tonight, and we’ll be there with the sun tomorrow.”

  Kah shrugged his shoulders and made a bad face. “I thought I might go first on apprentice raids. Now I will be lucky to go on any raids at all. Still, I have much luck. You saw me a prisoner and freed me. Perhaps my name ought to be Lucky.”

  The day was quiet as the sun rode across the sky. No one appeared at the waterhole all day, not even deer or coyotes. As the sun hid behind the far mountains, we ate more Indah supplies, fed the horses and mule, and then led them to the waterhole for a last drink before we rode on.

  The night was nearly gone when we crossed the Indah wagon road from the east and saw the black outline of the tallest peak blotting out the stars behind it. We followed the road toward the rising sun until we found the mountain washout that goes to Cha’s canyon camp. Dawn was coming, and the cold air falling down the mountain valleys made us shiver. With our skin like that of plucked birds, we were anxious for the fires and hot food in our mothers’ wickiups.

  As we approached the camp, I saw trail guards watching us, their faces pushed forward in the low light, their eyes, squinting in frowns, curious. We rode to the ancient juniper near Sons-ee-ah-ray’s wickiup and began unsaddling the horses and unloading the mule. Women at their morning fires and children playing turned to watch us, but not for too long, for that was bad manners. Their eyes seemed to ask what we were doing returning with horses and supplies as if we had been on a raid. We had left the camp boys and returned warriors. I knew they must think it a strange sight that had a good story. Then I saw Caballo Negro coming and wondered if he planned to beat me or praise me.

  “Dánt’e, Father. We return from the long run.”

  “Dánt’e. You are the first to return. You bring horses and supplies. How is this?”

  I heard the whisper of anger in Caballo Negro’s voice and felt fear for the first time since we left camp for the long run.

  Kah spoke up. “I did not listen to my father and ran with the sun. An Indah Blue Coat and two scouts caught me, tied me to their mule’s carry frame, and rode west. Nah-kah-yen saw them with me and followed. He killed them in their sleep and freed me. We took their clothes, supplies, and horses and mule. We rode for two nights and watched our back trail. No one followed. Nah-kah-yen is a strong warrior. He has much courage.”

  Caballo Negro stared at us and said, “Hmmph. Hobble the animals and leave what you have taken here. It will be given away later. Kah, go to your mother’s wickiup. Nah-kah-yen, come. Your morning meal is on your mother’s fire.”

  I met Kah’s eyes and then followed Caballo Negro to my mother’s wickiup, not sure what might happen to us for disobeying our instructions.

  Caballo Negro motioned for me to sit with him for a meal of meat and acorn bread. He waited until I ate, and we drank piñon nut coffee before he said, “Is this story Kah tells true? Three Indah, a Blue Coat and two scouts, you killed with only your knife?”

  I said nothing, only nodding that the story was true. I knew the less I said, the fewer reasons for my punishment.

  Caballo Negro’s face cracked into a smile wider than the horizon. “Enjuh! You have much to learn, but you are ready to join the warriors on their next ride. Soon you will be a man. My heart swells with pride that Nah-kah-yen is my son.”

  CHAPTER 10

  FIRST RAID

  * * *

  I sat with He Watches in his place at the top of the ridge above the camp. He used the Shináá Cho to study the road far to the east. I saw only a tiny white streak on the eastern road. The old man handed me the telescope and pointed toward it with his nose. I looked and saw the white streak turn into a heavy dust plume. Lines of specks moving through the dust freight said wagons drawn by mules. He Watches smiled.

  “Your first raid as a warrior comes, my son. The wagons will be here in two, maybe three suns. Will you ride on this raid? Are you ready?”

  I lowered the Shináá Cho and smiled with him.

  “Grandfather, many seasons I’ve waited for this day. I gave the People the guns and blankets I took after I killed the Indahs and Blue Coat to free Kah. I k
ept nothing for myself. Caballo Negro said I ought to join the warriors because I gave away all I took and alone killed the Indahs and Blue Coat. Still, the warriors said I must go on four war raids as an apprentice as much as luck for them as training for me. This I did. I passed all the apprentice tests that showed I’m worthy of trust in battle and that I always do what I’m told. Now the warriors say I am ready. They’ve all accepted me to their counsel. I have only my bow and arrows and knife for weapons, but they’re enough. You’ve taught me how to make arrows that fly where I send them. You gave me the knife that has already killed three Indahs by my hand. I’m ready.”

  The old man nodded. “Enjuh. Yes, you’re ready. Go. Bring Cha and Caballo Negro. They will see these great freight wagons for themselves and make a plan to take them.”

  Sleep came many times, but did not stay, the night before we left on that raid. I was more nervous than when I went on my first raid as an apprentice. On the apprentice raids, I had guarded and held horses, made fires, found water, cooked, and guarded booty. I had even learned to drive a wagon and Indah cattle after a raid on a ranch south of the Davis Mountains, but there was no great danger to boys doing apprentice work.

  Now, in two suns, I would fight as a man among warriors, take a share of the loot, kill the hated Indahs and Nakai-yes, and risk being killed. I wanted to do well and take weapons and loot from the men I killed. Across the wickiup, Caballo Negro slept without moving, breathing easily, breathing deeply, and beside him, Sons-ee-ah-ray rested her hand on my little brother, his mouth open, sleeping gurgles filling his throat. Caballo Negro had decided to call him Little Rabbit until he had a proper name. I smiled. Little Rabbit was already asking Caballo Negro when he could join the warriors on a raid.

  I remembered when Little Rabbit was born. Sons-ee-ah-ray was gone from the wickiup most of the day and Socorro with her. When she returned, she carried Little Rabbit in her arms, and Socorro made the evening meal. He was red and wrinkled, his black hair sticking out in all directions, but he held on to the finger I offered him like a river turtle biting a stick. He was strong, learned my mother’s lessons quickly, and stayed quiet even when he wanted her breast or the moss catching his dirt needed changing. He was a good baby. I had liked him even then.

  Before dawn, our raiding party left the camp by twos and threes and rode out of the mountains and down many scattered trails through the llano brush to avoid raising dust plumes that might warn the approaching freighters. They were in no hurry, and took care to reach the appointed spot by the time of shortest shadows.

  Years of Apache ambushes on the rising sun road kept the freighters wary and on guard, especially in places like foothill passes or deep arroyos near the mountains. Regardless of how wary the freighters, or the site, quickness and surprise were the most important parts of a good ambush. Cha picked a place where the road crossed two arroyos about four hundred yards apart. About fifty yards downstream, the arroyos turned and ran together to form a single deep arroyo running parallel to the road on its south side. A low, brush-covered hill rose above the road on the east side. On the west side of the road stood a higher hill, its top not more than two hundred yards away from the middle of the road.

  Cha made a dry camp in the arroyo running behind the hill on the north side. We worked in the brilliant, searing afternoon sun, digging pits and covering them with brush on both sides of the road near where it crossed the arroyos. Only a man knowing where to look might see us lurking under the brush ready to bring death. Kah and Ko-do, my boyhood friends on their first apprentice raid, watched over the horses and brought water from a distant tank to the camp.

  The ambush plan used three bowmen hiding in the brush near each side of the road, and their work was to kill the outriders and wagon drivers before they could escape the trap. I would be among them. At Cha’s signal, warriors hiding in the pits were to shoot the lead mules and their drivers in the first and last wagons and trap the other wagons between them. Cha placed marksmen on top of the north and south hills to pick off any freighters who survived the first round of shots and arrows. He sent his least experienced warriors and poorest shots to hide in the brush and seal off the road from those who tried to escape back the way they came. Caballo Negro and his warriors hid in the brush a hundred yards past the second arroyo, ready to take any who tried to escape by running forward.

  Near the end of the day, Cha flashed a “ready” mirror signal toward He Watches’ lookout. Immediately, He Watches flashed back, “They come. One day more.”

  That night there were no fires to warm aching muscles and tired backs. The warriors wrapped in blankets and ate what their women had sent with them. Men guarded the camp from the top of the north hill. Kah and Ko-do took turns watching the horses.

  The warriors had made Kah wait until I finished my apprenticeship before he started his, the price he paid for disobeying his father by running in the day and being caught by enemies. Kah said he didn’t mind starting his apprenticeship late and was thankful I rescued him from the Indahs and Blue Coat, thankful for the opportunity to be an apprentice and eventually become a warrior.

  Caballo Negro sat with me, smoked a cigarette to the four directions, and said, “You’ll do well tomorrow killing the Indah and Nakai-yes on the wagons.”

  “I’ll make you proud, Father.”

  “I know it will be so. Don’t fear meeting the enemy face to face, but be sly like Coyote in the fight. Do nothing foolish.”

  I nodded, wondering how to be brave and smart at the same time. I finished my meal and went to check my pony. He was a fine painted one, steady around gunfire, and, if need be, willing to run all day until its heart burst. I swapped breath with it and felt my courage grow.

  The camp stayed quiet and the men smoked, alone with their thoughts, alone with Ussen. I watered some brush down in the arroyo, found a spot near a big creosote bush, and rolled up into my blanket. There was excitement in my guts but no fear. Soon I slept.

  Many of the warriors already sat by the fire eating when my eyes crept open in the cold light of a pink sky in early dawn. I shivered as I shook out and rolled my blanket before eating what I had left from the night before.

  Caballo Negro and Cha sat together, eating, talking, and drawing maps in the sand with pieces of dry yucca stalk. When the morning grew to full light, Cha ordered Kah and Ko-do to take the horses far up an adjoining arroyo, so the freighters wouldn’t hear them, and the team mules wouldn’t smell them. He planned to direct the attack from the north side hill, so he told the warriors to take the places he’d assigned the day before while he watched the distant road using an old pair of Army binoculars.

  Near the south side of the road, I found a little shade under a creosote bush and, motionless, waited for Cha’s signal. The air grew hot; the day, blindingly bright. Caballo Negro had taught me to put stripes of black charcoal powder mixed with a little fat under my eyes and across the bridge of my nose to lessen the glare, and this lesson, like so many others, had become second nature, ingrained as part of the ritual preparation for a raid. It was quiet; even the birds made no noise. The only thing moving was the sun following its arc across the sky.

  Though now accepted as a man, I still often thought as a boy. I thought of the plunder I might take and wondered when to begin looking for a woman. Sons-nah’s daughter, my childhood friend I called Gah, had had her Haheh, her puberty ceremony, already. She was marriageable. I liked her, and though we had spoken often and played together before her Haheh, after her Haheh, she had not spoken to me at all. Two warriors ready for a wife had already left horses in front of her mother’s lodge. I smiled at the memory. She had not taken either pony to water, signaling her rejection of her suitors and that she still waited for the one she wanted or the one her mother would make her take. I thought, Maybe she waits for me. If this raid and two or three others provide many presents for the band and increase my own fortune, I might yet have her. Only Ussen knows. Only Ussen, the great creator God of the Apaches, knows
the lives of men.

  I saw a flash of light from the top on the northern hill. My wandering thoughts ended. Down the road, in the shimmering distance, dust, the kind wagons made, rose high in the still, shimmering air. I dimly saw riders on either side of a single wagon outlined against the brown cloud.

  My heart thumping, I pulled my bow from its sheath, and rising to my knees, strung it. I pulled four arrows tipped with iron points from my quiver, checked each point, laid one arrow across the bow, and held the others under the fingers of my left hand gripping the bow’s handle.

  Through the roiling air, shapes of the outriders and wagons grew clearer. A faint tinkle from harness chains and the creaks of the wagon frames broke the stillness as the mules pulling the wagons strained forward up the slight grade toward the arroyo.

  The south side outrider, his rifle across the pommel of his saddle, rode up to the edge of the first arroyo and looked up and down it, as if it were an Indah road, and then rose in his stirrups to look over to the second one.

  I froze like a hunted rabbit and willed myself to be invisible to the outrider.

  He rode over to the second arroyo and looked at it. A second outrider came and looked over the arroyos as the first rider had. He studied the north and south hills on either side of the road.

  The first outrider returned to join the second one and they spoke together in the Indah tongue, too low for me to understand, as they pointed to boulders and cactus on the hills and looked at the sand and bushes on the sides of the arroyos where Apaches might hide.

  The second outrider waved his rifle forward down the road for the wagons to continue. The outriders crossed the first arroyo, one on each side of the road, and stopped near where the road began dipping into the second arroyo. They turned their horses, and cocking their rifles, watched the other riders and the wagons advance across the dip in the road made by the first arroyo.