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

by W. Michael Farmer

Yells and shots flashed in the tree shadows, their roar on top of the fading background screams of the women and children as they strung out running across the llano toward the watchtower hill. A pause and another shot exploded in the trees, a long pause, and then two more shots and another long pause.

  Klo-sen staggered out of the trees holding his left hand in blood flowing from his side and collapsed. Segundo, blood smeared over his face, a knife in his hand, screaming a ghost-raising Comanche war cry, ran for Klo-sen. Beela-chezzi’s shots knocked limbs off brush and trees all around Segundo, but none hit him.

  On top of the compound wall, I rose to my knees and whipped the Henry to my shoulder and bellowed, “Segundo!” Reflexively, Segundo looked toward me. In a snapping boom, his left eye disappeared, and his head snapped back; his momentum took him another step, his head turning toward the sound of the rifle. His right eye, wide open, suddenly disappeared in another crack of thunder, leaving only a black socket, and the remaining back side of his head disappeared in a spray of blood, bone, and brains. He fell backwards and lay still not three yards from Klo-sen. Beela-chezzi, his face twisted in pain, holding his side with one hand and his rifle with the other, ran as fast as he could for Klo-sen.

  I ran down the stairs and out the gate toward Klo-sen. I saw milling horses raising dust in the corral whining and snorting, but no one disturbing them. Beela-chezzi dropped to his knees by Klo-sen, whose face was twisted in pain. A round black hole just below his ribs leaked bright, red blood.

  I helped Beela-chezzi by wrapping my arm around Klo-sen’s back from the other side. We stood Klo-sen up. Comanche howls came from somewhere amid the horses, which ran out of the corral and pounded straight for us. Dragging Klo-sen between us, we ran for the compound gates. Howling like specters out of hell, two Comanches and the Witch rolled up from their horses’ necks where they had been hanging. Bullets from the Comanche rifles raised little plumes of dust around us, and the ground shook from the pounding hooves of the horses running for us.

  Klo-sen raised his head and looked at the horses. With the last of his strength, he bellowed, “Drop me, you fools! Run!” He jerked his arm off Beela-chezzi’s shoulders and twisted out of my arm to land in the dust, our momentum carrying us a couple of steps forward. When we turned to pick him up, he screamed again, “Run!”

  Beela-chezzi looked at me, nodded, and ran for the gate. I dashed for the gate, screaming, “Revenge will be yours, Klosen!”

  The horses passed over Klo-sen and ran on as I cleared the gate and ran up the steps to the top of the wall for shots at the Witch and the two Comanches with him. But I could not find them in the dust cloud, soon a distant plume.

  CHAPTER 44

  CARMEN ROSARIO

  * * *

  We said nothing as we wrapped Klo-sen’s broken body in a heavy blanket and carried it into the compound to rest in the same dark room with the body of He Watches. We quieted our raging thirsts, washed ourselves from water in the barrels, and sat down exhausted on the steps leading to the top of the walls.

  Beela-chezzi said, “You’ve killed a witch, but not the giant who led the killing and scalping of our people. What will we do now? Wherever you go, I’ll go. We must end this evil.”

  I leaned back on the steps and raised my face to the light. “We can’t track the Witch now. There were three of them, and many horses running around them will destroy their trail. Which trail of prints in that herd of horses do we follow once they spread out wild and free on the llano? Who knows where they’ll go? But the day comes when we’ll find them again and Ussen will help us destroy this evil one. Ussen gave me Power to kill him. I’ll do it one day. I know Ussen makes things right, makes life balance. This place is no more one of witches. It’s a place of the dead. Now we must bury our grandfather and friend and return to the camp of Juh.”

  Beela-chezzi nodded. “Enjuh!”

  A boy, no more than four or five, walked through the gate and stopped to stare at us. He said in Spanish, “Sangre del Diablo goes away. I have hunger. Let my mother make something to eat. Are we your slaves now?”

  I smiled and shook my head. “Bring your mother; bring all the women and children. Ask her to cook for you, and maybe she will cook a meal for us.”

  Without a word, the child darted out the gate.

  Soon a young woman came through the gate, the child peeping out at us from behind her skirts. The woman faced us and said, “Señores, I am Carmen Rosario. I pray, as our new masters, you let us back in the hacienda to serve you. We will die trying to live on the llano. My child says you want something to eat. I will cook it for you.”

  I said, “We’re not your masters. We’ve decided not to keep you slaves. Go and tell your families and friends what happened here. Say that we Apaches have destroyed the Brujo’s hacienda and we will destroy him. El Brujo (the Witch) is gone and won’t come back. You’re free. We’re hungry. Will you make us something to eat?”

  The woman’s eyes grew wide, and her hand covered her mouth as though her breath might leave when I told her they were free. Water from her eyes rolled down her cheeks, and she said, “Muchas, muchas, gracias, Señores. Sangre del Diablo had told me soon he takes mi muchacho away and sells me in the City of Mules (Chihuahua). Mi muchacho y yo (my child and I) will return to our mountains, but my husband and village, the Brujo and his Comanches wiped out.”

  Her head lowered, she asked, “You eat tortillas, chilies, frijoles, y filete (bread, chilies, beans, and steak)?”

  Beela-chezzi grinned and said, “Sí, Señora, esta muy bueno (that is very good).”

  “Gracias, Señores. I cook now. Mi muchacho comes when your meal is ready.”

  She turned and yelled out the gate, “Vengan! Hay libertad!” (Come! Freedom!) Holding the child’s hand, they ran barefoot across the courtyard, leaping like jumping ponies over the bodies of dead Comanches and disappearing down a hall leading to the back of the hacienda. Soon women, children, and babies began drifting through the gates. All paused at the gate and said to Beela-chezzi and me, “Muchas gracias, Señores.”

  We ate like starving men, as the children and their mothers, not saying a word, stood and watched us. When we finished a second pot of coffee, we left the kitchen with the big, iron stove and sat in the courtyard listening to the women, children, and babies scrambling to eat big meals. It was midmorning, and the still air and bright sun promised a hot day.

  Beela-chezzi took my offered cigarro and puffed to the four directions. He let the smoke drift away and said, “We’ll take bodies of our friends when we go and bury them in a canyon where none will find them. What will we do with Comanches and vaqueros?”

  “Nothing. Their ghosts will stay here, and their bodies will feed the buzzards and coyotes. The women and children will go back home. They won’t stay here.”

  “Hmmph. How will they go? They have no horses. Will they walk? Many will die on the llano before reaching Casas Grandes. Carmen Rosario is a good cook and a good mother with a strong child. It’s not good for them to go to the Happy Land on the llano.”

  I looked at Beela-chezzi out of the corner of my eye and smiled. “We’ll leave ’em ponies. The ponies that ran off with el Brujo and Comanches will come back because there’s grain and water here. Ponies are no fools. Give the women the three wagons here. They’re enough for all of them to ride. We’ll harness teams for the wagons so the women can drive them to Casas Grandes. We’ll take the rest of the ponies and use them to carry those gone to the land of the grandfathers and the bounty we take from the Brujo’s supplies. What do you think?”

  Beela-chezzi shrugged and shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe the Brujo and the Comanches will attack the women when they go to Casas Grandes. The road across the llano is very dangerous. There are witches and banditos everywhere.”

  I laughed aloud. “Why don’t you just ask her if she wants to come with you rather than go back where maybe no one wants her now after she was a slave to the Brujo?”

  Sheepis
hly, Beela-chezzi grinned and looked at the ground. “This I’ll do.”

  “Enjuh! Come, amigo. We have much to do.”

  We went to the Brujo’s place of crosses, pulled up the long spears stuck in the ground, and burned them. We put pitch on the posts where He Watches and I had been tied and set fire to them. The smoke from the fires billowed up ominously, making plumes tall and black, which would be seen for miles, I hoped maybe even by the Witch.

  The women showed us the places where the Witch and Segundo slept. In Segundo’s room, we found a skull filled with dark, black powder and one empty from its contents being thrown on He Watches. On a table lay jars of red, black, white, and orange body paints, and a straight razor and strop. A big mirror hung on the wall behind the table. Comanche weapons, a long spear, a bow and quiver of arrows, a gleaming sharp skinning knife, and horse gear were stacked in a corner within easy reach from a fancy, Mexican style bed. On a long table by the bed was a long barreled pistol in a holster and a roughly used and little cared for Winchester carbine.

  Two doors down the hall from Segundo’s room was the giant’s room. Its bed was longer than others I saw, and a table held the same body paints and shaving supplies as Segundo’s room. Several skulls were lined up side-by-side along the back of another table that held jars of dried plants and powders, bottles of stinking liquids, a mortar and pestle, and several mixing bowls. On a wall rack hung a hair hat with long braids and another carefully groomed to look like the hair worn by a hacendado, a Nakai-yi of great wealth. An armoire held a couple of gentleman’s hats, suits of clothes, fancy shirts, and gloves used to handle the owl. In the far corner, its foot tied to a thin rawhide leash and roosting on a chest-high perch was el Brujo’s owl. Beela-chezzi brought his rifle up sighting on the bird, but I pushed the barrel down and shook my head before he could pull back its hammer. The owl’s yellow eyes followed me wherever I moved in the room before I turned, crossed my arms, and stared back at the yellow eyes following me. Are those the eyes of death, I thought, or just those of a bird’s trained to attack and to kill anything?

  Beela-chezzi said, “What will we do with death?”

  I shook my head. Turning to the women who showed us the rooms, I said, “Bring buckets of oil used for the lamps. Leave one in each of the witches’ sleeping places.”

  The women looked at each other, frowned, and then nodded, saying, “Sí, Señor.”

  Beela-chezzi and I carried buckets of water, two fancy blankets, and thin rawhide rope to the room where we had left our friends. We straightened and washed the bodies, wrapped them in the blankets, and tied the blankets close around them. I sat back against the wall with Beela-chezzi, feeling the rips of storm and thunder in my bones and flesh and the wounds in my soul from hanging on el Brujo’s cross and loosing my friends. I thought over the lives of my friends, proud that they had been great warriors, and I was glad that He Watches had adopted me years ago and taught me many of the skills I used as a man.

  As we had guessed, the free ponies, among them my paint and Beela-chezzi’s roan, that ran off with Sangre del Diablo and his Comanches came back to the stream for water and stood around the corral waiting for their grain when the sun was low over the western mountains. The women spent most of the day at the creek washing clothes, themselves, and their children. Beelachezzi and I found the harnesses for the workhorses to use with the Witch’s three wagons we planned for the women and children to use to get back to Casas Grandes. Earlier in the day, we had found and loaded panniers in the barn with cases of ammunition, rifles, blankets, and axes and hoes. We knew Juh and his Nednhi Apaches and our women believed these were the best of presents.

  Then, as the day turned toward evening, Beela-chezzi found Carmen Rosario and asked her to walk with him to the stream. She was hesitant at first, but he assured her he just wanted to talk, so she left the child with another woman and went with him. When they returned, he announced that she and her son would be traveling with us. I smiled and was glad for them.

  CHAPTER 45

  ENDINGS

  * * *

  All the women and children going to Casas Grandes were able to sit or stand in the wagons. Several of the women already knew how to drive a team and nodded they understood when I told them to stay on the road ruts. The ruts would lead them to Casas Grandes. They would be in the village before the sun rose if they drove the teams at a steady pace.

  We carried the bodies of He Watches and Klo-sen to the place by the trees where we planned to load the horses, and then I took a lantern and went to the rooms of Sangre del Diablo and Segundo. I splashed the buckets of lantern oil left by the women earlier in the day all over the rooms. While the oil soaked into wood and cloth, I looked in the armoire, found a falconry glove, and pulled it on. I let the owl hop onto my gloved wrist, slipped on the hood without it protesting, pulled the knot loose that held the leash on the perch, and using the lantern, lit the oil in both rooms before running down the halls and out into the courtyard. The fires I started soon roared, snapping and popping into big, brilliant yellow flames, sending thick, acrid black smoke rolling along hall ceilings toward the courtyard.

  The owl was relaxed and balanced comfortably on my wrist as I walked out the gate, across the circle where the Witch had hung He Watches and me, and down to the trees by the stream. I straddled an ancient cottonwood log with bark peeling off in long strips, leaned my rifle against a notch formed by the trunk and a large bole from a hacked off limb, and looked across my left shoulder to feel the sun’s last yellow glow and view oranges, reds, and purples on the clouds over the Blue Mountains. I reached behind my back and pulled my knife, its edge sharp and gleaming, the hunting knife I had carried for years, the knife He Watches had given me when I first began training.

  I looked between the knife in my hand and the owl on my wrist, and thought, One swing of this blade, and this ghost is no more. It would be so easy, but, first, as my father taught me, I must think about what I do. I stabbed the blade into the log so it was within quick, easy reach. Frogs, tree peepers, and crickets practicing their harmony for their night songs grew silent. The hacienda compound began to glow in flickering, yellow light against the black smoke roiling out the windows and doors.

  I pulled the owl’s hood off and looked at its big, yellow eyes blinking in the early evening light. I said, “What are you, Búh (Owl)? Are you death, a ghost of some evil man? Is that why you killed my grandfather? Was it you who caused the death of my friend? Is evil sleeping inside you like a rattlesnake in a rat’s hole? When I had my dream, I saw a ghost; it was big and ugly and had big eyes. Was it the giant or you, Búh?” I stared at the owl for a long time, the pendulum of my thoughts marking the limits of its life.

  At last, I shook my head and raised my wrist to look in the owl’s eyes again and said, “You’re not death. No ghost sits on my arm.” I pointed at my eyes with my right hand’s middle and forefingers. “I see you, feel you on my wrist. Ussen says my Power kills ghosts, kills witches. I don’t kill you. My Power stays with me. One day, again I’ll find the Witch who murdered and scalped my people, no matter if you’re dead or free. If you warn him, Búh, I’ll find you and kill you, too.”

  The night sky with its glowing, myriad stars, and the burning hacienda lighted the night. Pulling my knife from the log, I cut the anklets and leash thongs. When the leashes fell away, the owl made a low cooing call, and, looking at me, raised one unfettered foot off the glove and then the other while rhythmically ducking its head in a kind of dance.

  I held my arm out and said, “My People fear you and say your tribe is evil, but Ussen has given me Power over you. Go, Búh. I give you life.” I flipped my arm up in a launching motion. The owl spread its wings and, in long, sweeping strokes, sailed away into the night, a black form outlined against the stars before disappearing. I walked back to the hacienda and threw the glove, anklets, and leash into the hungry flames.

  We saddled our ponies, including one for Carmen and her little son, loaded t
he pack bags on the packhorses, and silently tied the bodies of Klo-sen and He Watches across their mounts. By the time we had finished, a bright moon had floated above the eastern mountains, and the burning hacienda compound was nearing nothing but glowing embers. Beela-chezzi took half the packhorses and led the way back along the trail we had followed to the big, green lake that fed the stream running by the hacienda. Carmen and the boy followed him. Leading the other half of the packhorses, I followed them.

  In the early morning light, Beela-chezzi led the way into a high-walled, narrow canyon in the Blue Mountain foothills a few miles from Juh’s mountaintop fortress. We stopped, and Carmen made a fire and baked bread, using ground corn from a sack, while Beela-chezzi and I disappeared to hunt for burial sites along the cliffs. Near the end of the canyon, we found two deep places under rock shelves above the talus and returned for the horses carrying the bodies.

  Carmen offered us bread, but we refused, Beela-chezzi telling her that we must bury our friends first and then purify ourselves before we ate. She said nothing, only nodding her head as we left camp again, leading the horses with Klo-sen and He Watches.

  The morning air in the black shadows and brilliant sunlight was cool and refreshing and helped us keep our strength as we carried the bodies to the rock shelves and slid them, heads pointed toward the west, far into the deep places, leaving their rifles and pistols with their bodies and using stones from the talus to cover their graves, careful to make the stone piles look as if they had formed naturally in the accumulating talus.

  We led the ponies of He Watches and Klo-sen close to the graves, positioned them where we wanted them to fall, and then killed them with our knives, quickly and mercifully. He Watches’ pony was getting too old and slow for raids and wars, but he wouldn’t part with it when we had left to kill the Witch. Now he took it to the Happy Land, and Socorro would not grieve for him every time she saw it. Taken in a raid only a few years before, Klo-sen’s pony was what every Apache warrior wanted, fast, with high endurance, and very easy to train. It was a shame to destroy such an animal, but Beela-chezzi didn’t hesitate, laying him down with his head pointed toward Klo-sen.