The Wild Girl

by Jim Fergus

  “Get lost.”

  The boy dropped back and continued to follow us at some distance behind. I turned in the saddle and waved him away crossly, but he only looked back at me obstinately.

  We crossed the bridge and followed the dirt road until it dwindled down to a trail, which rose winding into the hills, and as it gained elevation, dwindled to an even fainter game trail. As we quit the lush river bottom, the landscape changed quickly. We rode through scrub oak and mesquite thickets, across rocky hillsides studded with yucca and agave plants, the improbably green valley of the Bavispe snaking away below us. In the faint middle distance ahead, the massive, steep-tilted broken masses of rock and serrated hogbacks of the Sierra Madre proper rose up above.

  Where the trail became too rough for the travois, we stopped and Albert Smith and I dismounted, unrigged the poles from the mule, and put them over our shoulders to bear the Apache girl aloft like an Egyptian queen; she seemed nearly weightless.

  We didn’t travel far, coming up over a ridgetop and down into a small valley formed by a tributary of the big river, where we stopped to make camp on the edge of a grassy meadow. The meadow is watered by a spring trickling out of the rocks at one end, and forming a series of pools spilling one into the next. At our approach, a flock of great blue herons flushed off the pools, a half dozen of the gangly, leggy birds, their wingbeats heavy, their strange warbling cries.

  “The girl must have water,” said Joseph. “The Mexican doctor is right. She will die if she does not drink.” He gathered the girl up in his arms and carried her to the largest of the pools, squatted down, and laid her on her back in the water. Her eyes were open but she did not appear to see. Joseph held her there, speaking to her softly, and then he simply released her in the water. For a moment she floated there on her back as if weightless. And then she began to sink beneath the surface.

  “What in the world are you doing?” Margaret said, moving toward the girl. “She’s going to drown.”

  Albert took hold of her elbow. “No, leave her,” he said softly.

  I, too, began to reach out for the girl, but Joseph took hold of my arm with a surprisingly strong grip. He shook his head. I had the strange sensation of being in a dream, all of us watching, paralyzed, as the girl’s black hair fanned out in the water, her eyes dead as a corpse staring up at us as she sank downward into the darkness of the pool. Air bubbles escaped from her parted lips, and at just that moment you could see consciousness flooding back into her eyes. Then she was clawing at the surface of the pool with her hands. She lunged up out of the water, gasping for breath and choking, and scrambled to the side of the pool, where she held on to the rocks and began to cough violently. When she had quieted at last, she turned and peered out at us and at the surrounding country as if seeing the world for the first time, as if reborn in the water. Joseph spoke to her in a low voice and you could see that she was listening to his words.

  “What’s he saying?” Margaret asked Albert.

  “He says that he is from the ch’uk’aende band,” Albert said, “that his mother was a sister of the great chief Cochise. He says that he once lived in this country himself. That he is taking her home.”

  “She’s listening,” Margaret said. “She understands him. I can see it in her eyes.”

  “Yes, of course, she understands,” said Albert. “She is In’deh, as we call ourselves. One of the ‘People.’”

  Now the girl scooped a handful of water into her mouth, and then another. She coughed again but less violently.

  “That’s a hell of a way to get someone to take a drink,” I said.

  “She was leaving this world,” said Joseph. “I had to bring her back through the water.”

  The girl spoke then, softly but firmly, and for some reason the sound of her voice sent a chill up my spine. Joseph and Albert laughed.

  “What did she say?” Margaret asked.

  “She said,” Albert translated: “‘Grandfather, if you are ch’uk’aende, why do you ride with White Eyes?’”

  Joseph answered her and the girl nodded as if satisfied.

  “And what did you tell her?” Margaret asked.

  “I told her that you are my slaves,” he said.

  We pitched camp, put up our tents, and collected firewood for dinner. Joseph and Albert constructed a small wickiup for the girl, made of bent branches covered with canvas. As we worked, the girl fell asleep and woke and fell asleep again. Whenever she was awake Joseph spoke to her, talking on and on in a steady hypnotic current of language like a river, so that all of us listened spellbound, carried away down it, though, of course, we couldn’t understand a word he said. As he spoke to her, the girl watched him intently, nodding and smiling faintly from time to time, drifting off to sleep again to the soothing sound of his voice.

  As we were cooking dinner and dusk was settling over the land, the boy Jesus crept into camp, leading his little burro, which he turned out in the meadow with our own animals. He did not say a word and would not look me in the eye, but simply took a seat by the fire, watching la niña bronca warily. When it was time to eat, I handed him a plate of food, which he took with a grateful smile. It was too late to send him back now.

  Joseph made the girl drink a little broth made from meat and wild herbs, and then she crawled on her hands and knees into the wickiup. He spread his own bedroll near the opening in case she woke during the night.

  The rest of us sat up by the fire for a while, drinking coffee and smoking. Tolley brought out a bottle of French brandy that he had brought among his many provisions, which also included an entire case of wine. “I’m all for camping out,” he said, “but I learned on safari in Africa that you don’t have to give up all the creature comforts.”

  “Yeah, especially when you have your own butler,” I observed.

  Tolley passed the bottle around.

  “Not for me,” Albert said, when it reached him. “I gave it up five years ago.” He smiled wryly. “Like many of my people, I’m not a good drinker.”

  Mr. Browning, who was still bustling around the camp, tidying up, also declined the bottle.

  “Are you a teetotaler as well, Mr. Browning?” Margaret asked.

  “Not at all, miss,” he said. “I enjoy a nightcap myself from time to time. But never while on duty.”

  “Let the poor man off for the evening, Captain Phillips,” Margaret said. “He’s been working like a dog all day.”

  “By all means, Mr. Browning,” Tolley said. “You’re officially off the clock. Sit down with us. And let me pour you a brandy.”

  “Very kind of you, sir, thank you,” Mr. Browning said. “I’ve already turned your bed down for the night, and if I can be of no further assistance to you, perhaps I will have a wee splash.”

  “You know, Tolley,” said Margaret, “it’s possible that you’re the only person in history to go into the Sierra Madre of Mexico with French cognac and an English butler.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that, darling,” Tolley said. “There’s always Maximilian.”

  Mr. Browning settled himself by the fire. Now that I’ve gotten to know him a bit better, I’ve decided that he’s not such a snob, after all. He just has an acutely developed sense of discretion. He’s really a fine fellow, perhaps in his midforties, always neat and impeccably attired, even in the field. Slender, with an erect bearing and an elegant way of moving, he’s as quick and efficient as a magician. As inscrutable as he often seems, I notice from time to time a certain sadness around his eyes that suggests another life about which the rest of us know nothing.

  “If you will forgive me for suggesting so, sir,” said Mr. Browning, “I don’t believe that the Emperor Maximilian ever made it this far north. And in any case, I suspect that his valet would have been either Austrian or French, rather than British.”

  “Ah, see how impertinent the butler becomes,” said Tolley with mock offense, “when one relaxes the social barriers?” He handed Mr. Browning a cup and raised his own. “To
your health, Mr. Browning. You’re a wise fellow, indeed. In addition to being an excellent valet.”

  “Thank you very much, sir,” Mr. Browning said, with a slight incline of his head. “I endeavor to give satisfaction.”

  “Tell us, Mr. Browning,” asked Margaret, “how you came to be in this country? You’re a long way from home.”

  “Indeed, I am, miss,” he said. “You see I came to Douglas several years ago in the service of a gentleman by the name of Lord Crowley. His Lordship was one of the Phelps-Dodge Mining Corporation’s principal British investors.”

  “And what became of your lord, Mr. Browning?” she asked.

  “I’m afraid that when the copper mine closed down last year, miss,” Mr. Browning replied, “Lord Crowley lost a substantial amount of money. He was forced to dismiss me and returned alone to England.”

  “You didn’t want to go home yourself?” Margaret asked.

  “Oh, yes, miss, I most certainly did,” he said. “But I’m afraid that I did not have sufficient funds to make the passage.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “You mean, His Lordship brought you over here with him, and then abandoned you in Douglas, Arizona? Left you behind because he was too damn cheap to pay your fare home?”

  “In all fairness to Lord Crowley,” said Mr. Browning, “he suffered a considerable financial setback with the closing of the mine. He was very much in the soup with his accountants. I’m told that he lost over a million pounds sterling. It’s only natural that he should feel the need to economize.”

  “And you don’t think the bastard hired another butler as soon as he got back to England?” I asked.

  Mr. Browning considered this question for a moment. “It is not unlikely, sir,” he said, entirely without rancor.

  “Isn’t that typical of how the rich economize when they’re feeling broke, Mr. Browning?” I said. “Stiff the help?”

  “Is that a rhetorical question, sir?”

  “No, it’s a real question.”

  “In that case,” Mr. Browning said with his poker face. “I would prefer to express no opinion, sir,”

  “Bully for you, Mr. Browning!” Tolley said. “Exceedingly discreet. I value that quality highly in a valet. Let’s not allow the Communist agitators among us to undermine the time-honored servant-gentleman relationship. Why bite the hand that feeds you?”

  “Precisely, sir,” Mr. Browning said.

  “God, I didn’t know you were such a snob, Tolley,” Margaret said.

  “It’s not a question of snobbery,” Tolley said. “Mr. Browning and I simply understand the necessity of maintaining a certain … shall we say … etiquette, between a valet and the gentleman whom he serves. Is that not so, Mr. Browning?”

  “Very much so, sir.”

  Tolley beamed with self-satisfaction. “Splendid!”

  “I’d just like to say, Mr. Browning,” said Margaret, “that around this campfire, everyone is equal. You don’t have to call anyone ‘sir’ or anyone ‘miss,’ unless of course, you want to. You don’t have to wait to be asked a question in order to speak. And you’re allowed to express any opinion you wish on any subject whatsoever. Understood?”

  “Perfectly,” said Mr. Browning. “Thank you very much, miss. In that case, I’d be fascinated to know how you became interested in the study of anthropology. I was somewhat of an amateur ethnographer myself while in Africa with Lord Crowley.”

  “I guess it runs in the family,” Margaret answered. “My father was an anthropologist. He specialized in South American Indian tribes, particularly the Yanomami, who live in Brazil along the Orinoco River near the border of Venezuela. My mother died when I was a young child and so Father had to take me with him into the field. I spent much of my childhood down there. Inevitably, I developed an interest in native peoples myself.”

  “That’s fascinating, miss,” said Mr. Browning.

  And so the evening was passed, sitting around the fire, smoking, drinking coffee and brandy, laughing and telling our respective stories. We have gained considerable elevation today, the night air even cooler than it was in Bavispe, and we kept the fire stoked high. Above the tall flames a trillion stars sprayed like sparks across the black night sky. Despite the vast differences in our backgrounds and circumstances, in age, sex, race, and nationality, we seem closer now that we have la niña bronca in our charge. When we witnessed earlier her rebirth in water, a kind of baptismal ceremony, it was as if we became her adoptive family. I try to imagine the wild, ancient life she leads with her people in the hidden depths of these forbidding mountains to which we are returning her. And in so doing I am overcome with the uneasy sense that this holiday idyll, this “pretend” expedition that we have been on so far, is drawing to an end.

  I make this final entry of the day from my bed in the canvas wall tent I share with Tolley and Mr. Browning, or I should say that they share with me. Speaking of creature comforts, the place is fit for Emperor Maximilian himself, with canvas cots and fine linens, a collapsible table, leather folding chairs and kerosene lanterns, by the light of which I make these notes. The others are asleep already, snoring lightly. All is quiet. Except that the girl must be having a nightmare, because from her wickiup comes a kind of eerie ululation, a chilling, heartbreaking lamentation, an ancient song in an ancient tongue. It’s been a long, exhausting day, and I must sleep.

  LA NIÑA BRONCA

  DAALK’IDA ’AGUUDZAA. IT HAPPENED LONG AGO. SHE DREAMS THAT her aunt Tze-gu-juni is washing her for her puberty ceremony, and as she does so she sings the puberty songs to the girl, in a low, soft voice. White-Painted-Woman, mother of all Apaches. Five thousand years and two hundred generations ago, you are already among us as both man and woman, child and elder, hunter and suckler of babies, dressed in the heavy skins of mastodons, as we make our way in a blizzard across the frozen Siberian plains.

  Her aunt washes her feet, her calves and thighs, gently between her legs, washing away the blood that has begun to flow. The girl tries hard to push the bad thoughts away, to concentrate on the songs, to do everything correctly so that she will not bring misfortune down upon the People. But she is worried. Her sister’s husband, Indio Juan, has announced that after the end of the traditional four-day recovery period following the ceremony, he will take her as his second wife. It is true that there are few men left in the band suitable to be her husband; the Mexicans have been killing them off one by one, so that almost all who remain are boys and a few old men. But she does not wish to marry Juan; he is crazy and beats her sister, and all are afraid of his madness. But her mother says that the People need babies, and as the last of the girls coming into menarche, she is White-Painted-Woman now, the future of the People depends upon her and she will have to overcome her objections to Indio Juan. She tries hard not to think about these things. The water is cold but her aunt’s hands are gentle and sure, and after she finishes washing her body, she dries her and then she washes her hair with yucca root, and combs it out and dresses her in her beautifully beaded puberty dress, and combs her hair again, and the girl, so grateful for these kind and loving attentions, looks up into her aunt’s eyes. But it is no longer her aunt who combs her hair and the girl does not know where she is, or who this is into whose eyes she looks. She isn’t even sure who she is; she is no longer White-Painted-Woman, her entire world has vanished, and all those she knows in it are gone as well, and all who inhabit this new world are strangers and enemies. She is caged in a cold dark place and she is alone. She has only her own ancient self now to protect her, the hard kernel of her wildness, a memory of freedom. Duu ghat’ iida. Do not touch me, White Eyes, stay away, keep back, ba’naag’uuya, I will bite you, I will kill you, I will die defending myself, you may not touch me, I will kill you, I will kill you, I wish to die now, do not touch me, I warn you, keep back, I will bite you, I will kill you.

  “The gringo asks me to tell you that he is not going to hurt you. He just wants to put the blanket around you. El quiere ayudarlo. El no
lo dolerá. ¿Me entiende usted?” He wants to help you. He will not hurt you. Do you understand me?

  “I will die before I allow anyone to touch me. Ishxash. I will bite you, I will kill you, do not touch me, I wish to die.”

  Now the White Eyes puts the blanket around her and she huddles under it, peering out at him. Who are these people? There is a Mexican boy speaking to her and another man, and when the hot white sun strikes her inside this cold dark hole in the ground, blinding her, she knows that she has indeed fallen through the old world and into another, and she wonders if she is already dead.

  She curls up again on the cold floor and lies perfectly still, closing up into herself, and she dreams this life of the People from beginning to end. Daalk’ida ’aguudzaa. Three thousand years ago the People crossed the frozen Bering Sea to Alaska, and you are again among them as both man and woman, child and elder, hunter and suckler of babies. White-Painted-Woman, mother of all Apaches.

  She dreams of sunlight flooding her face, and of an old man speaking to her in her own tongue. She opens her eyes and looks up into his ancient, furrowed face, and she thinks that this must be Yusen himself, that she has gone at last to the Happy Place. But then she looks around her and she sees all the Mexicans and the White Eyes staring at her and she knows this is not the Happy Place at all, and she begins to cry out, to struggle, and the old man takes her by the shoulders and speaks softly to her. “Duu hajit’iida. Lie still, child, and I will take you home.”

  After they stole Geraldo Huerta, Indio Juan led the band back to one of their old rancherías. They rode on stolen mules and burros and others walked, through nearly impassable mountain passes into secret cañóns watered by unnamed rivers, where no Mexican dared follow. It was the same country to which those who had refused to surrender to the American army had fled fifty years ago, and had lived ever since. There was still game in the valleys, which were well protected by the mountains, and they were able to grow some crops. Whatever else they had needed, including women and children to supplement their dwindling bloodlines, they had stolen in stealthy, middle-of-night raiding forays upon the Mexican mountain villages and the isolated ranches, so that none could even say for certain that it had been the bronco Apaches who had preyed upon them.