by Anya Seton
Cleve grunted assent. “Up Blue River,” he said.
“Hang on tight, Andy,” said Dart. “This’ll be pretty rough, but we’ll make it if the wheels stay on.”
They were running up a dry creek bed, hurtling over small stones and bushes, skirting boulders and larger holes; until at last they rounded a little curve and the Indian muttered something. At once Dart turned the car right and plunged up the bank into an apparent wall of desert broom and burro brush. They emerged, however, onto a road of sorts which ran along the desert toward a clump of tall mesquite. And clustered near the trees, Amanda saw the dim beehive shapes of Apache dwellings—the wickiups.
“I get off here,” said Cleve. “You go little way on.”
“Yes, I know now.” Dart stopped the car. “Thanks, Cleve.”
The Indian said something brief in Apache and Dart answered him. The noise of the car had attracted several figures who materialized silently from the darkness and came up peering and murmuring. They were women. Amanda saw the long flowing hair and the billowing flounced skirts. Cleve, who had been halfway out of the car, uttered a sharp exclamation and clambered back in the car and slammed the door. One of the women gave a little cry, half mirth, half dismay, then they all turned and scuttled into the darkness. Dart started the car and drove on.
“Why didn’t Cleve get out?” asked Amanda, glancing back toward the Indian. “What upset him?”
“Those were some of his wife’s relatives,” answered Dart hurriedly. “He must never see them. They practice avoidance. It’s the old custom.”
“Oh,” she said. This was no time to question, no time to bother Dart with curiosity, or timidity, or the need for reassurance in this setting which seemed to her increasingly fantastic. The stars were there, the desert scenery, the distant mountains, the familiar car, and Dart whom she loved, but she felt herself increasingly alone and disoriented, surrounded by enigmas to which she might not bring the patronizing amusement of the tourist, but in which she would soon be required in some measure to share. Without preparation, without understanding, she must now accept her husband in the one aspect she had come to dread, as part of an alien and hostile race; and in her veins she felt the stirring of the ancient atavistic fear.
The car had jounced a mile or so farther along the rutted tracks when another grove of trees appeared, taller than the last, for here there was water from a spring, and willows grew amongst the arrow-weed and broom.
There were several wickiups and Dart stopped the car near the furthest one. Smoke curled up through its brushthatched roof and out the open door where firelight flickered.
The instant the motor stopped, a half-dozen Indians emerged from the wickiups. They surrounded the car, four men and two women; the women stared silently, then dropped their eyes, but the men greeted Dart with low cries. “Shikil” My friend. And one who was taller than the rest, nearly as tall as Dart, rested his hand for an instant on Dart’s shoulder and called him by his boyhood nickname, “Ish-kin-azi.”
Amanda stood uncertainly in the shadows, waiting. She was faint with hunger and very tired, the Apache voices, the dark faces and the silent domed wickiups swirled round her in a vague menacing dream.
It was only an instant though before Dart came and drew her forward. “These are my relatives, Andy,” he said. “Second cousins, descended from Tanosay’s brothers.”
“How do you do—” she murmured and the six pairs of black eyes rested without expression on the girl’s white face and the short wind-blown fair hair. “How do you do—” answered several voices and one male voice added, “Welcome.”
Dart turned in the direction of that voice and smiled. He indicated the tall young Indian who had greeted him most warmly and said, “This one I grew up with—we were close as brothers when I was here on the reservation—” He hesitated, knowing that he must name him for Amanda but observant of the inviolable taboo. The real name is sacred and may not be mentioned, many nicknames are discarded, he could not say to Amanda, This is “my grandfather's nephew,” as he would to an Apache.
The young Indian solved the problem himself. “I’m John Whitman,” he said to Amanda, giving his Agency name, and his eyes smiled a little.
She held out her hand impulsively, hearing in the voice a slight resemblance to Dart’s, feeling some kindliness at last, but the Indian hesitated and she drew her hand back, flushing.
“We ... they don’t go in much for handshaking," said Dart. “John means no offense.”
“I know—it’s all right—” she murmured, and she looked up at Dart anxiously. Why, when they had pelted through the night to get here, was there now this delay at Saba’s doorstep? Why didn’t Dart rush in to her?
He understood her question and answered it. “One of my cousins has gone to prepare Shi-Ma, my mother. When you go in, Andy, it will make her happy if you call her Shi-Ma too. They say she’s wandering a bit. It may be hard for her to place you.”
Amanda nodded and leaned silently against the car, staring at nothing.
The group of Indians had dispersed as noiselessly as they had appeared, all except John. He stood with Dart and they conversed in Apache, while John gave Dart much information which had been lacking from Cleve’s knowledge. During the last months, Saba had been growing very thin and tired. She no longer took interest in anything, even her basketry. Soon she almost ceased eating and lay all day on her blankets, looking out through the open door toward the Natanes Mountains where she had spent her youth. The women had all taken turns caring for her most tenderly but she had not grown better, though they had summoned the shaman from Bylas, the one whose power came from the Mountain Spirits. He had performed his special curing ceremony, and they had held the sacred masked dance for her too, but it had done no permanent good, only for a little while.
“Why didn’t you let me know sooner,” said Dart sadly, for he knew the answer.
“She did not wish it. You understand that. She knows that you must follow the white trail forever now. That no man can ride two horses.”
“What else has been done for her?” asked Dart. “If she can travel, I mean to take her at once to the Agency hospital.”
“No,” said the Indian. “She will not go.” And John went on to explain that the superintendent of the Agency himself had heard of Saba’s illness, and he had come to visit her, bringing the doctor with him. But the white doctor had said at once that it was hopeless. That she had a growth that was eating up her stomach and the hospital could do nothing.
And then the Lutheran minister had come to pray with her. Saba was no church member, but all the Indians liked this minister who spoke Apache almost as well as they did themselves. So they had let him into the wickiup, and Saba had listened peacefully while the minister read to her from the white Bible, and prayed for her. So everything had been done. Both the white man’s and the Indian’s medicines for body and spirit had been invoked, and now all was in readiness for her going-away.
Dart bowed his head, and the two young men stood together in silence, until John’s young wife, Rowena, a pretty girl in blue calico, glided out from the wickiup and touched Dart on the arm. He nodded and said, “Come—” to Amanda who followed them through the low door into the bark and canvas dwelling.
At first Amanda’s eyes were so blinded by smoke that she saw nothing clearly, but she heard the low choking voice cry out, “Shi-ja-yeh! My son!” and a kindly hand pulled Amanda to the far end of the wickiup. Here where the smoke was thinner, Amanda stood confused and uncertain looking down at Dart and his mother.
Saba lay propped on a pile of blankets which were protected from the dirt by a cowhide rug. Her iron-gray hair, cut square above the eyebrows, flowed loose in strands over the shoulders of her faded cotton blouse. Her emaciated face with the skin stretched tight over her high cheekbones, straight nose, and sharp jawline was the color of old ivory, and on her chin there were six blue tattoo marks. Her hair and shoulders were dusted yellow with the sacred life-giving pollen
the shaman had sprinkled on her.
Dart knelt beside her pallet, and from the hollow eyesockets her brilliant black eyes caressed his bent head with an expression of burning love. Her hand, knotted and veined but small as that of all Apaches, lay lightly on his shoulder, and from her lips there came a soft crooning murmur, nearly formless words in both English and Apache—of lullaby, of greeting, and of farewell.
It was Saba who first realized that Amanda stood there; she turned her head and looked up at the frightened girl and the shadow of a smile came into the burning eyes. “So it is you, my son’s—wife,” she said in a clear voice. “Come here to me.”
Amanda knelt on the cowhide beside Dart, her heart beat thickly and her eyes were blinded with tears. “Yes, Shi-Ma—” she whispered. “I am here.”
Saba lifted her hand from Dart’s shoulder and touched Amanda’s cheek. She took Dart’s right hand and Amanda’s left and clasped them together. “It is well,” she said and the words drifted through her pale lips like the sighing of the wind. Her hand dropped from theirs and she sank back on the blankets. “Now leave me with Shi-ja-yeh—with my son.”
“My cousins’ll take care of you, Andy,” said Dart very low, then he turned back to his mother.
Amanda rose, and at once the young Indian girl Rowena. John’s wife, came forward. “Come with me—” and she led Amanda from the wickiup, and through the darkness to her own dwelling. In here there was a smaller fire, and a rickety camp cot as well as a pile of red and gray store-bought blankets. Seeing that Amanda looked dazed and very pale, the Indian girl pushed her gently down on the cot. “Sit here. I’ll give you some tulapai. You’ll feel better.” She went out to the ramada, an open twig and branch lean-to, to fetch the tulapai jug.
Amanda sat on the cot and gazed around the wickiup. It was made of willow sapling, laced with yucca leaves, and thatched with bear grass. Strips of canvas and old flour bags insulated the outside, where in the old days they would have used deer hides.
Inside on the stamped earth floor there was no furniture except the cot, and an obsolete treadle sewing machine. An iron pot, bought in Globe, hung on a tripod over the fire and emitted a rank odor which mingled with the smell of stale sweat from the blankets. A faint noise attracted Amanda’s attention and upon examining its source in the shadows by the doorway, she discovered a plump baby, tight-swaddled and strapped on a cradle board, propped against the brush wall. The baby was thus sleeping bolt upright, with a contented smile on its face.
His mother reappeared with a gallon can of tulapai, and giggled when she saw Amanda. “You like my baby? Pretty soon you have one too, mebbe so?”
Amanda smiled faintly. “Someday. I hope so.” She could think of nothing but food and sleep, and she did not know how either was to be obtained. Her hostess offered her an enamel cup full of tulapai, which turned out to be a strange grayish concoction made of fermented corn and mesquite beans, with the addition of yeast and raisins to make it strong, and a dash of tobacco juice for flavor. Amanda, fearful of offending, gulped down a little of it, and the heat in her stomach revived her and gave her the courage to say, “Could I beg a little something to eat from you? And do you know where I could rest for a while?”
“Sure,” said Rowena. “You sleep here with me and my little sister. John go someplace else.” She picked up the cradle board from which there had come a snuffling cry. She went outside a minute and came back with a cold tortilla and a strip of jerky in her hand. She held them out to Amanda. “Here,” she said smiling. “Eat. Drink more tulapai. It will make you not so sad. Then rest on the cot.”
She squatted down on the pile of blankets holding the cradle-board flat on her lap. She raised the short blue Mother Hubbard blouse and began to nurse the baby.
Amanda nibbled a little at the clammy tortilla and the tough salty beef. She docilely sipped the tulapai. She had had nothing to eat since the bread and jam at home after her walk up the canyon. Twelve hours ago according to her wristwatch and it felt like weeks. This Amanda who sat in an Apache wickiup while her husband kept vigil with a dying mother seemed disembodied from all the other familiar Amandas; the one who was Dart’s passionate and responsive mate or the discontented little Lodestone housewife. These seemed as remote as did the earlier Amandas of New York and Greenwich and Vassar and Europe.
If Tim could see me now, she thought, but not with amusement, rather with a remote wonder that life which had always seemed all of a piece could offer such extraordinarily disjointed contrasts. What sure continuity was there but ego?—and love perhaps. It was because of love that she was here. She had thought during the wild ride through the night that there might be another link. Deep down, suppressed beneath the sympathy for Dart and the sadness of their mission, there had been a hope that if Saba were not too sick she might ask her about the lost mine—about the Pueblo Encantado. For Saba, who had put the relics in the basket, might feel differently from her son about the search. But during those minutes in the other wickiup she had felt shame for her thoughts, and she had known that even if Saba were well she could never ask her.
There was a soft pad of footsteps at the door, and a little girl of twelve slid in and stopped dead at the sight of Amanda. The child flung up her hands to cover her mouth, and her round fawn eyes grew black as dewberries. Rowena said something quick in Apache, but the little girl shook her head and backed out of the wickiup.
Rowena laughed a little, lowering her blouse and propping the baby against the wall. “That was my sister. She is afraid because you are here. She will not come in.”
“I’m sorry,” said Amanda softly. “Is there any other place I can go?”
The Indian girl shook her head. “They wouldn’t let you in. We don’t like white people to come into our homes, especially those of us who live in the old way. But for John and me it’s different. He is blood brother to Ish-kin-azi—to your husband, and we’re not afraid of white people. We went many years to the Indian school.”
“You hate us.... ” said Amanda sighing.
“No. Not all. Only those who want to change us, only those who come asking rude questions, and taking photographs, and laughing at us behind their hands. Only those who make us ashamed because we could no longer feed ourselves and must take charity.—But it’s better now.” Rowena got up and brought a blanket from the pile over to Amanda. “Now we have the cattle. Our own herds to sell for ourselves. Our clan here at Blue Springs”—she added, her eyes shining—“owns many fine head of cattle.... Sleep now, our cousin’s • wife,” she said, putting the blanket over Amanda. “The tulapai will make you sleep.”
Amanda tried to say something, but her weighted lids dropped. She stretched her legs out on the hard canvas cot and the flickering firelight on the grass and brush ceiling dissolved into darkness.
She awoke at six to see Dart’s face bending close to hers, his gray eyes looking down at her with anxious affection and some humor. Forgetting where she was, she gave a soft cry of welcome and put her arms around his neck. He kissed her and said, “How’re you doing? I gather you got some sleep.”
She struggled up on her elbow, staring around the dim, deserted wickiup. She looked down at the rumpled gray blanket, at her camel’s hair top coat in which she had slept. Then she remembered.
“Oh, Dart—your mother
“She’s much weaker but peaceful. The women’re tending her. She says that she will go away as the sun sets. I think she knows.” Instinctively he used the Apache euphemism for death.
“Come along,” he said briskly. “I’ve rustled up some coffee for us. Then I’ll take you downstream a bit. We could both use a wash.”
She clambered stiffly off her cot and shook herself. She took her pocket comb and compact from her purse. “Holy heaven, what a mess—” she murmured trying to comb her hair. “Dart, I itch all over,” she looked up at him startled, scratching vigorously at her stomach. “Fiery itches. What’s the matter with me?”
He bent over, pulled up her cot
ton shirt and examined her stomach. “Fleas—my love.” He grinned at her expression. “Maybe one or two other bugs as well. I’ll delouse you as soon as we’ve eaten.”
She moistened her lips, her eyes moved from his amused face to the blanket, and it seemed to her that all her flesh crawled. “Disgusting.” she whispered. Filthy savages—she thought. Nothing would induce me to spend another night in this horrible place. And Dart could laugh. Could laugh because he was really—She clamped her lips tight over the sudden bitter words that rushed against them.
“Come get your coffee,” Dart said. Her thoughts were transparent enough and he was no longer smiling. “I can get someone to take you back to the superintendent’s house at the Agency. They have modern plumbing and all the comforts. They’ll let you stay there until—until I can come.”
She said nothing. She followed him out to the outdoor cooking fire and accepted the tin mug of coffee he poured for her. She ate one from Rowena’s stack of cold tortillas, and some small cakes like hamburgers made from acorns, and the dried sticky fruit of the giant saguaro, all of which Dart handed her silently. She found that she was so ravenous that the strange flavors were unimportant.
While they ate nobody came near them. Rowena was in with Saba. John had ridden off into the hills with the other men to look for newborn calves amongst their clan herd. There were people around the more distant wickiups, women walking in and out of the ramadas in their flounced, brightcolored dresses, and children playing, but nobody even glanced in their direction.
As Amanda finished the last bite of tortilla, there was a commotion on the rutted road and a horse-drawn wagon app ... red by the side of the farthest wickiup. Some of the children began to climb up the wheels and jump into the wagon. Dart watched them a moment, then poured himself another cup of coffee. “The kids are going to drive to the Agency school,” he said. “You can go into San Carlos with them.”