by Clay Fisher
“They’re not human, padre,” Kifer groaned. “I vow before God, they’re not.” The sightless face turned up to me. “It doesn’t seem rightful that a priest of the cloth could abandon the wounded,” he said. “You’re a minister of the faith; you daren’t leave a man so.”
He had tried to struggle upward, free of his bonds, and I put restraining hand to his heaving shoulder.
“Kifer,” I said, “be at peace. I cannot help you, nor would my comrades permit me. But Crench is here with you, bound to the very next tree. Belcher is somewhere in the river brush, free and unharmed. You must pray that he will return for you. You have your life. Our Apaches wanted to crush your heads with rocks. I could only stay them by showing the cross, the black robes’ ‘medicine.’ Be you thankful to your God, and ask only his forgiveness; amen.”
“Belcher—!” Santiago Kifer screamed.
Only echoes down the river’s gorge answered him, and he turned to face blankly about and say in a frightened voice, “Crench?”
“Hyar, marshal,” the simple one replied. “I’m lashed foot and paw to this hyar tree, just liken the padry vowed.” I turned to go as Crench spoke to Kifer, and the great oaf called out cheerily in my wake, “So long, padry. You’re a ugly little fart, but I kind of tooken a shine to you. I’m glad the horse didn’t uproot your skull.”
For answer I could but bob my head. The last I heard of the two desperadoes was Kifer bellowing for the fugitive Belcher to come back, to stand faithful with his captive friends, that vengeance would still be theirs. I thought to hear Crench inquire of his blinded chief how everything looked when you couldn’t see it, but I am not certain. No reply that I detected came either from Santiago Kifer—or from the absent Deputy Belcher.
Returned to my friends at the breakfast fire, I resumed my accounting of Nunez’s dream for an Apache church.
I left nothing out. My fall from the priesthood. The fact that I was in flight from black robe justice. The tender mercy of my Lord, by which he had sent me the map to the lost Naranjal mine, a true miracle. My fortunes since coming to the United States to outfit my search for the Franciscans’ gold. My finding of Flicker—doomed to hang in Tombstone jail. His rescue of me from the angered citizens in good turn and time. And, lastly, our escape to this island bar in the middle of Rio San Pedro, in enemy Arizona. With the wondrous find, there, of Kaytennae, the one best Apache guide to the land of the Ghost Canyon of the mysterious River of the Oranges.
Here, I took natural pause. It was the perfect place to assess the friendly reaction of my listeners to my selfless vision for Apache salvation. Expecting a generous and grateful approval—after all, it is the primary business of a priest to sell dreams for realities—I received instead a full round of accusatory silence.
They were all staring at me, shaking heads and compressing lips. It was Chongo, in the end, who stated the case with Indian simplicity.
“Well,” he said, “we are waiting. So far, priest, we don’t believe you.”
23
NUNEZ AND THE NEW FAITH
“Schichobes, old friends,” I began, answering Chongo’s statement of doubt and addressing the Apaches in especial, “I want to build a church for your people only. When the gold is found, I will use it to build this Apache sanctuary deep in Sierra Madre del Norte. No black robes’ faith will be taught there. I shall teach the young in tongues and numbers and in writing. The aged and infirm I shall attend. There will be worship of your own gods. If any shall come to me and ask of my God, him I will answer but not persuade. Those who will keep to Ussen and the old ways may teach me. We will all pray together. Neither shall any priest come from Ciudad Chihuahua, nor any soldier from Ciudad Méjico, to arrest or harm one Indian.
“I have come to see, schichobes, that it is wrong to build a white man’s or a Mexican’s church for Indian people. Even I, Father Nunez, who am myself one-half the Indian blood, have no right to preach or tell the Apache what the Apache does not wish to hear.
“The church will be an Apache church and together we shall fill it with a new faith.
“Will you believe me, now, when I say this? When I promise it to you, both by Ussen and by Dios?
“Padre Jorobado cannot do this alone. He must have the gold to build a strong fortress for our faith, and to buy those things our black soldier-chief Flicker will require to defend this new freedom church. Here it is that only you may help.
“Go with your friend Nunez, the hunchback of Casas Grandes. He cannot find the canyon of the orange grove without that Kaytennae shall guide him. No black robe may go safely in Tepehuane country either, except that he goes with Indian comrades to secure the passage.
“It will be a long, long march, and exceeding dangerous.
“The way may lead to Durango and beyond to Sinaloa even. None of us truly knows that country, except to know that within it the savage Tepehuane Indians lie in wait for us.
“Those Indians were the slave miners of the black robes. They remember everything. They hate white man and Mexican more even than do the Apache. Nor do the Tepehuane people love the Apache overly. You know this. They are dangerous Indians. Yet to you they are still brothers, when to the black robes they are certain death; thus do I need you.
“Will you do it, friends? Will you go with Nunez to the land of the Tepehuanes?”
My Apache audience, restless and scowling at the outset, now ended listening intently. Surprising me, Chongo was the first of them to come forward for the new faith.
“Small humpbacked priest,” he said, “you are bent in the mind as well as the spine. But I could feel the fever in your words just now, and, yes, I will go with you. Ussen, forgive me.”
I thanked him, not failing to note that he looked not at the hunchbacked priest of Casas Grandes, but at the full-fronted daughter of the whore of Fronteras. I did not contest his inspirations, but turned to Packrat.
“Well,” Packrat guessed, in response to my query of his interest, “you do seem más loco, padrecito. Crazy like hell, as the Americans say. But so am I. Always have been. Add me to your list of idiotas. Ussen be damned.”
“Bless you, Little Rat,” I said quickly, seeing the reproving look that Chongo gave him. “Your joking spirit will be good.”
I eyed old Young Grass, third of my four Apache purebloods. “And you, mother; how say you?”
“Can you count, priest?” the Mescalero ancient asked. “If so, I will be número tres for you. Ih! Don’t thank me. If I stay up here the White Eyes will shoot me on sight because I am an Apache. The Apaches have already turned me out because I am too old. The only decent treatment I remember since Cochise died is from that young white scout from San Carlos Agency. What was his name, Josana?” she asked of Charra Baca. “Tin Horn?”
“Tom Horn,” Charra corrected. “Talking Boy.”
“Ah, indeed, indeed—” The old Mescalero squaw lapsed away into her memories, and I turned my glance upon Kaytennae, last of my full bloods.
“Hijo mío, my son,” I said to him, “what will you do? You are the most important of all of us. If you will not go, we cannot do so. Not and find the gold.”
The handsome Warm Springs raider shook his head, frowning both with the pain this motion caused from the wound across his forehead and from his suffering of Indian doubts of my expedition’s nature.
“Say this of it, padre mío,” he answered, at last. “I don’t know if I will lead you to the country of the Tepehuane. I do know that I am still sick. I better go with you, if I dream to ride again. I cannot stay up here in Arizona any more than the old Mescalero woman can. They have shot me once, and I live. Who knows about the next time? Yes, bear me with you. I do not think this is my country anymore. I will go and live with Juh and the Nednhi once again. Mexico is the last place of freedom for us. May Ussen guard the way.”
Finishing, he dropped his eyes as if in surrender to his fat
es. But he was not quick enough that Nunez did not see the eye-flick that he sent toward Charra Baca in the very process of giving in. Aha! A rival for Chongo? Two handsome young Apaches of the very best wild breeding warming in their manhoods for my hot-eyed foster daughter?
Well, está bien! Bienvenidos, jóvenes; most welcome to the company, young men. There is no glue like a little romance. If not to me, these dashing fellows would surely stick to Charra Baca. Qué cosa maravilloso.
I turned finally to the foster brother of the Apache.
“Well, Flicker,” I said, “how votes my chief of soldiers, my black Apache?”
My coming to him surprised the Negro renegade. Indeed, I caught him also eyeing the remarkable breasts of Charra Baca. And he caught me, catching him. While Charra captured us both in the process.
She laughed first.
Then black Flicker.
And lastly I, the lively minded cura of Casas Grandes.
“Loco, loco,” our four Apaches cried out. But soon enough they joined us. Even poor Kaytennae, so weak he scarce could chuckle, had to hold his wounded head and laugh with us all. It was perhaps the thing most needed.
“Vamos, vamos,” everyone agreed. “Let us get away from here and go and find Padre Jorobado’s gold.”
24
A GIFT OF LOVE FROM LOAFER
Momento, por favor. Have I said everyone was ready in the little camp to depart for Mexico? That all were crying out vamos! And all prepared to leave the island? It was not so. Flicker and I had forgotten a noble comrade of the great retreat from Tombstone.
You are right; it was the trail companion of the tall bay horse, the old and lame dog of Santiago Kifer.
But for our pause of necessity upon finding Kaytennae and having to figure out how to transport him, we would surely have gone on without the gallant Loafer. As it was, the tottering brute nearly missed us anyway. This was out of loyalty and devotion to his former owner, a touching and sad playlet which, unhappily, I did not see.
Indeed, fat Packrat was the sole member of the company to witness the farewell. Perhaps it is as well. The last good-bye of a man and his fondest friend, his dog of many years and a thousand campfires, is best not pried on by too many cynical eyes. The view of a simple Apache warrior, a Mexican bronco of the wild tribes, may have been designed of Dios to tell us of the tribute.
“That is a dog of great feeling,” Packrat remarked, pointing out Loafer, limping toward us from his detour to implement his adieu with Santiago. “He noted his old master the scalp hunter tied to the tree and went at once over to him. He sniffed him good and then raised his leg upon him for five squirts. Then he turned around and scraped sand into his face with his hind feet and came on over here to you, Jorobado.”
“Enjuh!” Flicker boomed, delighted. “Look out, padre, he might have something left for you.” Then, with an uneasy, quick eye to the blufftop and all about us on the island, he concluded frowningly, “Montad en vuestros caballos. Mount up, and let’s get out of here.”
We got at once to our horses and turned them to leave, warned by Flicker’s urgency, determined to obey its command. Yet one very last thing still delayed us. Even old Loafer was startled. Just as we spurred our mounts, having been careful to place Kaytennae with me on the tall bay horse that had won Flicker and me away from Tombstone, a great and bawdy shout arose to our rear.
Wincing, I bade Flicker stay the advance.
“Mil perdónes,” I apologized, “but what may we do? That will be the foster-mother of the beautiful Josana.”
It proved so to be, worse luck.
Next moment, astride a rat-tailed stolen mule, Zorra the whore rode out of the far-side willow trees. She splashed the animal across the stream, encouraging it continually with both lung and cudgel.
“Comrades,” she shouted, dashing up, “onward to wherever we are bound. There is a fury of hell to be reckoned with back there in the new mining camp. The good wives of the town are grown overnight weary of being scorned by their husbands. They have arisen and cast out the women of the red-lantern tents.”
Seeing my unhappy scowl at her coarse tirade, she at once broke into the yapping bark of her laugh.
“Here, now, Father Rat Turd,” she cried, fetching me a terrible clap atwixt my shoulder blades, “you know how such things go. It becomes all the while more difficult for an honest Mexican whore to make a living off these Anglos. The Americans, más especial, are getting smart, the bastards. They want to pay you in pinto beans and red chilies, and their wives! Santa, let me tell you about those wives!”
“For God’s sake, woman,” Flicker said, “tell the rest of it to the padre on the run, will you? We’ve got to get shut of here.”
“Isn’t that what I just warned?” rasped the peppery Zorra. Then, taking second stock of the magnificent Negro, she cooed up at him, “Ah, now wait, hombre; I will talk to you as we run. To hell with Father Rat Turd.”
“Hold,” I requested the shameless one. “Who guided you to find us here? I find this disturbing, Flicker, that she could so easily come upon us.”
“Well, woman,” Flicker growled, “answer the padre.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Zorra laughed. “It was a man of the posse that chased you here. He knew where you were, naturally. He told me of it when I told him you were friends of mine. This was when he came to warn me that the wives of the camp were in revolt, his own wife being the leader of their anger.”
“Aha!” I accused her. “A satisfied customer of yours, you she-fox, you!”
“But of course. You know my wares, little priest. Men don’t forget Zorra of Fronteras.”
“Ai, Jesu!” I groaned. “Some of us would like to.”
Flicker broke in to glare at me. “This is your doing, Nunez, damn you!” he snapped. “You had better take care of it. Now, everybody, by God, listen to me. Vamos, muchachos, goddamn it!”
With the blasphemy, he kicked his horse into a snorting lope. Away we all went with him. Zorra came last on her stiff-legged mule. She was shouting after Flicker, “Here, wait for me, Entero Negro! I won’t charge you anything!”
The “black stallion,” so addressed, made nothing of answer to the rude proposal. He only kicked his horse the harder. The sandbar and the island and the river fell away in the dust of our departure. Lost to sight also in that dust, hence lost to mind, were Santiago Kifer and his leering henchmen. We thought only of Durango and Sinaloa and of the waiting gold.
Thus at last and truly began the great adventure to find the lost mine of the Franciscans.
It seemed to me, as I urged my mount after the others, that already I could hear tolling faintly and from afar the mission bells that legend assured led onward to the gold of El Naranjal.
Follow the bells, always follow the bells, the legend said. Never mind it that these were the same bells that two hundred years of searchers had heard calling them on, calling them on, only to leave their bones bleaching beside the nameless, empty trails that led where the ghost bells whispered.
We were different.
The gold was God’s, and I was his padre.
The bells would not betray us.
25
KAYTENNAE, APACHE GUIDE
On Rio San Pedro, at the sandbar island, we were eleven miles only from Tombstone silver camp. Our historic trek, then, is most easily reckoned by marking its outset as Tombstone. The island and its lagoon could be gone with each spring’s high waters. Such a famous place, however, as Tombstone itself would not wash away in desert floodings. Neither would it otherwise vanish from the maps of vain mankind. And, akin to any minstrel of the past who labors to record his wanderings, Nunez yearned to be remembered. By this token, y por favor, hombres, let the long march begin.
Southward we went at first. The raven himself could not have flown truer course; but there were questions.
We un
derstood that we faced great and perilous distances. Eight hundred kilómetros, Flicker warned. Five hundred millas, even as drawn by a rule flatly over obstacles that would make the eagle weep. And this merely to reach the borders of the legend country, the land of the feared Tepehuane Indians. Also, as every desert mountain traveler must know, each mile gained straightaway is to be counted two miles up, down, and round about; so that the distances are in truth doubled. We faced in reality a thousand-mile journey. And every mile menaced by ambushed panther, stalking jaguar, howling wolf, and that peligro más feroz de todos—Ursus horribilis, the great grizzly bear.
Still, our essential problem was neither the length nor the difficulty of the way, nor the danger from wild beasts.
The submountain roughlands ahead of us were most noted for harboring human marauders. These parts were the chosen domain of Mexican Apache raiders, particularly Bedonkohe and Nednhi. Crossing this territory, we must encounter the intractable people who had twice reduced my mission at Casas Grandes. Even that was but the immediate option; a grimmer choice waited beyond the roving Apache.
Were we presently to continue our southward riding down into Sonora, skirting Fronteras and Nacozari to pass easterly over Rio Moctezuma and south again between that stream and Rio Bavispe, we must come in due and fearful time to the forks of Rio Yaqui, mother-place of the people of that name.
These Indians are impossible of accurate assessment. When one has declared the ferocity of the Apache, he must then add something yet of pagan cruelty to describe the Yaqui. Bear in mind that as we called the Apaches los bárbaros, the barbarians, so they in turn called the Yaquis the same name. And believe it in truth, amigos, any living people whom an Apache will consider and call “barbarians” must be avoided as the rotting plague.
Flicker was properly aware of this. It made for us a Satan’s choice, he said. This, on the evening of our first camp south of Arizona, a lonely place called Contrabandista Spring.