Ghost Warrior

by Lucia St. Clair Robson

  The old ones’ relatives helped carry their parents’ and grandparents’ belongings to the cave in the cliff. Fourteen-year-old Disgruntled and Burns His Finger, and thirteen-year-old Big Hand joined them. Victorio had assigned them the duty of keeping watch over the old ones. The responsibility carried great honor, but none of the boys wanted it. To make it more appealing, Victorio had given them carbines and cartridge belts with ten precious bullets in each of them. For days they had struck straddle-legged, scowling poses, the belts low on their hips, the guns held with careless bravado.

  He Makes Them Laugh’s grandparents refused to leave their lodge. They said if they were going to die, they’d just as soon do it in the comfort of their home. The boys helped the three sick women mount three old ponies that hadn’t ended up in the stew pots yet. Lozen led Victorio’s pony to a flat rock so Grandmother and her old friend Turtle could climb onto him.

  Grandmother knew why her son had left his favorite horse behind. Coyote was too old for the rigors of the war trail. Grandmother and the others could ride him if they needed to, and if necessary, he would provide meat for them.

  They rode as far up the slope as they could and dismounted. Big Hand led the ponies to the upper pasture, and Lozen and the other two boys carried the ones who couldn’t climb to the cave. Then she helped Grandmother and Turtle. Grandmother had to stop often, and Lozen waited with her arm around her waist. When they reached the ledge, Grandmother sat on a rock to rest, and Lozen pulled away the stones that hid the entrance to the nearby cache of food and belongings. Everyone except those who were ill gathered brush to make beds. They ate dried mule meat and parched corn with berries.

  When they had settled in, they embraced the children and grandchildren. They murmured, “May we live to see each other again,” and “I will pray to Life Giver each day that He keep you safe.” They watched their families start down the slope, single-file, but Lozen stayed behind.

  By nightfall Lozen and the old ones had turned the cave into a comfortable shelter with a small fire built in a rear corner so the light wouldn’t be visible from below. With a weary sigh Grandmother lay down in the darkness near Turtle and pulled the blanket over her. Lozen sat at the mouth of the cave, looking out over the cliffs and outcrops sculpted into wraithlike shapes by wind and rain, moonlight and shadow. Since Lozen was old enough to understand the words, Grandmother and the other old ones had told her the names of each one of them and the stories that went with the names.

  The old ones talked softly back and forth in the cave behind her until fatigue caught up with them. One by one their voices stilled. A large shadow swooped almost at eye level beyond the ledge, and the owl gave his spectral “hoo, hoo, hoo.” In fear of Ghost Owl, Lozen backed into the cave and crawled under the blanket with Grandmother.

  “You should go with the others,” Grandmother said. “They need your far-sight.”

  “I’ll catch up with them tomorrow. I know if enemies are around, so I can travel in the day while the rest are hiding at the Place Where The Widows Stopped To Cry.”

  “Do you know why it’s called that?”

  Lozen thought for a long time about what her grandmother wanted her to see when she asked that question.

  “Holes In The Earth,” she said finally. It was the name of the Santa Rita mine where, thirty years ago, the white men and Mexicans had invited the Red Paints to a feast and then killed and scalped Grandmother’s husband and daughter, Lozen’s mother. At Holes In The Earth Grandmother became one of the widows who stopped to cry on their flight back to Warm Springs.

  By speaking with names, by identifying the places where the events happened, Grandmother took Lozen and the others there. The stories of those places reminded them that The People had been through bad times before. At the Death Feast they had suffered from the treachery of Pale Eyes they had thought were their friends. They had lost loved ones, but they had survived. Life had continued.

  Turtle said, “They dug mescal buds again.”

  Another long silence, then a second voice said softly from the darkness in the cave, “They watched their children dance.”

  “Pleasantness all around,” spoke up a third.

  “Good things all around,” said another.

  No one else spoke, but Lozen could feel the mood in the cave shift, lighten. Grandmother had let people visit those places. They had stood there and looked at them. They had heard what the land told them about endurance and the healing effects of time.

  Lozen cupped her chest against her grandmother’s knobby back and put her arm around her, pulling her close. The night air was frigid, and the cave was dank. Grandmother had so little flesh and fat left on her bones that she felt the cold more than she used to. Lozen put her cheek against Grandmother’s hair and closed her eyes.

  She Moves Like Water had confided to her that she feared they would not find Grandmother alive when they returned. Lozen didn’t believe that, though. When she came back for her, Grandmother would flash that sly ringtail smile. She would hug Lozen and tell her stories of what had happened while she was away, just as she had always done.

  Chapter 42

  FEEDING THE HAND THAT BITES

  Rafe and Caesar dismounted to stretch their legs under the old cottonwood. While Caesar watered the pack mule, Rafe lifted the puppies out of the burden basket hanging in front of his stirrup and set them down in the grass. Patch came over to sniff, lick, and inspect them.

  Rafe would miss them on the ride back, but they were presents for Caesar’s nephews, Charlie Sets Him Free and Wah-sin-ton, and one for Lozen if she wanted him. Rafe had knitted tiny socks for Maria’s baby, and he and Caesar had brought presents for the adults, too.

  Lozen’s comment about wanting a dog had surprised Rafe. He knew her people had always regarded dogs with a superstitious fear, but the Mescaleros living at the Bosque Redondo reservation had started keeping them as pets, or at least they tolerated the soldiers’ strays.

  Rafe and Caesar scooped the cold water over their heads and threw handfuls of it at each other. The bloated storm clouds advancing from the west seemed to push the July heat ahead of them and made drawing breath a labor. Rafe and Caesar lay in the grass with their hands clasped behind their heads and waited for the sentries’ hawk whistle signaling their arrival. The horses grazed, and the three puppies played until they grew tired and fell asleep. Rafe sighed in contentment.

  He and Caesar had had little time to lie about and do nothing. The government had shifted territorial offices to California, which left the departments of New Mexico and Arizona in disarray. Army posts were established and abandoned, expanded, reduced, relocated, and renamed. Rafe and Caesar kept busy freighting construction materials. They hauled lime from Mesilla, lumber from Pinos Altos, and charcoal from Santa Rita. Rafe hated the idea of dying while defending a wagonload of lime, but the pay was good.

  One of the new posts was Fort Bascom. In the sort of irony lost on the army, the starched-collars in Washington named it after George Bascom, the lieutenant who had bungled negotiations with Cochise about ten years earlier and started the warfare that consumed them all still.

  Maybe it’s fitting, Rafe thought. Bascom had been responsible for providing a living for thousands of soldiers, and in many cases, a dying.

  Bureaucratic idiocy, the egregious thievery of the rations contractors at Bosque Redondo, and George Carleton’s irrational arrogance had finally worn down Dr. Steck. He had resigned in disgust. He should have waited. The Department of the Army had relieved Carleton of duty, although his departure hadn’t helped the situation. A succession of generals squabbled and dithered while roving packs of Apaches continued to raid the army and civilians alike.

  “It’s ironic,” Rafe mused.

  “What is?” asked Caesar.

  “Don’t most of the white men in this territory make their living supplying the army?”

  “They do.”

  “If the Apaches are exterminated, the army marches away, and th
e good citizens are left with their hands in an empty till.”

  “You means white folk hereabouts want the Injun troubles to go on, so’s they can keep makin’ money off the gum’ment?”

  “Exactly. But here’s the irony. With the army scouring the mountains for Apaches, you’d think they’d make themselves scarce.”

  Caesar laughed. “Nosiree-bob. They hovers around the forts and the roads like so many turkey buzzards. They stole six mules, ’leven horses, and three oxen from down to Fort Cummins’ just last week.”

  “Yep. The Apaches have become as dependent on the army as the hooligans roosting in the saloons.”

  “I reckon you could say the gum‘ment’s feedin’ the hand that bites it.”

  Rafe chuckled. “You could say that.”

  The two of them read aloud for a while, passing the book back and forth, while dark clouds encroached on the blue sky, setting the cottonwoods’ leaves to fluttering in the wind. By midafternoon they had heard nothing that sounded like an Apache signal. No one had come for them, and the first drops had started to fall.

  “Let’s go.” Rafe set the puppies back in the basket.

  Rafe and Caesar put on the gutta-percha ponchos they always carried in July and August, the rainy season. Rafe’s was big enough to form a tent that covered the saddlebags and the puppies. Caesar’s was the same size, but it barely covered him.

  “We goin’ back to Alamosa?”

  “Nope. We came to deliver Dr. Steck’s last presents to Victorio and his people, and we’re going to see that they get them.”

  “How do you expect to find them? We was blindfolded last trip.”

  “I’ll follow my ears.”

  “Your ears?”

  “Remember how we splashed through that stream for quite a ways?”

  “Yeah, but where is it?”

  “You’re looking at it.”

  Caesar stared at the stream, then up at the cliff a mile or so away. “You mean they rode us in a big circle and brung us back to it?”

  “I’d say so. I think your new brother-in-law, He Makes Them Laugh, told us stories to distract us from listening to what was going on.” Rafe didn’t know whether to be insulted or amused that the Apaches thought so little of his intelligence. “Did you notice the echo we heard part of the way, as though we were going through a narrow canyon?”

  “You think they’s a way through that wall?”

  “Like the Mexicans, I half believe that Apaches can make themselves invisible, but I doubt they can walk through solid rock.”

  “The Lord parted the Red Sea for Moses.” Caesar grinned at him. “Maybe He can part that there cliff for us.”

  Neither of them spoke about the possibility that they wouldn’t be welcomed as friends on the other side. A crash of thunder opened the fandango. Rain poured down as though someone had slid back a sluice gate.

  EVEN THOUGH THE LOUD SPLATTER OF RAIN OBSCURED ANY signals the sentries might give, Lozen knew something was wrong when no one came to meet them. Fights Without Arrows, Chato, He Steals Love, Flies In His Stew, Ears So Big, and He Makes Them Laugh knew it, too. They dismounted, and the apprentices took the horses’ reins. They all waited in silence while Lozen closed her eyes and prayed to Life Giver to tell her if enemies were near. When she finished, she made the sign for no.

  The rain abated. A few more wind-driven sprays hit them; then the storm grumbled off over the mountain, leaving the trees to drip. Fights Without Arrows used gestures to divide the group and send individuals in different directions.

  Lozen and He Makes Them Laugh crawled across the meadow where the ponies usually grazed. Before they reached the edge of the village, gusts carried the odor of wet ashes and charred wood, and the sound of a dog barking. Then they saw the burned arbors and the blackened heaps of Stands Alone’s lodges in the gloom under the tarnished gray sky. Two horses, a mule, and two men shrouded in glistening black ponchos stood in the mud in the middle of Stands Alone’s camp. The dog barked furiously in the direction of Fights In A Line and Chato, who were approaching from upwind. The men faced the same way, with their hands held out at their sides to show they were empty. Lozen and He Makes Them Laugh couldn’t see their faces, but they recognized the horses.

  “Hairy Foot and Uncle,” He Makes Them Laugh murmured. “Chato will shoot them.”

  As though to verify that, they heard the solid ka-thunk of a bolt sliding home. Lozen could tell by the sound that it was Chato’s shiny new rifle, the one he called Many Shots. Hairy Foot and Uncle must have heard it, too, but they didn’t move to defend themselves or flee.

  Lozen stood up and walked into the open to show Chato and the others that she didn’t consider the Pale Eyes a threat. He Makes Them Laugh splashed after her through the puddles that were shrinking as the water soaked into the earth.

  The dog whirled on them. Hackles raised, head lowered, she started toward them at a stiff-legged gait. The two men turned around, and Lozen saw grief in their eyes, and relief at the sight of her instead of someone more likely to murder them. She did not detect guilt or fear or deception.

  Hairy Foot said something to the dog. She sat down, her ears laid against her head, her lips drawn back to expose sharp teeth in a snarl. Hairy Foot slowly drew the poncho off over his head and threw it aside. He untied the bandana from around his neck and wiped the sweat from his face with it, although Lozen thought he might be wiping away tears, too.

  “No lo hicimos,” he said. “We didn’t do it.”

  “Yo se,” said Lozen. “I know.”

  Fights Without Arrows, Chato, and the others advanced across the dance ground, converging on them with rifles leveled and arrows nocked.

  “They led the Bluecoats here.” Chato aimed his Winchester at Rafe’s face. “We will kill them slowly by fire, as befits Pale Eyes witches.”

  “You will not harm them.” Lozen moved to stand in front of him. “They’re brothers to Stands Alone.”

  He Makes Them Laugh ignored them all and ran to his grandparents’ camp. When he began to howl in mourning, Patch threw her head back and joined in. Lozen started at a headlong run toward the trail to the cave. Now that the rain had stopped, the vultures had begun to weave their circles in the sky above the cliff.

  She sprinted up the steep slope, grabbing rocks and bushes to pull herself along faster. She leaped a boulder that had rolled onto the path and almost landed on the outstretched hand of Disgruntled. Someone had scalped him. Nearby lay Victorio’s pony, Coyote.

  She pleaded and bargained with Life Giver as she scrambled upward, oblivious of the scrapes, cuts, and bruises the rocks and brambles left on her hands, arms and legs. The stench hit her as she cleared the top of the ledge. The sun broke through the clouds and shone into the cave, lighting up the bodies that lay sprawled across the floor. Most of them had bloody wounds on the crowns of their heads.

  Lozen scooped ashes from the firepit and scattered them on the bodies as she moved among them. She found her grandmother with her friend Turtle. The two of them lay in each other’s arms as though they had fallen asleep, except that they, too, had been scalped. Lozen sat at Grandmother’s side and rocked back and forth, trying to contain her grief, but the effort was futile. She lifted her face toward the sky beyond the cave’s ceiling, closed her eyes, and wailed.

  RAFE TRIED TO FOLLOW LOZEN AND THE OTHERS, BUT THEY soon disappeared around the second bend in the path. He was left to scramble up as best he could. He hadn’t gotten far when he heard the keening cry. Lozen had found something terrible. He wondered whom the marauders had killed. Her mother, her father? Her grandmother? Caesar’s new family?

  Not long after, male voices joined Lozen’s in wailing their grief. They startled Rafe. He would not have thought Apache men capable of so much emotion.

  He had almost reached the top when Chato came back. He stood in Rafe’s path, with one foot set on a boulder and his forearm resting on his thigh. He glared down at Rafe and spoke in Spanish.

  “Gr
andmother Lozen says not to kill you. She says, ‘Hairy Foot, go away. Go away, pronto.’”

  Rafe turned and started down the slope, leaning back to counter the pull of gravity while the angle of descent jammed his toes into the ends of his boots. The hair on the back of his neck stirred. He didn’t think Chato would waste a bullet on him. He would probably sneak up on him and bash his skull in with that serviceable-looking war club dangling from his belt.

  Rafe let his breath out in a gust of relief when he made it to the bottom of the trail. He found Caesar with He Makes them Laugh. They had wrapped two bodies in blankets and tied them across the mule’s back. The mule’s original load of gifts sat stacked in the center of the dance ground with Caesar’s gutta-percha poncho covering it.

  “These are my brother-in-law’s grandparents.” Caesar nodded toward the bodies. “I reckon the riffraff that set up shop near the fort kilt them. My brother here says they must’ve kilt the ’ole folks in the cave up yonder, too. He says Lozen’s grandmother is up there.”

  “We have to leave.”

  “I’m gonna help bury his people.”

  “If they find us here when they get back, they’ll kill us.”

  He Makes Them Laugh listened intently, trying to understand the strange words.

  Caesar nodded toward He Makes Them Laugh. “He’s family. I can’t leave him to do this alone.” Caesar collected his gray’s reins and the mule’s.

  When He Makes Them Laugh saw that Caesar intended to stay with him, he yanked the reins away fom him.

  “Vaya.” He waved toward the trail back to the cliff wall. “¡Vaya!”He drew a hand across his throat, the sign for quick death in any language.

  Rafe felt in his pocket and pulled out the tiny socks he had knitted. He handed them to He Makes Them Laugh.

  “Para la niña de María Mendez,” he said.

  The puppies would have to go back with him. This was not the time to leave a present of something the Apaches considered bad luck.