Once Upon a Camel

by Kathi Appelt

  Zada nudged Asiye, and slowly, the two rose, so thirsty that it was hard to get all the way up off the ground. Zada felt a little woozy. Maybe she had imagined the smell after all. She sniffed again to be sure.

  Yep. There it was again. Water.

  Zada and Asiye headed toward that wonderful smell, and to cap it off, the bell kept ringing.

  Not five minutes passed when they came upon a raggedy old building, sitting in the very middle of nowhere, and there, right in front of it, sat a big, beautiful fountain.

  The camels stopped. “Is it a mirage?” asked Zada.

  They both gave great big sniffs. “That’s water,” said Asiye.

  They took a quick scan. From the sad shape of the building, it appeared to be abandoned. But just to be sure that no one was there, the camels called out in their most semi-melodious voices, to announce themselves… just in case.

  This was obviously a people dwelling, and while Zada and Asiye were quite familiar with people, not all people were familiar with camels. Their most recent encounter had been with a rowdy group of boys, astride a rowdy group of horses. The boys and horses surrounded the camels, and for no reason whatsoever, started pelting them with rocks.

  Whap, whap, whap! Ouch ouch ouch! What had Zada and Asiye done to deserve that? Nothing. That’s what. So they raised their heads and bawled as loud as they could, and… well…

  Adios, horses. So long, boys. Güle güle, rocks.

  (Horses. Jeez, they’re so predictable.)

  Another time, the two camels came upon a sheep herder, with a straggly, scraggly flock of sheep. She was nice enough, but she wanted to clip Zada’s and Asiye’s fur with a pair of very sharp sheep shears.

  “Not good,” stated Zada.

  “Bad!” cried Asiye, and off they went, as fast as they could, with the shepherd lady calling out, “Camel fur! I can make camel fur socks! Come back.”

  Zada would never forget her, even though at the end of the day, it seemed pretty funny. Camel fur socks.

  So, people? Not so much.

  Zada and Asiye were just as cautious when it came to crossing into some other critter’s home turf, like the hidden mountain forest where the black bears raised their cubs, or the rockslide where the rattlesnakes curled up. And let’s not forget mountain lions’ caves.

  However, because there was the small matter of them dying of thirst, they decided to take a chance here.

  “Let’s go,” said Zada. In front of them was a low fence, but it was clear that the fence was only for decoration, because it certainly could not have kept anyone out. It reminded Zada of the prickly pear fence in Indianola that she and her companions had eaten. This fence wasn’t one for eating, but it was just as useless.

  Zada and Asiye stepped right over it and headed directly for the old fountain, which was filled with a large pool of clear, cool water. Fresh water.

  You might think it was magic, like maybe the desert water djinn had left it there for wandering camels. But in actuality, someone had, long ago, connected a pump to a small, tattered windmill, and with each pulse of the wind, the pump drew up a cup or so of water from an underground stream. It made the water seem endless. Just what Zada and Asiye needed.

  “You go first,” said Asiye.

  “No, you,” added Zada.

  “I insist,” said Asiye.

  “Good golly!” declared Zada. She couldn’t wait another second.

  Together they slurped it up. But no matter how much they drank, the fountain refilled itself.

  Once their bellies were full, they stepped back. “I think that was the best water I’ve ever tasted,” said Asiye.

  “Same,” said Zada. The morning heat had nothing on her. She was now fully recharged. Renewed. Ready for whatever would come next. (Or so she thought.)

  Their bellies full, the two camels took stock of the old adobe building in front of them.

  There was a walkway that led to an arched wooden door that stood open, sagging on its old hinges. Right next to the door, on the left, there was a tall tower. A bell tower! Of course. It looked almost exactly like the one on the temple near the Pasha’s stables, but not nearly so tall. Zada could see that something was engraved along its base: COR EST CAMPANA. SIT ANULUS.

  Alas, she had no idea what the engraving meant, but she didn’t need to read it to hear how lovely the bell sounded.

  She looked up to admire it, and when she did, she saw a whole bevy of Mexican free-tailed bats, sleeping upside down underneath the tower’s eaves.

  “I’m glad we didn’t wake them up,” whispered Asiye.

  “Me too,” said Zada. “They were probably out all night.”

  Bats aside, it seemed the whole compound had been abandoned for years, maybe even centuries, because there was no lingering sign or smell of people that the camels could detect.

  Asiye nudged the door open with her nose. Zada inhaled sharply when she stepped across its threshold. Inside was a large room with a rather high ceiling, high enough for camels to walk in without bumping their heads. Several wooden benches were scattered about and upturned.

  The morning sun poured through the open windows and shone on the plaster walls. Blue, the same brilliant blue as the canyon sky on a summer’s day. And the ceiling! It was a dome!

  “Like the palace!” said Asiye. Even though the paint was faded and chipped, Zada could see the geometrical floral designs that ringed the dome.

  For a moment, the camels stood there, memories of their homeland flooding over them. They could almost smell the coriander and sumac, almost hear the soft rush of the waves from the harbor, nearly feel the warm hands of Teodor scratching them beneath their chins.

  Then Asiye broke the silence. “Maybe this is the Pasha’s secret summer palace.” To which Zada replied, “So secret the Pasha doesn’t even know about it.” They both chortled, because, honestly, who couldn’t imagine the Pasha puttering around Texas, especially in the summer?

  Actually, what our camels had discovered was the ruins of an old Franciscan mission, likely built in the previous century or even earlier. “Ahh,” said Zada. She didn’t quite understand its purpose, but she did sense that this big open room had, at one time, been intended as a sanctuary. At the very least, the fountain in front, fed by its eternal underground stream, had surely provided water to passersby.

  Zada couldn’t deny that this old place, this falling-down, abandoned structure, with its miraculous, self-filling fountain and its ringing bell, had saved their lives. But despite the familiarity of the painted dome, there was something about it that made her feel uneasy, as if she’d been lured there by forces beyond her control.

  Silly, she thought. Still, the overturned benches, and the sagging door, gave her an itch, and not from the sand fleas.

  Asiye seemed to feel it too. “We need to leave,” she said, but just as they turned to step out of the wide-open door, they heard, “Well, well, well, what have we here?” And right in front of them, blocking their exit, was a pair of conquistadors astride a very large, but clearly forlorn mule.

  Introducing Cosmo, LaLaFitte, and Soot.

  52 Somewhere, West Texas

  1910

  Just then, something else made Zada uneasy. She had expected a hearty cheep-cheep hooray! at the introduction of the conquistadors, but as much as she appreciated their quiet attention, now the chicks seemed too quiet. She could feel them scrunch-scrunch-scrunching, as if they were burrowing into her scalp.

  Maybe, she thought, they were just tired? Ahh, that must be it. Naptime. Of course it was. Didn’t babies take naps? Lots of naps?

  Nope. That wasn’t it. Zada could feel their toes get tenser, tugging on the tuft, as if they were scared of something.

  Zada heard it rather than saw it.… From the dense air above, a horrifying sound: Pah! Pah!

  Hawk.

  Zada froze. With her whole being, she could not move. The hawk cried again, Pah! Pah!

  The chicks! Perched as they were on the top of her hea
d, they were sitting kestrels. If the hawk somehow spied them—and there’s a reason why hawk-eyed is a thing—there’d be nothing Zada could do to keep her charges safe from its enormous talons.

  Think, Zada. Think, think, think.

  Just then… because sometimes when you think hard enough the exact right thing comes to you, Zada remembered the tiny jerboa from way back in her baby days. She remembered his enormous ears, how they were as long as his body was tall. Most importantly, she remembered how he so cleverly evaded the sharp claws of the resident cat.

  “Zigzag!” she said. And with that, her aching knees unlocked. She stretched her neck as long as she could and veered first to the left—step-step-step—then to the right—step-step-step. Left. Right. Left. Right.

  Maybe the hawk grew confused. Maybe all that side-to-side made her dizzy. Maybe it just seemed too weird for words. Whatever. She flew away. When that Pah! Pah! was at a pah-pah level, Zada felt the tension in the tuft begin to relax. Her chicks. Her Wims and Beulah. They had done exactly the right thing. All their survival instincts had told them: Duck! Which was what they did. If she could have given them merit badges, she would have.

  The feeling was obviously mutual because, in a whispery voice, Beulah said, “Auntie, that was awesome!” Wims said, “Best auntie ever!”

  Together: “Do it again!”

  But all the pride that Zada felt was only momentary—at any moment, that hawk could return, and next time, she might not be so easily fooled.

  53 The Mission

  1887

  Did someone say fooled? Of course, Cosmo and LaLaFitte weren’t actually Conquistadors (note the capital C). Those guys had been dead for, oh, three centuries or more. And good riddance. The real Conquistadors had sailed from the Iberian Peninsula of Spain, on boats laden with livestock, including horses. They also brought with them special outfits made of metal armor, which were basically whole-body garb, complete with helmets. Even the horses had armor.

  As soon as the Conquistadors set foot on the South American continent, their amazement peaked. First by the brilliant civilizations of the Mayans, Incans, and Aztecs, and the other residents whom they encountered, and second—and much more compelling for these greedy intruders—all the gold and silver that the aforementioned inhabitants used in their daily lives. They—the Conquistadors—became convinced that there was a City of Gold: Cíbola.

  Legend had it that Cíbola was across the river to the north. Directions weren’t exact, and there was a decided language barrier as well, but the Conquistadors assumed that the river was the Rio Grande, and Cíbola must be north of that. So they saddled up their trusty steeds and went on a massive trail ride, always in search of gold.

  Once they crossed the Rio Grande, they found themselves in the desert canyon lands at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. It was an arduous journey, and many of their number didn’t make it. Not only that, it was soon obvious that there was no city of gold. There were plenty of other cities—the Zuni Pueblos, the vast villages of the Lipan Apaches and the Ute, the forest settlements of the Tonkawa, the homesteads of the Mescalero and Mohave and Kichai—but none of those were paved with gold. No matter how much those heavy metal guys yearned for it, Cíbola did not exist. It turned out to be a pipe dream, a myth, a figment of someone’s overactive imagination.

  They’d been, you heard me: fooled!

  Which made the Conquistadors extremely angry. At least two of them got so mad, they spewed dozens of not-safe-for-tender-ears curses into the air. They stomped around, scaring their horses, who took off into the sunset, making the Conquistadors boil over, like hissing steam pots. Made them so angry, in fact, that they took off their metal helmets and dashed them to the ground, where they (the helmets) sat, undisturbed, for about three hundred years, serving primarily as way stations for several generations of prairie dogs and an occasional covey of bobwhites.

  They might still be there, those helmets, except that one day a prospector named Cosmo, and his wife LaLaFitte, rode up on them while atop their mule, Soot. It seems that the corner of one of the helmets captured a glint of sunlight and tossed it in Soot’s eye, whereupon he set to kicking his heels and braying in his loudest voice, launching Cosmo and LaLaFitte into the air and landing unceremoniously on their backsides right next to the long-lost helmets. More cursing ensued, this time in English.

  But when Cosmo realized what he had found, he said, “Well, well, what have we here?”

  He took his prospector’s pickax out of his pack and dug the old helmets out of their dusty homes, shook out all the nesting materials from the prairie dogs and bobwhites, polished them as best he could with the tail of his shirt, and promptly set them atop his and LaLaFitte’s heads.

  “I think we are now official conquistadors,” said Cosmo.

  “I love being a conquistador,” said LaLaFitte.

  (Note the lowercase c.)

  Soot had no comment. But he did notice that when the two climbed aboard his back, they were considerably heavier. Those helmets weighed more than you might think—a hefty five or six pounds each. Oof! Soot was not a happy camper.

  * * *

  It seems that old legends have a hard time dying. The idea of Cíbola refused to go away, and Cosmo had not only heard of it, he was convinced that he could prevail where others had failed. And LaLaFitte, completely smitten with her Turtledove (which was what she called her hubby), was not about to let him leave her behind in the small city of Presidio, while he wandered about in the desert. And besides, she knew how to use a pickax, which honestly, Cosmo wasn’t that great at, being more of a dreamer than a digger. Plus, Soot was a wedding gift from LaLaFitte’s daddy, and she didn’t want her Turtledove making off with her mule, either. Soot was a terrific mule, despite his penchant for tossing his riders.

  Out in the wilds of West Texas, there were many ways to disappear. Take mountain lions, for one. There were also bears, rattlesnakes, heat exhaustion, flash floods, and a whole assortment of ne’er-do-wells who would steal a mule in a hot minute and leave you without a source of water or your boots. Or your pickax.

  Why LaLaFitte thought her presence could keep any of this from happening to Cosmo is a mystery. But love, it seems, does that, it brings about all sorts of powers that you might not realize you have until you fall into it.

  54 Somewhere

  1910

  While we’re on the topic of love… have you ever tried to untangle a tumbleweed? Have you ever seen one? It’s basically an unmoored bush, with dozens of twisty branches. But Pard had found his Perlita, and by golly, he was going to get her out of its infuriating grip. He had to be careful. Pulling on one branch led to a chain reaction. He had to be sure that if he pecked at one, it didn’t poke Perlita in the eye or jab her underneath her wing.

  And of course, even though Perlita was trapped, she was still Perlita, which meant she had to do at least a bit of bossing, which Pard endured because… love.

  Yes. Love will get the job done, no matter how tangled up it is. Considering that only hours earlier, Pard had had no idea whether he’d ever see Perlita again, he would take the bossiness.

  He also knew that the day was coming to its end. Soon the dark would make it impossible to figure out the puzzle of the tangled branches, and for his own well-being as well as hers, he could not let Perlita remain trapped in this infernal bush overnight. Not. Not. Not.

  55 The Open Desert

  1910

  Meanwhile, there was a problem: all those zigzags had thrown Zada completely off her course. Should she go right? Should she go left? Which way?

  Surely the Mission must be close. She strained her ears to make sure there was no further sound of the hawk. Nothing. The sound of the bell? Only silence.

  Instead…

  “How much longer?” asked Beulah.

  “I’m thirsty,” said Wims. “I think my mouth is drying out.”

  “Mine too!” added Beulah. “I can’t even lick.”

  “So is mine,” c
onfessed Zada, which surprised Beulah and Wims. “Even camels get thirsty,” she admitted.

  “We are thirsty caravanners,” said Beulah.

  “And we should be there soon,” said Zada, but if she were being truthful, she might have to say that she hoped they hadn’t passed it. Visibility was still low, and they were just about to run out of the small amount of sunlight they already had.

  Unsure, uncertain, and unconvinced, she made an executive decision: follow your nose. Which was what she did. One step in front of the other, Zada could only hope that she had made the right choice. Though it was hard to tell time with the unnatural darkness of the dust, she figured that it must be late afternoon. Soon it would be even darker.

  Something else: night on the desert floor could be cold, especially for chicks used to being burrowed beneath their warm parents, snug in a tree trunk for the night. Her tuft would give them some protection, of course, but was it enough?

  “Cuddle up together, you’ll be warmer,” Zada told them. And saying that reminded her of curling up next to Asiye.

  As if Wims were reading her thoughts—and maybe he was, sitting so close to her brain and all—he asked, “Auntie? Where is Asiye now?”

  Zada swallowed. She needed to think about this for a moment. Beulah echoed. “I want to know too. Where is Asiye?”

  Finally Zada said, “Asiye has been gone now for a very long time.” She waited for another moment.

  “Did she run away?” asked Wims.

  “No,” said Zada.

  “Did the conquistadors kidnap her?” asked Beulah.

  “Did Pecos de Leon…” Wims couldn’t finish that question.

  “No, no, and gosh no. None of those things happened.”

  Zada resumed her steady walking. Step. Step. Step.