“Then you must understand how I feel!”
The Indian woman sighed. “I do. Yet since She Who Is Gone Away, I have not seen my brother smile on another woman.”
Brittany let silence and Sara’s memories plead for her. After a long time in the silver light that made them seem alone on another world, Sara took Brittany’s hand. “Believe this, my sister. You could never reach the post. I almost starved on my journey. I, brought up in these mountains, was lost more than once.”
Again, Brittany said nothing.
Sara released her and stood up. “Blanca, wait for summer, the time of Many Leaves. Then, if your heart still yearns for your people and the man, I will speak for you to my brother.”
“What if he won’t let me go?”
“He is too proud to wait forever on an unwilling woman.” When Brittany hesitated, Sara gave an exasperated laugh. “Very well! I promise, if my brother will not heed me, to help you get away! I will do it in the name of my friend who set me free. But you must promise too! No more caches and night-walking!”
A full, intoxicating breath filled Brittany’s lungs, as exhilarating hope flowed through her. Truth was a cardinal virtue for Apaches. Sara wasn’t trifling. Such a promise would strengthen Brittany to wait patiently without forgetting her aim. And it vastly multiplied her chances of living to see Zach again.
Refusing to wonder if he’d care, she blinked back tears of joyful gratitude and pressed Sara’s hand to her lips. “I promise.”
XV
Kah-Tay’s group returned with thirty mules and horses, those they weren’t riding heavily packed with spoils from a merchant train. The Mexican teamsters had been killed. Their bodies, with wagons, harness, and discarded goods, had been pushed into a deep ravine. It was likely their families would never know for certain what had happened to them, though they would have a pretty clear idea.
A worn-out mule was butchered and there was a feast. Part of the loot was jugs of fiery mescal, a potent intoxicant brewed from that plant, which Brittany had heard of back at the post. Apaches made tizwin from the heart and tulapai from corn, but these had to be used before they spoiled, so though tizwin parties were notorious as brawls where both men and women did things they never would when sober, they were infrequent. When they could get it, Apaches much preferred Mexicans’ or white men’s stronger drinks.
Unfortunately they drank it as fast as they would have their own milder brews, and by the time the dancing started, many revelers were unsteady on their feet. An almost naked bižan writhed lewdly in front of Kah-Tay.
“I want that black horse you rode home,” she chanted at him. “I want beads and cloth and a silver chain.” Light gleamed on her painted nipples as she flipped something from her G-string, which dangled limply between her legs. It looked like part of a horse’s stomach. “Brave chief, I want something better than this!”
Pretty Eyes and the other young unmarried people were so embarrassed that they hurried away, hiding their faces. Grouchy had already drunk herself insensible, but Sara had barely sipped the mescal. Rising, she looked sternly at the posturing woman.
“Go dance with someone else. My brother is tired.”
The bižan sneered. “Is it true Jo-dhi is the product of witches?”
It was a double slur. If a man had made it, Kah-Tay would have killed him. Incest and witchcraft went together in Apache minds. Both were punishable by death. The bižan was hinting that Jody was the incestuous get of Sara and Kah-Tay.
Brittany gasped and glanced about. Fortunately no one else had heard. A knife glittered in Sara’s hand. She handed the woman a gourd of mescal and said calmly, “Go to your home and drink this. It will keep you quiet.”
The husbandless woman glared, but Sara let the knife flash an edge more brightly. Taking the gourd, the bižan, a nice woman most of the time and the band’s best potter, stumbled toward her wickiup. On the way, one of the returning raiders caught her arm and eagerly followed her.
Brittany hadn’t felt like celebrating the slaughter of the ambushed Mexican teamsters. After the food was served, she’d kept apart. The revolting effects of the mescal made her remember how Zach had behaved the night he’d gotten drunk. It was not flattering for a man to have to be intoxicated before he wanted to make love to you! There, of course, a scream would have brought Mrs. Harmon and the major. Here—
A dismayed glance around the fire convinced her that she’d better retire to the wickiup. Of the adults, Sara and Fawn were the only sober ones. Rising from her place in the shadows, Brittany pulled back the hide door flap and was entering the hut when Kah-Tay’s voice checked her.
“Why does Blanca not dance for me?”
“I am weary.”
He gestured toward the other bižan, swaying and twisting their bodies before the successful raiders. “Some women aren’t tired.”
It was no use arguing with a drunken man. Brittany stooped to duck into the wickiup. Kah-Tay seized her wrist. His fingers were like steel. Shock swept through her and she realized that though he was her captor, it was the first time, ever, that he had touched her.
“Dance for me, Blanca.”
It was foolish but she couldn’t help herself. Revulsion at the orgy coupled with horror at the casual murder of the teamsters stripped away control and common sense. She wrenched loose and sprang out of reach.
“I don’t dance over killing and stealing!”
He stared as if not understanding her words. “Beads, cloth, blankets—I brought you many good things.”
“I don’t want them!”
His jaw hardened beneath taut, broad cheekbones. “Mexicans kill us. We kill them. White Eyes do the same.” He started toward her. “But I have heard White Eye women say no when they mean yes.”
Retreating, Brittany looked desperately for a weapon. Blessedly Sara stepped between them. “My brother, you should sleep now.”
For a moment it seemed he would brush her aside. Then, shaking his head as if to clear it, he allowed his sister to lead him to his wickiup. Brittany, still frightened, entered Sara’s lodge and lay down without undressing, for if some besotted person wandered in, she wanted to be ready to get away.
“That was mescal talking, not my brother.” As Sara dropped the door flap, her voice was shamed. “When Juh, the great Nedhni chief, goes to a Mexican town to trade, he only lets half of his men at a time get drunk because if they all did, the Mexicans would follow and kill them.”
“You mean Apaches buy and sell in Mexican towns?”
“Of course they do.” Sara’s tone was surprised. “Merchants and cantina owners welcome our business, though they cheat us when they can and kill us if they get a chance. It has been this way since Diné first came into this country, which must have been before the Spaniards did.”
“It’s a strange kind of war.”
Sara laughed. “They’d kill all of us if they could, but we’ve never wanted to kill off the Mexicans. They raise cattle and horses and mules and corn for us. We always leave them enough animals to start over.”
“But Teresita was your friend!”
“She was. My brother has spared many a Mexican woman for her sake. So have I.” Sara’s voice turned grim. “Blanca, for years the governments of Chihuahua and Sonora paid silver for our scalps. A hundred pesos for a warrior, fifty for a woman, twenty-five for a child. In the City of Mules, on the portals of the main entrance, there have hung as many as a hundred and seventy Diné scalps at a time.”
“I—I can’t believe it! Babies!”
“They made slaves of us too.”
“And you take Mexican slaves.”
“If we keep children, they are loved and brought up like ours. Most women who have been with us awhile would rather stay.” There was a rustling sound as Sara composed herself for sleep. “Blanca, my brother’s head will ache tomorrow. He will not remember what mescal said.”
“Then neither will I,” said Brittany after a moment. “But I don’t want anything he got
on the raid.”
“Plenty of others will,” retorted Sara.
Brittany couldn’t sleep and not only because of the shouts and laughter outside. Apaches and Mexicans had been at each other for centuries. Their mutual hatred was natural, but she couldn’t share it. For the first time in weeks, she saw arrows jutting from poor Harris’s back, relived again that convulsive way his hands had jerked toward the sky before he fell from the saddle. Those Mexican teamsters had been lucky if they died that quickly. At least none had been brought back for the women to torture as was sometimes done when avenging the death of a warrior.
Brittany knew all too well that whites had done terrible things to Indians, things like the Camp Grant massacre, but there was a difference in hearing about such a thing and enjoying plunder taken from dead bodies.
In spite of such miserable thoughts, she slept at last, but was roused in gray light by a sudden cry. There were shouts, then bitter wailing and shrieks of outrage. Sara jumped up and hurried outside. Brittany pulled the flap aside to peer toward the knot of people gathered by the smoldering fire.
Scarred Face lay sprawled on his chest. His wives knelt beside him. A di-yin with power for healing wounds hurried up while the fallen man’s mother keened. Her brother, Bent Nose, a burly seasoned warrior who had been on the raid, whirled into his wickiup and came out with his rifle and war club.
By now, stuporous men and women who’d slept wherever they’d fallen were stumbling out of huts or climbing up from the ground. A buzz swept through the benumbed group. Big Jaw’s mother cried out when someone remembered that her son had quarreled with Scarred Face last night.
The di-yin slowly turned the stiffened body over. An ivory-handled knife that everyone knew to be Big Jaw’s was wedged to the hilt in Scarred Face’s chest. Big Jaw’s cousin approached Bent Nose, palms spread in supplication.
“All were drunken last night, my friend. My cousin didn’t know what he was doing. His youngest wife will soon bear a child. You came to the moccasin ceremony of his older son. Do not make them fatherless.”
Bent Nose’s face contorted with rage and grief. His sister and her daughters-in-law were already shearing off their hair, rocking back and forth on their heels or groveling in the earth. “What of the children of He Who Is Gone?” he demanded.
“Let my cousin hunt for them. Let my cousin give them all the mules and horses and good things he took on the raid.”
“No!” shouted Bent Nose.
He began to look around, hunting for a sign of where the fugitives had gone. Fawn got in his way. Stripped naked, heavy belly exposed, she knelt with her face to the ground, pleading. Big Jaw’s aged mother tore off her garments. So did his two other wives.
They crept in the dirt and called him by his true name. “Shanta! Spare our son! Spare our husband! Shanta!”
At first it seemed he would spurn them, but the old woman gripped his feet. “Shanta! We call you by your name!”
A shuddering went through him, a sigh echoed by everyone except the lamenting women of the slain man. “Get up!” he snapped at the women. Roughly, he drew Fawn to her feet. “Such carrying-on is not good for your baby. We will accept the horses and mules.”
Big Jaw could not have known that his life, forfeit to his victim’s kinsmen, had been redeemed, for his women had scarcely dressed themselves when he entered the camp and came straight to Bent Nose.
Eyes bloodshot, hair tangled with weeds, he said, “I killed my friend. My heart is on the ground. Do with me what you will.”
Bent Nose glared at him. “Your women have saved you. But do not come near me next time we drink tizwin or mescal. I can get drunk too.”
He scooped up the body of his dead nephew and carried it into the wickiup.
A few hours later, with wailing and lamenting, Scarred Face’s family escorted his favorite horse, bearing his blanket-wrapped body and best possessions, out of the ranchería, while the rest of the band joined in lamenting to show their sympathy and respect.
“They’ll find a niche or cave in the canyon wall,” Sara replied to Brittany’s question. “The horse may be buried with him or shot nearby so He Who Is Gone may ride it to the Happy Place. He will need his rifle and weapons too, but his war shield will be saved for his son. It has life of its own.”
Few Chiricahua had shields. They had to be made and blessed by a di-yin with special power and were very expensive. When the mourners returned to the camp, they burned the wickiup with the rest of Scarred Face’s belongings. Sara and the bereaved family’s friends had already begun a new dwelling. For the few days it took to finish it, Scarred Face’s women lived in Bent Nose’s lodge. In addition to the reparations paid by Big Jaw, the other raiders each gave a mule, horse, or some of their loot to the family.
Kah-Tay, for his household, kept little besides beads, jewelry, and silver studs Grouchy selected for Pretty Eyes’s dress. “You want nothing?” he asked Brittany gruffly, pointing to cloth, blankets, shawls, and more trimmings.
Brittany shook her head. After Grouchy had selected a jet rosary and warm shawl, he gave Sara leave to distribute the rest of his share to the old, the bižans, or whoever was in need.
If he remembered anything of the drunken feast, he didn’t show it, treating Brittany as he always had. She remembered, though, and could not be at ease with him, for she knew the desire burning beneath his controlled behavior.
There was no piñon harvest that year. After walnuts were gathered, ranchería life settled into a more leisurely routine. Men still went hunting and women prepared the skins, but till spring brought the season for baking great quantities of mescal hearts, there would be no time-consuming excursions after wild foods. Both men and women made and repaired moccasins. Women made clothes, storage bags, and baskets, chatting as they worked, and men made or patched saddles and fashioned weapons.
There was no special power for making lances or war clubs, so most warriors made their own, but those who excelled at designing bows, arrows, and quivers were often asked to make them for others and got gifts in return. There was no buying in Apache society, though di-yin were paid well for their skills, but it was expected that a gift would be returned in some form sooner or later except, of course, for presents made to widows, orphans, and the aged.
Scarred Face’s widows were not long without a man to hunt for them. His younger brother, who had been living with his wife’s people among Juh’s Nedhni, lost the woman with a stillborn child. She had no sisters, so, learning that his brother was dead, he journeyed to the band and became husband to the widows.
One day the women of Big Jaw’s household and Kah-Tay’s collected piñon pitch and assembled to caulk five new water jars. Sara stirred the pitch that was heating in a big pot. When it was ready, she poured it into the woven jars. The other women rubbed the pungent gum into the fibers with heated stones. Next, gum was daubed on the outside of each tus with a buckskin-covered paddle. Brittany was following old Grouchy’s example and smoothing this outer surface with her hands when Fawn got heavily to her feet.
“The baby. It is coming.” Her lovely oval face glistened with sweat. She turned to Sara and Brittany. “You will help?”
Leaving Pretty Eyes and Grouchy to finish the jars, the others escorted Fawn to her wickiup. Her pains were already coming with regularity. Kneeling on an old blanket, Fawn gripped one of the wickiup posts to brace herself. Sara went for herbs, which she steeped in water and used to bathe Fawn’s private parts. She also gave her a brew to drink.
Fawn’s mother, Kind Hands, a plump woman still proud enough of her luxuriant black hair to wear it fastened with the noh-leen, a beaded leather bow, was an expert midwife. She knelt by her daughter, massaging the swollen belly as Fawn gripped and strained.
“Bear down,” encouraged the woman. “There! That was a good pain! Help it.”
Brittany felt as if her own body were being racked, yet there was such strength in the birthing that she almost envied Fawn. No writhing in a helple
ss and unnatural position, as white women did, but squatting in a fashion that would obviously enhance the birth and give her some governance over her labor, attended by relations and friends, not by a male doctor.
Still, as minutes stretched into hours, Brittany began to wonder if something was wrong. How could Fawn keep up such exertions, bear the pangs that moved visibly through her? Brittany’s own mother had died this way; it was the fate of countless women.
Fawn had not cried out, though a moan escaped her now and then. Suddenly she gasped, stifled a scream, and into her mother’s waiting hands slipped a mucus-coated little body. One woman severed the umbilical cord with the sharp edge of a yucca blade.
When the afterbirth was out, Sara got Fawn to her bed and began to bathe the birth channel. A sister brought her more herb tea and propped her up to watch Kind Hands, who, having bathed the tiny boy now rubbed him thoroughly with red ochre and tallow before she wrapped him in a rabbitskin blanket and gave him to his mother. She then sprinkled pollen in the four directions, murmuring blessings, and sprinkled more pollen on her grandson.
He stretched his arms and sneezed. Smiling as she cradled him against her, Fawn said with soft pride, “Such a great sneeze for such a little boy! Let’s call him Sneezes.”
“A good baby name,” one of her sisters said. “Rest now. We’ll make you some good bone soup to help your milk.”
As Sara and Brittany left, Kind Hands took the umbilical cord in a bit of old buckskin and left the camp. “What will she do with that?” Brittany asked.
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