Prophecies, Libels & Dreams

by Ysabeau S. Wilce

  Of course, it were all lies. Cabra, of course, means goat in Mexican, and that’s what the chupacabra eats: goats. The shavetail was safe as houses as far as any chupacabra was concerned. But, of course, the shavetail didn’t know anything about that, and he wasn’t going to, neither. They study French at the Point, and Latin, too, but Mexican they have none.

  The major said it’s just a rabid coyote, the shavetail said weakly.

  We shall see, Mickey said darkly and to our delight we saw the shavetail shiver. No doubt he was thinking of those red eyes out by the sinks.

  So off we went on our chupacabra hunt, the shavetail riding pretty at the head of the company. Al rode next to him, half soused and looking as cozy on that swayback mule as if he sat in his granny’s rocker. Next came the boys two by two, and then me. I didn’t ride alone, though: a woven basket hung from my saddle. Tucked inside it was the softest sweetest little baby goat bleating forlornly for its mamma: our bait, delicious to both rabid coyote and chupacabra. Mickey Free closed up the file, and the shavetail didn’t seem to notice the flour sack hanging from his saddle horn, or the way it gave out the occasional squirm . . .

  All that day we rode that trail, over wash and hill, through sand and cactus brambles, over rocks and gravel, following sign that only Al could see because it wasn’t really there at all. Soon enough we might be riding this same trail for true, looking forward to hunger, thirst, and glory, but right now it was all in fun, and we were enjoying ourselves, though trying to keep sober scared faces whenever the shavetail might glance our way.

  Every now and a while, Al would call a halt, and he and Mickey would go off on foot, cutting make-believe sign, while the rest of the company waited. They’d return with reports of chupacabra tracks, and bits of bloody fur, spit-up bones. Once they displayed the discarded skin of a rabbit, the interior of Mr. Hare sucked out like pulp from a fruit, a nice detail that I was glad I had not been asked to provide. The shavetail squirmed at each discovery, and when Al offered him the rabbit skin, saying it would make a nice little hat trimming, he declined with a shudder. The boys could barely contain their mirth.

  Still believe it’s a rapid coyote, Lieutenant? Al asked, and the shavetail shook his head.

  At dusk, Al said he’d lost the trail, and the shavetail ordered us into bivouac for the night. He put the camp square in the middle of a wash, and though it weren’t the time of year for a storm, this bit of foolishness only increased our lack of faith in him and made us more resolute. The shavetail wanted to bait the trap right there and then, but Al shook his head, saying it were too dark, that we should wait until tomorrow when the moon had more light, otherwise we risked shooting each other. The real reason, of course, was the shavetail wasn’t quite soft enough yet. We didn’t want to pluck him until he was truly ripe.

  We picketed the horses and made camp. After a dinner of salt pork and hard crackers, Al poured us all drinks of the clear liquid in his canteen that was not water, and which the shavetail did not notice, bless him. We sat around our fire, hot and high, and the fun really began.

  I first heard of the chupacabra, said Al, when I were down scouting with Nantan Lupan around the San Bernadino spread. We were after Cochise then, and we’d been up and down the Sulphur Spring Valley for weeks, and not seen a jot of him or any of his crew. We stopped off at the San Bernadino Ranch to freshen our horses, and of course Texas John invited us to dinner, like the gentleman he is. He sets a fair table, and after weeks of hard beans and bread, we were glad to eat like kings for a change.

  After, we were sitting over brandies, feeling mighty homey, when a hysterical woman bust in. She was screaming that a chupacabra had crept into her house while she was fetching water and stolen her child. Well, of course, probably she’d just let it wander off, careless, like, but she was truly hysterical, like women often are, and she was waving one tiny bloody shoe that she said she had found on the baby’s bed. Texas John sent out some boys, and we added a few boys of our own, and eventually we found that child, or what was left of it, that is. That baby looked like an empty sack, its skin all loose and floppy, nothing inside at all. I’ve seen some things in my time and even done a few of them myself, but I hope never to see aught like that again.

  Al took a sip of mescal and grinned at the shavetail. The shavetail tossed his head and laughed. He had a habit of doing that when he was edgy, laughing nervously, and tossing his head while he giggled, like a schoolgirl. This action always made my heart nigh on melt, it was so dear.

  Poor baby, the shavetail said. And poor mamma—

  Something rustled beyond the light of our fire, and we all froze, stiff as statues, and didn’t hardly dare to turn our heads. Only the shavetail moved, fair near to twitching out of his blouse, looking over his shoulder into the deep darkness that surrounded us. I knew it was only Mickey, hiding in the bushes and cracking his knuckles, but I had to admit that when there ain’t nothing between you and the Arizona night but a thin little fire, it’s hard not to be nervy.

  Do you really believe in this chupacabra, Sergeant? the shavetail asked later. I was checking the picket line, and he was standing by, smoking a cigarillo. We didn’t let him check the line himself ever since he had left it too slack and his idiot horse knocked into the idiot horse next to her, dissolving the line into a mess of kicking and biting, and almost stomping Jackson flat.

  Oh yes, I answered. Arizona’s a hard place, full of mysteries. It’s the devil’s own land, but they say even himself would rather live in Hell and rent out Arizona.

  The shavetail answered: Think of that poor mother, with her empty baby. I had a sister once who died, and how it would have tormented my mother had she thought some monster, rather than the good Lord, had taken her.

  He showed me a tintype then, of a little baby that looked more like an withered crone than a mother’s child, a dead infant with an elderly wizened face. I had a little tiny twinge then, because for all that he was a jonah, he was a good fellow and perhaps our trick was a bit harsh. But I remembered the mail rider Geronimo’s crew had killed last year: his entrails fat ropes piled on the ground and his balls sitting where his eyes used to be. Sometimes, like Will Shakespeare said, you got to be cruel to be kind. During the Great Rebellion, more of our boys died of foolish officers than of Cornfed shot or the flux. Colonel Shaw weren’t no fool, but there were plenty more that were. Having escaped before, I didn’t wager to succumb now.

  As the boys were bedding down, I noticed the shavetail placed his blanket so close to the fire that he would be lucky not to burn during the night, and he went to sleep clutching his fancy pants officer’s Springfield carbine to his breast. Our plan was fruiting nicely.

  I lay down in my bedroll, the little goat tucked up next under my blanket, knobby knees pressing into my side. Our white man’s fire had burned down to a good Indian fire, and the boys were little lumps scattered around it, sleeping. The horses on the picket-line snuffled peacefully. All was quiet and still.

  I lay there, waiting, and the night drew on, a bit of a wind slipping through the mesquite, the high sky washed white with moonlight. Damn that Mickey, why was he taking so long, I wondered, and then my wonder began to slip into sleep. Despite myself my eyelids drooped. A noise snapped me to—the soft rasp of feet on dirt—and as I turned my head, my eyes caught movement, a stealthy sort of creep across the silver ground in between the mesquite. I couldn’t help it then, laughter began to swell up inside of me, and I had to put my fist against my mouth to keep it down. Mickey, about to put the chupacabra scare into the shavetail.

  And then something black came hurtling out of the sky. It landed on my chest and my lungs emptied out. I gasped for air, sucking in an acrid stench. I flailed about, trying to find my carbine. The baby goat screeched and hollered. Then the horrible stench overwhelmed me, and I knew nothing more.

  Voices brung me to, yapping like dogs. Al shouting for a lantern, the boys hollering this and that, and the shavetail bending over me, asking in a quav
er-y voice: Are you all right, sergeant?

  Yes, sir. I wheezed. My chest felt as though Forrest’s cavalry had just ridden over it, and my head throbbed.

  I was answering nature’s call, and I saw you struggling with something, the shavetail said. But by the time I could run over, it jumped off and was gone—

  He gave me a hand, and pulled me up, thrust a canteen at me, but my throat was so burned I could barely swallow. My limbs felt like jelly; I had to lean on him to stand. Thought I knew the chupacabra was harmless to me, I could not help but be rattled. The horses were fussing, pulling and yanking at the picket line, eyes rolling, and the boys were trying to calm them. My head swum with a kind of sea-sickness, and when the shavetail ordered me to lie back down, I was glad to do so. As I did, I saw that my bedroll was empty.

  The kid, I wheezed.

  We shall find it, Mickey Free said, coming up behind the shavetail, and he winked.

  And we did, the next morning. Or rather the shavetail did, when he went to saddle up. Its skin was draped over the seat of the shavetail’s saddle, sucked and as empty as a cast-off sock. At the awful sight the shavetail’s face went ashen, and his eyes grew as large and round as joe frogger’s. Even the boys looked somewhat discomfited. My head still throbbed from the night’s antics. Damn that Mickey, how did he mistake me for the shavetail and sic the chupacabra on me wrongly?

  Mickey said: The kid was small. It will want more. We must catch it before it does worse.

  The shavetail was biting his lip, and he had a look about him I’ve seen before, in men waiting for the order to advance, a nervous wild look that means they will bolt when they get the chance. We were getting close, and at this thought my headache began to lift.

  Your orders, sir? I asked the shavetail maliciously.

  He had no choice but to call boots and saddles and order us after the thing, although I could tell he wanted to do nothing of the kind. But he was dutiful. He called his orders with forced bravado. As we finished breaking camp, Mickey took me aside and whispered unwelcome news.

  The chupacabra had escaped.

  Of course, I was not happy with this turn of events, but Mickey assured me that the chupacabra would not go far, and we could follow it, this time for real. Then when we bivouacked for the night, Mickey said he would sponge some of the goat blood he carried in a vial on the shavetail’s boots as he slept. This lure would be irresistible to the ravenous creature, and the shavetail would wake to a nightmare. With this plan I had to be satisfied, for there was no other.

  So off we went, cutting real sign this time. The boys were still lively and pleased, though trying to hide their slyness behind grim faces. The shavetail rode loosely in his saddle, long knees hiked in short stirrups, the way they tack up at the Point, but he was whistling nervously: “Garry Owen,” an unlucky tune, but we had to bear it, for he was the boss.

  Now the sign—real—was easy to cut: hoof prints left in the dust, a tuft of singed hair hanging on a cactus twig, and the noisome whiff of hell in the air. All morning we followed the chupacabra’s trail, and I could see the shavetail was winding up tighter and tighter. When we broke for water at Alamo Spring, he confided in me that he hoped we would find the creature before night fell, for he did not want to confront it in darkness, and I was hard pressed to suppress my joy. He was almost done.

  But in the late afternoon we came upon different sign, sign that made my blood run cold and which drove all thoughts of chupacabras from my mind. A mess of unshod ponies had come from the northwest and were riding hard south. Unshod ponies meant only one thing: Apaches. And there was no good reason for a mess of Apaches to be riding pell-mell south, unless they were making for the Line.

  Well now, the shavetail said, looking thoughtful.

  We should return to the post and raise the alarm, Mickey said. There are many of them. More than us.

  How far ahead of us are they? the shavetail asked, instead of giving that very order.

  I’m not a profane man, but I cursed then, silently to myself. To come so close, and now to be in the exact situation of which I was trying so hard to avoid. I recognized the look on the shavetail’s face. Men think they see glittering glory ahead, but it’s only the gleam of Death’s scythe.

  Mickey’s right, sir, I said. Our mounts are tired, and we’ll never catch up with them. Best get back to the post. The major can send message by the heliogram to Bowie, and they can ride out from there.

  But the shavetail weren’t having that, of course. All thoughts of the chupacabra were gone from his pretty blond head, too, to be replaced with visions of medals and his picture in Leslie’s Illustrated. If Al hadn’t been insensate with drink, he might have been able to counter the shavetail’s idiocy, but he’d slid right off his horse some miles back and was now tied to his saddle, barely able to sit upright. His spare canteen hadn’t been filled with water, either.

  We’ll catch up with them, the shavetail said. And bring them back.

  They will ride until their horses drop and then go on by foot, I answered.

  And then we shall catch for sure, he said.

  Mickey and I exchanged glances. No man on horseback had ever caught an Apache on foot and, anyway, our horses wouldn’t last much longer than theirs. I thought, then, about just shooting him, but I wouldn’t save myself from an Apache knife only to give myself over to a noose. So when the shavetail gave the order to ride on, I echoed it, and on we rode, this time hard.

  We caught up with the Apaches at the Black Badger waterhole. They’d stopped to water, but they were on guard and saw us coming. There were about twice as many of them as us, and even at a distance I recognized the big bay horse that Geronimo favored. Only a fool would urge the boys forward, with no cover and the Apaches already raising their rifles. Before Mickey could argue otherwise, the shavetail gave the order to charge.

  Well, it was a rout, of course. Our horses were lathered, and Geronimo and his comrades were determined not to be caught. And anyway, it don’t do to try to shoot off your horse anyway, except in magazines. Two horses were downed almost immediately—one of them shot by its own rider. The rest of us were just hitting dust.

  Ride for the rocks! the shavetail hollered, which was his fancy way of retreat. We wasted no time in following his first ever sensible order. We wheeled about, all thoughts of formation gone, and rode for cover, bullets zipping overhead like overeager bees. I was almost there when my mount stumbled and began to tumble. I tried to pull him up, but a heavy blow to my shoulder spun me down. I tasted dirt in my mouth, the sharp burn of rocks on my side. I rolled like a wheel, and my horse hit the dirt with a wallop of dust, shrieked, and subsided into a death quiver. The dust parted and I saw a horse bearing down upon me; saw the dull gleam of a rifle raised to a shoulder, saw the red head-band, the flying black hair. My carbine still hung from its sling from my shoulder. I tried to pull it around, but my fingers were nerveless and numb,. But the shot never came. Instead, the Apache himself flew off the pony, hit the ground and did not get up.

  Let us advance in the opposite direction, the shavetail hollered to me. He let his pistol fall to the end of its lanyard and, slinging me over his shoulder like a bale of hay, ran. Somehow we reached the rocks despite the uncharming whiz of bullets over our heads. The shavetail laid me gently down on the dirt. His face was a-streak with dust and sweat, but he was grinning. The pain I had not felt when I was shot awoke and began to burn, but I slung my carbine around and joined the shavetail in returning fire. The Apaches wheeled about on their ponies, shooting and shouting, but we were nicely dug in and they could not dislodge us. Nor we were hitting them, either, for none of the boys was much of a shot and firing blindly for the most part anyway, afraid to give up their cover.

  The shavetail hollered encouragement to the boys and slurs to the Apaches, and seemed in the spirit of the thing, while I only wished it to be over, with ourselves the victors, before our cartridges ran out. It’s funny the things a man can think of when he’s in a
tight spot. When I was lying in the mud at Fort Wagner, listen to my friends die around me, all I could think of was how I wished I’d finished that long book about the whale and the mad sea captain. Now the words of Drink Puppy Drink were rolling through my head, over and over again.

  Then the gunfire suddenly ceased, although its echo still rang in my now almost deaf ears.

  They are scattering, the shavetail said, his gleeful voice barely piercing my deafness. He had poked his head up over the edge of the rock, and waved at me to do the same. I did so, and saw he was right: some of the Apaches were scattering. But two horses stood firm—one of them Geronimo’s—and it seemed as though their riders were watching something, their attention focused above us. I looked up and saw quick movement, a scuttle on the rocks.

  The shavetail was still looking out. He said: What are they—

  And then something small and smelly dropped on his shoulders and knocked the rest of his words out of his mouth. The shavetail flailed, but I knew from my own experience how tight the chupacabra’s grip was. Mickey said it was harmless to men, but it didn’t look harmless now, as it ripped and tore at the shavetail, who kicked and hit back. Then the shavetail gave out a thin yelp and went slack, and I saw the chupacabra clearly for the first time.

  The thing was the size of a small child, a small burned child; its blackened skin cracked and charred looking. It had childlike arms and spindly little legs, covered in ashy fur, but these legs ended in hooves, not feet. There was nothing childlike about its head, though. Goaty ears sprang from a narrow skull from which two red slitty eyes glittered like rubies. It had no mouth, just a jutting insectile snout, already tinged with red from where it had bitten the shavetail. Judging from the shavetail’s slackness, this bite was venomous.