To any of the warriors, or even to Quick Talker or her sickly sister, who slumped astride a sorrel, it wouldn’t have mattered that Gian-nah-tah had killed Nejeunee’s mother. He was Ndé, and the Mexicanos were their enemy. Indeed, they would consider Nejeunee’s first life unimportant in light of what was best for the People. But how could she ever forget, now that the visions had come?
Little Squint Eyes.
From the cradleboard at Nejeunee’s back, he began to express himself with gurgles and coos, a milestone she had first noticed that morning. Was there anything she wouldn’t do to protect him? Wouldn’t she sacrifice everything she was—all that she had ever been—to give him a tomorrow?
As the drum of unshod hoofs played against cacti-strewn bluffs, Nejeunee’s eyes blurred and she was again an unmarried Ndé of eighteen summers. For days in the cluster of kuughà dwellings on the forested reservation, she had played a courtship game with Too-ah-yah-say. Summoning her courage one morning, she had tapped his arm upon passing, and as he had lifted his gaze after her, she had cast a coy glance over her shoulder. When he hadn’t reciprocated immediately, Nejeunee had been embarrassed and crestfallen. But a mere day later as she had stooped over a cookfire, something had brushed her shoulder and she had turned to see Too-ah-yah-say striding away. Thereafter, he had become the aggressor, routinely rapping her lovingly with a stick when she had least expected it.
Then had come the day when Nejeunee had struck out for the spring with a woven water basket dangling on her back from a head strap. Much of the way was in open meadow, but as she approached a stand of ponderosas, she noticed a series of rocks lining the trail on either side. Shining in the sun, they stretched for twelve or fifteen feet—more evidence of courtship play. From the trees wafted the strong scent of pine, and as she lifted her gaze toward the timber, she saw a grinning Too-ah-yah-say crouching behind a tender ponderosa too small to conceal him.
For Nejeunee, this was a dream come true. If she skirted the rocks, it would mean that she had rebuffed his advances. But if she continued down-trail between the stones, it would signify that his arms would be welcome about her.
With a silent cry of joy, Nejeunee proceeded straight, the rocks crowding close on left and right. While she was inside this make-believe gauntlet, Too-ah-yah-say raced out in rescue. Seizing her, he took her by feigned force to his teepee, with Nejeunee playfully protesting.
One Who Frowns met them at the canvas flap, but even her scowl couldn’t tarnish the occasion. That night, Too-ah-yah-say never touched Nejeunee, nor did he on the second night, or the third or fourth. It was the Ndé way, just as it was on the following morning when she slipped outside without awakening him, cooked his breakfast, and led his horse to the teepee.
This was the moment of truth. Would Too-ah-yah-say eat what Nejeunee had prepared and welcome her offer of his horse? Or would he refuse and cast her away?
Never had Nejeunee been so nervous. But when Too-ah-yahsay stepped outside and saw what she had done, he put her at ease with a smile. Moments later, he had partaken of the food and accepted his animal’s reins—thereby sealing their marriage as assuredly as any ceremony.
How different from what Gian-nah-tah had done! How gentle and caring Too-ah-yah-say had been by comparison! The latter had wooed her as a Ndé should, with love and respect for both her and the traditions of the People. But Gian-nah-tah had dishonored the old ways, and in so doing had dared evil to descend upon him.
Far worse, his actions may have left all of them vulnerable. Appeasing evil was always better than incurring its wrath, and any punishment due a leader might sweep up anyone in his charge. What sorcery was at play for Gian-nah-tah to court evil at such a time? The Indaa were in chase! Didn’t he realize that vengeful spirits might use these white men as instruments of judgment?
Nejeunee didn’t know, but she feared the consequences to Little Squint Eyes and herself and everyone else in this last vestige of a free and proud people. At their next camp, she would pray about it to the Son of Bik’egu’indáán before whom she had once sipped sweet wine that was more than wine.
Suddenly, on blood-splattered snow off to the side of the marching horses, Nejeunee saw a mass of fur and entrails that once had been ga’í, the rabbit. She cringed, for niishjaa, the owl, had killed and fed here—an owl that must still lurk along their very path, serving as an omen of dire things to come.
CHAPTER 6
All through the morning march, it was clear to Sam that Arch avoided him.
Typically, they would ride near one another, two friends talking and sharing the makings for smokes. But whether the company lengthened out single file through a snaking gulch, or marched two abreast along an exposed ridge, Arch stayed near point, keeping his distance. Finally, Arch dropped back one level to surly Matto and struck up a conversation, although Sam knew that Arch couldn’t tolerate the troublemaker any better than he could.
None of it should have bothered Sam, but it did. Maybe he had underestimated how much Arch’s friendship meant to him. Maybe he had never before understood how alone he was. Maybe only now did he realize that, even if he searched to the ends of the earth, he would still be just as alone.
As the hoofs of the company’s mounts churned the icy rubble of a rising drainage, Sam broke formation to the right and took his gray forward through the slapping limbs of a thorny mesquite. Arch and Matto were two levels ahead, and as Sam fell in beside Arch’s sorrel, the well-spoken ranger kept his gaze straight ahead.
The two of them continued that way, Sam studying Arch’s profile and Arch ignoring him. Under Arch’s stubble, the skin was flushed from the cold and the chapping wind, the redness extending below his ear. As always, he wore a ragged, redchecked neckerchief, but today it was a little loose, riding up and down on his neck with the sorrel’s gait.
As Sam stared from close up, he noticed a band of discoloration appearing and disappearing with the neckerchief’s movement. It seemed to be a scar about his neck, and it gave Sam pause. Was this why Arch always wore a neckerchief, to hide it? And could there be any reason to hide it, except for the blemish being exactly what it looked like? A rope burn?
But Arch’s neck was a matter for another time. Right now, Sam needed to resolve their differences.
“Arch, need to talk to you.”
Still, Arch remained like a statue as ice crackled to the beat of hoofs.
“Wasn’t no changin’ Franks’s mind,” Sam added, quietly enough so that only Arch could hear. “You saw that yourself.”
For all of the response Sam generated, he might as well not have existed.
“Put yourself in my boots,” Sam persisted. “With what happened to me, I can’t let this go. You know I can’t. And I don’t think you could either.”
“Samuel, we’ve nothing to discuss.”
“Damn it, Arch, least give me the courtesy of lookin’ me in the eye.”
Now, Arch did turn, his face showing the same disappointment it had at camp.
“I wish you wouldn’t look at me like that,” said Sam. “You and me, we’s . . .”
Sam glanced down at his saddle horn. Just what were the two of them? Friends? Acquaintances? Or just a couple of men in the same Ranger outfit?
“You know my position is unimpeachable.” Arch’s hushed words were obviously meant only for Sam. “Not merely in regard to Franks, but in respect to every man in the company.”
“Arch, I just can’t see it that way. If I was able to look ahead, know trouble was comin’, I’d’ve never gone anywhere near Bass Canyon. Figurin’ out what’s to come of Franks or any of us is like tryin’ to rope the wind.”
“It’s a simple equation, Samuel, like two plus two. Even without variables, the outcome is obvious when you posit an ill commander and a winter storm and add Mescaleros and exposed high country.”
“I know you’re a lot smarter than me,” said Sam, “and maybe your book-learnin’s reason enough for you to believe all that. But your smarts also ough
ta tell you that we got just the one captain, and he’s the one dishes out powders.”
“I’ve already expressed my thoughts about the effects of emotion on judgment. All I ask is that you approach him with me. He realizes the reason you’re here, and he may be inclined to listen to you because of it.”
“Arch, just ’cause there’s fire in a man’s belly don’t mean he can’t see straight. Maybe it can make him see better.”
“How so?”
“You know how when you take aim? How you get that sight dead square on what you’re shootin’? Go through what I been through—Franks too, I expect—you can see that target bigger than ever. I don’t know; maybe some part of you just focuses better. Whatever it is, you get a lot clearer picture what it is you got to do.”
“I’m speaking of decisions, Samuel. You’re speaking of identifying a goal and finding motivation.”
“I don’t see the difference.”
“Decisions that stem from the heart are rarely prudent. Emotion can prevent a man from assessing a situation in its wider context. It can also keep him from anticipating consequences.”
“Consequences,” repeated Sam. “You ever thought what happens if we don’t chase those Mescaleros down? Look what they done already, the killin’ at Paso Viejo and Ojo Caliente. Look what they done couple of weeks ago in Quitman Canyon. And look what they done last May in Bass . . .”
Suddenly Sam’s voice didn’t want to work. He swallowed hard, his eyes beginning to sting. Lowering his gaze, he found the reins quaking in his grip and a mist blurring the saddle horn. At the same time, a crushing ache built in the base of his skull.
Damn.
He tried to mutter the word, but it just wouldn’t come.
“Samuel, I know this is difficult for you.”
Sam turned away, wishing for privacy that he didn’t have.
“If I were in your place,” Arch added compassionately, “perhaps I would feel exactly as you.”
It was an admission that Sam didn’t expect, and for a long while there were only the sounds of march—the rattle of accouterments, spurs jingling to the gait of the horses, the snap and pop of ice under the hoofs. Finally, Sam heard his friend draw a deep breath.
“I’ll grant that you’ve presented a powerful case for prosecuting the chase,” said Arch. “Of all the reasons you’ve tendered, preemptive action is one I can’t dismiss.”
Still, Sam wouldn’t turn; he needed to brush his eyes, and he didn’t want anyone to see.
“If I seemed critical of you, Samuel,” Arch continued, “it was another thoughtless act on my part. I know what a burden trauma is. It destroys a part of you that never learns to live again. It shadows your every step, reshaping who you are, influencing everything you do. You flee from it, perhaps as far as the devil’s own mountains, but it’s always there, crushing your hope.”
Now it was Arch’s voice that held emotion—so much so that Sam turned with a squeak of leather. He found Arch riding with head down, his hat brim shielding as if he too tried to hide from the world.
“That’s the second time you said somethin’ like that,” Sam managed hoarsely.
Arch went silent, and Sam again keyed on that ragged neckerchief. “You talk like you been there,” Sam added.
The ranger turned to him, and for long seconds it was as if Sam stared into a looking glass—the same misting and troubled eyes that bared a lost and hopeless soul.
“ ‘Long is the way and hard,’ ” whispered Arch, “ ‘that out of Hell leads up to light.’ ”
The two men rode on as Sam looked past his gray’s ears and pondered those words. He supposed they were Arch’s way of admitting that he too had been in a dark place, and maybe still was.
“Sure no pullin’ our way out by our own bootstraps,” Sam said in despair.
For a long while the cadence of the hoofs dominated as the futility of life weighed on Sam.
“We mustn’t be defeatist,” Arch finally said, almost as if to himself. “Our friend also wrote that ‘the mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell.’ ”
Now Sam looked at him. “What friend’s that?”
“Milton. Paradise Lost.”
“Oh.”
Sam was still clueless, but at the moment it didn’t matter. “So which is it, Arch? Can we ever crawl out by ourselves or not?”
Arch shrugged. “A question for the ages. But believing the struggle useless is certain to make it so.”
“What you two whisperin’ about over there? Damned sure don’t like people talkin’ behind my back.”
Past Arch’s profile, Sam could see Matto’s dark face puffed up like a bloated dead cow as his mount kept pace with theirs.
Arch gave Sam a quick wink that squeezed out a glistening drop. “Methinks him paranoid.”
“Hemorrhoid, hell,” replied Matto. “Think I can’t set a saddle?”
Sam was unable to appreciate the play on words that brought a painful smile to Arch’s face. Regardless, it was good to hear him hooraw someone, if only halfheartedly.
Or maybe not.
“I’m damned tired of you smartin’ off all time,” Matto told Arch. “I’m puttin’ a stop to it right here.”
As soon as Sam had put out one fire, another one had erupted.
“Better save our energy,” he said diplomatically. “We’s liable to have bearcat hell with those Indians.”
“Don’t be tellin’ me what to do, DeJarnett,” growled Matto. “Ain’t let nobody boss me around since I was nine years old and run off to fend for myself.”
“Captain Franks has had his say, I expect,” said Sam, and then he thought better of it.
“He don’t lord it over me nothin’ like that Meskin woman done, the bitch. Me just a boy in that Juarez cathouse, my own whore-of-a-mama not even lookin’ out for me. Just turned her back anytime that cathouse madam locked me in with some man wantin’ a boy to—”
Matto went silent, his face growing ashen as he seemed to realize what he was saying. Sam looked at Arch, and Arch looked back. Had Sam heard right? A secret that dark, that heinous, wasn’t the kind of thing a man like Matto would ever reveal. And yet unless Sam had misunderstood, it had slipped out in front of both of them.
Sam wished he could ask Arch what he had heard, and then the only confirmation necessary came from Matto himself. Hanging his head, he passed a hand across his colorless face and turned away—one more rider apparently set on blocking troubling memories with a low-set hat brim.
But that wasn’t the end of it. Matto proceeded to pull his bay out of the march, letting the trailing riders pass two-by-two. Sam, twisting around, watched him fall in on drag, three horse-lengths behind everyone else.
When Sam straightened in the saddle, he saw Arch glancing back.
“You hear what I did?” Sam asked quietly.
“I intended to inquire the same thing of you, Samuel.”
“I couldn’t believe what he was tellin’ us. How’s anybody get over somethin’ like that?”
Arch shook his head. “No child could.”
“Guess we know now why he’s the way he is.”
“I wonder if his upbringing might explain another facet of his character, a matter he broached in a fit of anger at Musquiz Canyon.”
“Matto’s always havin’ fits around headquarters,” said Sam.
“I believe you may have been away at Fort Davis. The men were discussing the relative merits of ladies of fair complexion versus those of darker hue. Jonesy, of course, mentioned his fair Mary Jane and her golden tresses. Then someone referenced the allure of certain señoritas and squaws, and it sent Matto into a rage. He apparently has a vendetta against any dark-skinned woman, and now we may have learned why.”
Sam glanced back at Matto again. “Still don’t like bein’ around him, but knowin’ what we do now, can’t help but feel different about him. Not even nine years old . . . Damn.”
CHAPTER 7
Because she knew ni
ishjaa, the owl, was about, Nejeunee rode in fear.
They were ascending the Sierra Diablo heights where dwelled the Gáhé, the spirits to whom the People cast their fate. These beings could protect, but they could also abandon the Ndé to evil that threatened in so many forms: the crippling cold, the biting wind, the gnawing hunger, the Indaa from whom they fled.
And the Blue Death.
Before Nejeunee’s very eyes, Brushing Against had faded from a tireless, young gossip to a wrinkled old hag too sick to speak. Weakened by vomiting and diarrhea, she had clung to her horse for less than an hour before tumbling to the snow. When Nejeunee had dismounted and rushed to her side, she had found Brushing Against cold to the touch, as though little blood circulated beneath the withered, blue skin that suggested bruising on a person already dead.
With the Indaa in chase, all Nejeunee and the others could do was engineer a travois out of teepee poles for Brushing Against’s horse and tie the suffering woman on. But as the drag poles carved trails for Nejeunee’s roan to follow through the snow, Brushing Against’s breathing grew labored. Soon she began to convulse, a violent shaking that persisted for agonizing minutes as Nejeunee looked on helplessly. By the time it was over, the poor woman had lapsed into a coma from which, Nejeunee knew, she would never awaken.
When the band reached the confluence of two rocky gulches, Brushing Against’s husband checked her welfare and made a simple pronouncement that set Quick Talker to wailing. “Yahik-tee,” he said, “She is not present.”
Nejeunee knew why. Gian-nah-tah had violated the ways of the People, and now they all would pay.
In a shallow overhang only yards away, they quickly buried Brushing Against under rocks as Nah-kay-yen the gutaaln sprinkled pollen about. Then Nejeunee and the band rode on, for the dead were to be feared. For days, so Nejeunee had been taught, a person’s spirit haunted the place of death and tried to communicate through the medium of an owl that was intent on bringing harm.
But whether meted out by ghost owls or nature or the hated Indaa, terrible punishment could still lie in the mountains ahead because of Gian-nah-tah.
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