Apache Lament

by Patrick Dearen

  Quick Talker was inconsolable as she rode alongside Nejeunee. The moisture that had streamed down her cheeks had frozen in place, but the cold couldn’t numb her knife hand. With every rise and fall of her horse’s hoofs, the blade chopped away at the straight, black hair that dangled past Quick Talker’s shoulders.

  Nejeunee grieved with her. In a way, they had all been sisters, even spiteful One Who Frowns, and to lose one was a terrifying reminder that the owls were always waiting to whisk someone away. With Nejeunee’s sorrow came added hatred of Gian-nahtah, and she pictured that knife of Quick Talker’s plunging between his shoulder blades.

  “Will you weep like a child also?”

  Until One Who Frowns spoke, Nejeunee hadn’t realized that the ill-humored woman rode directly behind her. A glance back confirmed that One Who Frowns’s scored features were as disapproving as her words.

  “Look at Quick Talker,” continued One Who Frowns. “Are you now as worthless as she is?”

  “There’s no dishonor in grieving,” said Nejeunee.

  “The dishonor is when a Ndé woman is too lazy to work. That’s why the owls came for she-who-is-not-present.”

  Nejeunee twisted around on the roan. “Witch spirit! There’s a reason, but it has nothing to do with she-who-is-not-here!”

  “What do you mean, Nejeunee?” interjected a voice so emotional it could have only been Quick Talker’s.

  Nejeunee turned to her. “Evil is on us because the Gáhé spirits are angry. They watch from the sacred heights and see the old ways violated. A witch offends them, and the punishment falls on all of us.”

  In their haste to probe, the other women spoke over one another.

  “Who is it that offends?” asked Quick Talker.

  “Does Nejeunee insult me again?” demanded One Who Frowns. “What are you saying about me?”

  Dismissive, Nejeunee addressed only Quick Talker. “One Who Frowns always thinks Sháa, the sun, rises only to shine on her.”

  From behind, One Who Frowns grunted in objection.

  “So it’s not One Who Frowns,” said Quick Talker. “Who could it be you speak of? Tell us!”

  Perhaps Nejeunee had said too much already, but she was frightened for Little Squint Eyes and anguished by so many things.

  “He wields the power of evil,” she said. “Niishjaa, the owl, has cast its eyes on him and turned him against the ways of the People.”

  “Nejeunee blows like a tired horse through its nose,” criticized One Who Frowns.

  Quick Talker, her ragged hair swinging with the motion of her head, checked the riders ahead and behind before leaning closer, her dark eyes welling. “I burn with grief,” she whispered to Nejeunee. “Please tell me who’s taken she-who-is-not-present away from me. He must be banished!”

  To a Ndé, to be sent away from the People—never to be allowed to return—was a greater punishment than death itself. But Nejeunee knew it couldn’t be done without a trial before a band’s leader.

  “There’s no one here to banish him,” Nejeunee muttered.

  “Did I hear you, Nejeunee? Who is there that couldn’t be sent away?”

  Just one, and from the front of the march he was signaling a halt.

  Gian-nah-tah was the only warrior with a war cap of mountain lion skin, and the dangling tail twitched against his back as he cast his eyes to the brightening sky. Nejeunee looked up as well, finding Sháa a perfect circle through the gray clouds. On Nejeunee’s right, a snow-dusted outcrop of sheer rock sprang up twenty feet, and no sooner had Gian-nah-tah dismounted than he began to scale it effortlessly.

  Every Ndé took pride in honing his climbing skill, knowing it might someday benefit him in escaping an enemy. In seconds Gian-nah-tah squirmed over the summit rim. As he rose to lift his face to the clouds and Sháa, his mountain lion pelt suggested that he was more than a man—and Nejeunee knew that in one way he was, because he alone possessed the power to find enemies.

  Nejeunee watched in awe as he stretched out his arms with palms up, his cupped hands ready to receive power from the Creator of Life. As he prayed, the lilt of his voice was like a song playing against the bluffs.

  “In this world

  Where we live

  All power is Bik’egu’indáán’s.

  To me He granted

  The power most coveted,

  The power to find the enemy.

  Now I search for what

  Bik’egu’indáán alone can show me.

  I search for our enemy.”

  As Gian-nah-tah chanted, he slowly turned, catching the veiled sunlight in his palms. Nejeunee had seen this before, and even though she couldn’t discern details from below, she knew that the Indaa would be revealed as soon as Gian-nah-tah faced in their direction. He would find them, and the tingle in his hands and flush of his palms would tell him how far away they were.

  But there was something different about this time. Even after he finished the prayer and a full revolution, he continued to turn, imploring Bik’egu’indáán again and again to show him the enemy. His petitions grew increasingly louder, more fervent, until it almost seemed as if he begged.

  Finally, Gian-nah-tah’s head sank and his arms dropped to his sides, and as godlike a figure as he had seemed only moments before, he was now but a beaten man standing on an icy rock amid mountains far greater than he. When he began to descend, he seemed unsure of himself, hesitating and groping for holds that had been there so short a time ago. Eight feet from the ground, he slipped and fell, the jarring impact sprawling him across the snowy rubble.

  He was slow to regain his feet, and when he did, he reeled and leaned into the cliff that had bested him. As he stood against the ocher lichen staining the rock, Nejeunee saw something in his eyes that had never been there before.

  Fear.

  Nejeunee glanced at Quick Talker, and then back at One Who Frowns. The Ndé had always looked upon Gian-nah-tah with a reverence that no killer of innocent women deserved. Even Nejeunee had been in wonderment at his great power that had allowed them to elude the Indaa all these months. But now the confident expectation in the women’s faces had given way to dropped jaws and furrowed brows.

  Except for a howling wind, there was only silence as Giannah-tah stumbled back to his horse. Never once did he make eye contact with anyone, his demeanor completely without the poise that he had always displayed in matters of war. Normally, he swung astride his animal with ease, but this time he struggled. Finally, the paint nodded forward with its slumping burden, and Nejeunee and the other Ndé fell in behind.

  Just as they did, a gloom spread across the land, and Nejeunee looked up to find that Sháa had hidden its face behind a descending gray fog. With it came swirling motes of frost and a creeping chill unlike anything she had experienced. It stung her cheeks and rasped down her throat, a piercing cold so intense that it was as if Bik’egu’indáán Himself had stripped away all warmth from the world.

  Or maybe He withheld it only from the Ndé because a witch led them.

  “We’re all lost!”

  Quick Talker wailed the words too quietly for anyone else to hear, but Nejeunee knew that she spoke the fears of many.

  The cold persisted into the dusk, an evil cold that seemed to lurk in the shadows and reach for Nejeunee as she rode by.

  Nothing could drive it away, and once more she removed Little Squint Eyes from his cradleboard and held him skin to skin under her clothing, the warmth of her breasts the last line of defense. Even the chanting prayers of Nah-kay-yen the gutaaln had no effect on guu’ k’as, this ghost-cold so intent on harm. Riding a little ahead of Nejeunee, the toothless old man rattled beads of turquoise and waved the feathers of eagles. When he extended a pinch of tádidíné in his fingers and blew the yellow powder toward the point in the sky where the sun had vanished, the wind turned on him like a living thing and threw it back in his face.

  At sixty summers of age, Nah-kay-yen was the eldest of the men, a stooped-shouldered figure with s
parse gray hair and features cracked like old leather. A mountain lion had once mauled him, so Nejeunee had been told, and even though the attack had left him with a limp, he claimed power through the great cat. Too, he drew power from lightning, for on a high crag he had survived a strike that had exploded a nearby rock. Even now sky-fire lived in an arrowhead-shaped amulet about his neck.

  As mighty as the panther and lightning were, however, Sháa, the sun, was far greater. Of all the Ndé Nejeunee had known, the gutaaln was one of the few who channeled its power.

  Nah-kay-yen’s medicine was indeed impressive, and yet Nejeunee had seen a marked difference in him ever since Sháa had fled into the fog. The left side of his face had withered, a malady that had also stricken his left arm to some degree, for he kept it folded across his torso. The same affliction must have gripped his hand as well, for his fingers were stiff and awkwardly bent.

  For a gutaaln to be rendered impotent was distressing, and Nejeunee was in awe of the far-reaching consequences of Giannah-tah’s blasphemy against the ways of the Ndé. Abruptly, she felt guilty, even though the fault wasn’t hers, and she wondered if there was a way to soothe the anger that had turned the Gáhé against them.

  Nah-kay-yen begin to chant again, mostly in words that only the gutaaln or his spirit agents could understand. But there was one Apache phrase that Nejeunee heard him say repeatedly in the heightening gloom.

  “Be good, O night.

  Twilight, be good.”

  And then he added something that caused Nejeunee to hold Little Squint Eyes even closer as she searched yá, the sky, for an owl bent on stealing him away.

  “Do not let us die.

  Save us from ént’í,

  he who is a witch.”

  No night had ever been so dark, for the evil could not be appeased.

  “We’ll never see neeldá, the dawn!” said a weeping Quick Talker.

  As Nejeunee worked blindly alongside the women to unload a travois, she had the same terrible dread. But she refused to speak of it, fearing that to do so would only ensure that the worst would come to pass. Her response to Quick Talker was to place a teepee pole in the woman’s hands.

  “Why bother with this, Nejeunee?” asked Quick Talker. Like all the Ndé, Quick Talker had difficulty speaking clearly in the paralyzing cold. “The dead have no need for shelter!”

  “Shhhh!” admonished One Who Frowns, who already had taken up a pole. “Maybe the evil sleeps. Maybe it’s gone away into the night. Don’t awaken it with your flapping tongue.”

  “Even Nah-kay-yen the gutaaln has no hope!” Quick Talker persisted. “We—”

  “Work quickly,” interrupted Nejeunee. “Over there—take your pole to the place where we scraped away the snow.”

  Nejeunee found a third pole and manila rope and followed after the women through a flesh-eating wind. Nothing was easy in the pitch black, but soon they had the tripod poles laid out side-by-side on the ground so that the smaller ends were even.

  Kneeling, Nejeunee found the matching notches two or three feet from the ends and set about trying to lash the poles together. But her fingers were numb and she couldn’t see, and all the while the ghost-cold gnawed at her marrow. As her misery and frustration grew, her will faded and she began to moan.

  One of the women must have recognized her note of surrender, for Nejeunee heard a sob over her shoulder.

  “Let’s die and be done with it!” whimpered Quick Talker.

  “Hush!” scolded One Who Frowns. “Wish for it and the owls will take you first.”

  But Quick Talker couldn’t be deterred, and Nejeunee felt fingers dig into her arm.

  “Help me! Please, Nejeunee!” Quick Talker pleaded. “Who’s offended the Gáhé? Tell us before we die!”

  “Hmpf!” exclaimed One Who Frowns. “Nejeunee knows nothing. When she talks, she’s like a horse blowing dust from its nostrils.”

  Abruptly, Little Squint Eyes began to cry from the cradleboard at Nejeunee’s back.

  “He cries for the dawn he’ll never see!” said Quick Talker.

  “Maybe the owls will be appeased if they take him,” grumbled One Who Frowns.

  Nejeunee again felt the bite of fingers.

  “The gutaaln could do something!” persisted Quick Talker. “If he knows who wronged the Ndé, he could do something, Nejeunee!”

  Considering all that Nejeunee faced, she almost yearned for the long sleep from which no Ndé awakened. But hers was not a life she could give, not when Little Squint Eyes depended on her. Like metal arrow points, his cries pierced her heart. They tugged at the wellsprings of her soul, and she knew that no sacrifice could be too great if it gave him a chance to live.

  “Tell me, Nejeunee!” begged Quick Talker. “Please, before it’s too late!”

  Only now did Nejeunee succeed in lashing together the poles, and she rose and faced Quick Talker in a night ready to kill.

  “Bring Nah-kay-yen the gutaaln. Bring him, and I’ll tell how Gian-nah-tah has brought us evil.”

  The voice leaped out of the dark like a thing on the attack.

  With the teepee’s standing tripod pegged down, Nejeunee stood beside One Who Frowns as they positioned the seventh pole in the teepee’s skeleton. This pole provided more than structural strength, for it held the bunched canvas that, when unfurled, would wrap around the frame and create a shelter. The wind was more vicious than ever, flapping a loose corner, but suddenly Nejeunee heard only the gutaaln.

  “Do not let us die!”

  Nejeunee spun, not realizing that Nah-kay-yen was behind her.

  “You who know the witch and keep it from us!” the gutaaln addressed Nejeunee. “Do not let us die!”

  “I-I sent Quick Talker to bring you. Are you there in the dark, my sister? You didn’t tell Nah-kay-yen who it is?”

  Quick Talker was there, all right, for Nejeunee heard her sob.

  “Don’t be angry, Nejeunee! I was afraid to say his name. Don’t be angry with me!”

  “Hmpf!” exclaimed One Who Frowns. “It’s for Nejeunee to make the accusation—and to pay the consequences.”

  “Who is it that offends the Gáhé?” demanded Nah-kay-yen. “Who is to blame for the mountain spirits taking their favor from us?”

  “Gian-nah-tah.”

  Even the wind seemed to go quiet as Nejeunee said the name, and she stared at the gutaaln’s shadow for so long that she could almost see his startled eyes and his forehead’s pronounced scoring.

  “To lie about such a thing brings Bik’egu’indáán’s judgment,” warned Nah-kay-yen.

  If it was possible for Nejeunee to grow more chilled, the gutaaln’s words accomplished it.

  “Judgment is already here,” she replied. “Gian-nah-tah lost the power to find enemies. The Blue Death takes whoever it wants. Guu’ k’as, the ghost-cold, calls us to sleep the long sleep. Even you, our gutaaln, carry the punishment in your twisted mouth that slurs your speech.”

  “What is your charge against Gian-nah-tah?”

  “He denies me the choice that is every Ndé woman’s. When we escape the Indaa, I must join him in his kuughà, teepee, or Little Squint Eyes will die. So Gian-nah-tah has said.”

  “Gian-nah-tah is a man. There are nine men—ten, now—cold in their blankets. You are without a husband. For three seasons, you have mourned, while our men sleep alone.”

  “It’s my right to mourn,” said Nejeunee.

  “Among a people so few, mourning must end. You must bear elchínde, children, or the Ndé will be no more. It is your duty.”

  “I will not choose Gian-nah-tah. He’s violated the ways of courtship. He offended the Gáhé spirits and brought punishment on all of us.”

  A hand seized Nejeunee’s arm, but Nah-kay-yen’s words startled her more.

  “You are to blame! You refuse to choose and forced Giannah-tah to defy the traditions. It is because of you that the mountain spirits no longer protect.”

  Quick Talker began to wail above a wind tha
t had resumed its moan. “Nejeunee! Nejeunee!”

  At first, it was Quick Talker’s only intelligible word, but through her sobs came more condemnation.

  “The Blue Death, Nejeunee! It took she-who-is-not-here! How could you let it happen? Oh, Nejeunee, Nejeunee!”

  “Hmpf!” interjected One Who Frowns. “Do I summon Giannah-tah so he can banish her into the night with her crying child?”

  “The Gáhé must be appeased,” said the gutaaln. “Nejeunee must not rebuff Gian-nah-tah. If she chooses him, there will no longer be a wrong to be righted. The mountain spirits will smile again on the Ndé.”

  Nejeunee listened in disbelief. She was to blame, not Giannah-tah, killer of innocent women and blasphemer of Ndé ways! What sorcery was this, when good became evil and evil became good? Or was the gutaaln intimidated by this witch, the same as everyone else?

  She wanted to ask if disfavor could fall on the victim and spare the offender, but abrupt self-doubt took away her boldness.

  “What of Gian-nah-tah?” she managed.

  “Maybe he will return to Mother Earth as a bear,” replied Nah-kay-yen. “Maybe he must return many times to creep through the forests on all fours. Only Bik’egu’indáán knows when a man can ride the ghost pony to the place of happiness.”

  One Who Frowns couldn’t hold her tongue. “Because of this woman, won’t the owls call our names before night is finished?”

  “What must be done must be done quickly,” said the gutaaln. “She must go to Gian-nah-tah now and let her choice be known. From the lightning-struck rock at my neck, I will crush a piece and mix it in water. When all of us drink, the lightning will drive away the dark that kills.”

  “I—”

  Nah-kay-yen cut short Nejeunee’s protest. “Come with me!” he ordered. “Come now or we die!”

  CHAPTER 8

  Sam had never known a day so cold.

  Even at midday, as the rangers prepared to melt snow for the horses at a basin under a bluff, conditions were brutal. Fortunately, the abandoned fire rings of the Mescaleros still glowed with live embers, simplifying the task of rebuilding the fires. Huddling before a blaze, Sam watched the wicked dance of the flames, but while he might thaw his numb extremities, the cold at his back intensified.