Rufus spat again and stared off into the gray-brown distance across the valley of the great river. He finally shook his head. “I understand nothing of what Geronimo told you. If his Power truly lets him foretell events, you’ll know soon enough. Seems to me he’s just runnin’ his mouth.”
Perhaps Rufus spoke true. I didn’t know, and neither did he.
I rested a day with Rufus, and even shot some on his target range at the back of his canyon. My memories of what I learned there were very strong. Late in the afternoon of the second day, I saddled my pony and loaded my mule, told Rufus I would be back when I could, and rode off for the reservation and my wife and child.
CHAPTER 29
RETURN
I waited, sitting on my pony in the deep shadows of the trees in the early morning light. A little earlier, just before light appeared above the mountains, a thin curl of smoke twisted out of Juanita’s tipi into the high pine branches above it. Now the sun threw long spears of bright, yellow light passing through the tall tree branches and caught in the mists settled in the bottom of the canyon.
The blanket covering the opening of the tipi pulled back and Juanita stepped out into the cool canyon air, pulling a light blanket over her shoulders, and disappeared down the path along the little stream running through our camp to the place where the women bathed. She usually went there first in the mornings before the others came, even though it was colder then than later in the day. Soon she was back, shivering under the thin blanket, her hair drying long and loose, and her face pink, almost red from the cold water. Birds were beginning to make their morning calls, and I could hear muffled voices in some of the tipis near me and horses snorting and beginning to mill about on the other side of the brush corral fence.
Juanita went to the woodpile near her tipi and pulled the ax out of the big log she used for a chopping block. Flipping the blanket off her shoulders, she pulled a piece of log off the small stack of wood nearby, laid it on the chopping block, and with a puffing grunt and hard swing with both hands, cleanly split it into two pieces. Her back to me, she readied one of the split pieces for splitting again. I rode out of the shadows.
“My woman uses an ax better than many men.” She turned toward me, looking this way and that before seeing me at the edge of the shadows. The hand holding the ax dropped to her side, and the fingers of the other flew to her lips. I heard her whisper, “Yellow Boy!”
For the People, it is unseemly to show affection in front of others, but since few were stirring, she ran to me in the shadows and threw her strong arms around me. We hugged and kissed as men and their women long separated do in private. I wanted her then, and she wanted me, but we knew that must come later. Her ear lay against my chest, and her hair, still damp, felt cooler than the morning air.
“My husband has returned. I hear the beating of his heart and feel his strength and Power with my arms.”
“I’ve returned to my woman and daughter. I never left them, for they stayed in my heart. Tell me all is good, and I’ll be satisfied.”
“All is good, husband. Your daughter is a strong walker and runner already. Come. See your daughter walk and run. Moon on the Water stays with me at night to help keep watch over our tipi and Kicking Wren. Moon grows old enough to have her Haheh ceremony anytime. Soon you may have a new brother-in-law to help you. I have mesquite bread baking and a piece of deer Kah brought us ready for the fire.”
“Woman, I rode all night to eat the good things from your fire.”
She laughed. “Your belly sounds like a hungry wolf. Take your pony to the corral. Soon we’ll eat.
I had been gone with General Crook’s scouts less than two moons, but Kicking Wren was shy when she saw me come through the door. Moon on the Water smiled, and handing her up to me said, “D’anté, Brother. Your family is happy for your return from the Blue Mountains. Kicking Wren wants her father.”
Kicking Wren felt small and warm in my arms. I held her high and looked at her face, but at first, she wouldn’t look at me. I rubbed her back, and she smiled as I sat down next to the fire, played with her hands, and nuzzled her behind her ears, making her giggle. Before Juanita had my morning meal ready, Kicking Wren and I were old friends as she chattered away, sitting between my crossed legs and making words only the women in our tipis understood.
Captain Branigan sat at the table where he made tracks on paper for the agency police. I stopped at the doorway and waited for him to see me. He looked up, smiled under the big bush of hair below his nose, and waved me inside his work and council room at the agency. He stuck out his hand, and we pumped arms twice.
“Yellow Boy, you return! Good! I read in the papers how General Crook and his scouts brought back the Chiricahuas with almost no bloodshed. For a while, we thought they had wiped you out. Sit down. Sit down and tell me about your adventures.”
I sat in the chair in front of his table. He went to get coffee off the stove in the back and brought me back a cup before I began my story. I told him all of it, except for finding the witch outside of Carretas. He sat and smoked his pipe, nodding at the wise way General Crook handled Geronimo and the chiefs, and frowning at how hard the trails were in the Blue Mountains.
When I finished my story, Branigan said, “General Crook and his scouts, you among them, have done this country a great service. As a former army officer, I can see where the general took a big gamble, but it paid off in a big way. I’m glad you got back unharmed, and Agent Llewellyn will be glad to see you, too. Are you ready to go back to work as a policeman? I’ve got your badge right here in my desk drawer.”
“Wait two moons. Work in the land of the Nakai-yes. Need three brothers in camp to go with me. Need paper with tracks says it good we leave reservation. Brothers and me make sure we no break Indah or Nakai-yi laws. You give paper with tracks?”
Branigan took a swallow of coffee and studied me while he thought on my request. “Two moons and three friends to go with you into Mexico after you were in on rounding up the Chiricahuas in the Sierra Madre, eh?” He raised his brows and grinned. “You must have found a pretty good stash of Chiricahua loot.”
I said nothing. Indah did not believe in witches or the Powers Ussen gives.
“Things have been pretty quiet around here. If you want to wait a couple more months before you start work again, I don’t see any problem with that. You risked your life going after the Chiricahuas. For all I know, they might still want to shoot you for comin’ after ’em. Who are the three men you want to go with you?”
“Two warriors, Kah and Beela-chezzi, and a boy, Ish-kay neh, ready to follow warriors.”
“You ain’t plannin’ any raids down there in Mexico, are you?”
“No raids. Work to do in land of Nakai-yes.”
Branigan must have understood I wouldn’t tell him more. He pulled open his table drawer, took out a white sheet of paper, and began to make tracks the Indah and some Nakai-yes knew how to read. When he finished, he folded the paper twice and handed it to me. He said, “That paper says you are free to leave the reservation for two moons with the names of the warriors and boy I’ve listed. If any Blue Coat or Indah with a badge asks if you have permission to be off the reservation, show him that paper. If you’re going to Mexico, don’t get caught. They’ll either kill you or make you a slave in the mines, and we’ll never find you. Keep that paper safe. It’s important. I expect to see you back here on the reservation within two moons. Go in peace.” He stood and extended his hand. I’ve never understood why the Indah like to pump arms so much. I took his hand and gave it two pumps.
“We come back plenty quick. Ka-dish-day (Goodbye).”
The night warm and comforting, the stars like a river of milk, children played their night games around and in the stream. Kicking Wren played with them. Not many moons off the tsach, she walked and ran easily, Moon on the Water watching her while Juanita and the other women gossiped and worked on baskets. Beela-chezzi, Kah, and Ish-kay-neh sat with me in the flickering shado
ws made by my small council fire off in the trees away from the women and children. I lighted a cigarro, smoked to the four directions, and passed it around my circle of friends. When it came to Ish-kay-neh, he took it and looked in my direction for approval. I nodded. Even if he hadn’t done a single apprentice raid, he’d earned our respect after the Blue Coats took over the reservation. He deserved a place in our little circle.
When we finished smoking, I said, “Brothers, thank you for all you’ve done while I scouted for General Crook. Most of the Chiricahuas are back on the reservations, and there will be a time of peace before they leave for the Blue Mountains again.”
They all nodded and, as if with one voice, said, “Enjuh.”
They waited for me to speak, the only sounds, children playing, frogs, and insects in the trees and brush, and the soft snap of the fire.
I took a deep breath, almost trembling with excitement, and said, “On the long walk back, I found the witch’s new hacienda.”
Beela-chezzi’s eyes became narrow slits and he asked, “Are you sure it’s his hacienda? If it’s his place, show us, and we’ll help you kill him. We’ve all waited a long time for this.”
“I’m certain it is Sangre del Diablo’s hacienda. Listen, about eight fingers above the horizon run-time from the springs at Carretas up the canyon that splits off from Higueros Canyon where the Río Carretas runs, my friend Much Water told me he saw a strange hacienda, and he watched it for a time with his be’idest’íné. He saw Indians, Comanches, and pistoleros among them working around a corral. He saw big hunting birds, an eagle, hawks, and an owl, with covers on their heads, roosting on crosspieces across the tops of posts in the ground. He told me this when we camped at the springs at Carretas. Early the next morning, I rode the trail Much Water said he rode and watched the hacienda he described with the Shináá Cho. I saw the posts for the birds he described, but there were no birds. I saw Comanches around the place. I waited, and then I saw Sangre del Diablo with a golden eagle on his arm go to one of the posts. I almost shot him, but feared if I did the Comanches would come after me, attack the Chiricahuas, and scatter them. The expedition to bring them back would fail. I decided to wait. I tell you, this hacienda is where Sangre del Diablo has returned to the land of the Nakai-yes.”
My brothers all leaned toward me, listening. Kah said, “You have a plan?”
I reached behind me and tossed an Indah flour sack in front of them. It landed with a little puff of dust and lay there lumpy and unmoving. They leaned back from it and frowned as though it might have snakes. I laughed and said, “Nothing is inside that will hurt you. Ish-kay-neh, show us what is inside.”
The boy didn’t want to touch it, but clenching his teeth, he crabbed over to it, pulled the drawstring, reached inside, and brought out a string of bright red chile peppers to hold up in the fire’s yellow light. They all turned their heads to look at me as if they thought the Mountain Spirits had made me crazy.
Kah said, “These peppers are your plan? The light behind your eyes is no more. I knew something was wrong when you rode off for the scouts.”
I said, “Listen to me first. If you still think I’m crazy, tie me up and take me to the agency. Kitsizil Lichoo’ and I often sat together on cliff’s edges at Juh’s stronghold in the evenings, smoked to the four directions, and watched the light change over the mountains while I healed from the bullet wound Sangre del Diablo gave me. We told each other stories of our fathers and raids we made. He told me a story about how only a handful of harvests earlier, some of Juh’s Nednhi women and children went collecting mescal and other foods down on the llano. They were attacked and taken captive. Nakai-yes sold them as slaves to work in mines to the south.
The Nednhi and Bedonkohe, led by Juh and Geronimo, searched and found them being worked to death at a peshlickoyee (silver) mine near a village. They looked in bad shape because they refused to eat. They wanted to die if they had to stay slaves. The Nednhi and Bedonkohe watched the village for a while and learned that, every seven days, the Nakai-yes all went in this special building together and watched a brown robe make a ceremony. While this went on, the Nakai-yes left only a guard or two at the place where the slaves were locked up every day after their work.”
Beela-chezzi crossed his arms and smiled. “I remember this story, and now I understand what you intend to do. These other two have not heard it. Tell them what happened.”
Up on the ridge, a coyote called his brothers, who answered him from another ridge. I thought, Coyote waits, witch. Soon we come.
“The Nednhi and Bedonkohe waited until a day came when the village gathered inside the place of the black robes. Then they quietly killed the guards next to the place of slaves and blocked the doors to the house of the brown robes. Geronimo’s brother, Fun, climbed on the roof of the place the brown robes used to make ceremonies. He had cut a hole there the night before. He had a mixture of chopped up chiles, wood shavings, and ocote (pinesap) that he lighted and then dropped in the hole, which he covered with a blanket, to keep the smoke trapped inside. Smoke from burning chile will kill you if you breathe too much. The Nednhi and Bedonkohe covered up all the windows to the place. The Nakai-yes begged and screamed for the doors to open while they coughed and choked and gagged as the smoke grew thicker. After a while, the Nednhi and Bedonkohe heard the Nakai-yes no more. The Nednhi and Bedonkohe freed their women and children, and the warriors started landslides that rolled down the sides of the canyon burying the village. Kitsizil Lichoo’ said they had a big celebration when they all came back. The Nednhi and Bedonkohe still tell this story around their fires.
“I think we use chiles to make smoke in the hacienda of Sangre del Diablo and his Comanches. If they have even a little in their face they will be blind and in a hurry to run from the smoke. We kill them, every one, when they come out. I have spoken to our friend, Rufus Pike, and he wants to come with us. He has a good eye for targets with his big thunder gun. He alone can kill many Comanches.”
I opened the blanket beside me and gave the rifles I took as booty to Kah and Beela-chezzi and a revolver to Ish-kay-neh. They gripped and stared at them with boyish delight. Their weapons needed much work to shoot right, and no Indah would do that for an Apache. The revolver was Ish-kay-neh’s first gun, and he held it like an egg.
“I have bullets for those weapons, and you, too, will kill many Comanches. I will blind and send Sangre del Diablo to the Happy Land as I have promised Ussen. What do you tell me? Will you help me end this witch who killed our fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, and sold their hair?”
Their eyes glittered in the firelight as they all leaned in to listen to my words. The boy, Ish-kay-neh, was the most excited, and he practically shouted, “Yellow Boy, we’ll help! The witch will go blind to the Happy Land, and his Comanches will be no more.”
We shook our fists and yelled, “Enjuh!”
The women looked up from their baskets and smiled. The children stopped their play, listening for more, and when none came, began their games again.
Beela-chezzi, Kah, and I spoke together alone later that night. I said, “We need to give Ish-kay-neh a new name so he can be done with his childhood, and I want to count this trip as his fourth and last in apprenticeship raids with warriors. He did well and acted as a warrior when we took the women and little ones from the Blue Coats, when we outfoxed the Chiricahua wolves at the rancho of Rufus Pike, and when we returned to Mescalero. This raid we’ll go on to kill the witch may be the last we can do now that we no longer fight the Blue Coats and In-dah. I say, if he does well as an apprentice on this raid, he will have been on four raids and he should become a warrior and be treated like one of us.”
Beela-chezzi stroked his chin with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand and stared into the fire. Kah crossed his arms and stared at the milky river of stars above us. Beela-chezzi looked at Kah and then me and nodded.
“Ummph. You speak true. I have trained Ish-kay-neh in warrior skills and watched h
im through the times of which you speak. He has strength. He learns well and fast. I agree with you. Let this raid count as his fourth apprenticeship ride.”
Beela-chezzi and I looked at Kah who smiled, shrugged his shoulders, and said, “I, too, think the boy is ready. What name shall we give him?”
I said, “I waited a long time for my name. Maybe the Nakaiyes will name him if he becomes a fierce warrior, but I think, Yibá (He Waits for Him) is a good name. It says he waited like a good hunter for his name to come.”
Beela-chezzi and Kah nodded. Beela-chezzi said, “Yellow Boy makes a good name for Ish-kay-neh. Before we leave, let’s hold a feast and give it to him for all to hear.”
Kah nodded. “That will be a good time, a good thing. Ish-kay-neh will like his new name.”
CHAPTER 30
THE TRAIL TO CARRETAS
We took a week to get ready for our attack against Sangre del Diablo. Yibá took delight in his new name and was humbled that we respected him enough to use this ride as his last apprentice raid. I used two boxes of cartridges teaching him how to load, aim, and shoot his new revolver. He needed many more days of practice, days we didn’t have, to become accurate and deadly with it. I told him he could carry it, but to be sure and carry, like the rest of us, his bow. Up close, an expert, as we were, with a bow and arrow was as deadly as a man with a gun.
We spoke with our women and told them what we planned. They smiled and said this time they knew the witch would die. They began making sacks of trail food for us and practicing the traditions they followed when we were on the war trail, such as stacking their woodpiles in a certain way and praying twice a day.
I rode to the agency and found my policeman friend, Chawnclizzay, who had taught me much. I asked him to keep an eye on our women and children. He said I honored him by asking him to do this. I gave him one of my Chiricahua revolvers to show my gratitude for his help.
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