Blood of the Devil

by W. Michael Farmer

  Juanita held out her arms, and I gave her what was left of our child. She held her and rocked back and forth while her grand-mothers, aunt, and cousins wailed and chanted. Juanita, in a croaking voice from a throat I knew was filled with cactus thorns and ached like mine, whispered in my ear, “Go. Help the di-yen. He tried all his medicine, but the sickness was too strong. Let Little Rabbit go to Beela-cheezi. My mothers, sisters, and I will make her ready. Go. There’s much for us to do.”

  Dr. Blazer thrust his big, strong arms into a heavy coat in the cold dawn light outside our tipi entrance, his breath making a steam cloud around his head high above mine. All was stillness in the camp except for the soft popping and cracking of the trees in the cold air. He followed me down the path to the corral. The warm smell of the horses huddled together under the rock shelf overhang filled my nose, and I breathed it in deeply. The smells of life told me I still walked in the land of the living, even if a piece of me was gone to the Happy Land.

  As I helped Dr. Blazer feed and saddle his big pony, Yibá appeared at the fence and nodded to me, indicating he knew the heavy heart I carried. He said, “My mother asks the great di-yen to come to her fire and eat before he begins the long ride to the agency. The good friend of the Mescaleros must not leave the camp hungry. She also asks the Killer of Witches, Yellow Boy, to come and eat and be warm in this time of great grief.”

  I nodded when Blazer glanced at me, and he said, “I’m honored to eat at your mother’s fire. We’ll come with you.”

  I buried our daughter in a secret place high on the great White Mountain. All in the camp came with us in the freezing, brilliant sunlight and made many prayers and songs to Ussen for our daughter. Juanita never wailed or wept. She had the spiritual strength of a man, but I saw in her eyes that her spirit stumbled in grief and bitterness, confused, not understanding why the Happy Land took our daughter from us.

  When we returned, cold and aching in our spirits, we built a roaring fire in front of the shallow cave where the camp often gathered. Everything of our daughter’s we burned, her tsach, her blankets, her clothes, her gourd for eating, spoon and knife, the toys I had carved for her, her little bow and arrows, her sling, the cloth Juanita and the grandmothers had used to bathe her. Everything we burned. If we had not, her ghost might have come back, wanting something left behind, some piece of itself, and the ghost’s nearness could make everyone in the camp sick; all, that is, except me.

  That night, after everyone in the camp went to their tipis, Juanita and I sat together wrapped in a blanket by the remains of the great fire and watched the orange and golden coals slowly turn to gray ash just as the life of our little daughter had done. I knew how much my woman ached for the life and suffering of our daughter, but I could find no words to comfort her as eye water came and she shook against me in her grief.

  CHAPTER 43

  LUCKY STAR’S Haheh

  In the Season of Little Eagles, after our daughter left for the Happy Land, the reservation agent, Cowart, ordered the tribal police to find school age children hidden by their fathers and make their fathers bring them to the agency school. I had promised my daughter she would not have to go, and the thought of Cowart’s order forcing a father to do with their children as the agent pleased made my stomach roll. This was not right, and my brothers in the tribal police knew it, but they did it anyway. I quit rather than hunt children, but the chief told me I could come back any time I wanted. I said, “Maybe when the new agent comes.” The new agent only made things worse. I stayed away from the tribal police for a long time.

  Most of the girls across the reservation, who came to their maturity during a harvest’s turn of the seasons, became marriageable women after their Haheh (puberty ceremony) at a big tribal celebration, usually late in the Season of Large Leaves (July). When our women rode over the ridges to trade for supplies at Blazer’s store for the first time after the Ghost Face Season, Sons-ee-ah-ray saw how the young men stared at Lucky Star. She acted properly and ignored them, which made the young men watch her even more closely. Sons-ee-ah-ray knew they understood, just by looking at her swelling breasts and rounded hips that she had passed her maturity, and they had only to wait for her Haheh ceremony before they could chase and perhaps catch her after the ceremony or, later, formally ask her mother for her.

  After the women returned from Blazer’s store, they all met around a big fire late in the evening. They decided that when one of their girls came to maturity, then the camp would immediately give them their Haheh and not wait for the tribe. This would give our girls a chance to avoid being chased and caught by some man she didn’t want at the big tribal ceremony, and it could make them early choices of the best of warriors who didn’t want to wait until the tribe’s big celebration. Since Nautzile’s di-yen knew our camp, the women decided to ask him to lead the ceremony.

  Lucky Star had thirteen harvests before she reached her maturity. Moon on the Water had nearly sixteen harvests. With her long black hair, heart-shaped lips, sloe eyes, and her body built to work hard, run all day, and have many children, she still waited for her maturity. Juanita and I heard her whines and complaints from inside Maria’s tipi, as they worked cooking good things for Lucky Star’s Haheh feast.

  Moon said in angry frustration, “I should already have a man by now. If things had happened in the right order, I might even have a child by now. But no, my body, like some hanging fruit, refuses to ripen. It looks ready but cannot be eaten. Will I ever have a man? Who would want me but some old, worn-out warrior who might not even be able to consummate our marriage, much less give me a child? Why do the Mountain Spirits treat me this way?”

  Maria listened to this complaining as long as she could stand it, then slapped Moon and told her to shut up her whining. Suffering made her stronger. She must at least act strong even if she had no heart for strength.

  Maria said, “Your time will come. A good warrior will take you even if you never have a Haheh.” After that talk, even my warrior’s eyes, dim to the ways of women, saw Moon change from a complaining crow to a dove, soothing an anxious Lucky Star and telling her to stand strong against life’s hard times.

  I rode over to Nautzile’s camp and asked the di-yen to come perform and direct the ceremony, and he did. The men built the big, specially shaped tipi, the kotulh, where the di-yen holds the Haheh. The poles have to be pine, about a tall man’s height, longer than normal, and the tops left with a tuft of green branches to cover the smoke hole and prevent evil spirits from getting in during the ceremony. The kotulh has a trench that goes from five paces beyond the opening, facing the rising sun, all the way around the western back, and returns to the east five paces beyond the opening on the other side. We stuck branches of green oak and willow in the trench bottom to form a screen to keep away the evil spirits of the earth. In this way, the screen and the rising sun, pouring light into the eastern opening of the kotulh, maintained its purification. Ten steps east from the green screen, we built a big fire and kept it burning all night to bring light to the kotulh when the sun left us. Evil spirits do not come to bright light and do not pass through green leaves.

  My mother made Lucky Star a beautiful, ornamented doeskin shift, leggings, and moccasins for her Haheh. Four days before the ceremony, Sleepy, Yibá’s mother, instructed her at my mother’s request in the requirements of being a woman and the importance of chastity.

  During the ceremony, the old di-yen made many prayers and songs for Lucky Star, and used much golden pollen to bless her. The prayers and ceremonies went on over four nights. During the day, we feasted and celebrated the coming of a new woman. As dawn came at the end of the songs and prayers of the fourth night, the “devil’s pit,” a square outline scratched in the dust in front of the kotulh, made it possible for any evil spirit still lingering nearby to hide from the rising sun. My mother spread rawhide over the square, and then Sleepy covered the rawhide with buckskin. The di-yen used golden pollen to outline four footsteps on the buckskin that led t
o a pollen symbol of the sun.

  Juanita gave Lucky Star a finely made basket. The basket held many things of tradition given her during the Haheh that would make up her medicine when the ceremony finished. One of these things was an eagle feather. The di-yen took the feather by the quill and had Lucky Star take the barbs. He led her across the four footsteps he had outlined with his pollen to the symbol of the sun where her spirit as a newly made woman went for the day to be with Ussen.

  Our small camp had only one young man eligible to chase Lucky Star, but Yibá still had eyes for Moon and left Lucky Star alone. For the rest of the day, we feasted, danced, and enjoyed our friends while Lucky Star did anything she pleased while her spirit met with Ussen.

  Juanita ended her time of grief for our daughter at Lucky Star’s Haheh, and she came to me many times hoping a child might once more grow in her belly. I knew the women whispered among themselves, and the men privately thought that perhaps Juanita could have no more children because an enemy in the tribe had bewitched her with infertility. Some even thought the shape-shifter had done this before I killed it. Moon’s long time to maturity showed she had a worse problem than Juanita. Most women her age already had one child, maybe two.

  The Ghost Face Season following Lucky Star’s Haheh passed without the bitter cold of the previous season when our daughter left for the Happy Land. In the Season of Little Eagles, Moon finally reached her maturity. We held a Haheh for her, and the old di-yen who had performed Lucky Star’s Haheh came back again. Now, I thought, Yibá will chase and catch Moon. Juanita told me if Yibá chased Moon that she would not run very fast, but, at the end of Moon’s Haheh ceremony, Yibá did not chase her. I felt bad for Moon. I knew she wanted Yibá and that she was ready to become a good wife with many skills. Her face showed her disappointment. No one wanted her for his wife. Maria told her to be strong, that life has many surprises.

  Life brought me a surprise a few moons later one evening in the Season of Large Fruit. I sat on a blanket smoking and talking with Kah and Beela-chezzi. Our mouths dropped open in surprise as we watched Beela-chezzi’s son, Shiyé, now thirteen harvests, lead a fine black pony to the door of my mother’s tipi and tie it there. The pony belonged to Yibá and was an offer of interest to take Lucky Star as his woman. If Lucky Star brought the pony back to Yibá, she signaled her willingness to become his woman if her mother accepted his offer of a gift of suitable value for her.

  Watching the black pony nibble at grass where Shiyé tied him, I remembered Yibá telling me on our hunt for Sangre del Diablo that he when he became a warrior, he would ask for Moon on the Water. That winter when we had made arrows two or three harvests earlier, he couldn’t keep his eyes off her, nor she him. He’d never given me any indication of interest in Lucky Star. I didn’t understand why he’d changed his mind, and I knew Moon would be sick in spirit that he didn’t choose her, but I didn’t doubt Juanita and Moon already knew this would happen. I asked Kah and Beela-chezzi if they knew why Yibá chose Lucky Star, but they shook their heads.

  Yibá had become a man of substance, a man ready to take care of a woman and have children. He had won horses in bets on hoop and pole games. He didn’t eat, or lose in Monte card games, the cattle Tata Crooked Nose gave him, and their number had more than doubled since he received them. He kept them in a box canyon where there was good grass and water and, with Shiyé, protected them from hungry wolves, cats, bears, coyotes, and men.

  That night, as Juanita rested her head on my shoulder and we watched the red and orange coals of the fire send little spirals of smoke toward the stars through the tipi smoke hole and listened to Coyote and his brothers howling on the far ridges, she said, “I know you saw Shiyé tie Yibá’s pony in front of Sons-ee-ah-ray’s tipi in hopes Lucky Star would bring it back.”

  “I saw it. Yibá has done well with his animals, and they increase in number. He’s ready for a wife. Why did he not ask Moon on the Water? He told me he wanted her when he became a man. Do you know why he chose Lucky Star instead?”

  She made a face and said, “He chose Lucky Star because of me.” She saw me frowning in the flickering shadows. “It’s been over seven harvests since I’ve had a child, but you know we’ve tried.” She looked at me and made a face. “Stop laughing. This is serious. Some women think I probably won’t have more children. Perhaps they speak the future, perhaps not.”

  I pulled the blanket up to our chins, the night air becoming cold, our breath looking like steam as the fire ashes grew gray and its heat slowly left us. Birds in the trees squawked, and far down the canyon a wolf called his brothers. “But what does this have to do with Moon on the Water and Yibá?”

  She blew steam from her puffing sigh up toward the smoke hole. “Moon on the Water had her Haheh much later than most girls, who, by her age, would have a man and his child. Moon is my sister. We’re from the same mother and father, as close in blood as we can be. After her Haheh, people waited to see if my belly grew with another child so they could expect Moon to start having babies, too. I still wait for our child. Now, no man wants her. They fear she could never have children.”

  “Hmmph. This makes no sense. How can anyone blame you for Moon’s slow maturity? She is built to have many children, just as you.”

  “You speak true, husband. I’m certain, even from my dreams, that she’ll have all the children she and her husband want. But the men who might give Maria a good bride price also think she’ll be barren. Until she marries and has a child, there’s no way to know, and they won’t marry her until then.”

  My head hurt from thinking about such mindless riddles and settled for pulling the blanket over our heads to look for another child.

  After Yibá had the pony led to the front of Maria’s tipi, Lucky Star, like Juanita, waited a night and a day to return it. That way, she didn’t appear too eager and, by waiting, might even cause Yibá to raise her bride price. His mother, Sleepy, his representative to Sons-ee-ah-ray, negotiated the bride price to be four fast ponies and a tipi cover.

  Yibá and Lucky Star accepted each other as husband and wife in the bright, morning light eight suns later and left the camp for a hidden place Yibá fixed for them after a day of feasting and celebrating. I thought them a good match, but wondered if Moon would ever find a husband.

  CHAPTER 44

  SECOND WIFE

  Ten suns after they joined as husband and wife, Yibá and Lucky Star returned to the canyon camp and entered the tipi we set up near Sons-ee-ah-ray. Their happy time brought good times and fun to everyone in the camp, including Moon, who had accepted her life and the good fortune Lucky Star had in finding a good husband, young and strong, like Yibá.

  The seasons marched toward Ghost Face. In the evenings, I often sat outside the tipi on my blanket and listened to the night animals and insects while I cleaned my rifle or sharpened my knife. Moon came often to sit by the tipi fire and weave baskets with Juanita. I could hear the jingle-jangle of their talk, too low to understand, and then the occasional deep-in-the-belly laugh of Juanita or the lilting giggle of Moon. Hearing them, I never failed to wonder why Juanita couldn’t make another baby and why Moon had no husband.

  One day early in the Season of Earth is Reddish Brown, a female rain fell all day in the cool canyon air. All the camp stayed in their tipis and did chores put off until a day of rain or the long, dark days of Ghost Face.

  I spent the day making new arrows and repairing old ones. Game was coming back to the mountains. To save bullets, I hunted with my bow and enjoyed the challenge of getting close to an animal to make a shot that I could have made at three times the distance with my rifle. As I used the bow more and more often, the deadly accuracy I had developed as a boy returned.

  Juanita started the slow roast of a haunch of venison. Its fine, powerful smells of roasting meat and fat dripping in the fire filled the tipi. She used mesquite flour to prepare bread dough for baking when we were ready. Finished, she made bowls of wild potatoes, mescal, and nuts and dried fr
uit. My mouth watered as I smelled the roasting meat and watched her making the bread and other good things.

  She finished her food work and brought out an unfinished basket, a large one with black and red geometric designs that would bring much in trade at Blazer’s store after Ghost Face passed. We worked across the fire from each other, enjoying the moment and glancing up to show eyes filling with desire. But before we moved to anything more interesting, we heard by the door blanket, “I stand at your door.” Juanita smiled and shook her head at my obvious look of disappointment. She said, “We hear you. Come.” The blanket over the door pulled back and Moon put her glistening wet head inside the door and asked to join us while she worked on her unfinished basket. She said Maria wanted to nap, but the creak and swish sounds of Moon’s basket weaving kept her awake. Juanita smiled and, motioning her to come inside, patted a place for Moon to sit down beside her.

  We worked, laughed, and spoke our memories throughout the day. Despite having no marriage prospects, Moon laughed at our stories of early marriage and told us her stories, which Juanita knew well, about Maria’s peculiarities. Since married men do not often associate with eligible young women, Moon pleased and surprised me with her smiles, quick thinking, and lively talk that left us laughing and giggling past the sun’s fall into the far mountains.

  After taking a gourd of venison and potatoes to Maria, Moon returned to eat with us. The smell and taste of baked mesquite bean flour bread, sweet mescal, juniper berries, and roasted potatoes and venison raised our spirits. In the early night, the gentle rain became a ground cloud. Long after Moon left us for her blankets in Maria’s tipi, Juanita and I lay together enjoying each other and the mist-padded stillness of the night by our glimmering tipi fire.