Killer of Witches: The Life and Times of Yellow Boy Mescalero Apache

by W. Michael Farmer

  I hoped Sons-nah (Corn Tassel) would go with Caballo Negro. That would mean I’d have a friend in the strange camp. I had a good time playing with the other children, especially Sons-nah’s daughter, the girl with the big, bright eyes. I called her Gah (Rabbit) because she could win races, and no one ever caught her when we played tag. She was very fast dodging anyone who grabbed for her. There was no shame in her winning. We were friends. I felt she ought to win sometimes.

  I had often wished I could help watch the horses and mules with the older boys, but my mother had said no when I asked. She had notched her memory stick for each new Season of Many Leaves I had lived and did not let me dispute it, even though I was big for my age. She said I had not lived long enough to work with the horses. The horses might step or fall on me, and I would never grow to be a strong warrior like Caballo Negro. I wondered if I could look after horses with older boys in the new camp. I did not want to work for my mother like a little child. In the new camp with no White Eyes nearby, maybe I could begin my warrior training and become a keeper of horses sooner. I thought this change might be a good thing.

  My wandering thoughts were cut short when Caballo Negro nodded farewell to Cadete and motioned my mother and me closer. Then he stared into the fire, holding it in his eyes, and spoke as a man in a trance. “In five suns, the Shis-Indeh will leave this place. We’ll go at night in many different directions and follow many paths. The Blue Coats will know not who to follow. They can’t follow all of us. Some will get away. The ones the Blue Coats follow will hide, and they’ll fight if they’re found, fight to the last man, woman, or child. We’ll never come back to this place of bad crops, bad meat, bad water, slavery, and sickness.”

  He stopped speaking, and I heard a child whine nearby. I wondered if I would live to see the next Season of Many Leaves.

  Caballo Negro held his hands over the fire, rubbed the cold away, and continued, “Cadete says it’s best we go south to the camp of Cha, the brother of Cadete, Santana, and Roman. Cha raids the wagons on the Indah road running from sunrise to sunset near the mountains the Nakai-yes (Mexicans) call Guadalupes. Cha’s camp is in the Guadalupes. The Blue Coats have looked for him many times, but they’ve never found him. With Cha, I can raid the Nakai-yi villages and ranches along the great river and the wagons on the Indah road. Caballo Negro will be a man again, a warrior, not a slave.”

  He frowned and stared at us so we would not forget what he said next. “There are Indah spies in the camp. Don’t speak of leaving to anyone. A spy hears you, and we’ll have to fight our way out rather than slip away.

  “Ish-tia-neh, take all the supplies you can. We don’t go to Cha’s camp with empty hands. Prepare by working as if you’re making ready for the snows in the Ghost Face Season. All the women will do this. Be ready in four days. We’ll leave in the night under the noses of the Blue Coat soldiers.”

  My mother crossed her arms and nodded. “Uhmmph. This worthless tipi cover, it goes too?”

  Caballo Negro clenched his teeth. “I hate to take it. It’s falling apart, but we don’t know how long we’ll need it on the trail south.”

  From the tone of his words, I knew it was a good time to ask him a question. He might answer it rather than ignore me. I said, “Father, will you hear a question?”

  “Uhmmph?”

  “How did our people come to this place?”

  He looked at me with sad eyes, and his mouth turned down. “You’re very young and know no better time. But Cadete, to save us from all being killed at Canyon del Perro when the Blue Coats surprised and attacked us, surrendered to Keet Kah-sohn (Kit Carson), who brought us here. You were barely off the cradleboard then.

  “Now, the Indah tell us where we can go and when. They won’t let us leave to hunt. They give us less and less to eat. There’s nothing left here but dust in the air. The Blue Coats make us share this country with the Navajos. Keet Kah-sohn drives them before him in the north, and more come here every day. The Indah made us give our land to the Navajos after we worked like slaves digging ditches for water and planting seeds, though we were here first. The Navajos ought to be feeding us. The meat the Indah give us is no good. It makes us sick. Even the iron tools they give us to plant our crops break. The blankets we are given are thin and cold, not thick and warm like those of the Indah or Nakai-yes.”

  Caballo Negro leaned toward our fire and stirred the embers with a stick, and I watched the sparks rise before he added, “We must leave because there is nothing left to feed our fires. We have to ride half a sun just to dig firewood out of the ground. The water here makes us sick. Many, including your mother’s father and mother, have become sick because of bad meat and bad water and have gone to the land of the grandfathers. Labadie, the agent who fights for us, the Blue Coats run off and listen to his words no more. The Indah have not kept their word, so we will leave this place. Even if we die naked and starving on the llano, we will be free. Do you understand my words?”

  “Yes, Father. They pound my ears.” I stared into the fire and tasted the anger awakened by his words. It rose in my throat like burning stomach water. I wanted to rise up the next morning a warrior and avenge the Shis-Indeh for their suffering. The fire was burning low, and I shivered as I thought of my friends and what we had to do when we were grown. “Father, another question?”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “Will the warrior Sons-nah go to the camp of Cha?”

  Caballo Negro smiled.

  “Sons-nah will go to the camp of Cha.”

  I looked in the fire and asked no more questions. At least my friend Gah would go to the new camp with me.

  I shook my fist and said what I felt, “Enjuh!” (Good!)

  CHAPTER 2

  THE FIFTH DAY

  * * *

  On the fifth day after Caballo Negro spoke with Cadete, I left my mother’s tipi as the sun began to bring the morning, and I lifted my arms in the prayer to Ussen, the great god of the Apaches, which my mother had taught me to sing for the new day. With outstretched hands, I looked to the east and sang,

  “Come Sun of the morning,

  “Come bright light of Ussen.

  “Ussen give us its Power.

  “Give us the Sun of the morning.”

  On that day, my friends and I went to a corral and picked through the mule and horse apples for socorro (corn) or oats, whatever they were fed that had survived passing through their bellies. We did this to help our fathers and mothers find enough food to stay alive. I was lucky and found a few grains. I wrapped them together in a rag for my mother to wash and use in her stews.

  The women worked as they did every day. Some went in the Blue Coat soldiers’ wagons to dig in the dirt like badgers for more firewood (mesquite roots). Others gathered where the Blue Coats gave us food, and others patched the rags of their men and children.

  After I returned from the corral, my mother fed me before we walked three miles to Fort Sumner to claim our weekly rations. At the place where rations were given, my mother waited in a long line while I played with the other children.

  At last, she was near the door where the Blue Coats were to give us our food for the week and maybe some other things. I left my friends to stand with her. Soon, a soldier waved us inside, and we stood before a fat, ugly Blue Coat with hair on his face, who was sitting behind a table. He used a little spear with a sharp iron point dipped in black water to draw tracks on thin, white skins in front of him.

  I already knew many of the words the Blue Coats used. It made them laugh when I used the words “Damn it,” which they said so often. Apache children are taught very young to remember well what they are told and see. Many times our lives depended on it and we had no training to make tracks on the thin white skins like the Indah to help them remember. While I didn’t understand the meaning of everything the Indah said then, I remember exactly the words the fat Blue Coat said and what happened that last day my mother took rations from the Blue Coats at Bosque Redondo.

&
nbsp; He looked at the Indah card given my mother hanging around her neck and muttered, “Number three hundred ninety.” He made tracks on a white skin and turned to another pile of white skins already covered with tracks while she stared at the wall behind him, her chin tilted up.

  “Let’s see, three ninety . . . three ninety, okay. Caballo Negro, his woman, and a child age five.” He lifted his eyes and looked us over and then nodded. “Okay, Mrs. Negro there’s three of ya, so ya git five pounds of meal, two pounds of meat, and three new blankets.” He turned to a soldier behind him and said, “You git that, Private?”

  The soldier said, “Yes, Sergeant,” and went through a door to the next room. He returned with a small cloth sack tied off at the top, a piece of dry meat, dark and covered with mold, and three thin blankets. He laid them on a board beside the Blue Coat who made the tracks on the white skins.

  The Blue Coat turned a white skin with tracks toward my mother, held out the little spear for making tracks, and pointing to a place on the white skin, he said, “You know the drill. Make yore mark and you’n take yore rations.”

  My mother looked at the little sack of meal and the little piece of meat that was supposed to feed us for a week and shook her head, whispering words she’d learned in the last year, “No good. More.”

  The Blue Coat squinted at her and shook his head.

  My mother said the words again, only louder, “No good! More!”

  The Blue Coat said, “General Carlton says that’s all we can give ya. Take it or leave it, I don’t care. They ain’t no more.”

  She stared at the Blue Coat who stared back, then she looked at me, and finally at the white skin with tracks lying on the table before her. She took the little spear he offered and made a cross mark. He made tracks beside hers, pointed to the supplies, and then waved toward the door, saying in a loud voice, “Next!”

  My mother motioned for me to carry the sack. She took the piece of moldy meat and blankets and stepped out the door with me behind her.

  The sack, not so hard to carry at first, got heavier as we walked back to our tipi in the cold, bright air, but even at that age, I would never admit it. I’m a big boy, I thought. I have to do my share of the work. Most of the way back my mother sang softly, “Ussen has Power, give us your Power, take us from the Blue Coats.”

  I left the sack of meal in the tipi. My mother wanted to finish packing and sent me to play with my friends. The sun teased me, knowing I wanted it to bring the night quickly, the night we left the Indah. But the sun crawled across the sky like a little baby rather than running like a warrior. It had moved only a little each time I looked toward the west. I worried it might decide to sit there in the blue, play with the clouds, and not give the Shis-Indeh the darkness we needed to leave.

  In my time, little Mescalero children played war games, ambushing and shooting reed arrows at each other. Although the arrows didn’t stick in us, there was pain when they struck us, but we never risked blinding an opponent by shooting at his head. Every day, I practiced with the little bow and arrows my uncle had given me. The bow was not hard to pull, and the arrows, only dry stalks. Still, from the time I was barely able to walk, I had carried them everywhere and practiced against any and every target.

  On that day, after every strike with an arrow from my bow, I looked at the sky, but the sun had barely moved. Gah, who also had a bow and reed arrows, hid with me behind a rock waiting to ambush two boys in our game. When we heard a horse snort behind us, we froze perfectly still, as our mothers had taught us. I slowly turned my head and saw a Blue Coat and a scout sitting in their saddles watching us. The scout spoke to the Blue Coat. “Little bastards start young don’t they?”

  The Blue Coat laughed and the scout said to us, “Practice with them bows all you want now, you little heathens. Use them against the Blue Coats when you’re older, and you’ll git wiped out.”

  I did not know where the words came from, but I shouted. “Damn it! The day comes when all the White Eyes and Blue Coats will run when they hear my name!”

  The scout laughed. “What is your name?”

  I held up my fist and yelled, “Ish-kay-neh!”

  The scout laughed and told the Blue Coat I had said my name was Boy. The Blue Coat roared with laughter as if he had heard a funny story and, pointing a finger at me, as if it were a pistol, yelled, “Bang!”

  I was so angry I was trembling as they turned their horses and rode back toward Fort Sumner. Gah whispered, “You are very brave, Ish-kay-neh. One day all the Indah Lickoyee will run at your name.” She took my hand and said, “Forget the Blue Coats. Come on. Let’s race with the others.”

  We often ran long, hard races of endurance, boys and girls. Sometimes we ran all the way around the great loop of Bosque Redondo. The dust on the path covered us, leaving grit, hard and crunchy when we closed our mouths, and making it hard to breathe. By the time we passed the pile of smooth river rocks marking the end of the race, we were wheezing, and we all looked as if we had been pulled from an Indah flour bin. After each race, I checked the sky; still, the sun had not moved much.

  I washed the dust from my body and hair in a freezing little inlet in the banks of the river. Afterwards I carried jugs of the sour water to my mother. Little by little, the sun edged toward the distant, western mountains. When my mother asked me to bring wood for the night, I at last saw long shadows pointing east. The sun was going to its hiding place, and night was sure to follow.

  At the great pile of mesquite roots used for community firewood, I pulled an armload of the black, hairy roots, which were twisted and gnarled at crazy angles. As I worked to get the roots out of the jumbled mass, I thought of being in Cha’s camp, watching horses and never doing woman’s work again. Woman’s work is too hard. Besides, it is not what a man does. At the tipi, I used my mother’s hatchet to chop all the roots into pieces small enough for a little cooking fire. It was enough wood to maintain our fire for two or three nights, and I smiled at the thought of how the extra wood would deceive the Blue Coats into thinking we would still be there days later.

  I carried the wood into the tipi and, squatting by the fire, watched Mother cook and do other chores. Around the tipi fire, her pots and baskets and our blankets looked normal. Still, the order of things wasn’t exactly as it had been the day before. After a while, I realized she had organized her things east to west from the door in packages of decreasing weight. She packed our heaviest gear first, carrying it or loading it on a mule or horse, and then added the lighter items next to make the load stable. I smiled. Clever and wise woman was my mother. No Blue Coat would ever recognize her preparations to leave. She was teaching me much.

  Caballo Negro entered the tipi, sat by the fire, folded his hands, and waited for Mother to serve him. As she ladled the gruel out of the pot, she raised her brows and said, “All is well?”

  He nodded as he leaned toward her to take the bowl and grunted, “Uhmmph.” It was a good answer.

  I heard him and smiled. After my night chores, I went to my blanket. Shivering against the cold outside and from excitement inside, I could not sleep as I watched the fire slowly die and listened to the words between Caballo Negro and Sons-ee-ah-ray. My eyes grew heavy, and, despite the very cold air and my excitement, I dozed off.

  Sons-ee-ah-ray shook me awake and whispered for me to help her. The tipi cooking fire was gone, only a few bits of charcoal and white ashes left. It was dark and cold, and the air was filled with much dust and the sounds of many shuffling feet and horses and mules snorting and stamping their hooves. I shivered, and my teeth chattered as I looked up and saw stars between the bare lodge poles of our tipi. The ragged tipi cover was already down. I hurried to help roll it into a tight bundle.

  From under the noses of Blue Coat guards, Caballo Negro had taken two boney horses and a mule from a corral and tied them to a lodge pole. One horse had a blanket across its back, and the mule carried a pack frame. I remembered seeing that frame astraddle the fence around the s
ame corral where Gah and I went to search for grain. I knew it was the same one because of the marks painted in black on one of the front crosspieces.

  My mother grunted as she threw the tipi cover on the pack frame, tied it tight, and then loaded her two big baskets, already filled, on opposite sides of the frame for balance. She looked closely around the floor of the tipi, making sure everything she owned in the world was on that mule. She told me that less than two fingers (finger widths above the horizon) of the night had passed since she had crawled from her blanket. She was ready to follow Caballo Negro.

  She kneeled in front of me and tied a blanket around my shoulders so I wouldn’t lose it. While she worked, I whispered, “What trail will lead us to Cha’s camp?”

  “We’ll run and lead the horses and mule toward where sun disappears behind the far mountains and then turn south. Caballo Negro knows the way. Watch what he does on the trail, and you’ll learn many things. Your bow and arrows are in my big basket on the right side of the mule when you want them.”

  I slipped out of her arms and ran to the basket. She handed me the sack she had made from rags to carry my bow and bundle of reed arrows. I slipped it on and felt like a grown warrior.

  “Why don’t we ride the horses instead of running?”

  She whispered, “They’re too weak to go far if we ride. For three or four days, they must have their fill of grass and only carry a little weight. Then they’ll be strong enough to ride. Now you must be very quiet until your father returns. If the Blue Coats hear us, they’ll try to chase us back or kill us if we fight.”

  Caballo Negro appeared out of the night’s gloom, and, grabbing me under my arms, swung me up on the boney gray mare and tied me on so if I went to sleep I wouldn’t fall off. Suddenly, it seemed as if there were no others around us. The sound of shuffling feet had faded away.

  Caballo Negro led the two horses out of the village of bare lodge poles, skeletons pointing toward the star-filled sky in the black, dust-filled air and supporting nothing except each other. Mother took the lead line for the mule and followed my father. Our people had left a few of the tipis at Bosque Redondo covered and sitting at the edge of the camp closest to Fort Sumner to fool the Blue Coats into thinking we were still there when the dawn sent the sun.