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

by W. Michael Farmer

  “You who now take this long journey do well learning how to fight, hunt, and make war. You want to go on raids with warriors. You want to become warriors, prove you are men. In this trial, prove your skill and stamina, and you will come with us as apprentices. This run tells the warriors if you have grown strong enough and smart enough to enter manhood. It tells us if you can take care of yourselves if you become separated from a raiding party. The fastest among you might finish this run in four, maybe five, suns. Eat nothing; drink only water for the first two suns. After two suns, eat whatever you can catch or find. Follow your pony’s path back to the camp. Every warrior knows the tracks of his own horse, even in a herd of others. Run only at night. Hide and rest in the day. Each warrior knows where to start his son. Be strong. Run hard. Soon Cha’s warriors will know you as men. We ride.”

  We rode down the canyon trail to the llano covered in darkness and shadows made by light from myriad stars. Half the night passed before a fingernail moon rose above the Guadalupes to cast thin, sorry light on the mountain passes and llano brush.

  For two days we rode south, staying out of sight, riding down arroyos, finding water at the hidden places, always avoiding exposure on the horizon, making little or no sound, until approaching the Davis Mountains with the sun fast falling into darkness, we began to separate and were soon lost to each other.

  Caballo Negro led me up a small canyon to a natural water tank in a jumble of boulders surrounded by piñons. He directed me to care for my pinto and then to dig a small pit and make a fire in a bare place in the center of the boulders.

  We sat by the fire and ate dried meat and fat pounded together with dried berries, mesquite beans, and piñon nuts that Sons-ee-ah-ray made for us. Caballo Negro studied me in the flickering light, and I could tell he felt pride in me. The other boys and I had been running every morning before sunrise, running for long hours in front of switches held by the warriors, who chased us. I had been fighting in sling and arrow battles with other boys without getting badly hurt. I hunted often and brought meat to Sons-ee-ah-ray’s cook pot and could follow the tracks of a snake over hot rocks. I was ready for this last test before I became an apprentice warrior. Then after four successful raids as an apprentice, the warriors would accept me as a full-grown man, ready to take a woman when I had enough ponies, ready to make a child, ready for raids and war. The great circle of life, like the seasons returning, was closing ready to begin again.

  Caballo Negro said, “My son, I have watched you and taught you through many circles of the seasons. You are ready for this trial. It won’t be easy; keep your mind on what you do. Use the lessons you’ve learned in hard games and long hunts, and you’ll do well. It’s not important that you are first back to camp, but that you return without marks of foolish mistakes or from those of an enemy. If you can do this, then with another passing of the seasons, you will be a man, a Shis-Indeh warrior.”

  I looked Caballo Negro in the eye and said, “I’m ready, Father. I will not fail. I’ll make you proud. Soon I’ll ride with the warriors.”

  Caballo Negro grunted and said, “Enjuh. This we will see. He Watches says you do the best in camp at finding and reading signs of wagons or Blue Coat soldiers on the road from the east. Return from this trial, and your name will become Nah-kah-yen (Keen-Sighted).”

  I bowed my head in gratitude. I had often wondered how long I must carry my little boy name when many of my friends already had their adult names. “A good name, Father. I will take it with pride.”

  Caballo Negro nodded, “Use your powerful eyes to follow me and your pony home. Keep quiet as Cougar and smart as Coyote. Run in the night. Rest in the day, but not near water or deep shade. That is where Nakai-yes and other enemies will look for you. If you see someone and do not know who it is, stay hidden until they pass. When you are a man, you can build a smoky fire and hide where you can see them when they come to it. If friends, you can come out from hiding. If enemies, you attack them. If you don’t know them, stay hidden until they leave.”

  He pointed out through the boulders toward a black, ragged outline against the stars. “When the moon rises over those mountains, leave this place. Follow my trail. It will not be the same trail we followed here, but I will not hide the new one, and your pony follows mine. It will be an easy trail to follow. Give our horses their fill of water, and I leave you to your long run home.”

  I took the pinto and big black, watered them at the tank, and led them to where Caballo Negro waited. Swinging up on the black and taking the lead rope for the pinto, he said, “We’ll wait for you in the mountains,” and he disappeared back down the canyon.

  I trembled inside with excitement at the thought of my new name and the long run. I went to the tank, filled my water bladder, and then sat by the dying fire, sharpening my knife and waiting for the moon to rise above the mountains’ far, black edge.

  True to his word, Caballo Negro left me an easy-to-follow trail even in the dark, one even an Indah or Nakai-yi might follow. I followed it across rough country filled with brushy flats, deep arroyos, and rolling hills with flat tops covered with grama grass, mesquite, yucca, and creosote bushes. As the gray light of dawn drove the stars away, I ran to the top of a high, flat-topped hill covered by small thickets of mesquite and piñon and stopped to rest and take note of where I might be.

  The sun rose, pouring its light like a liquid gold seam across the horizon. Birds called in sharp chirps from the brush and flew out of their night perches in big fluttering flocks from thickets of light green mesquite, piñons, and junipers. I am Nah-kah-yen, I thought, resolving to use my childhood name no more, as I waited for the light to grow bright enough to see the distant mountains.

  I knew I ought to see the tops of mountains to the north and south, but in the gray horizon haze and, later in the morning, through shimmering mirages, it was impossible, and few signs, clumps of strong green bushes or glints, in any direction, showed any hints of water. High on a thermal, circling, floating without effort, Buzzard watched, waiting for me to make a mistake.

  The trail of the pinto and big black moved on through the brush toward the haze hiding the mountains. Even from the top of the hill, I saw evidence of it out on the flats swinging around the next hill. I found a piñon tree in some tall grass, looked carefully to ensure it was not the resting place of a snake, and crawled under it to rest.

  At midmorning, the shadows were growing shorter, the air growing warmer, when after a short nap, I crawled out from under my piñon to study the northern horizon in the full light of day. I was certain a bump I saw on the horizon had to be the highest mountain in the Guadalupes. I looked to the east of the bump and guessed Cha’s camp location, knowing it ought to align with the general direction of Caballo Negro’s trail. Even in the brighter light, no green brush stood out on the llano to show water, no dust in the shimmering air betrayed the presence of wagons or horses. I was alone. In the deep, reverent stillness, I lay back down under the piñon and slept again.

  When the sun was passing halfway from the top of its arc into the edge of night, my eyes snapped open. The air was still and hot. Nothing moved. Except for the shadow positions around me, nothing had changed. Yet, something was not right. There! I heard the faint clink of iron on iron. Slowly, careful to disturb nothing around me, I sat up and surveyed the top of the hill and saw nothing. I rose up on my knees and looked down the hill to the llano and the trail north. My heart began to pound.

  At the bottom of the hill, two Indahs in trader clothes and a Blue Coat soldier sat on their horses studying the trail left by Caballo Negro and talking among themselves. One of the Indah led a mule loaded with supplies. Tied across the pack frame along with the supplies was my friend, Kah (Arrow), one of the other boys running home.

  Kah had earned his name because, of all the boys in camp, including me, his arrows rarely missed their targets. The day Kah was given his name, he had won a shooting contest by driving his arrow into the center of my arrow, which was al
ready in the center of the target.

  As I watched, questions filled my mind. How did they catch Kah? Who are they? Where are they going? Are there others? Kah showed no signs of torture even though his left eye was swollen shut and there was a long bruise down the side of his face. I saw raw, red places around Kah’s wrists and ankles, which were tied with rawhide ropes.

  As the men talked, I studied them carefully. One was ugly, like an animal with a big pile of hair growing at his nose, and wore a big-brimmed, black hat. Tall and lanky, he laughed as he spoke to the Blue Coat and gestured toward Caballo Negro’s trail. The other man rested easily in the saddle and had a narrow pinched face, which reminded me of a rat. His skin dark, probably from an Indian or a Mexican ancestor, he kept turning his head toward Kah to see how he reacted to what was being said. Both Indah, heavily armed with rifles and two pistols each, probably scouted for the Blue Coat. He Watches had told me of Indah scouts once when we watched a troop of cavalry pass far below us on the road from the east. The scouts rode outside the main Blue Coat column.

  I knew Kah understood nothing they said. Although he had let himself get caught by a Blue Coat chief and two of his warriors, I imagined that he was determined to wait for his opportunity to escape and redeem himself by killing those who had taken him. The Blue Coat said something else to one of the scouts and then jerked his head southwest, leading his men, and Kah, along the middle of an arroyo and away from the trail left by Caballo Negro.

  CHAPTER 8

  FIRST BLOOD

  * * *

  I watched the Blue Coat lead the others down an arroyo meandering west. As they passed, I squatted by the piñon tree and decided what to do. My father’s instructions are to run following his pony’s trail, to run it at night, and to find Cha’s camp as fast as possible. Kah got himself caught; he must get himself free. To try freeing Kah would run the risk of being caught or killed, something warriors rarely did except when there was no other choice, as when a friend called his name. I knew I ought to continue my own run north, but sitting in the shade of the piñon, I thought of Kah’s family and our good times together when we had raced each other in the mountains, played with Sons-nah’s daughter and the other girls, slung rocks and arrows at each other in staged fights, swapped arrows in bow shooting contests, hunted, and learned endless lessons from He Watches. No, regardless of my own risk, I must not leave my friend a prisoner of the Blue Coat and his scouts.

  As the late afternoon sun began painting the sky, I ran down my hill and toward the arroyo the Blue Coat had taken. I followed their trail, wanting to run fast and catch up, but I paced myself, knowing I needed all my strength to free Kah and disappear from the searching eyes of the Blue Coat scouts.

  I ran half the night following the Blue Coat trail until I finally saw a faint glow from a dying fire on the llano off toward the great river. I worked my way toward it, careful to keep the night breeze flowing into my face, remembering what Caballo Negro had told me about horses and mules, especially mules, raising alarms better than dogs after smelling or hearing the sounds of an intruder’s approach.

  I crept close enough to the dying fire to see two bodies wrapped in blankets lying near it and Kah with no blanket, his hands tied behind him, the end of the rope running from his hands, tying his feet together, and then to the tall scout who wrapped it around his wrist. The Blue Coat snored nearby. The quarter moon gave me enough light to see, but it took me awhile to find the rat-faced scout on watch, a rifle in the crook of his arm, and smoking a pipe near the horses and mule a hundred yards away.

  Lying in the black, moonlight shadow of a big creosote bush, I studied the little camp and considered how best to retrieve Kah. It was going to be harder than I imagined when running down the arroyo. One mistake, and both of us might either be killed or caught and made slaves.

  I crawled through the creosotes and mesquite, careful to avoid rattlesnakes and other night animals that would be hunting, until I was on the horse side of the camp. The mule, used to the Indian smell of Kah, didn’t find it strange when I approached, my sharp knife slicing the rawhide hobble like fat on meat fresh off the fire. I slowly maneuvered her away from the other stock, keeping her body between Rat Face and me.

  It took awhile for Rat Face to notice the mule had wandered nearly a quarter mile away from camp. I waited on the far side of the grazing mule and heard him swear in short temper and come for the wanderer.

  He approached the mule slowly, not wanting to spook her and chase her for miles in the shadow-filled desert. He spoke softly to her. “Whoa, Sally. Where you goin’? There ain’t no graze out here,” until he grabbed her firmly under the chin to lead her back. I’m not sure he even saw me rise off the ground like a shadow before I stuck the point of my long blade into his windpipe and slashed to the right. He opened his mouth to scream but only gurgled, drowning in his own blood as he collapsed sitting down, and then falling backwards, his head barely attached to his body.

  I felt the drops of warm blood shower my face and body. I had killed my first man. With the night and surprise on my side, it had been easy. However, I felt no joy in killing the scout, rather it was more relief that now I had only two others with whom to deal. The new metallic smell of blood made the mule nervous. She bucked, kicked, and then trotted a few yards away, her eyes showing their whites. She was ready to run at the slightest provocation, but luckily didn’t bray. I decided to let her calm down while I stripped the scout’s body, taking his leather vest, bullet belt, pants belt, revolver and holster, and shoots-many-times rifle. I was tempted to take his boots, but they looked very old and worn, so I left them. I did collect his campaign hat, which seemed nearly new, a nice prize I could show off every day in the camp of Cha just by wearing it.

  Soon, I began maneuvering the mule back to the horses. They stopped grazing and stood watching, ears up in curiosity. They snorted a couple of times at the blood smell on me and the mule and then returned to finding grass hiding in the brush. Leaving the mule to graze with the horses, I crept back to the edge of the camp.

  All that remained of the fire were a few orange coals turning to gray ash. The Blue Coat continued to snore, his right hand resting on his revolver. The scout’s blankets were thrown aside; he was nowhere in sight, and his weapons were gone. I froze. I wished I knew how to operate the firearms I had taken from the rat-faced scout, but in Cha’s camp only warriors had those. Ammunition was too hard to come by for apprentices to practice with firearms. A few yards away, I heard a cough, and the tall scout hawked phlegm and spat. I saw the scout’s dark outline, and then heard his night water splatter against the sand. Like Wind, I was at the Blue Coat’s blankets. His eyes fluttered open, but I was too quick for him and quietly cut his throat, moved back behind a greasewood bush, and left him lying as though sleeping on his side with his back to the scout’s blanket.

  The scout buttoned his canvas pants and made his way back to his blanket. At the fire, he checked the knots on the rope holding Kah before he crawled under his blanket and pulled his big revolver to hold against his chest before he lay back. He looked at where the Blue Coat lay snoring no more. I worried he might check him, for then it would be a hard struggle killing him. But he just smiled and shook his head, supposing, I guess, that no more snoring from the Blue Coat meant a better sleep for him. I waited until the sounds of sleep were on him and crept from behind my bush. Kah was watching him and saw me come. I killed the big scout, as I had the Blue Coat, this time Kah looking on and smiling.

  When I cut the ropes holding Kah, he kicked his feet from the entangled ends and sat up rubbing the circulation back into his arms and legs. His wrists, raw from the tight rawhide that bound him, were slick and bleeding. I knew he didn’t care; he was free. He found his knife sheathed in the belt of the tall Indah and pulled the clothes from the body as I washed the blood splatters from my face, hands, and arms with sand. We needed to get the blood off our bodies because when the sun came up and the blood had warmed, it would stink
and call Buzzard to follow us, a sure pointer for prying eyes.

  As I washed, I saw Kah ready to use his knife to mutilate the scout’s body. I said, “My father is a great warrior, and he says he never cut a dead body. It is not good. There are better ways to make the living suffer and humiliate the dead.”

  Kah sheathed his knife and frowned. “How?”

  I shrugged. “He says it depends on the situation and to always think about what you do and why you’re doing it.”

  “What do you think we should do?”

  We finished our sand baths and brushed the dust from our heads and shoulders. Off to the south coyotes were howling. “Take their clothes. Leave them here bare. Soon animals come and have a good meal. Tomorrow the buzzards will circle and fall on them. In days, there will be no trace of them, except maybe a few bones, nothing for their friends or chiefs to find. That will be good for us. You pull their clothes; I’ll load the mule and saddle the horses. We’ll ride the rest of the night. Find a place to hide for the day when the sun comes.”

  Kah nodded. “Your words are wise. I’ll follow you.”

  CHAPTER 9

  RIDE TO CHA’S CAMP

  * * *

  We rode away from the dead scouts and their Blue Coat chief. We rode in sand-filled and sometimes rocky arroyos, used stars to guide us toward the place of the rising sun, and then drifted north, working toward Cha’s camp in the Guadalupes. As long glimmering shafts of light filled the eastern sky, we raced to a far hilltop to look for signs of water and a place to rest.

  Soon bright yellow light over the edge of the far mountains came, and birds in the brush began their calls. I saw a dark green spot a short ride out on the llano and pointed toward it. Kah squinted, stared hard, and then nodded, smiling.