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

by W. Michael Farmer

  Before the sun fell the first day, we found campfire charcoal buried in the sand at the bottom of an arroyo, and at the top of the arroyo bank bent grass in the brush where they had slept. From their tracks and stopping places, I believed there were ten women and five children, two girls and three boys. He Watches didn’t know for certain how many had survived the attack. We expected to find them before the next sunset.

  The next day, in the middle of the afternoon, we stopped to water the ponies and rest in the shade of a small juniper foolishly growing in a wide, deep arroyo, junipers lining its top edges like feathers in a war bonnet. The arroyo, certain one day to be a roaring, rushing river made from male rain in the mountains and taking everything before it, wound around billowing foothills and the ends of smaller arroyos, and even an occasional canyon wash emptied into it. As we rested there, my pony pricked up his ears and stared down the arroyo to the point where it turned a curve and disappeared. I tapped the shoulder of He Watches and threw my thumb toward the top of the arroyo. He nodded, and I climbed to the top of the steep sandy bank and crawled into the junipers.

  I crept through the weeds and brush until I saw the other side of the bend where my pony stared. Two women, Juanita and her mother, Maria, knives in hand, squatted behind a big boulder in the bottom of the arroyo. Staring at the bend beyond which He Watches and I had stopped, they no doubt were planning to find out who followed them and why. I found a couple of pebbles and tossed one that bounced off the boulder in front of Juanita with an unexpected click in the sleepy, hot silence. She recoiled back from the sound, landing on her rear, looked at her mother, who was frowning, and then toward the top of the arroyo where she saw me hold up my hand, fingers spread, and wave to them. Juanita’s throaty, girlish giggle filled me with relief. She was all right, and it made my heart happy to see her.

  I ran down the side of the arroyo toward them and said, “Dánt’e, Maria and Juanita. He Watches and I have come to help those who go to the reservation. At last, we’ve found you. All is well?”

  They sheathed their knives in scabbards behind their backs and Maria, a smile under her full, sad eyes, answered. “Dánt’e, Nah-kah-yen. Never has a mother been so glad to find a young man chase after her daughter. All is well. The others wait hidden further down the arroyo. Where is He Watches?”

  “Around the bend with my pony and the supplies you left him. Stay here. I’ll go for him.”

  She nodded. “We’ll stay. Bring him.”

  Maria and Juanita led us to a small canyon out of the mountains that emptied into the arroyo. There, Maria stood in the middle of the wash and, cupping her hands, called like a Gambel quail, “chiii-caaago . . . chiii-caaago.”

  From up the canyon, five children appeared from the brush as if they were quail. Eight haggard women followed them: Socorro; my mother, Sons-ee-ah-ray; Sons-nah’s woman and Deer Woman, her daughter; an old woman and her grown daughter; and two grown women with children whose men I had buried two days earlier. The children included my little brother; Juanita’s sister, Moon on the Water, not more than three or four years old; another little girl no more than six or seven years; her little brother, maybe four years; and a young boy, maybe ten years.

  All the women carried water bladders, small bags of food, and a blanket, but the bladders were becoming flat, and their moccasins were torn and falling apart. I was the only warrior to protect them, and we had no horses except for my pinto. Having the responsibility of protecting them and getting them safely to the reservation made me feel I had the weight of huge stones settling on my shoulders. They all stared and waited for their newfound warrior to speak.

  I stood straight and said, “My vision came. Ussen gave me Power two days before a dream called me back to the camp of Cha. My name is no more Nah-kah-yen, but Yellow Boy.”

  I saw Juanita nod, a faint smile brushing her lips. Deer Woman folded her arms and stared at me, her eyes dark, probing mine. My mother and Socorro smiled and nodded, and my little brother’s jaw dropped, his eyes big.

  “The one who attacked and destroyed our camp and killed our men, women, and children is a witch. Someday I’ll kill him and send him blind into the land of the grandfathers. First, we go to the reservation. The agency will give us food when we need it, and we can hunt. You’ve made a wise choice.

  “When we find a place with ponies, I’ll take them for you so we can ride to the agency and get there before the Ghost Face Season comes with snow and ice. For now, the four littlest ones ride with He Watches, two in front of the saddle, two in back. Make two sacks with your blankets to carry the supplies. We will carry them on my pony. This will help you run or walk faster while saving your strength until I find ponies. We go.”

  They shook their fists and said with one voice, “Enjuh!”

  With the children mounted, we ran far on the hard sand and gravel in the arroyo beds and didn’t stop until nearly dark. The women built a small fire, making little smoke under an arroyo bank overhang. The night grew cold and they all sat close to the fire to keep themselves warm and eat a little.

  I sat nearby with Sons-ee-ah-ray and my little brother, and He Watches sat with Socorro. I had never seen such pain in my mother’s face, but she held her head up and held my little brother close to her. I wished my tongue was smart enough to comfort her then, but I knew in time her sorrow must heal. I was thankful my little brother never saw the torn body of our father. One day Ussen would deliver the Witch into my hand and make things right again.

  The women asked to hear about my time with Rufus Pike and my vision. When I finished my story, they said nothing for a long time until my mother said, “Uhmmm, a very powerful vision. You were favored to live through it. Ussen told the Thunder People and Wind to spare you. I am glad for you, but I have a heavy heart. Your father goes to the Happy Land, his hair stolen by a witch. Promise me, Yellow Boy, one day you will avenge your father.”

  The coals of vengeance burning in my chest and head burst into flame. “My mother, by all the spirits, I swear it so. Avenging my father is never far from my thoughts. One day, I’ll put out the eyes of the Witch, and my father’s spirit will know peace in the Happy Land. Today, my duty makes me protect and feed those who escaped the Witch and lived. I’ll guard the camp tonight from the top of the arroyo. When you are ready, take the others to the brush and sleep there. I’ll come to you with the dawn, and we’ll go.”

  “Avenge your father and your people. You, Yellow Boy, be a killer of many witches, a mighty warrior.” She seemed to taste the words of my new name on her tongue and smiled. “Yellow Boy . . . we’ll sleep in the brush apart from you, ready to run when you tell us.”

  I climbed to the top of the arroyo and, in the black night filled with stars, heard Coyote call his brothers. A light twinkled far out on the llano, and I kept my eyes on it as I spread my blanket, afraid to gaze away my eyes, afraid it might disappear into nothing more than hope. I sat on the blanket and pulled open the Shináá Cho. He Watches had placed it in my hands before we left his watching place in the Guadalupes. He said I might need it. I had learned over the years to listen to my grandfather. He was right again.

  I looked through the Shináá Cho at the far glow of twinkling yellow light, a star fallen to the ground, and saw it was a fire, an Indah fire with men around it, men with big hats and big guns in their arms, Indah vaqueros watching cattle. I smiled. Indah always had horses and mules for the taking. Traveling by myself, I might have gone after them that night, but, to protect the women and children, I waited for the sun before leaving to scout the Indah camp.

  By the middle of the night, the light from the fire had died from a few orange and gray coals, and the women and children slept in the brush a bowshot from me. I worked hard to keep my eyes from closing when I heard a foot crunch on dry grass and a soft whisper, “Yellow Boy?”

  I whispered, “Here.”

  Deer Woman appeared out of the night and sat down beside me in the dark shadows from the moon.

  “
Is there trouble?”

  “No. I cannot sleep. I came to keep you company. My mother already snores. We are alone together in this dark place. No one sees I am with you in the night.”

  I felt her warm arm across my shoulders and the push of her breast against my arm. She was offering herself to me like some Comanche girl taking any man she chose. I thought how good it must be to lie with her, but since my father had told me about Deer Woman night crawling with Delgadito, she no longer stirred my dreams. I felt no desire for her. Only Juanita filled my heart.

  “You must go.”

  She smiled and said, “Yellow Boy is afraid to take a woman? Don’t you want me? I will show you what to do.”

  She stood and dropped her skirt and pulled her shirt off over her head and knelt beside me once more, naked and unafraid. She knew she had power to stir any man’s passion and asked again as she draped an arm over my shoulders, “Don’t you want me?”

  “I have wanted you since your Haheh, even since before your Haheh. You must go.”

  “Why?”

  “Your father was killed by the Witch. Your mother has no man. Her wealth is gone. If it becomes widely known you’ve lain with a man before you are married, she will get nothing for you, and only men of little worth will want you and will be of little support to her. Many of the People knew you night crawled with Delgadito and, like me, said nothing. Already your mother may die poor because you’ll bring a small bride price. I will not make that certain. You must go.”

  Her eyes narrowed and even in the dark, I saw her face darken.

  She hissed in a whisper, “Delgadito wanted me. He has taken me every time I offered myself to him since my Haheh. He’ll make me his wife, give my mother four horses, and keep us well. You’re weak, Yellow Boy.”

  “If you were my woman, I’d beat you for your insults. Delgadito takes many women and brags. He is a man of no Power except to make Nakai-yi women cry out in pain. Life will be different on the reservation. You’ll never have a life with me. Maybe Delgadito will take you for a wife, or maybe he’ll want one with virtue and leave you to an old man who cannot mount you. Go!”

  She stood, snatched up her shirt and skirt, and said, “You’re a fool, Yellow Boy. No woman wants you. You’re weak and a fool.” She disappeared into the darkness, pulling her blouse over her head. I heard her stop and step into her skirt, and her steps fade away.

  CHAPTER 24

  ANGRY WOMEN

  * * *

  The desire for sleep left me after Deer Woman’s visit, and I thought about her the rest of the night. My father taught me always to do the right thing. He said a man does not take scalps, mutilate dead bodies, or take a woman who is not yet married, even a captive. An unmarried woman’s virtue is her father’s property. If she loses her virtue before marriage, then her father loses her value. Deer Woman said Delgadito took her many times, and I knew my father saw them at least once, but he had turned away and said nothing because it wasn’t his business to tell Sons-nah. She had no more value to her mother than a woman divorced or widowed. She did not command, nor deserve, a high bride price.

  I thought Deer Woman and Delgadito should be beaten and made to marry. Delgadito had no honor with women. He had forced many captive Nakai-yi women before he killed them. What he did to those women was shameful. He didn’t act like a true Apache man, and I believed Deer Woman would never be his wife. He had no interest in a woman like her carrying and raising his children. What would she teach them? He could not trust her around other men. How would he know for certain she carried his child? He would not know. He would not take her for a first wife, but only for pleasure and maybe as a second wife. I hoped the old man she deceived into a marriage had good ears and eyes to catch them. He would cut off her nose and maybe shoot Delgadito.

  I knew speaking the truth made Deer Woman very angry, but I didn’t care. Perhaps this night I had made an enemy for life. I knew I must watch her. A woman with no virtue can cause much trouble in a camp, even get undeserving men killed and start long blood feuds between families. The wisdom of my father grew in my mind as I thought about these things. I was glad I did not take Deer Woman and had endured her insults.

  Dawn came. I sang to Ussen and then looked northwest in the direction I remembered for the vaquero fire and saw a thin plume of smoke rising straight into the sky. I used the Shináá Cho and saw men saddling horses by a wagon, its top covered in white cloth. Some of the vaqueros sat on the ground, their legs crossed, eating as the Indah do.

  Although I watched from a far distance, I saw Nakai-yes walking around with rifles in the crooks of their arms and the ones sitting down, keeping their rifles across their knees, and eating from pie pans like those Rufus used. They were nervous, scratching their dirty, wooly faces, and straining their necks out of their shirts to look east across the desert toward the river called Pecos by the Indah. Their ponies were in a corral next to an Indah windmill. The vaqueros expected someone, maybe someone coming to attack them. I watched them and studied the ground around the corral, and thought about how to best make a raid for horses there. The vaqueros, alert, expecting something or someone, meant I must take great care when I took their ponies or risk being killed.

  I spoke with He Watches and told him my plan for taking the vaquero ponies. With his head bowed and cocked to one side, he listened to every word. When I finished, he nodded and said, “Pick your helper well. When bullets fly, so does a plan. Your helper must be someone you know will do exactly as you say. Raiding belongs to men, but the women here can take care of themselves and help if you have need. I only wish I could help you.”

  “Your wisdom is enough, Grandfather. We will have horses before the sun rises again.”

  As the sun floated big and red above the far mountains, I sat with He Watches and the women and children. I told them how I had seen a vaquero camp out on the llano, a camp with many horses. As I spoke, Juanita kept her eyes from me. Deer Woman, smiling like a woman who knew a secret, never took her eyes away.

  I said, “I have a plan to take their horses, but I need a helper.”

  The boy with ten years said, “I’ll go. Take me, Yellow Boy.”

  “How many seasons have you worked the horses, Ish-kay-neh?”

  “Almost one.”

  “Hmmph. How many arrows do you have from shooting contests with your friends?”

  The boy thought a moment and said, “I have five new arrows I won the day before the Indah and Nakai-yes came.”

  “Hmmph. You are a good shot with a bow.”

  I raked my fingers through the coarse sand and gravel to find five easy-to-throw pebbles, smooth, shaped like quail eggs. I pointed my nose toward a yucca and its tall, dry stem growing from a broad base of many leaves. “Can you hit that yucca with these rocks and your sling?”

  He squinted toward the yucca and said, “I can try.”

  “Then, try.”

  He used his sling with the three pebbles I gave him. He had good style and threw hard, but he missed even the wide base of the yucca. Three times, the pebble flew high and to the right. He bowed his head and murmured, “I still have much to learn.”

  I felt no sympathy for him. When I was his age, I could hit the yucca base three times out of three with a sling at that distance. “Yes, you have much work to do, Ish-kay-neh. You must—”

  Juanita stood and went to stand by the boy.

  “Give me your sling, Ish-kay-neh, and you, Yellow Boy, give me three more stones for it.”

  I started to tell her to sit down, but the fire in her eyes said to hold my words and let her make a fool of herself rather than have her disobey me. I saw my mother smile and Socorro nod, grinning.

  She took the pebbles I gave her and the sling from Ish-kay-neh. The easy, self-assured way she handled the sling straps and dropped the stones in a pouch tied to her belt told me she was no child learning a sling. She stood with her feet turned a little off the line between her and the yucca and paused a moment staring at it. Wit
h a motion so fast it was hard to follow, she placed a stone in the sling pouch, whirled the sling with a fast whip, and sent the stone blazing forward to break the yucca stem a hand width below its seedpod. Within the space of a breath, she clipped off two more pieces of the stem about the length of my forearm. I had never seen such skill with a sling and was about to say so when she handed the sling back to Ish-kay-neh and, looking at me with the fire still in her eyes, said, “Women must be able to take care of themselves. Shall I show what I can do with a bow?”

  I shook my head.

  “No? Then I will help you get the horses. My father taught me much about ponies and how to ride.”

  She sat down and turned her face from me to look with a faraway stare at Deer Woman. Deer Woman smiled no more and kept her eyes off me.

  I said to Ish-kay-neh, “Go with the women and children. Stay in arroyos and behind them as you move. Behind is the most dangerous place. Protect them from attack. Help He Watches and the little ones with him. Do not go fast and raise dust that can be seen. We will find you and bring horses before the next dawn.

  “Juanita, bring the rope He Watches carries. Now go.”

  He Watches shook his fist. “Enjuh!”

  Before we left, Juanita’s mother spoke to me out of sight of the others. Her dark eyes full, on the edge of water, she said, “Muchacho Amarillo, I know you are a good man, and one day will be a leader of warriors. Bring back my daughter. She is all I have left. Give me your promise not to take her, even if she desires you. I need her true value so a warrior of means will want her for a first wife, give me a good bride price, and take care of both of us. Will you do this for a woman who no more has a man?”