The Wild Girl: The Notebooks of Ned Giles, 1932

by Jim Fergus

  The bus motor is so noisy that it’s difficult even to make conversation. I don’t feel much like talking anyway, and besides my camera I’m glad I have my notebook to distract me, even if these entries do look like they’ve been written by a drunkard.

  Well after dark … a long, rough, dusty day of travel … breakdowns and flat tires … our ungainly convoy has finally reached the expedition base camp outside the village of Bavispe on the river of the same name. Camp has been set up in advance of our arrival and dinner was waiting for us. Everyone is whipped. We ate quickly, with little conversation, and have retired early to our assigned tents. All is quiet, but for Big Wade’s snoring, but I don’t think even that will disturb my sleep tonight. Too dark by the time we arrived here to see much of our surroundings. I was thinking today on the bus that I should find Magdalena’s parents and tell them what happened to their daughter. But it occurs to me that I never even learned her last name. And anyway, what could I possibly say to them?

  7 MAY, 1932

  Bavispe, Sonora

  A busy week, spent planning and preparing for our first foray into the Sierra Madre. We’ve been making short day trips into the foothills, in order to acclimate both man and stock to the terrain. A dirt airstrip, marked by oil lanterns and a wind sock, has been carved out above the river and the expedition “air force,” which consists of five planes, including that of Spider King, makes daily reconnaissance flights into the mountains, looking for signs of the bronco, or “lost” Apaches, as they are called.

  I’ve been assigned to a sorrel mule named Buster, a gentle, sure-footed beast who is patiently forgiving of my lack of equestrian skills. Jesus has been given a donkey, which also carries our photographic gear. He trails along behind me a bit like Sancho Panza. Big Wade rides a stout bay gelding and mutters expletives to himself and anyone else within earshot. “Fucking madness,” he gripes. “Has anyone else noticed that neither our mayor, nor any of his illustrious committee members, are along for the expedition? No, instead they send an overweight, middle-aged rummy photographer in lousy health to bring back vacation photos for them.”

  Indeed, so far the expedition resembles nothing so much as a leisurely idyll through interesting new country, very much as Big Wade originally described it: “an excuse to take a bunch of rich guys hunting and fishing in the Sierra Madre.” The guides have begun taking some of the volunteers out to hunt deer and quail, and to fish for trout in the mountain streams around Bavispe. So far our main responsibility has been to take photographs of the beaming sports with their game and catch. The film is then flown back to Douglas and the photos run each day in the Daily Dispatch with stories that we both write. The pilot returns the following day with the newspapers so that the volunteers can see their photos, with captions such as: Mr. Dudley Chalmers, of Greenwich, Connecticut, with a 14-inch Apache trout taken on a dry fly in Santa Maria Creek, a small tributary of the Bavispe River. Or, Mr. Charles McFarlane and his English pointer, Brewster, with a brace of masked bobwhite quail. No one seems to be in any great rush to engage the dreaded Apache Indians.

  In the evenings, communal dinners are held in the mess tent during which volunteers and staff mingle. In keeping with the general tone of the expedition thus far, these are not exactly spartan military camp meals, so much as well-catered social events. Besides what was trucked and flown here from Douglas, the cooks secure all manner of produce and other foodstuffs from the village, and with the bounty of fresh fish and game supplied by the sporting members of the party, we are eating quite well.

  Even though there is a certain democratic spirit inherent in the fact that we all share the same mess tent, it’s interesting to note how everyone divides up into their little cliques during meals. The wranglers tend to sit at tables together, as do the mule packers, as do the former military men, as do the wealthy young scions. For their part, Joseph and Albert Valor have pitched camp along the river at the edge of the village. They keep entirely to themselves and prepare their own meals.

  Our own little dinner clique consists, with some variation, of Margaret, Big Wade, Spider King, Mr. Browning, and yours truly. Often Tolley sits with us. It occurs to me that we are perhaps less judgmental of his … peculiarities. Some of his wealthy young peers and some of the military men seem almost afraid to associate with him, as if he might be contagious. They make little effort to conceal their disdain, and some of them ridicule him openly.

  I’ll say this for Tolley: He may be a big sissy, but he has a certain strength of character; he is forthright and entirely unapologetic about his own nature. For the most part, he ignores the insults and snubs of the others, even sometimes encouraging them. One fellow who particularly enjoys needling him is the steel magnate’s son, Winston Hughes. He’s a stolid, dim-witted Yale boy, with close-set eyes and a smugly amused look on his face, as if his little mind is forever cooking up some fraternity prank or other. Last night in the dining room he was mimicking Tolley’s effeminate mannerisms to the snickers of his tablemates, when Tolley walked up behind him, put his hand affectionately on his shoulder, leaned down, and said in a stage whisper, “Winty, you simply must stop being so swishy, or everyone will guess that we’re lovers.”

  Hughes leaped up from his seat. “Jesus Christ, Phillips,” he said, red-faced and flustered. “Keep your faggot hands off me or I’ll beat the stuffing out of you!”

  “See you later in my tent, big guy,” Tolley said, pursing his lips in a kiss.

  Tolley sat down at our table. “God, what a moron,” he said. “It’s shocking that he actually got into Yale. His father must have built them a new science laboratory.”

  “You know one of these days, sweetheart,” Margaret said, “Winston really is going to beat the stuffing out of you.”

  “Margaret’s right,” I said. “Why do you provoke everyone so much, Tolley? You’re just asking for it.”

  “What would you two have me do,” Tolley asked, “pretend to be something I’m not? Swagger around like some kind of macho cowboy?” He leaned over toward Margaret and in deep voice said, “Hey there, little lady, how ’bout a little tumble in the old hay?”

  Margaret giggled. “Okay, sure, Tolley,” she said. “Anytime.”

  “Yeah, that’s much better, Tolley,” I said. “You just have to behave a little less like a …”

  “Like a what, Giles?” Tolley asked. “A faggot? A fairy? A fruitcake?”

  “Yeah, like that,” I said. “Like a homo. That’s what some of the kids in college called people like you. But I guess you’re right, Tolley. You should just be yourself, and damn the consequences. In fact, as weird as I sometimes think you are, one of the qualities I admire about you is that you’re exactly who you are.”

  “A homo?” Tolley said. “God, is that the best you can come up with, Giles? How deeply unoriginal.” He turned toward Mr. Browning. “Mr. Browning, tell us, what do they call fellows like me in your country?”

  Being very much of the old school, Mr. Browning does not approve of servants dining with their employers, so that when Tolley joins us he generally retires discreetly to a different table. But tonight, much to his chagrin, we had prevailed upon him to sit with us.

  “I beg your pardon, sir?” he said now, as if he hadn’t heard a word of our conversation.

  “I appreciate your discretion, Mr. Browning,” Tolley said, “but you’re not deaf.”

  “In my profession, sir,” Mr. Browning said with the faintest smile, “there is a very fine line between discretion and deafness.”

  “The question again, Mr. Browning,” Tolley asked. “In your country, what do they call fellows like me?”

  “Why, we call them young gentlemen, of course, sir,” answered Mr. Browning.

  “Ha! Damned tactful of you, man,” Tolley said. “However, not a genuine answer to my question.”

  “Truly, sir, we have as many terms for your … predilection … as the Eskimos have for ice,” said Mr. Browning. “But may I just say, sir, that I, personal
ly, have never been one to categorize people in this fashion, to put them in a box, as it were. Indeed, that strikes me as a very American characteristic. We in Britain, and I believe in Europe in general, find such notions to be rather provincial. Even small-minded.”

  “Well said, Mr. Browning,” Tolley said. “Couldn’t agree with you more. Although you have still managed to avoid answering my question. Out with it now.”

  “Nancy boy, sir,” said Mr. Browning. “That would certainly be the most common euphemism in my country.”

  “Ah, yes, nancy boy,” said Tolley. “Excellent! And what else?”

  “Poufter, sir. Or sometimes people will simply say ‘poof.’ As in, ‘he’s a bit of a poof,’” Mr. Browning said, flashing open his fingers like a small sunburst.

  At this Margaret dissolved on the table in a fit of helpless laughter.

  “Are you all right, miss?” Mr. Browning asked.

  Margaret lifted her head from the crook of her arm. “I’m not laughing at you, Mr. Browning,” she managed to say through her tears. “Really, it’s just that your delivery is so charming.” And then she fell apart again. “I’m not laughing at you, either, Tolley,” she managed to say through her tears. “Honestly.”

  “I do hope that I have not offended you, sir,” Mr. Browning said.

  “Not in the least, Mr. Browning,” Tolley said. “Indeed, it’s one of the best descriptions I’ve ever heard of myself. ‘That Tolley Phillips is a nice enough fellow, but he’s a bit of a poof.’”

  By now all of us had been infected by Margaret’s laughter, and Tolley’s outrageousness, including Tolley himself. Other tables were eyeing us curiously as we giggled and guffawed.

  And so we amuse ourselves, not always so childishly, but it’s true that there is something about the expedition so far that feels a bit like summer camp.

  • • •

  On a more serious note, I’ve tried as much as possible to stay away from Chief Gatlin these past days, to concentrate on just doing my job. But I have a sinking feeling from the looks he and Margaret exchange that she may secretly be seeing him. I hope this is not the case, and I cannot bear even to ask her about it. What darkness in her heart could possibly cause her to give herself to a man like Gatlin? I’m running out of space in this notebook. Tomorrow I’ll start a new one.

  LA NIÑA BRONCA

  BILLY FLOWERS RODE DOWN THE DUSTY MAIN STREET INTO THE nearest village, Bavispe, Sonora, trailing the Apache girl on a length of dog chain. The girl’s hands were bound with rope, the chain fastened around her waist and a bandanna knotted across her mouth to keep her from biting. Flowers had fixed a pair of mule hobbles between her ankles so that she had to take short, quick steps in order to keep up. He had not liked having to bind her like this, but she had tried repeatedly to escape and it was the only way that he could manage to bring her into town.

  The girl was dressed in one of Flowers’s shirts that hung past her knees, and she still wore her high moccasins, the insides of them all the way down to her instep stained dark with dried menstrual blood, so that she was not only terrified and exhausted, but humiliated.

  Curious townsfolk came out of their jacales to watch the procession, and they questioned Flowers about what kind of prisoner she was, and when he answered, simply, “Apache,” the dreaded name of their ancient enemy ran through the crowd like a wind. “Apache.” The crowd grew, and the more brazen boys among them ran up to touch the girl, as if counting coup, so that they could boast that they had touched a real Apache. They laughed and mocked her. “Hediendo a chica apache,” the boys hissed, “la hija del diablo, la salvaja mugrienta.” The girl kept her eyes cast to the ground. She understood enough Spanish to know what insults the boys were speaking to her but she could not elude their grasping fingers, for it required all of her attention to keep up with the mule and to avoid falling down. Half a dozen thin, mangy town dogs slunk behind her, raising their noses to sniff her scent on the air. Now and then one of them made a quick feint forward to snap at her heels, as a dog chases a car tire without actually engaging it, then falling proudly back with his confederates.

  Billy Flowers rode directly into the town square, ignoring the growing crowd who followed behind. He dismounted and fastened the end of the girl’s chain to the hitching post, where she fell to her knees, exhausted.

  Flowers spoke sharply in fluent Spanish to those who crowded around her. “No la desate,” he warned the spectators. “La pagano muerde como un perro.” He rolled his sleeve back and held up his arm as proof; it was lacerated with teeth marks.

  Flowers found the sheriff sitting behind his desk in the jailhouse, his feet up, his chair tilted back. He was a heavyset, indolent man with sleepy, hooded eyes; in fact, he may have been asleep. Flowers explained that he had caught an Apache girl up in the mountains and was now delivering her into the sheriff’s custody because she was completely wild and he did not know what else to do with her.

  The sheriff sat looking dumbly back at him, blinking somewhat vacantly, as if he didn’t fully comprehend what had just been said to him. Finally, he took his feet off the desk and tilted heavily forward. “Is this Apache girl guilty of a crime?” he asked.

  “None that I know of,” Flowers said. “Other than the crime against God of living in heathen darkness.”

  “That is a sin, señor,” said the sheriff, “not a crime. And I’m afraid that God has no jurisdiction in my jail. Perhaps you should consult the padre about taking the girl in at the church.”

  “What about the reward for Apaches?” Flowers asked.

  “The reward is for Apache scalps,” the sheriff said. “One hundred pesos for the scalp of a man, fifty pesos for that of a woman, and twenty-five pesos for a child’s hair. Is the girl a child or a woman?”

  “Somewhere about in between,” Billy Flowers said. “What shall I do then, scalp her?”

  The sheriff shrugged as if he didn’t particularly care. “She is without monetary value alive,” he said.

  Before Flowers could respond, a great commotion arose outside, a thin, terrified screaming and much excited hollering among the people. The sheriff pushed back from his desk and he and Flowers went outside.

  Despite Billy Flowers’s warning, some kind townsperson had tried to give the girl a drink of water, and in so doing had untied her hands and removed the gag from her mouth, and now she lay atop one of the boys who had been tormenting her, her teeth clamped on his neck, shaking her head like a dog. The boy screamed and screamed, a high-pitched wailing that sounded something like the cry of a terrified rabbit in the jaws of a predator. His friends and some of the women were trying to pull the girl off, but she held on to him so savagely that they could not be separated.

  “¿Qué piensa usted ahora, alguacil?” Billy Flowers asked the sheriff over the commotion. “Would you consider now that you’ve apprehended the heathen in the act of committing a crime?” Flowers took hold of the girl’s hair, wrapped it once around his fist, and with one quick yank snatched her off the boy, in the same decisive way that he sometimes broke up fights among his dogs. The boy, wild-eyed, clutched his bloody throat, still screaming and sobbing hysterically, crabbing backward away from the girl, which Flowers took to be a positive sign that his wounds were not fatal.

  Now he held the girl by the hair at arm’s length. She did not even attempt to struggle against him, knowing the futility of it all too well. “I have to say I’m getting mightily tired of you, missy,” he said. “I’ll be glad to be free of you.” When he released his grip, she sank back to her knees.

  “I’m leaving her right here, Sheriff,” Billy Flowers said, mounting his mule. “I caught her, now you may do with her as you will. Let her go if you like. It’s all the same to me. But I would caution you to watch out for her. As you have witnessed, like any other wild creature, she will kill when cornered.” Flowers took one last look at the girl where she knelt in the dirt, her head downcast. He was not a sentimental man but he felt a certain grudging respect f
or her, just as he respected the lions and bears that he hunted. And he felt, just for a moment, as he occasionally did with these animals, a pang of something like pity for her. He turned the mule and spurred him into a quick trot back down the street the way he had come.

  THE NOTEBOOKS OF NED GILES, 1932

  NOTEBOOK III:

  La Niña Bronca

  HEATHEN SUN GOD RESTORES LIFE TO DYING GIRL

  12 MAY, 1932

  Bavispe, Sonora

  How quickly the “summer camp” atmosphere has come to an end, and after the terrible events of this day, I’m embarrassed by the flippancy of my last entry. Where to begin …

  I woke early this morning, as I have every day since our arrival here, to the sound of roosters crowing in the village. I decided that I would walk into town and make some photographs.

  I dressed and loaded film in the Leica, and stepped over Jesus, who lay wrapped in a blanket on his sleeping pad by the tent opening.

  He sat up. “I come with you, Señor Ned.”

  “No, it’s early, go back to sleep, kid. I’m just going to take a little walk. I won’t be long.”

  It was cool outside and smoke from the chimneys in the village had settled like a low fog over the valley floor, the hills above the river a pearly gray, not yet colored by sunlight, a sheen of dew coating the grass in the river bottom so that everything seemed sheathed in a pale icy silver.

  Our camp is pitched on a broad grassy bench and is like a small village itself, with crisp white canvas tents of various sizes neatly laid out in separate neighborhoods for volunteers, staff, and commissary. Smoke curled from the morning cook fires in the mess tents, and the stock grazed on the lush meadow grasses, whorled by dew.