Ghost Warrior

by Lucia St. Clair Robson

  “Habla del diablo,” muttered José Valdez. “Speak of the devil.”

  Brown fingers as stout as tent pegs pulled back the edge of the front flap. Red Sleeves and five or six Apaches filed in after him, along with a few Navajos. Rafe wondered what they were doing here.

  The two dogs set up a steady duet of growling until Cremony ordered them to cease. The Apaches carried no weapons, and Rafe couldn’t see where they would hide anything larger than a toothpick. In spite of the deep snow, all of them except Red Sleeves wore the usual cloth headbands, breechclouts, and high moccasins. Some of them wore cotton Mexican blankets over their shoulders or wrapped around their waists, but more as decoration than as cover.

  Red Sleeves had on the uniform of a United States Army officer. In the two days since the head of the Boundary Commission had presented it to him, the old chief had made some modifications. Rafe didn’t blame him for cutting away the front half of the black leather shoes. Red Sleeves’ casehardened toes hung so far out from the holes that it was plain he could never have worn them otherwise.

  One gold-fringed epaulette dangled on a thong around his neck. The other was sewn at rear of the coat where it hung like a docked tail. Another man wore two of the brass army buttons as earrings. Red Sleeves must have wagered and lost them at cards. A second man wore the uniform’s once-white canvas shoulder strap across his bare chest. He had already hung an assortment of amulets and pouches from it.

  Red Sleeves grinned and stretched out his right hand. John Cremony reached up from his camp chair and allowed it to engulf his.

  Cremony gestured to each of the Apaches in turn. “You know Red Sleeves. May I present Delgadito, Skinny, chief of the Warm Springs band.” He waved a hand at the three Navajos. “I don’t know those bucks, but that broad-shouldered fellow by the door is Cochise, chief of the Chiricahuas to the west of here.

  Rafe had heard of Cochise. Even men who hated Apaches admitted Cochise was tolerably good looking. They understated the case.

  “They tell me he’s known as Cheis by his people,” said Cremony. “The shorter one who resembles him is his younger brother.”

  Cochise turned to face them. His black eyes were bright and opaque at the same time. Apache eyes always made Rafe uneasy. They sank, dark as wells, into those high-cheeked brown faces. They took everything in and let nothing out. Cochise was muscular and taller than average. The look in Red Sleeves’ eyes struck Rafe as shrewd. Cochise’s expression was wise. Rafe appreciated the difference.

  If one could choose one’s enemies, Rafe thought, these men would be worthy candidates for the job. Rafe doubted the government could keep them as friends for long. The role of enemy suited them better.

  Rafe picked up his knitting where he had left off.

  “What are you making?” Red Sleeves asked in Spanish.

  “A sock.”

  “What is a sock?”

  Rafe braced the toe of one boot against the heel of the other and pried it off. He held up a foot clad in one of the lumpy, bison wool stockings he had already completed. Red Sleeves tugged the sock away from Rafe’s ankle and rubbed it between his thumb and fingers. He pinched Rafe’s toes, maybe to see if Rafe had the standard number of them. Embarrassed by the fact that the stocking was perfuming the tent, Rafe pulled his boot back on.

  “Pata Peluda.” Red Sleeves laid a hand on Rafe’s shoulder as though conferring a knighthood. Rafe knew that from now on he would be called Pata Peluda, Spanish for “Hairy Foot,” by any Apache who approached within hailing range. He hoped none got that close.

  Red Sleeves had a request to make of John Cremony. José Valdez helped him with the more complicated Spanish.

  “We want you to explain to us what your nantan, your chief, says in council tomorrow.”

  “I can tell you now that he will invite you to go to Washington to visit your Great Father. He will tell you to stop raiding, and to live in peace. He’ll advise you to cultivate the soil and to raise your own horses and mules, rather than stealing them from the Mexicans.”

  The crackle of wood in the stove and the dogs’ growls punctuated the silence in the tent while Red Sleeves thought about that.

  Finally he said, “I am too old to raise corn. If the young people want to dig in the soil, that’s for them to decide. And as for killing Mexicans, are we to stand with our arms folded while they murder our women and children as they did at Janos?”

  “The Mexicans were once our enemies, too, but now we are friends. You, too, can be friends with them.”

  “The Americans are a brave and clever people,” Red Sleeves said. “I want to be friends with them, but never with the Mexicans.” He turned and ducked through the tent door, and the others filed after him. The air in the tent resonated with the backwash of their departure.

  “Well,” John Cremony looked pleased. “With old Red Sleeves on our side, our problems with ambuscades and horse thievery are solved. If anyone can keep the young bucks in line, he can.” He saw the look on Rafe’s face. “Don’t you think so?”

  “With the Apaches, it’s every man for himself. Red Sleeves can only try to influence their opinion.”

  Rafe started to say that he wasn’t sure Red Sleeves wanted an alliance, in spite of his bunkum about eternal friendship. He decided to wait until he could eavesdrop on those Navajos some more.

  SISTER KNEW THAT HAIRY FOOT’S BIG ROAN WOULD WIN even though he faced the opposite direction, and Hairy Foot sat with one leg hooked over the pommel. Hairy Foot seemed to doze through the uproar of betting, but Sister saw the muscles of the roan’s shoulders and hindquarters quiver, and his ears twitch.

  Talks A Lot and Flies In His Stew sidled up next to Sister. Talks A Lot stared straight ahead, as though he didn’t notice her.

  “Which horse do you think will win?” he muttered.

  “Hairy Foot’s red.”

  Flies In His Stew snorted. “He might win if they move the finish line back there.”

  Talks A Lot turned his head slightly so Sister could see his shadow of a smile. He had bet on the roan.

  The Bluecoat in charge raised a pistol over his head. Still Hairy Foot sat with his eyes closed and his leg up. Sister began to worry. She had wagered her new moccasins on him. They were the first pair she had sewn by herself, and she didn’t want to lose them.

  The pistol shot rang out, and Hairy Foot swung his leg down, shoved his boots in the stirrups, and held on. The big roan whirled. While still turning, he bunched his hooves and soared. Sister’s heart took flight with him. When he landed, his long legs devoured the ground in such huge strides that he overtook the rest of the field as though they stood still. Sister fell in love with him.

  She ignored the footraces and the wrestling matches among the Ndee, the Mexicans, and the Americans who had come for the council. When Hairy Foot led the big red horse away, she knew he was heading for his camp at the base of the butte by the river.

  She walked through the Pale Eyes’ settlement, making her way around the broken machinery and the rotting timbers. Her people called the Santa Rita mines The Place Where They Cry because for generations the Mexicans had forced Ndee captives to dig here. Their tears had saturated this ground. Their cries of pain and grief had seeped into the rocks. Sometimes when the wind blew around the stony promontories The People could hear them crying still.

  The diggers had left foothills of rubble. They had trampled the grass. They had cut down the trees. The ore crushers caused Sister the most dread. A mule walked in an endless circle, pushing the long pole tied to his harness. The heavy stone attached to other end of it ground the earth’s bones to powder with a crunch and shriek that raised bumps on the skin of her arms. The sound symbolized the Pale Eyes’ incessant digging, hammering, sawing, chopping, and building.

  This was winter, the season of Ghost Face. Sensible people took life easier in winter. During the cold nights sensible people gathered to dance, but these men had no women to dance with. In winter sensible people told storie
s about Old Man Snake, Ugly Buttocks the Bear, and Trickster Coyote, but the Pale Eyes here had no children to listen to their stories. Maybe they had no stories, and if they had, what kind would such men tell?

  Sister climbed through the cactus and scrub cedars growing among the boulders of the butte. When she reached the outcrop that provided the best view of the meadow below, she inched out to a large rock at the edge of the drop-off to the valley. Below her, the big roan’s coat gleamed like new copper in the dappled sunlight.

  Sister scanned the trees, bushes, and boulders around the pasture, assessing the hiding places, the best approaches. She felt a twinge of reproach about wanting to steal from someone who had returned her cousin to her. Stands Alone said that Hairy Foot was different from the other Pale Eyes. He had sense. He kept his word.

  Still, this wasn’t just any horse.

  She imagined riding him to Mexico on a horse-stealing raid with her brother. She felt the powerful surge of him under her and the blur of the ground rushing past her, carrying her away from any enemy who might pursue her.

  When a voice said, “Ugashe, go away,” she jumped and lost her footing. The loose rock gave way under her. Her forward momentum stopped abruptly, and she hung, suspended, before the hand that had caught the back of her tunic hauled her to solid ground. She turned, expecting to see Talks A Lot or Ears So Big, He Steals Love, or Flies In His Stew. Instead she stared into Hairy Foot’s iridescent green eyes.

  “Ugashe,” he said again.

  She straightened her leather tunic and raised her chin. She brushed past him and stomped away, trying not to slide on the loose gravel of the slope and lose what little dignity she had left. She wanted to turn around and ask him, in Spanish, if she could ride his horse, but she didn’t know the words she would need. He wouldn’t permit it, anyway. He would throw rocks at her like the other Pale Eyes did.

  SISTER SAUNTERED OVER TO JOIN THE BOYS AS THEY MOVED up to compete at archery, and she felt everyone’s eyes on her. She wished she could retreat and stand with the women and girls, but she couldn’t quit now. Talks A Lot and his friends glared at her. She was going to embarrass them again. Talks A Lot was about to shove her away when an older boy from Red Sleeves’ band swaggered toward her. His own people called him Angry for good reason.

  “Ugashe,” he shouted at Sister. “Get away from here.”

  As one, Talks A Lot and his friends moved in front of her. Sister was an annoyance, but she was their annoyance. Angry lost the staring contest and stalked away.

  Hairy Foot stuck a playing card onto a tree fifty paces away. Sister waited until the last of the boys had fired and retrieved his arrow from the card. She walked over to Hairy Foot as though she had never seen him before.

  “Por favor.” She held out her hand.

  He gave her the deck and watched her shuffle through it. Holding the cards, she could feel the essence of the strange smelling, pale-eyed men who had handled them. The hair on the nape of her neck stirred as she felt their spirits travel through her fingers and up her arm, like the tingle she got when she hit her elbow on a rock.

  She chose the card with five black arrow heads. One was in the center and the others arranged around it like the four directions of the wind. She glanced up at Hairy Foot with a look that wasn’t so much request as complicity. He gave a solemn nod of consent.

  She pulled the torn card off the twig and replaced it with the new one. She returned to where the boys stood but kept walking to take up a position twenty paces behind them. Any of the boys could have hit the card from here, but they hadn’t thought of it. They would be angry with her for doing it, but they were usually angry with her, anyway.

  Her arrow landed in the middle of the center figure on the card. She placed the next four in the shapes around it, going from west to east. The Pale Eyes cheered when she finished, and she looked at them in surprise. Hitting the card was easy and not worth any fuss. The Mexicans and the Americans crowded around her, though.

  “Muy lozana.” A Mexican reached out to pat her on the shoulder.

  “Eres lozana,” shouted another.

  The rest began to chant lozana.

  Sister dodged through the crowd and joined the women and girls watching from one side.

  “Now you have a Mexican name,” said She Moves Like Water.

  “What does it mean, Grandmother?”

  Grandmother would know. When she was young, Mexicans had captured her and held her for three years before she escaped.

  “Lozana means ‘sprightly’ or ‘spirited.’” Grandmother opened one side of her blanket and draped it around her so they shared its warmth. “It’s a good name.”

  Sister said it softly to herself, pronouncing it her own way. “Lozen.”

  Calling people by their real names was disrespectful if they were alive and dangerous if they were dead. This was a name she could use without fear of consequences. Lozen.

  RAFE WATCHED HER FROM THE CORNER OF HIS EYE. THE Mexicans were right. She was spirited. She also had a larcenous heart and good taste in horseflesh. He couldn’t identify the young woman with her. Her face was shrouded by her blanket, but he thought she might be Pandora.

  John Cremony walked over to stand with Rafe and watch the contests. “Things are going well, wouldn’t you say?”

  “For the time being.”

  Ceremony nodded toward a group of men walking past. They wore loincloths, loose cotton shirts, moccasins, and cloth headbands, but their long hair was tied into a club at the napes of their necks. “I’m not familiar with those Apaches.”

  “That would be because they’re Navajos.”

  “Navajo territory lies more than two hundred miles to the northwest. What would bring them here?”

  “Red Sleeves invited them. He married off one of his daughters to a Navajo chief.” The Navajo didn’t know Rafe understood more than a little of their language. “Red Sleeves sent runners to tell the Navajos we have strong horses and mules, and heaps of goods. Sounds like the old chief is gathering allies to comb the pestiferous white men out of his hair.”

  “But he just agreed to keep the peace.”

  Rafe shrugged. “They were assessing how strong the defenses are here. They were discussing whether to launch a direct attack or be content with small raids and ambuscades.”

  “I’ll be damned.”

  “The good news is that the Navajos decided the slim pickings here weren’t worth the whole passle of them making that long trip.”

  As they walked toward John Cremony’s tent, the blacksmith’s assistant, Rogers, reeled toward them. He had draped his arm around a young man whose smile covered most of his thin face. Rafe could tell they both had been drinking.

  “Looky here.” The young man set the tooth-size gold nugget in the palm of his hand and rolled it back and forth with one grubby finger. “I found it in the water off yonder.” He pointed up toward the canyon carved by the stream that passed near Red Sleeves’ village.

  If Red Sleeves thinks he has troubles with white men now, Rafe thought, they are about to get much worse.

  LOZEN STARTED FOR THE STREAM AT TWILIGHT WITH A wicker jug in a tumpline on her back. She almost tripped over the young Pale Eyes sprawled near the water. He was the apprentice of the white man who worked in fire and iron.

  He lay where he shouldn’t have, so close to Red Sleeves’ village. Lozen set the water jug on the ground. When she squatted at his side, she could smell the whiskey. She lifted the lower edge of his filthy wool coat, gripped the pistol butt, and eased it out of the waist of his trousers. She stuck the gun into her belt. She took the man’s big knife from its sheath and put it next to the pistol.

  Lozen eased the tongue of the cartridge belt out of the metal buckle and tugged it loose; then she considered how get it out from under his waist. No clever plan occurred to her, so she braced her feet against his side and shoved, pulling on the belt as he rolled over. He grunted and stopped snoring, but he didn’t wake up.

  She t
hrew the bandolier over her shoulder, adjusted the water jug on her back, and stooped to collect the iron basin. She walked away at a leisurely pace. When she came to the river, she braced the jug between rocks in the streambed with its mouth facing into the current. While it filled she untied the small leather pouch hanging from the bandolier. It held bits of yellow rock. She upended it, spilling the contents into the water.

  She watched them scatter downstream like glittering gnats.

  Chapter 8

  WASHINGTON SAYS …

  While Skinny waited for his turn at hoop-and-pole, he chanted his prayer for success.

  The wind will turn your pole.

  The wind will make mine fly true.

  This time I will win everything.

  Later I will win again.

  The mountain spirits called the Gaan had handed down the instructions and the sacred symbolism of hoop-and-pole. No women were allowed near the field where the men played the game from morning until night. Its religous origins didn’t stop them from laughing and joking, though. While Skinny was preoccupied with his prayer, some of them cackled over the fact that he couldn’t sit down.

  Not long after the solemn council with the Pale Eyes, the temptation to steal the Santa Rita miners’ horses and cattle had grown too strong to resist. Skinny, Morning Star, Loco, and thirty other men had made off with fifty cows. Hairy Foot, John Cremony, and twenty Bluecoats had given chase.

  Certain that he was out of rifle range, Skinny had turned his back, lifted his breechclout, slapped his rear end, and taunted the Bluecoats. Cremony had handed his new rifle to Hairy Foot. Hairy Foot’s shot had plowed a furrow diagonally across Skinny’s buttock. The warriors and the Bluecoats stopped shooting and laughed like coyotes as Skinny sprinted up the mountain with his hands clasping his wound. To make matters worse, the Bluecoats had recovered the cattle.

  Red Sleeves and Loco each balanced a long pole upright in the palm of his right hand and steadied it with his left. They waited for Broken Foot to roll a willow hoop toward the furrow in the dry grass piled at the north end of the playing field. He swung his arm, releasing the hoop at the top of its arc. It rolled across the pine needles laid down to make the surface slippery. Loco and Red Sleeves lowered their poles and chased the hoop. As it entered the cleft in the pile of hay, they threw the poles along the ground after it, trying to slide them under the hoop as it fell.