Ghost Warrior

by Lucia St. Clair Robson

  Rafe wondered if the point of the fable was that Flattened Penis had tried to woo the wrong woman and had suffered for it. If that was the case, he was still suffering for it.

  Rafe chuckled to himself. The Apaches’ other name for John Clum was Hat, Soft And Floppy. He was lucky they didn’t call him Penis, Soft And Floppy.

  GERONIMO WAS ENJOYING A GOURDFUL OF VENISON AND mesquite bean stew and admiring the view at the camp of his half brother, Fun. The view consisted of Broken Foot’s fourteen-year-old daughter, Very Pretty, who was visiting Fun’s wife. Very Pretty sent Geronimo looks across the cookfire like arrows shot into his heart, the points deeply embedded, shafts vibrating, feathers quivering.

  The messenger found Geronimo there at dusk. He said that Hat, Soft And Floppy had come to Warm Springs with only his pet Indians. He said that Hat, Soft And Floppy commanded Geronimo and his most important men to come to a council at the agency the next day.

  When the messenger left Geronimo announced he would fight them rather than talk, but Fun proposed a better idea.

  THE WARM SPRINGS AGENCY SAT ON A FLAT, DUSTY SHELF of land with hills sweeping up and away from it on all sides. When Geronimo, Fun, his younger brother Eyelash, Old Fatty, Ponce, and the others arrived, the first light of day hadn’t even considered making an appearance.

  Although no one was around to see them, all the warriors had put on their best beaded moccasins. They wore their feathered war caps and war cords with the amulets dangling from them. They had painted their faces. This would be a foray for plunder, not a council. It would be a joke on Hat, Soft And Floppy.

  Geronimo and thirty others strode across the moonlit parade ground, the breeze fluttering the feathers in their caps. They had tied the tin cones so they wouldn’t jingle. The only sound was the sough of high leather moccasins brushing against each other, the soft pad of soles, and a faint wheezing from Old Fatty.

  Geronimo and his men gathered in front of the commissary. Eyelash poured oil on the rusty hinges of the wide double doors so they wouldn’t squeak. Fun wrapped a blanket around the bolt so it wouldn’t rattle. Geronimo smiled to himself. He would take what he wanted and be gone before the Pale Eyes knew what had happened.

  Fun and Eyelash pulled the doors open, and the men crowded around. From the building’s black maw they heard the clicking of more rifle hammers than they could count. They backed out of the doorway and into the moonlight misting across the parade ground. A hundred of Hat, Soft And Floppy’s White Mountain coyotes poured out, rifles leveled. They surrounded Geronimo’s men at a brisk trot.

  “Hold ’em, boys,” said Rafe.

  He shouted for Clum and then turned his attention to the lively situation on the parade ground. Some of Geronimo’s men looked ready to shoot, some looked ready to run, and some looked ready to do both. It reminded Rafe of the time, as a kid, he had trapped a very large rat in the root cellar. He could hear the rat scurrying around, but he didn’t know what to do with him.

  Damn, but Clum was lucky. The scourge of two countries and a couple hundred thousand square miles had walked into his trap, although it wasn’t supposed to have happened this way. Clum had planned to lure Geronimo and his men in for talks and signal the police hidden in the commissary across from agency headquarters.

  Clum rushed out onto the porch, tucking in his shirt and pulling on his hat. The hat’s wide brim undulated in gentle curves like the surrounding hills. Clum probably intended it to make him look taller, but it had the opposite effect.

  He didn’t waste time. “If you will listen to my words with good ears,” he shouted, “no serious harm will be done to you.”

  Geronimo managed to laugh and scowl and expand his chest at the same time. He was at least as good at dragging his wings as Clum.

  “If you speak wisely no harm will be done to you,” he shouted back.

  Clum ignored that. “You and your men are to report to the blacksmith shop.”

  Geronimo’s fingers tightened on his Winchester. He knew what the blacksmith meant. He had seen renegade Bluecoats chained like wild mules and locked in a room for long periods of time. His first thought was to start shooting and kill this little upstart, but he realized how badly his people were outmanned and outgunned.

  He relaxed. “Enjuh,” he said.

  No skilled warrior threw his life away when he could live to take revenge later. And Geronimo would have revenge; that was as certain as the sun that was about to rise.

  He stood at ease while the police collected his weapons. They marched him and his men to the smithy where the blacksmith riveted shackles to their wrists and ankles. From there the guards directed them to the corral, a large pen of thorny mesquite limbs laid horizontally between pairs of up-rights.

  “No somos mulas,” Geronimo muttered. “No somos ganado . We are not mules. We are not cattle.” With their chains rattling, he and the others walked into the corral.

  On the agency porch, John Clum folded his arms and struck the pose that Rafe had seen so often. For once, Clum had reason to be smug.

  “This will put a check on those rascals’ depredations.” His grin had satisfation stamped all over it. “Today I’ll call in Victorio and Loco and tell them that they and their people must come to San Carlos, too. We’ll leave as soon as the cavalry gets here.”

  “But they’re not renegades. They’ve kept the peace.”

  “My orders have been changed. I’m now to take all the Warm Springs people back with us, whether they’re raiding or not.”

  He was probably telling the truth about the new orders. That was just the sort of double-dealing policy the Department of the Interior would dream up. It suited John Clum, though. He was determined to concentrate the Apaches not on a series of reservations—feeding stations, as the government called them—but on one. His.

  “The Warm Springs people have planted their fields. The corn is already waist high.” Rafe remembered the look of joy on Lozen’s face as she stood, arms outstretched, inviting him to admire the crop.

  Clum gave that impatient wave of his hand. “We’ll provide corn for them. A contractor in Central City has offered to buy the crop when it’s ripe. I can use the money to get some of the things the Warm Springs people will need.”

  Rafe shook his head and walked away. Thieving crows were always a problem when corn was ripening, but now those fields would be picked clean by vultures in frock coats.

  Chapter 51

  UNITED, WE FALL

  “The Americans have more copper cartridges than grains of sand in the desert.” Dead Shot scooped up a handful of sand and let it sift through his fingers.

  The grains sparkled like powdered copper in the fire’s light. As though in a trance, Lozen watched them fall. So did the others in her family.

  “I feel as you all do,” Dead Shot said, “I do not want to see any more of our people killed. We have to learn to exist with the Pale Eyes as we exist with winter storms, with rattlesnakes, with drought.”

  “I went to Wah-sin-ton.” Dreamer spoke from the shadows. He had gone east with Hat, Soft And Floppy, and he still wore the silver medallion that President Grant had given him.

  He had been so quiet they had almost forgotten he was there. He was used to being called a liar when he told these stories, but he had to tell them, anyway. To keep quiet would be the same as not warning them of a terrible flood rushing toward them.

  “The Pale Eyes have lodges of stone as big as a mesa, as tall as a cliff. More people live there than you have seen in your life. I rode in an iron wagon that does not need a horse to pull it. Men put black rocks in it, and it breathes fire and smoke. It makes as much noise as an avalanche, and it rushes along faster than a horse can run.”

  “We have heard of those things,” said Victorio. “We have eyes. We can see that Life Giver has granted the Pale Eye great power. We must find a way to live in the same country with them.”

  “It is impossible to resist them.” Loco hunched in the shadows as though trying
to gather night around him. His scars blended with the deep creases in his face, and he looked old, drained of ambition.

  They sat in silence for a while. They were all tired and disheartened. They had spent most of the day in council discussing the ultimatum that Hat, Soft And Floppy had given them. The talk had been contentious.

  Victorio had ended it by saying, “Each must do what he thinks is best. My family and I are going to San Carlos. If we do not like it there, we will come back.”

  Hat, Soft And Floppy had said he wanted to know how many would be making the trip, so they had taken a count: 324 people had decided to leave with Victorio and Lozen. Almost as many voted to go to Mexico with Long Neck. And 110 of Geronimo’s band would travel with Victorio’s people. Broken Foot had his own plans.

  When Dreamer and Dead Shot saw Broken Foot approaching, they stood up and melted into the darkness. They knew how he felt about them. He had remarked that those who betrayed their own should be hunted down. The old man didn’t intend to go to Mexico, but for once he sided with Long Neck. He could not believe that Victorio would meekly follow that strutting Pale Eyes turkey gobbler, Hat, Soft And Floppy.

  Broken Foot, Her Eyes Open, and Wide led their horses into the fire’s light. Pouches and baskets of their belongings hung from the horses’ saddles and were piled across their hindquarters. Fights Without Arrows came, too. In the shadows at the edge of the fire’s light, Wah-sin-ton and Sets Him Free sat on their ponies and held the lines of a pair of mules loaded with weapons and ammunition. Wah-sin-ton would hide the weapons in a nearby cave so Victorio could retrieve them if he decided to leave San Carlos and return to Warm Springs.

  Very Pretty stood sullen and silent off to one side. She wanted to stay with Geronimo, and she was furious that her parents insisted she come with them. Wide was just as furious. “That Bedonkohe Coyote has put a spell on my daughter,” she would mutter.

  A month ago Broken Foot had asked Lozen to hold a sing to try to restore Wide’s good humor, but it hadn’t had much effect. Wide had been happy to see Geronimo in chains. She thought maybe that would discourage Very Pretty, but it hadn’t.

  Broken Foot solemnly pretended to count them all like Hat, Soft And Floppy did. Then he pretended to forget where he was and counted them again. Each time he arrived at a different number. He did a good imitation, but no one laughed.

  Broken Foot and the families who chose to go with him were headed for the Mescalero reservation on the Tulerosa River. He planned to camp with Wide’s family there.

  “Are you leaving now?” Victorio asked.

  “Yes. We want to be far away by the time the Bluecoats get here.” Broken Foot lowered himself onto a log and sat with his knees almost in the fire. He had seen seventy harvests, and he seemed to be growing in reverse, getting shorter as time passed. His joints, though, had become bigger each year. They pained him constantly, but he would never admit it. The heat felt good on them.

  “We’ll take the old ones to the agency and get ration tickets for them,” he said. “The young men and the horses will stay in the valley across the mountain so they can come and go whenever they want. We’ll register their wives and families with the older men who are left.” He winked. “The Pale Eyes will think we old farts have a lot of stamina, to keep so many wives.”

  “Come with us, brother,” said Her Eyes Open.

  “Many of our young men have gone to raid with Long Neck.” Victorio’s voice was tired. “And many have died there. Their women and children and old ones have no one to bring them meat and hides. Their children cry with hunger. Hat, Soft And Floppy says he will care for the women and the old ones.”

  “They’ll feed us on the Tulerosa.”

  “Hat, Soft And Floppy says all those Mescaleros will have to move to San Carlos soon. I do not want the old ones to have to make two such long, hard trips.”

  She Moves Like Water didn’t try to keep the bitterness out of her voice. “Hat, Soft And Floppy says he intends to unite our people—the White Mountain bands, the San Carlos, the Tontos, the Aravaipas, the Coyoteros, the Cibicu, the Chiricahua, the Red Paints, even Long Neck and his Enemy People.”

  “That’s not possible,” said Fights Without Arrows. “The people over there hate us. And we hate them.”

  “Grandmother,” Wide asked Lozen, “What do you think?”

  Lozen looked up, her face shadowed in the fire’s light. “If I were alone,” she said softly, “I would ride south to Mexico. But there is no worse lot than to live without family. Our people depend on us. We cannot abandon them now. My brother is my heart, my right arm. I will go wherever he goes.”

  “They say that at San Carlos the flies eat the eyes out of the horses in the summertime,” said Fights Without Arrows.

  “If we cannot live there, we’ll leave,” Victorio said.

  Broken Foot got up, limped to his pony, and tightened the cinch. He and his people made their good-byes, going to each person and murmuring. “May we live to see each other again.” Wah-sin-ton dismounted and embraced his father. He turned, mounted, and rode away with Sets Him Free, Broken Foot, and the others.

  CAESAR AND THE MEN OF THE NINTH RODE IN FRONT OF the long line of people on foot and on horseback. Rafe and the Apache police brought up the rear. Caesar had recommended that Clum take the Apaches around Central City, but he had refused. Caesar understood why. Clum had the hated Geronimo and five of his henchmen in chains in a wagon, and more than four hundred Apaches straggling behind him. He would want to make a show of them.

  The image of rounding the people up that morning and driving them from their village haunted Caesar. Women and children had cried and clung to those who refused to go. They had run to get a few last things from their lodges. They had put the sick on the ponies or rigged litters to carry them. The old people hobbled on foot carrying baskets and bundles. The soldiers had burned the lodges behind them, to discourage them from changing their minds.

  Maybe Clum didn’t know what the reactions of the citizens of Central City would be—or maybe he didn’t care. No matter. Caesar called back to his men to sit straight in their saddles and to look straight ahead. All of them knew what to expect. Most of the white folks in Central City were Southerners, and they hated everyone equally—the Apache police, the Apache prisoners, the black soldiers, and their white officers, most of whom were from the North.

  “Whatever anyone says or does,” he told them, “do not make a reply. Do not look to the left or to the right.”

  The jeers started as soon as they passed the first building at the end of the main street. Women gathered in small clumps at a safe distance. Men poured out of the saloons, boardinghouses, and mercantiles. “The gum’ment’s put uniforms on a bunch of niggers.”

  The white officers didn’t fare any better. People shouted, “Damned Yankees,” “Nigger-lovers,” and worse at them.

  Caesar heard the jeers turn to curses when they saw the wagon with Geronimo and the other Apache leaders. Caesar knew that they would not content themselves with words. They would throw dirt, dung, rocks, vegetables, whatever came to hand.

  Caesar wanted to turn and look. He wanted to ride alongside Stands Alone and He Makes Them Laugh and their two boys. He wanted to protect them, to shield them from the humiliation, but he could not.

  Life is hard, he thought. Life is just too damned hard.

  THE ROAD TO SAN CARLOS LED THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS. Freezing temperatures at night and burning sun in the day did not make the trip easier. John Clum counted heads every evening, and every evening the count went down. In the morning a body usually needed burial, and sometimes more than one. Also men slipped away in the darkness, leaving the rest, stone-faced, to continue the march.

  Rafe tried to help an old man carrying a burden basket with his crippled wife in it. The man had cut holes in the basket for her legs. He had crossed rivers with her on his back and clambered over rocks and deadfalls. Rafe managed to convince him to let him carry her up one of the steepest slo
pes, but he hovered behind, worried that Rafe would drop her. He refused to let anyone take her from him again.

  At the start of the journey, Victorio’s family gave their horses to those who needed them more. They kept one for She Who Has Become Old, the mother of She Moves Like Water and Corn Stalk, but the pony had died soon after they left. Corn Stalk and She Moves Like Water took turns helping their mother along the roughest parts of the trail.

  Lozen carried the cradleboard of Daughter’s baby boy so Daughter could walk for a while unburdened. Daughter was also trying to distract Pretty Mouth, whose incessant complaints made their good-natured husband, Mangas, even more dejected. Mangas’ friends suggested that he beat Pretty Mouth, but Mangas, knew better than to try it. Pretty Mouth would turn on him like a rattler and cause him more embarrassment.

  Daughter’s seven-year-old daughter, Beside Her, led her sister who whimpered as she stumbled along, trying to keep up. Lozen knelt so she could put her hands on the child’s small shoulders.

  “Do not cry,” she said gently. “Do not complain. Do not falter. Show the Pale Eyes that The People are not weak.”

  Lozen told stories and encouraged the weakest until her voice grew hoarse. Rafe figured that by the time they arrived, she would have walked much more than twice the distance because she went from one end of the line to the other, many times a day.

  Rafe rode up from the rear where the Apache police walked. He dismounted, and with flourishes that sent each laughing child in a swooping arc, he lifted Little Sister and Beside Her into his saddle. Without asking permission he took the cradleboard’s tumpline from Lozen’s forehead and hung it on the pommel.

  “I found a place for She Who Becomes Old in the supply wagon,” he said.

  Lozen smiled her thanks. She Moves Like Water’s mother had been growing weaker and coughing constantly. Rafe wondered if she would reach San Carlos.

  He Makes Them Laugh took advantage of Rafe’s arrival to start up where he’d left off the night before. He cheered the children by making up stories about Rafe. “Hairy Foot eats rocks and scorpions and cactus spines,” he told them. “He has twenty-three wives and a hundred children. His penis is so big that at night he drapes a canvas over it like a tent so all his children can sleep under its shelter.”