Finally, the agent sighed and tossed his cigar into the fire.
“I’m thinking of the look on Little Owl’s face,” he said. “You saw it. If ever a man died of fright, it was him.”
He hesitated, then continued. “I saw the same look on Al Corcoran’s face when I . . . picked up his head,” he told Boutelle, who winced at his words.
“You saw the look on Tom Corcoran’s face. It was the same look—absolute horror.”
He drew in a deep, laboring breath and released it slowly.
“I imagine we’d have seen the same look on Jim Corcoran’s face, too,” he said, “if his face hadn’t been ripped off.”
Boutelle winced again. More and more, he was losing confidence in what he’d been convinced of earlier. He tried to believe that it was because of the darkness, the sounds, and the firelight glinting on Finley’s harrowed expression. But it wouldn’t wash. The Indian agent was right. There were too many abnormal factors in this situation to ignore.
“I’m thinking about the Night Doctor. I’m wondering why that man is so anxious to see a discredited shaman, a medicine man who was banished from his tribe for performing ceremonies he wasn’t supposed to perform.”
They sat in silence, Finley staring gravely into the fire, Boutelle watching him with a sense of deep disquiet.
“You know,” Finley said after a while, “back East, it’s civilized and all the mysteries have been dispelled by that civilization. Out here, it’s easier to believe that there’s still a lot of unexplored ground. A lot of secrets.”
He paused again, then added quietly, “I’m thinking of that thick scar around the man’s entire neck. When I mentioned it, he smiled at me and said that someone had once cut off his head.”
Boutelle wished desperately now that he could speak up and refute the agent’s increasingly alarming words. He couldn’t, though.
He started as he heard a horrible screeching noise in the distance, looked quickly at Finley. The other man had not responded to the sound.
“What was that?” Boutelle had to ask.
“Owl killing something,” Finley said. “Or a hawk.” He shrugged. “Maybe an eagle.”
FRIDAY
12
While they were riding the next day, heading toward the mountains, Finley following signs Boutelle couldn’t see, they began to talk about Indians.
In the daylight—there was even an occasional glow of sunshine to warm the cold air—Boutelle regained some of his confidence in past convictions. The soreness from the rattler bite was almost gone as well, and uncharitable though it was, with little to remind him physically of what Finley had done, it was easier to retrieve beliefs he’d held for so many years.
“About these Plains Indians,” he began.
“David, there was no such thing until the Spanish brought in horses.”
“And the Indians stole them,” Boutelle countered.
“Or traded for them,” Finley said. “They were farmers and hunters until they got the horses.”
“I was under the impression that the Apache nation—” Boutelle started.
“There is no Apache nation,” Finley cut him off. “There are only clans and kinship groupings.
“For that matter, isn’t it stupid that we call them Indians at all? What if Columbus had thought he’d landed in Turkey instead of India? Would we call them turkeys?”
“Mr. . . . Billjohn,” Boutelle said, grimacing slightly. “What do you want to call them?”
“People,” Finley said. “That’s what they call themselves. How about the first Americans? They were here before we were.”
Boutelle sighed. “I hear your Rutgers background speaking now,” he said.
They rode in silence for a while. Then Boutelle spoke again.
“You admitted last night that the Apaches have done some god-awful things,” he started.
“And we’ve done some god-awful things to them,” Finley said.
He is really in a bellicose frame of mind today, Boutelle thought.
“As I heard a man in White River say to a companion,” he prodded Finley, “haul in your horns. By which—”
He broke off as Finley snickered. Clearly, the agent knew exactly what he meant.
“You’re right,” Finley said. “I’m sorry. I’ll try to speak my piece without rattling my tail.
“It’s a little difficult for me, though. I was a history major at Rutgers—American history. I wrote my Master’s thesis on the Indian situation.”
Boutelle was surprised. He’d had no idea the man was that well educated. He felt a twinge of guilt.
“You think the problem started only ten or twenty years ago?” Finley continued. “Indians were living on the East Coast more than forty years ago. Living in peace with their neighbors. In log cabins. Wearing homespun clothing. The Cherokees, the Chickasaws, the Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles. They were called the Five Civilized Tribes. Their leaders could read and write English. Their people intermarried with the whites.
“Then Andrew Jackson decided that they didn’t belong there. So he had Congress pass legislation to move the Indians to ‘an ample district west of the Mississippi.’ ” His tone was bitter as he quoted.
“It took nine years to get it done, but by God they got it done,” he went on. “Sixty thousand Indians rounded up at gunpoint and marched west under military guard.
“Only fourteen thousand of them survived it.”
He smiled and shook his head; it was a smile devoid of humor. “Eventually, the land they’d been given was taken away from them.”
He grunted. “That’s the way it worked from the start,” he said. “We gave them land—that was already theirs, of course. Then when we wanted that land for building or mining or farming or grazing, we took it back and gave them other land further out. Until the land they were given was so bad they decided to fight back. At which point, we began calling them savages.”
Boutelle felt as though he should say something to refute what Finley had told him. He couldn’t, though. He couldn’t think of anything to say.
“I’ve been an Indian agent for seven years, David,” Finley continued. “My job has been to issue supplies and annuities to the Apaches. Annuities that never arrived on time. Supplies that got sold or stolen before they reached me.
“I’m supposed to tell the Indians how nice their lives will be on reservations like the one at San Carlos, which is a malaria-ridden hellhole.
“Of course, no matter what I do, it’s hopeless. The Apaches are finished. All the Indians are finished. They got in our way. We wanted their land so we took it. Their days are written on the sand. You and I may not live to see it, but it’s going to happen, it’s inevitable.”
He sighed and smiled bitterly. “Listen, if you think I’ve got diarrhea of the jawbone, just tell me so. I have a tendency to run on for a day and a half when I talk about the Indians.”
They rode in silence for a long while before Boutelle felt compelled to speak.
“Listen . . . Billjohn,” he said, “I’ve lived an isolated life. My family has a lot of money and it made existence very easy for me. I rode, I hunted, I hiked. I traveled the world. Graduated from the best schools.
“My father got me an appointment in the Department of the Interior. I thought I was equipped to handle it. Like so many people back East, I thought I understood the Indian situation perfectly. I read the newspapers, read the dispatches. You’re right; I thought of them as savages. I probably still feel that way deep inside. But you’ve given me a lot to think about I never had before, and I thank you for it.”
Finley’s smile was broad and genial. He edged his horse close to Boutelle’s and extended his hand.
Boutelle tried not to wince at the power of the agent’s grip. He managed to return Finley’s smile.
Then Finley sighed again.
“Now all we have to do is locate Braided Feather,” he said. “Try to find out what the hell is going on.”
The d
ogs were at them first, crashing from the underbrush with angry snarls, lips curled back from yellow fangs, eyes glittering with menace.
Boutelle reined in hard as the running pack began snapping at his horse’s legs. His mount began to twist and buck, nickering in alarm, trying to avoid the dogs’ teeth. From the corners of his eyes, he saw Finley trying to hold in his mare as well, cursing at the dogs.
Then Apaches were surrounding them, pointing rifles, dark faces impassive. The dogs drew back, still snarling, as Finley spoke to the threatening braves.
At first it seemed it wasn’t going to work; the Indians raised their rifles as though to fire.
Then Lean Bear appeared from the woods and, seeing Finley, ordered off his men. Finley thanked him.
“Why are you here?” Lean Bear asked suspiciously.
“I must speak to Braided Feather,” Finley answered.
“We are not going back to our camp,” Lean Bear told him.
“I understand that,” Finley replied. “I, too, am concerned about that man and wish to speak to your father about him.”
Lean Bear said something in Apache which, Boutelle thought, was obviously spoken in bitter scorn. Then he gestured to Finley for the mare’s reins, and Finley tossed them over his horse’s head so Lean Bear could grab them.
He looked at Boutelle. “Give them your reins,” he said. “And your weapon,” he added, slipping his rifle from its scabbard and giving it to Lean Bear, then handing down his pistol.
Boutelle threw the reins of his horse across its head, and a brave took hold of them. Removing his pistol carefully from its holster, he handed it down, butt first, to the Indian’s reaching hand, hoping that he wasn’t committing suicide by doing so.
The dogs kept circling, growling and baring their teeth as their horses walked skittishly among the Apaches.
“I gather the dogs don’t like us,” Boutelle said to break the silence.
“They don’t like the way we smell,” Finley responded.
Boutelle swallowed, looking around. Through the undergrowth, he could see other braves watching them, some armed with rifles, some with bows and arrows.
“What did . . .” His voice faded, and as Finley looked at him, he nodded toward Lean Bear.
“What?” Finley asked.
“What did he say before? He sounded so . . . scornful.”
“Try afraid,” Finley said. “When I told him I was concerned about that man, he said, ‘Man?’ ”
Boutelle shivered at more than the gathering mountain chill. It was beginning to get dark as well. For some reason, he recalled the ghastly screeching noise he’d heard the night before.
He shook away the memory, irritated with himself for being credulous.
“Well, I think he is a man,” he said, trying to sound as confident as possible.
“Do you?” was all Finley said.
They were moving now into an open glade, deeply shaded by a thick overhead growth of pines. As they entered it, Boutelle saw, in the center of the glade, stacked preparations for a bonfire. He could use a little fire warmth, he thought.
Finley looked at the fire preparations with a sense of foreboding. He knew what it was. Not a camp fire for heat and cooking. It was too big for that.
They were getting ready to light a ceremonial fire.
Boutelle saw more and more of the Pinal Spring band now. How many members did it have? He tried to recall. In the two hundreds, it seemed. He saw clusters of women and children eyeing him and Finley. Never had he felt so alien to an environment, so out of place. This was their world, and he had no comprehension of it whatsoever.
Now the horses were stopped and he and Finley ordered to the ground. They dismounted, and Boutelle realized abruptly that the older man standing in front of them was Braided Feather. He hadn’t recognized the chief because here he was not the sternly dignified figure he had been at the treaty meeting. He looked smaller now, more haggard.
Finley moved to the chief and raised his right hand in a saluting gesture. “I come as your friend,” he said in Apache.
“We know you are our friend,” Braided Feather answered. “Come with me.”
He led them away from the other Apaches to a small shelter that had been erected for him. He sank down on a buffalo robe beneath the overhang and gestured for them to sit. Boutelle glanced around and saw that Lean Bear had followed them. He looked back at the other Apaches and saw that they were tying up the two horses.
“First let me tell you what the Army and the citizens of Picture City think,” Finley said to the chief as Lean Bear sat down with them.
“No need,” Braided Feather replied. “I know what they think. That we have broken the treaty.”
“Yes.” Finley nodded.
Boutelle wished that he understood what they were saying but felt awkward about asking Finley to interpret.
“Does Finley think this as well?” Braided Feather asked the agent.
“Of course I don’t,” Finley answered. “I know you to be a man of your word. I know that this is something else.”
“It is.” Braided Feather’s lips tightened. “Something very different.”
“Can you tell me what it is so I can help?” Finley asked.
Braided Feather looked at his son, who looked toward the fire area and the Apaches waiting around it.
“There is no time,” Braided Feather said.
“What is the ceremony to be then?” Finley asked, having noticed Lean Bear’s look.
Boutelle had no idea what was being said, but when Finley spoke, he was aware that both Braided Feather and Lean Bear grew tense.
“I cannot tell you that,” Braided Feather told Finley. “It is big medicine.”
“May we watch so we can learn and perhaps assist you in this?” Finley asked.
Lean Bear stiffened visibly and looked at Finley in anger. “This is not possible,” he said.
Finley looked at Braided Feather, knowing that despite Lean Bear’s position as eventual chief of the Pinal Spring band, all authority was still in the chief’s hands.
“I know it is much to ask,” he said, “but this is not an ordinary circumstance. I know that something very dark is taking place and want to help if I can. Are you certain you can deal with this alone?”
Boutelle flinched as Lean Bear spoke sharply to his father, then to Finley. Braided Feather was patient with him at first, but as his hotheaded son spoke with more and more vehemence, his father suddenly cut him off and clearly ordered him to move away.
Lean Bear grimaced savagely and lurched to his feet. “This is a bad mistake,” he said and strode away quickly.
Finley looked at Braided Feather without speaking. He knew that to say—particularly to ask—any more would be a slight to the chief’s position. Accordingly, he waited in respectful silence.
Finally, Braided Feather spoke. There was a sound of sadness in his voice, Boutelle thought.
“You know that my son is right,” the chief said. “This is not a ceremony we permit outsiders to witness.” Finley felt a chill to hear a waver in Braided Feather’s voice. “But this is not an ordinary thing, as you have said. It may well be I am forced to ask for your help. This being so . . .”
He stopped and sighed heavily. “We begin when darkness falls,” he said.
Boutelle didn’t realize that they had been dismissed until Finley took him by the arm and helped him to his feet.
As they walked away from Braided Feather’s shelter, he asked Finley what the conversation had been about.
When Finley told him, Boutelle frowned, not understanding. “All that over a ceremony?”
“White men are never permitted to witness such Apache ceremonies,” Finley told him. “They are a very religious people and their ceremonies are sacred to them. The only reason we’re being permitted to look at this particular ceremony is that Braided Feather thinks we might help in this situation.”
“We?” Boutelle looked dubious.
“All right,
me,” Finley admitted. He drew in a deep breath. “This is a very special ceremony,” he said. “What they call big medicine. Extremely important. I still can’t believe they’re going to let us watch.”
“Why did you ask then?” Boutelle asked.
“Frankly, I don’t know,” Finley told him. “What’s happening is so . . . distant from anything I’ve ever seen that I’ve behaved in a different manner with the chief. A manner I never would have assumed under more normal circumstances.”
They walked in silence toward the fire area. Boutelle looked up. The sky, now barely visible through the pine growth overhead, was almost dark.
“Keep in mind,” Finley told him, “these are brave men. Brave women. And they’re terrified of something. Absolutely terrified. What else would make them flee their camp to perform a nighttime religious ceremony in the high woods?”
Boutelle glanced into the eyes of Apache men, women, and children as he passed them. Was it his imagination that he saw cold dread in every one of them?
13
He had never experienced anything so strange in his life.
In the near pitch-blackness of the glade, the deep, resonant voice of the band’s shaman seemed to be coming at him from all directions. The fact that the shaman was speaking in the guttural, rhythmic language of the Apaches which he could not understand in any way made it all the more bizarre to Boutelle as he sat there on the pine needle–covered ground.
He and Finley were located far back from the others so that the Indian agent could interpret for him. In the darkness of the forest, even Finley’s whispering voice sounded unnaturally loud to Boutelle. He felt immersed in some grotesque dream, while at the same time knowing that he was totally awake.
“He’s telling them that they are all in mortal danger,” Finley whispered into Boutelle’s ear. “He says that he’s going to perform a rite of scourging to prevent this danger from destroying them, man, woman, and child.”
Boutelle swallowed. His throat was dry and he felt a strong need for a sip of water, yet knew it was impossible right now. Feeling almost numb, he sat immobile listening, as Finley continued.