A warrior should be married, and yet Golahka continued to walk alone, his face still darkened by the ache of his family’s loss. He did not join the men in their racing and gambling, but instead learnt mastery of the gun. The mountain air was split with its noise, sending birds into flight, and children shrieking to their mothers.
I had had my fill – and more – of weapons and warfare. In the warm sunshine, I wished to feed awhile on lightness and joy.
There is a game the Apache play in times of peace, and this we did now. On a flat, grassy space at the far end of the plateau a group of men and boys gathered for shinny. Few women were there, for their hands were kept busy with preparing food, although the fleetest of foot had cast aside their tasks, unable to resist the draw of the game. I was amongst them, standing beside Chee, hoping to be chosen.
Torrez, father of Ishta, was leader of one team; Dhezi – a Chokenne warrior – his opponent. They each selected five of the swiftest or strongest amongst us to join on their teams. Happy was I to be chosen by Torrez, and I took my curved stick of oak in readiness for the game’s commencement.
Chee was picked for the opposing team, and he pointed his stick at me as if firing a gun. “Today we are enemies, Siki,” he said, his eyes gleaming with humour. “Let the battle begin.”
“You are slow as the frost-dulled snake,” I replied in the same tone. “You shall be left eating dust while I run.”
“You think so?” he said. “And what will you chance to prove yourself right?”
Thus it was, in jest with Chee, that I came to gamble my quiver full of arrows on the outcome of the game.
Those who watched withdrew to the cover of the trees, standing by the saplings at either end of the field that marked our goals. Torrez spat on a flat stone and threw it high in the air.
“Wet!” he called, and indeed the stone fell to earth with its wet side up. Thus Torrez chose which goal his team would aim for. It was morning, and he decided to defend the one the sun was yet rising behind, so that our opponents would have to run into its glare.
All spread wide across the grass. Ishta and Naite were there, as well as Zazuah and Kayitah, both fine Chokenne warriors. We faced our enemies: Chee; Chico, from whose ears dangled decorations of feather and turquoise; Toro; Pocito, in whose tepee I had lain when I tracked Golahka to the Chokenne camp; and Asha, a Dendhi woman of great swiftness and agility who had lately become wife to Chico.
The game commenced. The two leaders stood, their linked sticks raised in the centre of the field. Throwing the buckskin ball high into the air, Dhezi struck it hard on its descent, and sent it spinning through the air towards Chee.
Thereafter, everything was noise and mayhem. To kick the ball is permitted, and also to strike it with the curved stick, but to touch it with one’s hands is not allowed. Sticks are used not only to beat the ball, but also freely against an opponent.
I was of smaller stature than the others, and so I skirted the edge of the play and the slashing sticks, watching for my chance to strike the ball. But before I had managed it even once, Chee’s rapid flight ended in the first goal of the game.
“Your quiver is lost!” he called to me mockingly.
“I think not,” I shouted back. “The game has scarce begun.”
With smiles of triumph Chee’s teammates spread once more across the field. The two leaders returned to the middle, and threw the ball high. Once more, Dhezi was swifter, and struck the ball towards Asha. With small tapping hits, she kept it close and thus was able to manoeuvre around Ishta and Naite. Once through the pack of players she struck hard and passed the ball to Chee, who was near the goal.
But Zazuah, hooking his curved stick around Chee’s ankle, toppled him and seized the ball. A flick with his toes, and it was airborne. He struck it with his oak stick and it flew high and wide. Towards me. The ball’s arcing path was such that it would have flown beyond the grassy pitch and landed amongst the tepees, but I leapt high to intercept it, turning as I jumped and sending it towards the goal.
My legs started to run even before I had come back down upon the earth, and as I landed I sped after the ball, kicking it hard as it thudded to the grass. Once, twice more, I struck, and rapidly came upon the goal, well ahead of my opponents. Toro alone blocked my path, his girth as broad as the rump of a bull.
Solid he was, but not swift. Copying Asha’s way of hitting the ball with small taps, I kept it close. Looking to one side of him, I made as if to pass that way. As he began to move, I dodged to his other side and hurled the ball between the shaded trees to the triumphant shouts from my team.
I was not permitted such a free run again. There was much whispering amongst the opposing team as Torrez and Dhezi returned to the middle of the pitch, and as the ball was thrown into the air, I found myself with Chico at my side hounding me as closely as if he were my shadow. While I was thus pursued, Chee’s team scored two more goals.
It seemed the only way to evade Chico was by entering the mass of players who surged towards the sunlit goal in pursuit of Chee and Dhezi. As I passed Pocito, I stepped in front of him, and to avoid falling over me Pocito jumped to one side, straight into Chico’s path. He tripped, and both warriors tumbled headlong into the grass. Ahead of me, Torrez tackled Chee and took control of the ball. He hurled it to me over the heads of the players, and once more I broke free.
I ran towards the shadows. Toro stood before me. I dodged but he was not to be deceived again. With a savage blow he struck my shins, and I fell, rolling far across the grass. The other players now crashed upon Toro like a herd of horses. All was sweat and confusion, entwined limbs, knotted sticks, and the ball was nowhere to be seen.
Then I spotted it from where I lay, winded, upon the ground at some distance from the throng. It was between the feet of Toro, at the centre of the mass of struggling players. Chico’s ear ornaments were wound in Pocito’s hair; Chee was caught on Ishta’s stick. All fought for freedom. Crawling forward, I slid my stick along the ground between their legs, and hooked the ball free from the pack. I hurled it between the trees before the others had loosed themselves from their entanglement.
The crowd shrieked with laughter. Amongst that great noise, I heard a familiar voice, and looked to see Golahka, who stood watching, his black eyes dancing with amusement. Joy it was to see him smile, and to hear him call, “Ah, Siki, your ways are ever distinct. Never have I seen shinny played upon the belly!”
The game continued long, with players growing ever wearier. By the time the sun stood high in the sky, and Kayitah’s nose had been bloodied with a blow from Toro’s stick, Torrez and Dhezi called the game to its finish. We had lost the match; and now, with good humour, all settled their wagers. I rued that I had not made a smaller bet with Chee; to hand him the quiver I had laboured so hard over was a great loss. But he had won them fairly, and claimed them with a smile. Thus carelessly did I deprive myself of my arrows without a moment’s real unease. I was amongst my kinsmen. What need had I of weapons?
After some days, our tribes divided and went their separate ways. But before our camp was struck, a Chokenne woman came to me, and asked, “You are Siki?”
I acknowledged that it was so.
“I am Paso. Danzih, my father, would wish to speak with you.”
I was puzzled, but followed the woman as she led the way, winding between the tepees of the Chokenne.
An aged man sat awaiting my arrival, and at once I recognized him as the Chokenne warrior who had nodded his approval at our victory feast. He was so ancient that it seemed his bones strained towards the air as though they longed to shed their fleshy burden. Such skin as remained upon his person hung in many folds, as dry and brittle as oak leaves in autumn.
And yet the man’s eyes burned bright when he spoke. “Siki?” he asked. “You are daughter to Ashteh?”
I nodded, greatly surprised that he spoke my father’s name. Perhaps the old man did not fear to draw forth restless spirits for he walked so near to death himsel
f that dwellers of the afterlife held no terror for him.
Or perhaps he knew my father to be alive.
I sat beside him, eager to know why he had summoned me. And the man with the face of death stretched his thin lips in a smile and reached for me. He pulled me towards him and, tracing the line of my jaw with a withered finger, he laughed.
“Siki,” he said. “You are so like your father. I am glad to have this chance to see his daughter. Well I knew him as a boy. He was playmate to my son; I watched them grow to manhood together. They were close as blood-born brothers.” He sighed. “How proud your father would have been of your triumph.”
He did not need to tell me his own son was dead. I saw in the moisture that fast swelled and beaded in the corners of his eyes that he mourned his loss.
In a cracked dry whisper he began to tell me stories of my father’s boyhood. Good stories. Apache stories. Stories that made me smile. He told of my father’s fierceness in wrestling; his swiftness and fleetness of foot; his agility on horseback; his fearless bravado; how he had spent much time crawling upon his belly, creeping thus upon his playmates that he might startle them into screaming – just as I had once done. And yet the one thing I longed to know he did not speak of.
At last – lacking in courtesy though it was – I could not stop the words spilling from my mouth. “Does my father live?”
The old man looked at me with great astonishment. I saw then that his intention had been but to reminisce, to recall fondly a past that had gone. He looked as if I had lifted my hand and struck him.
He shook his head firmly. “No, Siki. In this you are wrong. Ashteh is dead.”
But his hands had begun to shake, and a pulse throbbed at his temple. I thought he kept something from me, and so I persisted. “You cannot be certain.”
“I can, Siki, my child. Indeed I can.”
“No. I called his name. His spirit did not come. He lives.” I would not let the matter rest but recklessly pursued it, until the old man was forced to speak words that cut me to the heart.
His voice dropped to a whisper. “Your father is dead. Of this there can be no doubt. Siki… It was I who found him.”
With trembling hands, he reached into the pouch at his waist, and pulled forth a length of sinew, beaded with turquoise and silver. He placed the beads in my hands. I saw at once it was the necklet my mother had fashioned and hung around the neck of my beloved father to keep him from harm. It had been his amulet, his most precious token.
“His bones had been picked clean by beasts,” the old man said. “It was by this necklet I knew him. I took it so that none may know him. I buried his body in a hidden place, that none may find him.”
As I fingered the turquoise, I recalled the anguished face of my mother. She had spent many moons watching, waiting, hoping for my father’s return. We had never heard his fate.
“But why did you not tell us? Why did you not bring word of his death?” I asked.
It was then that the old man’s voice cracked with pain. His face creased with the burden of his long-held secret. “Siki, I could not. I could not bring shame to his wife. To his children.”
“Shame?” I asked, fearful of the answer he might give, but unable to stop the questions tumbling from my mouth. “Why would there be shame in his death? He died a warrior, did he not?”
“No, Siki, he did not.” The old man clutched my hand, his clawed fingers digging deep in my palm. “Siki… I would not tell you this, but it seems you burn to have knowledge of it. I see you will not rest until you know the truth.” A shaking sigh rattled his chest and tears began to trickle from his ancient eyes. “I found many bodies grouped together – slain by a Mexican ambush. Your father’s was not amongst them. His was a great distance apart. Alone. He had fled from the fight. Deserted his brothers. Siki, my child … your father died the death of a coward.”
The horses of our tribe were roped with litters carrying tepees and hides, but we had brought many more animals from Mexico, and thus when we parted from our brothers and began our journey towards our Black Mountain home, I rode the dark mare of which I was so fond.
My people moved freely across the great land made by Ussen, the children playing and laughing, the women chattering and scolding, the men telling tales of hunting and battle. It was a journey of some days, and as we travelled I kept to myself, for I had much to brood upon. In doing so, I fell behind, and as we approached the uplands I found myself riding alone.
The old man had wearied himself in talking with me. Saying only “We will speak more of this. But not today,” he had entered his tepee and dropped its flap against me. Though I had sought him before we went from the plateau, he had been sleeping. I had not bade him farewell and I could not help but think I would not see him again on the living earth.
The certainty of my father’s death should have brought some relief to my troubled mind. And yet now I knew he had fled – abandoning his brothers to their deaths – and thus died a coward, and a traitor to his tribe. Punte had seen him run, I was certain, and had told his son – for how else could Keste have taunted me? But Chee remained in ignorance, so I must believe that his father had seen nothing. Golahka too had said naught. A new fear now draped itself around my neck, for I had seen Punte’s look of fury. Would he keep silent now I was following the warrior’s path? Or would whispers spread from ear to ear? How was I to endure if all the tribe knew of my father’s disgrace?
Each Apache is answerable for none but himself. His own actions alone have the power to defame him. If a parent is dishonoured – even if he is banished from the tribe – no blemish falls upon his offspring. Each child starts his life afresh; a stain does not spread from one generation to the next and soil the innocent along with the guilty. This I knew. And yet I felt shame, sharp in my breast and as cold as the head of Tazhi’s spear.
As I rode, my woman’s curiosity could not leave alone the thought of my father, but nagged and tore at memories of him.
He had often swung me upon his shoulders and carried me between the tepees, exchanging an easy word here, a friendly greeting there. To me, it had seemed he was adored by all and I had taken a child’s pride in his being so beloved. But now I was grown to womanhood, I wondered at it. For I knew well that unspoken enmities – untold divisions – may lie between adults that a child’s eyes do not see. Courageous as my father had always seemed, I could not have known the truth of what lay in his heart.
When I crossed the plain, I was riddled with confusion. I doubted my father, I doubted myself, and I began to doubt my Power. So certain had I been that I could call my father from the afterlife. So certain had I been that because he did not come he must yet live. It seemed my Power was a weak and fractured thing.
Ahead of me, the last of my tribe rode the winding path into the mountains. They were gone from my sight when the dark mare’s hooves struck the rocky trail of our home range. I was in my own land, entering the high mountains where no Mexican had ever ventured. I rode incautious, my mind full, my attention elsewhere. Though I was in sun, my arms prickled with a sudden chill, and yet so deep in thought was I that I paid no heed. I had forgotten every lesson that Golahka had taught me.
It should not have taken the soft twang of a bowstring to remind me I had an enemy. One, moreover, who knew these mountains as well as I. One as skilled in hunting and tracking as the finest of our warriors, and whose aim surpassed all.
Yet it was not until an arrow pierced my thigh, pinning it to the dark mare’s flank, that I remembered Keste.
The mare stumbled as the arrow struck, and I felt her hindquarters bunch for flight. But before she could run, a second arrow pierced her throat and she fell, trembling, to the ground. I felt her spirit slip from her as she rolled upon her side, her great weight trapping my other leg under her body. The bone of my shin snapped against the rock.
I lay unmoving, helpless as an infant strapped to its cradleboard, and waited for my death. But sending me swiftly to the afterlife was
not Keste’s intention. As I lay and no end came, I understood his mind. The mountain lion will not always kill its prey outright. Sometimes it will toy with it idly, for amusement, and thus it was with Keste. He did not wish me dead. Not yet. First he wished me pain.
I knew he would be coming down from the rocks where he had concealed himself. As in our fight with stones and slings, he wished to stand above me and see me quail before him. Now how grievously I felt the loss of my quiver of arrows. Tazhi’s spear was cracked and broken in my fall. My only weapon was my flint-bladed knife, and trapped as I was, it was of little use against my enemy. And yet I needed something in my hand to defend myself from his cruelty. Dizzied with pain, I reached for my knife, and as I did so my hand brushed the pouch of ammunition that Golahka had given me.
The gun. It was slung across my back. I knew not how to use it. But Keste did not know that. And a gun is not silent. The glinting metal gave me hope.
When Keste came into view he was not watching me, but rather eyeing the trail to ensure no warriors had turned back to find me.
Hard indeed was it to wrestle the gun from my back. Blood streamed from my pinioned leg, and I was becoming weak. Yet I did so, struggling to feed it with a shot, and ramming it home as the Mexican had done. Twisting my body, I concealed the weapon until I could make use of it. I laid my head upon the ground, with a desperate wish that I would not sink into unconsciousness.
It was then that Keste came to me. His shadow was upon me, blotting out the sun, and I felt the chill of his hatred. I lay bleeding, broken, defenceless. I had to make him think I had lost all hope.