Apache

  The Chokenne and Black Mountain Apache are brother tribes, woven together for many lifetimes with marriages and ties of blood. As I looked about me, I saw warriors whose faces I remembered from my childhood: boys from the Black Mountains who, on becoming men, had chosen women of the Chokenne for their brides and thus joined Sotchez’s tribe. Goyenne, daughter of Chodini, had become wife to the great chief Sotchez many summers before. He had chosen not to leave his own people when he married, and thus Goyenne had agreed to bid farewell to the Black Mountains and join the Chokenne when she wed.

  As word of the massacre at Koskineh spread around the camp, mournful cries rent the dark night. There is no sound more terrible than the Apache death wail. Those cries told of such sadness, such piercing anguish. It was hard indeed to bring our story to the ears of the Chokenne.

  Goyenne embraced me, calling me sister, before drawing me aside to hear word of the slain. When I told her of the death of Golahka’s family she wept salt tears, though she tried to hide them. I did not speak of Tazhi, for she had not known him, and in truth I did not want her pity: it would soften my resolve.

  Sotchez called upon his warriors to meet at council when the sun rose, and then all retired to their homes to mourn their slaughtered kinsmen.

  I was to stay in the tepee of a young warrior named Pocito. “Come, sister,” he said. “You are weary. Come eat, come rest, come sleep.”

  His wife, Denzhone, made much of me, bustling to lay out her finest hides upon which I might take my rest. Indeed, she was so busy that in her noise and haste she woke her children, who had been sleeping peacefully. The youngest was but still a babe; the eldest was a boy of perhaps four summers. His limbs had not quite lost their infant plumpness. He was the same size as Tazhi had been.

  The boy looked at me, his black eyes bright with curiosity. “Mother, who is she?” he asked. “Why does she come into our home?”

  Denzhone scolded him, telling him to hold his tongue, and the child asked no more questions. But deep within me, I felt the spark of curiosity smoulder and ignite.

  The child had spoken slowly, and his mouth had struggled with the shapes of the words as if they did not come easily. He had frowned while his mind reached for the simple phrases he had uttered. He had spoken as if Apache was not his mother tongue.

  I was curious, but that night I was also bone-weary. As soon as I lay upon the soft hides I had been offered, sleep enveloped me and I yielded to the silent darkness, considering the boy no more.

  When the sun rose high above the mountains, the Chokenne warriors gathered in council.

  I watched as they sat upon the ground, and bit my lip to keep inside the words that longed to spill from my mouth. My father’s father and mother were long since dead. But here were the men amongst whom my father had grown to manhood. With these warriors he had played and fought when still a boy. Did any recall him? Did any see an echo of his face when they looked upon my own? I could ask no one. The Apache are loath to speak the names of the dead lest they be recalled from the afterlife and walk upon the living earth once more. I could not ask my questions, yet neither could I silence them; they goaded me as flies in the heat of summer.

  Sotchez made a sign to Golahka, who stood and addressed all who had gathered to hear him.

  “My brothers,” he said in a voice that commanded all ears, “you know now that our people were slain at Koskineh. These were not warriors, killed honourably in battle, but women and children butchered in a time of peace. We were there to trade; we had come at the Mexicans’ invitation. We were wrong to trust those vipers, for their troops came against us. Our women, our children, the warriors who sought to defend them – all paid the price of our mistake.”

  Golahka paused until the air ached with his silence. His voice when it came again was hard as flint.

  “You all know the way of battle. You may be killed; you may return. Be certain you think of this before you make your choice. My brothers, I ask that you follow me. Avenge the wrong that has been done to our people. My kinsmen … will you come?”

  None could deny the justice of his cause. The warriors who sat upon the ground were as impatient for vengeance as I was. With fierce shouts, all agreed that they would join the Black Mountain Apache on the warpath.

  “It is well,” said Golahka. “I say now that all may know: if I am killed, none need mourn me. My family lies slain in Mexico. I am content to die there if need be.”

  “And I too,” I murmured. No kin would mourn if I did not return. None would weep. No lamenting wail would pierce the sky for me if I met my end there. My only prayer to Ussen was that I would not die before Tazhi’s spear had found the heart it sought.

  We left the Chokenne as the sun crested the sky and began its slow descent. Sotchez promised Golahka that when the winter had passed, in the moon of fresh leaves, he would join us on the warpath to Mexico. While the two men embraced as brothers and made their farewells, I looked about me.

  I was standing in the mountains where my father had played as a child. To me it seemed as though a whisper of his presence remained. If I narrowed my eyes I could almost see his boyish form wrestling with another in the dust, and my mind ran free with happy imaginings.

  Pocito bade me farewell, and his wife and children came forth to see me take my leave. As I looked upon the boy I was again seized with a woman’s curiosity. He spoke so slowly, so awkwardly. Sudden certainty crept across my mind.

  I bent my knees, lowering my face to his level, and, smiling, spoke the one word I knew of the Spanish tongue.

  “¡Adiós!”

  It was clumsily said and sounded strange in my mouth, and yet all at once, the boy’s eyes shone bright, and a babble of words streamed forth. I understood none of them.

  Still smiling, I shook my head, telling him I did not speak his mother tongue. I ruffled the boy’s hair, and then sprang onto the back of the horse behind Golahka in readiness to return home. My last sight of the Chokenne showed me Denzhone, her hand resting upon the boy’s shoulder, holding him fondly against her as if he were her true-born son. And yet I knew it could not be so. The boy they loved as their own was Mexican.

  It should not have surprised me. The Mexican has always ridden against the Apache. Summer after summer, they have murdered our warriors, slaughtered our children and taken our women for slaves. When they settled upon the land made by Ussen, they filled our grassy plains with their grazing cattle and horses and drove away our game. But why should our people go hungry amid such bounty? Thus have our warriors hunted cattle and horses instead of buffalo that they may fill the empty bellies of their wives and children.

  Sometimes, when a warrior returns from such a raid, he will also bring a child. Indeed, when Chodini had lately returned to our people driving many animals ahead, a small girl of no more than one summer had sat astride the horse in front of him. Chodini had given the child to a woman whose infant daughter had been butchered at Koskineh, for the girl would ease the aching void left by the babe’s loss. It is the custom of our people to rear such captive children as our own. Soon the girl would be calling the Apache woman mother as if she had never known any other. Like the son of Denzhone, the girl would become one with our people, a Mexican no more – and as precious and well beloved as Tazhi had been.

  We rode but half a day before the setting sun made us halt our journey homewards, and we rode in silence. Soldiers rarely ventured into the Chokenne range, but well we knew that there were bloodied hunters amongst the Mexicans – men of dreadful skill – who sold Apache scalps for cold coin as they might sell the tanned hide of a deer. We made no fire and ate little, for our stomachs had been well filled by the hospitality of the Chokenne.

  Strange it seemed to lie on the ground so near to Golahka, and my heart thudded uncomfortably with its awkwardness. Sleep was slow to claim me, and dreams, when they came, were full of Tazhi. Over and over I saw him standing in front of a horse, holding his spear as if he were invincible. Again and again, above the nois
e and screams, I heard his high-pitched, furious shout. I saw the Mexican, my enemy, and heard his laugh. Saw his sword swing. Red steel. And Tazhi was no more. Each time, I woke sweating, my hands balled into fists that ground against my eyes in frustration.

  And then, shortly before dawn, I slipped into a different dream entirely.

  I was running. Running with happy ease, my heart light and free from care. Out of my range of vision, his moccasins pounding the dry earth behind me, was my father. Often we had raced thus in my childhood; he had joyed in my fleetness of foot with a father’s great pride.

  We ran on, and on. But slowly, for thought comes slow and heavy in dreams, I realized something was badly amiss. He ran not in joy, but in terror. This was a wild, reckless flight. He ran with his mouth agape, his throat and tongue drying in the hot air, his breath broken and laboured. He was exhausted: his pace faltered; his steps grew uneven; he staggered. At last he collapsed, spent, beside a rock. I stopped, but in this strange dreamworld I found I could not turn to face him.

  And yet I knew how he looked, for had I not seen his image flash through my mind before I began my journey to the Chokenne? I knew he stood eyes wide with fear – and now I knew the cause, for I heard the soft thud of pursuing feet. I could not see who hounded my father. My own body had grown immensely heavy; I had not the strength to move. I hung my head with weariness and stared at the ground.

  And as I stared, from behind me – from where my father drew anguished breaths – came a dark stain that pooled about my feet like blood. A stain that widened and grew and spread. A stain that crept across the dry earth until it covered the plains below me, and the whole land was smothered with a vast, black shadow.

  At dawn, Golahka seemed to sense my distress, for he set me a task that would stretch my mind as surely as it would my body.

  “Siki,” he said, “you must yet prove yourself worthy to train as a warrior. You will go now. I shall remain here until the sun is high. It is two days’ journey to the camp of our people. Get there before me.”

  At first, I was dismayed by the simplicity of the task. But then he added, “Enter our camp on horseback.”

  “On horseback?” I echoed, perplexed.

  Golahka knew – as did I – that there were no horses near but those of the Chokenne. If I journeyed the half-day back to their settlement I could not hope to reach our own tribe before Golahka. Even had I done so, I could not have taken a horse from our brothers, and it was doubtful indeed that they would give me one; as winter approached surely they would have none to spare, for horses provide meat when it is needed, as well as the means by which we ride.

  Golahka watched me, his black eyes burning as I sought to divine his meaning.

  “There are no horses…” I mumbled stupidly, my brow furrowing with confusion.

  “None?” he asked. It was spoken as a question, and yet I knew it was not so. With a single word, he had explained all.

  There was but one horse close by.

  My eyes rested on the dark mare Golahka rode, who stood grazing beside us. When I looked back at Golahka, I at last understood his meaning. He meant me to pit my wits against his; to ambush him, as he had ambushed me; all this and yet more – he had challenged me to take from him his horse, and to ride her home before him.

  It was an impossible task. He could have ordered me to pluck the sun from the wide sky, or peel the moon’s image from the river, and with these two tasks I would have had, perhaps, some chance! But to outwit a warrior as famed as Golahka? It could not be done! Of this I was certain. Yet I clung to the challenge; it would absorb my whole attention and keep my mind from my troubled dreams.

  And so I set forth without further word, my head buzzing with plans. So full was it, there was no room to admit any thought of my father.

  I still had half a day’s journey through the mountains of the Chokenne before I would reach the great plain that divided the ranges. I moved at a steady lope, a pace between a walk and a run which carries the Apache across much land in but a short time. I wanted to get far, far ahead of Golahka that I might give myself time to think, to plan how I might outwit him. As I covered the ground, I kept my eyes opened wide, observing every gully, every tree, every hiding place from which I might ambush the great warrior.

  I rejected them all. Golahka, I knew, would see each place as I did. He would know at once if I was concealed. And even if he did not, what then? I could not hope to push him from his horse; my strength was not equal to his. If I dropped from a tree upon his back, I would have as much chance of toppling him as the mountain rat against the lion.

  How, then, if I approached while he slept? I knew I could come upon the deer silently – could I do in like fashion against Golahka? I turned the thought in my head as I hastened through the winding mountains. Certain was I that I could approach him. But that was all. Golahka slept like the wolf, in short snatches: ever alert, ever wary. Having set this challenge, he would keep the horse hobbled – her front legs tied together – close by him, and I did not see how I could set her free and vault upon her back with not a single sound. And yet another thing decided me against this plan: it was too simple an idea; one that any who hoped to be a warrior might decide upon. Golahka would expect it. No… I must find another strategy. One that he would not anticipate. I must find a way to deceive him.

  And yet, try as I might, I could not. I kept up my pace through the long, hot day. The sun was high as I reached the wide plain and this I began to cross in great haste. It was not cautious to do so – in bright daylight I could be watched by any enemy that lurked unseen. I was utterly without cover, utterly unprotected, as I ran. Yet I trusted that Ussen would keep me from danger, and in truth the task had a greater importance in my mind than my own safety.

  At moonrise I walked on, not ceasing until I at last reached the foot of the Black Mountains. Here I settled, and chewed upon more of Dahtet’s dried meat. Then I lay upon the dusty ground that I might refresh my body with some little sleep. Across the flat land Golahka would come at dawn, and this time I knew he would cross swiftly, meaning to reach our camp before I did.

  Golahka was a proud warrior; he did not intend that I should succeed. The knowledge that this was so, that he did not think me capable of besting him, hardened my will. I would do it. I would. I wished it with such fervour that I too slept in short snatches. In the times of wakefulness, I lay looking at the bright stars that Ussen had set in the night sky, and I prayed that an idea would come. And in the darkest moment before dawn, it did.

  I hastened once more, climbing into the mountains I had known and loved since my infancy. It was now but a short distance to our camp: one day’s journey through the rocky land I had known all my life. Golahka too knew the land there well. As well as I. Almost.

  Golahka had been born of the Hilaneh Apache, whose territory lay to the east. His boyhood days had been spent at the headwaters of the Hila River, and not amongst these stones. He had not played in these mountains as a child. And there are places known only to children where they may hide and an adult will never think to look. Golahka’s eldest boy had known of these, but Golahka did not.

  There was one such hiding place: a sloping ravine whose walls were so narrow that they blocked out the sun. It began high in the last rocky outcrop before our camp, close to the path where Golahka must pass. It then declined sharply, ending at the foot of the rocks near the river where surely Golahka must pause and allow his horse to drink before riding home. Many times had I slid through this tunnel in play, delighting in the speed of my descent, but I had not ventured there since before Tazhi’s death. I hoped I had not grown so much I could no longer use it.

  This then was my plan: to lay a false trail and deceive the greatest of the Apache warriors. My head told me that such a thing was not possible, and yet hope tiptoed on softly moccasined feet, setting my heart beating with excitement.

  I was almost within sight of our camp when I began to lay my false trail. Until then I had not tro
ubled to cover my tracks; Golahka would see I had moved with weary urgency. If he thought I was racked with desperation and had become careless, so much the better.

  There was but one path Golahka could follow upon the mare. Had he been on foot, my task would not have been so easy, but the ways a horse may pass are not so many as those a lone Apache may choose. I came to the jutting rock in the shade of which I knew lay the entrance to my tunnel. Further along the path was an overhanging tree. Here would I set my mock ambush.

  I knew I would fail. I planned to. Yet Golahka must believe I had wished to succeed. And thus, in this one place, I covered my tracks. I covered them, but not so well that a skilled warrior would fail to see the small signs I had seemingly overlooked in my youthful carelessness – a broken stalk of grass, a bent twig. Signs that would tell Golahka I was hidden behind a rock beside the tree, waiting to throw him from his horse.

  And what next? I could not hope to wrest him from the mare’s back by strength alone. Golahka knew that as well as I. So I would have to dislodge him by other means.

  It was as if Ussen himself wished to aid me. One of the tree’s branches grew across the path; Golahka would lower himself onto the mare’s neck to avoid it when he passed. But the branch was thin, and supple, and it was a simple task to pull it back and tie it to the rock I hid behind. As he came level with the tree, I would cut the strip of hide that held it, and the branch would spring forward and dislodge the warrior from his horse.

  Such was the plan I wished Golahka to see. It could not succeed. I hoped only that he would believe I had made an earnest attempt at ambush. As I sat behind the rock awaiting his arrival, I began to feel the plan was so simple he would not believe in its sincerity. He would at once see I meant to deceive him. If he did, I would indeed fail.

  Golahka had given me half a day’s lead, but he had travelled swiftly behind me. I did not have half a day to wait before his horse approached, and I heard the warrior’s soft, mocking laugh. He said nothing. The mare came on but I dared not peer over the rock. As she drew level, I sliced the buckskin with my flint knife. The branch snapped back, sweeping across the path with a crack. It hit nothing. The horse walked on beneath it, and I saw she was already riderless.