Apache

  As the warriors dispersed to their families to make ready for what lay ahead, Golahka came to the youths he had trained all the long winter. Chodini was with him, and it was he who spoke, first to Keste.

  “I wish that you remain here,” Chodini said.

  I heard Keste’s sharply indrawn breath and felt the strength of his shock – for indeed I was as surprised as he by Chodini’s words – but neither Chodini nor Golahka responded. Chodini was our chief, and yet he could not order Keste to remain. But only a simpleton would go against the expressed wish of one so wise and well beloved as our chief, and Keste was no simpleton.

  “Our people must be guarded,” Chodini continued. “Some warriors must remain. In this task I trust you as a man, and not a novice.”

  It was an honour for Chodini to speak to him so, and a very great honour to be trusted with the care and protection of the tribe. Despite this, Keste’s eyes spilt gall. If Keste joined the warpath, it would be his fourth such journey. When he returned, he might be admitted to the council as a full warrior. Thereafter he would be free to marry. No wonder, then, that he protested with such vigour.

  “I wish to come.” He spoke so loudly that the birds in the trees near by took flight.

  “Our people must be protected.” Chodini’s words came softly, yet none could doubt the threat contained within them.

  Keste faltered only briefly. “I will come,” he said hotly.

  And then Golahka stepped forward and spoke, his voice little more than a whisper. “Keste,” he said, “tell me this. When you hunted the deer, did Siki truly scatter the herd? Or were they poised for flight before she moved?”

  Cold horror clutched my stomach to hear Golahka speak so. To talk of this now, at such a time, in such a place! I knew not what it meant. It seemed I balanced on the edge of an abyss while I waited for Keste’s answer.

  Yet Keste too was alarmed by Golahka’s question. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. Opened it once more, but made no sound.

  And then I knew why Keste could say nothing in reply. If he spoke truth now, he must confess he had lied before. If he maintained his false report, Golahka would call upon others who had hunted. For I thought I saw in the warrior’s blackly glinting eyes that someone – I knew not who – had seen the herd startle before I ran and had told him of it.

  Keste also saw what lay in Golahka’s expression. His jaw clenched tightly shut, he turned and walked silently away. Keste was defeated, but in defeat he was as full of menace as the trapped and wounded bear.

  I could not help but ask, “Who saw the deer startle?” I wished to know the name of the hunter who had spoken in defence of me.

  Golahka’s eyes showed nothing when he answered, “No one.”

  I frowned in confusion, but before I could ask more questions, Golahka said softly, “It was my own judgement told me who spoke true. None but Keste saw what you did. He has condemned himself.”

  I saw the look that passed between Golahka and our chief and I began to understand why Keste had been detained thus. They mistrusted his temper. They mistrusted his desire for fame that burned too bright, obscuring his judgement and causing him to burst with hot jealousy against any who might overshadow him. Keste, I saw in their looks, could not be relied upon; and on the warpath the warriors needed those at their backs who could be trusted without question.

  Into the silence that followed, Chodini spoke once more. To Ishta he explained, “This is a hazardous journey. Many will be the hardships; great will be the danger. I cannot make a promise to your parents that I will keep you safe. Let them decide if you follow the warpath, or if you remain to protect the camp.” To Naite he said, “You are my brother’s son: let him choose what you are to do.”

  Ishta and Naite departed to talk with their loved ones.

  Huten did not wait to hear Chodini speak. “I must stay amongst the women,” he said, his voice tight as the drawn bowstring. “You need not tell me so.” Tears began to brim upon his lids, and he turned swiftly and fled before he could shame himself before his chief.

  There was a short silence; then Chodini turned to Chee. My friend hung his head, waiting calmly to do as he was requested. But here Golahka intervened.

  “This boy has the qualities to make a fine warrior. If he wishes to come – if his parents permit it – we would have need of him.”

  Chee’s chin lifted proudly. Golahka honoured him speaking thus; no parent would refuse him. Chee’s return to Mexico was certain. He nodded gladly, and then ran to spread word amongst his family.

  Golahka’s black eyes then settled upon me. I stood, feeling the weight of them, but not daring to look into his face.

  “Full well I know this novice wishes to join us,” he said.

  I scarcely breathed.

  Chodini seemed troubled. “She is but slight for such a task.”

  “Indeed, my chief,” conceded Golahka. “Yet she was wronged at Koskineh. She has sworn vengeance.”

  There was a pause, while Chodini weighed the warrior’s words. Golahka spoke again. “My chief, truly I think she must come.”

  “Must?”

  “Indeed. For if we tell her nay, she will but follow on her own, and who knows then what ill may befall her. Is it not so, Siki?”

  It was then I dared look up, and saw the face of Golahka creased with teasing mirth. And the loved, wise head of our chief nodding his assent.

  I was to go. I should not have doubted it. Ishta and Naite were likewise to follow the warpath. This was not the first time they had accompanied the warriors; they were already familiar with the tasks they must perform. But Chee and I had much to learn before the morning, and Golahka spent a long time that day instructing us in the duties we would undertake while with the war party. Sitting on the soft dry earth in the shade of a tall pine, we breathed in Golahka’s lessons even as we inhaled the scent of the tree’s new growth.

  War was a solemn, spiritual matter, Golahka told us, and we must learn the sacred words in the war language of the Apache. The common names of things were not to be used: our knives were called instead “that with which we cut”; our hearts became “that by which we live”; and the sacred pollen with which we would daub our faces “that which makes life”. In this way was the war party’s purpose sanctified, for battle is not a daily occurrence, and must not be undertaken lightly. Many were the rites we should observe and the rituals we should follow – and all had to be done correctly, lest we offend the spirits and call down misfortune upon our heads.

  “You are also to perform the heavy work of the camp: collect wood, light fires, carry water, cook, and keep watch while the warriors take their rest. You must be first to rise, and last to sleep. You are not to speak unless invited to do so, and must then give but short replies. You will eat only such food as you are offered once others have taken their fill. This you must eat cold…”

  In short, we were to serve, and to endure all hardships silently. In doing so we but followed the example of our chief, Chodini; as we would serve the warriors, so he served his people. To become a warrior, first must one learn to observe and supply the needs of others. This is the way of the Apache.

  Such lightness of childish spirit as had survived deep within me was now extinguished by the solemnity of the task that lay ahead. Henceforth I could only wait for our departure, which would come on the morrow, and while I did so, the sacred duties I would have to observe lay heavy upon my shoulders.

  When Golahka had finished his oration, I returned to Dahtet’s family, brooding upon what was to come. At first I thought the tepee empty, but then from within I heard the soft sound of weeping. Lifting the flap, I entered, and found Dahtet.

  It seemed that stalking from the warriors’ council, Keste had unleashed his temper upon her. As she went to collect water, she had approached him and asked gently, as was her way, what angered him. He had not raised a hand to her, but his words had cut her as deeply as would his flint-bladed knife. I questioned her, but she told m
e nothing of what he had said. Instead, she began to speak of Toah, the Dendhi chief, and his wife, Kaywin, sister to Golahka.

  “They say Toah was cruel to her… That when he was but a boy, he visited the Hilaneh tribe of Kaywin often with his parents. He knew not how to speak to her; instead he lay in wait, and when she passed by he stole her berries and scattered her mesquite nuts upon the ground. It was his shyness, you see, that made him cruel. Yet when they were both grown, she willingly became his wife. And now, you see, he is a good husband.”

  I knew why Dahtet spoke thus. But Keste was not Toah.

  Toah was cursed with a misshapen mouth that sometimes made his speech difficult to understand. As a boy, it had been torment to him. Even now, in councils, often his leading warrior would speak the words aloud that Toah whispered haltingly in his ear. Yet Toah was full of wisdom, a fierce and warlike leader who served his tribe well and was much loved by his people.

  It was not youthful awkwardness, not the shyness of a troubled boy, that drove Keste’s cruelty. Keste would not be softened by marriage. I felt compelled to speak my thoughts.

  “Dahtet…” I spoke clumsily. “Keste burns with ambition. It makes him act without mercy. His temper…”

  I could not continue, for Dahtet was shaking her head.

  “You are wrong, Siki,” she said. “He will make a famed warrior. His ambition runs high, it is true, but so it does with all young men.”

  “No … it is more than that. He does not wish to remain here while others follow the warpath. It has made him dangerous.”

  Although Keste had shown his cruelty to her, still Dahtet leapt to his defence. It was as if she stood in the middle of a swirling torrent, Keste the rock upon which she had chosen to stand. If she once saw the truth of him, she would be lost, swept away – gone.

  “He is disappointed,” she said, “but this will pass. He is a good man, and a fine one. If he wishes me to become his wife I will do so gladly.”

  I spoke slowly, attempting to pick my words as carefully as I selected stones with which to fashion arrowheads. “I do not believe Keste will make a kind – a loving – husband.”

  Dahtet’s fury loosed itself upon me. “You believe you know him; you do not.” Her voice rose higher as she spoke, and became hard and brittle. “You see only his anger, because it is you who angers him. He says you are unnatural. Strange. An offence against the laws of Ussen. He does not think our chief should permit you to follow this path you have chosen. And perhaps you should not.”

  Had I possessed sufficient sense, I would have walked far from Dahtet when she attacked me thus. It was plain she would not heed the words of a girl who had turned from marriage and motherhood before they had even been offered. What did I know of such womanly concerns? What right had I to speak to her of them?

  And yet, stupidly, I felt I must persist. “Keste is not trusted by our chief, Dahtet. It is not I alone who dislikes him. Golahka—”

  At the mention of the warrior’s name, Dahtet’s face became a sneering mask, grotesquely distorted as though she had been slashed with a knife – shocking in one as gentle as she.

  “Ah, yes … Golahka,” she spat with contempt. “Does he not always leap to your defence? Keste says you have bewitched him.”

  Horror swept through me. To be spoken of as a witch – one who has Power and uses it for ill against others – was a terrible thing. If such a rumour took hold amongst our tribe it would imperil my life, for a proven witch is not allowed to live. I knew Keste would not speak this way openly while Chodini gave me his protection. But still I was dismayed that he had even spoken the words aloud to Dahtet – that his mind had begun to run thus – and that Dahtet had seemingly started to believe him.

  I did not wish to hear more. “Enough,” I said quietly, turning from her with a heavy heart. We spoke no more.

  Taking my weapons, I went from the tepee.

  And so I left Dahtet to her fate, as she left me to mine.

  What remained of the day passed slowly. Many times I packed and removed and packed once more the stone-headed arrows in my quiver. Most warriors, I observed, carried arrows tipped with points of metal, and the heads of their lances were fashioned from the blades of Mexican swords. I preferred stone, for stone is a living thing and sings with its own life even as the wood of my bow and the sinew of its string.

  The crescent moon was beginning to rise. I smoothed the head of Tazhi’s spear until it shone in the light. It would have its fill of blood before the moon waxed full. As the sun at last sank behind the mountains, a dark shadow swept across the plateau where we camped, bringing with it a sudden chill, and bringing to mind the dream I had once had of my father.

  Amongst the gathered tribes, there were men and women who had known him, although I could ask none for their knowledge. There is much power in a name. Even the living must use each other’s names with care. We do not speak of the dead, lest the utterance of their name draws their spirit from the afterlife. In the blackness of the night, when the owl calls, many shiver and tremble in the presence of such restless souls. Many fear, lest by careless talk they call back the dead.

  But I did not.

  When I looked upon the faces of my people as they went about their tasks, I realized there was a way I could learn the truth about my father’s fate.

  As night fell, across the camp there sounded the rhythmic beat of a drum. The mournful voice of a singer pierced the gathering darkness.

  My nerves quickened. Tonight the warriors would make the dance of war. I watched the tribes gather around the ceremonial fire, yet I stayed alone in the shadow of Dahtet’s tepee.

  I had my own purpose to fulfil this night.

  In the distance, four masked figures approached the flames, coming into the light from the four directions, their faces marked with sacred pollen. As they began to dance and chant, their shadows were thrown high against the rock faces that ringed the plateau; it appeared that the mountains danced with them, and the night throbbed with their movement. Around the fire they swayed, and began to call the names of those who would fight against our Mexican enemies. They shouted for Golahka, and he stepped into the light, his lance borne aloft. With a warlike shout he began to weave and spin. More names were called, and more warriors joined the circle, waving their weapons with fierce passion, their loud war cries echoing from the rocks, so that the earth itself seemed to shriek for vengeance.

  Power was strong in the Apache camp that night; it pulsed through the ground beneath my feet. It vibrated in the very air. I could smell it. Taste it. My fingertips pricked with the knowledge of it.

  Golahka had once asked if I had Power.

  On that night, it flowed through me.

  I sat alone, and the masked dancers howled and spun and leapt in the firelight. As the Power grew I began to speak my father’s name.

  “Ashteh,” I murmured. I would call him from the spirit world.

  “Ashteh.” His ghost would find his daughter.

  “Ashteh.” He would tell me of his terror.

  “Ashteh.” He would tell me of his death.

  The night air took his name and drew it, quivering, from the living earth to the land of the spirits. I whispered his name again, over and over, my mouth forming the words in the rhythmic fervour of an incantation: “Ashteh, Ashteh, Ashteh. Ashteh.”

  The smell of woodsmoke and sweat mingled with the scents of pine and sage. And all at once, the distant dancers blurred. The sound of their chanting faded and was no more. My heartbeat alone sounded in my ears, for it had begun to pound as rapidly as when returning from a mountain run, although I sat still unmoving. And then I ceased to hear even that. My mind loosed itself from my body and became as a breath in the night air. I was in a place where no line divides the living from the dead.

  And yet he did not come forth to greet me.

  Through that long night, over and over I invoked my father. Yet his spirit did not walk. He did not haunt the plateau where we camped, and when a
t last uneasy sleep came to me, he did not find me in my dreams.

  When I awoke, dread filled my belly, for dark suspicion – poisonous as the viper – had slithered into my mind. Perhaps my father had not come, because he could not.

  It had been bitter sorrow to lose him. Yet now I feared a horror worse than the certainty of his death.

  I feared my father lived.

  At first light, the warriors came together in silence, their painted faces dotted with pollen, bands fixed tight across their brows. Each carried his own weapons, along with provisions for three days. We would kill game as we travelled, or we would go hungry, but we would not burden ourselves with more than this. All had tied a length of cloth about their waists to serve as clothing during the day, and to wrap themselves in at night. I, who was not yet a warrior, also took such weapons as I possessed, for I could not walk amongst our enemies unarmed. My bow and quiver I had slung across my back; my knife was at my waist; and Tazhi’s spear hung, impatient, in my hand. And thus, when the chieftains led, we followed.

  Towards Mexico.

  The women and children watched solemnly, some moving their lips in fervent prayer to Ussen that their fathers, brothers, sons, would return safe. None prayed for me.

  Huten saw our departure, his face an anguished mask. I would carry its image with me as we journeyed. I passed Dahtet, who looked upon me with her gentle eyes but spoke not. We had made an awkward farewell in the quiet of her tepee, both rueing the words that had passed between us that – though forgiven – could be neither unsaid nor forgotten.

  Keste was the last, and as I walked by him he murmured so that none but I should hear, “Take care, Siki. Your father did not return from Mexico. Will you meet the same fate?”