Ghost Warrior (61 page)

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Authors: Lucia St. Clair Robson

BOOK: Ghost Warrior
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When Geronimo arrived with a few of his men, he took
the glasses from Kanseah and studied the riders.
“They're the Pale Eyes' dogs, Martine and Kayitah.” Geronimo handed glasses to the warrior named Yanozha. “I have bullets for them.”
“Kayitah is my wife's cousin,” said Yanozha. “If you lift your rifle, I will kill you.” He climbed onto a rock and waved at them. “Come up here,” he shouted. “No one will hurt you.”
When Martine and Kayitah arrived, they found Lozen and the other warriors waiting to hear what they had to say.
Kayitah began. “All of you are my friends, and some of you are my relatives. I don't want you to get killed.”
Geronimo interrupted. “We do the killing.”
Kayitah held his temper. No one expected courtesy from Geronimo. “The Bluecoat named Beak waits for you at Shady Canyon near the Bavispe River. He offers you peace.”
“We are done talking with Bluecoats.”
“He brings you presents, too.” Kayitah knew that would bring Geronimo in, if nothing else would, but he gave them other reasons. “You people have no chance. You eat your meals running. At night you cannot rest. You listen for a stick breaking or a rock rolling down the mountain. Even the high cliff is your enemy. At night when you dodge around, you might fall off that cliff.” Then he told them one more fact that they already knew. “You have no friends in the world.”
 
 
WHILE RAFE WAITED FOR THE COFFEE TO BOIL, THE CANYON to sprout Apaches, and hell to freeze over, he thought about the lunacy of the situation. Any sane man would have refused this assignment. Lt. Charles “Beak” Gatewood was still sane after ten years of chasing Apaches, yet here he sat waiting to make a deal with the most mendacious, murderous mortal to claim the rank of human being, or maybe brevet human being.
Gatewood's presence was more remarkable because he looked too spindly to stand upright in a breeze, and unlike
Britt Davis, he didn't trust Indians. In fact, Rafe thought, if Davis hadn't quit the army to oversee a Mexican rancho, he would probably be here instead of Gatewood. Rafe would've enjoyed Davis's company more. The scouts might call Gatewood Beak, but Rafe's personal nickname for him was Bleak. He was as honest as Davis, and that counted when dealing with Apaches.
General Miles had ordered Gatewood to take twenty-five soldiers with him. Rafe knew that was another of General Always Too Late To Fight's bad ideas. Geronimo would never come in to talk if a lot of Bluecoats were loitering about. Rafe and Beak were relieved that the border outposts could spare only ten men. Now Rafe wished those fifteen extra soldiers had come along. He figured they would have given the Apaches someone else to shoot at.
Rafe and Gatewood, the interpreter George Wratten, and the Apache scout Martine ate their breakfast of corn pone and coffee. Martine had returned the day before with word that Geronimo would come for talks today. Geronimo had kept Kayitah as a hostage.
General Miles must have had a change of head about the usefulness of the Apache scouts. The rumor was that he had offered Martine and Kayitah seventy thousand dollars each if they persuaded Geronimo to surrender. That would buy a considerable amount of loyalty and enthusiasm from a white man, but it was meaningless to an Apache. All they wanted was some land on Turkey Creek near Fort Apache, where they could live with their families. Miles had promised them that, too. Hell, Miles would have promised them the moon and stars to get Geronimo in his clutches.
Since the money didn't mean anything to them, the scouts might be plotting an ambush with Geronimo's crowd. Kayitah was related by marriage to one of Geronimo's men, and he was friends with most of the rest. Maybe he hadn't stayed behind as a hostage, but as an ally. A plot hardly seemed necessary, though. The men of the small detachment were sitting ducks.
The morning advanced while Rafe, Beak, Wratten, and
Martine played whist in the shade of the walnut tree. Gatewood had just decided Geronimo was going to stand them up when a figure rose from the grass a few hundred yards away. Another appeared to the west and one to the east.
As the three Apaches walked toward them, two more popped up.
“How long you reckon they been there?” asked Beak.
“Probably since before sunup,” said Rafe.
“Then I guess they'd've killed us already if they'd a mind to.”
Rafe grunted. He was too busy counting heads to make conversation. His fingers twitched to reach for his carbine. When the last warrior appeared, Rafe totaled only fifteen plus Geronimo. Was this the fabled Chiricahua force that had beleaguered the armies of two countries for more than a year?
Rafe did not see Lozen among them. The scouts said that the Chiricahuas kept her out of sight, assuming the Pale Eyes wouldn't understand her unique position. They thought the Americans would judge her a loose woman. They were probably right.
The men stood out of rifle range while Geronimo and Mischievous walked to the camp under the trees. Mischievous was as tall and handsome as his father, Cochise. He was the buffalo-nickel image of a chief. Geronimo's face would have looked more at home on a pirate's flag than a coin. Even in the August heat, he wore a dusty, rumpled, black coat over his breechclout, faded cotton shirt, and cartridge belt. He had knotted one red bandana around his head and another at his neck.
Geronimo laid his Winchester on the ground, but his men kept their weapons. George Wratten stood by to interpret. Geronimo shook Gatewood's hand. The old man's smile reminded Rafe of the cheeky papier-mâché skulls the Mexicans made for their Day of the Dead festivals.
“Greetings, my old friend.” Geronimo was positively jovial. The Pale Eyes were holding council with him on his ground, on his terms, and giving him presents, too. “What's
the matter with you, Long Nose? Your legs look like a coyote's. Did you get skinny chasing us?”
“I'm glad you've come.” Gatewood and Geronimo made themselves comfortable on two saddles laid across fallen logs. While George Wratten gave away the dried horse meat and other delicacies, Rafe handed out tobacco and papers.
Soon the warriors were smoking and laughing among themselves. Rafe knew what they were thinking. They would agree to meander north in the fall, visit with their families, and live on goverment rations through the winter. In spring, when life on the reservation ceased to suit them, they would take off again.
They're happy as butcher's dogs now, Rafe thought, but wait until they hear what General Miles has done with their people.
Before Rafe, Wratten, and Gatewood left Fort Apache, Miles had told them his plan. He would inform the Apaches on the reservations that the president of the United States wanted to see them and shake their hands. Then he would load them all, even the Apache scouts and those who had cooperated through thin and thinner, onto trains bound for Florida.
Arizona and New Mexico Territories would not be bothered by them again. Rafe was certain that Miles would not be bothered by his conscience, either. When it came to mendacity, Miles was a match for Geronimo. Gatewood was bothered by the scheme, but he knew he had to persuade Geronimo to surrender or the killing would never end.
Gatewood shot straight to the point. “Surrender, and you will be sent to join the rest of your people in Florida.”
“Are all of our people gone?” Geronimo looked more than stunned. He looked poleaxed.
“Every man, woman, and child.”
 
 
AS LOZEN WALKED BETWEEN THE TWO LINES OF JEERING Bluecoats, she wanted to cover her ears. She didn't care about the soldiers' taunts, but the army band's bugle, trumpets,
clarinet, fife, banjo, harmonica, drums, and tuba hurt her ears. A thousand braying mules could not have made such a racket.
She did not know that the song was “Auld Lang Syne,” so she did not understand why the soldiers were laughing. She chanted her medicine song softly. It calmed her, but she had no faith that it would help her. Broken Foot always said that medicine worked only if one had a positive attitude. That was not possible here.
Lozen walked with Stands Alone at the rear of the column of fifteen men. She felt the brief, spider-touch of Stands Alone's fingers on her hand, a plea for reassurance. Behind them trudged the fourteen other women and two children.
Nantan
Always Too Late To Fight had promised Martine and Kayitah land along Turkey Creek, but here they were, waiting to be loaded onto the train along with the people they had betrayed. Lozen found some satisfaction in the certainty that her people would make them suffer for their treachery.
Lozen glanced at Geronimo's cousin, Little Parrot. When he heard that
Nantan
Always Too Late to Fight had sent his family to that dark place called Florida, he had said he could not go on fighting, knowing he would never see them again. Others had defected, too. Geronimo and Lozen both knew then that this struggle was over and another one was beginning.
At the end of the blue tunnel of soldiers chuffed the huge iron monster that would carry them in its belly to a living death. No one had been to Florida before. People thought of it as the Death Journey that spirits made, but they would be making it while they still lived.
When fire and smoke roared from the engine, children cried and women screamed and hid their faces. Lozen flinched, but she kept walking. She chanted her Enemies-Against song.
I am of the sun.
I see from a height.
I see in every direction.
I call on earth and sky to show me.
For the past thirty years she had expected to die in battle, and maybe she would have a chance to yet. When
nantan
Always Too Late To Fight said Lozen's band would see their families, most people assumed he meant they would see each other in the Land of Death. Everyone thought the white people intended to take them only a short way in this snorting, iron wagon. Then they would kill them.
George Wratten was coming with them as interpreter. Even Lozen trusted him. Even she believed he was a friend, but if the entire nation of Pale Eyes was determined to kill them, what could he do?
Lozen knew what she could do. The soldiers had searched all of them, but they had not found the thin knife she had hidden in the thick, knee-length braid that was tucked into her belt. If the white people attacked, she would kill as many of them as she could, and then she would kill herself.
The last of the warriors climbed into the coach car. Lozen put a hand on the rail and a moccasined foot on the bottom step.
“
Shiwoye,
Grandmother.”
Lozen looked back and saw Hairy Foot dodge through the shouting mob of soldiers. He ran toward her. She turned away, mounted the stairs, and walked into the monster's belly.
The women and children boarded. Soldiers closed the doors and locked them. The whistle shrieked. The train chugged into life and crept forward.
Rafe walked alongside it in the shower of cinders and soot, and tried to catch a glimpse of her through the windows. As the train picked up speed, he stopped and watched it dwindle into the distance.
“Yalan, Shiwoye,”
he murmured. “Good-bye, Grandmother.”
GHOST WARRIORS
N
ot all Pale Eyes wished Geronimo's people ill. Kinder ones protested the conditions at Fort Pickens in the malarial swamps of Pensacola, Florida. After six months they prevailed. The government transferred Geronimo's small band to Mount Vernon barracks, a sixty-year-old army post in Alabama. The buildings occupied a rise of land, but they, too, were surrounded by swamps. The forest grew so thick around it that the Ndee men climbed trees to catch glimpses of the sky.
General Nelson Always Too Late To Fight Miles had told them that they would see their families in five days, but eight months passed before they were reunited. George Wratten stayed with them as interpreter. Dr. Walter Reed served as their physician. They had need of him.
The Ndee tried to hide their children, but the authorities found them and took them away. They sent them to the Indian school in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to be turned into lawabiding, God-fearing citizens. Kaywaykla, the child Victorio named His Enemies Lie In Heaps, was the youngest of the Chiricahuas to attend.
Lozen went with the parents when they greeted the train bringing the young ones back for holidays. They discovered to their horror that many of the children were stricken with consumption. It was a disease that they had never known. It was also a death sentence because neither their
di-yin
nor the Pale Eyes could cure it. A popular remedy with the Pale Eyes was a poisonous hallucinogen called lachnanthes mixed with alcohol, strychnine, chloroform, and morphine. Other Pale Eyes recommended the fumes from a cow barn or a syrup
containing ground-up millipedes. The People declined them all.
The children coughed. They grew thin and spit up blood. Distraught parents begged Lozen to rid the young ones of the worms that caused the sickness. Lozen ground up the root they called
narrow
and steeped it in a watertight basket with four hot stones to heat the water. She performed the traditional rituals with pollen before she gave it to her patients, but the medicine had little effect.
She had to acknowledge that her spirits had deserted her, and her medicine was useless. Whenever one of her young patients died, Lozen felt as though a part of her went with the child. She grew thin from anxiety and sorrow and lack of sleep. No one was surprised when she caught the disease herself.
Stands Alone, Niece, and Her Eyes Open sat by her side while Broken Foot worked to make her better. The entire band stood outside and sang the choruses of the healing songs. Lozen heard it all, but she felt a strange mix of detachment, disorientation, and relief. She was supposed to be the healer, not the patient, but being a patient had its advantages. She did not have to feel responsible if the medicine failed.
When Ghost Owl came for her, she closed her eyes, smiled, and greeted him as an old friend. He and she had a long journey to make together, and she was eager to start. She did not stay to see her people carry her body far into the woods and bury her where no Pale Eyes would ever find her. She did not hear the wailing that went on for weeks. She was free at last to ride with her brother across every mountain and valley of the land she cherished.
Those who revere her memory know she still rides there.

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