Power in the Blood (15 page)

In time, he saw he must do something different to win female companionship. He must leave New York, leave the civilized world and go west for inspiration, depict the crude characters and imposing landscape beyond the Mississippi. Catlin and Bingham had done it, and so could Dunnigan. He would become famous, and fame would bring its own reward. He had faint hope that this might be achieved before Lovey Doll found and wed some cattle baron or railroad magnate, but didn’t such gentlemen reside in New York or Chicago or San Francisco? Lovey Doll was stranded far from these marital hunting grounds, for the moment at least.

Nevis had been in the west almost four months, and the work before him now was his first commission in all that time: a likeness of Venus to be hung in a smoke-filled barroom in Kansas City. Nevis felt his talent was deserving of a place in the Louvre, not the Plainsman Saloon, among brimming cuspidors and the ubiquitous smell of beer. No customer in such a setting would appreciate what he had accomplished. The common reaction would be a silent wish in the mind of the cowboy critic to be lying beside Venus, fondling her bosom, the very thing Nevis wanted for himself, he had to admit.

Nail in His Feet and Bleeding Heart of Jesus took a particular interest in Drew when their grandfather brought him to the mission. They sat beside his bed until Father Zamudio shooed them away, as he had shooed away Smart Crow Making Mischief without allowing the old man access to his grandchildren. Smart Crow was forever creating a disturbance at the mission, trying every other month to lure the boys away with him.

Drew had been delivered after sundown, was placed immediately in the dormitory and promptly fell asleep, watched over by the silent boys. He awoke the following afternoon, and found himself surrounded by empty beds. An elderly Indian woman seated beside him fetched Father Zamudio, who brought to Drew’s bedside a bowl of steaming broth, or soup, Drew couldn’t figure out which; he gulped it down anyway, watched by the priest.

When the bowl was empty, Father Zamudio asked, “What things do you remember before today?”

To Drew’s ears it was a nonsensical question; he could remember his whole life, practically, given enough time. He said nothing.

“Before this time,” the priest said, “do you remember how it is you came to be at San Bartolomeo?”

“I never heard of it,” Drew said.

“That is this place. You remember nothing?”

“No,” Drew told him. He didn’t want anyone going out into the mountains to look for his father. Drew preferred Morgan dead, unable to betray him again. It was simpler that way. He felt no shame about the lie.

“You do not remember how it was the Indian found you?”

“No.”

“Your name?”

“John.”

“Your family name?”

“… Bones.”

“Bones?” Drew nodded. The name had sprung into his head from nowhere, and he found he liked it.

“You came from Santa Fe?”

“No.”

“You remember this?”

“From somewhere else. Not there. I don’t remember where, though.”

He didn’t want anyone asking questions in Santa Fe, prompting recollections of the family that came to town on the stagecoach and left again the same day in a wagon. Someone would recall the Kindreds, and Drew wanted that name removed from his life. It was a lie to protect himself from his immediate past. It was no one’s business but his own. He was quite proud, in fact, to have lied so readily and convincingly to the man with the doleful face and long black skirts. The priest had very dark eyes that seldom blinked. Drew knew he was being studied, evaluated, and this made him nervous. He made up his mind the man would never learn anything from him. It would be a kind of game. He knew he had to match the gaze of the priest, not glance guiltily away from those darkly probing eyes. It was important to win this game of looking and looking back.

Father Zamudio believed nothing the boy told him. The boy had not suffered greatly in the wilderness surrounding the mission, was neither starving nor perishing from thirst. Wash the dust from him and he would be no worse for his experience, whatever that might have been. He lied well, without fear, and it was this strength in untruth that Father Zamudio found disturbing. Something bad must have happened, something the boy felt had to be kept hidden. Perhaps Smart Crow should have been invited inside just this once to explain the circumstances, but that would have resulted in the old man haranguing his grandsons and Father Zamudio himself at close range, something everyone but Smart Crow wanted to avoid.

The two grandsons were already curious about the young stranger Smart Crow brought in from the mountains, and this might prove advantageous. A boy might talk to other boys, where that same boy refused to answer an adult, or lied, as this John Bones did.

“You are strong now? You can walk?”

“Yes.”

“Come with me.”

He led Drew around the mission. San Bartolomeo was a hollow square of adobe brick to the west of the Jemez range. A heavy wooden gate beneath the arch in one wall lent the place a fortress air. One side of the square was a chapel, the second a classroom in which another priest, Father Dominguez, was teaching a lesson in Spanish. A kitchen and a dormitory formed the square’s third side, and flanking the gate on the fourth were a storeroom and the quarters of Fathers Zamudio and Dominguez. These two were the only whites; everyone else was Indian.

Drew was taken through a small door in the gate and shown the gardens of corn and squash. A short distance beyond lay several rows of adobe houses such as Drew had seen in Santa Fe, with Indians moving among the deep shadows inside, most of them women, Drew noted. Everyone but the priests wore simple cotton garments of white, and all the males wore their hair cut short, like white men. Drew didn’t think they looked like Indians at all, certainly not like any he’d been expecting. The sole exception so far had been the old man who had rescued him, the one with the fingernails growing through his hand. Drew asked Father Zamudio about that, and learned the name of his savior.

“His hand is this way because it is the hand of a murderer. With this hand he killed his own son. He holds it so, in the fist, to punish himself. Many years now he has done this, but the nails still grow. His regret is sincere, I think. How many men would do this to their own flesh for what they have done?”

“Why did he kill his son?”

“Why? Because his son became a follower of Christ, and brought his own sons here to learn our ways. Smart Crow is too proud of his past to accept this. He was in his youth a warrior who killed many men, Indians and whites. He is Apache. You have heard of these?”

“They like to fight.”

“He tries to win his grandsons from us, to teach them the old ways of his people. They do not wish to leave, so this makes him angry, with them, with me, with things he cannot make different. Soon he will die, without finding Christ, but we have the boys. You will meet them and talk. They have English.”

“All right.”

“Smart Crow has never come with mules before. Where did he find them?”

“I don’t know,” Drew lied. “I thought they were his.”

“He will come back and ask again for at least one of his grandsons. He thinks he has paid for one by bringing you here. That is the Indian way, one soul exchanged for another, like clay pots.”

“Oh,” said Drew, disappointed to learn he was just an item of barter.

He was left alone for the remainder of the afternoon, free to wander at will inside and outside the mission. Drew’s explorations revealed little that Father Zamudio hadn’t already shown him, and he realized he would have to leave. Drew didn’t believe in God anymore, but found it unsettling anyway to be within a Roman Catholic institution. Morgan and Sylvie had never said a good word about Roman Catholics. Drew understood all Catholics were the servants of a man who lived in a big town called Rome in another country across the sea. This man, a powerful king of some kind, was called the Pope, and he slept in a huge room filled with dazzling treasure given to him by his servants worldwide, who feared they would be excluded from heaven if they did not contribute wealth to the Pope’s vast palace of marble and gold.

Drew couldn’t see any gold at San Bartolomeo; presumably it had all been given to the Pope. Morgan had always said Catholic churches kept some of it back to gild their multitude of images and statuary, but the life-sized crucifix in the chapel was carved from wood, the Christ figure painted in very realistic colors; there wasn’t even any gold paint that Drew could see.

The Indians encountered on his wanderings around the mission either stared at him expressionlessly as he passed them by, or smiled, but the smiles were largely confined to the very young. He definitely did not belong there, and would have to leave as soon as he possibly could.

Father Dominguez, short and round, with a beard far exceeding in length the beard of Father Zamudio, fetched Drew to supper late in the day. He was escorted to the kitchen and given a place at one of the crude benches, seated between two Indian boys. Grace was given in Spanish by Father Zamudio. Drew understood nothing but the name John Bones, mentioned twice; apparently thanks were being given to God for his safe rescue from the wilderness. The name of Smart Crow Making Mischief was not mentioned, so far as Drew could tell.

There was a peculiar flat bread to eat, and corn, plus a kind of cornmeal mush that Drew found uncomfortably hot, but he was hungry enough to eat two bowlfuls, his mouth quietly aflame. The boys on either side of him, obviously twins, began talking, their manner excited yet shy.

“I am Nail in His Feet. This is my brother.”

“My name is Bleeding Heart of Jesus.”

“Our father named us. Our grandfather killed him because he found Christ. Our mother was already dead.”

“She died putting us in the world,” Bleeding Heart of Jesus explained.

“Grandfather was angry with the names and killed our father,” Nail in His Feet said. “He says we must go with him and learn the old ways, but Father Zamudio will not let him inside the gate.”

“He would never leave if he got inside,” Bleeding Heart of Jesus assured Drew. “He is a very crazy old man who will never take Christ into himself.”

“We feel very sorry for him.”

Drew said, “Well, he wasn’t so crazy he didn’t save me.”

“It was to make Father Zamudio give us up to him,” Nail in His Feet insisted. “We know this about him. Many times he has come with deer, but Father Zamudio never gave us back to him for the meat.”

“We will not go outside the walls, or Grandfather would take us away with him to the mountains.”

“We would never see this place again.”

“It was very funny to see Grandfather lose his deer and not get us,” Bleeding Heart of Jesus said, politely hiding a smile behind his hand.

“Why were you in the mountains?” asked his brother.

“I don’t remember,” Drew said.

“Your name is Bones, truly?”

“Yes.”

“That is
huesos
in Spanish.”

“What is it in Apache?”

“We do not know,” Nail in His Feet said proudly.

“We have never learned it,” Bleeding Heart of Jesus stated. “It is the tongue of unbelief. We do not want it.”

“No,” agreed Nail in His Feet; he added, “You are a believer?”

“Yes,” Drew said, sensing the need for another lie. “It was God that told your grandfather where to find me.”

The twins nodded in unison. “Yes,” said Bleeding Heart of Jesus, “that is what happened, but even such a thing as this does not make grandfather seek our Lord, which makes us sad.”

“Very sad,” emphasized Nail in His Feet.

“It’s a shame,” Drew agreed.

He liked the brothers. They were several years older than himself, the handsomest boys he had ever seen. Their hair hung straight to a line above their ears and eyebrows in a bowl snip, the kind of trim Sylvie had given Drew when he was little. Bleeding Heart of Jesus and Nail in His Feet gave the impression of being very young and very old at the same time. It was a pity they accepted so wholeheartedly the teachings of the church; Drew would have liked to have them as his friends, but such a thing was not possible in the light of his atheism. Drew took his nonbelief very seriously, suspecting it was the key to his new feelings about everything. The chasm between himself and the twin brothers was wide enough, they being Indians, but their piety made it wider still.

“Father Dominguez and Father Zamudio say we will take the word of God to our people one day when we are old enough,” said Nail in His Feet.

Drew didn’t see how this was possible, since neither boy spoke Apache.

“We wish that day to be soon,” Bleeding Heart of Jesus declared, his voice bright with conviction.

Drew ate, not knowing what to say.

“Will you be here with us a long time?” asked Nail in His Feet.

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.”

“God will show you what you must do. He has protected you for a purpose. The reason is not known yet.”

“You will know one day,” Bleeding Heart of Jesus solemnly assured him.

“I hope so,” Drew mumbled.

They dogged his steps the following day. Drew couldn’t understand the brothers’ fascination with him. Both boys were friendly, cheerful, clearly somewhat in awe of his fame as a person of mysterious origin, and they seemed eager to explain their own exclusive status within the mission.

“We are Apache,” Bleeding Heart of Jesus told Drew.

“Mescalero Apache,” amended Nail in His Feet.

“The worst kind.” His brother sighed, clearly ashamed.

“Then what kind are the rest of them here?” Drew asked.

“They are not Apache; they are Pueblo.”

“They do not like us.”

“Grandfather has killed many of them a long time ago.”

“Grandfather was a war chief. He was very bad.”

“They will not let us forget.”

“No one will talk with us but Father Zamudio and Father Dominguez.”

“We are being tested. We see this and forgive them.”

“We are being made strong by their silence. We have English, like Father Zamudio. He teaches no one else this. We are special.”