The Wild Girl (31 page)

“
No, no, no,
old sport,” Tolley said. “Get on your toes, don’t let him get you moving backward like that.”

“He has a knife, Tolley,” I pointed out.

“Which is going to be in your gut if you do not take the offensive,” Tolley said. “On your toes, old sport. Jab and move.”

And so I took Tolley’s advice and stepped forward, jabbing Indio Juan twice in the face. The move caught him off guard and the punches stunned him, but he still managed to cut my arm with his knife.

I dropped back again and circled him, blood running down my arm.

“Well done, Giles!” Tolley said. “Keep it up, man. But you’ve got to hurt him quickly now. Two lefts and a finishing right this time. Throw the money punch, old sport; you’ve got one shot and you must give it everything you’ve got.”

I moved in again, but this time Indio Juan was ready and he thrust at me, stabbing me in the side before I was even able to land a punch. But in the heat of the moment, though I knew I’d been cut, I barely felt the knife blade, and I jabbed him twice more, rocking him, and then I stepped in again and threw the right for all I was worth, putting my full weight behind the punch and connecting on the side of his head. Indio Juan went down. And this time he stayed down.

“Yes!”
Tolley cried out.
“KO!”
He ran to me and raised my arm in the air, dancing around like a madman. “Well done, old sport! Of course, you couldn’t have done it without my expert coaching.” And for once I had to admit that Tolley was right.

Margaret and Albert had also come over to me. “You’re bleeding, Neddy,” Margaret said. “We need to have a look at that.”

“I’m all right.”

There was no cheering exactly from the spectators, but now there came a great deal of animated conversation among them. No one went over to see to Indio Juan.

“They want you to kill him now,” Albert said.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s crazy, and he brings trouble down upon the People. You must kill him.”

“He’s unconscious, for Christ sake,” I said. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Go to him now,” Albert said. “Take his knife, and slit his throat with it.”

And so I approached Indio Juan where he lay, and I took the knife from his hand, and I placed the blade against his throat.

“Go on, Ned,” Albert said. “Do it. It will go better for all of us.”

I pressed the blade harder against his throat, but my hand had started to tremble, and finally I dropped the knife. “I’m sorry, Jesus Christ,” I said, “I’m sorry, I just can’t. Not like this.” Of course, I knew even then that I should kill Indio Juan while I had the chance. But I did not. I could not. It is not such an easy thing to kill a man in cold blood, even a bad man. “Why don’t you do it, Albert?” I asked.

“Because he is not mine to kill,” he answered, “and it will make you look even weaker if you ask another to do it for you.”

“I don’t think you could do it, either,” I said. “You want to be a wild Apache like these people, but you’re a civilized man just like me.”

When it was clear that I was not going to finish Indio Juan off, two of the Apaches took hold of his legs and dragged him out of the dance circle and left him on the edge of the
ranchería
to sleep it off. The music and dancing resumed as if nothing had happened.

Margaret led me back to the wickiup where she had been lodged. In addition to my camera bag, among the items she had managed to salvage from our plundered goods was the first-aid kit. The knife wound in my side was not deep and she cleaned and bandaged it, but the slash on my arm required stitches, and this Margaret did herself, neatly and professionally, though I admit I whimpered like a baby throughout the procedure.

“God, you men are such sissies,” she said.

“I’m sorry, Mag,” I said, “but that damn needle hurts worse than the knife wound.”

“You do understand, Neddy,” she said, “that in her dance the girl announced to all that she’s marrying you? That’s why Indio Juan went off like that; he wants her for himself.”

“Shouldn’t we date first?”

“Very funny, sweetheart.”

“When’s the marriage?” I asked.

“It’s more or less already been,” said Margaret. “The Apaches don’t really have a formal ceremony. You just move in and begin living together as man and wife.”

“I’m only seventeen years old, Mag,” I said. “And she’s even younger than I am. I hadn’t really planned on settling down just yet. And especially not here.”

“I wouldn’t complain too much if I were you, little brother,” Margaret said. “She saved your life.”

“And she almost got me killed,” I pointed out. “Either way, it doesn’t do Tolley and Albert much good, does it?” I said. “Or Mr. Browning. We have to get out of here before dawn, Mag.”

“Why don’t you sleep, Neddy?” Margaret said. “You can barely keep your eyes open. I’m going to check on Mr. Browning. Maybe I’ll sit with him for a while.”

The pulsing music still played, seemed to vibrate through the ground beneath me like the heartbeat of the earth itself. I must have dozed off while Margaret was still bandaging my arm. I began a dream that I was making love to the girl, that she had come to me in my sleep, and opened my pants, and pulled me out and mounted me. I remember the wet warmth and snugness of her, a reality so unlike any dream I had ever had, so much more real, and I remember thinking in my dream that this was not at all the way I had imagined losing my virginity, I wanted to be awake, I wanted to participate. I woke up then to find her straddling me like a small, fierce animal, her thick coarse hair spilled across my face and chest as she raised and lowered herself upon me to the cadence of the drums. This coupling seemed far less an act of love or even passion, as it did one of elemental mating. I had the sense that in this way the girl was protecting her sacred womb, a kind of preemptive breeding which would ensure that no matter what happened to me, she would not have to carry Indio Juan’s child. I put my arms around her and held her and whispered,
“Está bien.”
I felt her relax against me, felt the hard urgency leave her body as she settled into a slower, softer rhythm, something that felt a bit more like lovemaking.
“There,”
I said,
“there.”

I took her by the shoulders and lifted her from my chest, pushed the hair from her face and looked in her eyes, which still would not meet mine. I took her face in my hands and turned it toward me until she was forced to look at me, her dark bottomless eyes impenetrable.
“I don’t even know you,”
I whispered. “
Yo no sé nada acerca de ti
. I don’t even know your name.”

“Chideh,” the girl said, and she lay back down on my chest and began to move upon me again. “Chideh.”

I must have fallen asleep afterward, because I was suddenly awakened by a terrible, high-pitched scream. The girl was gone. I pushed aside the blanket over the opening of the wickiup and looked outside; the moon had moved all the way across the sky but it was still night. The musicians still played but the music had taken on a new raw edge, even more disjointed, and the sounds that came from the dance were no longer of celebration, but of anger and contention. The scream came again, and I knew whose it was. I ran toward the sound.

The Apaches had discovered Tolley’s stash of wine, seven or eight bottles’ worth, and three bottles of mescal, which he had cushioned in two of the packs that had been filled with grain for the stock in case grass became scarce on our journey. Because the bottles had been concealed in this way, they must have escaped initial detection by our captors, but now someone had uncovered them and brought them to the dance. The Apaches had pried the corks out with their knives and swilled the wine down as fast as they could. They drank the mescal in somewhat more modest gulps, passing the bottle among themselves. A number of them were already very drunk. Some people still danced, but they stumbled and bumped into one another and fell to the ground, laughing or quarreling, wrestling one another drunkenly, so that you could hardly tell if they were making love or fighting. The music itself had degenerated into a mad, rhythmless cacophony, the music that one might expect to hear from an orchestra of madmen. Or in hell.

As I came into the light of the fire, I heard Tolley’s terrified scream again and I saw the silhouettes of two bodies hanging by their feet from the crossbar where the deer carcasses upon which we had feasted earlier had hung. I pushed through the small drunken crowd that had gathered to watch. Tolley and Albert were suspended from the crossbeam, their hands tied behind their backs, their heads suspended a couple of feet off the ground. A boy was raking hot coals from the fire into small piles under each of their heads. Joseph had told us of this torture, in which the Apaches slow-cook a captive’s head until his brain explodes. Albert remained stoically silent, but Tolley screamed and blubbered pitifully.

“Oh, please, God no, please don’t do this, I beg you, oh God, please, I’ll do anything, please no . . . oh God, it’s so hot, please let me down.”

Those who were watching passed a mescal bottle around, laughing and mimicking Tolley’s terrified cries. I stepped forward and slapped the boy across the back of his head, sending him sprawling into the ashes, and kicked the piles of coals out from under Tolley and Albert’s heads.

“Oh God, Giles, is it you, thank God, cut me down, please, get me down from here, please. It’s so hot.”

Three of the Apache men who had been watching approached threateningly. But by now they were already so drunk that they could barely walk, let alone fight, and I easily knocked them down. The others watching seemed to find this inordinately amusing and they laughed at their friends until they were rolling around on the ground in drunken hilarity. They seemed to have lost all focus and paid no more attention to me.

I untied Albert’s hands first. The ropes by which they had been hoisted up the crossbar were secured to the poles on either side of it and I lowered him to the ground.
“What the hell’s taking you so long?”
Tolley said,
“Good God, get me down, Giles, please.”

We untied Tolley’s rope and lowered him. “It’s all right, Tolley,” Albert said. “You’re all right, you’re okay. It’s over.”

But Tolley was weeping now, in great heaving sobs.
“Oh God . . . please, get me out of this nightmare . . . please, I want to go home now . . . oh God . . . they’re savages, they’re insane.”

“Where are Joseph and Margaret?” I asked Albert.

“Margaret went to check on Mr. Browning some time ago,” he answered, “before the drinking began. My grandfather got drunk with Charley and passed out. He has not had a drink of alcohol in ten years.”

“And Jesus?”

“I haven’t seen the boy.”

We moved farther away from the fires, fading into the shadows beyond the dance circle. Most of the Apaches were by now completely incapacitated by the alcohol, the music and dancing had come to an abrupt halt, and many had passed out where they stood, in a twisted jumble of bodies, like some strange scene of war carnage. Others sat on the ground staring vacantly in drunken stupors. We knew that this was our chance to escape. Encouraged by that possibility, Tolley managed to pull himself together, and we all hurried back up to the cave.

We found Margaret there, sitting with Mr. Browning, who was conscious now, but still very weak. Down below, the
ranchería
had fallen suddenly and strangely silent, and the fires had burned down to glowing coals.

“Gentlemen, I am so very relieved to see that you are safe,” said Mr. Browning weakly.

“What happened down there?” Margaret asked. “It sounds like a madhouse.”

“They found Tolley’s stash of wine,” Albert said.

“We can get out of here,” I said. “No one is even guarding us anymore. We can slip down, take some mules, and leave. By the time they wake up from their binge, we’ll be long gone. How are you feeling, Mr. Browning? Can you travel?”

“You must go without me, sir,” he said. “I will only slow you up.”

“Unlike your ignominious Lord Crowley, Mr. Browning,” said Tolley, “I do not abandon my staff in the wilderness.”

“And I am not leaving without my grandfather,” Albert said.

“What about Jesus?” asked Margaret. “We don’t even know where he is.”

“If I may be permitted to offer an opinion on the subject?” said Mr. Browning.

“Of course you may, Mr. Browning,” Margaret said.

“Even with a head start,” he said, “if we all try to leave together, they will track us down again, long before we reach the expedition. We have witnessed with what great facility they are able to move in this country. We wouldn’t have a prayer of outrunning them, especially with me holding you up.”

“We’re not leaving you, Mr. Browning,” I said.

“I’m afraid that you shall have to, sir,” he said. “I’m afraid that I’m quite incapable of traveling.”

“He’s right, Ned,” Margaret said. “Our best chance is for you, Tolley, and Albert to go. I’ll stay here with Mr. Browning. We know they’re not going to kill me, or the boy, and I might be able to help protect them.”

“I’m married into the tribe now, remember, Mag?” I said. “I’ll be safe here, too. You go with Albert and Tolley. I’ll stay with Mr. Browning.”