Ghost Warrior Read online

  “Be quiet,” the sergeant said. The men stared at him.

  He half sat up, supporting himself on one elbow, but he heard nothing more. One of the Apaches in the cell behind the guardroom began chanting, probably to let his countrymen outside know where the prisoners were. A second man took up the chant, then the boys. The women started that demented cry that reminded the sergeant of damned souls with their cojónes pinched in the hinges of hell’s gates. The soldiers began loading their ancient Brown Bess muskets, but their fingers shook so badly they spilled most of the priming powder.

  “Apaches,” the sergeant said.

  “But the wall … ,” protested one of his men.

  The sergeant gave him a pitying glance. He was newly arrived from Mexico City. He didn’t know that the high wall around Arizpe meant nothing. He didn’t know that Apaches drifted through walls like ghosts. They blew over them like an evil wind. They scuttled across them like scorpions. They slithered under them like rattlesnakes.

  A closer, more insistent rumble echoed the thunder. Someone was pounding on the door with what sounded like a large rock. The Apache prisoners began calling to their friends outside. The sergeant knew that no one in the town would come to his aid, not even his fellow soldiers, asleep in their barracks.

  He wondered if he would live to see his wife and five children again. His men stared at him while he tried to think over the drumming of blood in his temples, over the caterwauling from the cells, the thunder, and the relentless pounding.

  “We’ll let the prisoners go,” he said finally.

  “Are you mad?” Mexico City blurted.

  The sergeant took the ring of keys from its peg on the wall and headed for the cells. “Open the door a crack when I say so, but for the love of God, not before then or we are all dead men.”

  “Our orders … ,” Mexico City said.

  “To hell with our orders.” The sergeant unlocked the two cell doors. The prisoners—two men, six women, and three boys—filed out.

  In a single line, with the men leading, the women in the middle and the boys at the rear, they ambled toward the front door. They didn’t seem concerned that it was bolted shut. When they had almost reached it, the sergeant said, “Open it now.”

  Mexico City did as he was told. Without a backward glance, the prisoners slipped through and out into the raging night. Mexico City slammed the door and slid the bar across it.

  When the soldiers’ hands stopped shaking, they rolled new cigarillos and went back to their monte game. The thunder grumbled away to strike terror elsewhere. The rain slowed to a patter.

  The sergeant lay back down. He would see his wife and little ones after all. He breathed a prayer of thanks to God and the Virgin Mary. While he was at it, he thanked Jesus and every saint he could think of, particularly San Geronimo Emilian, Saint Jerome, a soldier saved by the intercession of the Blessed Virgin. He wasn’t as famous as the other Saint Jerome, but the soldiers considered him their own. They would celebrate his feast in a few days, on the twentieth of July.

  The rest of the garrison could organize an expedition in the morning, if God and the comandante willed it, and chase down the accursed Apaches. The sergeant didn’t know that the army wouldn’t have to chase these particular Apaches.

  “DIOS Y SAN GERONIMO ME DEFIENDAN.” THE SERGEANT crossed himself as he and his men walked toward more Apache warriors than he had ever seen together in his life. He estimated that two hundred of them had gathered in the cottonwood grove by the river, twice as many as the number of soldiers in Arizpe. He tugged his high, stiff collar away from the rash that covered his neck where the coarse cloth rubbed.

  He held the white flag higher. The comandante had instructed him and his men to leave their muskets behind to show their peaceful intentions. The comandante should have led this company, but he said that since the sergeant had released the Apache prisoners yesterday, their kin would be better disposed to talk to him. The real reason, as everyone knew, was that the comandante was a coward.

  Morning Star, Broken Foot, He Who Yawns, and the others watched the eight soldiers approach. He Who Yawns turned to the boy standing next to him. Cornflower had grown at least a hand in his year as a captive. During that time a mule had kicked him in the face, breaking his nose. The Mexicans had named him Chato, Flat Nose. Already his friends among the apprentices had started calling him Chato, too.

  “What do you know about them?” He Who Yawns asked.

  “They were with the soldiers who attacked us at Janos.”

  “It wouldn’t matter if they weren’t,” He Who Yawns muttered.

  “They come to hold council,” said Morning Star.

  He Who Yawns flicked his hand, as though shooing away a horsefly. “I know what the white cloth means.”

  He and seven of his warriors walked foward to meet the soldiers. When they were within range, He Who Yawns called out, “Natseed, kill.” He and his men unslung their bows, nocked arrows, and fired.

  As the soldiers fell, He Who Yawns slashed, clubbed, and speared the wounded. He dipped the white cloth in the sergeant’s blood and returned waving it over his head.

  “We have no chance of fighting the soldiers if they hide behind their wall,” he shouted. “This will bring them out of the city,” He grinned in Morning Star’s direction. “We do not need anyone’s sister to tell us where the enemy is.”

  Morning Star ignored him. He Who Yawns might be in charge of this war party, but Morning Star didn’t have to like him.

  He Who Yawns had declined to go with him and the ten others to rescue the captives. If they hadn’t gotten their people released, the Mexicans would most likely have killed them when they realized that an Apache army had camped outside their town. Morning Star had the feeling that vengeance meant more to He Who Yawns than the lives of the captives. Morning Star also suspected that he had been too afraid of last night’s lightning to leave the cave where he and his men had sheltered. His magic only warded off bullets. Lightning was a powerful source of magic, too, but also of death and insanity. Only a fool would not fear it, but a man should still do what was right.

  The night’s hard rain had washed the dust off everything. The damp ground steamed in the hot summer sun, and so did the warm blood pooled around the bodies of the eight Mexican soldiers. The vapor reminded Morning Star of ghosts, the spirits of the murdered Mexicans.

  As flies began to buzz around the soldiers’ bodies, Morning Star went to find Swimmer, his wife’s sister’s young husband. For months Swimmer had talked about this raid. Today he would have the chance to prove himself.

  Morning Star had fought in skirmishes. He had ambushed mule trains and swooped out of the rising sun to steal horses from pastures and corrals. He had never stood in sight of an army as it marched toward him. None of them had.

  He Who Yawns positioned the warriors among the cottonwoods, with the river at their backs. With only trees and bushes for cover, and an enemy that knew exactly where they were, Morning Star felt exposed and vulnerable and stupid. He Who Yawns said this was the strategy his spirits had given him, and so here they all were.

  Morning Star braided his long hair and stuck it into his belt. He checked the string of twisted sinew on his bow and ran his fingers over the amulets woven into his medicine cord. The other men fidgeted, too, all except Swimmer. Taut as a bowstring, with only his eyes shifting, scanning the broken country ahead for the enemy, he leaned into the prospect of battle.

  They saw the infantry first, followed by the cavalry, iron rings rattling on the bridles of their horses and bells jingling on the saddle skirts. Their lances, held upright, looked like a forest of saplings as the riders adanced.

  “Bullets can’t touch me,” He Who Yawns shouted. “Follow me.”

  He pulled his knife and raced across the open ground. Morning Star and the others shot their arrows in a high arc above him, and when they landed, some of the foot soldiers fell. At the second volley of arrows the Mexicans scattered for cover, a
nd gunfire started popping from every bush and tree.

  He Who Yawns ran so fast he almost knocked over the first infantryman. He slashed at the man’s throat, and a rush of blood covered him. He grabbed the musket from his victim’s hand before he hit the ground. He lifted off the bullet pouch and the powder horn. Holding them high he ran back and tossed them to one of his men; then he turned and headed into the fray again.

  He fought wildly, untouched by bullets and lances. He charged one soldier after another, overwhelming them all and leaving them sprawled behind him. The Mexicans began to shout warnings to each other and pleas to their patron saint, “¡Ay, Gerónimo! ¡Cuidado!”

  The Ndee didn’t know what Gerónimo meant, but they took up the cry. He Who Yawns had infected them with his mad courage. The battle scattered and skirmishes broke out as men closed and grappled.

  Morning Star, Loco, Broken Foot, and the other Warm Springs warriors used a gulley as cover and picked their targets from among the nearest soldiers. Morning Star began to recognize the individual Mexicans who darted across the broken ground like wraiths in the haze of blue smoke from their muskets.

  Morning Star called to the men around him, running from one to the other and urging them on. The Mexicans began shouting, “¡Vitorio!” at him whenever he showed himself. The Spanish words for “victory” and for “shouting encouragement” were similar. Morning Star didn’t know which one they meant, and he was too busy to care.

  As the sun climbed toward the top of the sky, it hammmered them with heat. Ignoring the musket fire and the shouting, Morning Star crouched in the shade of a creosote bush and wet his dry lips with the last of the water from the cow’s intestine he used as a canteen. The gunfire began to taper off as the soldiers ran out of ammunition.

  He Who Yawns and two of his men had fired their arrows and broken their lances. Now they were fighting with knives and fists. When Swimmer bolted toward them, Morning Star shouted at him to come back, but he kept going.

  Five soldiers, firing as they came, ran at He Who Yawns and his men. Two of the warriors fell, and He Who Yawns headed back for another spear. Swimmer turned and started running for the trees while a soldier, sword raised, raced to cut him off. Morning Star reached over his shoulder for an arrow and found none in his quiver. He grabbed his lance. Shouting, he ran toward Swimmer, but the soldier met him first. The blade sliced a shining arc that intersected with Swimmer’s head and continued downward, splitting it neatly in two.

  Morning Star kept going. While the soldier yanked his sword from Swimmer, Morning Star drove the point of the lance into his chest with such force that it came out the back. The soldier looked at him with mouth open and eyes wide.

  Morning Star’s moccasins slid in the puddle of blood mixed with the slippery gray substance leaking from Swimmer’s skull. He regained his footing, planted the palm of his hand on the butt of the lance, and shoved. The skewered soldier toppled backwards, his arms and legs jerking wildly. The lance point projecting from his spine gave an arch to his back.

  He Who Yawns pushed past Morning Star. He grabbed the man’s sword and waved it, looking for more enemies to kill. Mexicans lay scattered across the battlefield. The soldiers retrieved as many of the wounded as they could and melted off into the thick underbrush. The Ndee rushed to catch the horses they left behind and to take the weapons from the dead.

  Morning Star looked down at the shattered wreckage that had been his wife’s sister’s husband. He wondered how he would transport him to a mountain crevice where he could give him a proper burial. He thought of the words he would use to tell his wife’s sister that she would not see him again in this world.

  Broken Foot came to stand next to him. “Three of our men dead. There will be much weeping when we return.”

  “A good leader does not waste lives.” Morning Star was furious. If they had followed their usual tactic and lured the soldiers into an ambush, Swimmer would probably still be alive.

  Morning Star went to cut agave stalks for a litter to carry the body. He felt tired. Like Swimmer and all the others, he had been eager to make the Mexicans pay for the slaughter at Janos, but he had discovered for himself what old Red Sleeves once had told him, the act of revenge rarely satisfied as much as the anticipation.

  The long battle had invigorated He Who Yawns, even though a soldier’s lance had sliced a gash on his face that made the right side of his mouth droop. Caked with dirt and blood, he began a dance around the bodies of the Mexicans, pointing at the ground here, stomping there, marking the places where he had fought and killed.

  As the warriors gathered to watch they chanted, “Geronimo! Geronimo!”

  He Who Yawns had acquired a new name.

  Chapter 12

  SHE WHO TROTS THEM OUT

  Lozen led her brother’s pony, Coyote, past the women gathered at the boulders called They See Them Off. She took up a position at the tail end of the line of boys waiting to greet the warriors. It was not the proper thing for any girl to do, much less one who would soon celebrate the four-day ritual transforming her into a woman.

  Lozen’s family was working day and night to prepare for her feast of White Painted Woman, and she regretted the embarrassment she was causing them. Her brother had left Coyote in her care, though. She wasn’t going to relinquish him to some feckless youth whose only qualification for standing in this line was the penis in his breechclout.

  When the youngest sentry had come pelting in on his pony that morning, the village had broken out in joy. The boys and old men keeping watch had spotted the war party a day’s ride away. They could see that some of the men must have stolen ponies, but they couldn’t tell who.

  She Moves Like Water was so happy that she hadn’t given Lozen much of an argument about Coyote. She and Corn Stalk had helped groom him. Coyote sported the family’s best Mexican saddle decorated with leather fringes, silver conchos, and jingling tin cones. Lozen had unraveled a red cotton shawl to make fat tassels for the bridle.

  Lozen and Stands Alone had ridden here together, but Stands Alone remained with the women, sitting on her horse with her chin at a defiant cant. A pair of shriveled ears hung on a thong around her neck. Everyone knew they had once belonged to the Mexican, El Gordo. They also believed that wearing the ears might lure his ghost back to haunt her, but she didn’t agree.

  “The Mexican black robes say there’s a place where bad men go when they die,” she had told Lozen. “They say horned devils with spears torment the spirits there.” When she said it, she radiated the old grin that Lozen remembered from years ago. “I know El Gordo is there.”

  As soon as Skinny appeared on a small gray at the opening in the cliff, the women began vibrating their tongues against the roofs of their mouths to produce their high, ululating call. A few widows had been sampling the tiswin they’d made for the feast and the victory dance. They danced half-naked for the warriors, begging them for gifts. It was a vulgar way to behave, but no one interferred. They had lost their men, and they had to support themselves somehow. The other women disdained them for it, but they were glad they weren’t in the same position.

  Morning Star rode on a bay in the position of honor directly behind Skinny. Broken Foot came next, then Loco.

  Talks A Lot ran from the rear where the apprentices were herding the stolen mules and cattle and caught hold of the bridle of the paint pony that Broken Foot rode. The waiting boys shouted to Morning Star, pleading with him to let them take his horse, but he reined the bay to a stop in front of Lozen. A small face peered from around behind him. Her black hair fell in a tangle across her big, fearful dark eyes.

  Lozen did not think about where the girl came from or who her parents were or who might be mourning the loss of her. She belonged to The People now. She would be part of their family.

  “Her name is María.” Morning Star waited for Lozen to mount Coyote; then he swung the child over to sit behind her. She wrapped her arms around Lozen’s waist and buried her face in her back.
<
br />   Lozen tried to remember what little Spanish she knew. “Está bien, niña.”

  “She can sleep in the lodge with you and Stands Alone,” Morning Star said.

  Broken Foot called to Lozen. “The Mexicans named your brother Victorio before we killed them all. Skinny will announce it at the feast.”

  Victory. It was a good name.

  Victorio dismounted and led Coyote and his new bay pony to where Corn Stalk danced with the women, and he handed the bay’s reins to her. She knew what the gift meant. Her young husband had not come back.

  You must be strong, Sister,” he said.”Your man died bravely. We gave him a warrior’s burial. We must never speak his name again.”

  Corn Stalk pulled her blanket over her head and led the pony away. She Moves Like Water hurried to catch up with her. Soon, over the laughter and the shouting, came the sound of women wailing.

  THE SUN WAS ABOUT TO RISE WHEN THE DANCING ENDED and people headed for their families’ clusters of lodges. Lozen carried the captive, María. The child slept with her head resting on Lozen’s shoulder and her arms and legs dangling.

  She Moves Like Water led Victorio to the new arbor she and the women of her family had built. Stacks of goods filled it—sacks and parfleches, baskets and trays of food, piles of blankets, and two beautiful burden baskets decorated with fringe tipped with tin cones. She Moves Like Water unwrapped a cowhide and held up one of the doeskins folded inside it. Someone had tanned it so well that it draped across her hands like the softest cloth.

  “He Makes Them Laugh brought five of these. He shot the deer through the eyes so he would leave no arrow holes or blemishes in the skin. His mother tanned them for Stands Alone’s dress.” She lifted a feed sack and shook it so he could hear the metallic rattle of the tin cans inside. “Squint Eyes’ children found these at the diggers’ camp to make jingles for the two dresses.” She held up several pouches. “Cowrie shells and pollen for the blessing.”