Foxfire (21 page)

He saw that she was working up to some sort of climax, but also that she seemed to be interested. For some reason the Apache basket had broken through the tenuous barrier she had, since their arrival in Arizona, erected against his Indian blood.

“Well,” he said, picking up the pouch, and loosening the drawstring. “These were all used in various ceremonies. This yellow powder is hoddentin, the pollen of the tule, a kind of bullrush that grows in swamps.” He showed her a pinch of it, then put the pinch back in the bag. “It's considered very sacred.”

He picked up the feathers. “These came off an eagle. Four is the Apache sacred number. They give strength and courage to the fainthearted.” He smiled and took up the beaded thong. “This is called the Izze-Kloth, I suppose you might call it a sort of Indian rosary, since it's used for prayers and incantations. And this little hunk of horn was the most important of all to Tanosay.”

“Why?” she asked as he paused.

“It's hard to explain.... Each medicine man, or woman, discovers some object in nature which is his own particular channel through which the great Life Spirit flows. His power, he calls it. It might be lightning, or a fox or a snake or a rock ... anything. For Tanosay it was the white-tailed deer, because of a mystical experience he had in his youth. This bit of horn came from that deer. He had”—added Dart slowly—“great faith in it.”

Amanda stared at her husband. She had never heard him use just that grave and musing tone before. Surely the blunt practical Dart did not also have faith in these primitive fetishes, interesting though they might be as curiosities.

He raised his eyes and smiled at her, answering as though she had spoken. “I don't know, Andy, but I've seen Tanosay make some remarkable cures, after the Agency doctor had given the patient up completely.”

“Oh, well, of course—” she said after a moment. “One does hear of faith cures all the time. Like Mesmer and ... and Coue.”

Dart laughed. He began to gather up Tanosay's ceremonial objects. “Let's have one more cigarette and then tackle those dishes,” he said.

“Oh, no, waitl There's something else in the basket.... Look, do you remember this?” she held out to him the copper disk.

“Well, I'll be damned,” said Dart taking it in his hand and examining it with amusement. “The map to the Pueblo Encantado. That sure gave me a thrill when I was fifteen.”

“It seemed to give your father a thrill, too,” she said giving him the notes. “Have you ever read these?”

“I don't think so—” Dart leafed them over. “Poor old Dad, this sort of thing was a hobby of his those last years when he couldn't get around much. Made him feel adventurous.” “But, Dart—” she said frowning. “Didn't Tanosay give you that map later, after your father died? Didn't Tanosay believe in the Lost Mine?”

“Tanosay wasn't interested in any
mine
—” said Dart beginning to laugh, “Andy, don't tell me...” He stared at her sober intent little face. “Andy, you haven't been bitten by the bug, just like that....”

“What bug?” she said crossly.

“Lost Gold fever. Pie in the sky—My poor baby, there's at least four hundred lost treasures in the Southwest, and I guess through the years since old Coronado first got the idea, there's been a million suckers hunting for them.”

“I don't care,” she said her eyes flashing. “This is a special one, your father said so.”

Dart stopped laughing, he gave her a keen look. “I guess I better read those notes.” He pulled the kerosene lamp nearer to him, and bent his dark head over the papers. She sat back and waited. The little kitchen smelled of the kerosene lamp, and of stew and onions. She got up and opened the back door a crack, then came and sat down again tensely.

Dart finished the notes and raised his head. “Yes,” he said. “It's a swell yarn. These old Spanish padres come to life, don't they?”

“But what happened next, Dart? The part your father started to write and didn't.” She pulled the notes over and looked at the last page. “...the further angles that comprise archeology, geology, and the history of the Apache Indians'? Why didn't he go on?”

“I don't know. But I think he didn't go on because my mother asked him not to.”

“Why should she do that?”

Dart pulled out cigarettes, offered her one, and lit them. “Look, Andy, I'll tell you what I know about this legend, but really it's nothing to get steamed up about.”

She leaned a little forward across the table. “Well, tell me....”

“You haven't seen any cliff dwellings, have you?”

She shook her head. “No, but I've read about them, of course.”

“You've read about a whole lot of things, my pet. Well, anyway, there are hundreds of cliff dwellings over parts of Arizona and New Mexico, though the most famous one is probably Mesa Verde in Colorado. They were all built by Indians, called Anasazi or ‘The Ancient Ones' by the nomadic Navajo and Apache tribes who came to this country later; nobody knows just how or from where. Probably all these Indians came at different times from Asia, via Bering Strait, but that doesn't matter to us though it keeps the archeologists sweating and snarling happily at each other.”

“Yes,” she said. “Go on, what about this particular Pueblo Encantado?”

“It's a legend in Tanosay's tribe, the Coyoteros. There's a theory that the Coyotero branch of Apaches were amongst the first to come south into Arizona, and that they intermarried with the descendants of the Anasazi whom they found here. That would probably be in the fifteenth century, though nobody knows that either. The story was handed down by word of mouth to Tanosay back through his father's father's father X number of times. Anyway, one of Tanosay's remote ancestors married an Anasazi girl whose own ancestors had once lived in the Pueblo Encantado, and abandoned it intact for good reasons.”

“What reasons?” she said as he paused. “And when would they have abandoned it?”

Dart laughed. “Your avid interest is most flattering, and I'm giving you the best gems culled from Archeology I at Tucson, but nobody knows the answer to that one, either. Why, indeed, sometime between 1200 and 1400, did all the Ancient Ones abandon their beautiful fortress cliff dwellings? Drought? Maybe. Disease? Maybe. Depredations by the Navajo or Apache? Maybe. But for the Pueblo Encantado, none of those are the reasons handed down through the tribe to Tanosay.”

She waited impatiently as he stopped. He was staring at the copper disk and he heard once more the solemn voice of Tanosay. He felt again the weight of the old hand upon his shoulder and saw by the light of the campfire the stern admonishing eyes as they gazed down on the upturned boyish face. He could not now remember the Apache words that Tanosay had used, but he remembered well the tenor of them and the tingle of awe he had felt as he listened.

The City of Spirits lay somewhere in the wildest mountains of Apacheria, said Tanosay. Far north
into
the turquoise sky beyond the four sacred horn peaks. Long, long before the coming of the Dinneh, by which Tanosay meant his own people, the city in the hidden canyon had been a happy land where the Anasazi dwelt in joy and contentment. Then evil entered into their hearts, greed and lust stung their bowels like serpents and the Great Spirit became very angry. He came down to them in a dreadful blast of thunder and lightning and drove them from the happy land which they no longer deserved. He made of it a sacred place, and set mountain spirits to guard it from all earthly wickedness. But when He saw how bitterly the Ancient Ones regretted their lost paradise, and the peace which had once been theirs, He softened their exile by a promise.

If the city and the valley were forever kept from human defilement, those of the ancient blood might go back there someday and live again in everlasting contentment. And Tanosay so profoundly believed this that the listening boy, in whose blood there was a strain of the Anasazi blood, had believed it too at that time—as Saba did.

Dart became again conscious of Amanda's expectant face; he sighed and he overcame his increasing reluctance to continue the story.

He resumed the light casual tone in which he had been speaking. “The tradition is a sort of Garden of Eden tale, I suppose. The Anasazi were driven out because they had sinned. But this Coyotero band, though none of them has ever seen it, still think of the place as a kind of heaven. Sacred and inviolate. It is forbidden to go near it. Not that
that
would be easy, since nobody has the faintest idea just where it is.”

“But what about the map?” cried Amanda. “The copper thing.”

“That was made by an enemy, a Mimbreño Apache, over a hundred years ago, with copper from the Santa Rita mines in New Mexico, I guess. Anyway, the Mimbreños and Coyoteros were at war, and this particular Mimbreño seems to have stumbled on the most infuriating thing he could do to the Coyoteros—invading their sacred canyon. However, he never even got back across the Tonto Creek with his map before the Coyoteros made mincemeat of him.”

“Oh,” said Amanda thoughtfully. “But why did they keep the map if they didn't want anyone to know where the enchanted pueblo was?”

Dart laughed, tamping out his cigarette. “For one thing, it's a very bad map; look at it, the Mimbreño doubtless meant it only as a guide for himself—and secondly, I suppose the Coyoteros felt that anything associated with the sacred place became tinged with magic too, and must be preserved. Now, I've told you all I know. Let's get at those dishes, before I fall to snoring.”

“But the mine—” said Amanda, not moving from the table. “The wall of gold? You haven't said a thing about that.” “Because I don't
know
a thing about that!” answered Dart with some impatience, “and I thoroughly doubt that there is such a thing.”

“The Padre said so—Father Gonzales—” she said frowning, “and he had a lot of gold stuff in his pocket.”

“Which he might have picked up anywhere in his wanderings, as the other guy, his superior, intimated. Most of those mountains up there are mineralized. Also he might have stolen the stuff.... Andy, for the love of Mike, he was nothing but a crazy old man with a wild story. He had to cook up something to explain the disappearance of his brother missionary, whom he probably murdered.”

“But you believe he actually found the hidden canyon, and the lost city—the particular one Tanosay told you about?”

“I suppose so—” said Dart, getting up, “the details correspond to Coyotero tradition, general location, malpais, invisible entrance to the canyon through a rock door, waterfall, etc.” He put the copper disk and his father's notes into the basket. “I'll carry this back to the trunk someday when I'm near Mrs. Cunningham's. I promised Tanosay to take care of them, though I must confess I'd forgotten all about them.” Amanda got up too; she walked to the stove and picked up the kettle of steaming water, poured a little over the dishes in the pan, and then she put the kettle down; she turned and looked up at him.

“But, Dart, supposing there is gold up there, gold so rich you can pick it off the walls?”

“Well, suppose there is.” He lifted the kettle and poured the rest of the hot water over the dishes. “Gold is where you find it, as people have been saying since the Stone Age went out.”

“You
could find it,” she said, very low and distinct. “You know this country, you remember what Tanosay told you, and you could follow that map.”

He put down the dishrag and stared at her. “My dear girl, you're not serious!”

She nodded, leaning against the sink, and looking up at him with eyes darkening as he burst out laughing.

“Andy, really!” he said, controlling his mirth under her angry gaze. “Don't you think I have anything better to do than go scrambling around hundreds of square miles of the toughest wilderness in this state looking for pie in the sky? Aside from the fact that I haven't the least desire to.”

“You'd rather piddle along in this little two-cent mine, earning barely enough to keep us from starving?” Her words thudded like small stones in the suddenly stilled kitchen. A tightness came into her throat as she saw the change in his face, but she went on in a kind of desperation. “You're looking for gold in this mine here, I can't see what's so different.”

His eyes as they stared unswerving back into hers had turned to gray ice, but in a moment he spoke in a controlled voice. “No. I guess you don't see. This mine is a co-operative job, the entire town of Lodestone is dependent on it. It's here and real, a proven enterprise. It's my job in which, though you seem to have difficulty understanding why, I have great interest. And I like to finish things I start.”

She moistened her lips which were trembling, but she persisted in a voice as controlled as his, “Yes, that's all very—very noble. But you could
try
to look for it. I know there's always people, prospectors hunting around for lucky strikes, but once in a while they make one. You can't deny that. You could
try
to find this Pueblo Encantado, Dart.”

“No,” he said. He turned sharply from her, went and closed the back door, then he walked into the front room. She heard him taking off his shoes, the bang as each one hit the floor. She stared through blinding mist at the greasy pile of halfcleaned dishes. Her breath clotted in her throat. She ran to the bedroom door.

“Why not!” she whispered through her teeth. “Indian superstition? Indians don't care about money, do theyl And they don't care about being decently comfortable. Or is it Indian ghosts you're afraid of, up in that canyon—is that it, Dart?”

He raised his head until his eyes rested on her chin. His gaze traveled from her chin, over her mouth and up until it met her frightened tear-blinded response.

“I didn't mean that, Dart—” she whispered. “Don't look at me like that. It's just I don't understand—I—oh, everything's so hard....”