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Authors: Lucia St. Clair Robson

BOOK: Ghost Warrior
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“The time of her feast is coming.”
Morning Star knew that a girl's ceremony of White Painted Woman influenced how people regarded her family. Doing everything right, and generously, was making She Moves Like Water anxious. “I'll bring back horses to trade for the things we'll need. It will be the best feast anyone has seen since your own.”
“Lozen hasn't said so, but I know she wants Stands Alone to celebrate with her.”
“We can gather enough for both of them.”
“For their dresses we'll need ten deer hides with no blemishes or holes in them.”
She Moves Like Water's sister's new husband called from outside. “Brother-in-law, the singers and the drummers are gathering.
Nantan
wants you to enter the dance first.”
“Tell him I'm coming.”
“Skinny wants you to lead? Why didn't he appoint an older man?”
“I don't know.” He handed Daughter to her and touched his medicine cord with one hand. “I should have asked Broken Foot to include a charm to keep me from tripping over the end of my breechclout while I dance.”
She Moves Like Water leaned close, intoxicating him with her smoky aroma. She lowered her voice.
“Watch over my sister's husband.” She didn't have to remind him that this was Corn Stalk's man's first time on the war trail, and that he tended to be rash and heedless.
Morning Star put his arms around his wife and his daughter and held them to him. Then he pushed aside the hide door and emerged into the dusk, tying on his war cap as he went. The tin cones that Lozen had sewn onto the bandolier jingled as he went to join the men, all of them dressed in their best, looking fierce and capable and ready to dance up the sun.
SHADOW WARRIOR
T
he warriors danced away into the night beyond the bubble of the fire's light. The drummers and singers stopped abruptly, leaving the rhythmic music of the tin cones on the men's clothes jingling in the darkness. The sound grew fainter until it became inaudible, leaving the women, the children, and the old people in a vortex of silence.
During the Fierce Dance the boys had maintained their usual ferment of mischief on the perimeter. They jostled and insulted each other, they dropped thistles into breechclouts. They threw pebbles at the girls who disdained to notice them. Once the men's dance ended, the undercurrent of noise continued among the boys, but they came alert, too. Social dances would follow the Fierce Dance. They always did. Not to hold a social dance after a war dance invited disaster in battle. Even on the war trail the warriors followed the custom, with half of them taking the women's part.
Dancing was embarrassing enough, but dancing with a girl was a more frightening prospect than war. Those who had seen at least twelve harvests had reached the age when they realized that girls had the power to cause them extreme mortification. They also knew that someday they would live in intimacy with those mystifying and dangerous creatures who glanced like hungry panthers at them from the other side of the fire.
Skinny announced the first dance. The singers and drummers refreshed themselves with drinks of
tiswin
and took their positions again. The boys pulled up their moccasins, smoothed their hair, and adjusted their necklaces and belts. Comments passed back and forth in undertones.
“You fart when you hop around out there.”
“Your breechclout will fall off.”
“You dance like a pregnant badger.”
“My cross-cousin says she hates you.”
The women always asked the men to dance, but the boys knew they'd increase their chances if they lurked in the girls' vicinity. A valiant few ventured into enemy territory. To reach them the boys had to dodge the older women.
“Be careful with those girls, you boys,” Her Eyes Open called out. “They have teeth down there, you know. They'll bite your little mouse penises off if you try anything.”
Talks A Lot, Flies In His Stew, and Ears So Big had discussed that teeth threat while they gambled away the afternoons at the horse pasture. They had tried to cajole information from the older boys, but they had received no reliable answers. They decided that a second set of teeth was unlikely, but with girls, anything was possible.
As for the girls, they proved that a great deal can be said without speaking. They signaled with fleeting looks, with casual waves of a hand, the toss of a head, or cock of a hip.
Neither Lozen nor Stands Alone were inclined to play the game.
“He Who Steals Love has been watching you,” Stands Alone said.
“Why?”
“Why do you think?”
“He's too old for me.”
“I know five women who want to marry him.”
“Then let them.”
“Here come three of them now.”
Tall Girl, She Sneezes, and Knot walked by with their arms linked.
She Sneezes spoke loudly enough for Stands Alone to hear. “Who wants to marry an Already Used Woman?” The other two laughed.
“Only a very fat man would want her,” Knot said.
“A fat man with too many ears.”
“
Besdacada,
knife-and-awl.” Stands Alone hissed the
worst insult in her people's language. “Smell this!” She extended her fist with her thumb wedged between the first and second fingers and flung it open in the obscene gesture.
“Ignore them, Sister.” But Lozen knew how difficult that was.
Not only had Manuel Armijo kept Stands Alone for his personal use, but since her family had died at Janos, she had no one to prepare the feast of White Painted Woman for her. She was old enough to be a woman, but she had not gone through the ritual that would give her a woman's status. Lozen decided that she and Stands Alone would have the ceremony together or not at all.
Flies In His Stew caught Lozen's eye as he approached, but she raised her hand in a small gesture that said she would not ask him. She would not dance until someone asked Stands Alone.
He Makes Them Laugh sauntered over. No war amulets hung from the fringed cotton shawl he wore tied at a slant across his chest. He did not carry the scratching stick and the drinking tube that apprentices took on the war trail. Instead of arrows, peeled sticks carved and painted with silly faces poked from the top of his quiver.
Lozen was fond of her unambitious cross-cousin. She was almost amused by the fact that she wanted to go on the war trail but couldn't, and he could but didn't want to. He said that people could be brave for a little while, but they were dead for a long time.
“Aren't you going to Mexico with the men?” she asked.
“Someone has to stay behind and protect you women.” He glanced at Stands Alone. She looked away, suddenly shy. He wasn't her cross-cousin, and talking freely with him wasn't proper.
“Will you dance with me?” He wasn't supposed to ask her, but he specialized in doing what he wasn't supposed to do.
Without looking at him, Stands Alone started for the circle of couples. He caught up with her and leaned down to say something in her ear. She threw her head back and laughed.
Lozen hadn't heard her laugh like that since before the Mexicans captured her.
From the corner of her eye Lozen saw He Steals Love start in her direction. She turned away and walked to where Talks A Lot stood. She poked his shoulder hard with her finger and headed for the dance ground. He followed, looking everywhere but at her.
Talks A Lot had dressed for the war trail. This would be his first raid as an apprentice, and it was the biggest anyone could remember. He had haunted Broken Foot's camp for weeks, running any errand, doing any chore, and giving him his family's best pony in exchange for the war cap Broken Foot had sung over for him.
He had even asked Lozen for a charm that would help him see enemies at a distance. Lozen had chosen creatures with good eyesight and had made him an amulet out of hawk down, a vertebrae from the mountain lion whose pelt was now a quiver for her brother's arrows, and a turquoise bead. She had prayed to her spirits and asked them to bless it, but she told Talks A Lot she couldn't guarantee anything. He had given her a fine deer hide for it, the first of the ten she would need to make the ceremonial dresses for herself and Stands Alone.
Talks A Lot danced well, but Lozen could tell he was thinking about the coming revenge raid. She envied him.
 
 
THE SUN HADN'T RISEN, BUT A PALE RIBBON OF LIGHT LAY along the horizon. The dark figures of the warriors and their women moved silently about, their slhouettes barely visible against that faint glow. Now and then Lozen heard a jingle of metal or clatter of cowrie shells as the men dressed and collected their equipment.
“We're leaving the horses behind so our enemies will have less of a trail to follow if they come after us.” Morning Star was making a quick repair to his moccasin while Lozen packed the last of the parched corn, the dried venison, and
juniper berries. “Ride Coyote often or he'll become ill tempered.”
“How could we tell if he becomes more ill tempered?” She Moves Like Water spoke softly from the other side of the lodge where she nursed Daughter. “He's so surly already.”
Morning Star went on with the instructions to Lozen, although he knew she knew all of it already. “Don't scatter the wood from its pile, or you'll bring the warriors bad luck. When you eat, keep the bones piled in one place, or we shall become separated on the trail.”
He stuck into his belt the old pistol that Lozen had taken from the drunken blacksmith's apprentice. Morning Star was one of the few who had a gun. He had used up the powder and bullets she had stolen, but maybe he would find some to steal on the way.
When he left the lodge, She Moves Like Water followed him outside, the baby still at her breast. “May we live to see each other again,” she said softly.
Lozen hurried to keep up as Morning Star strode to the outcrop of rocks called They See Them Off. The warriors and apprectices there had painted the broad, reddish-brown stripe like a mask across their faces. Skinny surprised Lozen by turning to her.
“The men want you to pray for them and ask your spirits if enemies are near.”
Everyone watched as Lozen traced a cross of pollen in her left palm. She lifted her hands, palms up, and held them over her head.
“Life Giver, hear me,” she chanted. “Guide the men on the trail. Let nothing delay their journey. When they meet with the enemy, make their arrows fly true and turn aside the bullets of the evil ones. Bring all of them back safely to us. Cover them with honor.”
An eddy of morning wind stirred the wisps of hair around her face and blew the golden flecks of pollen into her eyebrows. She turned slowly; then she shivered and opened her eyes.
“There is no one nearby to hinder you.”
The men started off single file down the steep trail in the cliff face. The women returned to their fires, to their sleepy, hungry children, and their day's work. Lozen waited to catch sight of the war party when it reached the plain below.
The men would join Red Sleeves' warriors, then travel west to meet those of Cheis's band. They would turn south and find Long Neck's warriors from the band called the Enemy People. He Who Yawns would bring the men from his own small band known as the In Front At Behind People. The force would then head for the Sonoran town called Arizpe.
In his journey south, the Mexican captive, Juan Mirez, had joined a mule train traveling the wind-scoured passes and deep gorges of the Sierra Madres. Muleteers went all over northern Mexico. They knew what was what and who was where. They said that some of the Janos captives were being kept as slaves in Arizpe. Juan returned with the news. Now he was part of the expedition to take revenge.
A pebble from the ledge above hit the ground near Lozen and rattled down the slope. She slid behind a boulder and waited for Stands Alone to pass before she tossed a stone at her.
Stands Alone whirled around. She had put on the clothes she had worn when the three Pale Eyes men returned her—a full skirt of cotton cloth and a white tunic belted with a red sash. Instead of moccasins she wore straw sandals. A gourd of water hung at her waist.
“Where are you going?” Lozen asked.
“Juan Mirez told me he met El Gordo coming back from Sonora. The old carrion eater is headed for Mesilla.”
“You said he always travels with guards. How will you kill him?”
“Life Giver will show me a way. Don't tell your brother's wife where I've gone until it's too late for anyone to come after me.”
Manuel Armijo. El Gordo. He was a wily one. He was like the fat rat that ate the cornmeal every winter. El Gordo
was eating Stands Alone's chance for happiness. She would not feel like a woman of The People again until she killed him. If Stands Alone returned safely, she and Lozen would celebrate the ceremony of White Painted Woman together.
“May we live to see each other again,” Lozen said.
Lozen watched Stands Alone grow smaller as she descended the trail at a fast walk. She pulled the wooden plug from the opening of her gourd canteen and poured a little water into a deposit of red clay. Lozen dipped her fingers into the mud. She closed her eyes and smeared it across the upper part of her face to form the red stripe that distinguished the Red Paint warriors.
She looked out over the narrow valley that pointed southwest like the head of a lance. Ground fog pooled there, clinging to the base of the mountains that sloped into it. The lavender peaks rising beyond those surrounding the valley lay at the end of a three-day march. The vastness of the country exhilarated her. For her, the horizon was just another destination. She saw it all with a hawk's eye. She wanted to spread her arms, step off the edge, and soar out over the green slopes. Broken Foot said that his Goose magic let him do that, though never when anyone was watching. Maybe he was teasing her and maybe not.
She saw the men far below, moving through the mist. They entered a stand of cedars and disappeared.
“Yalan,”
she murmured. Good-bye.
 
 
THIS WAS THE BEGINNING OF THE SUMMER SEASON CALLED Thick With Fruit. Trays of boiled locust pods, sumac berries, and yucca fruits pounded and glazed in their own juice were stacked under a brush arbor and ready to be set out again in the morning sun to dry. Everywhere in camp burden baskets leaned against each other. They were filled with mesquite beans, sunflower seeds, juniper berries, and the glossy seeds of the grama grass.

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