The Wild Girl (41 page)

“Carrillo and some of his men were attacked,” I said.

“I know, believe me,” she said. “They danced all night over the scalps. I couldn’t stop myself from trying to identify the hair they were waving.”

“Was Charley involved?”

“No, he was against it,” Margaret said. “It was Indio Juan. All Charley wants to do is keep away from the whites and the Mexicans. That’s how he’s survived here for fifty years. Through avoidance and nonengagement. It’s Indio Juan who’s causing all the trouble now.”

“I’m going to get you out of here this time, Mag,” I said. “I promise. I won’t leave you again.”

“Well, you’ll have to discuss that with the big guy, little brother,” she said. “The Apaches are quite possessive of their slaves. You know, it’s so hard these days to find good domestic help.”

“Carrillo and his soldiers are going to get here one way or another,” I said. “Flowers knows the way up.”

“Where’s Albert, Ned?”

“With the expedition. He’d have come, but I left without telling him.”

“And Tolley?”

“Tolley quit, Mag. He had some important shopping to do to get ready for fall semester at Princeton.”

Margaret smiled forgivingly. “Yeah, it’s always such a crunch to get everything done before the end of summer vacation, isn’t it?”

“After the attack on Carrillo, the rich boys fled like rats from a sinking ship,” I said.

“Who can blame them?”

“I can blame Tolley for bailing out on you and Mr. Browning.”

“I can’t,” Margaret said. “What was he supposed to do, come back here and let them dangle his head over the fire again?”

“I didn’t expect him to come back here with me,” I said. “But he could have stayed with the expedition and seen this through to the end. By the way, Mag, I love the new getup.”

“Becomes me, doesn’t it?” she said. “God, if only my colleagues at the university could see me now . . . Oh, where are my manners . . . won’t you come into my humble abode?”

The inside of the wickiup was covered in hides and blankets and wasn’t at all uncomfortable. We sat down and Margaret handed me my camera bag. “I made a few entries in your notebook, little brother,” she said smiling. “Just to keep you up on what’s been was going on around here . . .” And then suddenly she began to weep, great inconsolable sobs, her body convulsing. I took her in my arms and held her, and when her tears had subsided a bit, she pushed away. “God, I’m sorry, I don’t know where that came from, it just snuck up on me. I’ve been okay, really, I have. I’ve been strong, Neddy.”

“You’re a rock, Mag,” I said. “You have nothing to apologize for. I don’t know any man who’s stronger.”

“I thought I would never see you again,” she said. “I thought this was going to be my life. And who knows, maybe it still is. The thing I’ve learned is, I can survive. You know what’s most terrifying, Neddy? Is what we’re willing to endure to do that. How adaptable we are. I’m a professional, I nearly have a doctorate degree, for Christ sake. And yet after a little over a week here, I’m getting rather accustomed to living with these people, to being their slave. And it’s not really that bad. They treat me pretty well . . . I even catch myself being grateful to them for that, for not treating me worse, you know, or even killing me. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

“I think so, Mag.”

“I danced with them over the scalps, Neddy.”

“What choice did you have, Mag?” I asked.

“It’s more than that,” she said. “I started to identify with them, I got caught up in the celebration of their success. I
liked
it.”

“Well, then maybe we’d better just stay right here,” I said jokingly.

“You think we have any choice in the matter, Neddy?” Margaret asked, dead serious. “They’re not going to let us go again. You understand that, don’t you?”

“The expedition will come for us, Mag,” I said. “You’ll see.”

“Oh Christ, Ned!” she snapped. “Are you just trying to cheer me up, or are you really so damn naive? You saw yourself what happened to Carrillo’s men. You think these people are going to just sit here and wait for the Mexican army to show up in their camp and then dutifully hand us over and surrender?”

“What do you think is going to happen?”

“I think Indio Juan will ambush them again . . . and again,” she said. “I think he’ll kill every Mexican soldier and every gringo he can before they even get here.
If
they even get here. And in the meantime, I think Charley will take his band somewhere else, farther south, deeper yet into the mountains. He has other
rancherías,
even more remote and just as inaccessible as this one. And the thing is, Neddy, they’re going to take me with them. I’m a captive, I’m their property now.”

“I came back for you, didn’t I, Mag?” I asked. “Just like I said I would. And one way or another, I’m not going to let that happen.”

8 JULY, 1932

I have been over a week now at the
ranchería
. Maybe it’s just the lull before the storm, but it’s been a quiet, peaceful time. Indio Juan has been gone since before my arrival. His scouts have reported back that the expedition has not moved from its base camp; rather than risking the loss of more men, Carrillo is clearly taking his time to formulate a new plan. Also it’s likely that the monsoon weather has kept them pinned down, as travel in the mountains this time of year is problematic.

Due to the heavy rains, many of the people have moved out of their wickiups, which are impossible to keep dry, and taken up lodging in the elaborate network of ancient cave dwellings on the bluffs above the valley. Chideh and I are settled in one of these. It is a crude habitation by any modern standards, but warm, dry, and cozy inside. Life among these people strikes me a bit like a perpetual camping trip and I can see how seductive it could be, especially to a young boy taken captive from the civilized world. When I was a kid growing up in Chicago, I read all the books and periodicals about the Old West I could get my hands on. I read about the Indians and trappers and mountain men, and I dreamed of this wild life. Little did I imagine . . .

For the most part the people have been guardedly friendly to me, though I seem to occupy an uncertain role in their minds. While they’re quite used to the men taking wives from other tribes and races, clearly an adult White Eyes moving into the band as the “husband” of one of their young women is without precedent. I’ve started exposing some film again, having “borrowed” some additional rolls from Big Wade when I was back in camp. It’s a great relief and I think that I’ve made some startling images here. I don’t care what Margaret says, wasn’t it Confucius who said “A picture is worth a thousand words”? But when I pointed this out to Margaret, she answered. “Yeah, but didn’t Franz Kafka say: ‘Nothing is so deceiving as a photograph’?”

Charley and Joseph returned to the
ranchería
two days after the girl and I arrived here. The old man came directly to see me.

“My grandson is well?” was the first thing he asked.

“He’s fine,” I said. “Where have you been?”

“I took Charley to show him the Mexican soldiers and the White Eyes of the expedition,” he said.

“You went down there?” I asked. “What for?”

“So that Charley could see how many of them there are,” he said.

“Did you tell him that he should give himself up?”

“I told him to take his People and hide.”

“Is that what you wish you had done, Joseph, all those years ago?” I asked. “Instead of surrendering?”

“It is too late for me,” said the old man.

“It’s too late for Charley, as well,” I said.

“What would you wish for him to do?” Joseph asked. “Return to the White Eyes world? They would put him in a circus.”

“It’s the twentieth century, Joseph,” I said. “Wild Indians don’t get to live in the White Eyes world anymore.”

“That is so,” Joseph said. He opened his arm out to take in the country. “But this is not the White Eyes world.”

“You, of all people, know better than that, old man,” I said. “Everything is the White Eyes world now. Even this.”

Since we have been here, the girl has been showing me her home country. I carry my camera on these outings, which we often make on foot in the vicinity of the
ranchería
. Sometimes, if we’re going farther afield, we ride my mule. Either way we try to return before the afternoon rains begin, but if we get caught out, she always seems to know another cave in which to take shelter, and sometimes we’ll spend the night there. We are like a couple of kids exploring, and somehow we manage to exist in this time together in that same spirit of childlike innocence and wonder. We have managed to create our own private world and we let nothing else in to violate or spoil it. And yet we are both aware of the fact that this world we have made does not exist outside itself.

I’ve never been a big believer in signs or portents, but the Apaches are a deeply superstitious people and yesterday during one of our explorations something very disturbing occurred that seems to have shaken the girl to her core.

We had lost track of time and wandered on foot several hours away from the
ranchería
. The afternoon storm clouds had begun to build over the mountains, but not until we saw the first distant flash of lightning and heard the accompanying rumble of thunder did we realize that we were too far afield to make it back before the rains came. The entire region is pocked with caves and as usual we had little trouble finding one in which to take refuge. Obviously because the caves also provide shelter to a variety of wildlife, including mountain lions and bears, we always investigate them thoroughly before seeking lodging inside. On these outings, we carry a rawhide bag with fire-making materials—a juniper stick about the length and thickness of a pencil, a flat piece of wood made of sotol stalk and dried bark or grass to use as tinder. I’m much less adept at the process than the girl; by twirling the stick in a notch on the wood, she can start a fire in a matter of minutes. When we had some larger sticks burning, we made a torch using a piece of cloth saturated with pine pitch. We had to crouch down in order to fit through the opening of the cave, but once inside we were able to stand up. It had obviously once been inhabited, for in the center was an old fire ring and the roof of the cave was blackened with smoke. The side walls were decorated with a number of prehistoric drawings—odd representational figures of birds, animals, and men, and various symbols, the meaning of which it was impossible to decipher. We had come upon similar rock drawings in other caves and on some of the canyon walls in the area. The cave seemed like a perfect place to wait out the storm, and as we had brought a blanket and a little food, we could easily spend the night here if we had to.

While the girl got a fire burning in the fire ring, I explored the cave further, just to make certain that we were its only residents. It was maybe fifteen feet deep and had two more passages in the rear. I crawled through one of these, which opened up into another smaller chamber. When I raised my torch, I saw the outline of the figure lying on the floor and I nearly jumped out of my skin. It was clearly a human form, but covered in a mound of silty white dust. I knelt down and began to carefully brush away the dust. As I did so, I began to expose the mummified remains of a woman. She was lying on her side, with her knees drawn up. Although desiccated and shrunken, her skin was nearly unbroken, stretched taut against her bones, and her features were perfectly intact. She had light, wavy hair, nearly flaxen, not at all like Indian hair, and as I uncovered more of her body I saw that she cradled an infant in her arms, and that the child was also perfectly preserved. Both of them wore oddly serene expressions on their faces, as if they had just lain down for an afternoon nap.

I sat there for a while as my torch burned down, watching the mother and child, and when I finally spoke to the girl it was in a whisper, as if afraid of waking them from their centuries-long slumber.

“Chideh,”
I said, “come here. Bring my bag and another torch.”

I wish now that I had left the burial chamber and never called to the girl, never even told her what I had seen there. It was a secret better kept to myself.

She came in through the passage, holding the torch ahead of her and dragging my camera bag. When she saw the woman and child, her expression went from incomprehension to disbelief and finally to horror. She shrank back against the wall of the cave. “What have you done?” she asked.
“¿Qué has hecho?”

“I have done nothing,” I said. “What’s the matter with you?”

“It is a very bad thing to disturb the dead.”

“I only brushed the dust off them. That’s all.”

“Why are they not bones?” she asked.

I did not have the words to explain that some substance in the dust must have preserved the bodies. So I just said, “I don’t know.”

“You dug them up,” she said. “You let their ghosts loose. Look how they smile.”

“That’s nonsense. There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

“They will haunt us now,” said the girl, not to be assuaged. “We cannot stay here.”

The rain had already begun and fell in loud, driving sheets.