Written in Blood (10 page)

The arm releases me and I turn. The Apache warrior who confronted me on the trail days ago is crouching beside me. His left hand holds his knife, but it is low and the shoulder of his shirt is soaked in blood.

“You're wounded,” I say, realizing that he is the survivor of the massacre who left the blood splashes by the trail.

“It is not much,” he says. “Only enough to remind me of my dead friends when I find the men who killed them.”

“Who was it?”

“Scalp hunters. Three warriors fell dead, and I was wounded in the first volley. Two tried to fight back, but there was no cover and they were cut down. Their death gave me my chance to escape over the pass. I was hiding here awaiting dark when you arrived. My father was right; I will not die easily a second time.

“And you, Busca, you are twice lucky. I thought at first you were one of them. I was ready once more to kill you.”

“Thank you for not killing me,” I say weakly. “I have a little food. Will you join me by the fire?”

“I would be honored, Busca.”

“Where were you headed when you were attacked?” I ask after I have shared out the last of the tortillas and beans that Santiago gave me.

Nah-kee-tats-an thinks for a long minute before answering. “We were going to join Victorio, who is collecting a band in the mountains to the east. Tell me, Busca. How were the bodies of my companions?”

It takes me a moment to work out what the question means. “They were scalped,” I reply eventually.

Nah-kee-tats-an nods. “As I thought. It is the old days that Too-ah-yay-say talks of returned.”

“Roberto Ramirez and the scalp hunters?” I ask without thinking. What would this proud man think if he knew that I suspected I was related to the worst of the scalp hunters?

“There is a story my people tell of this Ramirez,” Nah-kee-tats-an says. “One day, some women found a child wandering in the desert. He was lost and near death. They took him back to their village and cared for him until he regained his strength. He said his name was Ramirez, and he lived with my people for many years.

“One day, a party of scalp hunters attacked the village while the men were away on a raid. Ramirez organized the boys of the village to defend the women and infants. They fought bravely, surprising the scalp hunters with their violence. However, they were being pushed back on all sides when the men returned. The scalp hunters were defeated and fled, leaving several bodies around the village. While the people tended their wounds and celebrated their deliverance, the Ramirez boy was found going around the bodies, slitting the throats of those who showed any signs of life and scalping the bodies. As a reward for his bravery, the warriors allowed him to keep the scalps and he became a respected member of the band.

“But the old ways were vanishing. The people were hunted and spent their lives fleeing from hideout to hideout. Eventually, when there were but a handful left, Ramirez disappeared. He took with him the scalps that he had been given in the scalp hunter's raid.”

Nah-kee-tats-an fell silent. I am about to ask if knows any stories about Roberto Ramirez after that, but he abruptly stands up and says, “I must tend to my pony,” and disappears into the trees.

I sit and try to make sense of the many pieces of information I have collected about Roberto Ramirez. Ed dismissed him as the most brutal of the scalp hunters. Wellington suggested that any story about him depended on who told it. Nah-kee-tats-an's story fitted with what Santiago had told me of Alfonso's son running away from home as a boy, but the boy adopted into an Apache band for helping fight off the scalp hunters didn't sound like someone who would turn into one of the very people he had fought against.

My head swirls with all the stories I've been told. They are all different, but bits of all of them talk of the Ramirez clan, Casas Grandes and scalp hunters. Perhaps they are all part of one story: mine. It's confusing, but I am determined to continue and find out everything I can.

Unfortunately, I don't get a chance to find out any more from Nah-kee-tats-an. After he returns from tending his horse, he lies down without a word and falls asleep. When I awake the next morning, he's gone.

13

A
s far as I can see, ruined adobe walls, some thirty or forty feet high, rise as if growing from the brown desert floor. Green and blue lizards scuttle up walls, and swallows swoop through empty windows far above my head. The black stumps of beams jut from walls where long-collapsed floors once spanned rooms, and thick growths of cactus block doorways that lead nowhere.

It's almost impossible to imagine these barren squares bustling with vendors selling brightly colored cloth, painted pots and exotic birds, or to see laughing children chasing each other through these long-abandoned courtyards and rooms. Yet this place must once have been a thriving city at least as big as San Diego.

Casas Grandes is a city of the ancients Wellington told me about, a city that was a ruin long before even the Apaches arrived in this land. A city that may have spawned the legend of the city of gold that drew Coronado on in his unsuccessful search. But if this is a city of the ancients, where is the modern town and Alfonso Ramirez's hacienda?

I ride on, eventually leaving the ruins behind, and arrive at a place that is filled with more than ghosts. Modern Casas Grandes is a pale shadow of what the ancient city must have been, but at least there are people here. They watch me warily as I pass.

I ride down the main street and come to a saloon. It's a low adobe building with a dark doorway. It's not at all inviting, but there are five horses tethered outside, suggesting that it is occupied and might be a good place to ask about the Ramirez hacienda or if anyone remembers the name Doolen.

As I dismount, a man steps out of the nearby alley. He's skinny, with high cheekbones, a sharp nose and sallow skin. His hair is long and greasy and he wears a mustache and chin beard. His eyes are an unsettling shade of blue, and there's no friendship in them as they scan me and Coronado.

“Howdy,” the man says. “You planning on stopping to wet your whistle?”

“I am,” I reply, although part of me is regretting not just riding on.

The thin man lets me go ahead. As we head for the doorway, I examine the dust-covered horses. They're a mixed bunch, but all are lean and their tack worn. The last one in line makes me hesitate. It's a large black horse, and there are a cluster of fresh scalps and one old one hanging from the saddle horn. The horn itself is ornamented with some worn silver work.

I only have time to register all this before the stranger grabs me by the shoulders and shoves me violently into the darkened barroom. I stumble painfully against a table. Four figures standing at the crude bar turn and stare at the commotion. As my eyes adjust to the gloom, I see that the figure nearest me is Ed.

“Well, look who it is,” he says. “Maybe Red and the Kid were right and we should have killed you back outside Tucson.”

“He come in riding the Kid's horse,” the thin man says.

“Is that so?” Ed steps forward and stares at me with interest. “Now, we know what happened to Red— he got careless and his hair's hanging off some savage's war lance—but the Kid, he'd be a mystery. Last I seen of him, he was getting drunk on your money in Tucson, telling me that he'd catch us up the next day. Ain't seen him since. I don't suppose you could shed any light on what might've happened to him?”

I stay silent and Ed steps forward and punches me hard on the cheek. I stagger back, but the thin man grabs me and pushes me back toward Ed.

“I saved your life once,” Ed says. “Don't think it's gonna happen again. The Kid's missing and you come riding in here on his horse. You'd better start talking if you want to leave this room alive, and I don't want any fanciful tales of finding the horse wandering in the desert.”

“An old Apache gave him to me.”

Ed hits me again. “I thought I was clear about not wanting to hear any fanciful tales. Slim,” Ed addresses the thin man behind me, “take him outside and shoot him.”

“Sure,” Slim says, grabbing me by the arm.

“Wait!” I yell. “I'll tell you what happened.”

“That's better,” Ed says with a smile, “but make it snappy and convincing. Slim ain't known for his patience.”

“I saw the Kid in Tucson the day after you robbed me. I went out on the trail to ambush him. I didn't plan to kill him, just force him to give me my stuff back, but he was drunk. He shot at me—that's where I got these cuts on my cheek—and I shot back. I don't know if my bullet killed him, but he fell off his horse and smashed his head on a rock.”

“And you took his horse?”

“No. The horse ran off. I buried the Kid as best I could. I was found by an old Apache who lives in a cave in the hills. He found the Kid's horse and gave him to me.”

Ed tilts his head and regards me with interest. “That sounds more like the truth. The Kid never could hold his liquor worth a damn.”

“Can I kill him now?” Slim asks over my shoulder.

“Not just yet,” Ed says to my great relief. “Me and young Jim Doolen have got ourselves some history, and there's a place we need to go and something I need to tell him before you can have your fun. Tie him up, put him on the Kid's horse and let's move out.”

We ride out of town with Ed holding Coronado's reins and me desperately trying to stay on the horse's back. My hands are tied, and Coronado seems extremely skittish, dancing from one side to the other and tossing his head up and down. I talk to him to try and calm him down, but it does no good. He simply doesn't like being in the company of Ed and the others. I know how he feels.

Fortunately the ride is short, and we soon arrive at a crumbling adobe arch. A single ornate rusted gate hangs at a crazy angle off a bent hinge. I look up and wonder if the rusted hook on the peak of the arch is where Santiago's father's head hung.

“You boys wait here,” Ed orders. “We won't be long.”

“Don't forget your promise,” Slim says, sending a shiver down my spine.

Ed leads the way through the gateway and along a curving path toward a long low building. The main part, I assume the house itself, is fronted by a wide verandah, the roof of which is supported by a series of elegant adobe pillars and arches. In the center there is a broader arch that leads to a wide doorway. To each side are less elegant buildings that were once probably bunkhouses, storerooms and stables. The whole impressive complex is bathed in a soft orange glow as the sun lowers toward the western horizon.

Ed rides straight at the building, up the two stone steps onto the verandah and through the doors into the main hallway. Coronado is forced to follow but is restless, and his hooves clatter on the dark stone floor.

Once in the room, Ed wheels his horse and drops Coronado's reins. I briefly consider making a run for it, but even if I manage to stay on Coronado's back with my hands tied, I would be caught in minutes.

“Do you know where we are?” Ed asks me.

“Alfonso Ramirez's hacienda?” I guess.

“Right. Look around.”

The room has obviously been abandoned for a long time. There is a large hole in the roof at one end and a pile of broken wooden beams, adobe bricks and tiles beneath it. The mud nests of swallows are everywhere and several of the birds swoop and dive in annoyance at being disturbed. The walls are bare and the plaster, which shows the remnants of red and blue painted patterns on it, is peeling and chipped. The floor, made of some polished black stone, is covered in a layer of dust and tiny sand dunes that have blown in through the open door.

“The kitchens are through that doorway.” Ed points to a gap in the wall beside the large empty fireplace at one end of the room. “Alfonso took great pride in his ability to entertain. There was an oak table that ran the entire length of the room and, on feast days, a continuous line of servants coming through from the kitchens, bringing food and drink for the guests. Often there would be a guitarist or two at the opposite end, playing traditional Spanish songs.”

I've stopped looking around the room and am staring at Ed.

“You can't imagine what it was like, the sound of the crackling fire, the clinking glasses and cutlery, the music, the chatter. It was magical.”

“How do you know all this?” I ask, my brow furrowing.

Ed tears himself back from his reminiscences and looks at me. He speaks slowly. “I know all this because I grew up here. When we met before, I told you that Ed was short for Eduardo, but I never told you my surname. It is Ramirez. Alfonso was my father, and I was born in 1834 in a room through that door.” He waves an arm at a doorway at the opposite end of the room from the fireplace.

My mind flashes back to the story Santiago told me. Alfonso married twice and had a second son a couple of years younger than Roberto.

“Roberto Ramirez is your brother,” I say.

“Half brother,” Ed acknowledges, “and was. He died near ten years ago, quite close to where I met you, as it happens.”

My mind reels with questions, but before I can get any out, Ed continues.

“But that ain't the beginning of the story. It starts when I was sixteen years old and I discovered that my brother was still alive.”

14

“ R
oberto ran off when I was no more'n seven or eight. Alfonso flew into a wild rage when he heard and beat the servant who told him the news to death before my eyes. After that, Roberto's name was never mentioned. He was dead to all of us. It was fine by me. Roberto had always been my father's favorite and I hated him. I was happy he was dead and looked forward to Alfonso now treating me as he had Roberto.”

As he speaks, I realize that Ed has changed. Gone is the coarse language of the cowboy that he used with his gang. Replacing it are the cultured tones of a Mexican landowner that he let me glimpse outside Tucson. He reminds me of those lizards in Africa that can change color to fit in with their background. As a bushwhacker on the trail or a scalp hunter with his gang, he is as rough as needs be. In the ruined hall of his father's hacienda, he reverts to an older persona. I wonder how many other masks he has worn in his complex and violent life.