Written in Blood (5 page)

Flames are already licking at the smaller branches by the time I pluck up the courage to bend down at the cave entrance. The entrance is small, but inside the cave opens out to the size of a small room. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the gloom. The first thing I see is the old man's bed, a long pile of brushwood with a blanket on top. There's an unstrung bow, a quiver of arrows, an ax and a collection of various-sized clay pots around it.

I look to my left where I can just make out a lance and an ancient musket leaning against the wall. Unexpectedly, there is also a thick book, which I assume to be a bible until my eyes adjust enough to read the title,
Moby Dick
. It's not a volume I have read, but I know the name very well. My father used to tell me a story of a white whale of that name and the obsession of a man called Ahab who searched the oceans for it. It's strangely unsettling to see the whale's name on a book here in this primitive setting.

Preoccupied, I let my gaze wander back around the cave. From my right, a grinning skull stares back at me.

I almost scream in fear but control it to a loud gasp. I hear the old man outside chuckle. The skeleton is sitting on the floor, leaning against the cave wall. One arm has fallen off and lies beside it, but the rest is held together by dark brown stringy tendons. Perdido is wearing sandals woven from grass, the remnants of a pair of leather pants and a rusted, short-sleeved chain-mail shirt. There's a narrow sword lying on his lap and a plain cross hanging from a chain around his neck. Perdido has obviously been a soldier, but for whom and from when, I have no idea. I make my way back out into the sunshine.

“Who is he?” I ask the old man, who is now squatting by the fire, placing a flat iron sheet between two rocks over the flames.

“He is Perdido. I told you.”

“But where is he from? What happened to him? What is his story?” I move over and crouch beside the fire.

“Ah. So now you want stories,
historias
. That is the difficulty with you white people: you always want more.” He reaches over and places a battered tin pot filled with beans on a flat rock in the fire.

“Do you know how valuable stories are?”

“Yes,” I say, not certain that I do.

“Huh,” the old man snorts dismissively. “I do not think so. The world exists in two places. Here,
aquí
.” He sweeps a scrawny arm wide to encompass the world. “Now,
ahora
, this moment of pain, and hunger, and sunshine, and darkness, and death,
muerte
. And here.” He touches a finger to his temple. “Where yesterday lives.”

I frown in puzzlement, and the old man leans forward and deftly flips a tortilla on his makeshift griddle.

“You are like children,
niños
, you white men. You need everything explained. Your meeting in my cave with Perdido, it exists no more. It was only real when you were face to face. It is gone now and cannot be recaptured. It lives only in your head. It has become a story. Part of your story, and of Perdido's.

“You are now the guardian of that story. You may tell it. You may change it. It does not matter; it is your story now. But with stories comes responsibility. The past,
el pasado
, exists only in our stories. Change the story and you change the past. Stories are the only way the past can live; that is their power. Do not ask for or tell them lightly.

“Can you read words?” he asks abruptly.

“Yes,” I reply.

“And write words?”

I nod.

“That is good. Stories become more real if they are written on paper. I have a story written on paper.”

“
Moby Dick
,” I say. “I saw it in your cave.”

“I am told it is of a sea monster and the man who searches for it.”

“It is.”

“And that it begins with a name.”

“It does. Ishmael.”

“That is good,” the old man says thoughtfully. “Names are important. But it is time to eat,” he says, lifting two large, flat pieces of thick bark from beside the fire. “Good stories are best told on a full belly.”

The old man concentrates on spooning beans onto the pieces of bark. He adds tortillas to each and passes one over to me. I watch and try to copy as he deftly wraps the tortilla round the beans and eats. My eating is much messier, but the food tastes good.

We eat in silence until the pot of beans is empty and wiped clean with the last of the tortillas. Then the old man pours a black liquid into a tin mug. It is the only mug he has and so we share. The coffee is bitter, but I feel restored by the hot drink.

“Now we must know each other,” the old man says, sitting back. He pulls a tobacco pouch from his belt, undoes the neck and pours some dark leaves onto a torn piece of an old newspaper. He rolls it, twists the two ends and places one end in his mouth. Reaching forward, he plucks a burning stick from the fire, tilts his head to one side and lights the other end of his cigarette. He puffs and looks at me.

“What is your name?”

“My name is James Doolen,” I reply.

“Hmmm. This name, James Doolen.” The old man says my name slowly, savoring the sounds. “What does it mean?”

“I don't know,” I say. “I've never thought about it. I don't think it means anything.”

“Then it is not a name,” he scoffs and takes a long drag on his cigarette. “A name must have meaning or it is nothing. If you do not have a name, then you have no center, and if you have no center, then how can you know where you are or where you are going?

“I gave Perdido his name when he became my friend. It was my gift to him in exchange for his helmet. Do you know what it means?”

Suddenly I realize I do know what it means. “Lost.”

The old man smiles.

“Exactly. Perdido is lost, to his family, his compadres, his world. Now, I will give you a real name.” He tilts his head and stares at me until I begin to feel uncomfortable. Eventually he says, “From now on you shall be Busca.”

“Busca,” I try out the sound. “What does it mean?”

“I think that you are searching for something,” the old man says. “In Perdido's language,
uno quien busca
is one who seeks; therefore, you shall be Busca.”

“Thank you,” I say, strangely pleased with my new name. “What is your name?”

“If you live as many years as I, you collect many names. My mother was Chiricahua Apache, an aunt of Firewood, the warrior you know as Cochise, and she gave me my first name, Too-ah-yay-say.”

“Tooaysay,” I say, struggling with the complex pronunciation.

My companion smiles.

“It is, I think, difficult for your ears. It means Strong Swimmer. I earned it as a boy, in the first year of your century, for the time I swam the Rio Grande River to recover a horse that had run away. Too-ah-yay-say.”

“Too-ah-yay-say,” I try again after the old man has repeated his name slowly. My pronunciation is awkward and halting, but I do better.

“Good, but Too-ah-yay-say is only my first name. My father was Spanish. This land was all New Spain when I was born, but he gave me no name. You see, I began life living in two worlds.

“And I have been called many things over the years, some good, some not so good, but I have one name in your tongue. It was given to me by an Englishman for whom I was a hunting guide many years ago and who taught me to speak your language. He called me Wellington.” The old man placed the emphasis heavily on the final syllable. “I think it is after a famous warrior of his people. Perhaps you know him?”

“I have heard of him,” I say, forcing myself not to smile. “He was a great general.”

Wellington nods approval.

“That is the name I use today and by which you may call me. But now it is time for stories. Perdido's story is lost, but I can tell you my story and Perdido's where it is a part of mine. Will you respect Perdido and my story?”

“Yes,” I answer.

“And will you tell me your story in exchange?”

“Yes,” I repeat.

“Very well then, Busca. Let us exchange stories. My story begins with this.” He thumps his chest over his heart. “My Apache half.”

7

“T
his land is very ancient,” Wellington begins his tale. “
Antiguo
, and many people have passed through it. The old ones carved pictures on the rocks and built houses of mud that dwarf the puny things you white men build of wood, many lifetimes before even my mother's people arrived here. Their stories are vanished.” He looks sad at the thought of all the lost stories.

“When I was a child, my grandfather told me of something that happened when his grandfather's grandfather's grandfather was but a
niño
.” Wellington waves his arms as if to emphasize how long ago that must have been.

“In those far-off days some men came to our land from the south. They were white men and they rode the first horses my people had ever seen. Some said they were gods because they carried spears that flashed fire and some wore suits made of metal that glinted in the sun, but they were not gods, they were just different men. They were led by a man called Coronado, and they had wonders that we did not know of—horses, guns and armor—but all their wonders were things, and without them they had little.

“We had few things—a sharp arrow point, a good club—but we had something more valuable: knowledge. They did not know where to find water or how to catch and skin a lizard for dinner. They did not know how to live in the desert, and without that what good are all the wonders of the world?” Wellington stares at me as if he expects an answer, but when I stay silent, he continues.

“They came to our villages and asked about a city of gold,
una ciudad del oro
. We said we did not know, but perhaps there were such things to the north where we had not been. I do not know if they believed us, but they left.

“Some of our young men followed them, and when they saw how these newcomers did not know how to live in the desert, they wanted to kill them and steal their wonders. The elders said that only bad would come of molesting these men and it would be best to let them pass through, but young men do not always listen to advice.

“Some warriors followed the strangers and ambushed small parties that left the main group to hunt or search for their city of gold. They brought horses and weapons back to our villages. The elders were not happy, but the strangers did not return to claim their things. The young men said that all the stranger's power was in their things, and without them they were weak. In any case, we never saw them again; but, although my ancestors never knew it, our world had changed.

“We learned to ride the horses and breed them, and this helped us greatly with our hunting and fighting our enemies, but other strangers came from the south and brought cattle and sheep with them and took over our land and put up fences and built houses and towns and churches. We fought them for many years, but there were too many. We tried to take away their possessions to make them powerless, but it did not work. It seemed that however many horses we ran off or guns we stole, there were always more.

“For all that, we learned to live with these strangers. We raided and killed some of them, and they raided and killed some of us, but the land was big enough for all. And they are my other half.” Wellington sweeps his hand down the right side of his body. “It was on one of these raids that a Mexican, as these new Spaniards called themselves, found my mother hiding in an arroyo and became my father.”

Wellington pauses and takes a deep breath as if preparing himself for the next part of his story.

“Then more strangers came from the north,” he continued eventually. “
Americanos
. They fought with both the men from the south and with us, and much blood soaked into the desert.

“The Americanos are a part of my story. I have fought against them, as some of my people still do, but we will not defeat the north men. They are like ants on the desert floor. You can kill many by standing on them, but more will always come.”

Wellington stops talking and I assume he is finished. The men from the south must have been Coronado's Spanish conquistadores followed by the Mexicans and the Americans. I am wondering if it's my turn to tell a story when the old man continues.

“I did my share of fighting when I was young. I knew the great warriors—my cousin, Cochise, and Red Sleeves, Mangas Coloradas—but I saw how many soldiers there were and how they kept coming, no matter how many we killed.”

A look of great sadness crosses Wellington's face.

“It was not a good time. I saw forests of poles hung with our drying scalps and how the white men paid each other money for them. It is one thing to take a trophy when you kill a brave warrior in a good fight, but these white men killed women and children for their hair. When I saw all this, I knew we could not win against these people. So I left my people and went to work for the white men.

“I was a guide for an Englishman with many names who came to our land to hunt,” Wellington pauses and concentrates. “Lord Alfred George Cambrey Sommer-ville, Earl of Canterbury,” he says in one breath. “I do not think his names meant anything, but he set much store by them. He taught me his language and killed many lions before my people found him.

“Lord Alfred George Cambrey Sommerville, Earl of Canterbury, went one day to follow a lion that was only wounded. He told me to stay at our camp, but I followed at a distance and watched. He was crouched by a rock, waiting for the lion to appear. I saw a small band of my people come close to him without him knowing.

“The first arrow hit Lord Alfred George Cambrey Sommerville, Earl of Canterbury, in the back. He roared in anger, stood up and turned. He fired his rifle and wounded one of the attackers. He did not have a chance to reload, although it took seven more arrows before he fell and my people could come close and end it with their knives and clubs.”