When Miguel had started school in Tucson for the first time, all the students were required to speak English. He learned quickly, but still spoke Spanish with his friends, and at home. No one tried to make him forget his first language.
The Abranos’ ranch had been part of Mexico until a huge swath of land was sold to the United States years before Miguel was born. It meant nothing to him until Papá explained that their family had suddenly become Americans with just the stroke of a pen. Inside, as Rushing Cloud would say, the family was still Mexican and they still spoke Spanish. No government could erase that. But they were American, as well.
Miguel shared Rushing Cloud’s outrage that the missionaries had forbidden the native children from speaking their own languages. They could have taught them English and still let them use their own words outside the classroom.
A vision of his ancestor’s tattered leather book flashed into Miguel’s mind. If the Hebrew words were forgotten, who would be able to read the book again? Perhaps if you learned a new language—or a new religion—you could use one and still not throw away the other. Was that what his ancestor had done? What about Papá and Mamá?
Jacob Franck became the messenger carrying his ancestor’s words. He relayed a story Papá cherished, and now Miguel felt ashamed of his lack of understanding. His angry words must have hurt Papá terribly. He tried to shake the image.
Miguel wondered if Rushing Cloud would someday tell his children and his grandchildren about the mission school. What had happened was too important to be forgotten. The story would remain part of the family’s history only if it was passed on, just like his own. Miguel was part of the chain that could save his own family’s story.
“How long were you at the school?” Miguel asked.
“Almost two hot seasons have passed,” Rushing Cloud said. Two years, Miguel realized. “It is almost time for the planting rains to fall again.” Rushing Cloud pulled his fingers through his short hair. “When I return to the rancheria I will never let my hair be chopped again. It will grow as long as my memory.”
“Why did you finally run away?” Miguel asked.
“One morning the mission teachers carried white shirts for the boys to wear. They tell us every child will have his image made with the exploding box. They smile with their teeth, but we are afraid and wonder how we can get away before it is too late.”
“Why?” Miguel asked. “There’s nothing to be afraid of having your photograph taken.” His family had once had a portrait made by a traveling photographer who came into Tucson. Miguel’s mother placed the photograph in a glass-covered frame and hung it on the wall.
“Remember I say that my grandmother share some wisdom before I was taken away?” Rushing Cloud asked. “She tells me that if the white man’s flashing machine captures your image, your life will be short. She makes me promise I will not let them steal my old age.”
Miguel had never heard anyone worry about being photographed. Still, Rushing Cloud’s grandmother believed it, and so did he. “Couldn’t you just tell the missionaries not to photograph you?”
Rushing Cloud grunted. “These elders do not listen to the voices of the young. In secret, I beg my cousins to come away with me, but they are too afraid. Others have run many times before, and we see how they are caught and chained with iron and given no food.” His voice grew softer. “I know they can never catch me. In the night, I slip from the sleeping room. Outside, I put the white man’s boots on backward and walk until I disappear.”
The thought of Rushing Cloud using the Apache trick to hide his tracks made Miguel smile. He imagined the missionaries following Rushing Cloud’s footprints from the desert into the building and searching under every bed and in every wardrobe. The two boys rolled to face each other and burst out laughing.
Suddenly, Rushing Cloud’s expression grew serious. “I worry about my cousins. Maybe their lives will be too short. When they leave the white man’s school, will they be able to live with their people again if they forget the old ways? That is why I must go home—back to the blanket. I must get there, my friend, before I lose more than I can find again.”
Miguel closed his eyes. Before sleep closed his thoughts, an idea arose in his mind. I am ready to go back to the blanket too. It is time for me to learn the old ways.
When Miguel awoke in the shelter, he heard Rushing Cloud chanting, his voice floating on the evening air like a singing ghost. This would be their third night traveling together, and Miguel was thankful that he wouldn’t be alone in the desert again.
He propped himself up on his elbow and looked toward the spot where the roadrunner had perched. Just beyond, Rushing Cloud sat in the same cross-legged position Miguel had seen before, facing the long clouds that stretched across the pink and violet light of the setting sun.
By the time his companion returned to the shelter, Miguel had taken down most of the branches. Together, they brushed over their footprints and began to walk. Miguel was still limping, but there was less pain now and he kept pace with Rushing Cloud.
Miguel felt a pang of guilt. He should have told his friend the truth about why he had become lost so far from his own home. He had to be honest. Miguel’s mouth went dry.
“There’s something—something I haven’t told you,” he stammered. “I—I did run away, away from my family.”
“I know this—here,” Rushing Cloud said, touching his heart. “I know because you never talk of your people. Yet you are thinking of them much of the time. Is it not so?”
“My father shared a story with me the night I left,” Miguel began. “It was written in a book by an elder who lived long ago. He had been captured and brought to this land as a prisoner. In the book he told how the church had tried to force our ancestors to accept their faith—the one my family follows now! Many of the family, and so many others, were killed for following their own beliefs. Their land was taken from them.”
Rushing Cloud nodded. “This is how my people lose their lands and are made to pray to a different god.” He seemed to search Miguel’s face for some sign of understanding. “We have shared our lives, my friend, although we have walked different paths.”
Miguel was startled at the truth of Rushing Cloud’s words. His ancestors—and Miguel’s—had fought for the right to remain on their land and keep their own beliefs. Yet Miguel had wanted to become a priest and wipe out the beliefs of natives like Rushing Cloud. A hollow feeling settled in his chest. He didn’t know if he could still think of following in Father Ignacio’s footsteps. When he had rushed from the house, his faith was firm. Now he was filled with doubts.
“I didn’t want to believe that my family was different than what I had always thought,” Miguel declared. “It scared me to hear what had happened to my ancestors under the laws of my own church. I couldn’t bear to listen! In just a few minutes, everything in my life changed—who I am, and who I thought I would become. I wanted my life to go back to the way it was before my father told that story—and I just ran. I never thought I would get so lost.”
Rushing Cloud gazed toward the horizon. “So, you escape twice. Once from your ancestor’s words, and again from Apachu who would change your life again. I think you are still the same inside—you are Miguel. Ancestors speak to us in many ways. You must only listen to know who you are.”
Rushing Cloud pointed to a cluster of spiny barrel cactus nestled at the foot of a spindly mesquite tree. “Can you see that we are traveling home?” he asked. “The cactus points the way. I’itoi, the Creator, tells them to bend toward the sun so the Desert People will never be lost.”
Miguel saw that the barrel cactus tilted slightly in one direction. “They must point south,” he marveled. He had seen such cactus a thousand times, yet never noticed how they grew. With Rushing Cloud at his side, it was as if he were learning to see the desert for the first time. Rushing Cloud was passing along the traditions of his elders as if Miguel would also keep them from being forgotten.
Miguel wondered if Aharon ben Avraham had truly changed his religious beliefs when he came to this new land. Had he simply hidden them so long they had been lost between one generation and the next? Rushing Cloud was certain that neither Miguel nor his family had changed deep in their hearts. His friend’s words settled into Miguel’s thoughts and rested there.
Perhaps Miguel could remain strong in his Catholic faith and still honor the memory of his ancestor’s life. Maybe the story of this ancient relative was God’s way of showing Miguel that each person had to make his own choices. There were many paths before him, and Miguel had to choose the one he would follow. It was far more difficult than finding his way across the desert, but he thought that he was coming closer to the right path.
After they had traveled a short distance, Rushing Cloud pointed to a deep circular depression in the sand. “When the rains come, this charco will fill with water.” He walked around the dry wash until he spotted a faint channel leading away from it. “Look, my friend. Here is where the water flows in from the mountain. We must find its mouth.”
The trail led into the foothills, where grasses and low bushes grew in abundance. Rushing Cloud pulled up some of the greens and fastened them under his belt.
Miguel sniffed the air. “Onions!” he said.
Rushing Cloud nodded. “When we stop, we can roast them.”
If there were onions growing, there had to be water nearby, Miguel thought. He bent low, parting the grasses as he went. The sand looked damp as he moved higher between the boulders. A faint trickle darkened a small rock, and a little farther ahead, Miguel found its source. A spring bubbled between a jumble of stones. “Water!” he called.
“Your eyes are open today, my friend,” Rushing Cloud said. Miguel captured a handful of the precious liquid, but when he drank his mouth filled with as much sand as water. He spit into the dirt.
Rushing Cloud laughed softly. He filled his gourd dipper with water, wrapped the edge of his shirt around it, and drank through the cloth. He rinsed out the wet sand that remained and handed his gourd and his shirt to Miguel. They each drank their fill and then traveled back down the slope in the deepening night. The silhouettes of giant saguaro stood out against the moonlight, their waxy white buds lit with a ghostly glow.
“Before long the saguaro fruit will ripen,” Rushing Cloud observed, craning his neck to look at the luminous flowers. “Then my village will move their spring camps to gather them.”
“Are the saguaro fruit good to eat?” Miguel asked.
“Yes. The women and girls strike the fruit with long sticks until they fall. Then the grandmothers cook them into syrup.” His voice held a hint of excitement. “Everyone fills their ollas, and at home we mix the syrup with water to make a sweet drink. Every family offers a few jugs to the Keeper of the Smoke. He lets the syrup ripen. When it is ready, we drink and sing songs to call the rain. On the fourth day, thunder announces the season of growing. Black clouds fly across the sky, and rain comes to water our fields. The charcos fill.” Rushing Cloud put his hand on Miguel’s shoulder. “My mother tells that I came with the summer rains. She looked to the sky and saw the clouds rushing to give us water just as I came into this life. That is why I am called Rushing Cloud.”
Miguel loved the time of year when thunderstorms washed the desert and the scent of creosote bushes filled the air. The ranch hands set rain barrels outside to hold the bounty of water, and the horse troughs overflowed.
“I will tell you something,” Rushing Cloud confided. “If the Tohono O’odham do not sing up the rain, the desert will always be dry.”
A new realization filled Miguel’s head. Rushing Cloud may have learned to speak like a white man, but that hadn’t changed his beliefs. His faith had shaken Miguel’s.
He had always believed Father Ignacio when the priest declared that Indians were heathens who knew nothing about God or civilized life. He realized now that Father Ignacio could be mistaken. It could be true that Rushing Cloud’s god brought the rains. The Desert People might teach the settlers many things, if only they would listen. Rushing Cloud had already taught Miguel more in a short time than he ever imagined was possible.
The slope of the mountain range grew lower, and Miguel sensed they were getting closer to Tucson. A chill crept into the night air, but he wasn’t cold, even without a shirt or shoes. Tonight he had walked several miles and he was still at Rushing Cloud’s side, neither tired nor thirsty. Light from the sky lit his path. I am more like the scorpion every day, he thought, finding my way through the dark.
In the distance, Miguel thought he saw fires glowing. Was it an illusion of stars dancing in the desert? As he walked ahead, he realized it was the flickering of campfires! His heart raced.
“Enemy soldiers,” Rushing Cloud announced, standing stock-still. The faint echo of laughter drifted across the still air.
“It’s the cavalry,” Miguel nearly shouted. He rushed forward, forgetting his tender foot. Rushing Cloud grabbed his arm roughly and pulled him back.
“You must wait until daylight, my friend. These warriors shoot their fire sticks at anything that rustles in the night.”
Miguel tried to pull away. “Don’t you understand? They’re searching for me,” he argued. “They wouldn’t shoot!”
“Look at you,” Rushing Cloud declared. “Your hair hangs down, and you wear a headband like Apachu. You have no shirt or boots, and your skin is dark from the sun and covered with red dust. How can you think of running into their camp? They will not know you.”
Miguel slumped down in the sand and pulled the strip of cloth from his head. He had waited so long to be rescued, and now he would have to wait even longer.
“Maybe they won’t believe me when I tell them who I am,” he said. “Maybe they’ll think I’m their enemy.”
“Come,” Rushing Cloud said in his soft voice. He moved toward the boulders to the west. “We will go closer, but we will stay in the shadow of the mountain. Tomorrow, when the sun shines upon you, call out to them and enter their camp in safety. I will follow and watch to make sure they take you home. After all, we still travel the same path.” He handed Miguel his shirt. “Wear this,” he said.
Miguel pulled the shirt over his head, struggling to ease it over the sling. Pain throbbed in his shoulder with the slightest touch.
“You’re right,” he admitted. “You probably saved my life again just now. I would have run into the camp and startled the sentries. Tomorrow we’ll go in together, and this time, I’ll be able to help you. I’ll tell the soldiers what you did for me. I won’t let them take you back to the mission school, I promise. Maybe they’ll give you a horse so you can get back to your family quicker. Agreed?”
He poked his head through the opening in the shirt and tugged it into place. The fabric felt strange against his bare skin, and he almost wished to feel the air against his chest again. He looked up when his companion didn’t answer, but Rushing Cloud was gone.