I sit on Coronado, watching the column of dust move slowly toward me over the wide, empty valley bottom. I don’t think it’s a threat, and there’s nowhere to hide out here even if it is. It’s the second day since I said farewell to Wellington, and I am traveling more or less southeast down a dry valley with rugged hills in the distance on both sides. I can’t be far from the Mexican border. Eventually the shapes at the base of the dust resolve themselves into a column of soldiers. I encourage Coronado and we trot forward to meet them.
“Good day,” the young officer at the head of the column greets me as he raises his hand to bring his men to a halt. He is white, but the twenty or so men behind him are black, although it’s hard to tell them apart through the thick layer of dust covering them and their mounts.
“I’m Lieutenant Fowler of B Company, Tenth US Cavalry, on patrol chasing savages out of Fort Bowie. Who might you be and where you headed?”
“My name’s James Doolen, and I’m headed down to Mexico.”
Lieutenant Fowler stares hard at me for a long moment.
“Can’t imagine why you’d want to go down there,” he says eventually, “but I reckon that’d be your business. What I will do is give you a bit of advice.
“Sergeant Rawlins,” the Lieutenant shouts back over his shoulder. “Show this young man what we’re carrying on them mules.”
After some commotion farther down the column, a large man with sergeant’s stripes just visible through the dirt on his sleeves rides up leading two mules, each of which has a long military-cape-covered bundle draped over it. The sergeant nods at me and lifts the corner of the cape on the nearest mule.
The man’s shirt and neck are covered in dried blood. There are a few strands of straggling brown hair still attached to the scalp, but the top of the head is a raw mass of bloody flesh.
I tense at the sight, which causes Coronado to skitter a few steps to the side. The sergeant moves to the second bundle and repeats the procedure. I know what’s coming this time so I am somewhat prepared, but I still gasp in shock.
The second body is just as bloody as the first, but it has a wide band of blood-stiffened hair still attached above the right ear. The hair is a striking red.
“The red-haired man,” I say before I have a chance to think.
“You know this fellow?” the Lieutenant asks.
“I don’t know,” I reply. “Maybe. I was robbed a few days back by someone with hair that color.”
“Could be him right enough. I ain’t never seen hair that color on any other soul round here, living or dead. Perhaps the savages did us a favor this time.”
I look back at the other body, but the cape has fallen back. Is that Ed? The hair was right, what there was of it, but I don’t want to get down and examine the body any closer.
“What happened to them?” I ask.
“Damned Apaches got them,” the lieutenant says. “In the hills down by the border. We found them by an old campfire with more holes in them than a pincushion.
“First I reckoned they were prospectors. Plenty of hopefuls down that way following the stories of gold and silver in the hills.” The officer sweeps his arm to the south and spits in the dust. “If you ask me, the only worthwhile rock they’ll find’ll be a tombstone.
“Anyways, these fellows had no rock samples, claim stakes or prospecting kit with them, so now I ain’t so sure. Could be as you say, that they were road agents on the run or just trying to hide out. Whoever they were, we’ll take them up to Bowie and get them buried afore they get to smelling too bad.”
“Did you see the Apaches?” I ask. “Are they still in the hills?”
“No sign of them.” The officer shakes his head. “But that don’t mean nothing. You can ride ten feet away from a savage and never know he’s there. Could be that they’ve moved on though. I reckon they were some young bucks broke out of the San Carlos reservation after Victorio flew the coop. Probably heading down to Mexico, looking to meet up with him or Geronimo. That’s just fine by me. If they murder a few folk down that way, then it’s the Federales’ problem, not mine.”
I feel uncomfortable with the lieutenant’s dismissal of the Apaches as savages. Wellington was one of the most civilized people I have ever met, and the red-haired corpse, if he was the man who shot poor old Alita, and the Kid were immeasurably more savage than him.
“Sergeant”—the lieutenant turns to the black man beside him—“take them mules back to the rear of the column and get the men ready to move on.”
“Yes, sir.” The sergeant hauls the mules around and heads back down the line of soldiers.
“You’re more than welcome to accompany us to Bowie,” the lieutenant says.
“Thank you,” I reply, “but I think I’ll keep heading on.”
“Suit yourself,” he says, “but travel fast and keep your eyes open. Nights’d be the best time to move. Where you headed in Mexico?”
“Casas Grandes. I was told to head south for Esqueda and then turn east.”
“That’ll work. The end of this valley, couple of hours’ ride, that’s the border. The valley splits round some hills, take the left fork. You’ll come to a river. Follow it until you come out into a wide north-south valley and head south. That’ll take you to Esqueda. Rest up good there because it’s rough country from Esqueda over to Casas Grandes. Good luck and keep a weather eye out for the savages.”
“Thank you.”
Lieutenant Fowler nods, wheels his horse and resumes his position at the head of the column. He raises his hand and orders, “Move out.”
Amidst the clanking of bits and the slow drumming of hooves, the column moves past me. Several of the soldiers turn to look at me, and Sergeant Rawlins nods as he passes.
As the dust settles around me, I wonder why I didn’t take the lieutenant up on his offer of an escort north to Fort Bowie. It would have been the safe and sensible thing to do. I suppose that my search for my father is such a strange and uncertain thing, and is turning out to be so much harder and more complex than I had imagined, that my resolve is hanging by a thread. I have to force myself to keep going. If I turn back to the relative comforts of Fort Bowie, I may never pluck up the courage to set out again. The goal of finding my father, or at least discovering what happened to him, has to drive me forward relentlessly or I will fail and spend the rest of my life wondering.
On top of that, I didn’t like the way the lieutenant talked about the Apaches. Of course, I might think differently if I run into a band of them determined to take my scalp. I sigh and encourage Coronado into a trot away from the soldiers.
I take the left-forking valley as the sun lowers toward the horizon behind my right shoulder. I suppose I am in Mexico now, although I have seen nothing to suggest it. By the time dusk falls, I am crossing rougher ground and have reached the headwaters of a small river flowing in the direction I am traveling.
I move slowly in the dark, even after an almost-full moon rises to cast a ghostly silver light over everything. I imagine every shadow conceals a warrior ready to fire an arrow into my chest or leap up and cave in my skull with an ax. My scalp itches as I try not to imagine a knife blade scraping round my skull.
I’m cold and scared riding through the dark, but I’m more frightened of stopping and going to sleep. The trail by the river is narrow, and in places I can almost reach out and touch the trees beside it, but it is fairly flat and the valley bottom often widens out so that I feel a little less hemmed in. I wrap my blanket around my shoulders, and Coronado and I trudge on.
My head jerks upright and I almost fall out of the saddle. I’ve been asleep. Not for long, but the last thing I want to do is fall and injure myself. I rein in Coronado, uncork my canteen and splash water on my face. The shock of the water helps, but a few minutes after we start moving again, I find myself nodding off.
“Stay awake,” I tell myself out loud. “You’d feel a fool if you travel at night to avoid an Apache attack, only to break your arm falling off your horse.”
Talking out loud feels good.
“Well, Coronado, I hope Wellington…” I stop and think. “Too-ah-yay-say,” I say. Somehow it seems right to use his Apache name after what Lieutenant Fowler said about savages. “I hope Too-ah-yay-say was right and that one day you’ll tell me your story. I would like to hear more about your namesake and his explorations. Come to think of it, you could probably tell me a lot about the Apaches as well.”
I think back over all the old man told me.
“You know, Coronado, Too-ah-yay-say is Cochise’s cousin and he knew Mangas Coloradas. I read dime novels about them. Cochise was a great warrior and so was Mangas Coloradas. One story I read said that Mangas Coloradas went to talk peace under a flag of truce and was captured by the soldiers. While he was sleeping that night, the soldiers stabbed him with red-hot bayonets. When the warrior jumped up, they shot him and said he was trying to escape.
“What do you think of that, Coronado? And it’s even worse. After they killed him, they boiled the flesh off his head and sent his skull back to a museum in Washington. That’s more savage than scalping.
“I can hardly believe that Too-ah-yay-say knew these famous people and did all the things he said, fought in the war and led that Englishman on hunting trips. Too-ah-yay-say must be…”
I don’t notice the tall figure until it steps out into the full moonlight and speaks. “What do you know of Too-ah-yay-say, K’uu-ch’ish and Dasoda-hae, whom you call Mangas Coloradas?”
Coronado skitters sideways and I almost fall off. The idea of turning and galloping off into the darkness crosses my mind, but it’s insanity. There’s no way I can stay on Coronado moving at high speed in the dark, even if he doesn’t break a leg, and besides, other figures are detaching themselves from the shadows all around.
“I met Too-ah-yay-say in the mountains. He gave me tortillas and beans and cleaned my wounds and gave me directions to here. I’m on my way to Casas Grandes.” I’m speaking very fast, almost babbling as my fear mounts.
The man in front of me is a frightening sight. He’s big, at least six feet tall and broad across the shoulders. His trousers disappear into soft leather boots that reach almost to his knees, and he wears a long loose shirt, belted at the waist with a broad red sash in which is tucked a long knife. His black hair hangs over his shoulders and is held off his face by another red sash wrapped around his head. He wears a full cartridge belt slung diagonally across his chest and a rifle over his left shoulder. In is right hand he holds a long lance from which hang an assortment of feathers and, I am appalled to see, a fresh red-haired scalp. He’s smiling, but it could be at the pleasure of adding my scalp to his collection.
“Too-ah-yay-say told me he was a cousin of K’uu-ch’ish.” I try to pronounce the name the way the warrior had. “He told me stories of Mangas Coloradas, Dosada-hay.”
“Dasoda-hae,” the stranger corrects me. “Too-ah-yay-say told you his story?”
“Yes, he did,” I say hurriedly.
“Hmmmm. And you told him your story?”
“I did. I told him how I had come down here from the north to look for my father and how—”
“Do not be so eager to tell strangers your story. What other story did Too-ah-yay-say tell you?”
I struggle to work out what this man means. Too-ah-yay-say only told me one story, his. Then I realize. “He told me Perdido’s story.”
“And you met Perdido?”
“I did.”
The man falls silent, and I can’t think of anything to say. I shiver and it’s not with cold. Any moment now I expect the pain of arrows or bullets piercing my back and feel the knife in the stranger’s belt slicing my scalp off. To my utter surprise, the man bursts out laughing.
“So, the old fool still keeps that dried-up corpse in his cave, does he?” he asks as soon as he has calmed a bit.
“Yes,” is all I can think to say.
The warrior walks forward until he stands beside me. The fresh red-haired scalp is hanging at face level not two feet from my eyes. “I took this two days past,” he says, waggling the scalp. “It is a good color, is it not?”
“Yes, it is,” I agree quickly.
“Tonight, I intended to take your hair to adorn my lance beside it. I followed you and listened to you talk to your horse. At first I thought you were a crazy man, and I was not happy. It is bad luck to take the hair of a crazy man, but then I heard you talk of Too-ah-yay-say and knew you were not crazy. But I cannot take the hair of one who has shared stories with Too-ah-yay-say.”
“You know him?”
“All know Too-ah-yay-say. He is the keeper of stories. What is your name?”
“My old name was James Doolen, but Too-ah-yay-say gave me a new one: Busca.”
“Busca.” The warrior savors the sound. “A seeker, that is a good name and names are important. My name is Nah-kee-tats-an. It means two deaths. My father gave it to me after I fell in the river and drowned. When I was pulled out, all thought me dead, but my father held me upside down and thumped the water out of me and allowed the air back in. He said I was lucky. Because I had died once, it would be a long time before the Gods wished to see me again, so I would have a long life.
“You are lucky as well, Busca, that your hair does not now hang from my lance. I wish you well in your search.”
Nah-kee-tats-an holds up his hand. I take it and his grip almost crushes my bones. I squeeze back as hard as I can.
“Don’t go north,” I say, remembering the lieutenant and his talk of savages. “There are soldiers there.”
“I do not fear soldiers, but thank you.” He releases my hand. “Goodbye, Busca.” He takes a step but then turns back to look at me. “And yes,” he says. “The story you read of Dasoda-hae’s death was a true one.”
In three strides, he has disappeared into the shadows. I turn round, but every other figure has vanished as well. Shaking with relief, but also strangely honored by the encounter, I dismount and lead Coronado down to the water’s edge. There we drink before I unsaddle him, hobble him beside some lush grass and curl up in my blanket at the base of a willow. I am asleep in moments.