People sat scattered on rocks and mats around the fire, laughing and eating, covered in black and brown furs and balancing clay bowls between their knees. Men inhaled from long reeds and blew smoke from their mouths that smelled like sage. They puffed white circles into the air and then passed the reed around the circle.
Diego sat on a rock near the center of the fire circle, talking animatedly with a young woman who ladled drink from a clay jug. Cactus wine, I presumed, or something similar. Next to him sat Lobo, resting his head in his paws, his big yellow eyes fixed on the chunks of red meat.
“Lobo,” I whispered. My chest ached for the nearness of a friend. He lifted his head when he saw me and started to pant. “Lobo,” I said again, louder, and he left Diego’s side to nuzzle my hand.
Olathe clucked her disapproval when I stooped to stroke Lobo’s head. Snickering, she tugged the inside of my elbow and led me to four open flat rocks near the center of the fire. Lobo trailed behind me.
The rocks were covered with black furs. With a long skinny finger, Olathe pointed to one of the rocks and motioned for me to sit. Lobo sat at my feet. Instantly, a woman appeared at my side and offered me a clay bowl of stew and a stick speared with deer meat. Steam from the stew wafted over my face, warming my nose. I took the bowl gratefully and began to sip. Nonchalantly, I lowered the skewer of red meat and offered it to Lobo. He tore it off with his teeth in one easy bite and then began to nuzzle his snout against my elbow.
“I missed you, too,” I whispered to him, patting his head. “I missed you, too.”
Suddenly the crowd grew silent.
Manaba appeared from behind me and took the empty spot next to mine. Olathe bristled beside me.
Then Manaba stepped into the circle. He wore a thick black bearskin across his shoulders. It was tied at the neck, making him appear even broader. His hair was still held back by a shiny black skin wrapped tightly around his forehead. Two white lines were painted across his cheeks and down the bridge of his nose.
He motioned for Diego to join him near the fire. Diego took the remaining empty spot beside him.
Manaba began to speak in a deep, halting voice as he addressed his people. I looked to Diego for a translation but Diego would only stare back at Manaba and smile. I guessed that Manaba was talking about Diego because when he finished, Manaba pulled out a deerskin pouch from inside his bearskin. He presented it to Diego with both hands. It was a gift. Or a reward.
Diego took the bulging pouch in both hands and then bowed his head slightly. He opened it and shiny stones spilled into his hands, red, gold, and green ones, the same ones that adorned many of the dresses and earrings worn by the Apache around the fire. Diego seemed to be particularly interested in the gold stones. They sparkled like the sun in the firelight. Mostly, they sparkled dangerously in the reflection of his eyes.
Then Manaba half-turned to me and began to speak. He said my name somewhere in all of his words. I watched Diego as he quickly tugged on the two threads that tightened the pouch before he stuffed it inside his shirt.
When Manaba paused, Diego cleared his throat. His gaze fell on me.
My breathing stopped.
In a loud voice, Diego said, “Aiyana, Daughter of the River People, the woman whose eyes hold the sun, you now wear the skin of an antelope to symbolize pollen and fertility.”
I listened, barely breathing. I watched Diego’s lips translate Manaba’s words, but I was more aware of Manaba’s eyes on me, along with the eyes of his people, watching me, studying me.
Manaba continued and then Diego spoke.
“It is by the grace of our Creator that you were brought to us, for a woman whose eyes hold the sun can surely produce Apache sons.”
Olathe rocked beside me, breathing heavy, like her stomach ached, but I was too numb to care.
“That is why, before all of the Apache people on the night of our most sacred
Gan
Ceremony, Manaba wishes to present you with two options.”
Options? I have options?
Manaba and Diego paused to look at me, waiting for a reaction. Finally, I nodded for Diego to continue.
“If you marry Manaba, the beloved Chief of the Apache, then Honovi, Son of the River People, will live.”
My breath lodged in the back of my throat at news that Honovi still lived while the tiniest of smiles flickered across Diego’s face.
“Or,” Diego continued, “You choose not to marry Manaba and Honovi will die.”
I swallowed.
Honovi dies?
My stomach knotted but I took short, quick breaths to steady myself. As my breathing eased, I considered my options, looking up into Manaba’s eyes without really seeing him. Murmurs and whispers began to float around the circle as the Apache waited for my answer.
Their whispers grew more anxious.
Perhaps I took too long.
Finally, I pulled back my shoulders.
There was only one choice.
My eyes fixed on Diego. “Tell Manaba that I will be proud to become his wife,” I said, my chin raised. “I will give him his sons.”
Diego quickly translated, not bothering to hide the surprise in his voice while a satisfied smile lifted Manaba’s lips. He turned in a circle as he announced the news and the people began raising their fists, clapping, and banging sticks against the ground. I looked around the circle at their faces, shiny with paint, and lips still wet with meat grease. None of them were familiar, all were strangers.
Then Manaba lifted his hands and the crowd quieted.
Diego leaned closer to me so that his forehead brushed mine. “There’s more, Aiyana,” he said, not bothering to hide the amusement in his voice. He was so close that I could see the bulge of stones in the opening of his shirt. It’d be so easy to reach my arm across and snatch it from him, snatch what he held so dear, just like he did to me.
My voice cracked. “More?” My tone held none of the forced confidence from my earlier decision.
Diego nodded as Manaba resumed speaking. His black eyes were once again directed at me, as if he and I were the only two people seated around the fire.
I looked back at him, my future husband, wondering if he could detect the fear behind my eyes.
“Four risings of the moon from this moment, you must show yourself worthy to become the wife of an Apache chief.”
My throat tightened.
Worthy? There was more to this cruel game?
Diego continued the translation. “First, you must prove yourself an equal partner to your husband’s wives by weaving a basket worthy of a chief’s household.”
My chest tightened.
“Second, you must prove that you are able to run from danger by outrunning the fastest Apache girl.”
Diego paused, along with Manaba, while my temples pounded with dread.
Baskets? A race?
“And third…” Even Diego paused again. He looked at Manaba as if to make sure he understood his words but Manaba prodded him with a single nod of his head. “Third, before the moon returns to the sky after the fourth day, you will be given a bow and three arrows and escorted to the edges of the forest. You must only return with an animal large enough to feed Manaba’s family. In doing so, you will prove that you can care for your new family, even when your husband is absent. If you do not return within three days, Honovi will be killed.”
I sat rigid, staring at Diego. Speechless. Unblinking.
After Manaba finished his speech, he sat beside me. His wide hands rested on his knees as he faced the fire, his back straight, his chin raised high.
The air remained uncomfortably silent. Not even the children fidgeted. I could feel everyone’s eyes studying me, doubting my abilities to meet their great chief’s challenge. I was clearly only a simple girl from the village of the “River People,” as Manaba labeled me. I was hardly Apache. And I didn’t need to read Olathe’s mind to know that she doubted my abilities most of all.
Behind me, Lobo whimpered and nudged the small of my back with his snout. I blinked. Then I nodded once to Manaba and absently reached for the blue stone that hung low on my necklace. The stone was small and smooth in my hands. I closed my eyes, briefly, and pictured Gaho and Ituha in my mind. I even pictured Chenoa. In my mind, Chenoa smiled at me and whispered words of encouragement. Silently, I spoke to her and begged for strength.
Then my hands dropped to the unfinished bowl of stew at my feet and I forced myself to drink every last drop. I asked for another piece of deer meat. Then another.
I would meet Manaba’s challenge. I would prove everybody wrong.
And I would save Honovi. To myself, I pledged that most of all.
For the next four sunrises and sunsets, we did nothing but eat and dance in the Apache village.
I ate and danced out of necessity; the Apache did it for the sheer joy of being together. How I craved that same feeling of jubilation again.
I listened to their stories but understood very little. Listening to the elders recount old legends had always been my favorite part of any ceremony. The Apache were no different and no less colorful. The elders, even Manaba, sat in the center of the circle closest to the fire after we feasted on steaming chunks of deer and elk meat and vegetable stews sweetened with mountain berries. Manaba’s deep voice captivated the circle, especially the youngest children who were allowed the privilege of sitting at his feet. Their wide and unblinking eyes reminded me of when Chenoa and I sat at Yuma’s feet, or even Eyota’s, enraptured, listening to magical stories about black bears capturing Sky Wanderers and foxes tricking misbehaved children.
After the third day of the ceremony, my chest ached from watching, remembering, and wishing that I could hear the stories of my own people all over again.
Following the Apache’s story time, always near dawn, four men with brightly painted red and yellow faces emerged from the shadows dressed in thick furs and bleached-white deer horns. Animal bones dangled in long necklaces around their necks and rattled whenever they moved. They chanted and danced around the circle; the children squealed with a mixture of fright and delight. Clutching long sticks, they hopped and leapt while the Apache shouted
“Gan! Gan!”
just as a sliver of orange sun appeared in the sky.
The first night, Diego told me that
Gan
were mountain spirits who had the power to cure illnesses and repel evil actions. Upon learning this, I shouted
“Gan! Gan!”
and shook my fists with the Apache, praying the spirits would heal Honovi. Each time I’d yell it louder and louder till even Doli and Olathe noticed.
Then after the dancers left the circle, we all returned to our windowless houses, exhausted. Inside Manaba’s house, I slept on a mat underneath bear and elk skins that smelled of smoke and sage. I slept on the side of the house with the children, opposite from where Manaba slept with his wives. I hardly minded. The second day, Olathe’s children, Leotie and Nascha, crawled underneath the furs, one on either side of me like tiny dolls, and we kept each other warm. It was also the first time I could remember sleeping so deeply since the frightening night of my capture. It was the first time I slept without nightmares.
Each day after we retired to the houses, Manaba would lie with one of his wives. I had to sing a song inside my head to drown out the soft moans coming from their marriage mat. I remembered one particular story that Chenoa and I used to sing when we gathered mesquite seeds in the desert:
I listen for the voice of the dove;
And the rain falls.
I listen for the voice of the deer;
And the corn grows.
I listen for the voice of my mother;
And I am home again.
I sang it over and over in my head till my eyes became heavy with sleep.
On the fourth moon of the ceremony, Manaba placed his hand on my shoulder after he watched me pull the yellow antelope skin dress over my head. As I pulled my hair back, his eyes locked onto mine. As usual, it was impossible to look away. He spoke to me in a deep, husky voice, still heavy from sleep. I didn’t need to understand Apache to know that the next time he lay with his wife that the wife would be me.
***
At dawn on the fourth moon of the
Gan
Ceremony, the healer who stood vigil over Honovi entered the circle where we sat on furs around a fire that still burned as bright and strong as it did when the celebration started. The blankets that covered our shoulders were barely necessary, given the size of the boulders that burned in the pit.
I sat on one side of Manaba while Olathe and Doli sat on the other. Diego, when he wasn’t overindulging on elk meat and too much berry wine, sat beside me, ready to serve as translator when necessary. His pupils were mostly dilated and the wine had stained his teeth purple. Lobo sat wedged between us.
The healer didn’t look as frightening in the daylight, although his lips remained a tight line and the whites of his eyes still blazed angry behind his mask. A fox skull covered the top of his wrinkled face.
I sucked back a breath as he approached me, trying to read the message behind his eyes. He didn’t trust me, I could tell. I was not Apache. He shook a faded animal bone that was as long as his leg. It rattled and hissed from the braided tassels and strings of animal teeth that where wrapped around it. Around us, the crowd grew silent again, watching the healer.
Then the drumbeats started, slowly.
Thump-thump-thump-thump
.
As the grey sky turned the faintest shade of blue, the healer shook his animal bone around my body, slowly at first and then faster. Just as the bone hissed like a snake, four
Gan
dancers emerged from the morning mist and leapt inside the circle. I didn’t dare shudder even though my stomach tightened. Something was different.
The drumbeats got faster.
And louder.
The dancers spun and gyrated in haphazard circles, their furs and necklaces spinning into the air. They raised their arms to the sky, chanting, and stomped their feet in perfect time with the drummers. And my heartbeat.
I barely breathed. And how could I?
The healer’s face lowered so close to mine that I could smell his stale breath and see his blackened gums. Most of his teeth were missing. By the time he finished chanting and thrashing the animal bone in the air, the morning mist had disappeared.
The drumbeats stopped just as the mist lifted.
Then circle grew still again. Not even the children dared fidget.
The dancers sat, as quiet as fallen leaves, and I remembered to breathe.
The healer pulled back his narrow shoulders to take a deep raspy breath. He wheezed through his gums when he breathed. As he exhaled, he thrust his palm in the air.
A collective hush traveled over the crowd.
I carefully raised my eyes, barely moving my head, to see a golden circle painted in the middle of the healer’s hand.
He held it over my head and said,
“Ya’ái.”
Then he slowly pivoted in a circle so that everyone could see his palm.
“Sun,” Diego whispered in my ear, although a translation wasn’t necessary. I remember Manaba calling me
Ya’ái
when we first met in the forest. “Here’s the best part,” Diego said, his voice laced with a grin.
I turned to him.
“The old man says you’re a woman now. Let the first challenge begin.”
I almost choked.
A woman?
I was already a woman, although there were plenty of times I would have preferred to stay a girl.
But a woman I had become, whether I was ready or not.
***
It was time for the first challenge.
After the healer left the circle, Manaba led me to the clearing that separated the village from the forest. We walked in silence. Diego and Lobo followed behind us, along with Olathe and Doli. The rest of the Apache trailed us, their thick furs and necklaces rustling like tree branches in the wind.
The grasses were knee-high in the middle of the clearing but matted down around the edges. I gauged its size to be that of four ball courts strung together in an imperfect circle.
Clearly the first challenge was the race.
When we reached the edge of the clearing, Manaba waived his hand over the crowd, silencing their murmurs and hushed conversations.
Manaba’s deep voice filled the air. “Haloke!” he yelled, and a tall girl with gangly arms and even longer legs emerged from an opening in the crowd. Instead of a dress, she wore deerskin pants like a man. How I envied her. Dresses only got in the way.
Haloke approached us with deliberate steps, her chin raised and her shoulders pulled back. Her shiny black eyes matched her hair and hung down the back of her neck in a skinny braid. I figured that she had seen as many harvests as I had. She was fast, I could tell from the thickness of her legs, but that’s not why my temples pounded. They pounded because I couldn’t lose.
As she stood alongside me, Haloke smiled but the smile was confident and even a little smug. She’d run many races before and won. That much was clear.
But then I had to remind myself, so had I. There wasn’t a girl in my village I couldn’t outrun, and I outran half the boys, too.
I lifted my chin and smiled back at Haloke, and a hint of the sparkle in her black eyes disappeared.
Manaba spoke again, loud enough for everyone gathered in the half-circle around us to hear.
Diego translated. “The first to run the circle in the clearing will be declared the winner.” Then he added, as if I’d somehow forgotten, “This is the first of three challenges to prove whether the Daughter of the River People is worthy to become the wife of an Apache chief.”
I listened, nodding, never removing my eyes from Haloke. She and I were all that mattered inside the grassy field.
Words didn’t matter; only speed mattered.
Haloke spit into her hands and then rubbed her palms together. I did the same.
Then we both crouched low at the starting line, which was a strip of thin deerskin stretched before us. Side-by-side, we dug our heels into the hard dirt, waiting for a signal.
Haloke crouched so close that her elbow brushed against mine.
As we waited, a sweat bead trickled down my forehead. Swiftly, I brushed it away with the back of my hand.
Brows furrowed, we turned our attention to the deserted path in front of us. I started to visualize myself flying across it, my body as light and supple as a quail.
The crowd widened to give us room. Manaba stood a few strides in front of us. He raised his arms and slowly said:
“Dalaa…”
“Naki…”
“Táági!”
With a
whoosh
, his thick arms lowered and Haloke and I burst from the starting line. We’d have knocked him over if he hadn’t leapt out of the way.
The crowd roared as soon as Manaba’s arms lowered. It wasn’t long before their screams got softer the further we ran from the starting line. Even Lobo’s piercing yelps faded from the sky, Diego’s hands undoubtedly holding him back.
Almost halfway around the circle, Haloke and I matched each other step for step. Her legs were thicker but mine were just as fast. I kept my arms close to my sides and concentrated on my breathing, in through my nose, out through my mouth, as our feet pounded in unison against the hard dirt. If my injured ankle still bothered me, I didn’t notice.
At the halfway point, the wispy grasses that filled the center of the clearing hid us from the crowd almost to our necks. It was just Haloke and me and a handful of curious hawks that circled above us. The screams from the crowd had faded to a dull roar.
I listened for Haloke’s breathing beside me. When I turned sideways to glance at her, she looked back at me, her brow furrowed with concentration. Instead of smiling, her eyes narrowed beneath a forehead beaded with sweat. The earlier confidence in her eyes was replaced with sheer determination. And a little anxiety. Obviously she never figured that I could keep pace with an Apache girl.
But she thought wrong.
At the halfway point, it was time to pull ahead. Just when I began to push myself to take an extra step to claim the lead, Haloke elbowed me, hard, in the side.
“Hey!” I yelled. I stumbled off the path, briefly. A harder shove and I would have tumbled into the forest. Even so, Haloke gained two lengths on me.
That’s exactly what she wanted.
But not for long.
In less than a heartbeat, I was back on the path and running behind her, and this time I was energized by pure anger. Maybe that was the shove I needed. Haloke did me a favor.
I got close enough to reach for her braid.
Cheater!
I screamed inside my head.
The girl is a cheater.
But I didn’t yank her braid.
I got mad.
Consumed with new rage, my legs ran faster across the path. My feet barely made a sound. I was practically flying around the path. Even steady breathing had become optional, if not impossible. I matched Haloke step for step but I didn’t bother to look at her again. I didn’t need to.
Let her see my hair flying past my shoulders when I pass her,
I thought.
Let her remember that the Daughter of the River People didn’t have to cheat to win a race.
As we ran past the halfway point, the crowd’s roar grew louder and less muffled.
Lobo’s barks filled the air again.
I looked toward the finish line and saw a river of faces and colors. It was as if the Apache cheered with one voice and watched with only one pair of eyes. They shook their fists and leapt into the air, waiting for Haloke and me to cross the finish line.
With sweat streaming down my face, I searched the faces for the only one that mattered.
Off to the side, behind Manaba, Honovi stood leaning against a long bow, his face uncharacteristically pale. He used the bow like a crutch. He smiled and raised his fist over the shoulders of strangers when his eyes met mine.
Was it my imagination? Was I hallucinating? Did I really see him? Was he truly standing there, waiting? Watching? Cheering?
“Honovi,” I whispered.
I blinked. Then I ran faster, harder. I couldn’t lose. I wouldn’t lose Honovi.
The crowd’s roar overpowered the pounding inside my chest, the beating at my temples. I pushed harder till my calves burned. I wanted to scream in agony and jubilation. I just needed one more step, one extra step, to beat the Apache girl.
I saw the finish line and I stretched my neck forward. I couldn’t stop. I leapt into the waiting crowd as if I was diving into the deep end of a river. Instead of Honovi, I ran into the waiting arms of the Apache, my heart thundering so hard against my chest that I thought it would split in two.