The final challenge had begun.
Before the orange glow from the sun had almost completely disappeared behind the treetops on Apache Mountain, Manaba and his people gathered at the edge of the clearing that lined the forest. They stood around me in a half-circle. Even Haloke stood with her village to wish me well and nodded when I spotted her.
The air had turned colder for my departure and the howling wind, unfortunately, hadn’t faded with the sun. Manaba stood beside me, his hair flying wildly behind his shoulders, while Olathe and Doli maintained their usual positions on his other side.
Diego stood beside us, waiting, but not really wanting, to continue his role as translator. Maybe it was the way his nostrils flared whenever he looked at me. He didn’t try to hide his anger. No, his bloodshot eyes blazed at me as Manaba spoke.
I expected it.
When Manaba paused, Diego translated, but reluctantly.
Clearly he had discovered, after awakening from his drunken stupor, his missing pouch of precious stones.
And he knew by my tight-lipped smile that I was the thief.
In a satisfying way, having that knowledge over him—that power of having something he desperately needed—made me feel stronger. My chin pointed toward him defiantly as I waited for his translation.
“You must return by the rise of the third moon with enough fresh meat to feed my wives and children,” Diego said. But then he quickly added in almost the same voice, the same flat, steady tone, “I know you stole my stones, Aiyana. I want them back.” It didn’t matter that Diego spoke so openly; the Apache didn’t understand him. As far as Manaba was concerned, Diego was translating his instructions, word for careful word.
I expected Diego’s question and I wouldn’t allow myself to flinch from it. Instead, I reveled in the anxiety that filled his glassy eyes. I continued, in fact, to smile calmly, warmly, even when I said, “You stole much more from me and my people than a handful of gold stones. I’d say that makes us even.”
Diego’s nostrils flared but Manaba spoke again, oblivious.
Diego translated, not that he needed to. I already knew the rules of the third challenge.
“You will be given our best bow and three warrior arrows,” Diego said.
I tugged on the quiver that hugged my back, acknowledging this, but in addition to the three arrows, I hid Diego’s knife at the bottom when no one was looking.
“If you do not return from the forest by the rise of the third moon,” Diego continued, uncharacteristically flustered, “Honovi will be killed.” He cleared his throat and added quickly, as if it was still part of Manaba’s instructions. “Why’d you do it, Aiyana? What do you want from me?”
“I don’t want you to leave this village until I get back,” I said flatly. “Be here when I return and you’ll have your stones.” If Diego left, he would have taken one of the horses, the bigger of the two, after having traded the other one to Manaba. I couldn’t let that happen. I needed his beast.
Diego’s chin pulled back, surprised by my explanation. And then he grinned. “Ah,” he said, as he tugged on the curly hair that covered his chin. “So, it’s me you want then after all, eh? Already giving up on your young Honovi? Well, I’m touched. And honored.” He made a show of bowing his forehead, just slightly.
It was difficult not to spit in Diego’s face. The smarmy grin underneath the glint in his eyes only made me want to do it more. It was just like Diego to be so smug as to think that I’d actually want him—even desire him—after everything he’d done. I was beginning to understand him more than I ever wanted. He was pure evil. Was his village filled with men like him? I couldn’t even fathom it.
I cleared my throat when Diego’s grin refused to fade. “Yes,” I said finally, swallowing. “Something like that.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” Diego said. His eyebrow arched. “How will you know I won’t come after you and claim you and the gold for myself?”
“I don’t need to understand Apache to know that any of Manaba’s warriors, or Manaba himself, will kill you with his own hands if you try to come after me. You see the men who guard the village.” My eyes flickered above us to the two men who stood faithfully on either side of the red cliff that towered over the village. Their eyes never stopped scanning the clearing or the forest for danger. “And you know the rules, Diego. This is my challenge. It’s up to me to return victorious. No one is allowed to help me. Not even an outsider like you.”
Diego tilted his head, considering his dilemma, while Manaba’s eyes narrowed and then darted between Diego and me. He was starting to become suspicious. Ignoring them both, I turned to Olathe and Doli. I extended my arms. Doli smiled warmly and stepped forward. She hugged me immediately and kissed my cheek. Reluctantly, she let me go.
Then I tugged playfully on my bearskin cape and nodded to Olathe over Doli’s shoulder. “Thank you for lending me your beautiful cape, Olathe. I am sure it will keep me warm when the night grows colder.”
Olathe nodded. Her children, Leotie and Nascha, the same ones who shared my sleeping mat and kept me warm at night, peered at me curiously from behind her legs. I winked at them and they giggled.
I turned back to Doli, the one person I hated leaving most of all. In so many ways, she reminded me of Chenoa. Her eyes leaked more tears and my throat thickened. “Thank you for the extra deerskins.” I glanced down at my wrapped feet, grateful. My voice cracked slightly. “My toes will never feel the chill.”
Doli nodded but then, carefully, I pulled her close so that my lips touched her ear. I whispered, “Did you give my shell to Honovi?” Slowly, I pulled away and tried to read her expressive eyes. Her lashes practically touched her thick eyebrows. I knew that she didn’t understand my words but I figured that her eyes, certainly, would tell me what I needed to know most of all.
Doli nodded again, once, and I had to bite down on my lower lip to hide my excitement.
She did it! She saw Honovi! I knew I could count on my Apache sister.
She hugged me again and whispered something in my own language against my ear. “Honovi come. Honovi wait,” she added with some difficulty. The words were not easy for her and my arms stiffened around her.
Come? Wait? What did she mean?
I pulled back and swallowed again as Doli slipped away from my arms. Her fingertips were the last that I felt. Unfortunately there was no time to ask for a clearer explanation or new words that would make more sense. And certainly asking Diego for a translation was out of the question.
Behind me, Manaba spoke again, louder, and my back straightened.
He handed me a wooden bow that was almost as tall as I was. I reached for it with one hand. I knew that it was one of the finest wooden bows crafted in his village. His voice boomed across the clearing one last time, slicing through the wind, as his hair whipped behind him.
“It’s time,” Diego translated. “You must enter the forest before dark.”
I turned back toward Manaba and the rest of the Apache. Manaba spoke again.
“May the Creator protect you,” Diego said and Manaba nodded. “What about my stones, Aiyana?” Diego added, careful not to let his urgency expose him.
I didn’t answer, not right away.
Instead, I turned and began to walk the rest the way across the clearing, surprising him. The trees stretched so densely before me that it was already dark inside the forest.
“Fear not,” I said to Diego as I faced the darkness. “Just look for one of my white necklace shells.” I said over my shoulder without meeting his eyes. “When you find my shell, you’ll find your pouch.” I didn’t bother to tell him where.
“Can you at least give me a hint?” Diego yelled.
I didn’t answer.
“Aiyana?” Diego’s yelled but his voice sounded small as I abandoned the Apache for the forest. “Aiyana?” he tried again.
I still didn’t answer him. And it felt good.
I smiled as I greeted the forest. The branches from the giant trees opened themselves to me like welcoming arms. I didn’t fear their cold darkness. I didn’t fear solitude.
I started to run.
Behind me, the Apaches shouted words that I didn’t understand. I presumed they shouted best wishes and encouragement for a productive hunt. Amazingly, I heard Doli’s high voice between the cheers. I believe she said, “Come back to us, sister.”
Or maybe that’s what I wanted to hear as I raced straight into the unknown.
***
I’d already decided where to run first.
Despite the weight of the bearskin on my shoulders, I didn’t slow. I had to race against what little was left of the sun to reach the ridge halfway down the mountain where Diego almost killed Honovi. It seemed a fitting spot, a reminder to Diego that he failed.
I wanted to find the same tree where Diego placed his hands around Honovi’s neck.
As I ran, the sun peeked through the dense leafy branches in golden slivers, but barely. In the muted light, the branches shone greener, the ground and rocks, blacker. Tiny puffs of white surrounded my face with each breath. Even so, even in the darkening forest, my body felt strong, like I could run forever.
But I only had three suns.
There would be no need to hunt till dawn. Till then, the only thing I wanted to do was purge myself of Diego’s pouch in a fitting place.
By the time I reached it, the forest had grown dark. The winds had stopped and through the treetops I could see the faint light from the earliest Sky Wanderers. Quickly, I found a thin, smooth branch and started a fire. I placed my bow carefully beside me, not bothering to remove the quiver from my back.
There was barely any light left from which to work.
Thankfully, my fire pit was already dug and filled with grey-white ash from our last fire. I gathered a handful of dry twigs and pine needles and tried to ignore the tracks in the dirt where Diego dragged me by the hair and Honovi by the neck.
I considered throwing Diego’s precious pouch over the side of the mountain and listening as it splattered on the boulders below. But then my palms busied themselves as I rubbed two sticks inside the hole and waited for the glow at the bottom of the stick. The fire started easily.
Then I reasoned that burying the stones would be wiser. Safer.
Smarter.
As the fire grew, I stoked it with more twigs and dried leaves, relieved as much for the warmth as for the company of a soft glow beneath the trees.
I rose from the fire and dug another hole. This time, I dug underneath the tree where Diego tied Honovi. My fingers scraped angrily at the cold dirt when I remembered the way Diego’s eyes gloated as Honovi’s eyes turned almost completely lifeless.
I shuddered at the memory.
Instead, I focused on Honovi’s bright face and soft kisses the night we slept alongside the stream, our arms threaded around each other, at the bottom of the mountain that reached to the sky. It was the night I fell in love with my dearest, oldest friend.
The night Diego almost took him away from me, too.
I dug harder and faster, picturing Diego’s smug smile and bloodshot eyes. I dug until I carved a hole deep enough to bury his pouch of shiny stones.
Then I reached behind my shoulders and loosened the straps from the quiver that tied across my back. Carefully, I removed the three arrows and slipped my hand inside to the bottom. Like the bow, the three arrows were expertly crafted from the finest wood and the tips drew blood from the slightest prick.
I placed the arrows beside my bow. Then I pulled Diego’s knife from the quiver. It was heavy in my hand and gleamed in the firelight. I imagined the lives he had ended with it.
Quickly, I slipped it behind my belt. Then I felt for the deerskin pouch at the bottom of the quiver. The pouch was round and lumpy and molded easily in my palm. It rattled softly when I shook it.
Curious, I opened it. None of the stones were any bigger than a dove’s egg and each was about as heavy as one, too. And there were stones for almost every color in the forest—bright red, deep green, pale yellow—all except for a few. The golden ones shimmered in the firelight like the sun, the brightest of them all. I put one of these rocks up to the light and turned it in my fingers.
“He’d leave his village and kill men he didn’t know, all for a handful of rocks?” I said aloud, examining the stone. It didn’t seem fathomable that the lives of my people were less important than a dusty deerskin pouch of shiny stones.
I tightened the strings, closed the pouch, and tossed it inside my fresh hole like it was suddenly on fire. I spit in the hole. And with it I buried Diego, too. Forever. He would never harm me or anyone I loved again.
I covered the hole with fresh dirt and patted the surface till it was flat like the ground around it. Then I removed my necklace and removed one of the last remaining white shells. I gently tore off another tassel from the bottom of Gaho’s deerskin, which had been washed and returned to me by Doli and Olathe, and threaded it through the shell. I stood below the tree and reached for a branch dangling just above my head. I pulled it toward me. The branch was no thicker than my thumb. I threaded the tassel around the branch and tied it so the shell hung just above my head.
Standing underneath the branch, I looked up at my white shell. Against the green branches and dark-brown trunk, it would be impossible to miss.
“Good,” I said, brushing the dirt from my hands. “Done.”
Then I sat next to the fire close to the tree. The branches were thick enough to shelter me from some of the wind. I took a small sip from the water pouch hanging on my belt. It was all the water I had for three days.
The only thing left to do was listen to the wails from distant coyotes and hope that I could sleep until the sun rose again.
***
I awoke to my stomach’s growl. After four days of feasting on elk meat and berry wine, it didn’t seem possible that I’d lay claim to hunger again.
My fire had been reduced to smoldering ash but I was still toasty underneath Olathe’s bearskin.
Not for long.
Quickly, I removed my belt and set about the task of making a snare to catch a rabbit. I couldn’t take the chance of damaging one of my three arrows, or worse, losing one, and I was sure that I’d need at least three to bring down a deer.