The Shaman's Secret (13 page)

The girl jumped off her horse and came striding toward me.

“I am Ish Kay Nay. In your language ‘Boy,'” she said in English, with a Spanish accent.

I stared at her, bewildered. She had warlike stripes painted across her face in crimson and yellow. She was so bold in her movements and her voice was loud and confident. Not like the other Apache women, who had been timid and ran from me like startled deer.

“Why do they call you Boy?” I asked, because it seemed to me the most curious name in the world to call a girl.

“I am Apache girl and a warrior. I can shoot better and run faster—and some say I am cleverer—than a boy. So they call me Boy.”

“But you speak English?”

“I was captured by Mexicans. I learned Spanish and English. I told you, I learn quick—but no time now …” for behind her the old man was coming. His eyes were peering into mine, so deep-set in his walnut face that I was reminded of a tortoise peeping out of its shell.

Aunt Hilda was trying to stand up from her log, but was hobbled by her bound feet. She stood and then toppled over, dangerously close to the smoking fire. The girl grinned and helped her to her feet. All the while the old man was peering at me, gazing so hard I feared he would see into my soul.

I don't know why I was so afraid. I was not hiding anything. Or ashamed of who I was.

The old man grasped my hand and pulled me toward him. He was studying my arm and the snake branded on it. Then he dropped it, as if it burned him, and moved over to Cyril, sitting next to me. He gave his arm the same keen examination, then called the girl over to him.

“This is Nah Kay Yen,” she said. “In your tongue ‘Far-Seeing Man.'”

“Pleased to make your—” Aunt Hilda began, but the girl cut off her attempt at politeness.

“Far-Seeing Man is our medicine man, one of the greatest of the Apache nation,” the girl said. “It is a great honor to you that he comes.”

She seemed to expect some answer, but none of us knew what to say. After an uncomfortable pause Boy glowered at us and her words came fast and furious.

“It is a time of big sadness. The White Eyes have brought death to the Apache. We are a small band, fighting for our lives against you Americans who herd us and starve us and kill us. You want to send us all to Fort Carlos to live like pigs on a reservation. We fight on. Yesterday we lost two warriors.”

A flash of understanding passed through me. The wailing, the mournful faces and burning huts. It had nothing to do with us, but was for the men they had lost in battle.

“For this we ought to punish, I tell Far-Seeing Man. We ought to punish all White Eyes. We ought to kill you all—but Apache are kinder than the stranger. We only charge the girl and the man—”

Far-Seeing Man barked at Boy and she stopped suddenly in the middle of her rant.

“The medicine man says it is not the time to speak of such things. He tells me he want to speak about
you
.”

At her words a stillness fell over us all. I had a glimpse of Waldo's terrified face and Rachel's big brown eyes as the girl continued.

“Far-Seeing Man knows all the trickery of witches. He can see the marks of magic and witchcraft through all the art that witches use. He speak the truth now.”

“This is nonsense,” Aunt Hilda blurted. But the medicine man spoke through her, his deep voice drowning hers. The girl listened and then interpreted.

“He has read the signs. He has looked and listened and consulted with the spirits. Usen has spoken. Please you and you get up.”

The girl pointed at Cyril Baker, then she turned her finger on me. Tottering a bit, we both stood. My legs were weak. I tried to calm myself to take whatever came now with the dignity of an Englishwoman. Behind me I heard Rachel moan and the low murmur of Waldo's voice.

“White Eyes: you, girl, Kit Salter. You, man, Cyril Baker. You stand before the creator, Usen, charged with unnatural acts, with using magic for evil.”

I wondered how Boy knew our names as she fell silent and turned to look at her shaman again. As far as I remembered, we had not told her. Far-Seeing Man was now chanting something, low sounds—soothing and lovely. A gentle melody before they hanged or scalped us. Boy was watching him. I saw something like wonder cross her face. She said something to him and he spoke sharply back.

Slowly the girl turned to us and spoke: “Far-Seeing Man has decided. You are not witches.”

For a second the relief was so intense I thought I would collapse.

“What?” Baker gasped.

The girl shrugged. “I do not understand his ways, but he
sees
so we must trust. He say you are no witch, so you are no witch.”

“We will not be scalped?” Cyril blurted out.

Boy's eyes flashed angrily. “Apaches have never taken scalps. It is cruel. We do not know what this scalping is till you White Eyes bring it here.”

“Anyway,” I cut in hastily, “are we free? Can we leave?”

Her wrath died down a little. “Not so fast. Far-Seeing Man, he looks into your soul and sees bad things. He sees something very dark for you.” Her eyes moved slowly from Baker to me. “On the ghost man and the girl there hangs a curse that, he says, glows stronger than the sun.”

“A curse,” I repeated slowly.
I
knew I was cursed, but how did the medicine man know?

“Someone is witching you. If he not drive the devil out—you will die.”

As the moon rose in the sky, the medicine man and Boy made preparations for our exorcism. Despite the protests of Aunt Hilda and Waldo, we were to take part in an Apache ceremony to drive the demons out of our souls.

Boy, who was the medicine man's assistant, was fascinated by me. She ordered us all to be freed from the ropes, and untied mine herself. They had left red weals on my ankles and wrists. As she worked, she asked questions. What were we doing on Apache land? When did the snake appear on our arms? Did we not know that snakes are bad, that the mark of a snake on us means great evil?

In turn I asked her questions, which she sometimes answered. When had she been taken captive? I asked. I learned, in bits and pieces, that she had been stolen along with her brother in a Mexican raid on an Apache village. She was just seven years old, her brother ten. The Mexicans and Apaches were old enemies. The Apaches raided the Mexicans' cattle and horses; the Mexicans tried to capture the Apaches as slaves.

When Boy was captured, her fate was slavery. She was put to work in a silver mine, digging all day long. She watched and learned—all sorts of things, like how to tell the time and speak English. One day her brother was shot for refusing to obey a petty order. The next day, seizing her chance, Boy escaped back to her tribe.

Though she didn't tell me this, I guessed that her bravery won admirers and that she grew to have a special status among the tribe. There had been an occasion when she narrowly avoided being struck by a bolt of lightning. Also, it must have been useful to them to have someone who knew the ways of the outside world, who could keep watch on their enemies, the Mexicans and the White Eyes or Americans.

Velvet night had fallen over the mountain by now. A mantle of stars and the nearly full moon hung low. The fire had been banked up and sent a wash of orange flaring over the camp. Boy had disappeared somewhere. I found myself alone with Waldo in the flickering firelight. Well, nearly alone. Rachel and the others were busy talking and not paying too much attention to us.

“I'm sorry,” he said to me, very low.

“For what?”

He didn't reply, letting the silence hang between us.

“What are you sorry for, Waldo?”

“You know.”

I gave him a sidelong glance. He looked so miserable I nearly relented. Steeling myself to be hard, I said,

“You tell me.”

“Why do you have to be such a beast, Kit?”

“
Me
… a beast?”

“You win. I've been horrible. Ghastly. Mean to you. There. Satisfied?”

“I just don't understand what I've done. I mean, why? I'd been in a coma for months. What could I have done wrong?”

He made a sound between a snort and a groan. “You still don't know, do you?”

“No. I don't.”

“You've put me through so much—I didn't think I could stand—”

I didn't hear what he couldn't stand about me, because at that moment a chant began by the flickering fire. Masked men wearing swaying headdresses appeared, their bare chests daubed with paint. They began dancing around the flames, their legs pounding round and round in an increasing frenzy. While they danced, they sang. Not a song exactly, there were no words, but it was haunting nonetheless.

“Mountain spirits,” said Boy, who had reappeared by my side. “The Gan dance.”

I think I recognized some of the boys who had been playing earlier, but I may have been mistaken because there
was no way to make out features under the black masks. I realized that the rest of the tribe had gathered while I'd talked to Waldo. I had the sensation of pairs of eyes watching me, of murmured voices.

The shaman appeared at the head of three other medicine men, whose bodies were daubed with greenish blue. Each of the men had a yellow snake crawling up one arm to the shoulder. One had a yellow bear painted on his bare chest, another a flash of lightning. They wore kilts and moccasins and followed the shaman with bowed heads.

The shaman himself was splendid in a buckskin cloak and a medicine hat ornamented with eagle feathers and turquoise stones. From his seamed face, old eyes looked out, sought and enfolded me. When I looked at him, I felt as if I was falling into the deep sea.

The medicine man beat on a drum, leading the dancers, drawing us back to ancient times, the dawn of man's history: the wild flames raging over dark Apache eyes, the sweet smell of the juniper smoke, the ragged cries, the swaying figures with their eerie headdresses recalling monsters and devils, and around us the dark night, the coyotes, wolves, lynx and bear—the night hunters kept at bay by man's fires.

“Stand up!” Boy hissed in my ear, making me start.

I did as I was told, and she pushed Baker and me toward the medicine man. Baker stumbled, terrified. I caught him, feeling a surge of strength. My earlier wild imaginings
had disappeared, dissolved in the strangeness all around us.

The medicine man began to mumble. His white hair gleamed in the moonlight as he puffed tobacco smoke out of a long pipe, which Boy wafted toward us. He was smoking strong-smelling herbs, which made me cough. But still Boy sent the smoke in our direction, scowling at our attempts to avoid it. When the shaman had smoked the whole pipe, Boy turned to us.

“Far-Seeing Man says that you are witched. Not by an Apache. By a Navajo medicine man. A skinwalker, a bad medicine man.”

I knew that the Navajos were another tribe of Indians who lived in these parts, but I didn't understand what Boy was talking about.

“These Navajo practice bad magic. Sometimes they are friend, sometimes our enemy.” Boy continued: “The shaman, he say he has found bad medicine on you. You must find this thing and burn it.”

“Bad medicine? What does that mean?” Waldo asked.

“It means a curse. Someone has put a curse on your friend,” Boy said.

“It is common among these tribes to use fetishes, small objects with bad powers, to bring ill luck,” Aunt Hilda explained, but I wasn't listening to her. I knew we were cursed—the snake and the strange feeling in my head were
proof of it. But I also understood the curse was older than these people—no Navajo medicine man was behind it.

“We must find the curse and pull it out,” Boy announced. “This is important, Far-Seeing Man say, not just for you but for our tribe.”

Mr. Baker and I looked at each other. We had been stripped clean; each of us now wore nothing but Apache clothes. From what Boy said, the curse was a thing, an object like a totem doll that could be burned. How could we have been cursed by an object when at this time we had not a thing to our names?

“We have nothing,” Mr. Baker said. “You took our clothes—and everything the robber left us.”

It took some time, but Boy sent a woman to fetch our clothes. She came scurrying back with an armful of stuff: Mr. Baker's pale cream suit, my sensible traveling blouse and skirt and both our hats as well as two pairs of boots. Mr. Baker's black boots, dusty now. My own stout brogues. Boy shook them out—there was clearly nothing there. No cursed object, no horrible twisted doll.

The shaman now came up to us slowly. He ignored the clothes, but picked up my left boot. It was of tan leather, with a small heel, pretty stitching and a rounded toe. A nice, comfortable brogue. Then he picked up Mr. Baker's right boot, which looked to be of the softest, creamiest leather. He said something to Boy.

“The curse is here.” Boy indicated the boots the shaman held.

“No!” I shouted, because a rock had appeared in Boy's hand, like the one the women used to pound their flour. Now my brogue was in Boy's hand. She began to smash the heel of my shoe with the rock.

“I need that,” I said. “I don't have any other shoes now.”

Too late. The bottom of the heel came off just before it split, revealing a small hollow. With a smile of triumph Boy picked something out of the heel. It was a fetish, gleaming white. No bigger than a bird's egg. She held it out to me and I took it with a trembling hand.

It was a tiny bird skull, spliced by a minute arrow ornamented with scraps of eagle feather. Running down the sides were scarlet threads, looking uncannily like tiny trickles of blood. Worst of all, gazing at the horrible thing I realized that a few hairs were glued to the skull.

My hairs.

Mr. Baker had a similar object in his right boot. The look on his face, as he held it by the tips of his fingers, was sickening. He was terrified of this thing.