Merkabah Rider: Have Glyphs Will Travel (29 page)

Mendez called out to the
rurales
, and he and Don Elfego rode up
to them.

The Rider/Piishi stood a ways off
from the others, among the Indians in wolf skins, who kept their rifles trained
on him. Flanking these were Inya and his Apache followers, the Pawnee, and the
small group of blanketed Indians with the bowl haircuts.

Lozen and Vittorio and the other
Apache were gathered, twenty in all, and they eyed the others with mistrust.

Misquamacus had climbed atop a
prominent stone before the pool of water, and chanted in a language the Apache
at least, did not understand, though he did recognize some words here and
there. It was possible, the Rider thought, that he was speaking the languages
of all the tribes, as he thought he detected snatches of Cheyenne as well,
though he couldn’t be sure.

Midway through his chant, he drew
what Piishi knew as a
tzi-ditindi
, or
sounding wood, an oblong wooden rhombus from his bag and began to swing it back
and forth. The twisted chord was very long, perhaps ten or fifteen feet, and
when he had built up enough momentum, he swung it around his head, the wooden
end eliciting the distinctive bullroarer sound, which echoed up the golden rock
walls.

The Rider felt Piishi’s arm hairs
raise, and saw some of the smaller pebbles scattered on the ground around
Misquamacus’ stone tremble and rise a few inches into the air. The air was
charged with mystic energy. Had he possessed his mystically embossed
spectacles, he might’ve seen it.

Then, the water in the pool began to
react, bubbling as if boiling. Several of Vittorio’s band stepped back from the
edge of the water. Vittorio saw that Misquamacus’ army did not, and so he did
not either.

Then the trickling waterfall began
to gush, becoming a wide, great torrent spilling from the rock, overfilling the
pool, causing the churning water within to lap at the banks and run over.

Out of the waterfall shapes began to
emerge—leaping, falling figures. They were made entirely of water, but they
seemed to ice up and solidify as they fell. They splashed into the water in a
continuous torrent, and a line of men began to emerge from the pool, walking.

Indians. Apache. They walked onto
dry land, expressions of wonder on their faces, their hair and clothes totally
dry. Many made fearful exclamations and whirled about, terrified, but among
them was one who calmed the rest with strong commands to ‘remember themselves.’
He looked to be Vittorio’s age, fifty or so, with a striking, perennially
scowling bronze face and shoulder-length hair. He wore no warband or talismans,
beyond a simple shell bracelet which poked out of the cuff of his long paisley
shirt. He wore a faded red necktie and a long breechclout, his strong bare legs
ending in leggings.

Two other men, one a broad
shouldered six and a half foot giant the same age, the other a wiry, short
haired man the Rider’s age ushered the other Apache out of the pool and
directed them to stand near Vittorio, whom they recognized and seem to take
some comfort in seeing.

Vittorio, for his part, greeted the
three men, by their bearing the apparent leaders of their respective bands,
with a simple nod.

When the last of the people had
passed through the mystic portal, Misquamacus ceased twirling the rhombus, and
put it away.

The gathered Apache, now totaling
perhaps a hundred and fifty, waited patiently as the old medicine man put away
his bullroarer, but watched him one and all with wary eyes.

When he straightened, he drew
himself up to his full height and spread his arms wide as if to embrace them
all.

“Before I speak to you all, we will
enact the Yahola ceremony, sacred to my brothers among the Ishaks.”

He gestured as he spoke to the
bowl-cut Indians, and these parted. An elderly one of their number with a
ghostly, white painted face came forth bearing a large sinistral conch,
brimming with some kind of thick, blackish liquid.

The Ishak presented the conch to
Misquamacus. He took it and held it up.

“The black drink. We drink from the
greatest among us to the least. May it purge ignorance and open the mind to
wisdom.”

He put the conch to his lips and
drank, then passed it to the Ishak, who drank also.

In moments they both doubled over
and vomited the black drink back up.

The Rider/Piishi saw several of the
Apache wrinkle their noses at this, but the Ishak passed the conch next to one
of the Navajo shamans. He followed suit, vomited also, and passed it to the
leader of the Pawnee, who imbibed and then offered it to Vittorio.

Vittorio paused, then took the
conch, drank, wrinkled his face, and spewed it back up into the earth. The
conch was passed among all the Apache leaders, coming at last to the one who
had urged the others to courage. He held it for a long time, staring at the
stuff.

“Will Goyaalé not drink?” Inya
asked, a hint of a challenge in his tone.

“Before you anyway,” Goyaalé
muttered, putting his lips to the shell.

After a bit, he too retched and
heaved, and being the last of the leaders present, gave it to one of his
subordinates.

The shell made its way among the
whole gathering, all except Piishi. Then the Ishak leader took it again, and
went back to his people.

“My brothers and sisters,”
Misquamacus called. “All here know me and have heard me, and have seen my
power. All who have come will decide this day the fate of all who have stayed.
The white man and the Mexican crawl across our lands like locusts. They drive
us before them with their iron and their steel. They drink our blood and eat
our children. They leave us nothing. Here, tonight, at Pa-Gotzin-Kay, we will
stand or fall forever. Those who choose to join with me will see the end of the
whites, the end of the Mexicans. More, they will bring it about.”

There were numerous nods and
utterances of assent among the gathering, most coming from Misquamacus’
followers, though a few were among the Apache, both Inya’s band and the rest.

“Before I tell you how we will do
this,” Misquamacus went on, “I will dissuade your fears. Let your leaders ask
of me what they will.”

He sat down abruptly on the stone.

There was a moment of quiet
uncertainty, then Vittorio spoke, “You say we have a choice. But what of the
San Carlos bands? The whites do not like them leaving the reservation. They
will notice so many gone at the same time. They will put the soldiers on them.
Isn’t their choice made already?”

“The whites will not notice them,”
said Misquamacus. “My hand is over San Carlos, and time cannot pass between my
fingers. The sun hangs in the sky there. This day and night is ours alone. For
those on San Carlos, no time will pass.” He directed the rest to the newcomers.
“You are free to return without fear of punishment if that is what you choose.”

The Rider noted the phrasing of the
last sentence. There was a note of contempt, like a boy urging a friend to some
ill-advised mischief, who was worried about rousing his parents’ anger.

One of the leaders who had come
through the pool, the youngest, stepped forward.

“We have all heard your promises,
Mis-kwa-macus, and we have seen your power. But who are these?” he said,
pointing to the Indians standing around Piishi/the Rider. “I see our cousins
the Navajo, but I see also the Pawnee and the Tonkawa. I know they are the
white man’s Indians. I do not know these others at all.”

At the young leader’s words several
of the Pawnee stood, war clubs and rifles at the ready, but Misquamacus held up
his hands for peace and they obeyed, settling back down.

“My plan is for all Indians, not
just the Apache. But Naiche of the Chokonen Apache is justified in wanting to
know who stands already with me.”

He pointed first to the Pawnee, and
the leader of the band rose again. He was tall and pockmarked, with thick
forearms and deep set, expressionless eyes, the top half of his face and shaven
head painted black, a single eagle feather rising from his splayed hair.

“Big Anger, chief of the Tskirirara
of the Charhiks-i-charhikf.

Naiche,” he said to the young
Apache, “you call the Pawnee the white man’s Indians, for many of them have fought
as scouts against you. But you know of the reservation at Fort Sill. Big Anger
would rather fight you than die in a white man’s lodge. The whites stopped Big
Anger and his band from performing the Morning Star ritual. They cannot worship
as they please.”

He pointed to the blanket swaddled
Indians in their loincloths and bowl hair cuts, and their leader stood.

“Moon Cloud of the Rugarou Ishaks.
They were driven into the swamps of their homeland by the whites and by the
Chitimachas hundreds of years ago. The last of their people, and starving, they
prayed for help. Their god did not answer them. Mine did.”

Next he gestured to the dozen or so
wolf-garbed Indians, and an elderly man with a black wolf head cowl and cape
stood and folded his arms, which were strung with armlets of teeth.

“Bloody Jaw of the Tickanwatic. The
Tonkawas. Yes, they, too, were enemies of the Apache. Now they are willing to
unite against the whites who have made them sick and taken their pride.”

Finally, he came to the few Navajo,
and the eldest of these, a thin, tall, hollow-eyed man in a wooly black
sheepskin vest, covered in nearly as many ritual trinkets as the Rider himself
wore, rose.

“Lastly, Slim Ghost and his
yee naldooshi
, whose hogans were burned
by Kit Carson.”

Misquamacus turned again to Naiche
and his people when Slim Ghost sat back down.

“Naiche of the Chohoknen is here,
and Juh of the Nedni,” he went on, pointing out the tall, broad shouldered
Apache, “and Vittorio of the Chihine, and Goyaalé of the Bedonkohe.” This was
the man who had arrived last, and calmed his people. “Many bands,” said
Misquamacus, “but all Chiricahua. All Apache. My army is of many different
tribes, but we are all Indian. All with reason to hate the white man and what
he is doing.”

There were nods among some of the
Apache, and the big leader of the Nedni band, Juh, stood up. Goyaałé stood
up too, and went to his side.

Juh spoke in low, halting words, and
Goyaałé said,

“Juh wants to know why the Pawnee
could understand Naiche just now.”

This was true. The Rider hadn’t even
thought of that. The Pawnee language was not the language of the Apache, so far
as he knew, and he doubted the Ishaks or the Tonkawas spoke it either. But the
Pawnees had reacted to Naiche’s comment about them being white man’s Indians,
and each leader had risen as Misquamacus addressed them.

“My power allows me to be understood
by all Indians. I speak all languages. I am heard in all ears. While you are
with me, this Power will be yours too. There will be no misunderstandings
anymore. No need for hand talk or painting pictures. We will be one nation.”

Juh nodded slowly and sat down,
thinking.

Goyaałé remained standing, and
folded his arms.

“There is nothing so eloquent,” he
muttered, “as a rattlesnake’s tail.”

“Does Goyaałé of the Bedonkohe
have something to say?” Misquamacus asked.

Goyaałé did.

“You say you are all Indians, but
what kind? The Tonkawas were driven off to Texas because they were flesh
eaters. All the Apache know this. The Pawnee want to be free to do the Morning
Star ritual. Naiche, your father K’uu-ch’ish told me once that he got it from
Tom Jeffords that in the Morning Star ritual, the warriors shoot arrows into a
little child, and break open her head. And all the Apache know of the
yee naldooshi,
the skinwalkers. How many
have died by their hands, or had their children stolen in the night for their
evil magic? I do not even want to know what these swamp dwellers are about.”

Misquamacus glared at Goyaałé,
disapproving, and his look was mirrored by his lieutenants.

“The Apache are not without their
cruel ways,” said Slim Ghost, the leader of the skinwalkers. “They kill and
torture.”

“Apaches pray to the sun and the
sky, the moon and the stars, the clouds and the storms. We pray to Usen. We do
not spill the blood of little children to gain his attention. We have never
prayed against any person. We never blew corpse dust in their faces, or
poisoned them with magic from afar. If we want vengeance, we take it ourselves,
and when it is taken we do no more.” He fixed Bloody Jaw and his people with a
hard look. “We do not eat the dead.”

Misquamacus’ army, uniformly
insulted, rose as one, and the Bedonkohe leapt to their feet around their
speaker.

The Rider felt Piishi’s pride well
within his breast. He felt it himself, though he was not himself Apache.
Heathen, animist beliefs aside, here was a
mensch
.

Vittorio stood then.

“Will Mis-kwa-macus ask us to do
these things, as he asked us to drink the black drink?”

“I will not,” said Misquamacus. “Pawnee
is Pawnee and Apache is Apache. I do not ask you to give up your beliefs, only
your prejudices against each other. They do not serve. The whites are great
because for all their differences, they are one.”