Between Two Worlds

Between Two Worlds:

Fresh blood, wet and slick seeped into the flannel of Josep’s calico coat. Whose blood? It’s his father’s, or his mother’s or a comingling of both. He didn’t know whose. Only that it smelt slightly like the rusty, greasy hub of a wagon wheel. But mostly like animals butchered. The darkness, swiftness, and clubbing left him dazed. Crossed and blurry, the blaze inhabiting his eyes reflected into the sky, a plea sculptured by fear, bleeding out into space: Unanswered.

Chizmo began to set fire to everything that ever existed in the settler’s world. Except for Josep. For he had not found him. Light from the fire went deep into the savagery etched into his face from yester-world’s bonfire, in which he rendered to ash all he ever possessed: Mother, wife three daughters and a newborn. It’s the way of the Mescalero to burn everything and start over.

Josep clamped his hands over his ear. Shrill vibrations shook him to the core. He caught sight of silhouettes between himself and the inferno. They had feathers in their hair and clubs in their hands. They wasted no arrows.

Josep coiled tightly against the clay of Rosie’s soddy barn. But his stare garnered Chizmo’s attention. He discerned the coiled lump ‘it’s not a dead dog, but a child’. He glanced at the ‘saltbox-house’ a chunk crumbled, ejecting sprigs of sparks. He looked back at the child. He knew the child would not move. Knew he could toss the child into the glowing embers; after the searching, plundering and mayhem finished.

Josep stiffened. A hand smelling of smoke and sweat clamped his mouth shut. He wanted to live, but did not resist, because there existed nothing to live for.

Torch held high Chizmo snorted “he’s gone.”

“Who?”

“The child.”

“Ran off into the shrubs”

“No. Nanan got him. That’s his foot mark.”

“Nanan will pay,”

“Not Nanan, I wanted the boy.” Chizmo spits blood. “That’s that. ‘Woman Painted White’ thin now. Too little voice now.” He knows Nanan scurried into the remains of night with the child.  And will catch up with them, before they go looking for him and the child. Already he’s decided not to look or wait. For the raids are over. Soon unmolested settlers and those that’d escaped will mobilize and come after them.

At White Bluff, Nanan without Josep join up with Chizmo.  “Where’s the child.”

“Back at trail head, with other captives.”

Chizmo grunts knowingly. Knowing Nanan counted on the 'fever to kill' to have passed. And more importantly to kill distanced from the battle, isn’t modest and he’ll lose counting coups he’s won. But he can’t afford to be usurped by, quota fulfilled Nanan. Secretly he’d kill the boy.

Josep knows the other captive children. Little Wayne’s unshod feet are bloody and bruised. “Take these, he says” dangling the shoes by there laces.

“Can’t, they’re yours.”

“Sure, you can. My calluses still thick from summer.”

It’s miles on when Josep’s feet are bloody, bruised and punctured. He’d forgotten what happened a month before the raid. Ma said, “Whose been running across my stove?”

White powder footprints against the black sheen of iron cook stop. Josep couldn’t deny the evidence. “McClain chased me across the cook stove.”

“And your burnt calluses you saved up for winter, gone from the bottom of your feet.” She reaches out for him to come forward. “Well, that’s punishment enough, losing those hardened soles. Treasures.” His head down, she draws his chin up with the lift of her fingers, kisses away his tears. Holds him close he snuggles. “Love you babe, I always will.”

Nanan is in charge of the captives. He prods Josep with a stick.’ The boy must keep up. Any excuse, Chizmo will kill him. ’They are over the cut, that’s why he took Josep into the dark.

Josep slowed with each passing day. He missed his family. They were gone. Most of which he had ever known was gone. He didn’t eat or talk. He slow walked the trail of death.

Dawn begins to break. Nanan watches the horizon for black specs the size of ants, men at a distance. Though he knows the boy doesn’t understand he says, “No one coming. They didn’t find out we left during the night, but they come for me. Not now, not soon, maybe never or next year.”

The two hurried on through starvation and hypothermia. Gaining distance from those who pursued them. Chizmo risked the elite of his raiding party. His heart hard towards the old man that did women’s work with children.

The two sought refuges in the cracks and crevices of earth and mankind. Gila Hot Springs became their favorite spot. The only place they overstayed for any length of time. Chizmo’s wrath prowled the heavens and land. Searching. Devouring crumbs.

More and more Nanan sought forgiveness in prayer. Not betraying Chizmo. He regretted how Chizmo had mentored him. How he had loved and hated him. The demeaning ‘woman-man of children.’ Then the adulations ‘my man ‘Nanan.’

Nanan thought that in some ways he had done so with Ehan. He instructed the boy, and when the boy did well, he’d say “You’ve got this.” Nanan’s world existed in a childless void. When the boy beamed at being told “you ‘ve got this” Nanan’s pride fluttered. But now, only a heaviness.

The heaviness wasn’t only the wrongness he felt, but the coming near of Chizmo. He felt the thickening of the air.

“Josep, we’ve been here too long.”

“But Gila Spring, our resting place.”

“The woman said, ‘did you feel that drift in the air.’”

“What drift.”

“A heavy presence, circling a sod animal corral. Seeking a coil.”

“I’m taking you back to you people.”

“You’re my people.”

In a buffalo wallow, outside Fort Huachuta, “I’m a person who came into your life. I selfishly kept you too long. I pray you forgive me. I took you from one world into another, and now I take you back.” He’d given his all to get the boy to safety. He pulled the boy close, whispered “I pray that I’ve taught you the things you need to know.” Nanan gives up the ghost. He’s buried under a flat rock in the company of a forty-foot Saguaro.

An aged childless widow adopted Josep. She is his new mentor. When she says his name in the Indian tongue, and ‘I love you - son.’

He says, “You’ve got this.” In so, he can taste the roasted ‘heart of mescal ‘and the voice that goes with it settles in. He slips into a nearly forgotten moment, lodged between two worlds. Stars hover over a wickiup now only a ring of twigs.