Chapter 2

I was exceeding proud when White Buck helped me to make my very own war club. Yeah, I know that does not sound like much, but it had tremendous symbolic importance—it meant that I was soon to become a man and a warrior able to take part in defending the women and children. I was so proud of that war club that I carried it everywhere I went outside the hut. I am sure that I got some indulgent smiles when other adults saw me walking around with the club hanging from my waist, but I did not care. I wanted it to be known that I was ready to do my part if the situation ever came up.

During the winter, Spring Flower had completed her lessons on speaking the Mescalero version of Spanish. I could now speak the language as if I were a native, and I was very proud of that. I was now mixing with the other children of the village and being accepted as just another boy who lived there. I had lost every bit of my White modesty and had no qualms about going around naked, except that it would interfere with me carrying my weapons.

To counter that, I rigged up a belt that would hold my knife, my war club, and my pistol all at one time. I even was able to carry spare ammunition in a pouch that Spring Flower had made for me. Of course, I always wore a loincloth whenever I was outside, except when I was playing or bathing in the stream.

That was the one habit I kept from the White culture. Unlike the other members of the village, I bathed in the stream at least once a week, and Spring Flower commented that I was the only person in the village that she could not identify by a characteristic smell. Spring Flower, Honey Bee, and Squirrel all took up the habit of bathing with me. Strangely, we were the only ones in the village who never seemed to get sick, and our parents joined us for the weekly bath when they noticed that effect. No one else in the village joined us for a weekly bath, but we ignored that and kept on with our bathing ritual.

Spring Flower and I spent all of our free time with each other. That was not much time because I was very busy in learning all that I could about being a warrior and hunter, and Spring Flower was learning how to do the myriad of things that a Mescalero woman had to do.

White Buck was a war chief, and he spent a lot of time scouting for enemies who might be getting dangerously close. White Buck often took Squirrel and me along with him when he made his scouting trips. That was when I learned the most about moving silently and hiding my trail through the woods and over the sand of the desert.

One day we three were out on a routine scouting mission. This was taking place over one of the few grassy areas, so cover was hard to find. We had hardly gotten there and spread out when Squirrel came hurrying up to report to White Buck that he had spotted an unknown number of strangers crossing the meadow. We dropped back into the growth of Cottonwoods while White Buck told Squirrel and me what he wanted us to do.

It was imperative to find out what tribe these strangers belonged to. We expected trouble if they were Comanches, but they might be Navajos or Chiricahuas. If they were Chiricahuas, they were probably hunting and could be ignored, but if they were Navajos, they might be hunting, they might just be passing through, or they could be a war party. The Navajos were just as aggressive as the Comanches, but we could not be sure just why they were here so far away from their normal territory.

White Buck commended Squirrel for his alertness in being the first one to spot the interlopers, but full congratulations would have to wait until later. White Buck told us to follow him about 35 yards behind and not to stay together. By this time, the other Injuns were about 200 yards away and headed directly toward us.

White Buck dropped to the ground and stayed as low as possible on his hands and knees as he made his way toward the others. Squirrel and I did the same thing once White Buck was far enough away. Man, traveling that far on hands and knees sure was tiring! We watched White Buck and stopped when he stopped. We only moved when he did.

The wind had shifted and we were now downwind of the other group. I was amazed that I could smell them from this far away. They smelled of stale sweat and of their last couple of meals, plus there was something else that I could not identify. What ever it was, it was kind of aromatic and pungent, and I wondered if it were a characteristic of their tribe.

Well, I would consider that later. Right now, I had more important things to think about. It suddenly occurred to me that those could not be Comanches because they were on foot—Comanches never went anywhere except on horseback. Okay, then they had to be Chiricahua or Navajo, based on what White Buck had said.

White Buck had frozen into place, so Squirrel and I did the same thing. As the other men got closer, I saw that they were not carrying war clubs. That almost certainly marked them as Navajo, so now there was the question of what were they doing so far away from home? Uh-oh, every one of them was painted with the unmistakable marks of war paint. Surely, that meant that they could only be here for one reason—WAR!

Well, none of us were painted for war, but that did not mean that we were going to run away from the invaders. To me, all but one of the warriors looked to be about my age or only a little older. That could mean that they were on a training mission and probably had as little experience in war as either Squirrel or I had. They certainly were bedecked with amulets and other charms, so that was another reason to figure that they were hostile.

The final straw in the bundle was that every one of them was carrying his bow with an arrow in place, so that he would be able to get off a shot very quickly. Of course, White Buck had seen the same things that I had seen, and he had worked his bow off his shoulder and was knocking an arrow in preparation for a fight. Okay, that was as good as a command for Squirrel and me to do the same.

I had been good enough as a hunter to knock down prey with my arrows, but I was not as accurate as I hoped that I would eventually become; therefore, I was not sure how much good I could accomplish at this range with my bow. I had to get closer to be effective, but White Buck had ordered me to stay 35 or so yards behind him—what was I to do?

I was still mulling over that question when we were spotted by the Navajo war chief. He shouted something that I did not understand, and pointed our way. All of his warriors turned in our direction and shot an arrow toward us. From the way the arrows seemed to fly in a multitude of directions, I was sure that none of them had taken adequate time to aim.

This seemed to piss off the war chief something fierce, and he shouted some more at his men. This time, the arrows came closer, but still did not hit any of us. The war chief shouted a third time, and his men slung their bows on their backs and drew their knives. As nearly as I could tell, all of those knives had steel blades, so we were not going to be able to break any like we could have if they had been made of flint or obsidian.

By this time, the three of us were all standing up, so there was no doubt where we were. Seven warriors charged toward us with their knives drawn and ready for action. As soon as they started to charge at us, Squirrel fired off an arrow that hit the ground before making it all of the way to the Navajos. That was probably nerves that caused that, because it was the first time he had been in combat. I admitted to myself that I could well have done the same if I had not firmly set my intention to let the enemy get closer before I fired. I knew that I could not reach them with my current level of strength and skill.

Nevertheless, I did disobey orders and run toward White Buck as the enemy charged. I knew what I was doing, but I had to get closer to be sure of doing any good for our side. Squirrel saw me run towards White Buck, so he did the same.

I still had an arrow knocked, as White Buck did. He fired at the war chief, and by a miracle of good luck, hit him in the gut with the arrow. The war chief fell to the ground, but all of his men were caught up in the hysteria of battle, and none of them noticed that he had fallen.

At this point, the charging Navajos were less than 40 yards away from White Buck, and he began to fire arrows at the running men almost like a machine. Four of them dropped with arrows penetrating their torsos somewhere, and the heart of the charge was broken. However, three warriors continued to charge at him, and I was finally close enough to let fly with my arrow.

Well, luck certainly was on our side because my arrow and the one from Squirrel both found a mark in a charging Navajo. Unfortunately, it was the same man. At this point, I do not know just why I did it. Was it panic or good sense? I dropped my bow to the ground and snatched my war club from where it was hanging at my waist.

The two Navajos who were left were both about to reach White Buck, but I swung my war club, side arm as I had been taught, and hit one of them from behind on his backbone between his shoulder blades. He had been aiming his knife to stab White Buck in his gut just below his rib cage. That would have been a fatal blow even if it did not kill White Buck immediately.

However, the shock of my blow with the war club and the fact that his back was broken at the impact point caused him to miss his aim. Instead, he did cut White Buck in the flesh on his side. That had to be a painful, if not fatal, blow, and it caused White Buck to freeze temporarily in a half bent over position.

The last of the Navajo warriors arrived at that point and tried to cut White Buck’s throat as it was conveniently within reach. Again, luck was on our side, and Squirrel managed to knock the knife hand to one side with his war club. That gave White Buck time to use his own war club to smash the head of the Navajo warrior.

Oh, my God! We were all alive and the Navajos were all dead, or nearly so. White Buck told us to slit every throat and to scalp every Navajo. We were also told to take every one of the amulets and other magic items that we could find. The women would certainly want them as trophies of the battle. We left the bodies where they were for the scavengers to clean up for us. That was a further insult to the slain warriors.

White Buck had taken off his loincloth and used it as a compression bandage around his middle. We headed home with White Buck leaning on both of us because of the pain in his side. Thank God we only had about 100 yards to go to reach the trees. There, Squirrel and I cut enough limbs to make a travois large enough for White Buck. He was somewhat chagrined to be pulled home by his two sons, but the women all hushed up his complaints. They all congratulated us on our good sense in pulling White Buck home on the travois.