The Honored

We send Dr. Adams packing. None of us want anything else to do with him, not even Chris... who has the pilot of the Skycrane radio to Antonelli's helicopter to come and pick the four of us up from the plateau. We have the good doctor fly back with the Skycrane, the Hummer, and the gold. We keep Seedling and Ole' Bess with us and will try to find the high ground that the tribe had been seeking out when we left them. It seems a fitting place to put the two of them to rest.

The pilot gives us a smoke grenade to use to signal our ride. Then he fires up the twin T-73 Pratts and gets them up to speed.

As the throttles up for takeoff we can see Dr. Adams, the look of a kid that had just taken a slap from his daddy on his face... even though Lou never hit him. We don't need his shit. The chopper blades lift the craft up and away with a heavy thumping that rocks the air we stand in. Even after it has gone I can't hear a damn thing.

Nothing is said for a moment or two. This whole thing has us spent. We really haven't had much rest after all that has happened. Then that prick pushes our buttons. He is lucky Lou didn't have a blade... I think it would have been just an impulse and then... "Uh oh, I accidentally gutted him."

Before the Skycrane disappears from sight we see the approaching helo. Ollie pops the smoke and tosses it toward the center of the plateau and we watch as the chopper stops forward motion and begins to hover for a landing. Within a minute after touchdown we are up and away from the plateau.

"Where to, Mr. Antonelli?" The pilot asks, dividing the bulk of his attention between the horizon and the instruments.

"We want to follow the trail down below there." He points to the ribbon of pathway that winds its way up through the mountains. We tip forward and are on our way. At times the trail is lost behind a crag or two, then we pick it up again. We don't know what to expect at the end. Even as the trail narrows, it is obvious it is still well used. That is reinforced by the sight of a caravan of four wheelers that are slowly making their way in the same direction we are headed.

"Campers?" Lou remarks, looking down at the rigs below.
"Probably."

"There is another plateau." The pilot directs us to a spot up ahead. It is well after sunset and I believe our pilot is just a little nervous about our mission at this point. "Do you want me to set it down?"

I take a good look around at the shadowed landscape. It looks as though this may have been the destination of the tribe. The rest of the mountain range is formibable with no sign of a more welcome spot. This is at least fifteen miles from the Crystal Cavern and would have been a long ride, much of it a steep grade. From what the Chief had told us at the celebration they had a long day's ride ahead of them.

Lou signals him to set the chopper down and we descend into what seems like a caldera of sorts. The Superstision Mountains rise up around us as we lower toward the ground. By the time we touch down we are surrounded by towering peaks except for a gap that looks out onto the valley far below. Even the largest bonfire set at the back of this caldera would not be seen from the valley below. It has to be a good twenty miles before the valley shows itself. Our observation is fleeting. The sun is gone and the view is nothing but darkening shades of grey.

Our pilot checks his systems and then checks with Chris before he shuts the engine down. We will be staying for a while. The conditions here are to his liking.

Lou dons his headlamp and flips the switch. The boys and I follow his lead. Lou and I walk about thirty or fourty feet toward the valley view and stop. At our feet is carpet of desert grass dotted with piles of rock. There must be hundreds of them dotting the landscape.

"What do you make of that?" I cast my light in a wide arc and the piles go on and on.
"Not natural." He says, taking a knee. He draws a rock off the pile and looks at it, turning it over in his hand.

Chris and Ollie call to us from the back side of the caldera. They have found something. Toward the back of the caldera the piles of rock aren't present. There are the remains of fire pits, about four of them. At one time there had been great care in the placing of containment stones, the sides facing the fire blackened from heat and soot.

We are trying to reason out what we have seen when the sound of approaching engines are carried to us with a light breeze. Below the mouth of the caldera lights reach for the sky and then dip down out of sight, illuminating the ground for a few seconds before they go wildly skyward once again. Before long the first of four Jeeps crest the top of the trail and slowly approach our position, making sure to stay against the back side of the caldera as they move.

Lou watches as the first of the Jeeps stop the procession and the driver emerges.
"Chris... are there any weapons in the slick?"
"Pilot has a piece."
"Go get it."

The driver turns and pulls a rifle from the back of the vehicle. He waits for the other three drivers and their companions to assemble. The first man, he is alone and must be their leader. He slings the rifle and motions for them to stay put before walking toward our position.

Chris returns with a nine millimeter. Lou has him pocket the pistol as the man approaches.
"You are trespassing on private land... Indian land."

"I'm sorry." Lou puts on a friendly face, "we didn't know."
He holds out his hand but the man doesn't take it.
"Maybe you can help us. We are looking for the place that the Apache around here called the Spirit Mountains. There is some high ground around here where they set up camp."

At hearing this the rifle comes up, cocked and ready, along with his friends in the gallery. They approach us with caution and then fan out to surround us.
"Easy now... easy." I try to smile.
"He is serious, we are just looking for... "

"We know what you are here for. There are no artifacts for you to steal. Others like you have desicrated this burial ground... dug up our ancestors, removed their talismans, their necklaces, their ceremonial weapons. Our tribe has come up to this sacred ground on each anniversary to be one with the spirit tribe, and each time we find your selfish destruction."

Rifles are shouldered and aimed, a few of them cocked for effect. "It is time for you to leave."

"Anniversary?" Somewhere the fog is lifting. "Anniversary of what?" Chris asks.

The rifle comes down a bit and the tale is told.
"One hundred and twenty eight years ago on this day our tribe was slaughtered by troops. Here, on this sacred land, they fought and died. With the exception of three young braves, our tribe was murdered. It is only through their stories that we even know of this place."

Son of a bitch. That's right. It was only yesterday that we came back. Only yesterday that we watched the Army column marching towards this place. They killed them, all of them but three young boys.

"You are members of what is left of this tribe?" I ask.
"Our numbers have grown to nearly one hundred through the years." He hoists the rifle once again. "It is time you leave."

"Did your elders tell you about the group of white men that fought as Warriors along side your tribe?"
The rifle comes down.
"Yes, this is in the stories."
"We are descendants of those men. This is why we are here." Lou tells him.

From the darkness beyond our headlamps an old man walks toward us. He has listened to all of this. As he comes into the light we can see he is probably in his seventies or eighties. His hair is white. Pulled together and braided it flows down his back to his waist. He is wearing a dull blue windbreaker with an Elks lodge emblem. In one hand he holds some desert foliage... an arrangement of sorts, tied in two places with strips of rawhide. In the other a long pipe, tied with feathers and ornate with beadsWhen he stops he asks in a low voice for us to repeat what we said.

"Your Warriors fought with the Army... the Cavalry, down at the base of the mountains on this side of the valley. We, I mean our ancestors, helped them to stop the soldiers. There was a celebration at the river. Then we... they left your tribe and went their own way."

You could hear a pin drop. The lead man with the rifle... his mouth drops open and he looks to the elder, who motions him to lower his weapon. The others follow suit and we seem have an accord.

We are asked to join the lighting of the ceremonial fire. There is a saddle bag, old and worn, but cared for as though it is an heirloom, filled with charcoal that is religiously laid in the makings of the bonfire. They take their places around the fire. We are asked to stand with them. Something in Apache tongue is spoken by the old man and the fire is lit.

"The saddle bags? What is that all about." Chris asks, taking a seat on one the long burms that border the fire pit.

"In the bags is charcoal from the fire of last year's fire. When tomorrow comes, we will mix the remains in the fire pit. Only when are certain then that we have the past and the present together do we place it in the saddle bags. This has been the tradition since the three braves returned the next year to this place to remember and to honor the dead."

With the fire totally under way the old man lights the pipe and it is passed. We tell the story of meeting the tribe, well... our "ancestors" meeting the tribe. We talk about Seedling, about the ash ceremony, about the ride to the Spirit Mountains.
When we get to the part about the Crystal Cavern, the old man's eyes light up.

"You have been to the sacred cavern?"

"We had to bring our friend, his remains, to be buried properly. He and Ole' Bess, that was Seedlings... "

"Old Bess was a donkey?" He asks, knowing the answer.
"She was Seedling's best friend."
He stands slowly, as though he supported the weight of the world on his shoulders. From a pouch around his waist he pulls something wrapped in tattered cloth.
"Do you know this?" He hands the item to Lou, who unwraps it.

We look at it for a moment... history from more than a century ago, and yesterday. It is the lense that Seedling let us use to focus the light.
"How?" Is all I could muster.

The elder starts with the story. His father was ten years old when the tragedy took place. He had been tasked with tending to the horses for the tribe. He was one of the survivors, one of the three. The tribe had made the trip to the sacred lands. They thought the were safe, that the soldiers would not follow. They were wrong. As the soldiers poured into the caldera, the Warriors fought them back. It was only when they had run out of arrows and spears, and ammunition for the white man's weapons, that the soldiers began their slaughter. Even the three braves fought the soldiers, but when it was certain that death was upon them they lay on the battlefield as still as the rocks you see there now. The soldiers left the dead for the buzzards. It took most of the next day for the boys to bury them, to collect the stones to cover the bodies. They made their way off the mountain. The only person that they could think of that might help them was Seedling.

"My father knew where he was. He had tied off Ole' Bess to the side of the canyon on an old ring that Seedling had pounded into the side of the rock. It was the trail to the Crystal Cavern, a sacred place for the tribal elders"

We all exchange glances at hearing this. We had seen this man's father just days ago as a boy.

The old man continued with his tale. They couldn't follow the trail down to the cavern, there were stragglers... soldiers taking their time getting back to the valley. They would be spotted. They hiked on the rim of the trail. Soon the Cavalry retreated back to the valley below and re-assembled for the journey back to their forts. The three braves returned to the trail and made their way down to the spot where they tied off Ole' Bess. The path to the Crystal Cavern was no more, choked with rock and soil it was not to offer them a way up. They scaled the side of the canyon, their feet cut and bleeding, and made their way up and around. Below them they could see the destruction and death on the plateau, the remains of soldiers emerging from the avalanche of rock.

It had been nearly two days since the destruction of their tribe. They were tired and hungry. The entrance to the cavern was not an option. They skirted the plateau and looked for the "kenooshii"... the spirit entrance. This is where the spirits that the elders communed with would enter the cavern. In total darkness the boys made their way down and into the cavern. In the light of a new day they found Seedling's stores of food and water, and Seedling himself. He was injured beyond help protecting the sacred place from the soldiers. The donkey Bess was in the cavern and there was no way to get her out. The braves left them both to the safety of the spirits and made their way out of the cavern and back down to the valley.

"Eventually they were taken along with Geronimo's tribe and placed on the reservation." The old man's eyes are clear and bright as he relays his tale. It is stories like this that are the history of the tribe even now when written word can be used.
"My father had always regretted leaving Seedling and Bess. There was no way to save them, not by three young boys. No one to help aside from soldiers who would just as soon slaughter them and leave the sun to bleach their bones."

"Well, sir... " Lou starts. He stands and motions Ollie to go to the chopper and retrieve Seed and Ole' Bess' remains.
"The reason we came to your Spirit Mountains was to lay Seedling and Ole' Bess to rest along with his tribe."

We all take time out to place their remains on the sacred ground, burying them with rocks off of each of the piles. Once their bones are covered, we listen to a prayer that they say on each anniversary. It is a beautiful closer to this whole episode.

When we return to the fire we drink and smoke and feel a brotherhood between us. After an hour or so conversation wanes and we are all left with our thoughts. Something still hangs out there for me.
"Sir?"
The elder passes me the pipe... good shit by the way, but that isn't why I called to him.
"What made you take Seedlings crystal?"
The old man smiles, "A young boys reasoning. When I saw the crystal hanging there it was lit up like the sun. I thought it would provide us light in the darkness. Imagine my disappointment."

Our pilot reminds us that we have to depart. Dr. Adams is not able to return to Puerto Barrios without us, and he has urgent business, according to him anyway.

We leave with peace in our hearts, an open invitation to share in this sacred gathering each year, and a renewed friendship with the Apache nation. As we ascend into the night, we see the battlefield and the honored dead in the light of the bonfire. Tonight we will sleep well.