Excerpt: Sonora Wind, Ill Wind

     I was awakened by the scream of a horse. My attempt to leap to my feet was foiled-by a lance blade pressed against my throat. There were five Apache warriors in the meadow. It was daylight, and they had already unhobbled the horses by simply slashing their ropes. From their conversation, I gathered that they had come across the Mal País southwest-to-northeast, on the "Indian trail" marked by Father Kino, and I realized that it had been their dust trail that I had seen the day before. They were talking delightedly about the booty they had discovered: the tobacco and piloncillo, my food supply, the water skins and the coras, the baskets that they could put to good use. I understood them enough to hear their disappointment that they had found no weapons. They had been hoping for guns.

     "It's a Black Robe. They don't carry guns," an older warrior told them. He walked over to me, knocking aside the lance held by the younger man who had been threatening my windpipe. "Stand up!" It seemed that he was the leader of the group.

     I complied, and as I did so, the younger Apache seized my blanket. It, too, would be useful. "I seek Artemilos," I said, using my scanty Apache. "I come from a friend, from Father Andrés at Ures." I used the Spanish version of Andreas's name, assuming that would be more intelligible to them.

     The gray-haired warrior stared at me, expressionless. "Artemilos is not our concern. We take you to Shoyote, our chief." He nodded towards me and made a sign, and I was seized and held by the young man, while another went through my pockets. They left me my dirty rag handkerchief, but took my folding knife, which they held up in triumph. It was a good knife, given to me by my friend Joseph Och. I regretted losing it because of its sentimental worth as well as its quality and utility, but I counted it, like all the other things, as mere worldly goods, unimportant in the eternal scheme of things.

     The warrior who had found my knife noticed the chain around my neck, and with a tug, he pulled out the silver crucifix my mother had given me when I joined the Society. He was preparing to tear it and the chain off me when the older man spoke up. "No!" he shouted, as if in alarm. "Leave his medicine bundle alone! That has powerful medicine. Too dangerous!" And so, I retained that small consolation in my trouble.

     Now, my hands were roughly tied behind my back with one end of a rope, while the other end remained in the hands of one of the young warriors. I was prodded with the blade of a lance and forced to walk ahead of the cavalcade as it mounted the steep trail towards the higher hills. The pace was grueling and the trail rough, soon rising high enough to pass through a thin pine forest. When I slackened my speed or stumbled, I was prodded harshly with the lance that cut through the robe and penetrated my skin. I could feel little rivulets of blood trickling down my back. I fell and was beaten back to my feet, to continue that arduous trek. The party stopped at noon and shared out my provisions, but I received neither food nor water, nor did the horses and mules, who seemed to look at me accusingly, as if I were withholding their sustenance on purpose. The Apaches were no kinder to their own animals. From their high spirits and banter, I learned that they were counting on feasting on one of my horses that night-a tribal celebration. But what did they intend for me?

     I remember little of the afternoon's journey, except that the trail seemed endless, never ceasing its upward climb. My falls on my skinned and bruised knees became more frequent and consequently the wounds to my back multiplied, and I suffered a nosebleed somewhere along the way. The soles of my shoes had-just as Father Kino had predicted-been cut so severely in the badlands that they wore through, and I was scuffing and lacerating the soles of my feet. At last, I stumbled into a clearing, where eight or ten teepees stood, perhaps forty Indians busying themselves with the evening's chores. Smoke from several fires rose in the evening air; food was being prepared. All this normal activity ceased as the group crowded around the returning warriors, exclaiming over the horses and especially over the tobacco and the sugar.

     In all of this excitement, I was not neglected. The children playing about immediately congregated around me, staring and making rude remarks. I must have been a sorry sight, indeed. One of them found a stick and began poking me with it, much to the delight of the others. They reminded me of the imps that must inhabit Satan's realm, shouting their pleasure at my involuntary cringes from their jabs. I remembered that I was supposed to stand impassively if I intended to win any respect and, most of all, respite from their tortures, and I did my best to master my instinctive reactions to their tender mercies. At least I had not cried out.

     This version of bear baiting went on for some minutes before the deerskin flap over the largest teepee door was flung aside, and a tall warrior emerged. He was an imposing figure, taller than the other men, with a deep chest, broad, heavy shoulders, his muscular arms the girth of a boy's thigh. His yellow headband was decorated with colored feathers-parrot or macaw. His face was too rugged to be handsome, the eyes too small and deep set, and a long scar disfigured his left cheek. He surveyed the scene with a slow and deliberate sweep of his head, no other movement visible. The mature warrior in our group approached him and greeted him formally. "Shoyote, Chief," he began, "I have captured this Black Robe and his stores. He claims to have been sent by Father Andrés of Ures, with a message to Artemilos." At least, this was the gist of his speech, as far as I could understand it. Shoyote first examined the goods I had brought and what had been taken from me, nodding and grunting in pleasure over the tobacco. He indicated that it and the sugar were his to distribute as he wished, and that the rest could be shared out among the warriors who had captured me. My spare horse was the one chosen to be butchered and eaten that night in celebration. I thought to have understood that the older man, the leader of the raiding party, would take my favorite mount as his own. At least he'll survive for a time, I thought.

     Shoyote now approached me, last of all. "What message do you have for us?" he asked, a sneer lifting his lip.

     I had considered what I would say to an Apache chief if I were to be taken by someone other than the man I had been seeking. I drew myself up with as much dignity as I could muster with my hands bound behind my back, covered with dirt and blood as I was. My face must have been smeared also, since I had wiped my bleeding nose on my shoulder. At least I was about as tall as he was, for I could look him levelly in the eye. "Father Andreas Michel offers you a peace pact, between you and the Spanish soldiers," I began. "He also wants you to come to his mission at Ures. There he will teach you about the true God, who is the God of the entire universe and all that is within it. But first, he wishes you to cease raiding our missions." I had stumbled through this speech as best I could, occasionally inserting Spanish words where I was lacking the Apache term. Shoyote's lip had curled a couple of times during my speech, either at its content or at my delivery, or both.

     "There will be no peace between our nation and the Spanish. Your missions are of no interest to me, other than as sources of horses and supplies. We will kill you to the last man, woman, and child." The chief had folded his arms as he intoned this last sentence like an incantation. He turned to the young warriors who had captured me. "Take him to the spare teepee," he said, nodding in the direction of a structure that stood next to his own. "Tie his feet as well. We will sacrifice him in the morning."

     I was dragged backwards into the teepee, where my robe was torn off my back and flung into a corner. One young warrior kicked me in the hamstrings, so my legs buckled, then he pushed me onto my side, drawing my legs and arms together behind me and securing both with the same rope. With a vicious kick to my bare ribs, he lifted the skin flap and left the teepee. I had needed to take care of nature for some time and could hold back no longer. I urinated through my underdrawers there on the floor then scooted myself backwards and away from the wet spot. The burning wetness of the cloth merely added to my misery.

     After a time of lying still, listening and getting my bearings in the dark and malodorous teepee, I began to pray for the strength to endure my coming martyrdom. I had heard terrible things about Indian sacrifices. Some of my brothers had been captured and tortured to death by the Iroquois. I knew that they cut chunks of living flesh from the victim and ate them in front of him, then they would cut off hands, noses, penis and testicles-of course-slowly killing the sacrificed person with the maximum possible suffering. They also used firebrands to sear the shrinking flesh, I had been told. I did not know how the Apaches went about their sacrifices, but it couldn't be too different, I supposed. My fear was very great, so much so that I was in a cold sweat, but I kept a grip on myself by thinking of the sufferings of Jesus on the Cross. Would I be able to say, with him, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do"? Or would I break down and howl for mercy, as they hoped and anticipated? In any case, I knew that there would be no mercy.

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