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On way to McNeil Island Prison
Silas John Edwards –
“Apache Jesus”
Whiteriver, Arizona

He sensed a story in those words, beyond the murder he’d been asked to investigate. As a lawyer, Earle Stanley Gardner was well aware that real cases rarely wrap up into tidy explanations. True, his fictional attorney, the infallible Perry Mason, easily solved every mystery that came his way. But that was formula fiction, happening in an environment that Gardner controlled. This, now, was a real case, and a really cold case. It would be hard enough to find facts about a nineteen-year-old murder on a primitive and remote reservation. It would be even more difficult to understand the vanished world that had created the character of the man some called “The Apache Jesus.”

Sweet Earth breathed deeply and held onto her huge belly, hoping that words from the old tales might help her know what to do. She was frightened, but calm. As they waited, some of her kinswomen teased her about the size of her blooming, especially her half-sister, the wavy-haired Raven Song. “That Yoohn, he must have planted a big seed in her all right,” she snickered, “or else she is carrying two!”

Their little sister, Spotted Fawn, scowled at Raven Song and squeezed Sweet Earth’s shoulder as their grandmother sternly whispered, “Hush! See how you are scaring her. Sweet Earth is a faithful wife. She would never have twins!”

Sweet Earth knew her grandmother was wrong. Something had happened to her, something that didn’t fit into the world where she and her husband, Yoohn, lived with her grandmother’s clan. She had slipped briefly into a world before the dawn of remembering - or into the one beyond the sunset of this living.

During the last nine months, ever since she had been abruptly pulled out of that mysterious place and thrown back into her ordinary life, she hadn’t known what to do. She couldn’t fit the immensity of what had happened into her mind. The memories whirled round and round, but they didn’t tell her what to do with the dangerous result. There was no one to ask. Even those who loved her wouldn’t understand. Sweet Earth could only listen to the ancient words of the trance songs and winter tales to guide her.

Whispering and rustling stilled as the beat of her husband’s drum kept time with her heartbeat. The fire’s embers sparkled and glowed in the dark shelter. Everyone edged closer to the fire circle as the smoke continued to rise through the air hole, out into the cold night toward the stars.

Her grandmother had often complained that the world was broken, that the old ways were being buried under the rotten influence of the White Eyes. She said, “Now that the ancient cycle has been disturbed - anything could happen.”

Sweet Earth was afraid she had fallen into the crack of that unknown disturbance. She wondered if those experiences, which had flooded her with the most powerful sweetness, could have been evil. She remembered her grandfather saying, “Evil is the other side of good.”

She thought, Grandfather is old. He has learned many things during his long life. His stories are even older. They come from a dim time, maybe a time similar to the strange place where I have been. If only they could help me find the path! I must push aside my thoughts and let the words flow through me.

Sweet Earth’s husband stopped drumming and looked at her grandfather. The old man nodded, closed his eyes, cleared his throat, raised his left hand, and began:

"Long ago - they say, when the earth was fresh and newly formed, a lovely girl was wandering about all alone, enchanted by the wonder of it all. She met nobody as she wandered. She was all alone. Yet she heard a voice from above, a voice of somber sweetness, a voice of commanding color, a voice that made her tremble with desire. The voice told her to lie down under a tumbling waterfall. She eagerly lay beneath the falling water. There she felt the most wonderful delight. Her delight grew within her and became a baby, which she bore on the bank near that wondrous waterfall.

"Then, they say, she left the infant in that safe enchanted place to go home for the night. The next day she went back and found the baby all smooth and clean. Again, she left for the night. When she came back in the morning, the baby had tears on his cheeks. He was crying. As before, she left him for the night. In the morning, she found the baby walking around. She made a little bow and arrow for him. Then, she took him home and they lived together in contentment.

"After a time, they say, she again heard a voice from above, a sky voice, a voice like thunder and lightning, a voice like the wind singing and swirling about her ears with tender caresses. It took her breath away and sent her quivering to do Its bidding. It told her to climb a small hill and there to build a shelter with four poles where the Sun’s first rays would strike the next morning. She painted each of the poles with zigzag lines for lightning, on the east pole – black; on the south pole – blue; on the west pole – yellow; and on the north pole – white.

"Then, they say, she went inside and lay down. When the Sun came up, she pulled up her dress and spread her legs far apart. Sun entered her with a radiant red beam. That radiance became a child, which she bore in seclusion. As night fell, she left the infant and returned to her camp. When she came back the next day, she found the baby good and smooth and clean with his eyes open. Again, she left him and returned to her camp. In the morning, she found him sitting up. The morning after that, she found the baby crying. She went home again and came back to find him walking about. So she made him a tiny bow and arrow and took him home to live with his brother in her camp.

"They say, the woman’s first child was called T’uba’tic’isticine (Born From Water). His father was Water Old Man. The second child was called Bilna’nolti.hn (Marked with Zigzag Lightning). His father was Sun. Those boys got their power from their fathers long ago."

The sound of the sacred stories rolled beneath Sweet Earth’s thoughts like the murmur of a distant storm as her own story rose up to claim her mind. It had happened to her earlier that year in the month the White Eyes call April, but that the Apaches know as T’aa na’chil (The Leaf Buds Are Swelling.)

There was nothing strange about the first few days when Sweet Earth was camping with her clan in their springtime gathering grounds. Her grandmother had led them from their main ranchero to that lush area to collect roots, greens and tender sprouts. The wise woman was scornful of the "lazy sit-around-the-forts", who relied on rations passed out by the White Eye soldiers. She knew what would happen to her family if they ate only the food provided by the Indian agent. The clan’s healer knew they would become sickly and weak. So the band followed her when she said, "It is time to get the springtime food that Giver of Life has sent for us to enjoy.”

After the entire group had worked together for three days, the old woman insisted that she and Sweet Earth must go out alone. A dream had told her that Sweet Earth would be the clan’s next healer so the revered elder was anxious to pass on her knowledge of the healing power of plants and herbs.

It had been a clear spring day when Sweet Earth and her grandmother started out from their family’s temporary campsite. The only shadow on the morning came after the elderly woman refused to let Raven Song come along. The girl stomped off to the edge of a dense stand of trees before spinning around to glare and shout, "I am ready to learn about the power of plants. Many times I've begged you to teach me. My mother was right. She told me you would not share your secrets with me.” Then the enraged girl pointed her chin toward Sweet Earth, and heckled, “Now, she goes with you, the dim-minded one who needs to learn some love medicine to keep her man, not plant knowledge."

"Swallow those evil words," their grandmother hissed. "It will be said that you are a witch. Who has filled your mind with wicked thoughts of love power? Never say those words again! Great harm will come if you don't heed me. I was right not to take you. Power is given to benefit all the people. It is not to be given to one vain girl."

Raven Song trembled in rage. “I am not afraid of power. Those who have it say it’s dangerous. They say that to scare others so they won't try to get any for themselves. I am strong enough for power and will be stronger soon.” As she stormed off, she screamed, “I'll find out what I want to know without you."

They understood the source of Raven Song’s bitterness. Her anger came from being left behind when her Mexican mother, the captive second wife of Sweet Earth’s father, ran away. Still, the girl’s hatred and disrespect toward the grandmother, who had taken such good care of her after her mother disappeared, was upsetting.

They stood there stunned until Sweet Earth pointed to a tiny white flower. “Look,” she said, “a promise of good growing things.”

“Yes,” the elder replied, “We will think of the good gifts around us. I have no medicine to take away that girl’s anger, but we don’t have to carry any of it with us. We will leave it all behind us. Come now.”

The next few hours were pleasant. They talked about the healing power of herbs as they wandered farther and farther from their kin. Sweet Earth enjoyed watching her grandmother scampering along the path as she pointed at pale green shoots with her twisted walking stick. She was fussing at her granddaughter in a love-scold to hurry and dig up the tender, young plants when she stopped in mid-sentence. The old woman's face drained from a ruddy russet to the color of gray sand. She bent over, leaning heavily on her cane, and closed her eyes before toppling down the sloping bank and landing next to a fast flowing creek.

Sweet Earth dropped her digging stick and ran to the fallen woman’s side. She brushed the long gray hair away from her grandmother’s eyes and placed her own face near the old one's mouth. Breath still came. There was hope, but the girl knew she couldn’t leave the elderly woman there alone while she went to get help. She would have to stay near her grandmother’s side until help came.

After Sweet Earth carried her grandmother up the creek bank, she noticed that the bright face of the sky was changing as quickly as the elder’s face had changed a few minutes earlier. In the deepening gloom, the day’s soft friendly breeze began to turn into a furious windstorm. The worried girl was battered by bone-chilling gusts as she struggled to build a shelter around her unconscious grandmother. She erected a hut from saplings, reeds and branches, leaving a hole in the top for the smoke to escape. Then, nearly exhausted, she started a fire and dashed about to gather wood as snow began to fall.

Sweet Earth stumbled through the shelter’s tiny entrance, and looked over at the bed of soft branches and leaves that she had made for her grandmother. There was no change in the motionless form lying there. The old woman didn't respond to her granddaughter’s tender cooing. Her color remained bad, but the breath of life still fluttered from her lips.

Sweet Earth wished she could have persuaded her to return to the others that afternoon. But the twinkle-eyed elder had said no. She wanted to continue along the path to a place called Singing Waters to find a special herb, which grew near that holy place. Some of the last words the old woman had spoken before she fell were, “We are nearly there. You will soon see the four sacred springs.”

When Sweet Earth went outside to collect water in her pitch-covered basket, she decided to pray for her grandmother. As she chanted a traditional prayer, she thought of the sacred waters that meant so much to the wise woman and began to move in a measured and reverent pace. Her steps took her around a bend in the path to the holy place her grandmother had been longing to see. Four springs gushed from the hill above her into the stream. Eagle feathers fluttered on willow branches, and pieces of sacred turquoise and white shell, left by the devout, lay on rocks nearby. After Sweet Earth scooped up the life-giving water, she stood in the fast falling snow and sang her own prayer.

Only after she was back at her grandmother's side did she realize how cold and weary she was. She stroked the precious woman’s cheek before stripping off her wet clothes and placing them near the fire. She rubbed a rough piece of bark against her skin to stir up her blood as she huddled by the flames. Night had swooped in with the storm and captured the day. There had been no dusk. It was pitch dark outside. There were no stars. The fire in the tiny hut seemed like the only light in the entire world. Sweet Earth’s body ached for sleep, but she kept herself awake until she was wrapped in dry clothes. Their warmth revived her slightly.

She added more wood to the fire, made a cup of willow bark tea, and tried to wake up her grandmother. This time she got a response. The frail woman’s eyes fluttered open as she whispered, "To that beautiful land I must go. I wish to go there soon, but not yet. Now I stay. I still have much to teach you. You must be armed with wisdom to help our people." The elder took a few sips of the tea before drifting back into unconsciousness where she gazed again at the beautiful place beyond her earthly life.

The girl murmured, "Rest now. We are safe." Tears broke loose and sobs shook the young woman's body. Sweet Earth wept for a long time before deciding to drink the rest of the tangy liquid that she had prepared for her grandmother. She looked at the tin army cup in the flickering firelight. It was a useful item - a gift from her husband, but it didn't make her happy to think of the giver.

At last, after again checking on the sleeping woman, Sweet Earth lay down to sleep. She wasn't afraid of dying in the storm even though they had very little food. She was strong. Yet, if death came into the shelter to claim her grandmother, she would feel the deepest sorrow. The kind woman had lovingly raised Sweet Earth and Spotted Fawn after both their parents died from the coughing sickness. Later, she even took in the abandoned Raven Song.

If her grandmother died, Sweet Earth knew she would be forced to flee into the storm. Apaches were well aware of the danger from ghosts, even ghosts of those who had loved them when they were alive. If a person died inside a wickiup, the structure needed to be destroyed along with all of that person’s possessions. Sweet Earth had no doubt it would be better to be out in the storm than to risk ghost sickness, even though she might die if she set out into the freezing, blinding snow.

Would Yoohn care? she wondered.

TO BE CONTINUED