With a flick of a finger, life is gone. Poof. As time goes on and on for eternity, we can't help to question our purpose. Some wait for life to present opportunities. Some create intentions and stand with them until death. Born in a time of bloodshed and greed, one woman shined with nobility. In the midst of destruction, she threw egotism out the window and chose to aid the helpless instead.

 

 

In the scorching New Mexico desert lay a village with unwary civilians. The children ran astray, playing tag and jumping on haystacks. The women gathered in little circles, scolding the children. Men dexterously rode horses across the land, hunting, shooting, practicing. The village shaman recalled sightings in his exclusive cave.

Hatred lay in the blood of whites and Mexicans for the Apache Native Americans. The beginning of the industrial age brought new and inventive ideas. Technology, methods, and lifestyles. Everything changed, except the detestation for Natives. 

 

The spirit world was a vast and serene place, wisps of airy spirits floating around, secrets waiting to be grasped. Catori spent halcyon days gazing into the souls of another dimension, looking for answers and predictions.

Catori meditated on the hill in the middle of the village. The dewy grass brushed her moccasins as if they were welcoming her. The sounds from below fueled her peace.

The people skittering on the dusty ground. Patter pitter-patter.

The boxes of food getting loaded into carts. Clunk-thunk.

The men training on horses. “Hyah!”

The same scintillating morning, she felt something. Darkness permeated through the tips of the spirit world. It was as if an eternal night was brewing. She stood up from the hill peak. She anxiously skimmed the horizon. A giant shadow of horses was moving briskly toward the Apache village.

"They are here, and they found us!" she announced as she slid down the hill. She rang the alarm bell as raucous as tolerable.

          Trotting on a horse nearby was her brother, the chief.  "Already?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, I will get my horses ready to fight. I heard the scalp bounty is worth double now. We must be vigilant," Catori informed.

Mexican bounty hunters had been attacking Native villages for years. Native American scalp prices were on the rise, so soldiers had spread wild across the west in search of villages. 

The fluffy white clouds in the sky turned into swirls of dust that rose like a virulent wall of peril. Catori ruefully scanned the village. The pedestrians looked so cheerful, going about their day like nothing was happening.

“EVERYONE!” Catori’s voice ricocheted through the crowd. They cocked their heads in surprise. “We are under attack. The Bounty Hunters are a few miles away!” she blurted.

The villagers knew not to waste time.

As if a spark had lit the town aflame, people started bounding left and right. Soldiers preparing, children hiding, the flame was spreading.

Supplies were being loaded onto carts when the first blow was struck. Catori gasped and turned around to find the wall of attackers at the village border, with a fresh human scalp in the leader’s hand. He muttered something in Spanish.

“Go! Move forward!” she screeched.

The miniature Apache army halted when they saw the immense number of malevolent Mexican soldiers.

She turned around to find her brother behind her.  “Catori, this battle is not worth your fight,” he admitted. “You must lead the children to safety. Their scalps are worth three times more.”

“But I want to fight! I always--”

“No, sister. Take them to security. It is the right thing, and you know it.”

“But what about you?”

“It doesn’t matter. What matters is we do what is possible. And winning this fight is impossible. Take the kids.”

“Okay.” Catori started to form wells of water in her eyes. “Goodbye.” She clutched the reins of her horse and dejectedly trotted away.

The once joyous town had eroded into a disaster within minutes. Giant sheds of tools broken, the learning house ransacked of supplies. Homes became barricaded with feeble individuals inside. Smoke from the brewing battle began to rise like an active volcano.

Spotting the old, rotten farmhouse in the corner, she could hear timorous screams of children in the back. She cautiously trotted over, not wanting to be seen. She swung the door open to find children no older than eight huddled together in the corner, lives flashing before their eyes.

In the back was me, quivering with trepidation.

“Hello?” She softly spoke. “Come, you are safe.”

One by one, like the first snowflakes cascading from the sky, kids started to swarm around her horse. She got off and hugged them like she never had before.

Catori bent down and hugged me. I saw a heroic woman before me,  veneration dazzling in my eyes.

She stooped and murmured to us, "We must escape, but silently."

We nodded our heads and followed her out the door.   She ambled out of the barn and gingerly snaked behind the fight scene. She signaled us to follow. Gradually creeping towards the desert, she sought to be undetectable. 

          We felt a quiver run through the line of people. Something was amiss. Catori seized her arrows and clasped them behind her back, bow in hand.

          "Hola."

          She turned to find a Mexican soldier aiming his rifle at the children.

It was almost as if nothing was happening for a few seconds.

The gallant breeze tossed the course sand like puppets. Dried flower petals danced around us, flying in the zephyr as if they were mocking us. The background buzz of fighting became clouded into the boundless sky. Catori's horse dug at the sand like a child idling for its mother. 

We were hindering the inevitable.   

As if a finger snapped, a firecracker exploded, the fight broke. Catori strung her fingers to the steady arrow while dodging the soldier's bullets.

"Hyah!" She commenced her horse towards him, and her fingers left the arrow. Fast as a bullet, strong as the wind, as precise as the galaxy, the arrow pierced him through the heart. The body slumped down and fell over.

"KIDS-GO!" she shrieked.

She scooped all four of us onto her horse and dashed towards the desert.

The comfort of small buildings soon turned into a barren desert, sand and cacti replacing loving homes. We had never realized behind our affectionate village was the scorching hot no-man’s land.

It seemed as if days and weeks passed. Our sense of time was slipping through our fingers.

"I need to send you far, far away," Catori pondered.

Looking forward into the boundary, she detected a rapid stream moving west. "I'm sending you towards the other Native reserve." She settled.       

After minutes of riding, she halted and thrust us off. Luckily, a few trees grew next to the stream. Hurriedly, she tied dense branches together and constructed a makeshift miniature raft. We knew not to ask questions.

One by one, like dandelion seeds wafting away from home, we were placed on the raft. I felt the heat of the sun melt onto the raft, the spray of cool water bubbling at my fingertips.

Catori shed a tear and pushed us with great force down the stream. The water carried us like a mighty horse.

Through the shrubs and trees, we witnessed a peril swallow Catori. Burly and muscular, a Mexican soldier crept behind Catori with a rifle cradled in his arms.

A pop drummed the earth, like mallets pummeling into a gong. Catori fell to the ground. The malicious figure scraped his knife against her scalp and slowly peeled it off, relishing every moment, almost as if a serrated knife had slowly chopped the perfect apple.

Again. And again. And again.

Like a sword being stabbed into the soul of a loved one.

He clipped the scalp onto his belt like a medal. He kicked her body aside and rode off into the sunset.   

          We couldn't even cry. The trauma that unfolded already had us deep in its clutches. We rode softly, for we knew another hero was lost.

 

 

 

 

-Nethra C.