Prologue
It is mid-summer’s nightfall at Roof Butte Peak; below, the deep quite of darkness has draped a canopy over the Chuska Mountains in this remote section of the Colorado Plateau. Thick stands of Ponderosa Pine, Spruce, and Fur trees blanket the steep slopes and arroyos. The denseness of the forest and tree constriction amplifies even the faintness of sounds so that any slight rustling of the brush or swoosh of an owl’s wings can be heard from a distance. Nocturnal creatures with adapted eyesight and highly developed sense of hearing and smell begin to move quietly in the eleventh hour.
A human-like shape squats on haunches materializing a harmonious blend to the dark silhouette landscape. A primeval moan deep and penetrating echoes with a monotone that travels out into the inky blackness and the absolute stillness of the night. The agony is painfully clear and seemed to speak to the night, profound and cavernous, filled with a sadness resonating despair and hopelessness that he shares with predators of the darkness.
On the ground sits a Crow par-fleche, a rawhide container for carrying goods. It was during the Moon of the Popping Trees in 1844 he had found the hunting party of Four Crows killing them. That had been ten seasons ago. The par-fleche moves slightly making a faint rattle sound. His wide mouth opens unconsciously full lips curl past yellowed teeth with a sardonic smile.
He stands upright and pulls a dirty clout to the side with one hand and attempts to urinate against a tree. His head lowers showing tattered feathers entangled in long unkempt black hair. In the full moons fractured light, a face is revealed, monstrous even in diffused light. Blackened with pigment, a stark white line runs from the hairline to the chin with full lips painted a deep ocher. A neckpiece like a fat black and white snake lay coiled around his throat. His jish, a small leather medicine bundle, along with a blackish pendant, fall to mid-chest on dark naked skin. Wild deep set eyes, cloaked by heavy eyelids, hold wide pupils like pools of black ink, their look leaves no doubt, he hated them, hated them all. He finishes then turns his head back slowly to the lone dwelling, the object of fixation.
The crudely constructed cabin was squat with clumps of mud and dried grasses chinked into the spaces between logs. Openings that served as windows were planked and closed. The structure appeared to be partially buried in the hillside; soft light emulated from within as a thin wisp of smoke escapes the hole on the earthen roof.
He was no different in his life than the lowly hawk moth, drunk from the nectar of the ancient queen. It flies in vain, weaving from flower to flower desperate to taste her potency, her sweetness, until it no longer can fly in its nightly habitual pursuit. Known as Sacred White Datura, beautiful but deadly, this large fragrant night-blooming flower has been known to ancients throughout time.
Sacred Datura is the most potent narcotic and hallucinogen in the belladonna alkaloid family. If ingested, the chemicals will control behavior and change the chemistry of the brain, cells, and nervous system. It is said that Sacred Datura is capable of giving its user extraordinary powers of transformation. Also called Black Angel of Death, it regulates heartbeat, circulation, and breathing, it is easily absorbed through skin and mucous membranes. Medicine men have long known its dreaming power for Vision Quests, but the unwary is often sent on a one way trip to hell.
Sinewy fingers trail over his jish. He dips a finger in the bitter tasting golden crystalline powder then rubs it across his gums. At once he feels the familiar sensation. His senses sharpen, eyesight keen, hearing acute. The sane life he once lived long ago has slipped away, lost forever in permanent psychosis leaving him caught between animal and human worlds; a man-thing.
The man-thing shifts his body slowly, the familiar feeling of eagerness in his muscles. As the alkaloid enters his blood-stream, his heads swirls and he begins to see the ghost-like beings that surround him. Tormented spirits surrendered in a never ending blood lust, they beckon to him, their bodies whirling seductively, dancing, writhing, faster and faster until his own passion rises. He closes his eyes and moans softly.
Slowly the man-thing’s thoughts drift back, far back to his other life, when he was human. Some memories blur, but he can still remember how his father, a powerful medicine man of high ranking would harvest the small dark seed pods at just the right age, under a full moon, from the high ridges and ravines of the sacred mountain. Then grinding and mixing with other plants to neutralize their potency, he used them in purification and coming of age ceremonies. Remembering caused his head to whirl, faster now, he moans low, calling softly out to the ancients. His father had kept the tiny black seeds in his jish. He was only a small boy when he had found them. His vision deepens as a sharp memory comes into focus within his mind.
His birth had been difficult. The old hag woman who had pulled him into this world always carped at him saying he should have been left in the dirt for the animals to eat. He had been born different. His fingernails were thick and pointed and his canine teeth had already erupted through his gums making him look less than human. His mother did not want to hold him. She tried to nurse him once but when he bit her breast drawing blood, she threw him away. From that day on she refused to have any more to do with him. An old woman in the tribe took pity on him, somehow he survived. The only memory he had was trying to look at his mother’s face, trying to get her attention, but she would never look at him.
His vision grew stronger within his head, growing clear within his mind. He had entered the Wickiup that night still chewing on the tiny black seeds. Crawling and inching his way silently across the dirt floor in the darkness, he held his knife clenched firmly between his teeth. As he reached his mother, he took the hilt of the knife into both hands raised up to his knees and thrust it high above his head before bringing it down with all the force he could muster. A spray of blood hit him in the face as he thrust the knife again hitting her between the ribs. Awaken by her cry, his father desperately tried to stop him but the point of his knife caught the flesh of his neck opening his jugular. He remembered watching them both bleed to death, their blood slowing soaking into the hard packed earth. The old hag was the one who found him standing alone in the Rancheria; his hands and buckskins smeared with their blood.
He was only a child, but he knew what he was. He hated them both. They had tolerated him, but nothing more. He was an outcast even among his own family. The old hag had convinced the panicked others that he had been born a child of a Yenaldooshii, a black witch, and would cause everything in the universe to move in reverse and must be killed. The people became terrified. They fled leaving him bound tightly to a tree. He called out for them, but only heard her soft contemptuous laugh clear and strong coming from somewhere deep inside of him.
It was to be his first real meeting with the ancient one. Her power was already strong within him. He watched as her specter rose from beneath the earth to stand before him. She stared into his eyes compelling him to focus on the leather lashings that bound him. He obeyed. Centering his thoughts he felt the thongs loosen then suddenly he was free. She smiled then vanished, leaving only particles of energy behind, but her core remained embedded within him that day, forever.
He had first practiced on little animals, setting traps to capture before he killed them slowly, sometimes eating them alive just to see the look in their eyes as he took the first bite. It was fulfillment. Under her influence he was deadly and exercised a masterful precision of his craft. Rituals became ingrained, built on an unholy ceremony of chants and actions eventually using human body parts inside the little circles that he drew into the dirt, he created powerful sorcery. He is superior; an apex predator, an unstoppable force.
Morning light has come grudgingly to the conifer forest. The pale sun begins to burn away the chill of the mountain air revealing rugged peaks and plateaus high above the tree line filled with igneous volcanic rocks formed million of years ago when magma erupted into the sea bed, with crumbly sedimentary ledges lined with layers of white bands running across them which in some areas contain the fossilized remains of ancient sea creatures. It was a wild landscape, inhospitable in its terrain, vast, beautiful, and deadly.
A faint aroma of a wolf abruptly catches the man-thing’s attention. He searches the forest with his keen scent and eyesight. Great strength, shrewdness and cunning made the wolf a teacher of the wild, but it was of no concern to him at the moment. He would wait until it grew tired and moved on for he had already selected his prey. He begins to quietly chant familiar phrases until he hears the ancient one’s soft laughter inside of him, taunting, teasing him, she knows he hates, hates he was ever born. All females were malicious, distrustful; painful; his anger rises as a swift and savage force fills him.
***
Alex McCallister left the make shift corral and crossed the shallow ribbon of stream water. He rode about a mile up a trail, his horse, White Cloud, a speckled Appaloosa Stallion, surged up the steep incline. He was headed for the small hut he’d been sharing with a young sweet Navajo girl named Nizoni. She greeted him at the door, as she had for the past few months, wearing a beaded buckskin dress with rawhide ties at the shoulders. He pulled Nizoni’s slight frame into his embrace, hungry for her suddenly and uncertain how he was going to say good-bye. She had left her family for him. This was the closest he’d come to domesticity, and he had to admit he’d grown very fond of her. She was eager to please, passionate in bed and a great cook but he had overstayed already.
He was working for John Butterfield, the president of the Overland Mail Company and had become known as “Talking Boy,” for Butterfield’s soon-to-be Stage Line that would haul the US Mail and payroll into the New Mexico Territory. His job was to assist in the delivery of both and because he could read and speak three different languages fluently, he was able to peacefully gain access, secure land, and soothe different tribal affiliations as to where stations were to be built, the horses needed and what kind of trading would be available.
The undertaking was enormous. Butterfield, in association with the principals for Wells, Fargo & Co. for the American Express Co, had invested more than a million dollars getting the stage line organized. The company had to build or repair roads and bridges and set up and staff about one hundred fifty stations, purchase stagecoaches and wagons, as well as buy horses, mules, and feed. Water wells had to be dug and mountain passes cleared.
Alex had come to the Chuska’s in search of good stock, horses that were mountain tough, capable of pulling a load and still able to navigate through heavy mud or rough terrain. He was to bring these horses to the different stations being built, leaving time for the wranglers to gentle the wild ones and train them to harness. McCallister was an expert horseman and knew his horseflesh. He had a herd of top grade animals put together at Bonito Canyon and had managed to convince a few Navajo to guard them, but only if he gave them their choice of several mares and stallions along with a few sacks of flour and corn. It was a small concession.
He needed to leave now, but things had gotten complicated. McCallister intended to take Nizoni with him, at least as far as White River and knew a nice family there that would take her in, protect her. Most Navajo had no use for Mexican, White or Apache, hated all equally especially toward those who befriended them, her family no different. He had become her security, a defense against reprisals, not only from White’s but from her own people. He understood that mentality all too well.
He was just a boy of twelve when he left the Apache Rancheria, his birthplace, in a fit of anger. Alex had not returned in seven years. The fury over what happened still burned in him. After the Mexican American War, in the wake of the 1845 United States Annexation of Texas had ended in 1848, John McCallister, his father, who fought for Texas, was murdered—cruel and abrupt. His Scottish father had cared for his family with dignity and kindness, had educated his son to be one of only a handful able to read and write in the White tongue, a cut above, and it snuffed his life out.
A large band of Cuchans, along with renegade whites, enacted a final and personal revenge when they found the white man who lived as Apache, teaching his ways to them. The Cuchan, a branch of the Aztec Antilles, made their home along the lower Colorado and Gila River Valleys. The renegade bunch called their leader Captain Pablo, appointed by the Sonoran Governor before the Mexican American War, was now wreaking havoc.
Pablo’s saliva spewed over Alex as he spit out the word squaw-man. His father’s broken and bloodied body dumped chaotically into the dirt in front of the Wickiup. The Apache men in the camp gave a half-hearted chase after the renegades but his father had not been one of their own, his loss was of no real consequence.
Equally as painful was a boy who tried to comfort his mother with his childish way to lessen her pain. She was inconsolable; slashing her thighs deep with her knife nearly bleeding to death. The pecking order of Apache status ensured that women were the lowest, made to work hard, their lives basically unessential. After his father’s death Alex’s mother was vilified enviously by the other women. Unable to cope, she left her young half-breed son vulnerable, feeling caught between worlds. Neither wanted him.
After a final decisive argument, he left and made his way in the world. Since then, he’d been in a lot of places, seen a lot of things and had no regrets. He liked the idea of living on the edge, not knowing if each minute was going to be his last. There was an exhilaration of cheating death, when all the odds were against it and sometimes from walking away from something that isn’t right.
“Tonight,” Nizoni whispered in his ear, her voice bringing him out of his past, “I have something very special for you.”
With a sultry gleam in her dark eyes, Nizoni took his hand and led him to the table, where steam rose from clay pots and dishes. The table was small and sturdy. He had built it out of twigs and branches for her. She had made the little broken cabin into something inviting with wool rugs on the floor and over the windows. Making a flourish, she proudly showed him each dish—fry bread, corn tortillas, wild sweet potatoes and fresh slabs of lamb grilled with wild onions.
He saw the look of apprehension in her eye when he didn’t say anything. He wanted her to know how much he appreciated the gesture and knew that she worked very hard to make this for him. Since there were no sheep around the cabin, he knew she had to go somewhere to get it.
“You said you missed your mama’s Indian cooking? You did say that, Alexander?”
“Yes I said that, but I didn’t mean you had to do it for me. Ah Chica, I never meant for you to think I expected it. Where did you get the money to buy the sheep, and where did you get it at?”
“I trade blanket for it.”
Alex glanced around the cabin and noticed that the chair next to the little fire pit was bare. Nizoni kept her special blanket there.
“Your mother’s blanket, the only thing you have left as a possession from your home?”
“Yes.”
“Nizoni why? That was special to you, the only thing you had to remember them by. Why’d you do it?”
“Then…you are not pleased?” Her huge black eyes registered hurt and dismay as she stared at him.
“Pleased? O course I’m pleased, but you shouldn’t have done it. Not for one night, for one meal. The provisions and the money you spent on the meat could have been used to buy supplies for moving the horses.” It sounded harsh and slipped out before he realized it.
Her eyes widened and she looked up at him in shock with her mouth in a round O. The pain in her face was hard for him to bear.
“I like it, I do, I just can’t believe you went to so much trouble for me like this…Christ, don’t cry Chica…don’t cry.”
Nizoni was a bit too clingy but her sweetness and dedication made up for it. He felt almost ashamed at the regret he felt and how she had found out he was leaving. He’d known when he first saw her that it was only for a little while, and warned her of it then. She’d known it too, or said she did, but somehow he knew she wouldn’t remember those words now, only the fact that he was leaving her.
“Alexander, you are with me, are you not?” She threw herself into his arms and began to sob. She knew, yes she knew, that this day would come, when he would leave her all alone.
Taking her into his arms, he kissed away her tears, soothed her with assurances that he was happy she had cooked such a superb meal for him, that he would savor every bite. He turned her face up to his, a finger beneath her chin, and kissed her, long and sweet, tasting the salt of her tears on his mouth.
Late that night, after he had made love to her Alex softly whispered in her ear, “pack our belongings and clothes, I will be back soon for you with the horses and provisions. So be ready. I want to take you away from here, somewhere you will be safe.”
When he left her the next morning he kissed her tenderly and promised to return soon. She had caught his hand holding it tight as her throat worked soundlessly. He had kissed her again then eased his hand from her clinging grip. He turned once to look back and give a wave determined not to indulge her fears, then he was gone. Horse and rider all vanished within seconds into the thick forest.
She knew the wolf he had rescued as a cub and raised to adulthood would be waiting for him deep in the forest. The animal was elusive and shy around her and never openly came near the cabin. She often sensed its presence but it had never learned to trust her, nor did she trust it. The wolf held great medicine, this she knew, but it was not meant to be someone’s pet. Now she found herself wishing she had worked harder to befriend the animal. At least she would not be so alone, with the growing sense that something or someone was watching.
Mid-day and she needed water. As she struggled to carry the wooden bucket from the near-by stream up the slight incline towards the cabin she heard an unusual sound, a sighing, like an animal’s deep groan or growl. It came from the forest, menacing and unlike any sound she had ever heard before. An uneasy feeling crept into her causing goose flesh to cover her body. She paused scanning the forest edge with her eyes. She hoped it was Alexander but the tightness in her chest told her it was not. Dropping the bucket she ran for the cabin, but it was too late.
Gnarled hands grabbed her from behind and spun her around as the powder hit her face. The man-thing let her go but tangles his hand in her long silky black hair, winding it around his fist, pulling it until her head was bent back into an unnatural arch. The pupils of her dark eyes dilate as the alkaloid begins to work and a shrill scream pierces the air. Nizoni manages to struggle free, but his hand, still tangled in her hair like a tethered rope, pulls her back.
Mocking her softly as a sound of revulsion choked in her throat, the man-thing sliced through the ties of her buckskin dress causing it to fall to her waist. The sight of large tawny breasts with round dark nipples stop him. He grabbed one of her breasts and squashes it hard in his hand with all the strength he possessed. She went still, physically panting with the agony of it. He threw her to the floor pinning her down with the other hand. Deliberately he guided the nipple into his mouth then bit down hard, ignoring her screams of terror and agony.
Nizoni felt the white hot pain flare then the wetness of her own blood running between her breasts. Even in her terrified state of mind she realized that she had sensed the danger lurking in the shadows. Please Alexander…please find me… she screamed in her mind, but her fervent prayer began to jumble in her head, her vision blurred and her breathing labored.
Jerking the buckskin up around her waist the man-thing wrenched her legs apart with his knee roughly shoving a hand between her thighs, jabbing at her tender flesh with blackened fingernails. Pulling back his filthy clout with a free hand he released himself searching her thighs, his mouth contorts, then with a grunt his lips pull back as his release comes.
Nizoni lay in a state of shock beneath his heavy weight. He was sitting upright on her now. Her eyes burned badly. She could feel her blood run cold through her veins, her bruised and bloodied body stiff with fear. A pitiful moan poured out of her as she watched a long tongue snake from between black lips to lick at the blood pooled between her breasts. Her ears pounded with a hiss-like noise, like a snake poised to strike. The sound of it was deafening. She wanted to scream but no sound came from her lips.
It seemed as is his body was melting, hands fisted in a strange way, fingers bent oddly, like claws. He hunched over her, with head cocked sideways, his face looked frozen as his lips curled outward to expose long canine teeth from inside his mouth. Hair grew where there was none before. Eyes seemed to bulge out then turn from gray into black pools of coal then narrow with tiny pin points of red while ears elongated moving with the pulse of outside noises. The wolfish head was angled down making the eyes appear to snap out at her—glinting and cunning like an animal’s.
A strange malevolent growling sound came from deep within the man-thing as he continued to stare into her face, forcing her to meet his eyes. He held her like that, his intense burning eyes thinning into slits, until he recognized the imprint that only sheer terror leaves upon someone. She had that look, the look he recognized, the fear that a frightened animal has in its eyes just before it dies. Her eyes held that kind of fear. It was what the creature wanted to see. The woman was dirty, used, and degraded and was deserving of his actions.
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