Well bronc riders and buckle bunnies we were a sitting around the bunkhouse
this past 4th of July waiting on the fireworks display. Me, Joe Bob, the New Mexico
Kid, Joe Bob Junior, Gonzolo, Three Finger Charley, and the Italian Babe. We were
sucking down some frosty Lone Star beer to stay cool and looking over the latest
copy of Pen World International. Mostly I was trying to get the crew to acknowledge
that I was famous for being a Top Ten Traveler Postcard Contest finalist.
Joe Bob Junior was admiring that pen on the cover of Pen World, the one with
the feather clip, the Delta Indigenous People. He looks up and says, What in the
name of Austin are Indi Genous people?” Bubba says, “Like Indians
boy, like Indians.” Junior says, “Wow! Weren’t you an Indian
once Bubba?” Slowly I see the Kid start to grin and Bubba gets this trail
dust teary eyed look. Yep, once, me and the Kid boy, we were Indians.
It was back right about the time Kennedy got elected. Me and the Kid had just
graduated from Vista Nueva High School in Aztec, New Mexico. Kennedy got us so
all fired up we filled out one of them applications for Harvard College in Bean
town. Mostly we were hoping to get rejected so we’d have an excuse to go
to work running a mule pack train down in the Gila Wilderness. Well there was
a lot about that application we didn’t understand such as that block about
Nationality. Shucks boy, we weren’t sure if it meant French, German or Canadian
so we took my Esterbrook and wrote in Apache. Yep right then we done become a
couple of Apache braves.
Well much to our dismal delight we got accepted at that Harvard school. I
told the Kid we didn’t look much like Apache braves and just how were we
going to pull the blanket off this horse? The Kid figured we just needed to look
like Hollywood movie Indians since nobody in Boston probably knew an Apache when
they saw one. We spent all summer going bare chest sun burning our skin brown,
dyed our hair black every week, and made up a bunch of Indian words for our native
language. We bought some turquoise and silver coin jewelry and a couple of flat
brimmed Navajo hats and after a long train ride from Santa Fe we were in Boston.
The Kid was right, they thought we were Apache braves straight out of a John Wayne
movie.
Well after a few weeks at Harvard we were invited to the annual Sweet 16 Debutante
Coming Out Come and Be Seen Upper Crust Society Ball held at the swanky Andover
Country Club. We outfitted ourselves with black tuxedos, bow ties and shiny slipper
shoes. We were close to heading out the door when the Kid says, “Pull up
pardner, there’s trouble on the trail ahead, we don’t look like Apache
braves anymore.” So we slid a couple of Navajo turquoise coin silver bracelets
over our tux sleeves, put on some beat up black Nocona ostrich buckaroo boots
and plopped those black flat rimmed Navajo hats on our heads. For effect I ran
a stripe of yellow chalk across my forehead and the Kid stuck an old Marble brand
hunting knife in a beaded case under his cumbersome bun and off we rode off to
swoon the debutantes.
What a party. The punch bowl was as big as a watering trough but the sandwiches
were only about the size of an alfalfa pellet. As a warm up they had some lady
who played Celtic harp and was accompanied by classic voice. Later they cut loose
with a 16 piece orchestra. Me and the Kid proved right off that you can’t
dance the Texas two step (1, 2, double shuffle) to that Vienna Sausage Waltz so
we started hanging out at the watering trough punch bowl. The Kid is having a
conversation with some stately Boston society matron that has silver hair dyed
the color of the morning blue sky peeking over the Grand Canyon and enough diamonds
hanging on her to buy every pawn shop in Gallup. She says to the Kid, “Have
they paved all the roads in New Mexico yet?” The Kid says not yet because
pavement wears down the wagon wheels too fast. I start to listen a little closer.
The society matron asks the Kid if he’s ever been to a dance like this before.
The Kid is catching on now so he says, “The only thing that I’ve ever
seen that resembles this fandango is a Mescalero Apache Fertility Dance for Virgins.”
The society matron turns as white as a newborn Navajo lamb and says, “Well!
I never…” at which point the Kid knowing an opportunity when he sees
one interrupts and says, “I’ll show you!”
Suddenly there he is, the New Mexico Kid, right out in the middle of the dance
floor hunkered over, a going around in circles, while doing the Texas two step
and a shouting, “Hi Ya Ha Ya Hi Ya Ah Ah, Ya Ta Hay! He follows that up
with a chant that vaguely sounds like Un Da Wah Wah oomp oomp hi ya e ta! Seizing
the moment I start whirling and circling the dance floor doing the Cheyenne Indian
Eagle Dance that I learned in Cub Scout Pack 51. The band jumps right in with
a steady beat of a bass drum. Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom. Imagine the scene Junior.
Debutantes everywhere wearing long white gowns and silver tiaras. Ivy League boys
with crew cuts and patent leather shoes. Society matrons adorned in diamonds sitting
in red velvet chairs. The light sparkling off crystal chandeliers. Servants scurrying
back and forth with trays of champagne glasses. Old fogy’s with old money
clustered in corners smoking old stogies. In the middle of all that alone on the
dance floor, a couple of homesick out of place dust weary long haired Apache braves.
Me and the Kid were overcome by the emotion, the smoke, the drum, and the gin.
Suddenly we were back home in the Land of Enchantment, Boom Boom Boom Boom, the
pinion smoke drifting across Third Mesa, the bread baking in the orno, beads rattling,
feathers rustling, dark eyes watching from doors in adobe houses. Hi ya Ha ya!
The coyote howling, prairie dog yelping and owl screeching we cut loose with
was unlike any sound ever heard in the New England colonies. The Kid pulls the
Marble brand knife in the beaded case out and is holding it straight out in front
of him with both hands like a priest at Saint Teresa’s church in Espanola
on Sunday. He’s doing this convulsive gyration definitely associated with
the rites of fertility and he’s headed straight for the blue haired diamond
encrusted society matron. The Kid makes a leap her way and wouldn’t you
know it, the blue haired diamond encrusted society matron lets out a moan that
sounds like a sick elk and then faints dead away right on the spot. People start
to rush over to help, the Kid makes one final convulsive gyrating leap, lands
astride the feinted away blue haired diamond encrusted society matron, pulls that
Marble brand hunting knife out of the beaded case, waives it in the air and with
the force of a bellowing buffalo bull yells, “GERONIMO!”
The only way to describe the scene from that point on would be: Stampede!
People are screaming, running back and forth like frenzied cattle in a hail storm,
jumping out windows, falling over tables, slipping in spilled champagne, you’d
have thought it was the Little Bighorn. Me and the Kid sensed that this Pow Wow
was over so we hit the trail at a gallop. We wound up in some honky tonk bar in
downtown Boston still wearing our war paint, turquoise silver coin jewelry arm
bracelets, black flat rimmed hats and Nacona ostrich boots. The bartender comes
over and says, “Where you boys from?” We look up into the darkest
eyes east of the Rockies, hair the color of coal, skin that is weathered like
an old saddle, a nose shaped like Mount Rushmore, the most noble and fine chiseled
Navajo face we’ve ever seen in our lives. The Kid stares at a ghost of the
past and finally answers, “Chicago.”
Well Junior now you know how two young bucks from New Mexico educated Boston
high society on the finer points of the Mescalero Apache Fertility Dance for Virgins.
Keep your cinch tight and don't squat on your spurs Buckaroos and Buckarettes.
Copyright 2003. All rights reserved. No part of this
article may be reprinted in any form without permission of the author except for
brief editorial quotes.
Read Will
Thorpe's previous articles on Pentrace!
and also
The 2002 North Texas
Pen Show (with Sue Broadwell)
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