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)