arms below the elbow. The fatal blow came from a sharp knife that carved out his heart. My mouth goes bone dry as I move closer, the afternoon sun cutting through the cavern to display the carnage in all its stark harshness. A third man appears shorter, but only because his head lies at his twisted feet. His ribs, nearly all of them, extend outward where the shotgun tore him through from behind. Stepping to the entrance of the cave, though, the full scope of the carnage registers with unfathomable clarity. The dryness in my throat gives way to a knot that sinks to the pit of my stomach. My legs grow weak as twigs and I drop to my knees.
The butchered bodies of eleven White Men fill the small cave. I count the torsos because it is the only way to be sure. Some of the heads are missing, or discarded about the ground, or smashed into pieces among the limbs and organs that litter the floor. Staring dumbfounded at the tableau in its grisly totality, there appears no conceivable torture or bodily desecration left unaccounted for among its victims. So complete the extermination that its perpetrators must surely have luxuriated in an overwhelming advantage of force, and an orgiastic abundance of time, in which to leave unturned no stone of sadistic creativity. One wretched young man, no older than myself, looks like he was roasted below the waist while his arms and shoulders played pincushion to an awl or ice pick. Yet others among his kindred became canvases for intricate blade-work. Each of the eleven seems to have suffered a unique death, but before his suffering had ended, shared one or two communal hardships with his brethren. Not one of them died with his private parts attached and more than a few took their last, miserable breaths with their manhood stuffed into their mouths. The entire lotâprobably early in the proceedingsâwas stripped completely naked, their clothing nowhere in sight, not a single thread of it. Scanning the chamber, in fact, I cannot observe a single personal possession of any kindâno tool or weapon or artifactâwhich may have aided even the most meager defense. What insurmountable imbalance of power must have been in play to render nearly a dozen able-bodied White Men into such docile submission? The final commonality is the marked absence of each and every scalp.
I cannot say how long I set there on my knees, but before I could will my eyes to look away, I was certain this vile vista has seared itself into an inescapable cage of memory.
As I find my feet again, a dot of shadow crawls across the landing. I look up. The first of the vultures circles overhead, the full stench of this discovery now extending miles downwind. I have seen enough and marshal my thoughts toward leaving, but in the shifting light, something polished and gold reflects a ray of sunlight from an inner nook of the cave. Before giving myself a chance to reconsider, I push forthâholding my breathâand tiptoe into the foulness. I pluck the overlooked object from its hiding place and shove it in my pocket. Turning back toward the ledge, I am greeted by an arriving condor. The colossal bird stands at the edge of the landing, folding in her enormous wings in anticipation of the feast laid out before her. I move to shoo her off and then stop myself. Let the scavengers have at it, I say, so that the sight of this altar of evil may never poison the vision of another living soul. I blow past the condor without looking back.
By the time I reach Storm, the sky swirls black with the great birds. I drape the pronghorn over the stallionâs haunches and swing myself up. âDonât ask,â and he obliges by starting his walk. The sun hangs low over the mountains to the west. I glance at the ridge and see a lone rider atop a piebald lineback, watching me with great intent. And I know right away from her knee-high moccasins and the way she sits on her horse that she is Apache. Farther south, or west into