The mountain people

Chapter I

Heʼs sitting next to his Kowa. Heʼs listening to the sounds of nature and the bonfire while he and his sons are sitting around it. There is a mossy smell in the cold night air of the forest and the fog hides the impressive mountains and the beautiful night sky. "Shiyé', Xá chish ʼágúńʼlá?", that means "My son, are you going to make wood?", he asks his eldest son. "Ao, Shitaáʼ should I also roast the peccary?", he demands. "No, not yet. Tomorrow.", the father replies. He is lost in thoughts, and he thinks of the old days, when Túnálį́į́ʼ wasnʼt dead. He feels guilty and blames himself for what happened. Back then, they lived in the plains and not in the mountains. Back then, they were part of a bigger band. He gets up and he trolls through the forest around his Kowa. His Kowa is a well built little dome shaped hut. He hasn't built a Kowa or a Tipi for a while, but the Kowa is stable and in there it is pleasently warm. Next to the Kowa, there is a tanning rack, on which the peccary skin is drying. Next to the tanning stand is a massive spruce tree with many strong knots.

Goshni bahʼchoh is glad that this tree is right next to his kowa, because if a cougar or grizzly attacks them or their lair is spotted, they can flee up the tree. The carcass of the peccary hangs to dry on one of the branches.

If the meat weren't almost dry, it would be covered with countless mosquitoes and flies. Beneath the branch lie innumerable knives and tools for slaughtering, skinning and tanning. Some skins of deer and other animals that he and his sons have already killed are hung over the Kowa. Also a rifle and the bows and arrows are leaning on the right at the entrance. To the left of the entrance are pots, cups and baskets, presumably they were stolen. After looking at his kowa with pride, he walks a little further and takes a look at the mountain lake. Two birds are flying over the lake, reminding him of Túnálį́į́ʼ and him. He asks the Gaʼan, the Apache mountain spirits, to end his loneliness. Although he has his sons, they remind him every day that his wife is dead. After he has sung his prayer song and begged the Gaʼan and Yussen for mercy as he has done every day since their deaths, he now goes to sleep too.

When he enters his kowa and is shortly afterwards wrapped in several warm furs, he feels as secure as a small child lying in his mother's arms. He feels the warmth in the Kowa and thinks about the rest of the day. He tries to put her death behind him, but it's too hard and he's too tired.

When he wakes up the next morning, his sons are already awake. As he leaves his kowa, he sees his son preparing a basket of berries, roots and mushrooms for eating and preparing the peccary meat with honey. "Where is Yazhí shash?" asks Goshni bahʼchoh. "He went hunting in the forest about an hour ago. He wanted a deer for lunch. I'll go to him in a moment," says Dééní béésh. When the father hears this, he takes his old shotgun, a pecussion lock rifle from 1848, which he captured, and also goes into the forest to get it. He walks off and takes a deep breath of the pleasantly cool morning air. He looks into the forest, at the moss-covered ground and at the old trees, at the piles of leaves and also at the few rocks that stick out through the leaves, moss and bushes. He walks through the area where his ancestors once lived. He can practically sense the spirits protecting this area. When he is very deep in the forest, he notices a deep, firm stomping in the leaves. He hears some rustling branches. After a while the rustling stops, but a new sound, previously masked by the rustling of the leaves, is also heard near him. It sounds like heavy breathing or a sort of snort, and it's getting closer and closer. In Goshni bah'choh's experience it's a stag, but he's not sure. He loads his gun and approaches the animal. In his estimation, this animal is still ten, if not fifteen meters or more away. He approaches the animal and kneels behind a rock. His breath catches and his muscles tense so much he can actually feel them enveloping his bones. But when the animal should only be about five meters away and he still doesn't see it and suddenly the snorting stops, Goshni bah'choh is surprised and gets up. He looks around, but far and wide there is no animal to be seen and he can no longer hear the snorting anywhere. He walks around the rock and heads in the direction where he last heard the animal. He walks around a tree, behind a bush a large deer jumps up and rams Goshni bah'choh with its huge antlers, so that it flies a few meters in the air. He can't see anything, hear anything, feel anything at this moment, except for the pain. His stomach was rammed badly by the deer and, because he slams his back against a tree and rubs most of his back against the rough bark, he is at first downright numb from the pain. The deer screams and runs towards Goshni bah'choh, but Goshni bah'choh manages to save himself by rolling sideways, suppressing the resulting pain in his back. He jumps up and fires a shot at the deer, flipping it onto its back and making the now wounded animal all the more aggressive. But as the stag charges in the direction of the prone Goshni bah'choh, some arrows fired from a little further up the hill finish it off. The person who shot the arrows is Yazhí shash, who just has two rabbits attached to his belt. When the deer has already been skinned on site, Yazhí Shash puts the rolled-up skin on his shoulder and places one half of the deer on top. His father wants to carry the other half to save his honor. Together they go home without saying many words and deal with the life-threatening situation from earlier.