White Apache Page 29

  The great man himself had come from Washington for the occasion and shook Nathanial's hand. “My boy, I'm proud of you!”

  The baby was taken from Nathanial's hands by his mother, and at her elbow was Belinda, one of his mother's Negro maids, whom Nathanial had helped escape from South Carolina in ‘54. Then the magic couple merged with the crowd to have their hands shaken and cheeks kissed. Everyone told them how wonderful and healthy they appeared, and what an ordeal they must have gone through. So it continued throughout the day and evening as good will and fine liquor intermingled on Washington Square.

  Nathanial spoke with his brothers, ex-schoolmates, former sweethearts, nephews he'd never known before, and even Fitz-Greene Halleck, his old boon drinking companion was in attendance. “So good to have you back, Nathanial. When things settle down, we'll have a few drinks at Pfaff's, and you can tell me about the Apaches.”

  Nathanial was kissed by aunts and other elderly women whom he didn't remember. They treated him like a hero, although he'd been shot in the back by mistake in the Mogollon Mountains, and somehow survived with the aid of Apache medicine.

  A table groaning with delicacies had been laid out, and at the end bartenders mixed one drink after another. Everyone was fastidiously attired, conversing in educated accents, with bejeweled ladies and cigar-smoking gentlemen. Nathanial's wife held court on the far side of the room, center of attention for a crowd of younger fellows, and the former apprentice warrior realized that he'd married an exceptional woman, and never would permit the army or anything to take precedence over her again.

  At one point, while conversing with a woman who seemed to know him well, although he couldn't quite place her, he thought he heard hoofbeats in the distance as a band of Apache raiders streaked across a sunbaked valley, driving a herd of cattle. With a smile Sunny Bear recognized the great chief Mangas Coloradas, Nana, the di-yin medicine man, Juh, and Geronimo the Bedonko, with the ghost of Cuchillo Negro above, urging them onward. Sunny Bear's eyes filled with tears, because he realized that no matter how many whiskeys he drank, and how many tailored suits hung in his closet, he would always be an apprentice warrior of the People in some corner of his soul. Ride on, my brothers, ride, he said inwardly. May the mountain spirits shine their faces upon you and give you glory.

  “Are you all right?” asked the lady.

  “Perfectly fine,” he replied as he brushed away the tears. The Apaches vanished into the sunset, but he still could hear their war ponies in the canyons of his mind. And he knew that no matter where he lived, he would ride forever with the Mimbreno Apaches, for their cause was just, and their nobility never could be denied.

  Perhaps I can find a position with the Department of Indian Affairs and work for peace among our peoples, contemplated Nathanial as men slapped him on the back, and women called his name.

  During autumn of 1857 the New York City office of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company found itself with liabilities of from five to seven million dollars, its assets apparently embezzled by a dishonest cashier. The appropriate announcement was made by Charles Stetson, president of the firm, and due to the ripple effect, his creditors found themselves unable to pay bills. Within days panic spread like wildfire throughout overextended financial markets.

  New York banks suspended specie payments, while those of New England and Pennsylvania teetered on the brink of disaster. Wall Street brokers ran from friend to friend, seeking loans to ward off disaster, but their friends had gone bust too. Fortunes that had taken generations to accumulate were wiped out in a matter of days. There was talk of chicanery, stock rigging, and why didn't the government do something.

  More than a fifth of British exports went to the United States, so it wasn't long before the calamity reached London, while French bankruptcies were even more widespread than British. Hamburg, one of Europe's foremost trading ports, was crippled by the disaster. Reverberations even reached Poland and Austria. According to Benjamin Disraeli, British chancellor of the exchequer, “All the bubbles, blunders and dishonesties of five years of exuberance and experiments in credits have been tested and revealed.”

  In the United States naturally the North blamed the South for the debacle, and the South blamed the North. The year that saw the Dred Scott decision also produced the nation's worst economic collapse since the Panic of ‘37. Multitudes were thrown out of work, many committed suicide, and six thousand looms were shut down in New England.

  During those perilous hours President Buchanan sat in the Oval Office and scowled as he read reports of business failures. “How much more of a beating can this poor old America tolerate, until it falls to pieces?” he asked himself one day.

  The bear slept in the winter beneath a carpet of snow. Snug in his cave, cuddled with his mate and newborn son, he dreamed bear dreams.

  Sometimes he saw himself searching for food, but never finding any, or sniffing flowers, or catching juicy trout to make his heart strong. Often he dreamed of making love with his mate and occasionally of killing small animals for food.

  That winter the bear dreamed a new dream, one that would come to him often, providing pleasure as he slept, unlike nightmares of monsters shooting arrows or chunks of metal at him.

  He saw himself high on a mountaintop, dancing with a two-legged warrior of the People, who wore a white breechclout, brown moccasin boots, and a red bandanna around his head. The bear clapped his paws as he gamboled about, while the two-legged performed graceful pirouettes. The bear stirred in his sleep, as if he wanted to join the dance, but his heart almost had stopped, and it was only a dream. Yet he heard drums and lutes as the two-legged frolicked around him. This is fun, thought the bear, as he skipped on his toes. I like it.

  A gust of wind blew past the front of the cave, and in it a voice seemed to say, “I will live in you, bear.”

  “And I in you,” replied the bear as he and Cuchillo Negro whirled merrily together, and stars glittered in the western sky.