EYES LIKE THE SKY

The bad, white men call him the devil

The Yavapai call him "Eyes Like the Sky"

This story takes place in the hinterlands of the newly formed United States

And territories in the years before and after the great conflagration called the Civil War

Men roam and fight each other to simply stay breathing

Muskets give way to repeating rifles, cannons give way to Gatling guns

War nurtures weapons, but weapons clear the land

In the deserts of the southwest, old hatreds grow into new ones

Old beliefs are shattered by gunfire and charging horses

Into this cauldron of fire rides a young man who becomes a shadowed legend

His name even takes on the mantle of the bogeyman in some homes

Among the first Americans, his name is exalted from wickiups to longhouses

From teepees to cliff dwellings

Among the men of the badlands, he's feared for his silent walk

And swift, economical dispatching of his enemies

 They'd been watching the farmhouse for a while, maybe all day
There were two of them, both young and fit and desert-hardened
They were lords of where they lived and they had no farm teachings from white men or Mexicans
Except for one thing
They hated the Mexicans more than the white men because of their cruelty
They had learned cruelty from the Mexicans very well in return

The smoke from the mud-house curled up into the sky like an albino snake
The two young men watched and counted the white men down in the farmyard
A tall man and two shorter ones, maybe his sons
A woman would occasionally come out from the shack
Get water from the well in the front yard and carry it back inside
A small child would be with her
The men watching on the rim had no calendars so they didn't know the date
12th of June, year of our Lord, 1854

But one thing they did know: about an hour away were the rest of their party
Eight men, all armed, running smoothly and trackless over the rocks
One of the watchers moved away to tell the main party of what they had seen
The raid was about to start 

 They were not after the money, they were not after alcohol
They were after guns and young children to raise as their own
The war had made it necessary to take child captives
The rest would be slaughtered
That is how Miguel O'Brien became a Yavapai-Apache warrior
He was five years old 

 Miguel O'Brien ran with the Apaches
He ran and ran, and as his legs grew he glided over the desert earth

He learned how to hide and to hunt
He learned to leave no tracks and he learned to live on what he could keep down
And his name was now "Eyes Like The Sky"

His blue eyes showed his father's race
He never wore the white painted face of the slave
He was valued for his stamina and distant vision
By the time he was 15, he had already killed Mexican troopers and feared no man 

It is 1864 now, and the American's war has not come to the desert lands

They fight among themselves way off to the north

The Yavapai-Apaches are still lords of all they survey

Then one morning the Americans did come

Led by a man holding a leather book with a cross stamped in the leather

An evil man who did terrible things to people

In the name of a god that looked upon the man himself with repulsion

Miguel ran from his wickiup, half asleep when they attacked, the rifle butt sent him unconscious

When he came to, he was trussed-up, on his back, on the ground, looking up at the Americans

He had not been killed because they had noticed his blue eyes and knew he was one of them

So, at the age of 16, Miguel was back among his father's people

Once more, a family he loved had been killed, this time, by Americans

The Americans took the trussed-up boy to a place called Fort Whipple

A fly-blown group of tents surrounded by a stone and timber stockade

An American called Willis was the boss there

And he glared at the man of God as he entered with his captives

He noticed the boy when he was brought in with a few Yavapai girls

And he looked into the color of his eyes

"What do you make of him?" he asked the God-man

"He may be the young, O'Brien boy who was lost here years ago

Or he could be from the Jebson party that never made it to New Mexico," said the God-man back

They named the boy Jebson O'Brien

But the natives and frontiersmen called him "Blue" because of his eyes

But also because of the awful and most sad expression he carried on his face

The expression of someone who kills with compassion but not mercy

Although he was still a boy, the men mostly kept away from him, all except for one

A trapper who understood his skills, and in return, fed him and taught him the white man's way

In a short while, he could speak, and read, and write their language

And he also added the calm, fast dignity of a gunman to his arsenal

He was so fast that men treated him with care

But he was slow to anger and when angry, swift and final in his reply

In the Arizona desert in the 1860s

He had every skill that you needed to survive, and he was just 17

The God-man with the Bible was in the back room of the chapel at Fort Whipple

The God-man was deeply engrossed in satisfying his goat-lust with a Yavapai girl

She never said a damn thing but just leaned over an altar while he defiled her

He held a pistol to her head as he grunted away

And when he was finished he shoved her towards the outside door

But the God-man never got to fixing his long-johns or his black trousers

The young man named Blue strode softly up behind him and drove a long-bladed knife into his neck

Blood spurted into the chalice on the altar but not the blood of the Christ

Just the blood of the God-man

With a cough, he died and a bubbled gurgle

The young man named Blue took the Yavapai girl, money, guns, food, two strong horses

And rode into the desert, away from Fort Whipple

The God-man's body was found, but he was not missed

For days they traveled, the young man and the Yavapai girl

She told him her name and they spoke in the language

They rode the horses until they gave out

Then their throats were slit and meat was taken to eat later

No fires were lit

They ate berries and raw jackrabbit as well to keep going

After a week they relaxed more as they entered Apache area

They saw dust way off like dust-devils but they knew it was horses

They could hear shots and no more

When all was quiet a day later, they moved silently towards the killing ground

The buzzards told them the story before they got there

Dead white people, a lot of them, maybe a half dozen

Burnt wagons and arrows, but not from one tribe

Some of the arrows were different and shot hoof marks

And moccasin tracks that were shaped like a white man's way of walking

Some white men had done this loosely disguised as Apache

They took what they could use and walked on

The purple mountains and red ochre earth swallowed them up

And the young man smelt his own blood as they ran

And it was a good smell, the smell of being alive

Suddenly the girl pitched sideways and a split second later the young man heard the distant shot

He dived for some rocks and watched as more bullets hit the girl

The young man looked to her body and as she died, he worked out where the shots were coming from

He knew death was going to walk on those shooters

There is one thing a white man should never do

And that is move towards an Apache​ because you will never get there

How do you catch dust in the wind?

The young man saw the way they were coming by the movement of insects and birds

And he knew where to go

Like the snake, he slithered into a dry arroyo and worked behind the shots in an arc

After a while he saw them: three men, three white men clad in skins

And they walked confidently towards the girl

The young man knew somewhere behind them another one held the horses, making four all together

He moved towards that man

The killers could wait, let them enjoy the hunt before they went under

He found the one by the horses, he was young too

And he died quietly with a surprised indignant look on his face

The young man tied the horses to a tree, and they'd come in handy later, four horses and equipment

By the girl's body, two men knelt beside her while another stood guard

The guard suddenly cried out as his head exploded in a bubble of pink spray and he fell forward

The other two went to ground and nervously called out to each other

"Do you see the bastard?"

"No, he must be close."

But he wasn't

The Sharps sporting rifle will reach a long way in the right hands

The young man took careful aim and the smaller of the two men felt his right leg blast away

The bigger, heavier man sank as far into the ground as he could make himself go

But still, he could not see where the young man was

The young man by now was astride a horse

And making for a Yavapai stronghold half a day's ride away

He had more guns and horses than he needed

And he knew where two white men were sitting in the desert with no water and no horses

White men dressed as Yavapai-Apaches

The white men would be calling for their mothers and their God by evening

But the young man would be drunk on tiswin and full of deer meat

And satisfied by their agony