You could spend years traveling through the Navajo canyons. The only way to successfully navigate them was with a guide, and no white man had ever been escorted into the labyrinth except strung lifeless across the back of a horse. I’d wandered in as most outsiders do: unaware of what I was doing until I was already lost. I turned to look behind me and didn’t recognize the rock walls that lay in my wake. The bluffs were high, fearsome; the rocks made shapes that seemed to leer at me. I instinctively grabbed for my rifle, only to remember that I’d lost it in a skirmish with some Navajo braves two days before.
My horse had become weary. I’d been sharing my water with it, but the animal had refused to drink all that day. I tried to find the sun, to judge the time; it wasn’t immediately overhead, but whether it was rising for falling, I couldn’t tell. Its light and heat penetrated into the canyons, but the sun itself was absent. I cursed it nonetheless.
I took off my hat and fingered the hole. The Minié ball had missed my skull by a fraction of an inch, singeing my hair. I had a bald streak now, a haphazard line that curved slightly to the right. My commanding officer suggested that I’d been shot by an older rifle, probably stolen before the War: if it had been a newer weapon, the savage who shot me would not have missed. “You’ve been shot by the very best the United States military has to offer,” he told me. I could smell the whiskey on his breath.
I’d taken to drink myself lately. I was raised the son of a preacher; my father prayed with snakes before his entire congregation, supposedly risking life and limb for his God. I knew that most of the snakes had been defanged, and the most fearsome looking ones were about as dangerous as an ill-tempered tomcat. It was from my mother that I received my solid moral standing, which I carried on even after the consumption took her in the winter of Fifty-nine.
Three years and too many lives later, I pulled my empty flask from my satchel and ran my tongue around the rim. The taste was imaginary but potent. I offered some to my horse, who didn’t even react to the sound of my voice. I put the flask away, resisting the urge to fling it against the rock. It had belonged to my father, and while I didn’t hold much affection towards him, I felt compelled to keep a remembrance of him with me. Back in Missouri, he probably wasn’t giving me a second thought, unless it was to curse me for enlisting with the wrong side. I’d done so strictly to anger him, so I didn’t hold his resentment a grudge.
I glanced over my shoulder again, to make sure I wasn’t being followed, though I wouldn’t have been able to tell either way. The Navajo occasionally liked to taunt, but this was sacred ground for them, and I figured if they wanted me dead, they would make a quick kill out of it. I saw no one on the bluffs above me. No living things save my horse and I, and the flies that bit our exposed flesh.
I faced front again. The canyon had opened suddenly—I now rode through an expanse of dirt, gravel, and shrubbery several yards wide. This in itself was a godsend, after the cramped walls that had been my companions for hours. But ahead of me, in the center of the opening, stood a small shanty, a rickety shack held together by spit and willpower. Off to one side was a water well, the first I’d seen in this blasted territory. I would’ve cried at the sight of its adobe base, at the wooden supports and the cracked bucket, if there’d been any moisture left in my body.
I rode up to the shack and dismounted. I saw nowhere to hitch the horse, but it was too tired to wander far. I’d earlier thought the animal would long outlast me, that when my body was shipped home, the horse would be charging underneath another young cadet. I felt no sorrow at its imminent passing, only mild surprise.
I began walking towards the well, but the door of the shack creaked slowly open. I spun, reaching for the revolver I’d dropped somewhere along the way. An old man stood in the doorway, hunchbacked, bent almost completely to the ground. His hair was lanky and white, his skin the dried mud color of Mexican-Indian ancestry. His eyes were mere slits in his face.
“Señor,” he said. His voice was like the soft crack of an ember over a campfire.
“Water,” I said. I held my hands out at my waist. The man wore only robes, and I doubted he was armed, but we’d been trained to never make rash assumptions with Indians. “Agua, por favor.”
The man’s mouth worked. I saw his tongue, bloated and dry. I winced and was glad he couldn’t properly see me, or himself.
“Agua,” I said again. “I’m lost. I was detached from my regiment.”
His mouth continued moving. I said, “Fort Sumner. I come from Fort Sumner, and I’m thirsty. My horse is thirsty. Necessito agua.”
“Agua,” he said.
I nodded vigorously. The world spun. “Sí. Agua, por favor.”
“Mi perro,” he said. A bony hand gestured in the direction of the well. “Mi perro.”
I stepped closer, not sure I understood. He sensed my approach, moving back a little. I said, “I’m unarmed. No tengo pistolas.”
He displayed no reaction to my assurance. “Mi perro.”
He said something else, mumbled, then made a motion with his arm. After a moment, I nodded and said, “Your dog is in the well.”
“Por favor.” His voice was still as frail, but now that the words were coming, they seemed lighter. His mouth twitched in what may have been a withered smile. “Ayúdame.”
I stood just a couple feet before him now. I could detect a faint whiff of the odors that emanated from his frame; I thanked the Lord that the sun had dried my senses. I was sure I smelled no better.
The thought of drinking water contaminated by a mangy Indian mutt did not bother me. A week earlier it would have—even the ravages of war and the blood of brothers can only change a man so much. But nothing erodes willpower like thirst. It can turn a decent Christian man into a savage, into the equal of beasts and beetles. I stared into what was left of the old man’s eyes and saw no difference between him and myself—indeed, I saw my own visage, were I to survive long enough, my own future manifested before me. The thought did not horrify me; the only thing that moved me was my thirst.
“I’ll help you,” I said. “Do you have any rope?”
He didn’t answer me. Instead, he grasped my hand. His skin tore at my flesh. I couldn’t close my hand for fear of breaking his bones. He let go of me, or rather his hand gave out, and he pointed at the well and said something in a mixture of Navajo and Spanish. I walked over and stood at the mouth of the well, listening. I heard nothing.
“How long has he been in there?” I said.
The man took a few seconds to waddle over to me. He had no walking staff, though he could have used one. He stared down into the well, and I had to repeat my question: “¿Cuánto tiempo?”
“Un poco tiempo,” he said. “Un poco tiempo, señor.”
I cocked my head and listened closely. Then I looked for movement. The light penetrated the well only so far; down below was only darkness.
“Your dog’s dead,” I said.
“Mi perro, señor.”
I sighed. I could drink after a dead dog as much as a living one. And it would be easier to bring up. The dead do not struggle.
I looked around for something I could use. Finding nothing, I went over to my horse, which still stood exactly where I’d left it. I went through my satchel, but I’d long ago discarded any items that were not of immediate necessity. Seeing no other alternative, I cut one of the reins loose. The horse was too weak to defy me anyways.
The old man was still looking into the well. I thought of that old saying, about staring into the abyss. I repeated it to the man, who didn’t move. “Let me know if you see anything,” I said to him, and took the bucket off the rope, then used the rein to tie a noose. It wasn’t secure, but it was the best I could do.
I lowered the noose into the well. The rope was old and beaten, but a good rope will outlive the sturdiest man. I lowered it slowly, until I could feel that I had hit the water. Then I swung the rope back and forth, carefully, until I felt some resistance.
It took several attempts. The old man didn’t move from my side or speak another word. I eventually maneuvered the noose so that, when I started lifting it again, I could feel weight on the other end. I grinned at the old man and said, “We’ve got him, señor. Tengo su perro.”
He nodded, but perhaps not at my words. I turned my back to him and pulled. The animal was not heavy, as I expected dead weight to be. Neither was it moving. “Are you sure you lost a dog,” I said to the man, “or was it a rat?” I attempted a laugh, but the inside of my throat became inflamed and I stopped.
As the animal approached the top of the well, I began to notice the smell. It was faint to me, merely a distant whiff, but I tried to place myself in a healthier man’s position. The thought was sickening, but it didn’t prepare me.
The animal was so light because it wasn’t whole. I brought up only half of a dog, and I could tell it had been a dog only because of the shape of its snout. Most of its fur had fallen out some time ago; a few errant worms wriggled in one eye socket, though the carcass was so far gone that even flies would have little to do with it. Some of its skin was slipping off, flowing like molasses over the noose. As I watched, the lower jaw broke away and fell back into the well.
“Mi perro,” the old man said. He reached out and stroked what was left of the dog’s head. His fingers came away wet and black.
The animal’s stench invaded my mouth. I had tasted nothing for days; now I could feel its death upon my tongue, enlivening my taste buds. I turned and wretched; only blood came up. Somehow I managed to stay on my feet, but my legs became rubber; I did not feel as though I were standing, but rather that I were falling from some great height. I was facing the ground, hot blood coating the back of my throat, but I could see the corpse’s empty face before me. In my memory, one eye still burned with life—fiery yellow, aglow with twisting hatred and putrescence. Having only half a jaw would not prevent such a demon-spawn from seizing hold of what remained of my soul.
Dimly, I could hear the old man cooing. He spoke words, mere sounds to me. There was love in his voice.
I do not know if I let go of the rope, or if it slipped from my hands. The carcass fell back into the well; I could hear the splash, and it was the most joyous sound imaginable, like hearing the Gospel for the first time. The splash echoed in my mind. Above it, I could hear the old man wailing as he bent over the top of the well, arms feebly reaching downward. His cries came out as a long hiss, like an ancient rattlesnake.
Without another word, I walked over to my horse and climbed on. It somehow bore my weight again. I used my hands to turn its head in the direction I wanted it to go. Whether it was the way I’d come or not, I had no idea. I hurried the animal as best I could; it detected my panic, or perhaps had finally smelled the carcass, and did its best to heed me. Behind me I heard silence; either the old man’s voice was too weak to carry, or he had fallen into the well. I didn’t turn to look.