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Every day he would find his favorite spot on top of a bluff overlooking an arroyo and a deer trail. Not only would he see deer, but also many other animals and birds, such as kangaroo rats, pronghorn, coyote, gray fox, ringtail, coati, quail, and porcupine, but he was there for the deer.
    Sereno always accompanied Enrique on his hunts, too. On his first hunt away from the mission, Enrique sat upon the rise overlooking a bend in the deer trail. Usually before he ever saw the deer, he would hear a strange whistle, one that sounded like a rare bird, but nothing at all like any of the birds in the Sonora. It was more than a coincidence that the whistle came shortly before deer came around the bend, and once Enrique had figured it out, he started looking for Sereno somewhere among the desert plants, hiding but watching. He rarely ever saw his
amigo
sombra
,
his shadow friend, but the first time he did was also the only time he’d ever seen Sereno smile.
    Father Gaeta had shown Enrique how to use a bow and arrow, a gift the priest received from a friendly Apache chief. Enrique was fascinated with the weapon. The bow, made from the wood of a mulberry tree, was painted on the inside by a red dye, and a golden dye colored the outside. An emblem of the sun was also painted on the inside, in the same gold color, laid on top of the red.
    The arrows, which Enrique had to learn to make, were made of the same mulberry wood. He used a method that the priest had taught him, which the priest said he was also shown by the Apache. Every time the boy went to the wilderness, he looked for mulberry trees, and would break off small limbs and take them back to the mission. At the mission he would cut the limbs to approximately two-foot lengths, remove the bark, and scrape the wood, then lay them in the sun to dry. The Apache arrows that were given to him were decorated with black, red, and blue stripes, but Enrique just used red dye, the color of blood, which also symbolized the color of the justice that lingered in the back of his mind.
    Feathers could be obtained from red-tailed hawks or eagles, and sometimes buzzards, but Enrique was superstitious about using feathers from a scavenger and relied solely on the others. When he found the feathers—and sometimes he would find a complete dead bird—he would cut the quill down the center, scrape out the marrow, and cut the feather into five-inch lengths. He would store the lengths in a leather pouch until it came time to make new arrows. He’d attach the feathers with wet sinew and piñon pitch, another technique the Apaches had shown the priest and that was passed on to Enrique.
    Arrowheads were something else that Enrique looked out for while wandering throughout the wilderness. The Apache claimed that they were left by ancestors for their descendents to find, already shaped by nature with flat and pointed edges. Enrique had found scores of arrowheads, which he kept in another leather pouch. When he made his own arrows, or repaired them, he split the end of the arrow, inserted the flat end of the head, and wrapped it with more wet sinew. But there were times when an arrow was broken and too short to add the weight of a stone or flint to the end, and was simply sharpened to a wooden point, which was just as deadly.
    Enrique’s quiver, which was also part of the Apache gift to the priest, was made of deerskin, as was the cover for the bow. He’d carry as many as ten arrows, along with his two pouches of feathers and arrowheads, and a coil of extra bowstrings. The bowstrings, which Enrique had to replace at times, were made from the sinew of a deer’s loin, or from the legs, which he saved from every kill.
    The boy practiced by shooting into a target made of deerskin stretched against plank boards he’d found at the mission. He painted a red dot the width of his hand in the center. It was difficult for him at first, not only to hit his target, but to pull the string at