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dignity for a few dollars, Zuniga thought, but he kept such opinions to himself, knowing that Nachi would be displeased if he spoke badly about the old chief.
    Sometimes, alone in the lodge late at night, Nachi grieved aloud for the old days, lamenting the passing of the buffalo, the loss of their old hunting grounds. He missed the war dances and the victory celebrations, the warriors he had grown up with and fought with. But then, Zuniga mused, they all grieved for the past in one way or another.
    It had been Nachi who had taught Shad how to make a good strong bow out of the wood of the wild mulberry, admonishing him to choose a piece that was straight and had no knots in it. The bow was held straight up and down for close shots, crossways for longer distances. Bowstrings were made from a length of sinew from the back of a deer, or from the muscle on the back of a hind leg. It was necessary to wear a wrist guard made of leather or tanned hide to protect one’s wrist from the bowstring.
    Arrows were made from reeds or cane growing in the mountains or along river bottoms. The best cane was found on the Gila River. Nachi had told him that long ago, when the Apache first began to make arrows, they had used only two feathers, but the shaft flew crooked, so they tried four feathers, but that made the shaft fly in a curve. Three feathers made the shaft fly straight. Many kinds of feathers were used, but Nachi preferred the feathers of the red-tailed hawk.
    Nachi had also shown Shad how to make poison for his arrows by drying a deer’s spleen and then grinding it to powder and mixing it with the ground root or stalk of nettles. The mixture was put in a small sack made from a part of a deer’s large intestine. When all was ready, Nachi spit in the bag, then tied it up tight so none of the bad air would escape. The bag was hung from a tree for four days, sometimes five, until the contents were rotten and in liquid form. The poison was very effective. A deer shot with a poison arrow died in a short time, even if the arrow only scratched it.
    Quivers were made from a variety of hides, usually horse, deer, wolf, or mountain lion. If the hide had a tail on it, it was left on as a decoration. A quiver usually held between thirty and forty arrows.
    Zuniga swore softly as he stubbed out his cigarette. Rising easily to his feet, he reached for the bow and quiver that Nachi had given him many years ago. The bow was good and strong, made from unblemished mulberry wood; the arrows were of cane, fletched with the feathers of a red-tailed hawk; the quiver was made from the hide of a mountain lion Nachi had killed in the Sierra Madre Mountains.
    For a moment, Zuniga’s fingers caressed the quiver, and then he cursed again. He had come to hunt, not to get maudlin over a way of life that was forever gone. Still, he could not help yearning for the old days as he started up the hill. He remembered what it had been like to live wild in the Dragoon Mountains. He had been old enough to fight in the last battles between his people and the whites. He knew what it was like to take a life, to dip his hands in the blood of the enemy. And he had loved it all, the fighting, the killing, the thrill of the chase, the excitement of victory. But the victories had been few, the defeats many. The warriors the Apache lost in battle could not be replaced, but the whites seemed to have an unending number of men to send against them, an inexhaustible supply of guns and ammunition, and in the end the Indians had lost their fight for freedom.
    Zuniga had gone into hiding in the mountains, refusing to surrender his freedom, refusing to be penned up on the white man’s reservation, to wear a metal tag around his neck inscribed with a number that identified him on the Agency record books. It was only when word came to him that Nachi was sick and alone that he had moved to the reservation. The Indian Agent had assigned him a number, but he had thrown it away. He did not