A wrinkled gnome who was all head, arms, and legs without any torso ambled among the dancers. A lopsided flutist with jagged bones protruding from his torn and bleeding flesh played as feverishly as the rest of them. Some crawled on hands and knees, more like dogs or malformed coyotes than men, licking and snuffling at the ankles of their fellow celebrants. Indescribable acts of carnality were also part of the lurid festivities, and the howls of ecstasy were indistinguishable from cries of pain and torment.
The number and variety of the lost tribe’s deformities is beyond my capacity to set down on these pages. To describe even these few memories brings a fresh pang of the nausea and revolt that overcame me then. This was a ceremony that no white man was ever meant to see. I had invaded their forbidden land, intruded on their malign remoteness. Witnessing their depravity firsthand was the penance I paid now for this crime. Recalling the tale of Walking Ghost’s stolen children, I wondered how many of these Azothi were stolen from the tribes of their true parents, adopted and mutilated in ceremonies like this one.
I noticed then a singular figure crouching on a pile of rocks before the flames. I would have seen him at once if the dancers had not commanded my attention with their noisome antics. He sat in a place of honor, Lord of the Flame, and yet he was only a boy. The oddly shaped stones of his perch, I was now certain, were human skulls. The boy watched the dancers and waved his arms frantically, tongue exposed, eyes squinted in his tiny head. He leaped and capered upon the skull-throne like a hairless simian, his expression one of sheer idiocy. He could not have been more than nine years old.
This boy-chief wore a strand of green stones about his scrawny neck. His forehead bulged above dim, unblinking eyes. His fingers were overlong and his feet were twisted inward, so that he would have to use his arms to walk in an ape-like manner. Yet he could leap and clap and howl with disturbing ease, and this he did while his people performed their grotesque ritual for him. From each of the boy-chief’s shoulder blades rose a curving bone spur, as if there might one day be a set of bat-like wings sprouting there. The flesh of his back was extended by these spurs, yet like so many of his people the skin looked drawn, tight, and ready to burst.
I recognized the green stones about his neck. One such stone had captured the soul of Father Espinoza and led him to this place.
I screamed, loud enough to be heard among the wild cacophony of pipes and drums. I could not prevent it, for I had spotted Father Espinoza among the revelers, dancing naked with a crooked flute in his mouth. His flesh was newly pocked with ritual scarring, and the green stone hung about his neck on a leather thong. His beard and hair had been shaved completely, but I knew him. It was this shock of recognition that caused me to cry out. I might have invoked the holy name of Jesus, or it might have only been a wail of astonishment and pain. I do not remember this detail.
A mass of bloodshot eyes and hideous faces turned toward me now. The chaos of drumming and fluting fell apart, diminishing until the only sound was the crackling of the great bonfire. Even the idiot boy-chief was silent. He too stared in my direction, jutting chin and saurian eyes evoking a mockery of human arrogance.
The transformed Espinoza spoke my name aloud, and I fainted.
I awoke some hours later to the smell of roasting meat. My mind was an empty vessel, my memories temporarily stolen by some force that I cannot name. Some might call it the Grace of God, but I no longer believe in such ideas.
I lay on a pile of dirty hides inside one of the domed teepees. The desert heat was lessened by the shade of this squalid dwelling, yet still sweat drenched my body. My first recognition was my own nakedness. The savages had removed my threadbare robe, leaving me only a loincloth not much different from the traditional Quechan garb. A second realization came to me then, as the shame of undress quickened my pulse: I was not alone in the hut.
The bald hunchback who had visited the mission sat over me, watching with his single watery eye. Uneven teeth protruded from his ruin of a mouth, and the puckered flesh of his empty eye socket had blossomed into a swollen mass. As I looked upon his nightmare visage the memories of my ordeal came flooding back. Fear stole my breath away as my empty stomach growled. I had not eaten for several days. My lips were parched and inflamed from my time among the dunes, my face chapped and red. The hunchback handed me a gourd full of water.
I took the vessel and drank its contents, sloshing the cool liquid down my throat. Never had I been so grateful for the simple gift of freshwater. I thanked Christ silently that these heathen grotesques were civilized enough to offer me this refreshment at least. Yet still I was afraid. The smell of the hunchback’s unwashed body filled the hut. I recalled the horrid ceremony and the idiot-child who was the chieftain of this unholy settlement.
The hunchback spoke to me in crude Spanish. I was too hungry, scared, and exhausted to be surprised by his linguistic ability. “Why you come here?” The words were further distorted by his misshapen teeth and lack of any true lips, but somehow he formed the words.
I told him my name and station. “I came here to find Father Espinoza.”
The hunchback nodded. “You find him.”
“Yes.” I forced myself to sit upright. “Where is he? Where is Espinoza?”
“We bring to you,” said the hunchback. “At feast. Tonight.”
I realized that the only light in the teepee came from a small fire of twigs and grass. Outside the entry flap gleamed a sliver of starry sky. I had lain unconscious all day and well past dusk. Suddenly I remembered the two mules. I had little doubt that the feast my caregiver spoke of would include the cooked flesh of those poor, undernourished beasts of burden. The Azothi had likely slaughtered them and taken the simple gifts that I had brought. At the moment I was so hungry I did not even mind the thought of dining on tough, greasy muleflesh. I had done so twice before this, in the season of drought when there was no other provender. The Arizona territory is a cruel and unforgiving land, and missionaries are above all else survivors. They must endure the harshest of deprivations in the name of the church and its teachings. Such suffering, they say, is good for a man’s soul.
“Come,” grunted the hunchback. He motioned me to follow him, then led me out of the hut into the greater village. I walked unsteadily, ashamed of my near-naked body, yet the few shambling natives who moved between the domiciles paid little attention to me. The hunchback took me to the largest of all the domed teepees, where a stream of white smoke poured from the roof-hole toward the blinking stars. Near the great well the bonfire burned low, and the scent of the roasting mules lay heavy upon the night air.
Inside the big dome — a reeking sweat lodge — some dozen male Azothi squatted in a ring about a dancing flame. Among their number were the other two who had visited the mission, the half-faced man and the one with the malformed rib cage. I will not describe in detail the various deformities of the other men in this council, for I have revealed too many of these horrors already. I trembled in the heat and stink of the lodge, afraid and repulsed, yet determined. I asked the Lord to help me endure this audience. Even such wretches were worthy of the Word of Christ, who walked among the lepers and the damned. Perhaps these miserable oddities of existence needed salvation more than any other tribe I had yet encountered. I hoped Father Espinoza would attend the sweat council as well, and explain his part in the strange behavior I had witnessed.