White clouds swirled in the azure sky as Lozen walked to the edge of the precipice.  She stood with the toes of her moccasins hanging over the edge of the world.  She looked down at a land so far below that she thought if she dived forward she would fall until the sun set.
     Lush green forests covered the broad valley.  Mist as white as the clouds floated over the silver ribbon of a river that snaked along the valley floor.  Long Neck's people called the Sierra Madre the Blue Mountains.  Lozen could see why.  In the distance the deep green of the forest cover shifted to aqua, then to a dark blue against the sky that rose from behind them.  The size, the beauty, the grandeur, the richness of it stunned her.  She felt as small as the ant crawling up her moccasin.
     Victoria said this wasn't the Underworld, the Happy Country, but maybe he was wrong.  Maybe she was standing at the opening where the dead went.  All the spirits who had gone on their last journeys since Old Man Coyote let Death out of the sack could live comfortably in this valley and the thousands of other leading out from it.  She imagined the ghosts hunting and gambling, making love, feasting, dancing, laughing, and telling stories.  She imagined her mother, her father, and her baby brother there, never cold, hungry, frightened, sad, or in pain.
     She walked along the cliff until she came to a narrow canyon branching off from it.  She followed the eastern rim of it until long past time for the midday meal back at the encampment.  The twists and turns, the wind-sculpted rocks drew her on.  She had almost reached the place where the canyon narrowed to a cleft when night's shadows began to pool among the rocks and trees below.  She unrolled her blanket and sat cross-legged on it at the edge.  She could throw a rock and hit the entrance to a cave just below the rim on the other side.
     She watched the sun slip behind the mountains.  She watched the sky take fire and the clouds turn the brilliant hues of desert flowers after a spring freshet.  She watched the color flow down the sides of the canyon and into the stream below, until the water glowed deep pink.
     Bit by bit night stole the canyon away from the day.  The shadows met and blended until she could no longer make out the forms of the rocks.  She sat all night listening to the rustle of animals going about their business and the calls of cougars and wolves and coyotes, the night songs of the birds.
     The next day and the following night she left the blanket only to relieve herself.  She was aware of hunger thirst, weariness, and the icy night wind, but they didn't seem important.  She didn't think about Victorio, either, or the council that he and Cheis, Red Sleeves, Loco, Broken Foot, Long Neck, and others were holding.  Victorio was used to her wandering off in search of advise from the spirits.
     The third night she began hearing voices.  She saw movements at the periphery of her sight.  Coyote came.  With his head cocked and his tongue lolling, he watched her for a long time.  He told her the story of the time he shit on a rock, and it chased him until he apologized and cleaned it off.  His story made her laugh, but she kept a wary eye on him.  One could never tell what Coyote might do.
     Later that night the stones, sculpted by the elements into grotesque shapes, moved in the moonlight and whispered to her.  Her own spirit helpers visited her, too.  The last one swirled like a mist between the two rims of the canyon.  Its message vibrated in the bones of her skull.
     "To know the strength of your enemies, watch the cave.  To know where they will come from, watch the cave."  Three more times the spirit repeated its advice.
     On the fourth morning, as soon as Lozen could see the darker splotch of the cave opening against the pale face of the cliff, she stared at it.  The sun hadn't risen over the top of the cliff yet when she heard the beat of drums like those of the Bluecoat soldiers.
     Gusts riffled the wisps of hair that had pulled loose from her braid and curled around her face.  A rumbling grew louder and then became the rhythmic tromp of the clumsy boots the Bluecoats wore.  She saw the first rank of them, six across, appear in the cave entrance.  Their shouldered rifles rose like spikes above them.  Another line followed them, then a third, a fourth, and a fifth.  The apparitions wore identical blue jackets and trousers.  Under the stubby brims of the tall black hats, their faces were pale disks, without eyes, noses, mouths, anything that would distinguish them one from the other.  They marched into the air in front of the cave and vanished, but more followed, rank and rank of them.  The walking soldiers were interspersed with companies on horseback.

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For Ghost Warrior talking points for your book club, see the book club page.

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