Chapter Eight
CRAWFORD’S Scouts were preparing to ride with the coming of the new day when there appeared upon a little eminence near their camp the figure of an Indian. Silent and erect it stood—a bronze statue touched by the light of the rising sun. Slowly, to and fro, it waved a white rag that was attached to the muzzle of a rifle. A scout called Crawford’s attention to the flag of truce; and the cavalry officer, bearing a similar emblem, went out alone and on foot toward the messenger, who now came slowly forward until the two met a couple of hundred yards from the camp.
Crawford recognized the Black Bear and nodded, waiting for him to speak.
“Shoz-Dijiji brings a message from Geronimo,” said the Apache.
“What message does Geronimo send me?” asked the officer. Both men spoke in the language of the Shis-Inday.
“Geronimo has heard that Nan-tan-des-la-par-en wishes to hold a parley with him,” replied Shoz-Dijiji.
“Nan-tan-des-la-par-en wishes only that Geronimo surrenders with all his warriors, women, and children,” said Crawford. “There is no need for a parley. Tell Geronimo that if he will come to my camp with all his people, bringing also all his horses and mules, and lay down his arms, I will take him to Nan-tan-des-la-par-en in safety.”
“That is surrender,” replied Shoz-Dijiji. “Geronimo will not surrender. He will make peace with Nan-tan-des-la-par-en, but he will not surrender.”
“Black Bear,” said Crawford, “you are a great warrior among your people, you are an intelligent man, you know that we have you surrounded by a greatly superior force, you are worn by much fighting and marching, you are short of food, you cannot escape us this time. I know these things; you know them; Geronimo knows them.
“It will be better for you and your people if you come in peaceably now and return with me. Nan-tan-des-la-par-en will not be hard on you if you surrender now, but if you cause us any more trouble it may go very hard indeed with you. Think it over.”
“We have thought it over,” replied the Black Bear. “We know that a handful of braves cannot be victorious over the armies of two great nations, but we also know that we can keep on fighting for a long time before we are all killed and that in the meantime we shall kill many more of our enemies than we lose. You know that these are true words. Therefore it would be better for you to arrange for a parley with Nan-tan-des-la-par-en than to force us back upon the war trail.
“Geronimo is a proud man. The thing that you demand he will never consent to, but a peace parley with Nan-tan-des-la-par-en might bring the same results without so greatly injuring the pride of Geronimo.
“These things I may say to you because it is well known that your heart is not bad against the Apaches. Of all the pindah-lickoyee you are best fitted to understand. That is why Geronimo sent me to you. He would not have sent this message to any white-eyed man but you or Lieutenant Gatewood. Him we trust also. We do not trust Nan-tan-des-la-par-en any more; but if we have your promise that no harm shall befall us we will go with you and talk with him, but we must be allowed to keep our weapons and our live-stock. I have spoken.”
“I get your point,” said Crawford after a moment of thought. “If Geronimo and the warriors in his party will give me their word that they will accompany us peaceably I will take them to General Crook and guarantee them safe escort, but I cannot promise what General Crook will do. Geronimo knows that I have no authority to do that.”
“We shall come in and make camp near you this afternoon,” said Shoz-Dijiji. “Tell your scouts not to fire upon us.”
“When you come stop here, and I will tell you where to camp,” replied Crawford. “Geronimo and two others may come into my camp to talk with me, but if at any time more of you enter my camp armed I shall consider it a hostile demonstration. Do you understand?”
Shoz-Dijiji nodded and without more words turned and retraced his steps toward the camp of the renegades, while Crawford stood watching him until he had disappeared beyond a rise of ground. Not once did the Apache glance back. The cavalry officer shook his head. “It is difficult,” he mused, “not to trust a man who has such implicit confidence in one’s honor.”
That afternoon, January 11, 1886, promised to witness the termination of more than three hundred years of virtually constant warfare between the Apaches and the whites. Captain Crawford and Lieutenant Maus were jubilant—they were about to succeed where so many others had failed. The days of heat and thirst and gruelling work were over.
“Geronimo is through,” said Crawford. “He is ready to give up and come in and be a good Indian. If he wasn’t he’d never have sent the Black Bear with that message.”
“I don’t trust any of them,” replied Maus, “and as for being a good Indian—there’s only one thing that’ll ever make Geronimo that”—he touched the butt of his pistol.
“That doctrine is responsible to a greater extent than any other one thing for many of the atrocities and the seeming treachery of the Apaches,” replied Crawford. “They have heard that so often that they do not really trust any of us, for they believe that we all hold the same view. It makes them nervous when any of us are near them, and as they are always suspicious of us the least suggestion of an overt act on our part frightens them onto the war trail and goads them to reprisals.
“It has taken months of the hardest kind of work to reach the point where Geronimo is ready to make peace—a thoughtless word or gesture now may easily undo all that we have accomplished. Constantly impress upon the scouts by word and example the fact that every precaution must be taken to convince the renegades that we intend to fulfill every promise that I have made them.”
Shoz-Dijiji came and stood before Geronimo. “What did the white-eyed chief say to you?” demanded the old war chief.
“He said that if we lay down our arms and surrender he will take us to Nan-tan-des-la-par-en,” replied Shoz-Dijiji.
“What did Shoz-Dijiji reply?”
“Shoz-Dijiji told the white-eyed man that Geronimo would not surrender, but that he would hold a parley with Nan-tan-des-la-par-en. At last the white-eyed chief agreed. We may retain our arms, and he promises that we shall not be attacked if we accompany him peaceably to the parley with Nan-tan-des-la-par-en.”
“What did you reply?”
“That we would come and make camp near him this afternoon. He has promised that his scouts will not fire upon us.”
“Good!” exclaimed Geronimo. “Let us make ready to move our camp, and let it be understood that if the word made between Shoz-Dijiji and the white-eyed chief be broken and shots fired in anger the first shot shall not be fired by a member of my band. I have spoken!”
As the renegades broke camp and moved slowly in the direction of Crawford’s outfit a swart Mexican cavalryman, concealed behind the summit of a low hill, watched them, and as he watched a grim smile of satisfaction played for an instant about the corners of his eyes. Ten minutes later he was reporting to Captain Santa Anna Perez.
“They shall not escape me this time,” said Perez, as he gave the command to resume the march in pursuit of the illusive enemy.
A short distance from Crawford’s camp Geronimo halted his band and sent Shoz-Dijiji ahead to arrange a meeting between Geronimo and Crawford for the purpose of ratifying the understanding that Shoz-Dijiji and the officer had arrived at earlier in the day.
With a white rag fastened to the muzzle of his rifle the Black Bear approached the camp of the scouts and, following the instructions of Crawford to his men, was permitted to enter. Every man of Crawford’s command Shoz-Dijiji knew personally. With many of them he had played as a boy; and with most of them he had gone upon the war trail, fighting shoulder to shoulder with them against both Mexicans and pindah-lickoyee; but today he passed among them with his head high, as one might pass among strangers and enemies.
Crawford, waiting to receive him, could not but admire the silent contempt of the tall young war chief for those of his own race whom he must consider nothing short of traitors; and in his heart the courageous cavalry officer found respect and understanding for this other courageous soldier of an alien race.
“I am glad that you have come, Shoz-Dijiji,” he said. “You bring word from Geronimo? He will go with me to General Crook?”
“Geronimo wishes to come and make talk with you,” replied the Black Bear. “He wishes his own ears to hear the words you spoke to Shoz-Dijiji this morning.”
“Good!” said Crawford. “Let Geronimo—” His words were cut short by a fusilade of shots from the direction of the renegades’ position. Crawford snatched his pistol from its holster and covered Shoz-Dijiji.
“So that is the word Geronimo sends?” he exclaimed. “Treachery!”
The Apache wheeled about and looked in the direction of his people. The scouts were hastily preparing to meet an attack. Every eye was on the renegades—in every mind was the same thought that Crawford had voiced—treachery!
Shoz-Dijiji pointed. “No!” he cried. “Look! It is not the warriors of Geronimo. Their backs are toward us. They are firing in the other direction. They are being attacked from the south. There! See! Mexican soldiers!”
The renegades, firing as they came, were falling back upon the scouts’ camp; and, following them, there now came into full view a company of Mexican regulars.
“For God’s sake, stop firing!” cried Crawford. “These are United States troops.”
Captain Santa Anna Perez saw before him only Apaches. It is true that some of them wore portions of the uniform of the soldiers of a sister republic; but Captain Santa Anna Perez had fought Apaches for years, and he well knew that they were shrewd enough to take advantage of any form of deception of which they could avail themselves, and he thought this but a ruse.
Two of his officers lay dead and two privates, while several others were wounded, and now the Apaches in uniform, as well as those who were not, were firing upon him. How was he to know the truth? What was he to do? One of his subordinates ran to his side. “There has been a terrible mistake!” he cried. “Those are Crawford’s scouts—I recognize the captain. In the name of God, give the command to cease firing!”
Perez acted immediately upon the advice of his lieutenant, but the tragic blunder had not as yet taken its full toll of life. In the front line a young Mexican soldier knelt with his carbine. Perhaps he was excited. Perhaps he did not hear the loudly shouted command of his captain. No one will ever know why he did the thing he did.
The others on both sides had ceased firing when this youth raised his carbine to his shoulder, took careful aim, and fired. Uttering no sound, dead on his feet, Captain Emmet Crawford fell with a bullet in his brain.
Shoz-Dijiji, who had been standing beside him, had witnessed the whole occurrence. He threw his own rifle to his shoulder and pressed the trigger. When he lowered the smoking muzzle Crawford had been avenged, and that is why no one will ever know why the Mexican soldier did the thing he did.
With difficulty Perez and Maus quieted their men, and it was with equal difficulty that Geronimo held his renegades in check. They were gathered in a little knot to one side, and Shoz-Dijiji had joined them.
“It was a ruse to trap us!” cried a brave. “They intended to get us between them and kill us all.”
“Do not talk like a child,” exclaimed Shoz-Dijiji. “Not one of us has been killed or wounded, while they have lost several on each side. The Mexicans made a mistake. They did not know Crawford’s scouts were near, nor did Crawford know that the Mexican soldiers were approaching.”
The brave grunted. “Look,” he said, pointing; “the war chiefs of the Mexicans and the pindah-lickoyee are holding a council. If they are not plotting against us why do they not invite our chiefs to the council? It is not I who am a child but Shoz-Dijiji, if he trusts the pindah-lickoyee or the Mexicans.”
“Perhaps they make bad talk about us,” said Geronimo, suspiciously. “Maus does not like me; and, with Crawford dead, there is no friend among them that I may trust. The Mexicans I have never trusted.”
“Nor does Shoz-Dijiji trust them,” said the Black Bear. “The battle they just fought was a mistake. That, I say again; but it does not mean that I trust them. Perhaps they are plotting against us now, for Crawford is dead.”
“Maus and the Mexican could combine forces against us,” suggested Geronimo, nervously. “Both the Mexicans and pindah-lickoyee have tricked us before. They would not hesitate to do it again. We are few, they are many—they could wipe us out, and there would be none left to say that it happened through treachery.”
“Let us attack them first,” suggested a warrior. “They are off their guard. We could kill many of them and the rest would run away. Come!”
“No!” cried Geronimo. “Our women are with us. We are very few. All would be killed. Let us withdraw and wait. Perhaps we shall have a better chance later. Only fools attack when they know they cannot win. Perhaps Nan-tan-des-la-par-en will come and we shall make peace. That will be better. I am tired of fighting.”
“Let us go away for a while, at least until the Mexicans have left,” counselled Shoz-Dijiji. “Then, perhaps, we can make terms with Maus. If not we can pick our own time and place to fight.”
“That is good talk,” said Geronimo. “Come! We shall move away slowly.”
Maus and Perez, engaged in arranging terms for the removal of Crawford’s body and exchanging notes that would relieve one another of responsibility for the tragic incident of the battle between the troops of friendly nations, paid little attention to the renegades; and once again Geronimo slipped through the fingers of his would-be captors, and as Maus’ and Perez’ commands marched away together toward Nacori the scouts of the old war chief watched them depart and carried the word to Geronimo.
“They have marched away together—the Mexicans and the pindah-lickoyee?” demanded Geronimo. “That is bad. They are planning to join forces against us. They will return, but they will not find us here.”
Again the renegades changed camp; this time to a still more remote and inaccessible position. The days ran into weeks, the weeks to months. The band scattered, scouting and hunting. At all times Geronimo knew the location of Maus’ command; and when he became reasonably convinced that Maus was waiting for the arrival of Crook and was not planning a hostile move against the renegades he made no further attempt to conceal his location from the white officer, but he did not relax his vigilance.
It was late in March. Geronimo, Shoz-Dijiji, Gian-nah-tah, and several others were squatting in the shade of a sycamore, smoking and chatting, when two Apaches entered the camp and approached them. One was one of Geronimo’s own scouts, the other wore the red head-band of a government scout. When the two halted before Geronimo the war chief arose.
“What do you want in the camp of Geronimo?” he asked, addressing the government scout as though he had been a total stranger.
“I bring a message from Maus,” replied the other. “Nan-tan-des-la-par-en has come. He is ready to hold a parley with you. What answer shall I take back?”
“Tell Nan-tan-des-la-par-en that Geronimo will meet him tomorrow in the Canyon of Los Embudos.”
When the morning came Geronimo set out with a party of chiefs and warriors for the meeting place. Mangas was with him and Na-chi-ta, and there were Shoz-Dijiji, Gian-nah-tah, Chihuahua, Nanáy, and Kut-le in the party. General Crook was awaiting them in the Canyon of Los Embudos. The two parties exchanged, salutations and then seated themselves in a rough circle under the shade of large sycamore and cottonwood trees.
General Crook addressed Geronimo almost immediately. “Why did you leave the reservation?” he demanded.
“You told me that I might live in the reservation the same as white people live,” replied Geronimo, “but that was not true. You sent soldiers to take my horses and cattle from me. I had a crop of oats almost ready to harvest, but I could not live in the reservation after the way you had treated me. I went away with my wife and children to live in peace as my own people have always lived. I did not go upon the war trail, but you told your soldiers to find me and put me in prison and if I resisted to kill me.”
“I never gave any such orders,” snapped Crook.
Geronimo glanced at Shoz-Dijiji but did not reply.
“But,” continued Crook, “if you left the reservation for that reason, why did you kill innocent people, sneaking all over the country to do it? What did those innocent people do to you that you should kill them, steal their horses, and slip around in the rocks like coyotes?
“You promised me in the Sierra Madre thatthatpeace should last, but you have lied about it. When a man has lied to me once I want some better proof than his own word before I can believe him again.”
“So does Geronimo,” interrupted the war chief.
“You must make up your mind,” continued Crook, “whether you will stay out on the war path or surrender unconditionally. If you stay out I’ll keep after you and kill the last one if it takes fifty years.”
“I do not want to fight the white man,” replied Geronimo; “but I do not want to return to the reservation and be hanged, as many of the white people have said that I should be. People tell bad stories about me. I do not want that any more. When a man tries to do right, people should not tell bad stories about him. I have tried to do right. Does the white man try to do right? I am the same man. I have the same feet, legs, and hands; and the sun looks down upon me, a complete man.
“The Sun and the Darkness and the Winds are all listening to what we say now. They know that Geronimo is telling the truth. To prove to you that I am telling the truth, remember that I sent you word that I would come from a place far away to speak to you here; and you see me now. If I were thinking bad, or if I had done bad, I would never have come here.”
He paused, waiting for Crook to reply.
“I have said all that I have to say,” said the General; “you had better think it over tonight and let me know in the morning.”
For two more days the parley progressed; and at last it was agreed that Geronimo and his band should accompany Lieutenant Maus and his battalion of scouts to Fort Bowie, Arizona. The northward march commenced on the morning of March 28th and by the night of the 29th the party had reached the border between Mexico and Arizona.
Chapter Nine
IN the camp of the Apaches, which lay at a little distance from that of the troops, there was an atmosphere of nervousness and suspicion.
“I do not like the way in which Nan-tan-des-la-par-en spoke to me,” said Geronimo. “I know that he did not speak the truth when he said that he had not ordered the soldiers to catch me and to kill me if I resisted. Perhaps he is not telling me the truth now.”
“They have lied to us always before,” said Na-chi-ta. “Now, if we go back with them to Fort Bowie, how do we know that they will not put us in prison. We are chiefs. If they wish to frighten our people they may kill us. The white-eyed men are crying for the blood of Geronimo.”
“If they kill Geronimo they will kill Na-chi-ta also,” said Shoz-Dijiji.
“I have thought of that,” replied Na-chi-ta.
“They will not kill us,” said Chihuahua. “They will be content to know that we are no longer on the war trail. We have taught them a lesson this time. Now, maybe, they will let us alone.”
“Chihuahua thinks only of the little farm the white-eyes let him work—like a woman,” scoffed Shoz-Dijiji. “I hate them. I shall not go back to live upon a reservation. I shall not go back to be laughed at by white-eyed men, to hear them call me a damn Siwash, to listen while they make fun of my gods and insult my mother and my sisters.”
“Shoz-Dijiji will go upon the war-trail alone and do battle with all the soldiers of two great nations?” sneered Chihuahua.
“Then Shoz-Dijiji will at least die like a man and a warrior,” replied the Black Bear.
“Have we not troubles enough without quarrelling among ourselves?” demanded Geronimo.
“And now Gian-nah-tah is bringing more trouble into our camp,” said Chihuahua. “Look!” and he pointed toward the young warrior, who was walking toward them.
In each hand Gian-nah-tah carried a bottle of whiskey, and his slightly unsteady gait was fair evidence that he had been drinking. He approached the group of men, women, and children and extended one of the bottles toward Geronimo. The old chief took a long drink and passed the bottle to Na-chi-ta.
Shoz-Dijiji stood eyeing them silently. By no changed expression did he show either disapproval or its opposite; but when Na-chi-ta passed the whiskey on to him, after having drunk deeply, he shook his head and grinned.
“Why do you smile?” demanded Na-chi-ta.
“Because now I shall not turn back into Mexico alone,” replied the Black Bear.
“Why do you say that?” asked Geronimo.
The bottle went the rounds, though all did not drink. Chihuahua was one who did not.
“Where did you get this, Gian-nah-tah?” asked Geronimo.
“A white-eyed man is selling it just across the border in Mexico. He is selling it to the soldiers too. He says that they are boasting about what they are going to do to Geronimo and his band. They make much bad talk against you.”
“What do they say they are going to do to us?” demanded Geronimo, taking another drink.
“They are going to shoot us all as soon as we are across the border.”
Chihuahua laughed. “The foolish talk of drunken men,” he said.
“Many of the white-eyed soldiers are drunk,” continued Gian-nah-tah. “When they are drunk they may kill us. Let us turn back. If we must be killed let us be killed in battle and not shot down from behind by drunken white-eyes.”
“Now would be a good time to attack them,” said Na-chi-ta, “while they are drunk.”
“If we do not kill them they will kill us,” urged Gian-nah-tah. “Come!”
“Shut up, Gian-nah-tah!” commanded Shoz-Dijiji. “The strong water of the white-eyed men does not make you a war chief to lead the braves of the Shis-Inday into battle—it only makes you a fool.”
“Shoz-Dijiji calls Gian-nah-tah a fool?” demanded the young warrior angrily. “Shoz-Dijiji does not want to fight the pindah-lickoyee because Shoz-Dijiji is a coward and himself a pindah-lickoyee.”
Shoz-Dijiji’s eyes narrowed as he took a step toward Gian-nah-tah. The latter drew his great butcher knife, but he retreated. Then it was that Geronimo stepped between them. “If you want to kill,” he said, “there is always the enemy.”
“I do not want to kill Gian-nah-tah, my best friend,” said Shoz-Dijiji. “Perhaps it was the strong water of the pindah-lickoyee that spoke through the mouth of Gian-nah-tah. Tomorrow, when he is sober, Shoz-Dijiji will ask him; but no man may call Shoz-Dijiji a white-eyes and live. Juh learned that when Shoz-Dijiji killed him.”
“Shut up, Gian-nah-tah,” advised Na-chi-ta; “and go to the white-eyed fool who sold you this strong water and buy more. Here!” He handed Gian-nah-tah several pieces of silver money. “Get plenty.”
Many of the braves already felt the effects of the adulterated, raw spirits that Tribollet was selling them at ten dollars a gallon, and most of those that had been drinking were daubing their faces with war paint and boasting of what they would do to the soldiers of the pindah-lickoyee.
They greeted Gian-nah-tah with shouts of savage welcome when he returned with more whiskey, and as they drank they talked loudly of killing all the white soldiers first and then taking the war trail in a final campaign that would wipe out the last vestige of the white race from the land of the Shis-Inday.
Shoz-Dijiji looked on in sorrow—not because they were drunk or because they talked of killing the white-eyed people; but because he knew that if they were not stopped they would soon be so drunk that they could not even defend themselves in the event that the soldiers of the pindah-lickoyee set upon them, as persistent rumors from Tribollet’s ranch suggested might occur before dawn.
He went to Geronimo and urged him to make some effort to stop the drinking; but Geronimo, himself inflamed by drink, would do nothing. As a matter of fact there was really nothing that he could do since the Apache is a confirmed individualist who resents receiving orders from anyone.
Shoz-Dijiji considered the advisability of taking a few of the warriors who had not drunk to excess and leading them in a raid upon Tribollet’s ranch, but he had to abandon the idea because he knew that it would lead to killing and that that would bring the soldiers down upon their camp.
In the end he hit upon another plan; and, shortly after, he was in the camp of the Apache scouts where he aroused Alchise and Ka-e-ten-na.
“Listen,” said Shoz-Dijiji, “to the sounds you can hear coming from the camp of Geronimo.”
“We hear them,” said Alchise. “Are you fools that you do not sleep when tomorrow you must march all day in the hot sun?”
“They are all drunk upon the tizwin of the white-eyes,” said Shoz-Dijiji. “If more of it is brought into the camp of Geronimo there will be trouble. Already many of the braves have put on the war paint. Shoz-Dijiji has come to you to ask that you go to Nan-tan-des-la-par-en and tell him that he must send soldiers to prevent the white-eyed fool from selling more fire water to the Apaches and to stop the stories that are being told to our people. Otherwise there will be trouble.”
“When did Shoz-Dijiji begin to fear trouble with the white-eyed men?” demanded Ka-e-ten-na.
“When he saw the warriors of his people getting so drunk that soon they will be unable to defend themselves, though not so drunk but that some one of them, who may be a bigger fool than the others, will certainly fire upon the first pindah-lickoyee he sees when dawn comes. That is when Shoz-Dijiji began to fear—not war but certain defeat.”
“Did Na-chi-ta send you with this message?” asked Alchise.
“Na-chi-ta is so drunk that he cannot stand upon his feet,” replied Shoz-Dijiji.
“We will go to Nan-tan-des-la-par-en,” said Ka-e-ten-na, “and ask him to let us take some scouts and stop the sale of this stuff to all Apaches.”
“Shoz-Dijiji will wait here until you return,” said the Black Bear.
As Shoz-Dijiji waited, the sounds that came to his ears indicated restlessness and activity in the camp of the white soldiers that lay at no great distance from that of the scouts; and these sounds aroused his suspicions, for at this hour of the night the camp should have been quiet. He read in them preparation for attack—treachery. He could not know that they were caused by a few drunken soldiers and portended nothing more serious than a few days in the guard house for the culprits when they reached the Post.
The false rumors that Tribollet and his men had spread among the renegades were working in the mind of Shoz-Dijiji, and he was already upon the point of returning to his own camp when Ka-e-ten-na and Alchise came back from their interview with Crook.
“Has Nan-tan-des-la-par-en told you to take warriors and stop the sale of fire water to the Apaches?” demanded Shoz-Dijiji.
“No,” replied Alchise.
“He is going to send white-eyed soldiers instead?” asked the Black Bear.
“He will send no one,” said Ka-e-ten-na.
“Why not?”
“We do not know.”
Shoz-Dijiji was worried when he came again to the camp of the renegades. Na-chi-ta was lying helpless upon the ground. Geronimo was drunk, though he still could walk. Most of the braves were asleep. Shoz-Dijiji went at once to Geronimo.
“I have just come from the camp of the scouts,” he said. “I could hear the white-eyed soldiers preparing for battle. Perhaps they will attack us before dawn. Look at your warriors, Geronimo. They are all drunk. They cannot fight. All will be killed. You would not listen to Shoz-Dijiji then, but now you must. I am war chief of the Be-don-ko-he. You are war chief of all the Apaches, but you are too drunk to lead them in battle or to counsel them with wisdom. Therefore you shall listen to Shoz-Dijiji and do what he says. Only thus may we save our people from being wiped out by the soldiers of the pindah-lickoyee before chigo-na-ay has risen above the tree tops.”
The words of Shoz-Dijiji had a slightly sobering effect upon Geronimo. He looked about him. By the flickering light of dying fires he saw the flower of his fighting force lying in drunken stupor, prone upon the ground, like beasts.
Shoz-Dijiji stood with a sneer upon his lip. “The pindah-lickoyee want the Shis-Inday to come out of the mountains and live as they live,” he said. “They want the poor Apache to be like them. Here is the result. We have come out of the mountains, and already we are like the pindah-lickoyee. If we live among them long our women will be like their women; and then you will not see an Apache woman whose nose has not been cut off or an Apache man who is not always lying in the dirt, drunk.
“But that will not be for those of us who are here, Geronimo, if we stay here until after Tapida brings the new day, for we shall all be dead. The soldiers of the white-eyes are already preparing to attack us. How may drunken men defend their families and themselves? We shall all be killed if we do not go at once. I have spoken.”
Slowly Geronimo gathered his muddled wits. The words of Shoz-Dijiji took form within his brain. He saw the condition of his warriors, and he recalled not only the rumors that had come from Tribollet’s but also the treacherous attacks that had been made upon his people by the white-eyed soldiers in the past.
“There is yet time,” said Shoz-Dijiji. “The night is dark. If we leave at once and in silence we can be far away before they know that we have left. Another day, when our warriors are sober, we can fight them but not today.”
“Awake them all,” said Geronimo. “Gather the women and children. Tell them that we are going back into the mountains of Mexico. Tell them that we are not going to remain here to be murdered by our enemies or taken back to Bowie to be hanged.”
They did not all answer the summons of Geronimo. Na-chi-ta went but he did not know that he was going or where. They threw him across the back of a mule; and Shoz-Dijiji loaded Gian-nah-tah upon another, and Geronimo rode silently out through the night with these and eighteen other warriors, fourteen women, and two boys, down into the mountains of Mexico; and the results of months of the hardest campaign that, possibly, any troops in the history of warfare ever experienced were entirely nullified by one cheap white man with a barrel of cheap whiskey.
Chapter Ten
DOWN into the rugged mountain fastnesses of Sonora the remnants of Geronimo’s band of renegades hurried from the menace of the white man’s justice. Suffering from the after effects of Tribollet’s whiskey they marched in sullen silence, thinking only of escape, for the fighting spirit of a sick man is not wont to rise to any great heights.
For sixteen hours they marched with but a single brief rest, and it was again dark when they went into camp.
Water and a little food revived their spirits. There was even laughter, low pitched lest it reach across the night to the ears of an enemy.
Shoz-Dijiji squatted upon his haunches chewing upon a strip of jerked venison that was both dirty and “high” and that not only pleased his palate but gave him strength, renewing the iron tissue of his iron frame. Less fastidious, perhaps, than a civilized epicure in the preparation and serving of his food, yet, savage though he was, he appreciated the same delicate flavor of partial decay.
As he ate, a tall warrior came and stood before him. It was Gian-nah-tah. Shoz-Dijiji continued eating, in silence.
“At the kunh-gan-hay beside the soldiers of Nan-tan-des-la-par-en,” commenced Gian-nah-tah, presently, “the poisoned water of the pindah-lickoyee spoke through the mouth of Gian-nah-tah, saying words that Gian-nah-tah would not have said.” He stopped, waiting.
“Shoz-Dijiji knew that Gian-nah-tah, his best friend, did not speak those words,” replied Shoz-Dijiji. “It was the bad spirits that the white man puts into his strong water to make trouble between men. Gian-nah-tah is a fool to be tricked thus by the pindah-lickoyee.”
“Yes,” agreed Gian-nah-tah, “I am a fool.”
Shoz-Dijiji scratched some criss-cross lines upon the ground where he squatted. With a bit of stick he scratched them. “These,” he said, “are the troubles that have come between Shoz-Dijiji and Gian-nah-tah—the bad talk—the bad thoughts.” With his palm he smoothed the ground. “Now they are gone,” he said. “Let us forget them.” He offered Gian-nah-tah a piece of venison, and his friend squatted beside him.
“Do you think the soldiers of the white-eyed men will follow us?” asked Gian-nah-tah.
Shoz-Dijiji shook his head. “I do not know,” he replied. “I offered hoddentin to the winds and to the night, and I prayed that Usen would make the hearts of the pindah-lickoyee good that they might return to their own country and leave us in peace.
“I asked the tzi-daltai that Nan-ta-do-tash blessed for me if the white-eyed soldiers were pursuing us, but I have received no answer.”
“Nan-tan-des-la-par-en said that if we did not come with him he would follow us and kill us all if it took fifty years,” reminded Gian-nah-tah.
Shoz-Dijiji laughed. “That is just talk,” he said. “Anyone can make big talk. For over three hundred years we have been fighting the pindah-lickoyee; and they have not killed us all, yet. Some day they will, but it will take more than fifty years. You and I shall have plenty of fighting before the last of the Shis-Inday is killed.”
“I do not know,” said Gian-nah-tah. “A spirit came to me while I slept the first night that we camped near the soldiers of Nan-tan-des-la-par-en. It was the spirit of my father. He said that he had waited a long time for me. He said that pretty soon I would come. I asked him when; but just then I awoke, and that frightened him away. Perhaps it will be tomorrow—who knows?”
“Do not say that, Gian-nah-tah,” said Shoz-Dijiji. “Already have I seen too many of my friends go. One hundred and thirty-four we were when we went out from San Carlos less than twelve moons ago. Today we are thirty eight. The others are dead, or prisoners of the pindah-lickoyee. The heart of Shoz-Dijiji is sad, as are the hearts of all Apaches. The hand of every man is against us—even the hands of our brothers. We must not think of death. Gian-nah-tah and Shoz-Dijiji must live for one another. Surely Usen will not take everything that we love from us!”
“Usen has forgotten the Apache,” said Gian-nah-tah, sadly.
For a month the renegades rested and recuperated in the high sierras, and then one day a scout brought word to Geronimo that he had sighted three troops of United States Cavalry as they were going into camp a day’s march to the north.
Geronimo shook his head. “They are always talking of peace,” he said, “and always making war upon us. They will not leave us alone.” He turned to Shoz-Dijiji. “Go to the camp of the pindah-lickoyee and try to talk with some of their scouts. Take Gian-nah-tah with you. Do not trust too much in the honor of the scouts, but learn all that you can without telling them anything.”
Shoz-Dijiji and Gian-nah-tah arose. “That is all?” asked the young war chief of the Be-don-ko-he.
“That is all,” replied Geronimo.
The soft rustle of their war moccasins faded into silence. The night swallowed them. Geronimo sat with bowed head, his eyes upon the ground. A girl looked after them and sighed. Then she cast hoddentin in the direction they had gone and whispered prayers for the safety of one of them. Also she prayed that some day she would be the mother of warriors and that Gian-nah-tah would be their father.
In four hours the two warriors covered the distance that it would take a troop of cavalry all of the following day to cover; but they travelled where no horse might travel, over trails that no cavalryman knew. They trod in places where only mountain sheep and Apaches had trod before.
Quiet lay upon the camp of ——th Cavalry. Three weary sentries, softly cursing because they must walk their posts to save their horses, circled the lonely bivouac. At a little distance lay the camp of the Apache scouts. The dismal voice of an owl broke the silence. It came from the summit of a low bluff south of the camp. At intervals it was repeated twice.
One of the sentries was a rookie. “Gosh,” he soliloquized, “but that’s a lonesome sound!”
Once more came the eerie cry—this time, apparently, from the camp of the scouts.
Number One sentry was a veteran. He stepped quickly from his post to the side of his top sergeant, who lay wrapped in a sweaty saddle blanket with his head on a McClellan.
“H-s-st! McGuire!” he whispered.
“Wot the ’ell?” demanded the sergeant, sitting up.
“Hos-tiles! I just heard ’em signalling to our Siwashes—three owl calls and an answer.”
The sergeant came to his feet, strapping his belt about his hips. He picked up his carbine. “Git back on your post an’ keep your ears unbuttoned,” he directed. “I’ll mosey out that way a bit an’ listen. Maybe itwasa owl.”
Shoz-Dijiji and Gian-nah-tah crept silently down the face of the bluff and approached the camp of the scouts. There was no moon, and light clouds obscured the stars. It was very dark. A figure loomed suddenly before them. “Who are you?” it demanded in a whisper that could not have been heard ten feet away.
“We are Be-don-ko-he,” replied Shoz-Dijiji. “We bring a message from Geronimo.”
“What is it?”
“He wants the soldiers to go back to their own country and leave him alone. He is not fighting the pindah-lickoyee. If they will go away he will not again raid in Arizona or New Mexico.”
“You are Shoz-Dijiji,” said the scout. “I am glad you came. We have word for Geronimo and all that are with him. His fight is hopeless. He had better come in. If he does, perhaps they will not kill him. If he stays out he is sure to be killed. Every one of his warriors will be killed. Tell him to come in.”
“Why do you think we will be killed? They have not killed us yet, and they have been trying to ever since we were born.”
“Now they will,” insisted the scout, “for they have offered to pay fifty dollars for the head of every warrior that is brought in and two thousand dollars for the head of Geronimo. There are Apaches who would kill their own fathers for fifty dollars.”
“You do not kill us,” said Shoz-Dijiji, “and our heads are worth one hundred dollars.”
“Give thanks to Usen, then, that he sent me to meet you and not another,” replied the scout.
“What are the plans of the pindah-lickoyee?” asked Shoz-Dijiji.
“Their orders are to get Geronimo and all his band. The Mexicans are helping them. It was the Mexicans who invited them down here to catch you.”
“They shall pay,” growled Shoz-Dijiji.
“So old Nan-tan-des-la-par-en will pay fifty dollars for my head, eh?” said Gian-nah-tah. “Very well, I shall go and get his head for nothing.”
“It was not Nan-tan-des-la-par-en,” said the scout. “He is no longer war chief of the pindah-lickoyee. They have taken him away and sent another. His name is Miles. It is he who has offered the money for your heads. He has ordered out many soldiers to follow you and catch you. Here there are three troops of the ——th Cavalry; Lawton is coming with Apache scouts, cavalry, and infantry. As fast as men and horses are tired they will send fresh ones to replace them. A few men cannot fight against so many and win. That is why so many of us have joined the scouts. It is not that we love the white-eyed ones any better than you do. We know when we are beaten—that is all. We would live in peace. By going out you make trouble for us all. We want to put an end to all this trouble.”
“I, too, like peace,” said Shoz-Dijiji; “but better even than peace I like freedom. If you are content to be the slave of the pindah-lickoyee that is your own affair. Shoz-Dijiji would rather be forever on the war trail than be a slave. If you are men you will leave the service of the white-eyes and join Geronimo.”
“Yes,” said Gian-nah-tah, “take that message to our brothers who have turned against us.”
“Come!” said Shoz-Dijiji, and the two warriors turned back toward the camp of Geronimo.
1st Sergeant McGuire, “K” Troop, ——th Cavalry, strolled back to his blankets. On the way he paused to speak to Number One. “The next time you hear a owl,” he said, “you just telegraph President Cleveland and let me sleep.”
Chigo-na-ay was an hour high when Shoz-Dijiji and Gian-nah-tah stood again before the rude hogan of Geronimo deep hid upon the rough breast of the Mother of Mountains. The old war chief listened in silence while they narrated with primitive fidelity every detail of their interview with the scout.
“Fifty dollars for the head of a warrior, two thousand dollars for the head of Geronimo!” he exclaimed. “It is thus that they offer a bounty for the heads of wolves and coyotes. They treat us as beasts and expect us to treat them as men. When they war among themselves do they offer money for the head of an enemy? No! They reserve that insult for the Apache.
“They will win because Usen has deserted us. And when they have killed us all there will be none to stop them from stealing the rest of our land. That is what they want. That is why they make treaties with us and then break them, to drive us upon the war trail that they may have an excuse to kill us faster. That is why they offer money for our heads.
“Oh, Usen! what have the Shis-Inday done that you should be angry with them and let their enemies destroy them?”
“Do not waste your breath praying to Usen,” said Gian-nah-tah. “Pray to the God of the pindah-lickoyee. He is stronger than Usen.”
“Perhaps you are right,” said Geronimo, sadly. “He is a wicked God, but his medicine is stronger than the medicine of Usen.”
“I,” said Shoz-Dijiji, “shall pray always to the god of my fathers. I want nothing of the pindah-lickoyee or their god. I hate them all.”
A brave, moving at an easy run, approached the camp and stopped before Geronimo.
“Soldiers are coming,” he said. “Their scouts have followed the tracks of Shoz-Dijiji and Gian-nah-tah.”
“Only Apaches could trail us,” said Geronimo. “If our brothers had remained loyal and taken the war trail with us the pindah-lickoyee could not conquer us in a thousand rains.”
“There is a place where we can meet them,” said the brave who had brought the word, “and stop them.”
“I know,” replied Geronimo. He called four warriors to him. “Take the women and the boys,” he said, “and cross over the summit to the burned pine by the first water. Those of us who live will join you there after the battle.”
Stripped to breech-cloth and moccasins, eighteen painted savages filed silently through the rough mountains. A scout preceded them. Behind Geronimo walked the Apache Devil, his blue face banded with white. Stern, grim, terrible men these—hunted as beasts are hunted, retaliating as only a cornered beast retaliates—asking no quarter and giving none.
Equipped by civilization with the best of weapons and plenty of ammunition and by nature with high intelligence, courage, and shrewdness they had every advantage except that of numbers over any enemy that might take the field against them.
They stopped the ——th Cavalry that day as they had stopped other troops before and without the loss of a man, and with the coming of night had vanished among the rocks of their beloved mountains and rejoined their women in the new camp by the burned pine at the first water beyond the summit.
Stern, grim, relentless, the cavalry pursued. Coöperating with them were the troops of Governor Torres of Sonora. The renegades were hard pressed. Skirmishes were of almost daily occurrence now. And then Lawton came with his hand picked force of seasoned veterans.
It was May again. For a year this handful of savage warriors and women and children had defied, eluded, and ofttimes defeated the forces of two civilized nations. The military strategy of their leader had been pitted against that of a great American general and proved superior. A score of West Pointers had exhausted their every resource and failed, but they were at last nearing their goal—victory seemed imminent. Miles and Lawton would receive the plaudits of their countrymen; and yet, if the truth were known, Miles and Lawton might have continued to pursue Geronimo and his band to the day of their deaths, and without success, had it not been that Apache turned against Apache.
The Shis-Inday may date the beginning of the end from the day that the first Indian Scouts were organized.
Hunted relentlessly, given no opportunity to rest because their every haunt, their every trail, their every hiding place was as well known to the scouts who pursued them as it was to themselves, they found themselves at last practically surrounded.
With no opportunity to hunt they were compelled to kill their ponies for sustenance until at last only Nejeunee was left.
Geronimo sat in council after a day of running battle.
“The warriors of the pindah-lickoyee and the Mexicans are all about us,” he said. “If we can break through and cross the mountains into Chihuahua perhaps we can escape them. Then we must separate and go in different directions. They will hear of us here today and there tomorrow. They will hurry from one place to another. Their horses will become tired and their soldiers footsore. Their force will be broken up into small parties. It will be easier for us to elude them. Tonight we shall move east. A camp of the enemy lies directly in our path, but if we can pass it before dawn we shall be in mountains where no cavalry can follow and tomorrow we shall be in Chihuahua.
“There is one pony left. Its meat will carry us through until we can find cattle in Chihuahua.”
There was silence. Every warrior, every woman knew that Shoz-Dijiji had repeatedly refused to permit the killing of the little pinto stallion for food.
“Nejeunee is more than a war pony,” Shoz-Dijiji had once said to Geronimo. “He is my friend. I will not eat my friend. I will not permit anyone to eat my friend.”
Glances stole around the circle in search of Shoz-Dijiji. He was not there.
Up toward the camp of the enemy—the camp that stood between the renegades and Chihuahua—a painted warrior rode a pinto stallion. A gentle May wind blew down to the nostrils of the man and his mount. To Nejeunee it carried the scent of his kind from the picket line of the ——th Cavalry. He pricked up his ears and nickered. Shoz-Dijiji slid from his back, slipped the primitive bridle from about his lower jaw and slapped him on the rump.
“Good-bye, Nejeunee,” he whispered; “the pindah-lickoyee may kill you, but they will not eat you.”
Slowly the Apache walked back toward the camp of his people. Like the stones upon the grave of Ish-kay-nay, many and heavy, his sorrows lay upon his heart.
“Perhaps, after all,” he mused, “Gian-nah-tah is right and Usen has forgotten the Apaches. I have prayed to him in the high places; I have offered hoddentin to him upon the winds of the morning and the evening; I have turned a deaf ear to the enemies who bring us a new god. Yet one by one the friends that I love are taken from me. Oh, Usen, before they are all gone take Shoz-Dijiji! Do not leave him alone without friends in a world filled with enemies!”
“Where is Shoz-Dijiji?” demanded Geronimo, his blue eyes sweeping the circle before him. “Gian-nah-tah, where is Shoz-Dijiji?”
“Here is Shoz-Dijiji!” said a voice from the darkness; and as they looked up, the war chief of the Be-don-ko-he stepped into the dim, flickering light of their tiny fire.
“Shoz-Dijiji,” said Geronimo, “there is but one pony left. It is Nejeunee. He must be killed for food. The others are all gone.”
“Nejeunee is gone, also,” said Shoz-Dijiji.
“Gone?”
“I have told you many times that no one would ever eat Nejeunee while Shoz-Dijiji lived. I have taken him away. What are you going to do about it?”
Geronimo bowed his head. “Even my son has turned against me,” he said, sadly.
“Those are not true words, Geronimo,” replied Shoz-Dijiji. “Nejeunee was more to me than a great war pony. When Shoz-Dijiji was a youth and Nejeunee a colt, Shoz-Dijiji broke him. Little Ish-kay-nay rode upon his back. It was Nejeunee that was tied before the hogan of her father. It was Nejeunee that Ish-kay-nay led to water and fed the next morning. Nejeunee has carried me through many battles. His fleet feet have borne me from the clutches of many an enemy. He has been the friend of Shoz-Dijiji as well as his war pony. Now he is old and yet there is not a fleeter or braver pony in the land of the Shis-Inday. He deserves better of me than to be killed and eaten.
“Geronimo says that Shoz-Dijiji has turned against him. Every day Shoz-Dijiji offers his life for Geronimo, and all that he has asked in return is the life of his friend.”
“Say no more,” said Na-chi-ta, the son of Cochise. “Let Shoz-Dijiji have the life of his friend. We have been hungry before—we can be hungry again. It does not kill an Apache to be hungry. We are not pindah-lickoyee.”