_Raiding the Papagoes_
Three days later, at sunrise, an excited Geronimo sat nervously on his
mother's aging stallion and waited for the raiders to start. Besides
Delgadito, who was the leader, and Geronimo, there were four braves
named Nadeze, Sanchez, Tacon, and Chie.
The dome-shaped wickiups where the villagers lived were softly beautiful
in the early morning light. Here and there the embers of last night's
cooking fire--for in this fine spring weather the Apaches did most of
their cooking out of doors--glowed like a star fallen to earth. But
except for the sentries who had been up all night, and the raiders about
to set forth, the village slept.
When all the raiders were mounted, Nadeze and Sanchez left the others.
Presently they returned driving a dozen loose horses among which was a
beautiful spotted apaloosa. This horse had belonged to a _shaman_, or
medicine man, of the White Mountain Apaches and had been taken from him
in a night raid.
It was always necessary to have extra horses when going into enemy
country for any reason. They could serve as remounts. If there was no
other food they could be eaten, or they could be traded if there were
any opportunities for trading.
But Geronimo wondered why Nadeze and Sanchez had included the apaloosa.
The spotted horse was famous throughout the land. Even the Papagoes and
pueblo-dwelling Zuñi knew him, and whoever saw him would surely send
winged words to the _shaman_.
"Then a war party from the White Mountain Apaches will come to rescue
their medicine man's horse," Geronimo thought. But he asked no
questions. Surely Delgadito knew what he was doing.
Nadeze and Sanchez drove the loose horses on at full gallop, for the
sooner the animals were tired the sooner they would be willing to stay
with the rest and the less trouble they would cause. The other raiders
rode out from the village more slowly.
An hour later they overtook Nadeze and Sanchez, and the driven horses,
now too tired to run. They fell in at the rear and seemed satisfied to
stay there. Geronimo felt a rising anxiety.
He had always imagined raiding to be a stealthy business. These men
laughed, shouted, and gaily mimicked a coyote that moaned from a nearby
ridge.
[Illustration]
Presently lithe, slim Tacon challenged fat Chie to a race. Whooping at
the tops of their voices, they were off. Geronimo stopped worrying.
Delgadito was too experienced a raider to do anything foolish. If he let
the warriors act as though there were no enemies within twenty miles,
then there were none.
That night they camped on top of a rocky hill from which they could see
in all directions, and they were careful to put all fires out as soon as
darkness fell.
"Fire may be seen for a long distance on a dark night," Geronimo said to
himself. "That is why they were put out."
The next morning the raiders rode on, and not until midafternoon did
they make the slightest attempt to hide themselves. But when they
finally halted under a cloud-ridden sky, there was a change in every
man.
This was desert country, and they stopped in a cluster of rocky hills.
Delgadito and Chie dismounted and climbed the tallest hill to scout from
its summit. Soon they returned and told the others to dismount too.
Tether ropes were slipped about the necks of the loose horses, which
were now led by the raiders as all went on quietly.
A half hour later the raiders made a second stop in a dry wash. The
banks of this desert creek bed were about four feet high and rimmed by
cactus and palo verde trees.
Sanchez and Delgadito felled one of these trees with copper hatchets,
cut off two stout chunks, and tied either end of a long rawhide thong to
them. Then they stretched the thong as far as it would reach, and
buried the chunks in the earth, at the bottom of the creek bed. Careful
to place a gentle horse between two quick-tempered mounts, they tied all
animals to this picket line. This done, all got their weapons and
started up over the wash.
Geronimo ran happily for his own bow and arrows and followed. Suddenly
Delgadito turned, put the palm of his hand against the youngster's face,
and pushed so hard that Geronimo found himself seated in the bottom of
the wash.
"Stay here to watch the horses," the chief growled.
"But I'm a warrior too!" Geronimo protested.
Delgadito growled again, and amused smiles flitted over the lips of the
others. The raiders melted into the desert.
Flames of anger scorched Geronimo's cheeks, and rage ate at his heart.
He had a fierce desire to pursue and kill Delgadito in revenge for being
knocked down. But he knew that he must obey his chief. And he found it
much more satisfactory to be guarding warriors' horses than to be
playing children's games in the village.
Geronimo pillowed his back against a boulder and for a while never took
his eyes from the horses. Then it began to seem foolish to watch them at
all. The animals were standing quietly, and the idea that an enemy might
come into the creek bed seemed unlikely. Presently Geronimo went to
sleep.
Some time later he awakened. At first he thought he had been disturbed
by the deepening clouds and a feeling that rain would soon fall. Then he
peered down the wash.
Two nearly naked Indians carrying war clubs were stalking the horses and
were only about forty yards from the nearest animal. Their clubs, the
way they wore their straight black hair, and their tattooed faces
stamped them as Papagoes. It was plain to see that they intended to
steal the horses.
When he was certain that neither Papago was looking in his direction,
Geronimo slung his quiver of arrows over his back. Taking his bow in
hand, he crawled swiftly to and under the nearest horse.
The horses were not in an even line, but all stood perfectly still
because they were interested in the Papagoes, and their legs formed a
rough tunnel. Geronimo crawled down it. Reaching the last horse, he
stopped and licked dry lips.
[Illustration: _The Papagoes saw him, raised their clubs and rushed
forward_]
He wished Delgadito or any of the others were there. It was one thing to
dream of becoming a warrior and quite another to face the enemy. What
should he do now? Then the Papagoes saw him, raised their clubs and
rushed forward, and there was only one thing he could do.
Geronimo plucked an arrow from his quiver, nocked it, drew his bow, took
careful aim at the nearest Papago, and shot. The Papago was hit squarely
in the heart. The only sound as the man fell was a jarring thud when he
struck the ground. His companion turned to run.
Forgetting to nock another arrow, Geronimo crawled weakly from beneath
the horse and for a few minutes sat shivering. Then he remembered that,
though he was still a boy, he would soon be not just a warrior but an
Apache warrior. Forcing himself to rise, he walked over to look at the
dead Papago, and told himself that he was glad he had put an end to
another enemy of the Apache. But he was just as happy that he had not
killed the second Papago too.
Before long a black horse, flanked by a gray and four bays, jumped down
into the wash, ran across it, and stopped. They stared back in the
direction from which they had come, and the tethered horses raised their
heads to stare too. Geronimo thought that the black was a wonderful
stallion and was surely stolen from some Mexican _rancheria_ because no
Papagoes bred horses so fine.
Now more horses came galloping over the desert until there was a herd of
about eighty milling around in the wash. For the most part they were
scrawny Papago ponies. But Geronimo saw one more fine stallion, a dark
gray with black spots.
Riding stolen ponies, which they guided without help of saddle or
bridle, Delgadito and his raiders were on the heels of the last horses.
As their mounts jumped into the wash they slid off. Delgadito made his
way to Geronimo and looked down at the dead Papago.
"How is this?" the chief asked.
"He would have stolen our horses," Geronimo replied.
"Was he alone?"
"There was another," the boy admitted. "I did not kill him."
"You should have," Delgadito scolded. "But come now and mount."
Geronimo ran with him to the picket line and mounted his mother's old
stallion, then he was astounded to see Delgadito take time to strip
saddle and bridle from his own horse and put them on the apaloosa.
Geronimo marveled. This was enemy country and, when the Papagoes
discovered that some of their horses had been stolen, they were sure to
launch a hot pursuit. But Delgadito seemed as calm as he had ever been
at home in his own wickiup.
[Illustration]
Mounting the apaloosa and whooping at the top of his voice, Delgadito
charged the herd. The other riders took off, one after another, and
drove the horses full speed straight north. This puzzled Geronimo.
Finally he rode over to talk with Nadeze.
"Why do we go north?" he asked. "Our home is almost due east."
"Worry not and question not," Nadeze said coolly. "Look and learn."
Always at full gallop, Delgadito was racing from one end of the line to
the other. The apaloosa already had run at least six times the distance
any other horse had traveled.
About an hour and a half later Delgadito caught his own horse and
transferred saddle and bridle from the apaloosa to him. The exhausted
apaloosa staggered ten feet to stand with head drooping. Geronimo
finally understood.
Beyond any doubt, Papago trackers were already on the trail of
Delgadito's Mimbreno raiders. They could not fail to find the weary
apaloosa and they would know its owner was the _shaman_ of the White
Mountain Apaches. They would also see that the stolen horses had been
started northward, toward the home of these Apaches. Thus the Papagoes
would think that they had been raided by men from the White Mountain
tribe and they would seek revenge on them, rather than on the Mimbreno
Apaches.
"We have a wise chief," thought Geronimo, as Delgadito's plan became
clear to him.
Just then Delgadito said, "Chie, continue northward with thirty of the
more worthless horses. Leave a plain trail, as though we were stricken
with panic. But drive the horses back and forth so it will appear as
though there were many more than thirty. Run as soon as you see
pursuers."
Chie nodded, and the rest of the men started dividing the remaining
horses into smaller groups.
"Why do we do this?" Geronimo asked, riding along beside Nadeze.
"It is easier to hide the trail of a small group of horses," said
Nadeze. "And the Papagoes will find it much more difficult to track us
since we will take each herd in a different direction before swinging
back to our village."
"Do I drive some?"
"You are too anxious, stripling." Nadeze was far more respectful since
Geronimo had slain the Papago. "You will ride with one of us."
Suddenly the rain clouds which Geronimo had noticed earlier loosed an
earth-battering torrent. The raiders smiled. Usan, god of their tribe,
had indeed blessed them. Though the Papago trackers would certainly find
the apaloosa, they would never discover where the rest of the horses had
gone after a storm such as this one.
Driving all the horses ahead of them through the pouring rain, the
raiders turned homeward.
* * * * *
In bright sunlight next day, the stolen Papago horses cropped grass on
the slope opposite Delgadito's wickiup. Geronimo listened anxiously
while Delgadito, as was the right of a chief who led a raiding party,
divided the plunder.
The leader reserved twenty horses for himself, and the twenty he chose
included the two fine stallions. Then he gave smaller numbers of horses
to the four men who had gone with him. The number each received depended
on how hard he had worked to make the raid successful. Next came a just
share for all families who had no one to steal horses for them.
Geronimo's heart sank as the horses were given away. He had hoped to get
something for himself, but now the only horses remaining were a dozen or
so fit only for the cooking pot. Delgadito declared them as such. Then
he announced, so that all could hear:
"I give part of my portion, the black stallion and the gray stallion
with black spots," he swung to Geronimo, "to an Apache youth who
deserves them because during this raid he behaved like a warrior."
For a moment Geronimo was too surprised and delighted to move. Then he
tilted his head, squared his shoulders, and went proudly forth to claim
his prizes.