"And leave our dead?" The question was laden with heartbreak.
Mangus Coloradus said, "We are deep in enemy country, with few arms, no
food, and no horses. Is there another way?"
"I will not go," Nadeze said firmly.
"Then you will not return to meet again those who massacred our people,"
said the chief.
"Return?" Nadeze was puzzled.
"We will come again," Mangus Coloradus promised, "but with warriors
only."
"Ha!" Nadeze snarled like an angry puma. "If my dead know that, they
will forgive me for leaving! I must go and tell them!"
Others announced their intention to return to the encampment for one
last visit with their dead.
"Go we may, but we must go cautiously and we must not linger," Mangus
Coloradus said. "The _rurales_ may still await us there. If they do not,
the night is our friend. And we must ask our friend to shield us while
we travel far."
A clear thought penetrated Geronimo's numbed brain. At the time when the
massacre must have occurred, the people of Kas-Kai-Ya had set up a
deafening racket. Why, if not to make it impossible for the warriors in
town to hear rifle shots?
The thought faded and Geronimo was again a live body with a numbed brain
and sick soul. He understood dully that they must return to their
village, but that first they would have one last visit at the
encampment. He rose only because the others did, and started out of the
grove.
They found and traveled the trail to the Apache encampment. It was a
bold move and, under a lesser chief than Mangus Coloradus, might have
been disastrous. But the Mimbreno chief had rightly decided that
Mexicans gauged Apache hearts by their own. If such a disaster had
stricken Mexicans, the survivors would never have dared show themselves
on the trail. Neither would they have visited the scene of the massacre.
When the angry and grief-stricken Apaches reached the encampment, they
found that the _rurales_ had left. The moon was merciful. The crumpled
figures that lay all about seemed like so many sleeping persons.
Geronimo sought the wickiup where he had left his family.
He stopped suddenly. Alope lay full length before him, head turned and
cheek resting on her right hand. Her long black hair tumbled at her
side. Many times had Geronimo watched her sleep in just such a fashion,
and now she seemed asleep. But she did not wake.
[Illustration]
Geronimo's mother had fallen at the entrance to the wickiup, and the
children were near. The two little girls had embraced when the Mexicans
overtook them, and had fallen with their arms still about each other.
The boy was at his sisters' feet. His right arm was stretched toward
them, and he still clutched the rock which he had intended to throw at
the treacherous Mexicans.
Geronimo was unaware of the hand that touched his arm, until Mangus
Coloradus said gently, "Come with us, brother."
Geronimo responded like an obedient dog. He felt no grief, no shock, no
pain, for he was too numbed to feel anything. He knew he must follow
only because he had been told that he must.
By sunrise the Apaches were many miles from the scene of tragedy. Mangus
Coloradus had led them over the roughest and rockiest places. They had
waded streams wherever streams flowed and done everything possible to
hide their trail.
At last Mangus Coloradus called a halt and sent some out to hunt while
he told others to build a smokeless fire from dead wood. One by one, the
hunters returned. Since a shot from a gun would have attracted
attention, the game had been brought down with thrown rocks or knives.
Their bag consisted of some jack rabbits and a crippled peccary. They
ate, rested, and went on.
Geronimo remembered nothing of the flight. On reaching the village, he
went first to his mother's wickiup. He entered, but at once ducked out
again and sought his own house. Slowly the fogs faded from his brain.
He discovered that he still carried the basket of beads for which he had
traded half a pouch of gold in Kas-Kai-Ya.
He had not realized, that night while the thin moon lighted the scene of
the massacre, that the beloved people upon whom he looked were dead. Nor
had he understood since. But he knew it now.
Geronimo plunged into his wickiup and sought his store of weapons.
Shotguns, rifles, muskets, powder, shot, knives, hatchets, lances, bows,
and arrows were carried a safe distance from the wickiup and put
carefully down. The basket of beads was placed near them.
Then Geronimo strode to a nearby fire. Catching up a burning brand, he
fired the wickiup he had shared with Alope, then cast the brand against
his mother's house. He turned his back on the burning wickiups. Like his
old life, they would soon be ashes. But there would be a new life, he
told himself. A life of revenge!
Pedro Gonzalez was attracted to the fires, and Geronimo asked him, "Do
you have weapons?"
"Bow and arrows, a knife, a lance, a hatchet."