GENERAL CROOK AND THE
FIGHTING APACHES
FIFTH IMPRESSION
_The American Trail Blazers_
“THE STORY GRIPS AND THE HISTORY STICKS”
These books present in the form of vivid and fascinating fiction, the
early and adventurous phases of American history. Each volume deals
with the life and adventures of one of the great men who made that
history, or with some one great event in which, perhaps, several heroic
characters were involved. The stories, though based upon accurate
historical fact, are rich in color, full of dramatic action, and appeal
to the imagination of the red-blooded man or boy.
Each volume illustrated in color and black and white.
INTO MEXICO WITH GENERAL SCOTT
LOST WITH LIEUTENANT PIKE
GENERAL CROOK AND THE FIGHTING APACHES
OPENING THE WEST WITH LEWIS AND CLARK
WITH CARSON AND FRÉMONT
DANIEL BOONE: BACKWOODSMAN
BUFFALO BILL AND THE OVERLAND TRAIL
CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH
DAVID CROCKETT: SCOUT
ON THE PLAINS WITH CUSTER
GOLD SEEKERS OF ’49
WITH SAM HOUSTON IN TEXAS
WITH GEORGE WASHINGTON INTO THE WILDERNESS
IN THE RANKS OF OLD HICKORY
[Illustration: “GET DOWN, GET DOWN!” THEY ORDERED, FURIOUSLY, IN
APACHE]
GENERAL CROOK
AND THE
FIGHTING APACHES
TREATING ALSO OF THE PART BORNE BY JIMMIE DUNN IN THE
DAYS, 1871–1886, WHEN WITH SOLDIERS AND PACK-TRAINS AND
INDIAN SCOUTS, BUT EMPLOYING THE STRONGER WEAPONS OF
KINDNESS, FIRMNESS AND HONESTY, THE GRAY FOX WORKED
HARD TO THE END THAT THE WHITE MEN AND THE RED MEN IN
THE SOUTHWEST AS IN THE NORTHWEST MIGHT BETTER UNDERSTAND
ONE ANOTHER
BY
EDWIN L. SABIN
AUTHOR OF “OPENING THE WEST WITH LEWIS AND CLARK,”
“BUFFALO BILL AND THE OVERLAND TRAIL,” ETC.
_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY CHARLES H. STEPHENS
PORTRAIT AND A MAP_
[Illustration]
PHILADELPHIA & LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
PRINTED IN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO THE
TYPICAL AMERICAN SOLDIER
WHOSE MOTTO, LIKE GENERAL CROOK’S, IS BRAVERY,
EFFICIENCY, AND “JUSTICE TO ALL”
“Then General Crook came; he, at least, had
never lied to us. His words gave the people
hope. He died. Their hope died again. Despair
came again.”
_Chief Red Cloud of the Sioux_
FOREWORD
“It should not be expected that an Indian who has lived as a
barbarian all his life will become an angel the moment he comes on
a reservation and promises to behave himself, or that he has that
strict sense of honor which a person should have who has had the
advantage of civilization all his life, and the benefit of a moral
training and character which has been transmitted to him through a
long line of ancestors. It requires constant watching and knowledge
of their character to keep them from going wrong. They are children
in ignorance, not in innocence. I do not wish to be understood as in
the least palliating their crimes, but I wish to say a word to stem
the torrent of invective and abuse which has almost universally been
indulged in against the whole Apache race.... Greed and avarice on the
part of the whites――in other words, the almighty dollar――is at the
bottom of nine-tenths of all our Indian trouble.”
GENERAL GEORGE CROOK
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. JIMMIE DUNN IS BADLY FOOLED 21
II. JIMMIE LEARNS TO BE APACHE 34
III. THE RED-HEAD TURNS UP 43
IV. THE CANVAS SUIT MAN 53
V. JIMMIE REPORTS FOR DUTY 65
VI. THE PEACE COMMISSION TRIES 77
VII. JIMMIE TAKES A LESSON 85
VIII. THE ONE-ARMED GENERAL TRIES 98
IX. THE HORRID DEED OF CHUNTZ 113
X. ON THE TRAIL WITH THE PACK-TRAIN 119
XI. IN THE STRONGHOLD OF COCHISE 129
XII. GENERAL CROOK RIDES AGAIN 140
XIII. HUNTING THE YAVAPAI 152
XIV. THE BATTLE OF THE CAVE 165
XV. JIMMIE IS A VETERAN 178
XVI. THE GENERAL PLANS WELL 185
XVII. BAD WORK AFOOT 194
XVIII. “CLUKE” GOES AWAY 203
XIX. JIMMIE SENDS THE ALARM 211
XX. THE GRAY FOX RETURNS 221
XXI. TO THE STRONGHOLD OF GERONIMO 228
XXII. WAR OR PEACE? 237
XXIII. GERONIMO PLAYS SMART 246
XXIV. PACK-MASTER JIMMIE MEETS A SURPRISE 254
XXV. ON THE JOB WITH CAPTAIN CRAWFORD 262
XXVI. FOES OR FRIENDS? 273
XXVII. THE WORST ENEMY OF ALL 286
XXVIII. THE END OF THE TRAIL 298
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
“Get Down, Get Down!” They Ordered, Furiously, in Apache
_Frontispiece_
General George Crook 13
Had the First Volley Killed Anybody? Didn’t Look So 61
It was the Piercing-eyed Geronimo! 131
Hurrah! It was Nan-ta-je 179
“Why Don’t You Speak to Me and Look with a Pleasant Face?” 290
MAP
Apache Arizona 21
[Illustration: GENERAL GEORGE CROOK
From “On the Border with Crook.” By Captain John G. Bourke.
By Courtesy of Charles Scribner’s Sons.]
MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE CROOK
Called by the Indians the “Gray Fox,” because of his weather worn
canvas suit and his skillful methods. Admired by them also as “a common
man who makes war like a big chief.” He first organized the army
pack-mule trains, and employed Indians to fight Indians. He was noted
for his dislike of “show,” his strict honesty, his incessant hard work,
his great endurance, and his knowledge of Western animals and Indian
ways.
Born near Dayton, Ohio, September 8, 1828.
Graduates from West Point Military Academy, 1852, No. 38 in his class.
Assigned as second lieutenant, Fourth Infantry, and stationed in Idaho.
First lieutenant, March, 1856.
Captain, May, 1861. Meanwhile has been wounded by an arrow during
campaigns against the Indians in Oregon and Washington.
Appointed Colonel of the Thirty-sixth Ohio Volunteer Infantry,
September, 1861, and drills it so thoroughly that it is styled the
“Thirty-sixth Regulars.”
Brevetted major in the regular service, May, 1862, for gallantry at the
battle of Lewisburg, West Virginia, where he was wounded.
Brigadier general of Volunteers, September, 1862.
Brevetted lieutenant-colonel in the regular service, September, 1862,
for gallantry at the battle of Antietam, Maryland.
Brevetted colonel, October, 1863, for gallantry at the battle of
Farmington, Tennessee.
Commands the Army of West Virginia, August and September, 1864.
Major-general of Volunteers, October, 1864.
Double brevet of brigadier-general and major-general in the regular
service, March, 1865, for gallantry in the Shenandoah Valley campaign.
Commands the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac, spring of 1865.
Commands Department of West Virginia, 1865.
Assigned as major of the Third U. S. Infantry, July, 1866, and
stationed in Northern California.
Lieutenant-colonel, Twenty-third U. S. Infantry, July, 1866, to command
in the Boise district, Idaho, where he makes a reputation as an Indian
campaigner against the Warm Springs Shoshones or Snakes of Oregon.
Appointed to command the Military Department of the Columbia (the State
of Oregon and the Territories of Idaho and Washington), July, 1868.
Transferred to California, 1870.
Appointed to command of the new Department of Arizona, June, 1871.
By reason of his success with the Apaches of Arizona, is promoted from
lieutenant-colonel to brigadier-general, October, 1873.
Transferred to command the Department of the Platte, with headquarters
at Omaha, March, 1875.
Campaigns, with pack-trains and Indian scouts, against the Sioux and
Cheyennes of the plains, 1875–1878; subdues them and thereafter devotes
his available time to hunting and exploration.
In 1882 is reassigned to the Department of Arizona, where the Apaches
are unruly again.
Fails to succeed in holding Geronimo, the Apache war leader; is
relieved at his own request, April, 1886, and reassigned to the command
of the Department of the Platte.
Appointed major-general, April, 1888, and assigned to the command of
the Military Division of the Missouri, with headquarters in Chicago.
Dies March 21, 1890, in his sixty-second year, at Chicago. Interred
with high honors at Oakland, Maryland, pending the transfer of the
remains, soon thereafter, to the National Cemetery at Arlington,
Virginia.
MAJOR-GEN. OLIVER OTIS HOWARD
A man distinguished for his deep religious spirit and his benevolence,
as well for his bravery upon the field of battle and his friendship
with the Indians.
Born at Leeds, Maine, November 8, 1830.
Graduates at Bowdoin College, Maine, 1850.
Graduates at West Point Military Academy, 1854, No. 4 in his class.
Assigned as second lieutenant of ordnance at Watervliet Arsenal.
Assigned to command of the Kennebec Arsenal, 1855.
In 1856 transferred to Watervliet again.
December, 1856, ordered to the Seminole Indian campaign in Florida.
First lieutenant and chief of ordnance, Department of Florida, 1857.
Assistant professor of mathematics at West Point, 1857–1861.
Expected to resign from the army to enter the ministry, but in June,
1861, accepts the colonelcy of the Third Maine Volunteer Infantry.
Commands a brigade at the battle of Bull Run.
Brigadier-general of Volunteers, September, 1861.
Loses his right arm, from two wounds, at the battle of Fair Oaks,
Virginia, June, 1862.
Major-general of Volunteers, November, 1862.
Commands an army division at the battles of Antietam and Fredericksburg.
Commands an army corps at the battles of Chancellorsville, Gettysburg,
Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge, Chattanooga, and elsewhere, and has
the right wing in Sherman’s march to the sea.
Thanked by Congress, January, 1864, for services at Gettysburg.
Brigadier-general in the regular army, December, 1864.
Brevetted major-general in the regular army, March, 1865, for gallantry.
Chief of the Freedman’s Bureau, at Washington, for the education and
care of the negroes and refugees, 1865–1874.
Sent by President Grant to New Mexico and Arizona, as special peace
commissioner to treat with the Indians, 1872, and wins the trust and
love of the various tribes.
Assigned to the command of the Department of the Columbia, August, 1874.
Campaigns against the Nez Percés of Chief Joseph, 1877.
Campaigns against the Bannocks and Pai-Utes, 1878.
Superintendent of West Point Military Academy, 1880–1882.
Commands the Department of the Platte, 1882–1886.
Major-general, March, 1886, and appointed to the command of the
Division of the Pacific.
Awarded medal of honor, by Congress, March, 1893, for distinguished
bravery in the battle of Fair Oaks, where he lost his arm.
As commander of the Department of the East is retired, November, 1894.
Devotes his energies to religious and philanthropic work, and dies at
Burlington, Vermont, October 26, 1909, aged seventy-nine.
THE APACHE INDIANS
A large collection of Indian tribes inhabiting the Southwest. They
first are mentioned in 1598 by the early Spanish explorers in New
Mexico.
The name “Apache” is derived from the Zuni word “Apachu,” meaning
“enemy.” Their own name was “Tinde (Tinneh)” and “Dine (Dinde),”
meaning “men” or “the people.”
They always were bitter enemies to the Spanish and Mexicans, who
offered high rewards in money for Apache scalps, and enslaved captives.
They were not openly hostile to the Americans until, in 1857, a Mexican
teamster employed by the United States party surveying the Mexican
boundary line shot an Apache warrior without just cause. The survey
commissioner offered thirty dollars in payment, which was refused, and
the Apaches declared war.
In 1861 Cochise, chief of the Chiricahuas, who had been friendly, was
confined, on a false charge, by Lieutenant Bascom of the army, at the
army camp at Apache Pass, Arizona. He cut his way to freedom. His
brother and five others were hanged by the Americans. Cochise hanged
a white man, in return, declared war, and almost captured the stage
station where the troops were fortified.
Beginning with the Civil War, the Apaches ravaged all southern Arizona
and the stage line in New Mexico also. Terrible tortures were committed
upon settlers and travelers.
In 1863 Mangas Coloradas (Red Sleeves), an old Mimbreño chief related
by marriage to Cochise, was treacherously imprisoned and killed by
soldiers, at Fort McLane, New Mexico.
Thenceforth the Apaches and whites in Arizona had little common ground
except that of “no quarter.” There was constant fighting.
In March, 1871, a number of Arivaipa Apaches gathered peacefully under
the protection of Camp Grant are killed, captured or put to flight by a
vengeful party of Americans, Mexicans and Papago Indians from Tucson.
In the fall of 1871 the Government peace commission tries to adjust
the differences between the white people and the red. The Apaches are
offered reservations and guaranteed kind treatment. They have little
faith in the words.
The Apaches, with the exception of the White Mountain in Arizona and
the Warm Spring in New Mexico, and some smaller bands, decline to
gather upon reservations. In 1872 General O. O. Howard arrives as
special peace commissioner, and by his talks and actions wins the trust
of the Indians. The reservation idea seems a success. Cochise and
his Chiricahuas agree to remain in their own country of the Dragoon
Mountains, southern Arizona.
In the winter of 1872–73 General George Crook proceeds against the
outlaw Apaches of Arizona, especially the Tontos and the Apache-Mohaves
or Yavapais. His cavalry, infantry, pack-trains and enlisted Indian
scouts trail them down and subdue them.
General Crook’s plans to make the Indians self-supporting on their
reservations appear to have brought peace to Arizona.
In 1874 the control of the reservations passes from the War Department
to the Indian Bureau. Reservations given to the Indians “forever,” by
the President, are reduced or abolished, and various tribes are removed
against their protests. Agents prove dishonest, the Indians are not
encouraged to work, and are robbed of their rations.
The Chiricahuas are generally peaceful, although Mexico complains that
stock is being stolen and run across the border into the reservation.
Chief Cochise, who has kept his word with General Howard, dies in 1874.
Taza his son succeeds him, as leader of the Chiricahua peace party,
until his death in 1876.
In April, 1876, whiskey is sold to some Chiricahuas, at a stage station
on the reservation. A fight ensues, and killings occur. The great
majority of the Chiricahuas refuse to join in any outbreak.
In June, 1876, it is recommended by the governor of Arizona that all
the Chiricahuas be removed to the San Carlos reservation. They do not
wish to go, but the majority follow Taza there. Chiefs Juh, Geronimo,
and others escape.
The policy of the Indian Bureau contemplates putting all the Apaches
together upon the San Carlos reservation. The White Mountain Apaches,
who have voluntarily lived upon the White Mountain reservation, their
home land, adjacent, and have supplied the government with scouts,
decline to go to the low country. When forced, they drift back again,
and finally are allowed to stay.
In 1877 the Warm Spring Apaches and the Geronimo Chiricahuas who had
taken refuge there are ordered from the Warm Spring reservation in New
Mexico to San Carlos. Some escape; the remainder escape a little later.
Thereafter, Chief Victorio and his Warm Springs are constantly on the
war-path, out of Mexico.
In January, 1880, Chiefs Juh and Geronimo of the Chiricahuas agree to
stay upon the San Carlos reservation. In August Victorio is killed by
Mexican troops.
In September, 1881, Juh and Nah-che (a son of Cochise and a lieutenant
of Geronimo), break from the reservation, for Mexico.
In April, 1882, Geronimo and Loco of the Chiricahuas follow.
General Crook is now recalled to the command in Arizona. He talks with
the Apaches on the reservations, finds a marked state of mistrust and
misunderstanding, and places his troops to guard the border against the
outlaws.
In March, 1883, Chato, or Flat-nose, a young captain of Geronimo’s
band, with twenty-six men breaks through, raids up into New Mexico and
Arizona, and murders settlers. With forty cavalry, about two hundred
Apache scouts, and pack-trains, Crook overhauls the Chiricahuas in
the wild Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico two hundred miles south of
the boundary, and persuades the whole band to return peaceably to the
reservation.
The Chiricahuas are placed under the control of General Crook, and he
locates them upon good land on the White Mountain reservation. Both
reservations are policed by the army. The Apaches seem to be content,
under the Crook plan that they shall work for an independent living. In
1884 they raise over four thousand tons of produce. There have been no
outbreaks.
In February, 1885, disagreements arise between the War Department and
the Interior Department, of which the Indian Bureau is a function.
General Crook’s powers are interfered with by civil interests at
Washington and in Arizona, liquor is being permitted upon the
reservations and the Indians grow uneasy.
In May, 1885, after a controversy with the agent over the right to
dig an irrigating ditch, and having obtained a supply of liquor, one
hundred and twenty-four men, women and children under Geronimo and
Nah-che, his lieutenant, escape again into Mexico. During their raids
they kill seventy-three whites and a number of Apache scouts.
General Crook secures an international agreement that United States
troops may operate in Mexico, and Mexican troops in the United States,
and sends a column on the trail of Geronimo.
In March, 1886, Geronimo signifies that he desires to talk. The general
meets him, Chihuahua and other chiefs, and they accept the terms of
two years’ imprisonment, with the privilege of the company of their
families.
On the march north a vicious white man by the name of Tribollet
supplies whiskey to the Chiricahuas, at ten dollars (silver) a gallon,
alarms them with lies by himself and his unscrupulous associates.
Geronimo and Nah-che, with twenty men, thirteen women and two children,
disappear. Chihuahua and eighty others remain.
The general’s action in making terms with the Chiricahuas, and in not
so guarding them that they would be forced to remain, is indirectly
censured by General Sheridan, commanding the army. Crook explains that
no other methods on his part would have met with any success, under
the circumstances, and asks to be relieved from the command of the
department.
In April, 1886, General Nelson A. Miles takes the command in Arizona.
He increases the number of heliostat signal stations, discharges the
reservation-Apache scouts (whom he suspects of treachery), employs a
few trailers from other tribes, and by a very energetic campaign which
permits Geronimo no rest, in September induces his surrender upon only
the conditions that his life shall be spared and that he shall be
removed from Arizona.
Without delay the Geronimo and Nah-che remnant of hostiles, and all the
Chiricahua and Warm Spring Apaches, four hundred in number, at the Fort
Apache (White Mountain) reservation, are removed, whether friendly or
not, to Florida. This is deemed the only practicable measure of freeing
the Southwest from the menace of Apache outbreaks. The expenses of the
Department of Arizona are lessened by $1,000,000 a year.
The climate of Florida is unfavorable to the Apaches. Geronimo
complains that he and Nah-che had understood that their families
were to accompany them. Many of the Apaches die from disease and
homesickness.
In May, 1888, the Apaches are removed from Florida to Mt. Vernon
barracks, Alabama; and in October, 1894, as prisoners of war to Fort
Sill Military Reservation, Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).
The principal reservations of the Arizona Apaches are the Fort Apache
and the San Carlos, each containing between two and three thousand
Indians. There are still over two hundred of the Chiricahuas and Warm
Springs at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Geronimo died February 17, 1909, at
Fort Sill. Nah-che succeeded him as chief.
[Illustration: APACHE ARIZONA
and the principal places in General Crook’s time]
GENERAL CROOK AND THE FIGHTING APACHES
I
JIMMIE DUNN IS BADLY FOOLED
“Tinkle, tinkle,” placidly sounded the bell of the old bell-wether,
to prove that he and the other sheep were grazing near at hand in the
stiff brush.
“All right,” thought Jimmie Dunn, whose business it was to keep tab on
the whereabouts of that bell.
For this was a simmering hot summer afternoon of the year 1870, far,
far down in southern Arizona Territory; and here on a hill-slope of
the Pete Kitchen big ranch about half-way between Tucson town and
the Mexican line Jimmie was lying upon his back under a spreading
crooked-branched mesquite tree, lazily herding the ranch sheep.
The Kitchen ranch really was not Jimmie’s home. He lived with his uncle
Joe Felmer (not really his uncle, either), who was the blacksmith for
Camp Grant, the United States army post ninety miles northward, or
fifty-five miles the other side of Tucson.
But the region close around Camp Grant was a sandy pocket famous for
fever and ague as well as for other disagreeable features, such as
scorpions, tarantulas, ugly Gila monsters (thick, black, poisonous
lizards), heat and sand-storms; so that Joe had sent Jimmie down to
their friend Pete Kitchen, on a vacation.
Everybody, American, Mexican and Indian, in southern Arizona, knew the
Pete Kitchen ranch. It was noted for its battles with the Apaches who,
passing back and forth on their raids out of the mountains of Arizona
and Mexico both, were likely to plunder and kill, at any time. Sturdy
Pete had not been driven away yet, and did not propose to be driven
away.
Jimmie himself was pretty well used to Apaches. They prowled about Camp
Grant, and attacked people on the road from Tucson, and frequently the
soldiers rode out after them. Joe Felmer had married an Apache woman,
who was now dead; he spoke Apache and Jimmie had picked up a number of
the words; but there were plenty of unfriendly Apaches who every little
while ran off with Joe’s mules or filled his hogs with arrows.
On his back under the mesquite tree Jimmie was not thinking of Apaches.
He was idly surveying the country――at the same time having an ear
open to the musical tinkle of the bell-wether, who told him where the
sheep were straying. And a delightful, dreamy outlook this was, over
all those quiet miles of mountain and desert Arizona which only the
Southern stage-line traversed, and which, so thinly settled by white
people, the roving Apache Indians claimed as their own.
In his loose cotton shirt and ragged cotton trousers Jimmie felt very
comfortable. Presently his eyes closed, his head drooped, and he nodded
off, for forty or so winks.
He dozed, he was certain, not more than five minutes; or perhaps ten.
Then he awakened with a sudden start. Something had told him to awaken.
He sat up and looked to see that the sheep were all right. He could not
see one animal, but he heard the tinkle, tinkle. He twisted about to
find the old bell-wether――and he gazed full into the grinning face of
an Apache boy!
The Apache boy, who appeared to be fourteen or fifteen years old,
was not more than five yards from him――standing there beside a giant
cactus, naked except for a red cloth band about his forehead, and a
whitish cotton girdle about his middle, with the broad ends hanging
down before and behind, and regular Apache moccasins reaching like
leggins half way up his thighs for protection against the brush:
standing there, grinning, in his left hand a bow, in his right the
wether’s bell!
_He had been tinkling that bell!_ And a smart trick this was, too: to
sneak up on the wether, get the bell, and ring it to fool the herder
while other Apaches drove away the sheep!
For an instant Jimmie stared perfectly paralyzed with astonishment. He
could not believe his eyes. Instead of a staid old tame sheep, here
was a mischievous young wild Apache! Then, trying to utter a shout,
up he sprang, to run. On the moment he heard a sharp swish, the noose
of an Apache’s rawhide rope whipped about his shoulders, and right in
mid-step he was jerked backward so violently, head over heels, that he
had no time or breath for yelling a word.
Barely had he landed topsy turvy in the brush when a heavy body rushed
for him, a supple dark hand was clapped firmly over his mouth, and
hauled upright he was half dragged, half carried, through the mesquites
and the cactuses and around the slope of the hill.
Now he was flung, limp and dazed, aboard a pony, his captor mounted
into the saddle behind him, and away they tore, while the brush beneath
reeled by under Jimmie’s swimming eyes.
This was a fast ride until the sheep were overtaken. There they
were, almost the whole flock, being forced hotly onward by Apaches
afoot and ahorse, with other Apaches guarding the flanks. It looked
like a war party returning with plunder from Mexico. The bands about
the foreheads, the round rawhide helmets that some wore, the thigh
moccasins, the guns, bows, lances and clubs, proved that they were a
war party; and they had a lot of loose horses and mules besides the
Pete Kitchen sheep.
Jimmie sighted another captive――a Mexican boy, older than he, fastened
upon a yellow mule led by an Apache horseman.
A broad-shouldered, finely built Indian wearing an Apache helmet with
feathers sticking up from it, and riding a white horse, evidently was
the chief in command.
The grip of the Apache who held Jimmie had slackened. Jimmie managed
to squirm ’round enough to look up into the Apache’s face. In return
he got a grin, and two or three Apache words that said: “Good boy. No
fear.” These were common words with the “tame” Apaches who sometimes
came into Camp Grant or to Joe Felmer’s little ranch near by, so Jimmie
understood.
The country grew rougher and wilder and higher. By the sun Jimmie knew
that the course was generally eastward, and he guessed that these were
Chiricahua Apaches.
The Apache Indians, as almost anybody in Arizona could say off-hand,
were divided into the Chiricahuas and the Pinals and the Arivaipas
and the Coyotes and the White Mountains and the Apache-Mohaves and
the Apache-Yumas and the Tontos and the Mogollons, and the Warm
Spring Apaches and the Mimbres (of New Mexico), and the Jicarillas
(Heek-ah-ree-yahs) or Basket Apaches, who never came into Arizona; and
so forth.
The Tontos and Pinals, who were outlaws, and the Chiricahuas
(Chee-ree-cah-wahs), who were hard, thorough fighters, seemed to give
the most trouble. The Chiricahuas lived in the mountains of southern
Arizona and of northern Mexico.
The pines and cedars of the higher country were reached before dusk.
Not a tenth of the sheep had come this far. The most of them had been
left to die from heat and exhaustion. Now having passed through another
of their favorite narrow canyons, the Apaches halted, at dark, to camp
beside a trickle of water in a rocky little basin surrounded by crags
and timber.
This night Jimmie was forced to lie between two Apache warriors, the
one who had captured him, and a comrade; and he fitted so closely that
if he moved he would waken them. It was an uncomfortable bed, there
under a thin dirty strip of blanket, limited by those greasy, warm
bodies, and he was afraid to stir. But he was so tired that he slept,
anyway.
Very early in the morning the camp roused again. Apaches when on a raid
or when pursued were supposed to travel on only one meal a day and with
only three hours’ rest out of the twenty-four. So now on and on and on,
through all kinds of rough country they hastened, at steady gait and
speaking rarely――Jimmie riding a bareback horse.
In late afternoon they halted on the rim of a valley so deep and wide
that it was veiled in bluish-purple haze. On a rocky point three of the
Apaches started a fire of dried grass, and sent up a smoke signal by
heaping pitchy pine cones upon the blaze.
Chewing twigs and sucking pebbles to keep their mouths wet, the
Apaches, talking together and watching, waited, until a long distance
across the valley, whose brushy sides were thickly grown with the
mescal, or century plant cactuses, blooming in round stalks twenty feet
tall, a smoke column answered.
The Apaches tending to their own fire fed more pine cones to it, and
two of them rapidly clapped a saddle-blanket on and off the smoke, and
broke it into puffs. The smoke column across the valley puffed in reply.
The Apache boy who had played bell-wether pressed to Jimmie’s horse.
“Chi-cowah,” he said, pointing. That was Apache for “My home.”
Now the party appeared satisfied. They scattered their fire, and struck
down into a narrow trail that crossed the bottom of the valley. A
peculiar sweetish smell hung in the misted air. This, Jimmie guessed,
was from the steaming pits wherein the hearts of the mescal, or century
plants, were being roasted.
They glimpsed several squaws and children gathering foodstuff in the
brush. As they filed through a little draw or rocky pass they were
hailed loudly by an Apache sentinel posted above. He could not be seen,
but the chief replied. The pass opened into a grassy flat concealed by
the usual high crags and timbered ridges. Here was the Apache camp or
rancheria (ran-cher-ee-ah), located along a willow-bordered creek.
Fifty or sixty of the Apache brush huts or jacals were sprinkled all
up and down the flat, and as soon as the party entered, a tremendous
chorus of welcome sounded. Women shrieked, children screamed, dogs
barked and mules brayed. Right into the center of the camp marched the
party, and stopped.
A circle of staring women and children, and a few men, surrounded.
Other squaws bustled to take the horses and mules from the dismounting
warriors. Jimmie was told to get off. Feeling lonesome and miserable,
he saw close in front of him a boy who did not seem to be Indian at
all, for he had fiery red hair and brick-red freckles and only one eye,
which was blue!
Yes――a red-headed, one-eyed, blue-eyed boy, rather runty, in only
a whitish cotton girdle, and moccasins. Evidently he dressed that
way――or undressed that way――all the time, for his body and limbs were
burned darker than his face.
Jimmie was not granted much space for staring back into that one
blue eye. He was slapped upon the shoulder, “Aqui (Here)!” grunted
the chief, in Spanish, and strode on through the circle. So Jimmie
followed, hobbling at best speed.
The chief went straight to a scrub-oak tree, with a hut beneath it, and
an Apache sitting in the shade of it, on a deer hide before the hut. By
the manner with which Jimmie’s Apache spoke to the sitting Apache, who
did not rise, it was plain to be seen that the sitting Apache was the
principal chief, and that Jimmie’s Apache was maybe only a captain.
They talked for a moment in Apache, too fast for Jimmie to understand.
Then the sitting chief, who had been eying Jimmie sharply, addressed
him in simple Mexican-Spanish easy to catch.
He was not at all a bad-looking Apache. In fact, he was about the
finest Apache that Jimmie had ever met: a broad-chested six-footer,
like the captain chief, but large eyed and kindly faced and dignified.
“What is your name?”
“James Dunn.”
“No Mexicano?”
“Americano,” corrected Jimmie proudly.
“Your father Pete Keetchen?”
“No.”
“Where you live?”
“Camp Grant.”
“With soldiers?”
Jimmie reflected an instant. If he said “With Joe Felmer,” then
the chief would surely hold him as a great prize, for Joe Felmer,
Government scout as well as post blacksmith, was an important enemy.
So――――
“Sometimes,” asserted Jimmie, which was true.
“Why on Keetchen rancho?”
“Tend to sheep.” And Jimmie blushed when he recalled that he had been a
great sheep-herder!
“Pete Keetchen your father?”
“No!” repeated Jimmie. “No father, no mother.”
The head chief and the captain chief gazed at him as though they would
read his very thoughts. The captain chief had such piercing dark eyes
that they bored clear through. But he was a sure-enough Apache, with
straight black hair and dark chocolate skin, darker even than ordinary.
’Twas to be imagined that neither of the chiefs believed Jimmie’s
statements. They still suspected that he belonged to Pete Kitchen.
The head chief spoke abruptly.
“You ’Pache now. Ugashé (U-gah-shay)――go!”
Jimmie knew that he was dismissed, and he turned away. He was faint in
the stomach and weak in the knees, and he had no place in particular to
go, until he saw the Mexican boy captive sitting in the sun, with his
feet under him and his shanks high. Jimmie seized upon the opportunity
to talk with him, at last.
“What is your name?” he asked, squatting beside him. All Americans in
southern Arizona could speak some Spanish; Mexican-Spanish was as
common as English.
“Maria Jilda Grijalba (Maree-ah Heel-dah Gree-hal-bah).”
“Where did you live?”
“In Sonora” (which was in Mexico). “Where did you live?”
“Camp Grant――American fort, Arizona.”
“How far?”
Jimmie shrugged his shoulders.
“Do not know.”
“You do not live on the rancho?”
“For little while.”
“You have father, mother?”
“No. Apaches kill them.”
“My father, mother, brothers, sisters, all killed,” lamented Maria,
weeping. “Alas! All killed, by Apaches.”
“We run off, pretty soon?” proposed Jimmie.
“No!” opposed Maria, in much alarm. “Must stay. Be Apaches. They not
let us run off. Big country. Get lost and die. Get caught and be
killed.”
But Jimmie had made up his mind that he was not going to be an Apache;
he would escape if he could. Or maybe he would be rescued.
However, here came the captain chief, and the bell-wether Apache boy,
and the strange red-headed boy with the one blue eye.
“Ugashé!” roughly ordered the captain chief, of Maria. Poor Maria
obediently arose and shuffled away.
The captain spoke to Jimmie, and smiled. He, also was a fine-looking
Apache: almost six feet tall and straight and sinewy, with square face
and thin, determined lips, and those extraordinary sharp eyes.
Jimmie stood up.
“Chi-kis-n,” said the captain, and nodded aside at the bell-wether boy.
“Chi-kis-n” was Apache for “my brother.” The Apache boy grinned and
held out his hand.
“Chi-kis-n,” he greeted.
The red-headed, one-eyed boy explained in Spanish.
“Your name Boy-who-falls-asleep, his name Nah-che. But you must call
him chi-kis-n――my brother.”
“Muchos gratias (Many thanks),” answered Jimmie, shaking hands with
Nah-che. Nah-che was a stocky, round-faced boy, and Jimmie liked him in
spite of that trick with the sheep bell.
“The chief’s name is Go-yath-lay,” continued the red-headed boy. “He is
war-captain of the Chiricahua. Nah-che is son of Cochise, head chief.”
The war captain, who had been listening intently, trying to understand
the words, nodded, and spoke again in Apache.
“Your chi-kis-n will show you,” translated the red-headed boy, who knew
Spanish and Apache both.
“Aqui (Here),” bade Nah-che: and Jimmie followed him to one of those
regulation Apache jacals――a low round-topped hut made from willow
branches stuck in a circle and bent over to fasten together, with
pieces of deer hide and cow hide laid to cover the framework of the
sides, and flat bundles of brush to thatch the roof. The jacals
resembled dirty white bowls bottom-up. Each had a little opening, as a
door to be entered only by stooping half double.
Before the hut an Apache woman in a loose cotton waist worn outside a
draggled calico skirt was busy cooking. She stirred the contents of an
iron kettle, set upon a bed of coals in a small shallow pit. She threw
back her long, coarse black hair and scanned Jimmie curiously while
Nah-che spoke a few words to her.
Then repeating the title “chi-kis-n” Nah-che strolled away. The woman
smiled broadly at Jimmie, took him by the arm, and talking to him led
him inside the hut. The earth had been dug out, there, so that they
might stand, in the middle, and not strike their heads on the ceiling.
The woman made Jimmie remove his trousers and shoes; and leaving him
his ragged shirt tossed to him a pair of old moccasins.
Again out-doors, she gave him a mess of the stew, in a gourd bowl. The
stew was corn and beans cooked together, and was very good indeed, to a
hungry boy.
“Go,” she signed. “Come back at night.”
Here in the open, Jimmie felt rather odd, with nothing on but his shirt
and moccasins. Still, most of the boys and girls of his age, in the
village, had even less on. They were brown, though, and he was white,
which seemed to make a difference.
Some of the boys were playing at what appeared to be hide-and-seek
amidst the brush and trees and rocks; others were shooting with bows
and arrows. The little girls had dolls, of rags, and stuffed, painted
buckskin. They all viewed him out of their sparkling black eyes, and
the girls giggled the same as white girls.
Jimmie’s squaw shoved him from behind.
“U-ga-shé!” she ordered. “Go!”
After all, thought Jimmie, if he had to live here for a while, he might
better pretend to enjoy himself, until he got a good chance to escape.
So he boldly joined in the game of hide-and-seek. At first everybody
there let him alone. But he chased around, with the others, his shirt
flapping, and soon he was one of the “gang” and was being shouted at in
Apache.
The one-eyed boy and Nah-che and several others of that age stayed by
themselves, playing a game with raw-hide cards, and talking. They were
too old for foolishness.
This night Jimmie slept in the squaw’s hut. There was a feast and
dance, judging by the noise that he heard when awake. Nah-che came in
late. In the morning the red-headed boy went away on foot with three
Apaches who evidently had been visitors at the village; and as he
did not return during the day, he probably belonged somewhere else,
himself.
II
JIMMIE LEARNS TO BE APACHE
These were the principal band of the Cho-kon-en Apaches who were
called Chiricahua (“Great Mountain”) Apaches because of the Chiricahua
Mountains amidst which they lived. But Cho-kon-en was their own name.
The pleasant-faced Cochise was the head chief. He was about fifty-five
years old. The captain Go-yath-lay or “One-who-yawns” was the war
chief. He was forty years old. The Mexicans whom he had fought had
given him the name Geronimo (Her-_on_-i-mo), which is Spanish for
Jerome.
There were other bands of Chiricahuas, under other chiefs――Na-na
and Chihuahua (Chi-wah-wah) and Loco, and so forth. Na-na was the
oldest of all; he was nearly eighty, and had been wounded many times
in battle――yes, as many as fifteen times. Chihuahua was stout and
good-natured. Loco was thin and quite bow-legged.
In the Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico, which were the south end of
the Chiricahua Range, were the Nedni Apaches, under old Chief Juh, or
“Whoa.” Chief Cochise and Chief Juh frequently went to war together
against the Mexicans.
Northeastward, or in western New Mexico lived the Chi-hen-ne――the
Ojo Caliente (Oho Cal-i-en-te) or Warm Spring Apaches, under Chief
Victorio. With Chief Victorio’s people the Cochise people had long been
as brothers.
The woman who had charge of Jimmie was Nah-da-ste. She was a sister of
Geronimo. Her husband had been killed in battle with the Mexicans. The
warrior who had captured Jimmie was Geronimo’s younger brother Porico,
or “White Horse.”
Nah-che, Jimmie’s chi-kis-n, was the youngest son of Chief Cochise.
Geronimo the war chief liked him very much. His name meant “meddlesome,”
for he had been a mischievous baby. In about three years, or when he was
seventeen, if he had proved himself worthy in the hunt and on the long
trail, he would be admitted into the councils as a warrior.
The same with another boy, Chato. He was called Chato, or “Flat-nose,”
because he had been kicked in the face by a mule.
Taza, Nah-che’s elder brother, already was a warrior and would be
head chief, probably, after Cochise his father died. But that was not
certain; head chiefs were elected and not born.
As for the red-headed, one-eyed blue-eyed boy――――
“His name is Red-head,” said Nah-che. “He is not one of us. He is part
Mexican and part American. He was captured a long time ago by some of
our men, but he lives with the White Mountains now, in the north. The
White Mountains are at peace, on their land where the new American fort
is being built.”
Jimmie rapidly learned Apache, although many of the Chiricahuas spoke
Spanish. He soon had lost his shirt, and went about with only a rag
around his waist. Everybody in the Cochise camp was kind to him. He
was an Apache boy, now. The Apaches never whipped their children, nor
punished them in any way except by scolding.
The little children were made to help in the fields where corn and
squash and beans and melons were raised; and went with their mothers
to gather seeds and berries and acorns and mescal――for the Apaches ate
curious things.
The girls played with dolls, and at housekeeping and tended to the
babies, of which there were many. The boys of nine and ten, Jimmie’s
age, and over, worked some, but they were encouraged to use the bow and
arrow, and throw the lance, and practice at war and at the hunt, so as
to train them as warriors and to strengthen their muscles.
The war game was the best sport. Some of the boys pretended to be
Mexicans. The others remained Apaches. The “Mexicans” were given a
head-start, into the brush and timber, and the “Apaches” set out to
find their trail and to surprise them.
Although the “Mexicans” did everything they might think of, to conceal
their tracks and to get away, they always were discovered. Then by
running and sneaking and crawling flat with grass and cactus tied to
their heads the “Apaches” proceeded to ambush the “Mexicans.” Then the
“Apaches” yelled and shot fast with light arrows, and the “Mexicans”
were killed or captured.
Turkeys were caught by running after them up hill and down until they
were so tired that they could not fly, and were killed by a blow from a
club on the neck. Rabbits were chased, too, and surrounded by a circle
of boys armed with bows and clubs; and they, too, were killed.
All these sports made the Apache boys fleet of foot and quick of eye
and arm, and very strong in lungs and legs.
The Apaches had curious customs as well as curious food.
“You must never ask a Tinneh (‘Tinneh’ was the Apache’s own title; it
meant ‘man’) his name,” explained Nah-che. “Only somebody else may
speak it. If he spoke it, he would have bad luck.”
And――――
“You must never speak of the bear or the mule or the snake or the
lightning unless you say Ostin Shosh (Old Man Bear), or Ostin Mule or
Ostin Snake or Ostin lightning. It is not well to talk about them or
the owl. They are medicine.”
And――――
“After you are married you must not look upon the face of your wife’s
mother. You must avoid meeting her or speaking to her. You must hide
your face or turn your back, or you will be disrespectful.”
And――――
“You must not eat fish meat, or the meat of the pig. They are bad.”
And――――
“When anyone dies we give away everything of his that we don’t burn. If
that was not done, then there might be persons of bad hearts who would
wish a relative to die so that they would get his property.”
And――――
“When I go on the trail as a warrior, for the first four times I must
not touch my lips to water. I must drink through a hollow reed, or I
will spoil the luck of the whole party. And I must not scratch my head
with my fingers. I must use a scratch stick.”
War parties went out frequently, sometimes under Geronimo, sometimes
under Cochise also. The warriors marched on foot, as a rule, because
then they could climb and hide better. On foot an Apache could travel
forty to seventy-five miles at a stretch, which was as much as a horse
could do. No white man could equal an Apache, in covering rough country
and desert country.
The parties were sent out mainly against the Mexicans of Mexico, to
get plunder, although the Chiricahuas had no love for the Americans,
either, Nah-che explained again.
He was sitting, pulling the hairs from his chin and cheeks with a pair
of bone tweezers. It was unmanly for a warrior to have any hair on
his face, and Nah-che expected to be a warrior after he had made four
war-trails. Four was the lucky number, with the Apaches.
“We hate the Mexicans. They are bad,” said Nah-che. “They kill our
women and children, and pay for scalps. With the Americans it is like
this:
“When they first came into our country we were friendly to them. We
saw that they were different from the Mexicans, and they had been at
war with the Mexicans, too. They shot one of us, and offered to pay
a little something, which was not punishment enough. Still we did
not stay at war with them. Cochise made a camp near the American
wagon-road at Apache Pass, where Camp Bowie is now, and traded, and
sold wood. One time a Mexican woman and her baby were stolen by some
bad Indians from an American, and the Chiricahua were asked to return
them. We did not have them, or know anything about them, but Cochise
and Mangas Coloradas of the Mimbreño Apaches and some other chiefs went
with a white flag to meet a young American war chief at Apache Pass,
and talk.
“When they got there the American chief surrounded them with his
soldiers and told them that they would be kept shut in a tent until
they sent and got the baby and woman. They decided they would rather be
killed than be kept prisoners. So they drew their knives, and Cochise
cut a hole through the back of the tent, and there was a fight. Several
were killed. But Cochise and Mangas Coloradas escaped. Cochise was
wounded in the knee by a gun knife (bayonet). The Americans hung his
brother and five others, by the neck, and Cochise hung an American by
the neck; and he and Mangas Coloradas called all their warriors and
nearly captured the Americans. The young American captain had acted
very foolish.
“After two or three years Mangas Coloradas (this was Spanish for ‘Red
Sleeves’) grew tired of fighting. He was badly wounded, and he sent
word that he would like to treat for peace. The Americans told him to
come in with his people. Cochise had married his sister, and we and the
Mimbreños often helped each other, and now Cochise advised him not
to trust the word of the Americans. But Mangas Coloradas went to an
American fort in New Mexico.
“Then they seized him and put him into a little house with only one
window, high up. The soldiers scowled at him; so that when he was put
into the little house he said to himself: ‘This is my end. I shall
never again hunt through the valleys and mountains of my people.’ And
that was so. This night while he was asleep somebody from outside threw
a big rock down on his chest――or else a soldier guard punched him with
a hot knife on the end of a gun. We do not know. Anyway, he was much
frightened. He ran about, trying to climb out and fight with his hands
and then the soldiers shot him many times, and he died.
“Now you see that the Chiricahua cannot be friends with the Americans
any more than with the Mexicans, and it is so with other Tinneh. The
Warm Springs are friendly, because Chief Victorio thinks that is wise;
and the Sierra Blanca (White Mountains) have agreed not to fight. But
they have not lost chiefs and brothers like we have.”
This was the way the Chiricahua Apaches thought. But of course there
were two sides to the quarrel. Joe Felmer and Pete Kitchen and other
pioneers had claimed that old Mangas Coloradas had been a regular
bandit who never intended to stay at peace. He had tortured and killed
men and women and children, and was determined to drive all the
Americans out of the country. Once he had been captured by miners and
tied up and whipped, which had made him worse.
He had lived to be seventy years old, and although even Pete Kitchen
did not wholly approve of the manner with which he had been disposed
of, it was a great relief to have him out of the way. Maybe he might
have been educated to stay at peace, and maybe not.
But now that the Chiricahuas hated the Americans and Mexicans both,
Jimmie saw little chance of escape.
Maria the Mexican boy had settled down to be an Apache. All his folks
had been killed, and he said that he might as well live with the
Apaches. He had plenty to eat and little to do; and he thought that he
would marry an Apache girl, when he was old enough, and stay Apache.
The Red-head boy who lived with the White Mountain Apaches came in once
or twice, to visit, while out hunting or just scouting around. He could
not speak English. His father had been Irish and his mother Mexican,
and Spanish had been the only language used in his home. Since the
Apaches had captured him eight or nine years ago he had learned Apache,
too.
“Are you going to stay Apache, Red-head?” asked Jimmie.