May 15, in a little box canyon there was sudden excitement among the
cavalry ahead of the Monach pack-train. Jimmie, first in line at one
side behind the “bell,” saw the Indian runner dart down the slope, into
the trail, and hand a note to the general.
The general read it. Lieutenant Febiger hastened back to Major Chaffee,
and instantly the trumpet pealed “Mount!” Into their saddles vaulted
the troopers. Down to the pack-trains galloped Lieutenant West.
“Close up your outfits!” he shouted. “Be prepared for action.
Crawford’s scouts have struck the hostiles.”
“Hooray!” That was good news. Afterwards it was learned that the
foremost scouts had discovered some Chiricahuas in a canyon, had fired
upon two men and a woman, and had frightened the rest away. The runner
had brought the note six miles across the mountains in less than an
hour.
“Listen to that!” yelped Martin, the cook, from the “bell.”
Distant rifle-shots sounded faintly. It was a battle! Captain
Crawford’s scouts and the Chiricahuas were fighting!
The reports welled faster. Every ear was keen set. Major Chaffee’s
cavalry had quickened pace, each trooper erect in his saddle; the
pack-mules were being forced more compactly, ready for corralling
should the cavalry leave; the general, in the advance with his aides,
clearly was impatient for the country to open out and the battle-field
be sighted.
“Bet they got away, dog-gone it!” yelled back Cook Martin. For
presently the firing dwindled to spatters, and ceased. Shucks!
“Anyhow, the old man’ll keep agoin’,” voiced the packer behind Jimmie.
“There’s a nice moon for huntin’ Injuns, an’ we can live on what those
bronc’s are throwin’ away!”
So it was plod, plod, up and down, and down and up. The troopers
dismounted, to lead their horses.
Toward dusk a great smoke was to be seen several miles away, on a high
mountain-side. The pack-train guessed that a Chiricahua rancheria was
being cleaned up.
The horizon over there flared into red, and while supper was being
eaten, in camp under a glorious full moon, here came Captain Crawford
and his scouts at last, both afoot and ahorse. They brought also
forty-seven horses loaded with plunder, and five prisoners――two boys,
two girls, and a woman.
Alchisé acted rather disgusted, but Micky Free was joyful.
“Hello, Cheemie,” he greeted, as he and others of the scouts squatted
near the camp-fires, to eat again. “We had good fun. It was Chato’s and
Bonito’s rancherias. Alchisé and Sibi are mad because we shot too soon,
and the Chiricahua ran off. We killed nine and captured those five. We
didn’t catch any more. The country was very rough, and they hid. But we
set the rancherias on fire. There were thirty houses. And to-morrow we
get more Chiricahua.”
“Wasn’t the little white boy there, Micky?”
“Yes, he was there, the squaw says. His name Carlos (Charles); six
years old. He was with some old squaws and they ran off with him. But
she says she can find them in two days. Loco and Chihuahua want to come
back to the reservation; maybe Geronimo and Chato and Nah-che; Whoa
still thinks bad.”
“Where is Geronimo?” asked Frank Monach, in Spanish.
“Nearly all the Chiricahua men are down in the south, hunting Mexicans.
They will be surprised when they know the Cluke men have found where
they live, and that Pa-na-yo-tish-n had led us so straight. We now are
inside and they are outside. Inju!”
Everybody was much disappointed that little Charley McComas had
disappeared. If some of the younger scouts had not shot first without
orders the rancherias might have been surrounded and Charley rescued.
However, the captured squaw seemed to be certain that she could find
the older squaws who had him. Early in the morning she was sent away,
with one of the boy prisoners and two days’ rations. She promised she
would tell the Chiricahuas it was no use to fight.
This was a cold, rainy day, which made the waiting disagreeable.
At night ice formed. In the morning a smoke signal was seen. The
general ordered that it be answered. “Peaches” guided to a better
camping-place, where there were grass and running water.
Another smoke signal was sent up, but only a few squaws and children
came in. The squaws said that some other squaws had Charley McComas.
One of the women was the sister of Chief Chihuahua (or Bonito). She
stated that all the Chihuahua band would surrender as soon as her
brother could get them together.
“The idee of the gen’ral is, not to do any more fightin’, if he can
help it, till that white kid is fetched along,” explained Martin, the
cook for the Monach pack-train and officers’ mess. “That’s what Cap’n
Bourke says. You see, the leetle fellow’s with the Chihuahua band.”
The next day Chihuahua (Bonito) himself came boldly in, to say that he
would surrender his people as soon as he could get word to them all.
They were tired of fighting and hiding.
“That is good,” answered the general. “I have soldiers and scouts
enough to fight the Chiricahuas as long as they wish to fight. Those I
do not kill or capture I will drive into the Mexican soldiers who are
coming up from the south.”
“I speak only for my own band,” answered Chihuahua. “They will make
peace, but I do not know what Geronimo and Whoa will do. If you will
let me take two of my young men and go out again, I can hurry my people
in faster.”
“They must bring the white boy.”
“I will tell them so,” said Chihuahua.
Chihuahua did good work, for the Chiricahuas kept gathering until there
were one hundred and twenty-one in camp. But they had not brought
Charley McComas, and none of the Geronimo men had turned up.
Then, at eight o’clock in the morning, a tremendous outburst of shouts
and screeches sounded from some high cliffs above the camp. More
Apaches were jumping about among the rocks there, as if much astonished.
“Geronimo!” exclaimed Micky, running.
The camp sprang to arms.
“What is the matter?” were yelling the Chiricahuas above, to the
Chiricahuas below.
“The white war-captain has us. We fight no more,” called the
Chiricahuas who had surrendered. “It is no use. Our own people fight
against us.”
Two old squaws clambered half-way down.
“Ask the white war-captain if we will be hurt?” they screamed.
The general sent out Micky and Scout To-klani (Plenty Water) and one of
the Chihuahua Chiricahuas. To-klani’s sisters belonged to the Chihuahua
band, and the Chiricahuas all knew him.
“The white war-captain says that he does not care whether you surrender
or not,” announced To-klani. “Chihuahua has surrendered. We are only
waiting till the rest of his people and the little white boy come in.
If you come you will not be harmed, but if you do not come you will be
killed.”
This set the Chiricahuas on the cliff to thinking. Evidently now that
they had found their best camping-place occupied, and so many of the
other Chiricahuas surrendered, they did not know quite what to do.
As Frank Monach remarked: “That’s a heap joke. Expect we look mighty
comfortable, at our little love-feast.”
Within about an hour, the Apaches came down. It was Geronimo, all
right――he, and Nah-che, and Chato, and thirty-three warriors. They all
carried the latest model repeating rifles, and the best nickle-plated
revolvers, and they stared about very uneasily.
They began to ask questions of the scouts; Nah-che sighted Jimmie, and
sidled over to him.
“Chi-kis-n,” he said.
“Chi-kis-n,” replied Jimmie.
“The last time I saw you I talked straight,” proceeded Nah-che. “Now I
ask you to talk straight, for we are men. I want to know how you came
in here, with so many soldiers and Apaches and mules, while we were out
hunting the Mexicans. What does Cluke intend to do?”
“We came in easily, because the White Mountain who was one of Chato’s
men showed us the road. But the Gray Fox would have brought us anyway.
The American soldiers can hunt Apaches in Mexico, and the Mexican
soldiers can hunt Apaches in the United States. That is arranged.
If Geronimo will not surrender, let him try to fight. The other
Chiricahuas are going back to the reservation. Geronimo will not last
long. His own people are against him, and he cannot hide any more in
Mexico.”
“That sounds bad,” uttered Nah-che; and he walked away very downcast.
The general was saying the same thing, and other things, to Geronimo.
“You should have had more sense than to leave because of a few
troubles,” he scolded severely. “There is always some trouble in a big
camp of Indians. I want to know what those troubles were, so that I may
correct them. I shall not talk long with you; you must make up your
mind for peace or war. You can see for yourself that I am not afraid of
you. I have come in here, where you thought I could not come, and I am
not even taking your arms from you. You are free to stay or go. If you
decide to stay and march with the other Chiricahua to the San Carlos,
you will not be harmed.
“You have done things for which you ought to be arrested; but if you
will promise to behave yourself and work, I will see to it that you are
placed wherever you choose, on the reservation. I will make soldiers
of your own men, to keep peace in your camp. The ugly long-nosed man
(who was Lieutenant Gatewood) shall select them, and he will be your
officer. He will see to it that you get whatever you are entitled to
get.
“But if you do not go back with me, then it will be war. I will cover
all this country with soldiers and scouts, and the Mexicans and the
Americans and the scouts will hunt you down without stopping. Now I
have spoken. I ask you to leave me and to think this over, and talk
with your men. Then you must tell me what you have decided, for I do
not want there to be any misunderstanding.”
The council broke up. Geronimo appeared rather downcast, too. The rest
of the day he and his people kept by themselves. Even Nah-che did not
come over again. It was an anxious period, for the Geronimo band were
able to put up a hard fight still, and the camp was full of Chiricahuas.
“What do you think Geronimo will do, Micky?” asked Jimmie.
“He is a smart man, and likes to talk,” answered Micky. “He is a
war-captain. But when he sees that he is talking alone, he will quit.
Cluke’s words stung him, for no chief likes to be talked at like
that. I looked for a fight right away, and so did Sibi. There was no
fight――it would have been a good fight, though, with so many Chiricahua
all around us. Now I think that if Geronimo is still here, in the
morning, it means peace.”
Everybody――soldiers, scouts and packers――slept with one eye and one ear
open, this night. But in the morning Geronimo asked the general for
another talk. It seemed as though the decision had been made.
“I have thought deeply, and have talked with my people,” said Geronimo.
“We were not well treated at San Carlos, but if you will be good to
us we will do as you tell us to do. The white man does not see as the
Apache sees, and yet you have made me feel that I have done wrong. I
will go with you to the San Carlos. But first I ask you to order me to
send out for the rest of my people. They are much scattered, and they
have many ponies and cattle which belong to them; but if they see only
signals they will think them to be signals set by your scouts, to fool
them. And if I go away and leave them, then the Mexicans will kill
them.”
“You must try to find the white boy,” reminded the general.
“I will do exactly as you say,” replied Geronimo.
“Is it peace, chi-kis-n?” inquired Jimmie, of Nah-che.
“It is peace,” answered Nah-che; but he did not smile.
“Hooray!” cheered Long Jim Cook. “That was a tall bluff on the
gen’ral’s part, I reckon; but it worked. For a while we were in a bad
box, with the camp runnin’ over with Chiricahua, an’ thirty or forty
fightin’ bronc’s up on those cliffs, ready to rake us. I wouldn’t trust
all these scouts, in a pinch, either. They’ve got too many kin, in the
hostiles.”
“D’you suppose Geronimo has somethin’ up his sleeve, still?” proposed
Martin the cook, to Frank Monach. “He acts awful agreeable.”
XXIII
GERONIMO PLAYS SMART
“To-morrow we go home,” declared Micky Free, to Jimmie and Nah-che.
They three had been messing together, as old friends.
It was the afternoon of May 23. Two days had passed since Geronimo
had decided upon peace. He had kept his word, for the Chiricahuas had
continued to come in――crippled old Nana himself had arrived this very
morning――all the chiefs and captains were here except Juh, and Juh, or
Whoa, need not be expected. He and his band of one man and two squaws
had gone farther south.
Even Ka-e-ten-na (The Looking-glass), who was a young war-captain
of the Mexican Chiricahuas, part of Whoa’s people, had come in. Now
rations were being issued by Lieutenant Gatewood to two hundred and
fifty extra persons, including a dozen Mexicans――forlorn women and
children whom the Chiricahuas had brought with them. But, alas――――
“Don’t we wait for Charley McComas?” demanded Jimmie.
“The white boy?” And Micky shook his red head. “No. It is too late. He
is lost. If we wait longer, there will be no food. Too many people eat.”
“Doesn’t Chato know where he is?”
“Chato says not,” answered Nah-che. “He was left with the women. We
have asked the women. They say that on the first day, when Chato’s
rancheria was attacked, the little white boy ran into the bushes.
Nobody has seen him again. He did not come out. Then there were rains
that washed his trail. It was eight days ago, and we think he is dead.”
The general had questioned the Chiricahuas closely. They all stuck
to the one story, and seemed to be speaking the truth. Six-year-old
Charley probably had been so frightened that he had run until exhausted
and lost in the dense brush. No trace of him was ever discovered.
When the general finally issued the order that camp should be broken in
the morning, and the start made for San Carlos, Geronimo was smiling
and ready. He asked only that the first marches be slow, so that the
Chiricahuas who were still out might catch up. There seemed to be no
end of those Chiricahuas who were still “out.”
“We expect you to protect us from the Mexican soldiers,” said Geronimo.
“My old men and women who are coming cannot fight.”
“I will protect you,” promised the general.
This appeared to make Geronimo happy and satisfied.
However, in the morning a sudden delay occurred. The pack-trains were
loaded and waiting, the cavalry had formed, all the Chiricahuas were
herded together, the scouts were on the flanks, but the general had
sent for Geronimo――was talking earnestly to him.
Presently Archie MacIntosh came trotting back, ahorse, as if with an
eye to seeing that everything was closed up.
“What’s the trouble ahead, Archie?” hailed Frank.
Archie grinned from his sun-burned face, and paused.
“Just been discovered we’re about a hundred bucks shy. They disappeared
between sunset and sunrise. Looks as though that old rascal of a
Geronimo had put one over on us.”
“Hi! I said he had somethin’ up his sleeve,” chuckled Long Jim Cook.
“Where they gone? After plunder, I bet you!”
“Of course,” declared Archie. “And the general’s raising Cain. He says
to Geronimo: ‘Those bucks of yours are riding south to steal horses and
cattle from the Mexicans.’ And Geronimo, he just smiles and says: ‘Oh,
they wouldn’t rob anybody. They’re looking for some of our own horses
and cattle that we’ve left.’ And the general says: ‘I won’t allow you
to take any stolen stock across the border. I’d be court-martialed for
it.’ And Geronimo says: ‘Don’t bother with that. All those Mexicans
are good for, is to grow horses and cattle for the Apaches. We will
ride on slowly. But if there is any trouble with the Mexicans, you have
promised to protect us. Besides, it will be several days before my men
come to join us.’ So the general, he’s regularly up a stump.”
And that was true. For the time being the wily Geronimo had outwitted
him. Without doubt most of the able-bodied warriors had ridden away for
the purpose of making one last raid, and returning to the reservation,
rich!
The march north was begun. The procession stretched for more than a
mile――the old men and old women, the wounded, and the little children
riding upon ponies, the women afoot packing great bundles, and many
carrying cottonwood boughs to shield their heads from the fierce sun.
Soon the Chiricahuas numbered three hundred, the majority women and old
men and children. The herd of horses and cattle steadily grew. Near the
border a dozen warriors caught up, at night; they brought fifty horses.
But at the camp across the border the warriors, driving herds of stock,
joined in streams, and the general found that he had three hundred and
sixty-three Chiricahuas and over one thousand horses and mules and cows
bearing Mexican brands!
“Every one of those must be turned back into Mexico,” he ordered.
“No,” replied Geronimo. “They belong to us. We bring them, so that we
can go to farming, as you ask us to do. Who cares what a lot of howling
Mexicans say?”
Mexicans, lawyers and angry ranchers claiming horses and cows were
threatening to sue the United States, and General Crook, for helping to
steal Mexican stock. But many of the brands had been changed over, and
there were disputes without end, the Mexicans and the Chiricahuas both
claiming all the cattle.
So the only way out of the muddle was, to drive the stock to San
Carlos, and sell it, and send the money to the United States treasury.
Then the Mexicans who could prove their claims should be paid.
This did not please Geronimo.
“The Chiricahua will not understand, and they will not forget,” said
Maria Jilda, who was at the border camp. “You will chase Geronimo and
Nah-che again, Jeemie.”
“Well, I shorely hope not,” quoth Frank Monach. “Hope we get a chance
to rest up, anyhow. The general and Sieber look about tuckered.”
And that was so. After five hundred miles of travel through the
roughest of mountain country, in heat and cold and dry and wet, even
General Crook seemed to be worn out.
He kept his word with the Chiricahuas. Geronimo and the other chiefs
were permitted to choose their own lands, and settled with their
people, five hundred and twelve in number, south of Fort Apache. It was
a fine country, too, on the head-waters of Turkey Creek.
The general obtained orders from Washington that all the Chiricahuas
should be placed under his control. This was thought by Arizona to be
a very good plan, because the Chiricahuas, like the other Apaches, had
much faith in “Cluke.”
As the governor said, in an annual message to the legislature: “The
Indians know General Crook and his methods, and respect both.”
Jimmie stuck at Fort Bowie. He had been appointed pack-master, there,
and this was quite a job for a boy scarcely twenty-one years old. But
he felt as though he had grown up in the service; and old Jack Long
had started him off well.
Captain Crawford was in military charge of the San Carlos reservation.
Micky Free was over there, too, as a sergeant of the Indian police.
Lieutenant Gatewood was stationed in the Chiricahua camp at Turkey
Creek, just as the general had promised. Maria Jilda took up a ranch;
he said that he was tired of scouting and interpreting. Al Sieber, as
chief of scouts, divided his time between San Carlos and Fort Apache;
and where Archie MacIntosh went, Jimmie did not know.
But there was no opportunity for being lonesome at Fort Bowie.
Pack-train duties kept a fellow hopping, if he tried to have a crack
outfit――and the only outfits tolerated by the quarter-master’s
department under General Crook were crack ones. Supplies had to be
packed in from the railroad, fifteen miles, and there were scoutings
and practice marches.
For the remainder of 1883 everything seemed to be quiet. Reports stated
that Geronimo and all the Chiricahuas were farming and doing famously,
and that the White Mountains, on the other side of Fort Apache, were
getting rich by selling their barley and hay to the post and to the
towns.
Then, as the months of 1884 rolled by, troubles appeared on the
surface. The military and the Indian Bureau employes did not agree. The
military officers, like Captain Crawford and Lieutenant Gatewood, had
charge of the Chiricahua prisoners, but the Indian agent had charge of
the other Indians. The military was obliged to keep order at San Carlos
and the Fort Apache reservation, both, but the Indian agent had the
authority to direct the farming. The Chiricahuas had been encouraged by
General Crook to mingle with the peaceful White Mountains, and all the
Indians preferred the soldiers to the civilians.
The White Mountains and Chiricahuas complained that they were not
getting their rightful amount of meat from the agent. The man sent out
to see, reported that they were getting everything.
Captain Crawford did not agree with the report. The Indian Bureau asked
that he be removed. He demanded a court-martial. The court-martial
found that he was honest and correct; and that the Apaches, instead
of getting one thousand cows, had been assigned only six hundred
poor ones, with the promise that the rest should be delivered “when
required.”
But Captain Crawford was powerless in the matter, and the Apaches could
not understand why there should be two fathers over them.
In May young chief Ka-e-ten-na went “bad.” He was the Mexican Apache
chief who had surrendered; now he made ready to run away, with a band
of other restless Chiricahuas, into Mexico again.
General Crook was at West Point, to address the graduating class there.
However, Ka-e-ten-na was arrested by his own people, and was tried
the same as a white man, and sentenced to be “shut up till he learned
sense.” He was sent to the United States military prison on Alcatraz
Island, in San Francisco Bay, for a year; and this proved a very
good plan, the same as the cases of Santos and Pedro and old Miguel;
because after he had seen how powerful the Americans were and what a
great city they had, he was cured of wishing to live wild.
“He is only one, though,” said Micky Free, this fall, while at Bowie on
a scouting trip with Tom Horn who was Al Sieber’s right-hand man. “Sibi
thinks that all the Chiricahua would better be sent to prison. So does
Tom. They have had a talk with Geronimo, and the only way to do is to
send all the Chiricahua out of Arizona, quick.”
XXIV
PACK-MASTER JIMMIE MEETS A SURPRISE
“Will there be trouble again, Micky?”
“Of course,” laughed Micky scornfully. “Everybody in Arizona knows
that. You see it yourself, Cheemie. You read the talking papers. The
talking papers of Mexico say that the Chiricahua from Arizona are
sneaking down there and stealing cattle. That is true. Even Gatewood is
getting afraid. He is losing Chiricahua all the time; they go somewhere
and his counts are always different. I think he will move to Fort
Apache. It is only twelve miles, and he will be safer.
“The Geronimo Chiricahua see that the San Carlos Apaches and the White
Mountains are unhappy, with two fathers bossing them. So they trade
their goods for whiskey and guns. Sibi went to Geronimo and asked him
what he was planning to do. Geronimo said: ‘It is no use to lie to
you, Sibi. You read my thoughts. The truth is this: When my men came
up with Cluke from Mexico they expected to go back every little while,
to get horses and cows. There is no harm in stealing cattle from those
Mexicans. Besides, Cluke took away the cattle that we first brought up.
If my men are not allowed to do that, they would rather live in Mexico
and act as they please. It is only my talk that holds them, and some
day they won’t listen.’
“To hear Geronimo pretend peace talk would make a mule laugh,”
concluded Micky. “Now because Cluke is in Washington we have come down
here with Tom Horn, and Sibi who has a lame leg is coming in a wagon.
They will talk with Bourke. Sibi says to capture all the Chiricahua and
send them far away. That will end war. But I guess it won’t be done.”
Captain Bourke――who had been promoted to major――was at Bowie, waiting
for the general to return from Washington. The general had gone to
Washington in the hopes of getting more authority to deal with the
Apaches.
He did not succeed. All this fall and winter of 1884 the War Department
and the Interior Department could not agree upon the control of the
reservations.