WICHITA BILLINGS
WHEN morning dawned it did not find Nejeunee tied before the tepee of
Ish-kay-nay, for the pinto stallion was far away upon the war trail with
his savage master. Word had come to Geronimo, even while Shoz-Dijiji and
Ish-kay-nay were making love in the woods, that troops from San Carlos
were looking for him, the bodies of the three prospectors having been
discovered by two Navajo scouts in the employ of the government.
Immediately the peaceful camp of the Be-don-ko-he became the scene of
hurried preparation for flight and for the war trail. A scouting party
of a dozen braves was dispatched in the direction from which the troops
might be expected, to watch and report their movements; if necessary, to
hold them in check while the main body of the Be-don-ko-he, with their
women, their children, their pony herd and their camp equipment made
good their escape across the line into Mexico.
Hurriedly were war bands adjusted, grim faces streaked with pigment,
weapons looked to, ponies caught and bridled. For the first time as a
warrior Shoz-Dijiji prepared for the war trail. Across his swart face,
from ear to ear, he painted a broad band of vermilion, laying on the
pigment boldly with the index finger of his right hand, stooping low
toward the light of a little fire, his features reflected in a small
round mirror held in his left hand. Above and below the vermilion band
he laid a coat of blue, the base of which was a ground micaceous stone.
A single necklace adorned his throat and two small silver rings were in
his ears.
Attached to his person and concealed from view was his tzi-daltai,
wrapped in a three-inch square of buckskin upon which were painted
crooked lines of red and yellow, depicting the red snake and the yellow.
This phylactery was in itself big medicine and very sacred; it added to
the potency of his tzi-daltai, rendering that amulet all-powerful. In
addition to the tzi-daltai the phylactery contained a bit of sacred
turquoise, and a tiny cross of lightning-riven pine, which Shoz-Dijiji
called intchi-dijin, the black wind. Upon these things no alien eye
might look without destroying their efficacy. For this reason the little
package was securely hidden in the folds of his loin cloth.
Upon his legs Shoz-Dijiji drew his long war moccasins with their rawhide
soles and protecting toe armor, their tops, three feet long, he turned
down from just below the knee, thus still further protecting the lower
leg from the sharp spines of the cactus. Slender thongs of buckskin,
leading from the moccasin tops to the belt of his loin cloth, kept the
former from falling down around his ankles. A pair of cotton drawers
encased his legs and a quiet-hued print shirt covered his torso, its
skirts falling outside the drawers. There was a cartridge belt around
his waist and a six-shooter and a butcher knife at his hips, but he also
carried his beloved bow and arrows as well as the rifle he had taken
from the white prospector.
Shoz-Dijiji preferred the nakedness of a single loin cloth, for thus it
had been his wont to go in all weathers since he wore anything at all,
but custom seemed to demand these other things of full fledged warriors,
though all were accustomed to discard them upon the eve of battle, and
as he had just attained the status of the warrior class he felt it
incumbent upon him to uphold its traditions even to the point of making
himself supremely uncomfortable in hated shirt and drawers. However, the
party had been upon the trail but a short time before he discovered that
the drawers wrinkled and chafed him and they were discarded with no
regrets; and later in the day he removed his shirt and gave it to
Gian-nah-tah.
“It makes me look like a pindah lickoyee,” he confided to his friend.
“In it I do not feel free. I shall not wear it.”
His bronzed hide, naked to the elements almost from birth, little felt
the hot rays of the sun, thus eliminating the only practical reason why
an Apache should wear a shirt at all. Thus Shoz-Dijiji rode almost
naked—except for moccasins, G-string and head-bandanna he was quite
naked. Beneath his bandanna he wore the war band about his brow
confining his black hair, slicked smooth with tallow. It was not long
after the shirt went that he removed the bandanna, breathing a sigh of
relief, for now Shoz-Dijiji was himself again.
Before dawn the party had separated, the braves, in pairs, moving at
right angles to their original line of march, and in both directions,
forming at last a thin line of scouts that surveyed from hidden vantage
spots a front of sixty miles extending east and west across the lines
the troops would naturally follow as they marched down from San Carlos.
Signals had been arranged and the rendezvous designated by the sub-chief
in command. The braves were to proceed as quickly as possible to certain
advantageous positions indicated by the sub-chief. There they were to
remain until they sighted troops, or received the signal that other
scouts had sighted them. They were to stay concealed and, if possible,
avoid battle.
Shoz-Dijiji was accompanied by Gian-nah-tah, and together they rode
through the night toward their appointed station, which they reached
shortly after dawn, making a slight detour to avoid a ranch house, and
coming at last to the rocky rim of a canyon through which led a
well-travelled road along which it was a foregone conclusion that troops
would pass if they followed a certain route to the border.
In lieu of a saddle Shoz-Dijiji rode astride a well-worn gray blanket.
This he removed from Nejeunee’s back after they had hidden the two
ponies in a narrow ravine a mile from the road. Coming to the rim of the
canyon Shoz-Dijiji lay flat upon his belly, his head at the very edge of
the summit of the precipitous wall of the canyon. Quickly Gian-nah-tah
draped the gray blanket about the black poll of his friend, sprinkled
dirt about its edges where they met the ground, leaving only a small
opening through which the keen eyes of the Black Bear might take in the
whole of the canyon below.
From the road the most suspicious might have looked carefully and seen
only another gray boulder upon the canyon’s rim. Gian-nah-tah, entirely
concealed from the sight of anyone passing through the canyon, watched
northward along the flank, where a careful and experienced Indian
fighter would send Indian scouts before permitting his command to enter
the narrow canyon, so eminently suited to sudden and disastrous ambush.
He also watched to east and west for the signal that would announce the
discovery of the enemy by another scout.
Patience is a quality of mind and will but vaguely sensed by civilized
races. The higher types of savages have it developed to a degree of
outstanding virtue, but perhaps of all peoples the North American
Indians have achieved it most closely to perfection, and of these it
remained for the Apaches to raise it to the pinnacle of highest
specialization. With Shoz-Dijiji as with his fellows it was a fine art
in which he took just pride.
Thus it was that for hours he could lie perfectly motionless, watching
the silent, deserted, dusty road below. No sound escaped his ears, no
odor, his nostrils; his eyes saw everything within the range of their
vision. No lizard moved, no insect crawled along its way that
Shoz-Dijiji did not see and note. A rattlesnake crossed the road and
disappeared among the rocks upon the other side; a horned toad, basking
in the sun, awaiting unwary flies, attracted his attention by its
breathing—so quiet and still were the surroundings that even the gentle
rising and falling of its warty hide attracted the quick eyes of the
Apache; a darting swift was as sure of detection as would an Indian
elephant have been.
And as he lay there his mind was occupied with many thoughts, mostly
somber, for the mind of the Apache inclines in that direction. This
background, however, was often shot with lights of a happier vein—with
recollections of Ish-kay-nay and anticipations. He considered,
pridefully, the traditions of his people, the glory of their past, the
exploits of their greatest warriors; he pondered the wrongs that had
been inflicted upon them by their enemies.
He recalled the tales of the murders committed upon them by Mexicans and
whites—the differentiation of color is strictly and solely Apachean—he
reviewed the numerous and increasing thefts of their ancestral lands.
These thoughts awakened within him no self-pity as they might have in an
Anglo-Saxon, so thoroughly had training and environment succeeded in
almost erasing hereditary inclinations; instead they aroused hatred and
a desire for vengeance.
His thoughts, gloomy or roseate, were suddenly interrupted by a faint
sound that came down out of the north. It grew in intensity, so that
Shoz-Dijiji knew that whatever caused it was approaching, and he knew
what was causing it, the feet of horses moving at a walk. Listening, he
determined that they were too few to announce the approach of a body of
troops. Perhaps a few scouts rode in advance. He waited, watching the
northern end of the canyon.
Presently three bearded men rode into view. They were not soldiers. They
were not cowboys. Shoz-Dijiji identified them as of that class of fools
who scratched around in arid hills for the yellow iron, pesh-litzogue.
He gazed down upon them with contempt. His fingers, resting upon his
rifle, twitched. What a wonderful target they presented! But he was
scouting and must forego this Usen-given opportunity. Of course the
sub-chief had only mentioned specifically the soldiers of the
white-eyes, when he had warned them against engaging the enemy.
Technically Shoz-Dijiji would be committing no disobedience were he to
rid the world of these three quite useless creatures; but he knew that
he had been sent here to watch for soldiers and for nothing else, so he
curbed his desire.
The floor of the canyon was dotted with boulders, large and small, among
which the road wound. Some of the boulders were larger than a large
tepee, offering splendid cover. Behind them more than one man had fought
and died, making his last stand.
Shoz-Dijiji was suddenly attracted by a sound coming from the south, a
rhythmical sound that announced the approach of a loping horse. Two of
the three men drew quickly behind a great boulder, the third behind
another on the opposite side of the road. The Apache waited, watching.
The loping horse drew nearer. He entered the lower end of the canyon and
presently came within the range of Shoz-Dijiji’s vision. Its rider was a
girl—a white girl.
Even from where he lay he saw that she was very good to look at. As she
came abreast of the three whites they rode directly into the road and
barred her passage, and as she sought to wheel her horse one of them
reached out and seized her bridle rein. The girl reached for a
six-shooter that hung at her hip, a cold, blue Colt; but another of the
three had slipped from his saddle and run to her side. Now he grasped
her wrist, tore the weapon from its holster and dragged the girl to the
ground. It was all done very quickly. Shoz-Dijiji watched. His hatred
for the men mounted.
He could hear the words that were spoken below and he understood them.
He heard the girl call one of the men by name, demanding that they
release her. He felt the contempt in her tone and a like sentiment for
them in his own breast aroused within him, unconsciously, a sense of
comradeship with the girl.
“Your old man kicked me out,” growled the man she had addressed. “You
told him to. I wasn’t good enough for you, eh? You’ll find I am. You’re
goin’ with me, but you ain’t a-goin’ as Mrs. Cheetim—you’re goin’ as
Dirty Cheetim’s woman. Sabe?”
The girl seemed very cool. Shoz-Dijiji could not but admire her. The
ethics of the proceedings did not interest him; but suddenly he became
aware of the fact that his interest was keenly aroused and that his
inclinations were strongly upon the side of the girl. He did not know
why. He did not attempt to analyze his feelings. He only knew that it
pleased him to interfere.
He heard the girl’s reply. Her voice was steady, level, low. It had a
quality that touched hidden chords within the breast of the Apache,
arousing pleasant reactions.
“You are a fool, Cheetim,” she said. “You know my old man. He will kill
you if he has to follow you to Hell to get you, and you know it.”
“They’ll be two of us in Hell then,” replied Cheetim. “Come on—git back
on that cayuse.” He jerked her roughly.
The barrel of a rifle slid quietly from beneath the edge of a gray
boulder at the top of the canyon’s wall; there was a loud report that
rebounded thunderously from wall to wall. Cheetim dropped in his tracks.
“Apaches!” screamed one of the remaining men and scrambled into his
saddle, closely followed by his companion. The girl’s horse wheeled and
ran toward the south. Another shot and one of the fleeing men toppled
from his saddle. The girl looked up to see a painted, all but naked
warrior leaping down the steep canyon side toward her. She reached for
her Colt, forgetting that it was gone. Then he was beside her. She stood
there bravely, facing him.
“Nejeunee,” announced Shoz-Dijiji, which means friend or friendly; but
the girl did not understand. He held out his hand; this she understood.
She took it, smiling.
“You sabe English?” she asked.
“No savvy,” lied Shoz-Dijiji. He picked up the Colt, where it lay beside
the dead Cheetim, and handed it to her.
“What your name?” demanded the girl.
“No savvy,” said Shoz-Dijiji.
She pointed a finger at her own breast. “Me, Wichita Billings,” she
announced, and then she pointed the finger at him, questioningly.
“Huh!” exclaimed the Apache. “Shoz-Dijiji,” and he pointed at his own
deep chest.
Without a word he turned and left her, walking south toward the end of
the canyon. The girl followed because in that direction lay the ranch of
her father. When she came in sight of the Apache again he had already
caught her horse and was leading it toward her. He handed her the bridle
rein, pointed toward the ranch and started at a swinging trot up the
side of the canyon. Being a wise girl and having lived in Indian country
since she was born, Wichita Billings put spurs to her horse and
disappeared around a bend in the canyon toward the squat, fortified
ranch house that was her home.
Why the Apache had befriended her she could not guess; but for that
matter Shoz-Dijiji could not guess either why he had acted as he had. He
knew what Geronimo or Juh would have done. He wondered why he had not
done likewise.
Halfway between the ranch and the canyon Wichita Billings met her father
and two of his ranch hands. Faintly they had heard the shots from the
direction of the canyon and knowing that the girl had ridden in that
direction they had started out to investigate. Briefly she told them
what had transpired and Billings was frankly puzzled.
“Must have been a reservation Indian on pass,” he decided. “Maybe some
buck we give grub to some time.”
Wichita shook her head. “I never seen him before,” she said, “and, Dad,
that siwash wasn’t on no pass, he was on the warpath—paint, fixin’s an’
all. He didn’t have nothin’ on but a G-string an’ moccasins, an’ he was
totin’ a young arsenal.”
“Ol’ Geronimo’s been out quite some time,” said one of the hands; “most
likely it was one of his Cheeracows. Wisht I’d a-been there.”
“What would _you_ a-done?” inquired the girl, contemptuously.
“They’d a-been one more good Injun,” boasted the man.
“Say, if you’d been there they couldn’t no one of seen your coat-tails
for the dust, Hank,” laughed the girl as she gathered her horse and
reined toward the ranch again. “Besides I think that buck was one pretty
good Indian, alive; the way he took my part against Cheetim.”
“They ain’t only one kind of a good Injun,” grumbled Hank, “an’ that’s a
dead one.”
From behind a distant boulder Shoz-Dijiji and Gian-nah-tah watched the
four as they rode toward the ranch. “Why did you let the woman go?”
asked Gian-nah-tah.
“Gian-nah-tah,” said Shoz-Dijiji, “this I may say to you because we are
for a long time friends and because Gian-nah-tah knows that the heart of
Shoz-Dijiji is brave: Shoz-Dijiji will never take the war trail against
women and children. That is for weaklings and women—not for a great
warrior.”
Gian-nah-tah shook his head, for he did not understand; nor, for that
matter, did Shoz-Dijiji, though each of them pondered the matter
carefully for a long time after they had returned to their respective
posts.
Gian-nah-tah, following the instructions of Shoz-Dijiji, watched now
carefully toward the ranch as well as for smoke signals from the east or
west, or for flankers sneaking down through the hills from the north;
and at last, far away in the west, a distant smoke rewarded his
watching. Faintly at first it arose, a thin gray column against the
azure sky, gained in volume, persisted steadily.
Gian-nah-tah crept to Shoz-Dijiji’s side, touched him and pointed. The
young warrior saw the distant shaft rising unwaveringly through the
still, midday air, calling the scattered bands to the rendezvous,
sending its message over an area as great as the whole state of West
Virginia, to be received with as varied emotions as there were eyes to
see it.
It told the savage vedettes where the soldiers of the pindah lickoyee
were marching toward the border and where to gather to harass and delay
them; it brought an oath to the lips of a grizzled man in dusty blue who
rode at the head of a weary, dust-choked column, for it told him that
the wily enemy had sighted him and that the clans were gathering to
oppose him upon some well-selected field of their own choosing. To the
far scattered cowman and miner it cried: “The hostiles are on the
warpath!” and set them to barricading ranch house and cabin, oiling
breech blocks and counting ammunition; it sent mothers to their knees in
prayer, with crying children huddled about them.
It filled the heart of Shoz-Dijiji with joyous song, for it told him
that he was soon to fight his first fight as a warrior against the hated
warriors of the pindah lickoyee. It urged the main body of the fleeing
Be-don-ko-he onward toward the border, torturing, burning, ravishing,
killing as it went. For an hour the smoke column hung in the sky, a
beacon of the hate, the cruelties, the treacheries, the wrongs that man
inflicts on man.
Silently, from east and west, the Be-don-ko-he scouts assembled far to
the south of the long dead signal fire; and up from the south came
Geronimo the next day with twelve warriors to reinforce them. Slowly
they dropped back, leaving sentinels upon their rear and flanks,
sentinels who retreated just ahead of the advancing enemy, whose every
move was always under observation by a foe he never saw.
The trail narrowed where it entered low, rocky, barren hills. “Hold them
here,” said Geronimo to a sub-chief, and left four warriors with him,
while he retreated another mile into the hills and disposed his men for
more determined resistance.
“Hell!” murmured a grizzled man in blue denim overalls down the seams of
which the troop tailor had sewn broad yellow stripes. “I don’t believe
there’s an Apache within forty miles of us, outside our own scouts.”
A lean, parched sergeant, riding at his side, shook his head. “You can’t
most always sometimes tell, sir,” he volunteered.
From the base of the hills ahead came the crack of a rifle, putting a
period to that paragraph. The officer grinned. To the right of the trail
was a shallow gully. Into this he led his troop, still in column of
fours.
“Prepare to dismount. Dismount! Number twos hold horses! Fall ’em in,
sergeant!” He gave commands quietly, coolly. The men obeyed with
alacrity. The point, three men riding in advance of the troop, having
uncovered the enemy raced back to the shelter of the gully, the bullets
of the hostiles pinging about their heads. Far to the rear the pack
train and two companies of infantry plodded through the dust.
Behind a rock that barely covered his prone figure from the eyes of the
enemy, lay Shoz-Dijiji. Similarly sheltered, four other painted savages
fired after the retreating point. One of them was a wrinkled old
sub-chief, a past-master of the art of Apache warfare. The five watched
the dismounted cavalrymen deploy into the open, dropping behind bushes
and boulders as they wormed their way forward.
There was a burst of fire from the thin line that made the Apaches duck
behind their shelter; when they looked again it was to see that the
soldiers had advanced, fifty yards, perhaps, and again sought cover. The
Indians fired rapidly to give the impression of a larger force than
actually constituted this insignificant rear guard. The soldiers
peppered away at the puffs of smoke that signalized the positions of the
foe.
The sub-chief called across to Shoz-Dijiji and the two wormed themselves
back, turned to the left and sought new positions, holding their fire,
waiting for the moment the old warrior knew would come. Again the
soldiers fired rapidly, half of them concentrating their fire upon the
rocks from behind which the puffs of smoke had arisen while the other
half arose, and, bent half double, raced forward to new and more
advanced positions. It was then that the sub-chief and Shoz-Dijiji
opened fire upon them from their new positions that had not yet
attracted the fire of the cavalrymen. The grizzled captain saw three of
his men stumble forward, their faces in the dirt. Afterward two of them
crawled painfully toward cover but the third lay very still.
Angry, the entire troop fired rapidly at the Indian position, until
there was no response; then the second half of the troop advanced in a
quick rush. From another point, far to the right of that upon which they
had been concentrating their fire, came the crack of a rifle and another
soldier fell.
Shoz-Dijiji reloaded and fired again. To his rear the sub-chief with the
three other warriors was trotting back toward the main body of hostiles
that was busily engaged in the construction of simple but effective
fortifications under the supervision of Geronimo.
The captain had lost four men and had not seen an Indian. He had no
definite idea of the strength of the enemy. He could not advance without
exposing his men to the full fire of the hostiles. To his left was a dry
wash that afforded complete protection, and into this he ordered his
troop, there to await the coming of the infantry. Behind his rock, quite
alone, Shoz-Dijiji held off the United States Army while the war chief
of all the Apaches prepared for a determined stand a mile to the south.
For an hour the cavalrymen sweltered and cursed in the dusty barranca.
Occasionally one would lift a head above the sheltering wall, there
would be a crack and the ping of a bullet and the head would duck to
safety—Shoz-Dijiji, patient, tireless, eagle-eyed, hung doggedly to his
post.
Then the infantry arrived. Out of effective range they took to the
barranca, the pack train sheltering in the gully with the horses of the
troop. The cavalry, loath to relinquish the honor to doughboys, charged
the position of the hostiles after the infantry had poured a steady
fusillade of rifle fire into it for several minutes.
Hunched double that they might present the smallest possible target,
grasping their carbines at the ready, separated by intervals of a yard
or two, the men advanced at the double up the gentle, rock-strewn
acclivity. Their grizzled captain led them. A dozen yards beyond the
summit he raised his hand and the blue line halted. The officer looked
about him. For hundreds of yards in all directions there was not
sufficient cover to conceal a cottontail. There was not an Indian in
sight.
“Hell!” murmured the captain.
A half mile to the south of him Shoz-Dijiji trotted toward the
stronghold of his people, while the blue column reformed to resume the
heartbreaking pursuit of the elusive quarry. The Apache scouts, who had
been sent out to the east and west the day before, returned to the
command, reporting signs of renegades at widely separated points. A
rancher and his family had been murdered at Sulphur Springs, two cowboys
had had a running fight with Apaches in San Simon Valley, two men had
been killed near Billings’ ranch.
A lieutenant with six men and three scouts was sent ahead of the column.
Within a mile they were fired upon and driven back. The infantry
deployed and advanced after a brief reconnaissance by the grizzled
captain.
Geronimo had chosen a position impossible for cavalry, impregnable to
infantry. His fortifications topped a low but steep hill, the summit of
which was already boulder-strewn by nature. On three sides the hill
overlooked open country that afforded no shelter within the effective
range of the weapons of that day, on the fourth side, behind him, rose
rugged mountains that offered him a ready avenue of retreat. Within
twenty miles to the north there was no water for the soldiers or their
mounts. Ten miles to the south, upon the opposite side of the range,
there was plenty of water, but Geronimo sat astride the only trail short
of a fifty-mile-long detour around the end of the range.
The infantry advanced. Already that day they had marched twenty miles
beneath a blistering sun from the last water. Their lips were parched
and blistered, their eyes, their nostrils, their throats were choked
with the stinging, impalpable dust of the alkali desert. All day they
had groused and cursed and bewailed the fate that had sent them into
“this man’s army”; but that had been while they were plodding along in
the shroud of dust that hung continually about them and with no sign of
an enemy about.
Now it was different. All was changed. With the first shot fatigue
slipped from them as easily as an old coat, they forgot the hardships
and the thirst, they fretted to go as young thoroughbreds at the
barrier. And they _were_ young thoroughbreds—these picked men, hard as
nails, the flower of the western army. No finer body of men ever
underwent crueler hardships in a more savage country, against a more
savage and resourceful foe in any country in the world, and none ever
got fewer thanks.
On they went, up toward that silent, rockbound hilltop. There was no
cover; they were advancing to the charge. Geronimo waited. He knew that
they would underestimate his strength, judging it by what they had
developed at the last stand a mile to the north; and he was right. He
waited until the blue line was well within range, then he opened on them
with all his rifles. A few men fell. The command to charge was given and
up the slope the soldiers raced, yelling. In twos and threes they fell
beneath the withering fire of the hostiles. It was a useless sacrifice
and the retreat was sounded.
Covered by the fire of the cavalry they withdrew and dug themselves in
three-fourths of the way down the slope—those that remained of them.
Until dark they lay there, sniping, being sniped, the painted savages
yelling taunts and insults at them. Their water was gone, their dead and
wounded lay beneath the pitiless sun on the fire-swept slope.
A sergeant, beneath a hail of lead, brought in a wounded officer.
Twenty-five years later he was awarded a Congressional Medal, which
arrived in time to be pinned on his breast by an attendant at the poor
house before he was buried in potter’s field.
Under the protection of darkness they recovered their dead and those of
the wounded who had miraculously survived the determined sniping of the
Apaches. The officers held a council. What water there was left was
distributed among the infantrymen. The cavalry and the pack train,
bearing the wounded, started back across those weary, dusty miles for
water. The dead they buried on the field.
At dawn the hostiles recommenced their sniping, though the infantry had
withdrawn to such a distance that only an occasional bullet fell among
them. They did not know that now the entire force opposing them
consisted of but three warriors; that the others were miles away to the
south. All day they lay there without shelter while the Apaches fired at
them at long range and at long intervals.
It was after dark before the cavalry returned. The hostile fire had
ceased, but how could the soldiers know that the last of the enemy was
miles away upon the southern trail. Geronimo had accomplished all that
he had set out to accomplish. He had held up the troops two full days
and in that time the Be-don-ko-he, with the exception of a few warriors,
had crossed the boundary into Mexico and disappeared in the rugged mazes
of the Mother Mountains; and he had done it without losing a man.