The Mammoth Book of the West (51 page)

We camped at the foot of a mountain a few miles from the road running between Buenavista and Moctezuma. Early next morning Geronimo told the men that they could now go out to look for horses and mules. They should drive in all that they could find, as we needed them for the expected move north into the mountains. About noon our men drove in quite a number of animals stolen from the Mexicans. We had a great time roping them and breaking them for the women and children to ride. My cousin roped a mule but it broke away from him. I chased it out into the prairie for nearly two miles. I nearly went too far. Suddenly I saw Mexican soldiers only a short distance away.

As I galloped back to the group of Apaches I heard my cousin shouting to me to hurry up, the enemy were coming along behind me. Meanwhile the Indians were taking up a position from which to attack the soldiers. As I sped over a low ridge I heard the shooting start. The Indians charged so fast toward the enemy that they failed to notice one soldier who was hiding in the bushes. This man shot and killed the last Apache to ride by him. The warriors, hearing the shot, came dashing back just in time to shoot the Mexican.

The band felt dreadfully sad over losing a warrior. He was a Warm Springs Apache who had no near relatives in the band with us.

Late that afternoon we started off to the west then camped at the foot of the mountains for supper. While we were thus engaged, a sentinel ran in to report that the
enemy were at the skirmish ground of that afternoon, not far behind us. We moved out hastily into the foothills where we remained in concealment during the night. In the morning we saw the soldiers following our tracks and approaching our hill. At once the warriors took up positions ready for a fight. But the Mexicans didn’t attempt to follow our trail up the mountainside.

Finally our men got tired of waiting, so we moved on, traveling very fast right on into the night. We came to a short steep canyon where we made camp and enjoyed a good night’s rest.

In the morning we set a course across the wide valley of the Bavispe. Although our horses and mules were in good shape we traveled slowly, enjoying the trip and the pleasant surroundings. That night we camped beside the Bavispe River. The chiefs told the men not to shoot any deer because the Mexicans might hear the firing.

This country looked as though it belonged to us. For some days owing to the wise leadership of Geronimo we had not been disturbed by an enemy. We crossed the river and moved through the woods discussing the fact that the country seemed to be full of deer and other game. In fact the deer just stood and watched us pass. It seemed that they had never been disturbed by anyone hunting them. A person living in this favored spot would never have to go hungry. There were plenty of wild animals and other food, easily obtainable. But at this time the men all obeyed Geronimo and didn’t fire a shot. Besides, we still had plenty of dried beef.

Arriving at our next objective we again settled down for an indefinite stay. It was just like peacetime. We had plenty to eat, good clothing taken from the stolen stocks, and no enemies nearby. We were about thirty miles southeast of Fronteras.

During this period the women, assisted by some of the
boys, were gathering and drying the fruit of the yucca, preparing for a winter to be spent in the Sierras. It was in the late summer or early fall of 1882.

As well as raiding into Mexico, the Geronimo band attacked American settlements and ranches.

To stop the outrages, the Army once again called on George Crook (“Grey Wolf” to the Apache). On 4 September 1882 Crook assumed command at San Carlos and, on talking to the Apaches on the reservation, found that their grievances were justified. The reservation Apaches, he concluded, “had not only the best reasons for complaining, but had displayed remarkable forbearance in remaining at peace.” He began a reform of the corrupt practices of White contractors and suppliers and set about re-establishing John Clum’s Apache police.

Crook also gave much thought to the band of Apaches free in Mexico. He did not want another guerrilla war with the Apaches, especially in the rugged terrain of the sierras. Crook decided that he should meet with Geronimo and the other leaders, and that the best place to do this was in Mexico. But in order to cross the border, he had to wait for the Apaches to make a raid in the US. By international agreement, he could go into Mexico only in pursuit of renegade Apaches.

His justification came on 21 March 1883, when a renegade war party raided a mining camp near Tombstone. A few days later the same raiders killed federal judge H. C. McComas and his wife, and abducted their son. Crook, together with 50 soldiers and 193 civilian Apache scouts, trailed the renegades into Mexico. After searching for several weeks, the scouts located Geronimo’s camp and captured the women and children, the men being on a raiding party. The Apache had believed that they were safe inside Mexico; Crook’s capture of the camp was a
stunning blow. Geronimo agreed to parley, and found Crook generous. Grey Wolf even allowed the Apache leader another two months of freedom, while he rounded up the rest of the Chiricahuas.

True to his word, Geronimo crossed the border voluntarily, although he stretched the two months to eight, arriving in February 1884. Before him he drove 350 head of cattle, stolen from the Mexicans. This seemed proper to Geronimo, who felt he was only supplying his people with meat. At San Carlos, Crook took a different view and confiscated the herd, ordered it sold and returned the proceeds to the original Mexican owners.

For more than a year things were quiet on the reservation, and Crook could proudly say that “not an outrage or depredation of any kind” was committed by the Apaches. Outside San Carlos, however, the citizens of Arizona were stirring up trouble. Newspapers contained lurid, and fabricated, stories about atrocities committed by Geronimo and called upon vigilantes to hang him. There was criticism of Crook for being too easy on the Apaches; some even suggested that he had surrendered to Geronimo in Mexico, and was now providing him with an easy life in return for the keeping of his scalp.

The stories made Geronimo uneasy. He also feared trouble from the reservation authorities for breaking the rule that prohibited the drinking of tiswin (corn beer), a pleasure the Apaches found unable to resist. Expecting the worst, Geronimo, Nana and 92 women and children, eight boys and 34 men departed for Mexico on the night of 17 May 1885. Before leaving, Geronimo cut the telegraph wire.

“THE APACHES ARE OUT!” warned the Arizonan newspapers two days later. Whites had little to fear, however, since Geronimo was trying to avoid any confrontation with them, and was hurrying his people towards
Mexico, not even stopping to make camp until they reached the safety of the Sierra Madre.

General Crook was detailed by Washington to apprehend the fugitive Geronimo, with orders to take his unconditional surrender or kill him. To fulfil his mission, Crook was obliged to mount the heaviest campaign in the Apache wars up to that date, with more than 2,500 cavalry troopers and 200 Indian scouts. (Some of these were old Apache cohorts of Geronimo, including Chato; the Apaches, understanding the boredom of reservation life, did not usually blame People who scouted for the Whites.)

Throughout the winter of 1885–6 Crook hunted Geronimo in the Sierra Madre, but having been surprised there before the Apache leader was more cautious. In January, Crook’s force managed to discover and attack one renegade camp, although their quarry got away. But in March, Geronimo decided to surrender. Units of the Mexican Army, as well as the US cavalry, were combing the Sierra Madre for him. Caught between the Mexicans who only wanted to kill him and the Americans who might accept a surrender, Geronimo chose to meet with Crook at Cañon de los Embudos (Canyon of Tricksters), a few miles below the border.

When Crook arrived at the canyon, he was surprised to find neither Geronimo nor his braves looking particularly discouraged. “Although tired of the constant hounding of the campaign,” Crook later recalled, “they were in superb physical condition, armed to the teeth, fierce as so many tigers. Knowing what pitiless brutes they are themselves, they mistrust everyone else.”

He and Geronimo talked for two days, and Geronimo agreed once more to live on the reservation. “Do with me what you please,” he said. “Once I moved about like the wind. Now I surrender to you, and that is all.”

Despite his submission to Crook, within days Geronimo went fugitive. On the dark and rainy night of 28 March, as he and his surrendered Chiricahua band neared Fort Bowie, Geronimo, his young son Chappo, Naiche and 17 other warriors, and 18 women and children, slipped away from their escort. “I feared treachery,” he later said, “and decided to remain in Mexico.” A trader had got the hostiles drunk and filled them full of tales about how the local people were going to make “good injun” of them. It would be Geronimo’s last break-out.

As a result of Geronimo’s flight, the War Department severely reprimanded Crook for laxity and his over-indulgences towards the Indians. Crook resigned immediately, and was replaced by Brigadier-General Nelson A. Miles, whose orders were to “capture or destroy” Geronimo and his band of hostiles.

Miles managed to do neither, although his work amongst the Apaches would prove destructive enough. One of his first decisions was to transfer all the Mimbrenos and Chiricahuas on the reservations – including the scouts who had helped Crook – to Florida.

For the manhunt of Geronimo, Miles put 5,000 soldiers – a quarter of the entire army – in the field, and built 30 heliograph stations to flash messages from mountain to mountain, a system of communication well known to the Apaches, who had long before shifted from smoke signals to mirrors. Meanwhile, Geronimo raided almost at will. In April of 1886, he and his warriors crossed into Arizona and killed a rancher’s wife, child and an employee. A short while later, Geronimo’s war party killed two men outside Nogales, and then ambushed the cavalry sent in pursuit of them. Two troopers died. The Apaches suffered not a single loss. Geronimo would later say of this period, “We were reckless of our lives, because we felt that every man’s hand was against us. If we returned
to the reservation we would be put in prison and killed; if we stayed in Mexico they could continue to send soldiers to fight us; so we gave no quarter to anyone and asked no favours.”

Throughout the summer of 1886 Miles pursued Geronimo and his 20 warriors, but to no avail. They seemed as elusive as ghosts. Finally, Miles decided to try another tack – he would negotiate with the enemy. His appointed emissary was Lieutenant Charles Gatewood, who had met Geronimo a number of times. Accompanying Gatewood were two scouts, Martine and Kayitah.

To make contact with the renegades, Gatewood headed across the border and wandered around, listening for word of the Apaches’ whereabouts. Eventually, he discovered that Geronimo was sending women into the small town of Fronteras to procure mescal. He trailed one such woman out of Fronteras and deep into the Sierra Madre. It was the end of August 1886.

Gatewood sent Geronimo a message via his scouts, and the two met near a bend in a river. The Apache laid down his rifle and walked over to Gatewood (“Big Nose”) shook his hand and asked how he was. But when they sat down to talk and smoke cigarettes in the Apache fashion, with tobacco rolled in oak leaves, Geronimo deliberately sat close enough to Gatewood for the lieutenant to feel his revolver.

Geronimo opened the council formally by announcing that he and his warriors had come to hear General Miles’s message. Gatewood gave it to them straight. “Surrender, and you will be sent to join the rest of your friends in Florida, there to await the decision of the President as to your final disposition. Accept these terms or fight it out to the bitter end.” At this Geronimo bristled, “Take us to the reservation [San Carlos], or fight!”

Gatewood then had to inform Geronimo that the reservation
no longer existed, and that all the Chiricahuas had been removed to Florida, including members of Geronimo’s own family.

The Apache were devastated by the news. They withdrew for a private council, which in the Apache way was democratic, with everyone having a voice. Perico, Fun, Ahnandia – all of them Geronimo’s cousins – indicated that they wished to surrender so that they might see their families again. Geronimo still had a taste to fight on, but he was weakened by these defections. He stood for a few moments without speaking. At length he said, “I have been depending heavily on you three men. You have been great fighters in battle. If you are going to surrender, there is no use my going without you. I will give up with you.”

Geronimo, the last of the Apache leaders, had finally surrendered.

There was a formal cessation of hostilities, signed at Skeleton Canyon. Brigadier-General Miles was in attendance, getting his first look at Geronimo: “He was one of the brightest, most resolute, determined looking men that I have ever encountered. He had the clearest, sharpest dark eye I think I have ever seen, unless it was that of General Sherman when he was at the prime of life . . . Every movement indicated power, energy and determination. In everything he did, he had a purpose.”

The surrender ceremony was officially concluded on the afternoon of 4 September, and on the following day Miles flashed the news to the nation that Geronimo had finally given up arms. With a last glimpse at the Chiricahua mountains, Geronimo was taken to Fort Bowie, and from there transported, along with his hostile band, in a railway cattle car to San Antonio, Texas. From San Antonio Geronimo was shipped to Fort Pickens in Florida, a crumbling, abandoned fortification on Santa Rosa island, where he would start the first of his 23 years in captivity.

Probably Geronimo was not surprised, after all these years of dealing with the White man, to find that he had been lied to. He did not, as General Miles had promised him, see his family on arrival in Florida, and instead spent two years in close confinement. To the great distress of Geronimo and the other male hostiles, the women and children of their band were taken from them and sent to Fort Marion, 300 miles across the state.