“Crook is coming back! General Crook is coming back!”
That was the word at Camp Thomas, in this the early summer of 1882, a couple of months after the Geronimo outbreak.
The Third Cavalry already had arrived from its northern plains campaigns, and the Sixth was being stationed over in New Mexico. But the Sixth had done well, and the best news was that which bore the name of Crook. He had been ordered from the Department of the Platte to the Department of Arizona, again.
“Now we shall see the Chiricahua grow tired,” laughed Micky Free, when Jimmie met him. “Sibi is glad; the White Mountains are glad; everybody will be glad, except Whoa and Geronimo. Are you going to help fight, Cheemie, instead of riding all the time along the talking wire?”
“You bet I am, Micky,” declared Jimmie. “Hope Tom Moore’s coming, too. I reckon if my leg won’t let me scout I can join the pack-train.”
General Crook wasted no time. Scarcely had he announced himself at Fort Whipple, ere he was bound for San Carlos and Fort Apache, to straighten out these affairs first.
Jimmie rode over to the fort with a party from Thomas, to learn the latest. The general was there, with Lieutenant Bourke, now a captain. Wearing an ancient, smoked and scorched corduroy suit he had arrived on the same “Apache,” his mule. He looked rather older than when he had left, back in 1875. The campaigning in winter up north had been tough. But he acted as energetic as ever.
He held a council with the dissatisfied White Mountains.
“I want to have all that you say here go down on paper,” he addressed. “What goes down on paper never lies. A man’s memory may fail him, but the paper does not forget. I want to know from you all that has happened since I went away, to bring about this trouble between you and the white men. I want you to tell the truth without fear, and in few words.”
Old Pedro had listened attentively to the general through an ear-trumpet, for Pedro had grown quite deaf. He answered.
“When you were here, if you said a thing we knew that it was true. We cannot understand why you left us. The people who have come among us talk in one way and act in another. And I remember the other officers, too, who treated us kindly. I used to be happy; now I am all the time thinking and crying, and I say: ‘Where is old Colonel John Green, and Randall, and those other good men?’”
Alchisé spoke.
“When you left us, there were no bad Indians out. Everything was peace. But I think that all the good men must have been taken from us and only bad ones sent in. We did not mind having no rations, for we had learned to take care of ourselves. Then one day we were ordered to give up our fields and go down to the hot land of San Carlos to live. I have tried hard to help the whites, and they have put me in the guard-house. Where did you go? Why doesn’t Major Randall come back? Where is my friend Randall, the captain with the big moustache that he always pulled?”
The general was very patient with all who wished to talk. Then he took a pack-train and rode into the depths of the Black Canyon, where a number of the Apaches lived because they feared arrest.
The Apaches here, also, claimed that they had been mistreated. They had set a spy to watch the agent at San Carlos, and had caught him selling their rations. Then they had sent a man to tell the agent that he must not do this, and the man had been kept in jail for six months without any trial. They said that they had been getting only one cup of flour every seven days. One shoulder of a little cow had to last twenty persons for a week.
It was another long story, and the general promised that he would help them.
“I think there will be peace at Fort Apache and at the San Carlos,” Micky asserted, as he and Jimmie rode back after the council was over. “And if the Chiricahua will stay in Mexico and kill only Mexicans, you and I will have no fun, because the Gray Fox cannot make war in Mexico.”
“Maybe the Chiricahua will stay there.”
“No. After a time the young men will get tired of killing and robbing Mexicans, which is easy. They will want to win honor by robbing the Americans—and then, we shall see.”
At Camp Thomas Jimmie met the general face to face while crossing the parade-ground. He had small hopes that the general would remember him when he saluted—but something in the general’s keen, inquiring eye made him halt and stand expectantly.
“Well, my man,” blurted the general. “I seem to know your face.”
“Yes, sir. I’m Jimmie Dunn.”
“I remember. You still limp a little, I see. What are you doing now?”
“I’m a telegraph line-man, sir.”
“That’s good. You had a talk with Nah-che, when he was on his way out, last spring, didn’t you? Do you think he can be persuaded to come in peaceably?”
“He might if he knew you were back, sir. But he said the Chiricahua hadn’t been treated well—they were out to stay.”
“The Apaches have grievances. The worst of the outlaws are better than the whites who have been robbing them.”
The general was about to stride on, when Jimmie hastily spoke.
“But if you go against the Chiricahua, I’d like to go too, sir.”
“That will be a hard and maybe a long chase,” gravely said the general. “Probably into the Mexican mountains, with picked men. You can help by sticking to your present business. The telegraph and the railroad are very necessary.”
Jimmie, thinking it over afterward, almost decided likewise. His leg bothered him, and his shoulder was still tender. Chasing Geronimo through the Mexican mountains, with a leader who never rested, required nerve and strength both.
The general tried to hold a conference with the Geronimo runaways. From the border he sent a party of Apache scouts under Alchisé across, for a few miles, but they found no traces of the Chiricahuas.
Two Chiricahua squaws were captured while returning to San Carlos. They said that the Geronimo band had a strong hiding-place deep in the Sierra Madre Mountains several days’ travel below the border; were living off the Mexicans, and knew that the American soldiers could not come down there.
General Crook assigned Captain Emmet Crawford of the Third Cavalry (a broad-shouldered six-footer) to the military station at San Carlos, obtained permission from the Indian Bureau for the White Mountains to live upon the high, cooler lands near Fort Apache and to plant crops there, and from headquarters at Fort Whipple issued an order that said:
Officers and soldiers serving in this department are reminded that one of the fundamental principles of the military character is justice to all—Indians as well as white men—and that a disregard of this principle is likely to bring about hostilities, and cause the death of the very persons they are sent here to protect. In all their dealings with the Indians, officers must be careful not only to observe the strictest fidelity, but to make no promises not in their power to carry out; ...
As long as the Chiricahuas stayed out of the United States, there was not much more to be done. The Apaches on the reservations seemed content again; the border was being patrolled by one hundred and fifty Apache scouts, in the hope of catching the trail of any outlaws who might venture up; the telegraph was kept in fine working order, and the troops at the posts were given constant practice marches.
This fall and winter no word came from Geronimo. But in March (which was the year 1883) the expected news broke—and bad news it was.
Jimmie chanced to be in the telegraph office at Thomas when the message came. He took it off the wire as fast as the operator did. It was from Bowie, in the south.
“Band of hostiles crossed line raiding north through Whetstone Mountains. Heading west for New Mexico probably. More.”
“Where’s that adjutant?” barked the operator, tearing off his sheet. “Things are hummin’. Gee whizz, isn’t that man ever around when he’s needed?”
But the adjutant of course got the message at once.
“More” came thick and fast, from all directions. The Chiricahuas numbered only twenty-six warriors. They were under Chato, the Flat-nose. They had dodged the patrol, outwitted all the troops and volunteers, the telegraph and railroad did not stop them; on a circle of eight hundred miles, traveling at seventy-five miles a day they swung through Arizona and southwestern New Mexico, stealing fresh horses whenever needed, and killing miners and settlers.
“Picked men for the pursuit,” were the orders from the general at Whipple. This appeared to leave Jimmie, with his lame leg, out of scout service. Well, he might do some good in his regular job, anyway. But the last news was the worst news of all.
Near Silver City, southwestern New Mexico, a horrible act was committed by the Chato band. They overtook Judge H. C. McComas, driving on the main road with his wife and little boy, Charley; they tortured and killed the two grown-ups, and carried off Charley, aged six years.
This made soldiers and settlers alike furious. Jimmie could stand the strain no longer. He had been captured, once, himself. He threw aside his line-man position and rode over to Fort Apache, to find Frank Monach, pack-master.
“I want a job, Frank.”
“Thought you had one.”
“I had, but I’ve left. I’m too lame for scout work; I can pack, though. How about it?”
“Well,” drawled Frank, sizing him up, “the old man’s partic’lar. The pack outfits have got to be the kind that’ll keep agoin’. We’re due to follow those bronc’s till we get that boy back, even if we travel clear to the City of Mexico.”
“I know. That’s why I’m here,” retorted Jimmie. “I can pack and sit a mule.”
“All right. Old Jack Long’s watchin’ you, I reckon. He took a lot o’ stock in you. You’re hired. So get your war-bag an’ fall in.”