“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.”