The Story of Geronimo

The Mimbrenos carried him over mountains and across deserts

"They come in peace. Their chief is wounded and they wish only to bring him to our doctor," the captain explained to whoever remained near enough to hear.

Those who heard passed the word to others. Then all the people of Janos hurried to the church. Often they had wished that Mangus Coloradus might die. Now they prayed for his life, for they feared that, if he died, the angered Apaches would kill everybody in Janos.

When they reached the doctor's house, Mangas and Victorio carried Mangus Coloradus in. Most of the warriors took up positions outside the house so that no one might come near. The captain of the rurales and Geronimo entered with the litter bearers.

Geronimo addressed the doctor.

"Make him well."

The doctor was a slender man, not young enough so that his hair was all dark but not old enough so that it was all white. The hard life he had led in Janos had taught him to fear nothing. Stepping close to the litter, he looked at the wounded chief.

"Put him on the table," he said.

Mangas and Victorio lifted Mangus Coloradus to a rude wooden table and stepped back against the wall. Geronimo watched Mangus Coloradus steadily.

There had been times during the long march when the Mimbreno chief's wound had caused him to sleep, and times when his mind had wandered. But he was awake now and he knew what was taking place. He was ready to meet this as he had always met everything else. Whatever came, his eyes would be toward it, and his heart would be strong.

Though outwardly the Apaches showed nothing of what they thought or felt, inwardly they were taut as stretched buckskin. The captain of the rurales, hoping Mangus Coloradus would live and fearing the consequences if he died, was staring, gasping, and sweating. The doctor and the Mimbreno chief were the only calm people in the room.

The doctor examined the wound, shook his head doubtfully, and the captain of the rurales cried aloud. The doctor looked sternly at him and said:

"Captain Ruiz, if you cannot control yourself, be good enough to leave."

"I'll stay, and I'll be quiet," Captain Ruiz promised.

With a delicate, but firm and sure touch, the doctor slipped a probe into the bullet wound. Mangus Coloradus did not cry out, but pain brought a bath of sweat to his forehead.

Mangas stepped angrily forward. Geronimo reached out a hand to stop him. The doctor again shook his head doubtfully, and Captain Ruiz clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle another cry.

Again the probe went in, gently but surely.

Two hours after the chief had been laid on the table, the doctor took the bullet from Mangus Coloradus. He applied a compress of soothing herbs and held them in place with a bandage. Then he turned to Geronimo, Victorio, Mangas, and Captain Ruiz.

"He'll live," he said.

Thus the Mimbreno Apaches came to Janos and left without harming a single person.

A Chief Dies

Sitting on a hillock beside Victorio, Geronimo's restless eyes sought the valley beneath, the next hill, and the hills beyond. Often he turned his head to look behind him. The years had taught Geronimo that an enemy might come from anywhere at any time. He who failed to see the enemy first was apt to die swiftly.

Victorio's eyes searched the hills, too, despite a frown that told of a troubled mind.

"It is possible," he said as he continued his conversation with Geronimo, "that the Mangus Coloradus who was, leaked out through the white soldier's bullet hole. We did not bring the same chief from Janos that we took to the medicine man."

"I have often wondered if the Mexican doctor did not put a spell upon him," Geronimo remarked. "Many times I have thought of going back to Janos and killing him. But I have thought each time that even Mangus Coloradus could not suffer such a wound without being ill. It is a natural thing."

"A natural thing," Victorio agreed, "and for many days he was ill. Remember the snail-pace we were forced to keep when we finally left Janos? It is a good thing we were many, for even Mexicans might have overtaken us. But Mangus Coloradus is ill no longer. Still he counsels that Apaches must make peace with white men or there will be no more Apaches."

Geronimo said, "He lives much in the spirit world. I entered his wickiup to speak to him, and he said, 'I am happy to see you once more, Delgadito. Now you must tell our people that we cannot conquer these Americans as we did the Mexicans.' Ha! Delgadito died many years ago in a battle with Mexicans. Yet Mangus Coloradus talked with him when he should have been talking with me. It chilled me, for I cannot talk with spirits."

"Nor can I," said Victorio. "I can talk only with people and be guided only by them and by my own common sense. Good sense tells me that if we do not fight the Americans, they will overrun us and there will be no more Apaches anyway. In spite of the fact that they still war among themselves, they have soldiers to spare for Apache land. White men who come among us are more instead of fewer, but only the Chiricahuas still fight them."

"Mangus Coloradus points that out," Geronimo said. "The warriors of Cochise kill and are killed by soldiers, cattle drivers, and rock scratchers who are forever looking for gold. But it is as though every dead white man is a seed from which two more spring up."

"Do you think that?" Victorio questioned.

"There is reason for so thinking," Geronimo said. "But I also think we must fight until every white man is driven from our land or until all Apaches are killed. If white men become our masters we shall know sorry times indeed. Do you know they call us thieves, liars, murderers, and every other vile name their tongues can form? Ha! Any Apache can take lessons in thievery, lying, and murder from any white man!"

"What do you mean?" asked Victorio.

Geronimo said, "When the white men warred against Mexico, Apaches sold them horses and mules and brought them food. We told them to take the places called Sonora and Chihuahua and we would help. They accepted our help when it was needed. The war ended and for a time no more was heard.

"Then came a surveyor named Bartlett, and he sent word that he was a good friend to all Apaches. We believed and trusted him, but when we brought our Mexican slaves to his camp, Bartlett took them away.

"It seems that, when the war ended, Americans and Mexicans became brothers. Bartlett said it was wrong to make slaves of his brothers. He said also that the Americans' God frowns upon those who keep slaves. Ha! I have since learned that the Americans keep millions of slaves themselves!"

"It was a great lie," Victorio said.

"A very great lie," Geronimo agreed, "but far from the greatest. Bartlett's real purpose in coming here was to mark where this land ends and Mexico begins. The Americans were at war with Mexico. They might have taken the whole country by force of arms, but when they wanted land, they bought and paid for it.

"That was very silly, and it was just as silly for the Americans to think they bought land from Mexico that Mexico never owned. They paid Mexico for our land, the country of the Apaches. Then they told us, 'We bought you when we bought your land. Obey our laws, or we shall punish you.' Was there ever a greater swindle?"

"Never!" Victorio growled.

"So we fight white men whom we would never hurt at all, if they just stayed home. And they call us evil! Suppose we went to the people of the north, the Canadians, and paid money for the lands of the Americans. Then suppose we told the Americans that they must live by Apache laws or be punished. Would they not resist?"

"Fiercely," Victorio growled. "I agree with you that we must fight, but the Mimbreno warriors follow Mangus Coloradus and will for as long as he is chief. Let us go see if we might again persuade him to be a war chief and lead us against the white men."

The two made their way to the Mimbreno village, and knew as soon as they looked upon it that something unusual was taking place. People scurried here and there, dogs barked, and horses on a nearby hill were nervous.

Victorio and Geronimo began to run. They saw Mangus Coloradus in the center of the village surrounded by a group of his people. Beside him was a bearded white man whom Geronimo recognized as Jack Swilling, a skilled frontiersman who had lived for a long time in the Southwest. Towering over everyone in the group, old Mangus Coloradus was as erect at seventy-two as he had been at seventeen. His hair was snow-white now. But it was still abundant, and it had just been carefully dressed. He wore his finest moccasins and buckskins, and he was talking calmly.

"Long have I led the Mimbreno Apaches, and always my first thoughts have been for my people. Of late I have been greatly troubled. Constant war is a poor companion, and starvation is a thankless bedfellow.

"Now comes this messenger from Captain Shirland, of the United States Army. He asks us to go into Captain Shirland's camp bearing a white flag, and he brings Captain Shirland's own pledged word that neither I nor any who choose to go with me shall suffer harm. He has promised that the Mimbreno Apaches will have their own reservation and plenty of food. I believe, and I would lead all who choose to go with me to peace and plenty."

Geronimo flung himself forward and knelt before his chief. "Think!" he pleaded. "Think carefully before you do this thing! The white men will have much cause for boasting if they may say that Mangus Coloradus is their prisoner!"

"It is a trick!" Victorio warned.

Mangus Coloradus spoke with the dignity of a chief and from the wisdom of years. "You, Geronimo, and you, Victorio, have ever been two of the most hot-headed warriors. Nothing I can say will make you believe that you cannot continue to battle the white man. Experience alone must teach you. Rise and let me pass."

Geronimo rose to his feet and soon Mangus Coloradus and the little group who had chosen to go with him left the village.

The evening fires had been lighted six times and were lighted again when Diablo, a young warrior who had gone with Mangus Coloradus, shuffled back into the village. His eyes were downcast, his tread weary. He walked slowly to a fire and stared at it. For a long while he did not speak.

"You saw?" Geronimo questioned.

"I saw," Diablo said dully.

"What saw you?"

Diablo said, "We walked into the soldiers' camp. Mangus Coloradus carried the white flag that should have been our protection, but soldiers rose up and seized him. They tied our chief as we might tie a Mexican, or a dog. The rest of us they herded into an unused stable. I know the rest of the story from Acona, an Apache scout who is serving the soldiers."

Diablo quieted and stared intently into the fire, as though he could not go on. At last he continued.

"Into the camp came a Colonel West, an Army chief who outranks Captain Shirland. He talked with some of the soldiers. The soldiers loosed Mangus Coloradus' bonds and left. Only two soldiers remained on guard.

"Our chief, old and ill, and who must have been weary, lay down by the fire. He slept. One of the guards thrust the long knife, the bayonet that white soldiers carry on the end of their guns, into the fire. When the bayonet glowed red with heat, the soldier touched it against our chief. Mangus Coloradus sprang up, as who would not? He started to run, as who would not if awakened in such a fashion? There were two shots and ..."

Diablo fell silent and stared moodily into the fire.

Geronimo in Chains

In the Apache camp at Warm Springs, New Mexico, Victorio and Geronimo braced themselves against the side of a big wooden building which had once been a barracks for white soldiers. All about them wickiups sprouted like misshapen plants. A large herd of horses grazed near by. Women and older children ground corn in their stone grinding bowls.

Others prepared freshly killed meat, but they were not working over the carcasses of elk, deer, and antelope. These were stolen range cattle that the women made ready for cooking pots. But they were as tasty as any wild game. And they also furnished a great deal more meat for every shot expended.

The warm sun had made Geronimo and Victorio sleepy, so that neither warrior felt like moving unnecessarily. But their conversation was lively enough.

"The days of our fathers are truly gone, and I do not believe they will ever be again," said Geronimo. "Even war as we once knew it is no more. There was a time when Apaches fought more for adventure and plunder than anything else. But now, since the white men have become our enemies, both sides fight only to kill."

"That is how Cochise fought the white men for ten long years," Victorio remarked.

Geronimo said bitterly, "But finally even he made terms. He promised to fight no more if his Chiricahuas were permitted to stay in their homeland, the Chiricahua Mountains. General Howard, with whom Cochise treated, pledged his word that they might.

"Yet, less than eighteen months after Cochise has gone to join his ancestors, all his people have been rounded up by troops and shipped to a new reservation. It is somewhere here in New Mexico, and the Chiricahuas do not like it. Many have already deserted to go back on the warpath. Many more will desert. There will be much trouble."

Victorio said bitterly, "The white soldiers are great fools. If they had left the Chiricahuas alone, there would have been no trouble. But has there ever been a time when white soldiers did not promise us one thing and give us another?"

"Why do you think I followed you to this place where you and your people have fled?" Geronimo queried. "I will not live with the other Apaches in that stinking country called the San Carlos Reservation which the white men saw fit to give them. And there are too many soldiers being stationed in Arizona. I knew that I and those few who came with me could not hope to fight them. It is good here."

"It is good here," Victorio agreed. "But only because the white soldiers are so stupid. In Arizona, every group of soldiers starting on an Apache trail had many mules to carry provisions. Thus they were able to stay on the trail for many days or even weeks. Here in New Mexico, each soldier has only his own horse. When they set out to pursue us, they may continue only until their horses are too weary to go on. Then the soldiers must turn back."

"There is small need to fret about them," Geronimo said confidently. "For many years we have run away from all the soldiers in Arizona and New Mexico too. They will not catch us now."

Victorio said, "It is not the soldiers who worry me, but a white man who is now in charge of the San Carlos Reservation. His name is John Clum, and he is no more like the ordinary white man who comes to oversee Indians than a jack rabbit is like an elk. He has treated the Apaches fairly, and as a result they have grown to respect him. Some of the bravest and best Apache warriors have joined his Indian police force. And he has vowed to put you and me, whom he calls renegades, on the reservation too."

"Let him talk," muttered Geronimo. "One cannot catch us with words."

He did not know that even as he spoke, John Clum and a number of his most fearless and sharpest-shooting Indian police were on their way to the camp. They had left San Carlos a week earlier for the sole purpose of capturing these two men and their followers.

For more than a year the Apaches had remained unmolested in this isolated camp in New Mexico. When they went to bed that night, they scarcely bothered to post a sentry.

In the first light of early morning John Clum and his Indian police closed in. Taken wholly by surprise, the Apaches could do nothing but surrender.

Geronimo felt the cold of iron manacles as they were clamped over his wrists. He and seven other troublemakers were chained together. John Clum directed a company of his police to take Victorio and his band to the Ojo Caliente reservation in Texas. All the rest were returned to San Carlos in Arizona.

Geronimo knew perfectly well that this reservation, along the banks of the Gila River, had been given to the Apaches only because no white man thought he would ever want the land. The reservation was blistering hot in summer and wind-blasted in winter. There was so little year-round rainfall that nothing would grow well except cactus, palo verde trees, greasewood, mesquite, and other desert vegetation.

Even as he arrived on the reservation, Geronimo knew that he would never stay. But all his ammunition and his rifle had been taken away. His knife was gone too. Since no warrior could travel far without weapons, Geronimo could do nothing for a while except bide his time and draw his rations of worm-ridden flour and tough, stringy beef.

But he was not idle, as he waited for a chance to escape. Searching daily, he found a bullet here, another there, and finally stole a rifle and hid it out on the desert. The agent who replaced John Clum was not interested in watching him closely. So Geronimo was able also to rebuild his horse herds through night raids on the Papagoes.

Other discontented Apaches were doing likewise.

One dark night, little more than a year after Geronimo had been brought to San Carlos in chains, a visitor came to his wickiup. He was Carlos Anaya, who had been one of Victorio's warriors.

"I come from the warpath," Carlos said softly to Geronimo.

"Victorio broke out?" Geronimo asked.

"Aye," Carlos said. "He left Ojo Caliente and fled south to join Caballero, chief of the Mescalero Apaches. Their combined forces made war throughout Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Old Mexico. They killed more than a thousand people.

"They forced many soldiers and many men called the Texas Rangers, and a vast number of the rurales, into the field against them. But finally most of them were killed. Only a few of us escaped. Still a warrior's death is better than a reservation life."

"Far better," said Geronimo. "I and those who follow me are almost ready to make a break for freedom too."

Flight into Mexico

The lowering sun scorched Camp Goodwin, the United States Army fort on the San Carlos reservation. But despite the sun, Geronimo had been sitting near the fort all day, as he had sat for the past six days, with a Navajo blanket draped about him and his fastest pony near at hand. He wanted the Indian agent at Camp Goodwin, a man named Hoag, to become accustomed to his sitting thus so that Hoag would pay no attention to him.

On this seventh day, plans that had been more than a year in the making were at last as perfect as they ever would be. Swift action lay ahead.

Geronimo's blanket hid a Winchester repeating rifle and bullet-filled belts. He watched a little group of Apaches, all mounted, riding southward. Nobody else paid any attention; the group might have been going hunting or wood gathering.

Geronimo returned his attention to Camp Goodwin. Two Apache chiefs named Loco and Nana, with most of their people, were gathered near the building. They all knew that Geronimo and another leader, Whoa, were about to make a break for Mexico with sixty warriors and a hundred and sixty women and children. Loco and Nana wanted to be sure that the agent could see them near the fort and know that they were taking no part in this break.

Geronimo wanted to make sure that neither chief told Hoag of the forthcoming flight. If there was any sign that they intended to betray his plans for escape, Geronimo would shoot them, and Loco and Nana both knew it.

Planning the flight had not been easy. And when the plans were made it had been necessary to choose the right time for the break. There would never be a better one than this afternoon. Many of the soldiers usually stationed at Camp Goodwin were away. Some were campaigning in New Mexico. Some were hunting outlaw Apaches who had been reported near the Arizona-Mexico border.

Whoa had left early this morning to wait in a dry wash some miles to the south. All day long Apaches had been quietly drifting out to join him. They intended to start just before dark so they would have all night before the soldiers still in Camp Goodwin could take their trail.

Geronimo's eyes narrowed. Loco and Nana and their followers had done nothing. But the man named Sterling, Chief of San Carlos Police, now rode up with some Apache policemen. Had someone betrayed the careful plans? Or had Sterling intended to bring his Apache Police to Camp Goodwin anyhow?

The sun told Geronimo that it was a little past four o'clock. He rose. Still keeping the rifle hidden under his blanket, he walked to his pony and was preparing to mount when the man named Sterling shouted:

"Hey you! Wait!"

Pretending he did not know that he was being addressed, Geronimo did not look around. Sterling shouted again:

"I mean you, Geronimo! Stop or I'll shoot!"

Geronimo sprang to the saddle, dropping his blanket as he did so. Sterling's rifle cracked and a bullet sang close. Leveling his own rifle from the back of the already running pony, Geronimo flung a shot at Sterling. He bent low on his pony's back to make a smaller target as bullets from Sterling's Apache police whistled past. Then he galloped over a hill and was hidden.

Geronimo raced into the dry wash where the rest awaited him. All the warriors were on foot and holding their horses. The women and children were mounted, and some of the women held tightly to babies not yet old enough to ride alone. Most children, often with three on the same pony, managed their own mounts. Whoa, an Indian so big that he dwarfed the wiry little pony he rode, came to meet Geronimo.

"What news do you bring?" Whoa asked.

Geronimo said, "The man named Sterling came with his Apache police. He shot at me, and I shot at him, but I do not know if I hit him. The soldiers must know soon that we are gone."

"Come."

The warriors mounted. With an advance and rear guard, and scouts on either side, men, women, and children rode on at a fast trot.

Night fell, and they were safe until the sun rose again. But sunrise might find soldiers hot on their trail, so there could be no thought of sparing horses. The only sleep they dared allow themselves was such snatches as might be had in the saddle. From time to time they nibbled a bit of the parched corn or jerky, sun-dried beef that they carried in pouches.

With daylight, Geronimo reined in on top of a hill and looked behind him. There were no soldiers in sight and no cloud of dust, to indicate that any were coming. Geronimo turned and overtook Whoa.

"Nobody comes from the rear," he said, "but we shall be in trouble soon. Our mounts reel from weariness."

"Yes," Whoa grunted.

Neither said more. Both had known that they and their people must travel fast. And both had also known that their horses and ponies could not run all the way to Mexico. They did not know yet what they would do when the animals were played out.

Some Apaches were asleep in the saddle, and now the fastest must suit their gait to the slowest. A pony stumbled, almost went down, then found his balance and pounded on. Suddenly Geronimo pointed ahead and exclaimed:

"Look! Usan has smiled upon us!"

A long pack train, with some horses and mules bearing packs and many more running loose, was making its way up the valley. Knowing how to get the last burst of speed from his tired pony, Geronimo whooped and sped to the attack. He began to shoot as soon as he was in range, and he heard the rifles of the rest of the warriors blasting behind him.

"Look! Usan has smiled upon us!"

The white men and the Mexicans with them were outnumbered six to one. They fired a few hasty return shots and spurred out of danger, leaving their pack train and loose horses behind them. Letting the fleeing men go, Geronimo rode in ahead of the frightened horses and turned them. The warriors surrounded the herd.

There was a quick exchange of saddles and bridles, a swift rummaging through all the packs for priceless rifles and bullets, and most of the Apaches rode on.

Freshly mounted, Geronimo returned to the top of a hill for another look at the back trail. He could still see neither soldiers nor the telltale dust cloud to indicate any were coming. Geronimo hurried to catch Whoa.

"No soldiers are near enough to cause trouble from the rear," he reported. "So rather than go on at full speed, it would be wise to ride these fresh horses at a pace they can maintain."

"Wise indeed," Whoa said. "But let us not forget that some soldiers are elsewhere and even now may be returning to Camp Goodwin. We must be alert for whoever approaches from the front."

Geronimo said, "You speak wisely."

Alternately walking and trotting their mounts, they rode steadily toward Mexico. That day they stopped only long enough to let the thirsty Apache horses drink from a water hole. A herd of range horses was already drinking there, and they took those horses with them when they went on.

Into the night they traveled, and stopped again for two hours at another water hole. The horses drank and grazed. Some of the weariest people slept. Geronimo, who often had been afield a full week with only such sleep as he could get in the saddle, climbed a hill to look for danger on the back trail.

The next day, riding as advance scout, Geronimo saw soldiers coming a moment before they saw him. There were two companies, about sixty men, of the Fourth Cavalry, and they were directly in the path the Apaches must follow. Geronimo waved his rifle as a signal that enemies were sighted, and the warriors whooped to join him.

This was Apache country, a land in which they were familiar with every rock and crevice, and to the west was a bypass around the soldiers. Driving the loose horses at full run, the women and children raced toward that bypass. Yelling, but not shooting, because they had no bullets to waste, the warriors swooped down on the soldiers. It looked as though they intended to have a hand-to-hand fight with them.

Again Geronimo could not help admiring American soldiers, who never ran as Mexicans so often did but always stood their ground. However, the Apache charge was a trick.

Suddenly the racing Indians swerved east, toward some rocky hills. They rode up a narrow cleft, the only one around which horses could climb. The soldiers shot, but the range was so long that they hit no one. Reaching the summit of the cleft, the Apaches took their horses behind some rocks where they would be safe from bullets. Then they scrambled back to take up positions in the rocks themselves.

The soldiers launched a spirited attack, but they could not advance under the withering fire rained down upon them. They retreated, re-formed, and attacked again.

The Apaches shot slowly and carefully, for they wanted neither a fierce battle nor close-quarter fighting. Their only purpose was to delay the soldiers until the women and children had had time to reach a place of safety.

Two hours after the soldiers first opened fire, the Apaches began to slip away. Each mounted his own horse, and each took a different path to rejoin the women and children. Finally only Geronimo and a dozen others were left. They fired at the soldiers and drove them to cover in the rocks. Then all the remaining Apaches rose and ran to their horses.

On their next attack, the soldiers took the hilltop. There was not an Apache left to resist them, but there were sixty different trails that led in sixty different directions.

Forty-eight hours after they left San Carlos, the Apaches crossed the Mexican border and were safe in the Sierra Madre Mountains.

Fortress Paradise

Urged by three of Geronimo's warriors, fifty-three cattle climbed laboriously up a slope and shuffled into pine forest. Stolen from a Mexican rancheria, they had been driven most of the night at the fastest pace they could keep up. Now the cattle staggered with weariness. But they would rest soon.

Geronimo and a warrior named Francisco, who had helped steal the cattle, were with the raiding party. Watching only until the cattle had reached the mountain top, they turned to look back down the slope.

Beneath, the Sierra Madres leveled into low foothills. In the distance, the hills seemed to fold into each other, so that instead of many mountains there was just one. Finally the one was lost in a shimmering blue haze.

The two Apaches tied their horses to nearby trees and continued to scan the hills below them. It was Geronimo who spoke.

"They come."

Far beneath, made small by distance, a line of Mexican soldiers moved slowly but steadily on the cattle's trail. The two Apaches looked at them as one might regard some interesting insects.

Geronimo had never been a chief while Apaches still lived by their ancient customs. But he was one now because he had been chosen by the people who had escaped from San Carlos, to be their leader. Neither he nor Francisco, the warrior, were the least bit excited by the sight of the Mexican soldiers. Their rifles leaned against two trees.

The Sierra Madres, with their low foothills that rose to ten-thousand-foot peaks, were known only to Apaches. Two hundred miles long by a hundred miles wide, the only human dwellings in the entire vast range were wickiups.

It was here that the Apaches held their pony races, played their endless games, and hunted. When they felt in need of amusement or plunder, they left their camps in the Sierra Madres to raid Mexican towns or ranches. Returning to the mountains, they were always safe. No force of rurales had ever penetrated this wild retreat.

After a bit, Geronimo sat down and cast only an occasional glance toward the oncoming soldiers. He yawned.

"We needn't have been so hasty," he said. "Mexicans know two gaits, slow and slower."

"Yes," Francisco was amusing himself by tracing designs in the earth with a stick.

"Still, there are more than there were, and they come deeper into the Sierra Madres than they ever did," Geronimo said. "I am glad Loco has come with his people, and Benito, and Nana, and Mangas, and Chato, and Naiche."

Geronimo was speaking of other Apache chiefs and braves who had come to Mexico. After seeing for themselves that the American soldiers were unable to bring Whoa and Geronimo back, they, too, had defied the Army and fled the reservation. Now they, too, were living a free life in the Sierra Madre Mountains.

"We did not really need them to fight Mexicans," the sulky Francisco remarked.

"I am not so certain," Geronimo said seriously. "Have you so soon forgotten the battle we fought in the stream bed south of Arispe? It was no more than three weeks after we finally returned to the Sierra Madres. Do you remember the Mexican general who shouted my name in such foul terms?

"He said, 'That dog of a Geronimo is finally cornered!' He screamed to his soldiers that they must kill every Apache, and that he would post his wounded to shoot cowards and deserters. They were many more than we, and we might have been overwhelmed had I not shot the general."

"But you did shoot the general," Francisco pointed out.

"I did," Geronimo agreed, "and I am very glad. I have no love in my heart for Mexicans, especially Mexican generals. That is why I am happy to see so many Apaches in the Sierra Madres. Together we may fight all the Mexicans."

Francisco reminded, "We are not together."

"That is as it should be," said Geronimo. "Apaches need room, and they cannot crowd together as Mexicans and Americans do. But we may get together when we choose."

"If I had known that Chato was going raiding into Arizona, I would have chosen to ride with him," Francisco said.

Geronimo said wistfully, "I too, for I have longed to see Arizona once more and have a good fight with American soldiers."

"Let us wish Chato all success," Francisco said.

Geronimo said, "He will have it. Benito rides with him, and twenty-six picked warriors."

"Were I there, there would be twenty-seven picked warriors," Francisco bragged.

Geronimo grunted sourly and lay down to sleep. A half hour later he was awakened by Francisco's hand on his shoulder.

"They come," said Francisco.

Geronimo sat up and looked down the slope to see some thirty soldiers climbing it. All led their horses, and they stopped often to rest. Geronimo turned to Francisco.

"These are not the rurales we once fought," he said. "Rurales never came so deeply into the Sierra Madres. If they did, they were never so foolish as to be caught in daylight on a slope such as this."

Francisco asked disinterestedly, "Who are they?"

Geronimo said, "It has come to my ears that they have been sent from a far-off place known as Mexico City. The Nan-Tan, the chief, of Mexico City has at last discovered and is greedy for the gold and silver to be found here. He has sent his soldiers to protect it. Ha!"

"Ha indeed," Francisco grunted. "Are you ready?"

"Ready," said Geronimo.

Each lifted a football-sized boulder from its bed, tilted it on end, and let it go. The rolling boulders gathered stones, gravel, more boulders. A fair-sized landslide, indeed an avalanche, thundered down. A great cloud of dust arose.

When the dust cleared, Geronimo and Francisco again saw the soldiers. They had escaped the avalanche by running frantically to one side or the other, taking their horses with them. But all were mounted now and galloping frantically back in the direction from which they had come.

Geronimo said, "The soldier chief at San Carlos asked me how we fought Mexicans. I told him bullets are too hard to get to waste on them, and that we fought them with rocks. He thought I lied."

Without another word he started up the slope, following the trail of the other three raiders and the cattle.

A week later Chato, Benito, and twenty-five of the twenty-six warriors who had gone raiding in Arizona, rode into Geronimo's camp. Chato dismounted, loosed his horse, and went to sleep beneath a pine. Benito regarded him admiringly.

"That one sleeps only in the saddle while he is on a raid!" he said. "When the rest of us slept, he stood guard!"

"Was it a good raid?" Geronimo inquired.

"A very good raid," Benito said. "For the six days we spent in Arizona, we were seldom out of the saddle. We struck where we would, and stole fresh horses where we needed them. In six days we rode four hundred and fifty miles."

Geronimo said, "I do not see Tzoe among those who returned."

"You will not see Tzoe," said Benito. "Though Chato warned him that it was a foolish thing to do, he left us and went to visit his friends who remain at San Carlos. He is now a prisoner of the white soldiers."

Geronimo staggered, as though from a sudden blow on the head. He gasped. Though a young warrior, Tzoe had been among the loudest and fiercest in declaring that never again would he submit to the white man's rule. But he had surrendered to the same loneliness and yearning for his loved ones that was afflicting all the renegades. Who would be next?

"Is Geronimo ill?" Benito asked.

"I am not ill," Geronimo said.

But he saw a dark cloud hovering over all Apaches.

Chief Gray Wolf

Rumor prowled like a hunting mountain lion over the foothills of the Sierra Madres. It crept up the canyons, climbed the peaks, searched out every Apache camp, and came to Geronimo. He surrounded his camp with scouts.

The sun was four hours high when one of the scouts imitated the call of a jay. Geronimo did not stir. A jay's call meant that a friend came; a hawk's scream indicated an enemy. Ten minutes later Whoa rode into Geronimo's camp.

The huge chief of the Nedni was sweating, and Geronimo hid his wonder. He had known Whoa for many years, and had fought with him when the Kas-Kai-Ya massacre was avenged. This was the first time he had seen his friend show fear.

"Have you heard?" Whoa demanded.

Geronimo replied, "It has come to my ears that Chief Gray Wolf is in the Sierra Madres."

"He is!" Whoa exclaimed. He held up both hands with all fingers spread. "Ten times this many warriors he leads, and ten times again, and twice again! The word is that he comes in peace and only to ask Apaches to return to the reservation in Arizona. Benito believed him and let his band surrender in peace. Gray Wolf's soldiers shot the men! They cut the throats of the women and children!"

For a moment Geronimo remained silent. Ten times ten, and ten times a hundred, and twice a thousand. Not even Chief Gray Wolf, known to the white men as General George Crook, could lead two thousand soldiers into the Sierra Madres unobserved. Nor was General Crook a white chief who said one thing but meant another. He kept his promises, and he would not massacre prisoners. But it would not be well for even Geronimo to give Whoa the lie.

Finally Geronimo asked, "This you saw?"

"This I saw," said Whoa.

"You saw it with your own eyes?" Geronimo asked.

"Not with my own eyes," Whoa admitted. "One of my warriors saw."

"Name him," Geronimo said.

"It was not really one of my warriors," Whoa said. "A warrior from Naiche's camp, or Zele's, or Loco's, saw. He told my warrior."

Geronimo said, "I would live in Arizona again, if I could live as befits an Apache. I would even live on the reservation, but not on the Gila River flats."

"You would put yourself in the white man's power?" Whoa asked unbelievingly.

Geronimo said, "I put myself in no man's power. But if I might once more live in Arizona, I would keep peace with the white man and let him go his way if he kept peace and let me go mine."

"You speak madness!" Whoa gasped.

"I speak no madness," said Geronimo. "And I do not think that even Chief Gray Wolf can catch me now that I know he is here. We saw you coming."

"As you shall see me go," Whoa promised. "I have ridden this far to ask you to go with us."

"Whither?"

"Far to the south, where no white soldier ever has been or ever shall be," Whoa said.

Geronimo said, "I do not think I would like the south."

"I say no more," said Whoa.

Whoa caught his pony and rode away. Geronimo knew a great sorrow. Whoa was frightened. Because he feared, he was willing to see through the eyes of others rather than find out for himself how things truly were. It was indeed a sad thing.