Part 14
On April 22 there was a parade, and inspection of the whole outfit. That night the Apache scouts held a big war-dance which lasted until morning. They and Micky (who had danced as hard as anybody) were still hot and excited when the column was formed for the advance.
The scouts, and pack-mules, and a line of rumbling army wagons, and portions of seven companies of the Third and Sixth Cavalry, marched from the railroad to the boundary at San Bernardino Springs in southeastern Arizona, one hundred miles by the wagon trail.
Stalwart Captain Emmet Crawford brought in one hundred more Apache scouts from San Carlos. There were war-dances and medicine ceremonies each night. Alchisé and others told the general that their medicine was showing up very strong; the Chiricahuas would surely be found and killed or captured.
“That is so,” asserted Micky, who believed in the medicine.
Six of the cavalry troops were to be left here at the border, to guard it and the wagons with the extra supplies.
“Adios, amigo,” bade Maria, to Jimmie. “You will have good luck. The medicine says so, and Pa-na-yo-tish-n will lead Crook straight. But it will be a long march, maybe two hundred miles.”
“Aren’t you going, Maria?”
“No. I stay, because I know all this country.”
It did not look like a very great force, after all, which at sunrise of May 1, this 1883, crossed the border to find Geronimo. There were more Indians than soldiers――one hundred and ninety-three of them, White Mountains, Tontos, Yavapais, Apache-Yumas and some of the Taza friendly Chiricahuas.
Captain Crawford, of the Third Cavalry, commanded them. He had as his assistants Lieutenant George Gatewood and Lieutenant W. W. Forsythe, of the Sixth, and Lieutenant James O. Mackay, of the Third.
The forty cavalrymen of the Sixth (less than half a company) were commanded by Major Adna R. Chaffee and Lieutenant Frank West.
The general’s staff was Captain Bourke, and Lieutenant G. J. Febiger of the Engineers. Doctor Andrews was surgeon. Archie MacIntosh and Al Sieber were chief scouts. Micky, and old Severiano the Mexican who had been brought up by the Apaches, and Packer Sam Bowman were interpreters.
The pack-masters of the five pack-trains were Frank Monach, Charley Hopkins, of Tucson, “Long Jim” Cook and “Short Jim” Cook, and George Stanfield.
“One blanket and forty rounds of ammunition to each man,” were the orders. The mules carried additional ammunition and sixty days’ rations of hard-tack, coffee and bacon. Everybody was well armed with the Springfield forty-fives, and Colt’s revolvers; even the packers had carbines and pistols.
Plainly enough, the general was outward bound on business!
“U-ga-shé (U-gah-shay)!” barked Lieutenant Gatewood, at the scouts. And away they went, afoot, in their red head-bands and flapping shirts and leggin-moccasins, across the boundary, with Alchisé and “Peaches” in the lead, as guides. They all spread out in a broad front, to cover the country. Their officers rode just behind, with Archie MacIntosh and Sieber the Iron Man.
The general and aides and cavalry escort followed. Then there ambled the long files of pack-trains――Frank Monach’s first. A guard of the cavalry closed the rear.
The “good-by” and “good luck” cheers of the border guard died in the distance. The march to “get” Geronimo, Nah-che and the other Chiricahuas had actually begun.
At first about twenty-five miles a day were covered. But the country grew rougher and hotter. Only two or three of the Mexican villages were inhabited; many others were deserted and in ruins, on account of the Chiricahuas. The brush along the streams was thick, the flowers were large and bright. High, bluish mountains loomed on right and left and before.
It was fine Apache country, all right――and “Peaches” was leading straight into it, for within a few days fresh moccasin tracks might be seen frequently.
“To-morrow for the Sierra Madre,” said Frank Monach, in camp on the night of May 7. “Then we’ll be hangin’ on by our toe-nails. What I’d like to know is, whether Geronimo’ll wait for us or whether he’ll keep a-goin’ himself.”
The huge jumble of the Sierra Madre range frowned directly before. It certainly appeared mighty rough. No white men had yet ventured to penetrate far into the Sierra Madre; but the general was determined, as Al Sieber said, “to open it up.”
He was so anxious, that this night the march had continued until after eleven o’clock, and camp had been made without fires, in the bottom of a deep canyon. So dark it was that even the mules lost their places.
The climb of the first flanks of the Sierra Madre was begun at daylight. The trail that led out of the canyon was littered with plunder――torn letters, Mexican dresses, scattered flour, and beef carcasses. It was so steep that several of the mules fell off, and landed one hundred feet below, in a canyon. But they were not hurt.
The Chiricahua sign became more plentiful. “Peaches” said that Geronimo’s real stronghold was still several days’ march before, but that this was as far as the Mexican soldiers ever had got. The Chiricahuas had ambushed them and driven them back.
To-night everybody except the scouts was very tired. Jimmie ached from head to foot; the job of forcing the mules on was the hardest work of all.
“Come, Cheemie,” invited Micky. “You come with me and you will see big medicine made.”
Jimmie groaned, and hobbled after Micky Free.
What with chasing deer and turkeys and rabbits, to eat, and hunting the Chiricahuas, the scouts had been having a great time. They had never been too tired to dance and yarn; to-night their medicine-men were to find the Chiricahuas for them.
The officers messed with the packers and scouts; it was all one family. The general and Captain Bourke had joined the Monach mess, where Alchisé and other principal scouts ate, too. So the general and the captain were admitted to the circle of the medicine-making.
The chief medicine-man lay in a trance while the lesser medicine-men squatted around him and sang. Soon he thumped his chest and spoke, telling his dream.
“Keet,” the Apache boy who carried the medicine things and was in training for a medicine-man, himself, translated for the general and Captain Bourke.
“What did he say?” asked the captain. “The general wishes to know.”
“He say: ‘Me can’t see ’um Chilicahua yet. Bimeby me see ’um. Me ketch ’um, me kill ’um. Me no ketch ’um, me no kill ’um. Chilicahua see me, me no get ’um. No see me, me ketch ’um. Me see ’um little bit now. Mebbe so six day me ketch ’um; mebbe so two day. Tomollow me send twenty-fibe men to hunt ’um tlail. Mebbe so tomollow see ’um more. Me ketch ’um hoss, me ketch ’um mool, me ketch ’um cow. Ketch Chilicahua pretty soon, bimeby. Kill ’um heap, an’ ketch ’um squaw.’”
That impressed the scouts. They were sure of success.
The signs grew fresher and fresher, and the trail worse and worse. But abandoned rancherias were found――and they had not been abandoned long, either! The eager scouts fairly ran hither-thither, searching and signaling; the cavalry-men toiled afoot, leading their horses; and the pack-mules, urged on by Jimmie and the other packers, coughed and slipped and sweat, and six of them rolled a thousand feet and were dashed to pieces.
But the general showed no token of quitting. He was after Geronimo.
Now it was the night of May 10. In the morning Captain Crawford and his scouts were going ahead, by themselves. Alchisé had insisted that this was the only way to do. He complained to the general that the soldiers and the pack-trains were too slow, to catch the Chiricahuas.
Frank Monach came into camp from a reconnoiter with a few of the soldiers and the huskier packers. Jimmie could not go. His leg was rather bad.
“B’gosh, we found where a passel o’ Mexicans had been wiped out with rocks an’ arrows an’ lances,” announced Frank. “Over yonder in the foothills. They must have come in from the other side.”
This night the scouts were very busy, making medicine and mending moccasins and preparing meat and bread.
“Medicine man say ‘Kill ’um heap Chilicahua, three day from tomollow,’” declared young “Keet,” proud of his English words.
Early in the morning one hundred and fifty of the scouts, with Captain Crawford and Lieutenant Gatewood and Lieutenant Mackay, Archie MacIntosh, Al Sieber, and Micky and Severiano and Sam Bowman, hastened ahead.
They were to fight and to surround, and try to hold the Chiricahuas until the soldiers arrived. The dismounted cavalry and the pack-trains followed at best speed, again into the heart of the high country.
XXII
WAR OR PEACE?
During the next few days Captain Crawford sent back several notes, to say that by the signs he was likely to strike the Chiricahuas at any moment. The pursuit was closing in. Maybe the medicine-men were right. They had prophesied “Three days from to-morrow,” which would be May 14.
But May 14 passed without especial event. Then, at one o’clock noon of May 15, in a little box canyon there was sudden excitement among the cavalry ahead of the Monach pack-train. Jimmie, first in line at one side behind the “bell,” saw the Indian runner dart down the slope, into the trail, and hand a note to the general.
The general read it. Lieutenant Febiger hastened back to Major Chaffee, and instantly the trumpet pealed “Mount!” Into their saddles vaulted the troopers. Down to the pack-trains galloped Lieutenant West.
“Close up your outfits!” he shouted. “Be prepared for action. Crawford’s scouts have struck the hostiles.”
“Hooray!” That was good news. Afterwards it was learned that the foremost scouts had discovered some Chiricahuas in a canyon, had fired upon two men and a woman, and had frightened the rest away. The runner had brought the note six miles across the mountains in less than an hour.
“Listen to that!” yelped Martin, the cook, from the “bell.”
Distant rifle-shots sounded faintly. It was a battle! Captain Crawford’s scouts and the Chiricahuas were fighting!
The reports welled faster. Every ear was keen set. Major Chaffee’s cavalry had quickened pace, each trooper erect in his saddle; the pack-mules were being forced more compactly, ready for corralling should the cavalry leave; the general, in the advance with his aides, clearly was impatient for the country to open out and the battle-field be sighted.
“Bet they got away, dog-gone it!” yelled back Cook Martin. For presently the firing dwindled to spatters, and ceased. Shucks!
“Anyhow, the old man’ll keep agoin’,” voiced the packer behind Jimmie. “There’s a nice moon for huntin’ Injuns, an’ we can live on what those bronc’s are throwin’ away!”
So it was plod, plod, up and down, and down and up. The troopers dismounted, to lead their horses.
Toward dusk a great smoke was to be seen several miles away, on a high mountain-side. The pack-train guessed that a Chiricahua rancheria was being cleaned up.
The horizon over there flared into red, and while supper was being eaten, in camp under a glorious full moon, here came Captain Crawford and his scouts at last, both afoot and ahorse. They brought also forty-seven horses loaded with plunder, and five prisoners――two boys, two girls, and a woman.
Alchisé acted rather disgusted, but Micky Free was joyful.
“Hello, Cheemie,” he greeted, as he and others of the scouts squatted near the camp-fires, to eat again. “We had good fun. It was Chato’s and Bonito’s rancherias. Alchisé and Sibi are mad because we shot too soon, and the Chiricahua ran off. We killed nine and captured those five. We didn’t catch any more. The country was very rough, and they hid. But we set the rancherias on fire. There were thirty houses. And to-morrow we get more Chiricahua.”
“Wasn’t the little white boy there, Micky?”
“Yes, he was there, the squaw says. His name Carlos (Charles); six years old. He was with some old squaws and they ran off with him. But she says she can find them in two days. Loco and Chihuahua want to come back to the reservation; maybe Geronimo and Chato and Nah-che; Whoa still thinks bad.”
“Where is Geronimo?” asked Frank Monach, in Spanish.
“Nearly all the Chiricahua men are down in the south, hunting Mexicans. They will be surprised when they know the Cluke men have found where they live, and that Pa-na-yo-tish-n had led us so straight. We now are inside and they are outside. Inju!”
Everybody was much disappointed that little Charley McComas had disappeared. If some of the younger scouts had not shot first without orders the rancherias might have been surrounded and Charley rescued.
However, the captured squaw seemed to be certain that she could find the older squaws who had him. Early in the morning she was sent away, with one of the boy prisoners and two days’ rations. She promised she would tell the Chiricahuas it was no use to fight.
This was a cold, rainy day, which made the waiting disagreeable. At night ice formed. In the morning a smoke signal was seen. The general ordered that it be answered. “Peaches” guided to a better camping-place, where there were grass and running water.
Another smoke signal was sent up, but only a few squaws and children came in. The squaws said that some other squaws had Charley McComas. One of the women was the sister of Chief Chihuahua (or Bonito). She stated that all the Chihuahua band would surrender as soon as her brother could get them together.
“The idee of the gen’ral is, not to do any more fightin’, if he can help it, till that white kid is fetched along,” explained Martin, the cook for the Monach pack-train and officers’ mess. “That’s what Cap’n Bourke says. You see, the leetle fellow’s with the Chihuahua band.”
The next day Chihuahua (Bonito) himself came boldly in, to say that he would surrender his people as soon as he could get word to them all. They were tired of fighting and hiding.
“That is good,” answered the general. “I have soldiers and scouts enough to fight the Chiricahuas as long as they wish to fight. Those I do not kill or capture I will drive into the Mexican soldiers who are coming up from the south.”
“I speak only for my own band,” answered Chihuahua. “They will make peace, but I do not know what Geronimo and Whoa will do. If you will let me take two of my young men and go out again, I can hurry my people in faster.”
“They must bring the white boy.”
“I will tell them so,” said Chihuahua.
Chihuahua did good work, for the Chiricahuas kept gathering until there were one hundred and twenty-one in camp. But they had not brought Charley McComas, and none of the Geronimo men had turned up.
Then, at eight o’clock in the morning, a tremendous outburst of shouts and screeches sounded from some high cliffs above the camp. More Apaches were jumping about among the rocks there, as if much astonished.
“Geronimo!” exclaimed Micky, running.
The camp sprang to arms.
“What is the matter?” were yelling the Chiricahuas above, to the Chiricahuas below.
“The white war-captain has us. We fight no more,” called the Chiricahuas who had surrendered. “It is no use. Our own people fight against us.”
Two old squaws clambered half-way down.
“Ask the white war-captain if we will be hurt?” they screamed.
The general sent out Micky and Scout To-klani (Plenty Water) and one of the Chihuahua Chiricahuas. To-klani’s sisters belonged to the Chihuahua band, and the Chiricahuas all knew him.
“The white war-captain says that he does not care whether you surrender or not,” announced To-klani. “Chihuahua has surrendered. We are only waiting till the rest of his people and the little white boy come in. If you come you will not be harmed, but if you do not come you will be killed.”
This set the Chiricahuas on the cliff to thinking. Evidently now that they had found their best camping-place occupied, and so many of the other Chiricahuas surrendered, they did not know quite what to do. As Frank Monach remarked: “That’s a heap joke. Expect we look mighty comfortable, at our little love-feast.”
Within about an hour, the Apaches came down. It was Geronimo, all right――he, and Nah-che, and Chato, and thirty-three warriors. They all carried the latest model repeating rifles, and the best nickle-plated revolvers, and they stared about very uneasily.
They began to ask questions of the scouts; Nah-che sighted Jimmie, and sidled over to him.
“Chi-kis-n,” he said.
“Chi-kis-n,” replied Jimmie.
“The last time I saw you I talked straight,” proceeded Nah-che. “Now I ask you to talk straight, for we are men. I want to know how you came in here, with so many soldiers and Apaches and mules, while we were out hunting the Mexicans. What does Cluke intend to do?”
“We came in easily, because the White Mountain who was one of Chato’s men showed us the road. But the Gray Fox would have brought us anyway. The American soldiers can hunt Apaches in Mexico, and the Mexican soldiers can hunt Apaches in the United States. That is arranged. If Geronimo will not surrender, let him try to fight. The other Chiricahuas are going back to the reservation. Geronimo will not last long. His own people are against him, and he cannot hide any more in Mexico.”
“That sounds bad,” uttered Nah-che; and he walked away very downcast.
The general was saying the same thing, and other things, to Geronimo.
“You should have had more sense than to leave because of a few troubles,” he scolded severely. “There is always some trouble in a big camp of Indians. I want to know what those troubles were, so that I may correct them. I shall not talk long with you; you must make up your mind for peace or war. You can see for yourself that I am not afraid of you. I have come in here, where you thought I could not come, and I am not even taking your arms from you. You are free to stay or go. If you decide to stay and march with the other Chiricahua to the San Carlos, you will not be harmed.
“You have done things for which you ought to be arrested; but if you will promise to behave yourself and work, I will see to it that you are placed wherever you choose, on the reservation. I will make soldiers of your own men, to keep peace in your camp. The ugly long-nosed man (who was Lieutenant Gatewood) shall select them, and he will be your officer. He will see to it that you get whatever you are entitled to get.
“But if you do not go back with me, then it will be war. I will cover all this country with soldiers and scouts, and the Mexicans and the Americans and the scouts will hunt you down without stopping. Now I have spoken. I ask you to leave me and to think this over, and talk with your men. Then you must tell me what you have decided, for I do not want there to be any misunderstanding.”
The council broke up. Geronimo appeared rather downcast, too. The rest of the day he and his people kept by themselves. Even Nah-che did not come over again. It was an anxious period, for the Geronimo band were able to put up a hard fight still, and the camp was full of Chiricahuas.
“What do you think Geronimo will do, Micky?” asked Jimmie.
“He is a smart man, and likes to talk,” answered Micky. “He is a war-captain. But when he sees that he is talking alone, he will quit. Cluke’s words stung him, for no chief likes to be talked at like that. I looked for a fight right away, and so did Sibi. There was no fight――it would have been a good fight, though, with so many Chiricahua all around us. Now I think that if Geronimo is still here, in the morning, it means peace.”
Everybody――soldiers, scouts and packers――slept with one eye and one ear open, this night. But in the morning Geronimo asked the general for another talk. It seemed as though the decision had been made.
“I have thought deeply, and have talked with my people,” said Geronimo. “We were not well treated at San Carlos, but if you will be good to us we will do as you tell us to do. The white man does not see as the Apache sees, and yet you have made me feel that I have done wrong. I will go with you to the San Carlos. But first I ask you to order me to send out for the rest of my people. They are much scattered, and they have many ponies and cattle which belong to them; but if they see only signals they will think them to be signals set by your scouts, to fool them. And if I go away and leave them, then the Mexicans will kill them.”
“You must try to find the white boy,” reminded the general.
“I will do exactly as you say,” replied Geronimo.
“Is it peace, chi-kis-n?” inquired Jimmie, of Nah-che.
“It is peace,” answered Nah-che; but he did not smile.
“Hooray!” cheered Long Jim Cook. “That was a tall bluff on the gen’ral’s part, I reckon; but it worked. For a while we were in a bad box, with the camp runnin’ over with Chiricahua, an’ thirty or forty fightin’ bronc’s up on those cliffs, ready to rake us. I wouldn’t trust all these scouts, in a pinch, either. They’ve got too many kin, in the hostiles.”
“D’you suppose Geronimo has somethin’ up his sleeve, still?” proposed Martin the cook, to Frank Monach. “He acts awful agreeable.”
XXIII
GERONIMO PLAYS SMART
“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.”