by Will Henry
"Listen," I said. "From everything you tell us, Mickey, this here Sixth Cavalry can't even find the broncos, let alone whip them. They ain't ever been into the mountains, even. All hell's busted loose, you say, with the Injuns robbing and killing and raiding, and most of them drunk most of the time, and now you say Geronimo is back up here out of the Mexican Sierra ready to lead the Apaches square down the main stem of downtown Tucson. And me and Sieber is supposed to saddle up when Willcox blows the bugle? To go and ride naked out in front of a bunch of cavalry that's not so much as been fired on yet? Hijo, hombre! Let Seebie speak for himself. We are not both lunáticos."
Mickey Free wasn't grinning anymore.
"You don't want to go after Geronimo?" he said.
"Hell no. I ain't lost nothing in his camp."
The dwarfish Irish breed shook his mop of scarecrow hair. "Yes," he said, "you have. Your woman."
It was as direct as that.
Geronimo had sent a picked band on a side raid over into Pedro's country. They had come into the rancheria in the gut of the night, taken Nopal, gotten away back over the mountain, unscathed. A pursuit was made with daybreak and a rifle fight followed, when the raiders were surprised at a water-hole rest halt. Chikisin had taken a grievous wound, Al-chinne and Bobby Do-klanny been killed. Do-klanny had lived long enough to identify the leader of the Bedonkohe band. It was a young Mexican Indian named Hal-zay. He was a nephew of Geronimo, a grandson of old Nana, the only Indian worse than Geronimo in reputation. It was said Nana, who was still riding the war trails at seventy-eight years of age, had killed more white men than all the other Chiripahua chiefs of the hostiles combined. So Hal-zay was bred to be remembered, and I remembered him. But for that terrible moment of Mickey Free's revelation that Nopal was gone, I could think of nothing but her and our child.
‘The baby," I said, when Mickey had filled out the stark bones of the raid. "My God, was it—did she—"
"No baby yet," the half-breed said. "Squaw all right."
"But it's past her time. Weeks past it."
Mickey Free shook his ugly head. "Baby still in her," he said. "You want to go chase Geronimo now?"
I got up and poured our water bucket on the fire.
Sieber kicked away the wet ashes.
"Ugashe," I said to Mickey Free in Apache, "let's go."
Geronimo Again
Back at San Carlos, the air smelt of trouble and the work pace was furious. Any man that rode for Al Sieber when the bugles blew would know what I mean. He became fevered with an Indian hunt in prospect. It was riding around the clock and then back around again, with no sleep, not stopping longer than to tighten a cinch, and as to eating, a Sieber scout had to be able to live on what a hungry wolf would leave.
You will understand of course that when Sieber got heated up to hunt Indians—and the same with me—it wasn't to kill good Indians but the bad boys that kept the decent Apaches from any chance at living peaceable with the whites. We knew, me and Sieber, what those poor damn "peaceables" never could seem to savvy. To be seen with bad Indians, made bad Indians out of all of them. And you just never could get at the bad ones but that some good ones was caught in the crossfire.
But I won't lie about it.
For me it was grand exciting times just like it was for Al. The "Injun fever" was in my bloodstream, too. Iron Man never took a step that Tom Horn was over a lariat toss away. Unless, that was, he had sent me on a mission as Talking Boy, where I could get into jacals and wickiups and under brush ramadas even Old Mad wasn't welcome in. It was some times!
The weeks flew and even months, and we was getting those Sixth Cavalry troops into trim and their asses saddle-toughed to where those tender boys could stay up with me and Al Sieber and Mickey Free and Merijilda.
But damn, where was Geronimo?
Where were all the "bad ones" up with him from the Mexican Sierra del Norte—the bastards that had been burning up the frontier when General Willcox called us back from Tombstone, the fall of 1877?
Good Lord, here it was the spring of 1878! Our boys of the Sixth was as ready as two-year-old bulls held out of the heifer pasture all winter. But Sieber and me and the others hadn't been able to find them one genuine bad bronco to chase, nor a solitary Cibicu to surround.
Then, midmorning of April 29, it broke. I remember the date because it marked the month coming (May) that would make it one year I had been away from my Apache wife Nopal. As a matter of fact, I was setting outside the agency building holding up its south wall—where the sun was best—squatted in the dirt with Mickey and Merijilda and some of our purebloods, and we was talking about Nopal. I was telling them my hunch was that I would never see her again. They were wagging heads to the negative, insisting it wouldn't be Gokliya's style to settle for the kidnap. No sir. Old Saint Jerome would see to it that Talking Boy got hurt worse than that.
I knew who they meant by the Saint Jerome name. It was the beginning of the Mex name, Jeronimo, for Gokliya. The Americans then made Geronimo out of that. But the Mexicans hung Jeronimo on the Bedonkohe chief because Saint Jerome was known as the Orator. And God knows old Gokliya could orate something scandalous. Or at least that's what Mickey and Merijilda told me, and they had forgot more real know on the Apaches than a white man like me could hope to learn in his life, entire.
I still took pause on their story.
With Indians, names are peculiar items. For example, Geronimo's Apache name Gokliya was said by one branch of the Chiricahua to mean "the Laugher" and by another side of the Cherry Cow family to stand for "the Yawner." It was said to be taken, in either event, from his odd habit of opening his mouth from ear to ear as a baby still on his mother's teats. I don't know. It's a long stretch from liking jokes to being bored or sleepy. But I was only commencing to get my Apache education.
Right at the moment concerned, Mickey had just said, "Well, just be patient, Talking Boy. You will see that Cousin Merijilda and Brother Miguel are your best teachers. Seebie knows a lot and you know a little. But we know Geronimo. He is one bad Indian son of a bitch."
"Yes," Merijilda nodded. "Sieber calls Mickey a son of a bitch. But Uncle Gokliya? Ay de mi! Sí, hombre, you may believe it; Geronimo will think of some Apache way to ‘show you' your wife again." He looked at me con compasión. "I hope she still has her nose," he said.
I had seen Apache squaws with their noses cut off for infidelity. Merijilda wasn't being cruel. Nopal had been named as belonging to Geronimo. And she had fled to me. The possibility spoiled the sun for me.
Merijilda Grijole was a pure Mexican raised by the Bedonkohe Chiricahua. Mickey Free was a half Mexican reared up in the Warm Springs band of Nana.
I had to believe them.
I did not, as the matter now developed, need to put that believe on a faith basis, however.
"Miren ustedes," Merijilda said, pointing suddenly down the agency wagon road, to the south. "Do we not know that old crow flopping this way, Brother Miguel?"
Mickey peered southward, blue eyes narrowing.
"Hijo!" he said. "It is that old devil Mary Penole. Now we will learn something."
"Mary Cornmeal?" I said. "Who the hell is that? I see only an old crippled-up Apache crone hobbling this way on foot. And that packmule she leads! Santissimo!"
Merijilda and Mickey got up, and I with them.
"The old lady is a message runner," the Mexican scout told me, "from the broncos. Where Mary Cornmeal goes, the wild Indians will follow soon. You watch."
"And listen, too," Mickey Free added, with his grin.
A moment later the limping squaw halted in the road, squinting over at us. "Hold, handsome boy," she called to Merijilda, one of the most perfectly formed men. "Why don't you ever come to see us anymore? All the women ask for you." She drew her head to one side, eyeing Mickey. "Hold, ugly one," she waved. "How is the young jackmule today? Are you still frightening all the young squaws with that thing Ussen hung upon you? Chispas! Stand beside Gokliya some time, if you want
to be embarrassed! Madre Dios!" She left off, staring at me.
"Quita!" she said. "What is this?"
"Seebie's new boy," Mickey answered. "The one that has been living with Pedro, up on White River."
The withered crone gave a start.
"Him?" she said.
"We apologize," Mickey nodded. "He is not much."
"Ha!" the old lady cried. "On the contrary, he looks good to me. Not pretty, like the Mexican there, but very tall, eh? And his legs are set wide out on the edges of his hipbones, but still no light shows at the crotch. You know what that means, ugly one. No wonder Sister Sawn followed him out of Fort Apache."
"Tut, tut, mother," Mickey grinned, "he is very shy about it. But just let me ask you one small question, eh? You talk about Gokliya! Hah! Why did that Nopal girl run away from him to go with this one, eh? She knew. She never quit smiling."
"Go to hell," recommended Mary Cornmeal. "You almost made me forget why I came up here. Santa! Come along, old mule of mine. Only a little farther, now."
She waddled on and disappeared into Major Chaffee's office. We continued to stand, watching after her. I think we all knew it would do no good to sit back down again. Something was up, sure.
We were right.
Next moment, Chaffee put his head out the screen door and bawled, "Horn, get your ass in here. Jesus Christ, these bastards never are around when you need them. Sieber," he yelled back into the office, "do you know where he is? Goddamnit, Al. Hornnn—!"
I stepped around the corner of the old building, throwing him my knucklebrow salute, copied from Sieber.
"Right here, sir. What do you need?"
"What you are paid for!" he roared. "Get in here and interpret!"
"Yes sir; I thought you had Al in there, sir."
"He wants you. Says the squaw's talking too fast for him. Too much Apache. If you ask me, I think its too much pulque. Hike your butt, Horn."
Inside the office, old Mary Cornmeal proved eager enough to speak through me. All the while I told Major Chaffee what she was saying, the wrinkled creature kept patting my thigh and grinning, "good boy, good boy," in Apache. Or, "ah, if I were younger!" Or maybe, "who could blame Nopal?" And it got so bad the major had to put me on one side of his desk and Mary Cornmeal on the other. Then we got on with it.
The word the aged courier bore was not from Geronimo, as we expected. Rather it was Nana, that fiercest of them all, who sent the word. He, Nana, and his nephew Gokliya, were not happy living down in Mexico. Both would like to come and live on the reservation with all their old friends. They wanted to see Iron Man and have a talk with him about all this.
The old chief of the Warm Springs Apache said that neither he nor his nephew knew any of the new officers in Arizona. But they could tell that these officers knew nothing of what the Indians wanted and must have. It was up to Seebie to make the arrangement. There were no conditions, except one: Sieber must bring his new talking boy with him.
You may be certain that was received with interest by the interpreter! The old squaw never even looked at me, but kept right on rattling away, in Apache. It was all I could do to catch the key places and directions.
Sieber could bring one other with him, in addition to Talking Boy. It could be anybody but young Ramon (Chikisin) who, we would understand, was out of favor with Geronimo over a matter of some stolen Mexican horses.
Sieber, with his one or two companions, must be at the old maguey roasting camp in the Terras Mountains at the precise full of the May moon. A day sooner, or later, and the Apaches would become suspicious. Was all this understood? Sieber nodded yes and spoke his part.
"Listen, mother," he said to the old squaw, "you go back and tell Nana and Geronimo that Iron Man is coming. I will bring the talking boy and also the Mexican Merijilda Grijole. The people will know they can trust us with Merijilda along. Now, would you care to rest before you start home?"
Mary Cornmeal scoffed at the idea of rest, but she did let me fix her a right decent noon meal, make up a nice pack of meat and staples to take back with her and to feed her moth-bit mule. The last I saw of her she was hobbling down the wagon ruts of the road south out of San Carlos Agency, singing a cracked and crazy Apache happy song to the mule, which followed her like a pet dog. "A wonderful old lady," I said to Merijilda, standing with me. "I pray her a good journey."
"Thank you," the Mexican scout said softly. "She is the own-sister of Nana. She was my grandmother when I visited in his house. I will pray with you, hermano."
I never got used to the lack of emotion of these Apaches in public meetings. Privately, they were the warmest, funniest, and closest of people. Remarkable and marvelous friends. But in front of the white man they were all strangers to each other. The example of Merijilda and his Warm Springs grandmother was typical. In the Apache way, children of the wives of fighting men were turned over when weaned to the grandmothers for rearing. This was to free the mothers to go with their warriors on raids or hunts or the long foraging rides common to these nomads of the Arizona far places. So in reality the children were nearer to their old grandmothers than to their own-mothers. Yet, at San Carlos, Merijilda Grijole and Mary Cornmeal had passed as the merest of acquaintances. Only my chance reference to the dearest heart he held among the wild tribes had broken his Apache mask.
I loved the way of those dark warriors and love it still. They were truly Tindé Ussen, "God's people."
"On campaign," as the cavalry put it, we always moved sharp. No more laying around. No squawing. No bottles brought along. Easygoing Al Sieber turned into Old Mad and Iron Man the minute he told me to "bring up the Jenny mule, Horn."
And so we started from San Carlos, Sieber planning each day's march to the mile. Picking up the head of San Bernardino Creek, we followed it down to where it fed into the Rio Bavispe, in Sonora, over east of Fronteras on the sundown side of the Sierra de la Madera. Here, just as we prepared to cross the Bavispe, and were down off our horses letting them wade in and drink, Merijilda said softly, "Miren, amigos; we have company."
Sieber and me looked up and saw one Indian coming down a spur of the Terras range, opposite us. The man was afoot. He seemed not even to see us. Getting to the bank, he stopped and leaned on his rifle and watched our stock in the water. He was a magnificent-looking fellow, and I knew at once that I was staring at my first real-live bronco in his natural lair.
He was tall for an Apache, about six feet. Slender, wide shouldered, bowlegged. His copper skin gleamed in the late daylight. He was unclad except for a very skimpy, worn-low breechclout, Apache n-deh b'keh high mocs, and a brace of cartridge bandoliers sagging in the Mexican cross style from his lean shoulders. He seemed of a sudden aware of our existence and lit up his dark face with a smile that gave me glad relief.
"Hal-zay," Merijilda whispered. "Half brother to Natchez (Naiche, Nachee, Naches) and Taza (Tahza), the sons of Cochise."
"Ah!" I breathed excitedly. "Ain't he grand."
"He is one of the worst Indians you will ever see," Al Sieber grunted from the side of his mouth. "A real hesh-ke and a fourteen-carat son of an Apache bitch."
I could not believe it, watching the graceful and smiling savage across the stream.
"Come on," Merijilda said. "He will be all right with us. He is only down here to give us the direction Nana and Geronimo want us to take up to Mescal Meadow. He will lay back here by the water to make certain we don't have troops following us. Let me talk to him."
We waded out to our horses and got aboard them. I couldn't take my eyes off Hal-zay. Here was the Indian who led the band that took Nopal. He was of the blood of Cochise and the nephew of Geronimo and Nana. A bad Indian, Sieber had said. But I said, beautiful. And for a reason that my shadow was warning me of, I knew he was to play a singular part in my immediate life.
"Remember, do not ask his name of him," Merijilda reminded me, our horses splashing near the other bank. "If you ask his name you put a curse on him. You may ask who he is. He can then tell y
ou what band he is from, or whatever else about him that he chooses."
"I know, I know," I answered a bit short.
"You may know," Merijilda nodded, "but out here you must know. We are five days south of San Carlos."
"Basta," warned Sieber. "Here we are."
We came out of the river and halted before the Indian. He spoke first, addressing Sieber and Merijilda in that order. They returned his words, reminding him who they were and why they were here.
"Yes, I know who you are," he said. "I have seen you both before." He pointed at me. "But who is this? Him I have not seen."
Sieber gave me a side-look which said to shut up.
"Oh," he answered Hal-zay, "he is a young scout we are breaking in. Very interested in Indian work. His father is very powerful. Merijilda can vouch for him."
This, the Mexican scout quickly did. But the Apache began to scowl. I was amazed at the sinister change in his face when the smile disappeared.
"Why did you come down here?" he demanded of me.
"He wanted to see the great Geronimo," Sieber said quickly. "You know, my brother," he shrugged, as if it were entirely nothing, "he is not grown as we are."
Hal-zay shook his head but spoke to Merijilda in Apache and then waved us to go on up the mountain spur he had descended. We passed on by him, single file, the way being narrow just there. "Don't look back," Sieber barked at me. "He expects you to do that. Keep going."
"Suits me," I said. "But where are we going?"
"Too-slah, the Apaches call it," Merijilda answered. "To the Mexicans and gringos, it is Mescal Meadow. I know the way, but we are riding late. Ugashe."
Ugashe was the Apache term for "go!" or "let's go," and we obeyed it willingly. The trail was steep and dangerous and night was coming down. But we had an Apache invitation. "Be in the Too-slah grazing place when the May moon slides around the shoulder of the Terras Mountain." The dangerous old chief Nana had sent it. No other urging was required.