by Will Henry
Not if you were one of two white men following an Apache Mexican up the blind side of a strange mountain, five pony rides from the nearest troop of U.S. Cavalry.
Wagh—!
We saw the light of their night fires five miles away.
"Christ Jesus," Sieber said, "we've struck a hornet's nest of them."
"More like a mud daubers' wattle," Merijilda amended, "than even you imagine, Seebie. We will find a thousand Indians up there. But it's all right. They don't burn bright fires like that in a war camp. Vámonos, amigos."
Half a mile from the camp, a small Apache boy came out in the trail. He had been sent to guide us to our camping spot, he said. We thanked him and followed on, very glad to see him. They don't bring children of such an age to camps where weapons are being cleaned.
The boy found us an excellent place out on the edge of the biggest encampment of Apaches of any land I had ever seen. To know that every last buck, squaw, and pup of them was broncos sent a thrilling up the small of my spine that I remember yet. "God Amighty!" I breathed to Sieber. "They can't all be hostiles, can they?"
"Cherry Cows to the last dangerous bastard," the old German growled. "Either Warm Springs Injuns with Nana, or Mexican Injuns with Geronimo, plus kinfolk slipping over from the Cochise country. What's your count, now, Merijilda?"
"Over a thousand," the Mexican said. "Twelve hundred anyway, and more coming in. I never saw so many women and children. Business must be good in Méjico."
"Merijilda," I said, pointing, 'look who's coming to see you. How in God's name did she beat us here?"
It was, of course, the old grandmother.
Old Mary Cornmeal, who had brought us the message, por Dios!
Merijilda laughed at my question about a crippled ancient like that outmarching three top scouts of the United States Sixth Cavalry, and on foot!
"She knew the way," the Mexican said. "We had to find it. Abuela mia!" he shouted to the old lady. "It is you. Ya lo creo!"
Merijilda swept her up in his arms, and the gaggle of other squaws and kids following her laughed and clapped their hands to see such happiness. But the old lady was kicking at Merijilda and commanding that she be put down. "Tonto!" she cried. "Do you think I was coming to see you? I had enough of putting dry moss in your pants and keeping the flies out of your eyes when you used to come visit us and made yourself the jacal pet of that old senito Nana. Put me down this instant, and let me at that tall boy with the ears that stick out and no firelight showing through his crotch. Here!" she yelled at me. "Don't try to get away! I see you there sliding out into the dark. Stop him, Seebie. That is my boy. Hoo-hooe!"
Hoo-hooe is a sound the Apaches make when they are rounding up ponies, driving cattle, chasing pigs, racing horses, or trying to catch a fat pet dog to put in the family stewpot. It means almost anything but mostly is a pursuit yell which has the spirit of I'll catch you, you son of a bitch, never fear!
In this case, Sieber reached out and nailed me with his grip of iron, hauling me back.
"Stay put," he said, "and smile, Wide Crotch. You have taken the eye of the chief's little sister."
"Mierda," I said. Which, not being either very elegant, or original, I won't bother to translate.
"Nevertheless," Al Sieber said, "you're it."
He was right. The old lady, Mary Cornmeal, would have it no other way. As soon as the rest of the squaws had made Sieber and Merijilda a fine camp, I had to go along with her to her brush hut. I simply wasn't going to do it, but Sieber made it an order. I went along mad enough to dent a horseblasting cap, or bite a bobcat, using my own teeth. But I had old Mary wrong.
It came to pass that she had spread a lot of stories about how nice I had been to her at San Carlos—feeding her a good meal, giving her a fine pack of meat and flour and sugar, haying down her old pack animal—and that I had done all this out of desire for her, well along in winters though she might be.
The truth was that Major Chaffee had commanded me to butter up the old hag. She knew that as well as I did, advising me of the fact with an evil but twinkling look of pouchy eyes. "Boy," she said, "all you need do is behave as though I had told those nosy women the real thing. See them following us? If you will but go with me through the entry-skins of my poor home, yonder, they will cluck their foolish tongues loose with envy."
She gave me that impy, wiseacre wink again.
"If you should see fit to pat me on my old rump bones as we bend to go in the hut, it would keep the silly hens awake on their roosts the whole night. Ih-hah!"
Here, she laughed her cracky, cackling laugh and gave me a tweak in the front of the breechclout that like to pinched me off into a shorthorn. "Hombre!" she snorted, loud enough to be heard by every Apache in Mescal Meadow, "the things you say to a woman! Wagh!"
Cringing, I came on with her up to the dog kennel she called her wickiup. Still cackling and chucking me with elbow and stabbing me with bony finger, she pulled aside the moldy deerhide door-drop to her castle and yelled, "Entra, entero—!"
Since this meant "come on in, studhorse," I felt the only decent thing to do was play it her agey, crazy old way. Her squaw friends were still peep-tomming at us from over back of some other brush-heap huts nearby, and Tom Horn was damned if he was going to disappoint them.
"Ai, mujer!" I shouted.
And picked up the old lady, tucked her under one arm, stooped down with her, and went into her hut.
Inside, I put her down a little rough and began to say something like, all right, that's the end of the ponyplay, old crow, but I never got one word out. I was lucky enough to see, by the shine of the old Indian oil lamp she had left burning—a copper bowl with free-float wick—that tears were streaming down her face.
"Boy," she croaked, "a very old woman thanks you; it was no game for her. You recall for her other nights when she was not as you see her now. It is a thing of the heart, of the pride. Ussen will repay you for it."
"Mother," I answered, "it was nothing. Neither Ussen nor the very old lady owes any debt to repay. Nor did I play it for a game, either. You are still beautiful. What do a few winters mean to us, linda mujer?"
She commenced to sob out loud at that. I placed an arm about her hunched shoulders and gave her a squeeze.
"Go ahead," I said. "Your friends will only think I am doing a good job in here."
That returned her wide, wicked grin and the happy laugh. "Hijo!" she said. "You are right!" And immediately set up such a yammer of weeping and crying out as would flatter the meanest macho. While she was carrying on this make-believe, she pointed out to me a hole in the brush at hut's rear. "It backs up on the chaparral, cortejo grande. No one will see you leave. Adiós."
I squeezed her again and then, because she had called me "big lover," fetched her a smacking kiss. Apaches don't like kissing, but Mary Cornmeal forgave me with a kick in the shins and a Chiricahua curse. I went out the rear brush-hole of her hut on my all-fours, mas pronto. When I snuck back into our camp, Sieber was there alone, Merijilda being no doubt off visiting kin. The old German didn't stir, and I didn't stir him. You can bet he was wide awake. Old Mad never slept. He just didn't want to embarrass the big lover.
"Come on, Talking Boy. Wake up. Geronimo is waiting for you." I came up to a sit on my blankets, and there was Merijilda standing over me. Sieber was setting on a salt box dressing his bad left foot-wound for the day. He was all clothed other than for his one boot, and the sun hadn't even crope over the edge of Terras Mountain yet. Something was moving, sure.
"Where did you drop in from?" I grumped to Merijilda, feeling around for my own boots and yawning.
"From Uncle Gokliya's jacal," he answered, which naturally was the end of my yawn.
"You mean Geronimo really is waiting up on us?"
"On you," the Mexican scout said. "We're ready."
I glanced over at the old German and saw that he had got on the left boot, with its entire vamp and toe cut out to free his bad foot, and knew that it was "going
" time. Jamming on my boots and hat, I said to Merijilda, "Lead on, batidor; the troops is right behind you."
"You got any more fun in you," Sieber growled at me, "blow it out your butthole, right now. Geronimo don't understand anything short of dead serious."
"Yes sir," I said and shut up.
Minutes later, we was in our places outside Geronimo's brush shelter. "Look sharp!" Merijilda warned with sudden lowering of his voice. "He's coming out now."
And then Gokliya was there.
Mary Cornmeal
Geronimo came out of the wickiup and stood there looking at us with his arms folded and his great head held with the heavy chin jutting out like a marble statue of a Roman headman. He was something to see.
Others have said, and I, too, that he was six good foot tall. Looking back, I know he wasn't. He just seemed it. I would guess, by the inches I had on him, he must have been about five ten, as I was then six foot and two inches tall myself.
Somewhere, somebody called him the Daniel Webster of western Indians. They weren't just meaning he was an orator but that he genuinely resembled Webster. I don't know that. Can't recall seeing any picture of old Dan that looked like Geronimo. Still, when once you saw Gokliya, you never forgot the view.
Mouth was like it had been cut with a knife. Almost no lips and way wide, with downturnings at the outer corners. Nose, high in the bridge, wide at nostril but not the bony arch of it. Eyes was set in under head-jutted brow bones, where they gleamed out of the dark shadows. Those eyes stayed with you, wherever you moved or let your own look wander. You could feel them. It was the same as being watched by a wolf, where you were ganted up and weak in hock and he was just waiting for one wrong, careless flick of your attention or stumble in your gait. He made a man shaky, even in broad sun.
Suddenly, he dropped the folded arms.
"How are you, young man?" he said to me in Apache. "What are you doing here?"
"He will interpret for me," Sieber said quickly.
Geronimo nodded, never taking his gimlet eyes from me. "I speak fast," he said. "Can you interpret as fast as I speak, young fellow?"
I was actually trembling from nerves, but said I would try. "I have one mouth and one tongue inside it, jefe. They are only ordinary and cannot keep up with a great chief's, but I will do my best, patrón."
"Well spoken," he rumbled. He looked on at me for another moment. "It is too bad," he said, "that you didn't know me before."
At that, Al Sieber traded looks with me. I could see he didn't like it. "Jefe" he said to Geronimo, "the boy is nothing. I came to hear Gokliya talk."
Geronimo then turned back to Sieber and began to talk in earnest. This is all he wanted:
The agents at San Carlos had done him great wrong.
The soldiers hated him and mistreated him.
The White Mountain Apaches lied about him forever.
The Mexicans cheated him and killed his people.
He wanted to come back to San Carlos and live happy with his friends. He wanted two Mexicans hired full time to make mescal liquor for him. He wanted the government to give him a lot of new guns. He wanted, with them, all the ammunition he could shoot up. He wanted four bolts of calico for each woman, five sets of shoes for every child. He wanted bacon every day, beef every night, warm fires for all when the snow was on the earth.
He would have other ideas, he concluded, but for this agreement we could begin with the things put forward.
Well, Sieber turned to me, breathing hard.
"Horn," he said, "you tell Geronimo only what I say, to the word, exactamente." He then answered the chief.
Geronimo had asked for everything but to have these Terras Mountains moved up into the United States to live in. Maybe, now, el jefe would like to add in those same mountains. Sieber would wait, if Geronimo wanted to go talk to his people about moving those mountains up into the American country. For, if the great chief believed he was entitled to those other things he had asked for, then just as surely he was entitled to have the Terras Mountains moved up to San Carlos.
The old German quite abruptly broke off his talk.
He nodded to Geronimo and stared him back.
"Now you think about it," he said, and he turned and walked out of the council.
It fell to me to give a small lie about what Iron Man had meant, against what he had said, but Geronimo didn't need the bull tallow to smooth him down.
He pointed admiringly after Sieber and said, "Anybody's business that is in that man's hands will be handled as he says, or it won't be handled at all, ih!"
To me, he added, "We will meet here again when the sun goes."
"Si, jefe" I said and retreated after Iron Man.
Sieber stood looking out over the crowd that had gathered to the big fire. Night was hard down, and we had come, as bid by Geronimo. But it was Old Mad, the storied Iron Man Sieber, who held the Indians silent.
In the morning meet there had been but a handful of subchiefs, Geronimo, and the three of us from San Carlos. Now we estimated between three and four hundred bucks were waiting for Sieber to begin. Not a squaw, not one pup or older child, even, was in sight. Merijilda whispered at my side, "I have never seen so many Chiricahua big men at one place; I am worried for Seebie." To this uncertainty I gave full accord, yet we needn't have bothered. Old Mad knew where he was.
"Geronimo," he began, "I will address you, with respects to Nana and all the men of reputation who have honored the government to come here. I speak to you because of who you are and what you have done before.
"I have no true idea now that you will do as I say this night—return to San Carlos and obey the government— for you do not love peace. You are a man of war and fighting, a battle chief of the Chiricahua. Will you listen to anyone?
"You could go to the reservation and stay maybe one winter, and more likely one moon. But within your camp here may be some others who do really want to come back, to settle down finally to peace. And all of these I will take back in safety. Sieber promises it. But you, Geronimo, two times already I have taken you there, and two times you have become fearful and left. You had food, shelter, good blankets. You did not ever say to the government that you did not. But someone would sell your people whiskey and you would all—a great many of you—get drunk and away you would go again. This thing cannot go on."
The old German let them wait again, then resumed.
"In my opinion, all of the Chiricahua in this world, one by one, will be killed by our soldiers if you stay out on the war trail. Aha! you say that you can always go to Mexico and be safe from American pursuit? Don't you know the mejicanos hate you worse than the gringos? Have you not heard that the two countries are making a treaty that will permit the Americans to chase you into Mexico! Ai! believe it. Never have I told you one lie; you all know me: I do not talk two ways. Listen to me!
"I leave in four days for San Carlos.
"Who will come with me? Who will die out there in the dark, nobody to claim his bones, nor remember him?
"Come back with me, old friends.
"Four days only. Enjuh!"
There wasn't a sound when he finished speaking. Nor any when he turned away and walked out. I stood in a trance with Merijilda, not leaving. We saw Geronimo take note of us and send Hal-zay over with a message:
The Apaches would be alone.
This was an order for us to leave the area, and we did so quickly. Merijilda stayed with Sieber and me that night. The fires stayed burning until daybreak. When we were cooking breakfast, we saw scores of bucks just going home. They had talked the night away.
But in vain.
Four days later, when Sieber was set to depart for San Carlos, sixty-two Indians were all of the twelve hundred who came to our fire to go back with us. The old chiefs Nana and Loco, both so ancient they had to be helped up on their horses, came with these people. Of Geronimo there was no sign. Sieber said, "We will wait a bit for him; he would never miss the chance."
I studied
the two famed old chiefs and tried talking with them, at Sieber's suggestion. I got them going pretty good, as they were nervous and downhearted to be coming in, finally. Both said they were grateful to me for my interest. Both took me aside at different times and warned me to "watch Gokliya" but would not tell me why. I gave them both a twist of good Burley chaw and a long pull at Sieber's "medicinal" bottle. Then there was real gratitude!
Nana, then about seventy-eight years old, was as tall as I was, maybe taller. Even stooped with his rheumatism, he looked level into my eyes. His hair was snow-white, his skin smooth. He was a grand, fierce old Indian.
Loco, nearly as old, was crippled by the attack of a grizzly bear as a young man. The bear had torn off half his face, including one eye. His expression was horrible to see, but he was in truth a mild man and sober. It was the pain from those terrible wounds of the bear that drove him to strike out, he told me.
Still waiting for Geronimo, I struck up a trade with a young nephew of Chief Juh, of the Nednhi Mexican Apaches. I later learned he was not so young as I thought, being thirty-four years old. But Indians are hard to tell age on.
Anyways, this Kaytennae Indian had two of the most splendid racing horses and a brace of elegant mules that he seemed anxious to be done out of. I got them off him for two handwove Culiacán Mex blankets. As the blankets cost me six dollars each in Tucson, I made a sharp trade. Kaytennae did even better. The horses and mules hadn't cost him ten cents, being fresh-stole in Mexico.
We shook hands, vowing we were chi-ki-sins for life, and he rode off to go with the hostiles and I never saw him again. Maybe it was just as well. One of the "race" horses was a wind-roarer, and both mules had hock-splints so bad they'd go lame just from seeing a packsaddle coming at them. The other horse lived a long time, but you couldn't shoe him due to thin horn on the feet, and soft; a nail just wouldn't stay in it.
I heard Kaytennae later prospered in business.