Geronimo

by Robert M. Utley

  Sheridan and three members of his staff left Washington on November 22. He stopped in Chicago to talk with Major General John M. Schofield, who despite his assurances had failed to keep General Miles quiet. That was one of the issues Sheridan had to discuss with Crook. Because it involved Colonel Bradley, Miles’s subordinate, Sheridan also stopped in Santa Fe to add him to his retinue. On November 29 the group disembarked at Bowie Station, where an escort conducted them to Fort Bowie and a seventeen-gun salute of welcome.

  In conference, the officers readily resolved the problem of General Miles, except that it only provoked him to more interference. The solution was simple: temporarily transfer the District of New Mexico from Miles’s department to Crook’s. So far as the rest of the army knew, or the public, this was the purpose and the only outcome of Sheridan’s visit. Except in a long report of Sheridan to Endicott from Albuquerque, the larger issue of Chiricahua removal escaped mention.

  The topic probably overshadowed the easy restructuring of Crook’s command. Sheridan broached removal to Crook, who objected but suggested that they seek the opinion of Captain Crawford. Only three days earlier, he and his battalion of two hundred White Mountain and Chiricahua Apache scouts had arrived at Fort Bowie, ready to head for Sonora. Crawford pointed out that such a mass removal would be likely to affect the conduct of his Chiricahua scouts. Crook had demurred on the same grounds. The phrasing was probably a polite way of making the point to the lieutenant general. Both had to know that the effect on the Chiricahua scouts would be disastrous. The argument had its desired result: Sheridan would drop the subject for the time being. The record does not reveal whether Crook or Crawford had any moral or other objections to the proposal; if so, they failed to voice them.

  The meeting had another important consequence. For the first time, Sheridan gained an appreciation of the obstacles Crook faced, both in the Apaches and in the character of the country in which he had to operate. In his report to Endicott, Sheridan described them at great length and strongly supported Crook as the officer most likely to destroy or gain the surrender of the Chiricahuas in Mexico. Left unsaid was Sheridan’s skepticism of Crook’s heavy reliance on Apache scouts, which almost certainly the two talked about at Fort Bowie.12

  Sheridan and his entourage left Fort Bowie the next day, November 30. His visit had fixed policy and turned Crook loose. But it had done nothing to relieve the pressure on President Cleveland. On December 23, Sheridan appealed almost plaintively for an immediate report of what steps Crook was taking to kill or capture the raiders in New Mexico. All Crook could do was detail the movement of troops seeking to catch them. Even Ulzana’s return to Mexico at the end of December failed to end the stream of angry protests.13

  Sheridan muted his doubts about the loyalty of the Apache scouts. Not so the newspapers in the areas of Arizona and New Mexico pounded by Geronimo and other leaders. One example of many, all employing the same language and tone, appeared in the Tombstone Epitaph early in 1886. The editor, reflecting public opinion, faulted Crook for “this most miserable campaign,” attributable to his “incredible and criminal obstinacy, in continuing to employ the Chiricahua scouts.” These “Indian hirelings … rob, ravish, and kill peaceful inhabitants of Sonora.”

  When Geronimo is arraigned as murderer at the law of justice, General George Crook should stand by his side for upon his head lies the responsibility for the long consonance of this campaign for the deaths of scores of worthy men and women … and the damage done to this territory by the long series of outrages which his infamous system of employing these notoriously treacherous Chiricahua scouts has made possible.14

  Crook ignored such inflammatory rhetoric, as political leaders could not, for as the editor correctly wrote: “Once General Crook gets a fixed idea in his head, nothing can remove it.”15 And his fixed idea was that only an Apache could catch an Apache.

  After conferring with General Sheridan at Fort Bowie in November 1885, Crook turned his attention to the campaigns in Mexico. Captain Wirt Davis had crossed into Mexico at Guadalupe Canyon on November 21. He led a battalion of one hundred Apache scouts—none Chiricahua—a troop of cavalry, and three pack trains. His mission was to scour the eastern base of the Sierra Madre, in Chihuahua, while Crawford worked the western side, in Sonora. That is where the Chiricahuas were, as Crawford learned from villagers as he worked his way south along the Bavispe River. In two months of punishing campaigning, Wirt Davis learned that reality. He broke down his troops, scouts, and pack trains, together with his own health. Early in January, Crook allowed him to return to Fort Bowie for medical treatment. His command already had been in touch with Crawford’s outfit. From the first, all the action had fallen to Crawford, whose command consisted entirely of Apache scouts. In his first campaign, Crawford had found the regulars an impediment. As in the first expedition, White Mountain and Chiricahua Apaches made up his command. Chatto had been discharged with the rest of the earlier scouts. The sergeant major was now Noche, equally accomplished if not enjoying the depth of Crawford’s confidence in Chatto.16

  Geronimo had not participated in the scourges of Chihuahua and Ulzana. In October 1885 Geronimo and Naiche based themselves in the Teras Mountains, in the great bend of the Bavispe River in Sonora. They raided settlements on both sides of the mountains, and then plunged far south to the Aros River for more raids. By December they had climbed into the mountain fastness called Espinosa del Diablo, between the Aros and Satachi Rivers. At the end of November Chihuahua had returned from his diversionary thrust into New Mexico and joined Geronimo and Naiche. Except for the handful with Ulzana, still north of the border, all the breakouts had gathered for the first time since fleeing Fort Apache in May. Only Mangas and his small party held back.

  As usual, the Chiricahuas had watched for any army or scout units following their trail. They knew some were on the other side of the Sierra Madre, in Chihuahua; but since September none had been detected in Sonora. Feeling increasingly secure, they frequently failed even to post sentinels at night. Their ranchería—housing about eighty people, including twenty-four fighting men—perched on a high, rocky ridge a mile north of the Aros River and about fifty miles southeast of Nácori Chico. Before dawn on January 10, 1886, three men awoke to the braying of burros and walked out to investigate. From a higher slope shots aimed at the Chiricahuas sparked volleys from all around. Because the herd grazed about four hundred yards from the ranchería, the people had time to escape. Geronimo shouted for the women and children to run and scatter, and the men drew up to delay the attack. A running fight developed between army scouts and the fleeing Chiricahuas, but in the darkness no one was hurt on either side. The scouts took possession of a deserted camp, with all its contents and stock.

  Rarely did the army with its Indian scouts succeed in finding a fugitive camp, much less in shooting down and capturing the inhabitants. That these Indian scouts found and attacked Geronimo’s camp on the Aros River only to find it deserted by all its people illustrates how skillfully the Apaches could detect an impending assault and scatter before the attack fell. The loss of all their stock and belongings meant little; raids could replenish what they had lost.

  As the fleeing Chiricahuas discovered, they had been routed not only by White Mountain scouts but Chiricahuas, too. That their own tribesmen were army scouts who knew the country and their likely hiding places again proved highly unsettling. More immediately, their condition was perilous: high in the mountains in midwinter without food, stock, or any of the contents of their ranchería. Naiche spoke with one of the Chiricahua scouts and told him to tell the officer he wanted to come in and talk. If Naiche did not know who the officer was by now, the scout probably told him: Captain Emmet Crawford. The breakouts had known him at San Carlos as a fair, firm, and honest officer, and one who clearly had the confidence of General Crook.

  That afternoon, Naiche sent a woman to the scouts’ camp on the ridge line above the abandoned ranchería. The scouts had taken what they wanted
and burned the rest. Now they rested or slept among the rocks as the woman made her way to Captain Crawford and relayed Naiche’s request. The captain gave her some food and sent her back with word that he would meet with the chiefs the next morning on level ground about a mile from camp.

  From a steep bluff across the Aros River where they had spent the night, the Chiricahuas awoke at daybreak of January 11, 1886, to the sound of gunfire. In the distance they could see the scout camp and rifle fire bursting from a rocky slope above. Some of the scouts briefly returned the fire, but it quickly ceased. The officers walked out to meet leaders of the attacking force, now discerned to be Mexican militia, including the hated Tarahumari Indians. The spectators heard more shots fired and then made out an officer, in his blue uniform, scaling a large rock and waving a white handkerchief. Another shot knocked him from the top of the rock. For several hours, the two sides maneuvered and periodically fired at each other. Geronimo, Naiche, Chihuahua, and Nana had never witnessed such a spectacle—a source of elation, possibly, but also concern over whether they could now arrange the talks they hoped for. As in the past, they had tired of life on the run, especially now that their own Chiricahua kin had joined the army. Once again, the security and rations of the reservation beckoned. Captain Crawford seemed their best chance for arranging to talk with General Crook and, as before, promise to return to life as it was before the breakout.17

  Crawford’s command awoke on the morning of January 11, 1886, to shouts from the scouts, scattered among the rocks, followed by a burst of rifle fire. The officers saw the attacking force as Mexicans, not in uniform, 154 in number. Crawford and First Lieutenant Marion P. Maus (Moss) rushed out waving their arms to stop: they were Americans. The firing stopped, and the officers turned back to camp. But the Mexicans opened fire again. Crawford climbed to the top of a large rock, his blue uniform clearly visible, and waved a white handkerchief. A bullet hit him in the head and knocked him to the ground. Maus turned to see his brains on the side of the rock.

  As senior officer, Maus took command and tried to get the firing stopped. The scouts had returned fire and reluctantly stopped. With his interpreter, Concepcíon, Maus tried talking with the Mexican officer. The Mexican force, mostly Tarahumari Indians, were irregulars and plainly intent more on plunder than in attacking hostile Apaches. The determined scouts, positioned behind rocks, made further fighting an obviously costly effort. The Mexican officer took Maus prisoner, but he saw the excited scouts preparing for a fight and, after haggling over a bribe in mules, freed Maus and Concepcíon.

  Maus worried that the Mexicans would try another scheme. The attack was clearly perfidious, as they at once knew they faced an American army force. Anxious to be away, and with ample grounds for a diplomatic protest, Maus gathered Crawford and the other wounded on litters and broke camp the next day, January 12. Slowed by the litter-borne wounded, the command moved only four miles before camping.

  Geronimo held back, motivated by the proximity of Mexican Tarahumaris and the perennial suspicion of soldiers, even though he knew and trusted Captain Crawford. Only after the Americans had succeeded in separating themselves from their attackers did the chiefs cautiously venture forth. They watched the scouts begin the march toward Nácori Chico on January 12. In camp that night two Chiricahua women came in to ask permission for a council. They had to deal with an unknown officer because Captain Crawford lay on the ground with a bullet in his brain. Lieutenant Maus consented to a meeting. One occurred the next day, January 13, but still the chiefs hung back. Maus told the two men to say to the chiefs that if they would come in with their families and give up their arms, he would take them to General Crook. Finally, on January 14, Geronimo and Naiche appeared. Predictably, they refused to give up their weapons or bring in their families; even Crawford could not have accomplished that. They said they wanted to meet with Crook somewhere near the border in about a month, and meanwhile they would commit no depredations. They also agreed to yield some people as guarantees of good faith. By January 15, Maus had in his camp Nana and one of his men, a wife and child of both Geronimo’s and Naiche’s, and a sister of Geronimo’s.

  The Chiricahuas watched as Maus and his command crawled slowly toward Nácori Chico and the Bavispe River corridor to the north. They promptly broke their promise not to raid. They badly needed to replenish the stock and provisions lost when Crawford attacked their camp. For two months, in separate parties, all the chiefs led murderous raids on the ranches and settlements of Sonora. No communication passed between them and Lieutenant Maus, whom they expected to arrange the meeting with Crook. By the middle of March 1886, they had raided their way north toward the border, ready to meet with the general.18

  Thus Geronimo and his comrades demonstrated their willingness to break agreements.

  TWENTY-ONE

  CANYON DE LOS EMBUDOS, 1886

  SINCE THE MEETINGS BETWEEN the Chiricahua leaders and Lieutenant Marion P. Maus, following the killing of Captain Crawford on January 11, 1886, Sonora had borne the brunt of destructive raids on ranches and travelers. The raiders worked in two bodies, Geronimo and Naiche leading one, Chihuahua and his brother Ulzana the other. By early March 1886, two months after they had told Maus they needed time to collect their stock, they united in the Teras Mountains, nestled in the bend of the Bavispe River. Mexican troops had been combing Sonora trying to bring the raiders to battle, and the Apaches judged talks with Crook preferable to fighting the Mexicans.

  Geronimo and Naiche sent four emissaries to the Pitachaiche Mountains, across the Bavispe to the north, to send up smoke to signal Maus that they stood ready to talk. Maus’s scouts camped impatiently on the San Bernardino River eighteen miles north of the smokes. On March 14 Maus appeared with four Indian scouts, including the Chiricahua sergeant major, Noche. The messengers said that Geronimo and Naiche wanted to talk with Crook, as promised. Maus told them to return and bring them and their people to his camp. Reinforcing their anxiety, he warned them of the perils of an attack by Mexican troops.1

  On March 19 Geronimo and Naiche, with twenty-two men and a herd of stolen cattle, appeared near the scouts’ camp on the San Bernardino. Chihuahua and seven of his followers remained out. Mangas had no intention of coming in. Geronimo and Naiche held several talks with the lieutenant the next day. He wanted them to move closer to the boundary. They refused, declaring that Crook could meet them here. Warned repeatedly of the possibility of a Mexican attack, however, they reluctantly agreed. Selecting a shallow gorge named Canyon de los Embudos (Funnel Canyon), twenty-five miles south of the border, on March 22 Geronimo and Naiche moved twelve miles to this location. Maus and his scouts moved, too.

  In their talks with Maus, and later with Crook, Geronimo and Naiche appear in the record as equal negotiators. These talks reaffirm the relationship between the two: Naiche the more pliable, Geronimo the firmly stubborn. Geronimo did most of the talking and displayed the stubbornness that Naiche lacked. Yet Geronimo always played the role of subordinate to Naiche because he was a chief, the son of Cochise, while Geronimo was never a chief. Naiche could speak his mind, but on important issues he rarely disagreed with Geronimo.

  Brimming with distrust and anxiety, the Chiricahuas made camp half a mile from Maus’s bivouac. They positioned themselves in an impregnable fortification, atop a small rocky hill amid a lava bed surrounded by deep ravines. Three steep gulches separated their fortress from the scouts’ camp. They allowed no one from the military camp to enter their own. Heavily armed with rifles and abundant cartridges, they remained on the alert for treachery.2

  Although expected daily, Crook had not arrived. Another white man had, a beef contractor named Charles Tribollet, who erected a small shanty near San Bernardino but below the border, where he dispensed whiskey and mescal. The scouts quickly discovered Tribollet, and even as the Chiricahuas settled into their positions, Maus’s camp rocked with wild debauches. The Chiricahuas lost no time in discovering Tribollet, and for three days, until Crook belate
dly appeared, both scouts and Chiricahuas indulged in raucous drunks. By this time, they were all badly hungover and the Chiricahuas in a foul mood.3

  Late on the morning of March 25, 1886, Crook and his staff rode into Embudos Canyon, Crook in his canvas suit and astride his mule. He went at once to the camp of the packers and had lunch. Afterward, as Geronimo and Naiche stood by watching, Nana and Kayatena approached and shook hands with Crook. The sudden appearance of Kayatena took Geronimo by surprise and pleased him, too. The last he knew, Kayatena had been sent to Alcatraz Prison. When Geronimo and Naiche walked to Crook, the three decided to begin the council at once.

  While preparing for the meeting, a shout went up and in rode Chihuahua and Ulzana with six men trailing a herd of stolen horses. Chihuahua went at once to Crook and greeted him warmly. As the council proceeded, Chihuahua and Ulzana stood on the edge of the ravine and watched.

  In a half circle Geronimo and Naiche, Crook, and a few officers and civilians sat on one side and at the bottom of a ravine shaded by cottonwoods and sycamores. Another surprise to the Indians, a photographer unpacked his rig and set up the camera for a picture of the participants.

  Crook spoke gruffly, stating that he had come all the way from Fort Bowie, and asked what Geronimo had to say. After three nights of Tribollet’s whiskey, Geronimo took offense at Crook’s attitude and his refusal to say anything until Geronimo had finished talking. As an officer wrote words on paper, Geronimo launched into a long speech about how the “stories of bad people” at Turkey Creek had set him up for arrest and execution. He blamed Lieutenant Britton Davis, Chatto, and interpreter Mickey Free. Geronimo may truly have believed that he had been targeted for execution by the “stories of bad people.” But he well knew that his denial of a plot to assassinate Chatto and Davis was a blatant lie because he himself had arranged it.