Geronimo

by Robert M. Utley

  When Gatewood and his small party arrived on July 21, Parker announced that there was no trail. Rain had washed it out. Gatewood, never keen on the assignment, replied that therefore he would go back and report the absence of a trail. No, declared Parker, if Miles wanted Gatewood on a trail, Parker would find one, or at least put him in touch with Lawton, who could surely find a trail. Gatewood balked. He said he was too sick to go on. Parker answered that they would remain in camp until Gatewood was well enough to continue. Six days later Gatewood had recovered enough to set forth.20

  By July 1886 General Miles pushed three efforts he hoped would end the crisis: Lawton might run down the Chiricahuas and either destroy them or induce them to surrender; Gatewood might find them and Kayitah and Martine might persuade Geronimo to surrender; the delegation of reservation Chiricahuas dispatched to Washington might agree on a place to resettle all their people.

  Permission to send the delegation rested on the assumption, which Miles did nothing to disabuse, that the reservation Chiricahuas wanted to move to a location far from their homeland and that the only question was where. He would have a hard time dissembling his way through that.

  Never receptive to “surrender,” only to a return to the old life on the reservation, Geronimo and Naiche and their handful of followers knew that their only choice was to keep moving or yield to the army and go back east. The soldiers had kept them on the run, tired, constantly insecure, enduring heat and rain, suddenly stampeded out of their camp with the loss of all their possessions, morale sinking, too distrustful of their pursuers even to consider any course other than to keep running. They knew the soldiers could not catch them but feared that they would not stop trying. So the chase continued, through July and August 1886, with no end in sight.

  TWENTY-THREE

  GERONIMO MEETS GATEWOOD, 1886

  CAPTAIN LAWTON’S FORCE OF cavalry and Indian scouts had not succeeded in his mission of destroying the Chiricahuas or inducing them to surrender. Nor had Lieutenant Gatewood and his two Chiricahuas succeeded in talking with Geronimo.

  Meanwhile, General Miles had other problems to address. On July 13, 1886, he received authority to send a ten-man delegation under Chatto to Washington. In charge of Captain Joseph M. Dorst, they entrained for the capital as Miles urged that Congress be asked to lift the ban on Apaches in the Indian Territory. On July 15 General Sheridan wired Miles that this was wholly impracticable. Even so, Miles asked that the delegation be allowed to visit the Indian Territory. Informed that these Indians would not be settled anywhere west of the Missouri River, he continued to advocate the Indian Territory, now settling on the portion known as the Cherokee Strip, bordering the Kansas boundary. By the end of July Miles had been informed in no uncertain terms that President Cleveland wanted all these Indians relocated in the East. Sheridan favored Fort Marion, Florida, where Chihuahua and the Chiricahuas who surrendered to General Crook had been sent.1

  As this exchange proceeded, on July 26 Captain Dorst ushered Chatto and his companions into talks with the secretaries of war and the interior. The secretaries grasped that the Indians had not come to Washington to decide on a new home but to declare that they wanted to remain where they were. To try to put Chatto in a more receptive frame of mind, Secretary L. Q. C. Lamar presented him with a presidential medal (it bore the likeness of former President Chester Arthur), and Secretary William C. Endicott presented an elaborate certificate. Dorst thought they had been mollified, and he once more put them on a train headed for home. Stalling for time, the authorities kept them for several days at Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania before letting them continue. On August 11, at Emporia, Kansas, Dorst received a telegram directing him to take the delegation to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and hold them for further orders.2

  The confusion reflected the uncertainty not only over where to settle the Chiricahuas but also over when and how to gather them for deportation. On August 20, Lieutenant Colonel James F. Wade, at Fort Apache, assured his superiors that he could easily manage their deportation, by train from Holbrook. Doubtless exasperated by the continuing arguments between Miles and his superiors, on August 23 President Cleveland decreed that the destination be Fort Marion, Florida, and that Colonel Wade proceed at once.3

  Even before the Chatto group had left Washington, Miles had prompted Sheridan to begin worrying about the effect of letting these dissatisfied Indians return home just as Colonel Wade arranged to deport them. This led to the diversion of the delegation to Fort Leavenworth. While there, on September 13 Colonel Wade succeeded in his assignment, and all the reservation Chiricahuas embarked from Holbrook for Fort Marion. At Fort Leavenworth, convinced they had been betrayed, the Chatto Indians grew increasingly “turbulent,” which led Sheridan to order them sent directly to Fort Marion.4

  Chatto, once a vicious raider, had turned himself into the most skilled Chiricahua scout. His service during Captain Crawford’s operations in Sonora was indispensable; Crawford relied on him and his scouts to the exclusion of regulars, and they performed superbly. At Fort Apache, Sergeant Chatto had also served Lieutenant Britton Davis loyally. He excelled at farming and stock-tending. Now, two months after leading the Chiricahua delegation to Washington, he suddenly and inexplicably found himself labeled a prisoner of war and hastened to Fort Marion, Florida.

  Three and a half years later Chatto gave his version of this experience in an interview with General Crook. He had been working his farm near Fort Apache. He grew wheat and barley. He had a wagon and made good money hauling hay and supplies. He tended about thirty sheep and made money shearing wool. He had horses and mules. The crops had just begun to ripen when he was called to Washington. He went, not of his own accord. Later, when the government sold all his possessions, he received not nearly their value.

  When Chatto reached Washington, “they talked good to him” and said he could make a living. On the way back to Fort Apache, however, he was turned back and taken to a place where there were soldiers. He didn’t know why. A letter from General Miles came to the Apache delegation at Fort Leavenworth. It was very long, and a lieutenant read it to them. It said that Fort Apache was a bad place for Indians. All the whites were down on them and other Indians, too. The letter said that one part of the country belonged to Washington and the other to Arizona. Miles wanted to put them on the Washington side, where there were good people. They “touched the pen” to a paper that promised a reservation where all the Chiricahuas would be gathered and provided stock and plenty of room for them.

  As he described the paper they “signed,” Chatto ripped the Arthur presidential medal from his chest. “Why did you give me that,” he asked, “to wear in the guardhouse? I thought something good would come to me when they gave me that, but I have been in confinement ever since I have had it.”

  Thus George Wrattan interpreted Chatto’s words, General Crook’s loyal first sergeant of Apache scouts, US Army, now a prisoner of war.5

  While General Miles distracted an elusive Washington officialdom, Captain Lawton kept an elusive Geronimo on the run. His cavalry ruined by heat, rain, and rugged terrain, the command in July consisted only of an infantry company and an Indian scout company (none Chiricahua) under Lieutenant Robert A. Brown. Brown was Lawton’s only officer. A sergeant led the infantry. Assistant Surgeon Leonard Wood asked to command the infantry, which Lawton approved. Wood had taken the first step toward ending his career as army chief of staff.

  In July Lawton’s little command combed the mountains, ridges, and canyons in the region centering on the confluence of the Yaqui and Aros Rivers. Attired only in drawers and undershirts because of the heat and humidity, they stumbled from one trail to another, only to have it disappear or be rained out. They hurried from one murder reported by Mexicans to another and found new trails to follow. On July 13 a trail led Brown’s scouts to the top of a mountain, from which they looked down into a canyon of the Yaqui River and sighted the Chiricahua camp, on a plateau tucked between two ridges, the stoc
k grazing, cook fires burning, and people going about their daily lives. He sent a courier running back to Lawton, urging him to bring up the infantry as fast as possible. Lawton did, so rapidly that twenty fell out from exhaustion.

  Lawton and Brown fixed on a plan to catch the quarry from two directions, Brown and his scouts from upstream and Lawton and the infantry from downstream. Before the infantry reached its position, the scouts opened fire. “Captured everything in the camp except the Indians,” Wood wrote in his journal. The command had all of Geronimo’s stock, food, and camp equipage, but once again the Chiricahuas had slipped out of the trap. “Everyone bitterly disappointed,” Wood wrote, as they cooled themselves in the river and welcomed the pack train, which finally arrived at midnight.6

  Although the Chiricahuas seemed uninterested in hiding their trail, Lawton made little progress in following it. His cavalry, under Lieutenant Robert D. Walsh, had rejoined, but Lawton thought him in such bad shape from an infected centipede sting on a foot that he could hardly perform any duty. As for Lieutenant Brown, he was a good and energetic officer but inexperienced. “The infantry, poor orphans, have to get along the best they can with no one. But for Dr. Wood, lord knows what would have become of them.” The heat was so bad that Lawton thought operations should be suspended during July and August. Although discouraged, he tried to keep to the trail but was thwarted by the swollen Aros River.7

  On August 3, Lieutenant Parker reported to Lawton, as he tried to cross the Aros River. He had not found Lieutenant Gatewood a trail, but he had found Lawton. When informed of Gatewood’s mission, Lawton strongly objected. “I get my orders from President Cleveland direct. I am ordered to hunt Geronimo down and kill him. I cannot treat with him.” Parker stayed three days with Lawton, arguing that General Miles had changed his strategy and that Lawton should act accordingly. Finally Lawton agreed to take Gatewood under his command. “But if I find Geronimo I will attack him; I refuse to have anything to do with this plan to treat with him. If Gatewood wants to treat with him he can do it on his own hook.” Meantime, Gatewood had his own talks with Lawton, who stuck to the position he presented to Parker. Gatewood protested that he could not get his two Chiricahua Apache scouts, Kayitah and Martine, near Geronimo if Lawton insisted on fighting him.8

  Talking with Dr. Wood, Gatewood revealed his own thoughts. He said that he had no faith in his plan and was disgusted with it. He was in bad health, suffering from an old bladder inflammation that made riding difficult. Later he repeated his misgivings and applied for a medical certificate that would allow him to give up the mission and return to Fort Bowie. Wood refused—possibly because he believed that Gatewood offered the only hope.9

  The best clue to the Chiricahuas’ whereabouts came from none other than General Miles. A dispatch from the governor of Sonora on August 18 alerted Miles that the fugitives were trying to make peace with the Mexicans at Fronteras. One of Lawton’s Apache scouts en route to Fort Huachuca confirmed the report: he had encountered Geronimo and Naiche with a dozen other Chiricahuas on their way to Fronteras. They looked worn and hungry and told him they wanted to make peace. Geronimo carried his right arm bandaged in a sling. The scout described this incident to Miles at Fort Huachuca.10

  Working his way north on the Nacozari River, Lawton learned the same news from a Mexican burro train traveling downstream. He judged the time right for sending Gatewood on his mission. Fitting him out with a pack train and a ten-man escort, he ordered the lieutenant to take his two Indians and George Wrattan and push rapidly ahead to Fronteras, get on the trail, and try to open communication with Geronimo. Still sick, Gatewood procrastinated all afternoon on the eighteenth. Late that night, discovering that Gatewood had not left, Lawton went to Wood’s tent, furious and inclined to place Gatewood under arrest and send another officer. Wood talked him out of that. Not until after midnight did Gatewood and his contingent get under way.11

  Mutual suspicion clouded the peace overtures in Fronteras. Lawton worked his way toward Fronteras. Nearing the town on August 22, he, Wood, and another officer went into the settlement. Before arriving, they ran into George Wrattan. Gatewood and his Indians were in Fronteras and had not taken the trail. Angry, Lawton sent for Gatewood. When he arrived, Wood met him and said that Lawton was busy and had directed him to order Gatewood to take the trail at once and to express his “extreme annoyance” that Gatewood had yet to begin his mission. In fact, Wood was covering for Lawton, who was too drunk to do anything. Gatewood got on the trail at once.12

  Geronimo and Naiche had posted themselves atop a hill on the outskirts of Fronteras. They shouted that they wanted to make peace. Later, they sent two women into the town to buy supplies and mescal. In fact, as Lawton’s scout had reported, the Chiricahuas were worn down and hungry. Since surprised and stampeded out of their camp on the Yaqui River by Lawton on July 13, they had been kept on the run and always insecure by the soldiers and scouts. They were tired. If the Mexicans would make peace, the Indians could regain their strength by raids into Arizona and New Mexico. But like all previous peace overtures to the Mexicans, this one failed. Fronteras was filled with Mexican soldiers. Geronimo and Naiche suspected trickery. They sent two men into Fronteras to get the women and needed supplies, including mescal. Then they broke camp and headed east, toward the Teras Mountains.13

  Geronimo laid out the Chiricahua ranchería atop a steep ridge in the Teras Mountains overlooking the great bend of the Bavispe River. For two days they relieved their hunger from the supplies acquired by the two women in Fronteras and indulged in a prolonged mescal drunk. Sentinels kept watch for the Americans they knew to be looking for them. Sentiment for surrender began to rise, but the people and conditions had to be right. Geronimo in particular remained almost as suspicious of American officers as of Mexican soldiers. Yet he and Naiche longed to be reunited with their families, shipped east with Chihuahua’s people who had surrendered to General Crook. (These were the women and children taken in the attacks of June and August 1885 and held at Fort Bowie by Crook.)

  On August 24 the youthful Kanseah had posted himself on the slope overlooking the river and scanned the valley below with field glasses. Soon he detected two horsemen approaching. As they came closer into view, he saw one holding aloft the long stalk of a century plant, from which “something white” fluttered. He recognized them as army scouts. Geronimo and other men gathered. Geronimo instructed Kanseah that when the two got close enough, he should shoot them. By now they were recognized as Kayitah and Martine. Yahnosha, Kayitah’s cousin and one of Geronimo’s best and most loyal fighters, jumped atop a rock and asked what the two scouts wanted. Kayitah replied they had been sent by General Miles and Lieutenant Gatewood to talk peace with Geronimo. “Come on up,” said Yahnosha, “nobody is going to hurt you.” On the ridgetop Kayitah and Martine sat with Geronimo and Naiche.14

  Kayitah did the talking. He described the pathetic condition of Geronimo and his people and the increasing likelihood that soldiers would find and attack them. He also described his agreeable life on the White Mountain Reservation and urged Geronimo to return there. Geronimo responded: “I don’t want to go to San Carlos. They chop my neck off. This my home. I stay here, right here. You chase me. You kill me. Alright. I die right here. I got to die sometime.” “You don’t have to die now,” answered Kayitah. “You come down and talk to soldiers. You come under white flag—they not hurt you.” To which Geronimo declared, “Mangas Coloradas come under white flag. What they do to him?” These officers would do no such thing, said Kayitah. They could be trusted. After further argument, even pleading, Geronimo gave in. “Well we go, make talk. I will go with you.”15

  Kayitah stayed in the camp all night as the men sat in council debating what to do. Martine went back down the mountain to meet with Lieutenant Gatewood, whom the Chiricahuas knew well and trusted, and tell him that Naiche guaranteed his safety and that he and Geronimo would meet with him the next morning—with him, and no other officer. The next morning, si
ghting a troop of Apache scouts moving up the trail toward their camp, Naiche sent three men to meet Gatewood and tell him to return to the valley and move to a canebrake in the river’s bend, where talks could be held in the comfort of wood, water, and shade. Also, the scouts had to return to their bivouac of the night before, and no other soldiers could come closer.16

  On the morning of August 25, Gatewood and his small party, including George Wrattan and two other interpreters, had settled into the designated spot, as the Chiricahuas observed from patches of brush. In small groups, men rode in and later women and children, in all numbering about forty. Kayitah had also appeared. Everyone unsaddled, laid aside their arms, and threw the saddles over logs as seats. After many smokes, Geronimo slipped in and at once greeted Gatewood warmly, asking why he looked so thin and unwell. Then Naiche appeared. He, too, embraced Gatewood. After a hasty breakfast, the talks began, George Wrattan interpreting and two others confirming his words. Geronimo sat on a log so close to Gatewood that they touched, and the rest seated themselves on the ground in a semicircle.

  Geronimo stated that all had now assembled and would listen to what Gatewood had to say. He replied at once and bluntly: “Surrender, and you will be sent to join the rest of your people in Florida, there to await the decision of the President of the United States as to your final disposition. Accept these terms, or fight it out to the bitter end.”

  After a long silence and a request by Geronimo for mescal, which Gate-wood denied because he had none, Geronimo spoke. All the men had made medicine during the night before and discussed the issue. Their conclusion: the war would end only if they could return to the reservation, occupy their previous farms, receive the usual rations and other issues, and be guaranteed exemption from punishment for what they had done.