But upon further questioning, the woman’s true identity is revealed.
Shockingly, she is Cynthia Ann Parker, who was kidnapped twenty-four years ago in the notorious attack on Fort Parker. She was just a child when a Comanche band decimated the family stockade, killing and dismembering her grandfather, murdering her father, and kidnapping four other relatives. Ironically, among the warriors committing this slaughter was a tall, muscular sixteen-year-old whose Indian name means “Lone Wanderer:” Peta Nocona.
James Parker, an uncle who survived the massacre in 1836, devoted several years to searching for Cynthia Ann and his other missing relatives. In time, he would become legendary as “the man who searched for the Parker captives.” He successfully found and purchased the freedom of his sister-in-law, Elizabeth Kellogg, for $150 from a band of Delaware Indians three months after the massacre.
It took another year, but James Parker was also successful in ransoming his daughter. By then, Rachel Parker Plummer had endured more than a year in Comanche captivity as a slave before being accepted as a full-fledged member of the tribe. Her son, James Pratt, was taken from her on the night of her kidnapping and she never saw him again. Rachel had a second child during her time in captivity, a boy of Comanche blood. But when it became clear that she doted too much on the infant, the newborn was tied to a rope and dragged through cactus until dead.3
Cynthia Ann Parker, also known as Naduah
On June 19, 1837, Rachel was sold to traders acting on behalf of her father and was reunited with her family in February 1838.
Cynthia’s brother John, who was two at the time of the attack on Fort Parker, was ransomed back to white society after six years with the tribe. His return went against his will, and he tried on several occasions to rejoin the Comanche.4
Eventually, James Parker discontinued the search for Cynthia after more than a decade of hunting and nine courageous forays into the Comancheria. But rumors that she lived in captivity continued. There were several sightings of a blue-eyed woman now living as a full member of the Comanche tribe.
After one such sighting, Captain Randolph B. Marcy of the U.S. Army, who had come to map Texas and find more optimal routes for westward settlement, confirmed that Cynthia Ann Parker was alive. Yet he made no attempt to bring her back to the white world. “This woman has adopted all the habits and peculiarities of the Comanches; has an Indian husband and children, and cannot be persuaded to leave them,” reported Marcy.
It was none other than Cynthia’s brother John who relayed this sighting to Captain Marcy. At his mother’s behest, the young man bravely traveled back into Comanche territory looking for his sister. John Parker stated that he spoke with Cynthia Ann, and that she was very happy in her new life. “There she should remain,” Parker told U.S. authorities.
And it was true. In the more than two decades since her kidnapping, Cynthia Ann Parker has totally assumed the ways of the Comanche. She and Peta Nocona have three children, among them a boy named Kwihnai—“Eagle”—who is destined to succeed his father as a great chief. Cynthia keeps the family lodge clean and organized, butchers buffalo and tans hides to make robes, and packs the horses when it comes time to move camp. Her love for Peta Nocona is real, and he reciprocates by not taking a second wife. And on the day that Texas Rangers ride through the Comanche camp at Mule Creek, Cynthia wails for the slain members of her tribe. As the soldiers and Texas Rangers scalp the dead before stuffing saddlebags with dried buffalo meat and stealing the robes she has spent hours scraping and tanning, Cynthia Ann Parker takes a small degree of comfort in knowing that she and her young daughter, Prairie Flower, have been spared from death.
But now, against Cynthia’s will, both she and her daughter are being returned “home” to white society.
However, that will not end her story.
Chapter Twelve
FEBRUARY 4, 1861
APACHE PASS, NEW MEXICO TERRITORY
5:00 P.M.
Betrayal is coming.
Lieutenant George N. Bascom of the U.S. Army waits impatiently for the arrival of Cochise. The twenty-three-year-old officer from Kentucky has summoned the vaunted Apache chief to his campsite to explain the kidnapping of a white child from a nearby settlement. It has been more than a day since Bascom demanded that Cochise come to meet him. As the sun begins to set, the lieutenant grows angrier by the minute. He has marched a column of fifty-eight soldiers from Company C, U.S. Seventh Infantry, forty miles east from the outpost at Fort Buchanan to confront the Apache. His orders are to find twelve-year-old Felix Telles and twenty head of cattle stolen by Indians. Bascom and his men arrived in Apache Pass yesterday, a Sunday. They made camp at Siphon Springs, just a mile from the heart of the pass. After arranging their tents in precise rows, Bascom sent a messenger informing the nearby Apache that he wished to speak with Cochise.
George Bascom is an imperious man who finished second-to-last in his class at West Point. He has no experience in negotiating with Indians but shares the belief of many whites that the Apache are an inferior people, prone to lying and theft. Based on hoofprints found along the Babocomari River, Bascom is convinced he has successfully tracked the culprits in the kidnapping back to Apache Pass. There is no doubt in Bascom’s mind that Cochise and the Chiricahua band now hold young Felix.
Suddenly, as Lieutenant Bascom’s soldiers sit down for their evening meal, Cochise walks into the American camp. He brings with him a small group of Apache warriors, his wife Dos-te-seh, his young daughter Dash-den-zhoos, and his four-year-old son Naiche to signal his intent that the meeting be peaceful.
“How, how,” Cochise says, using the traditional greeting.
“How, how,” Bascom replies.
Lieutenant Bascom offers Cochise a cup of coffee and suggests they go inside his tent to talk. Cochise’s brother, Coyuntura, is also invited. John Ward, the Irish-born stepfather of the missing boy, will act as interpreter. Dos-teh-seh, the children, and two other warriors are taken to the mess tent to eat.
Lieutenant Bascom closes the flap to begin their meeting. Armed soldiers with bayonets affixed to their rifles form a ring around the shelter.
The great Cochise is now trapped.
* * *
What will go down in history as the “Bascom affair” begins one week before the meeting between Cochise and the lieutenant. On January 27, eleven miles south of Fort Buchanan, two bands of Apache successfully raid the Ward ranch. Felix Telles is three hundred yards from the house when he is grabbed and taken, never to be returned. Ironically, this horrific incident will be the making of him. In time, the boy will be raised as a warrior in the Apache way. He will take on the nickname Mickey Free, reenter white society, and earn notoriety as a scout, interpreter, and bounty hunter. But on this day he is just a terrified twelve-year-old whose kidnapping will soon ignite all-out war between the United States of America and the Chiricahua Apache nation.
John Ward, the Irishman who married a Mexican woman named Jesusa Martinez and raises her children as his own, is away on business when the raid occurs. But upon his return the following day, he immediately sets out for Fort Buchanan to report the attack. Even without the Apache raids, tension is high in this Arizona region of the New Mexico Territory. Just a few months ago, in April 1860, delegates to a convention in the city of Tucson voted in favor of creating a Territory of Arizona, separate and independent from the New Mexico Territory. Miners have flooded into the region following the discovery of gold and silver, creating tension with the Apache bands that have long made this land their home.
Map of Apache Pass
More ominously, the United States is close to civil war. Southern states in favor of continuing the practice of slavery are on the verge of seceding from the Union. The Americans living in the New Mexico Territory have already chosen to side with the south, and there is talk of renaming the region “Confederate Arizona.” There is uncertainty about what would happen to the U.S. Army soldiers stationed at Fort Buchanan and the newly b
uilt Fort Breckinridge, ninety miles north. But one thing is certain: troopers who have sworn their loyalty to Abraham Lincoln, the Illinois lawyer and former soldier in Blackhawk’s War who has just been elected America’s new president, will no longer be welcome in Arizona.
As in other regions of the west, the U.S. military presence serves mainly to protect settlers from Indian attacks. But the lands of Southern Arizona appear to be peaceful. Cochise is recognized as the preeminent Apache chief, and since his first encounters with white Americans in the fall of 1858, he has shown every intent of forging friendly relations. The Apache have largely confined their raiding to Mexico, and miners in the Santa Rita and Patagonia Mountains go about their business without fear of attack.
Perhaps the greatest evidence of Cochise’s desire to keep the peace is the presence of a regular stagecoach route through the heart of the Apache homeland.
The Butterfield Overland Mail coach departing from San Francisco for Tipton, Missouri. Published in Harper’s Weekly, December 11, 1858.
The Butterfield Overland Mail Route stretches twenty-eight hundred miles from St. Louis to San Francisco, delivering the U.S. mail and ferrying passengers across the continent. More than two hundred way stations have been established along the route, averaging roughly twenty miles apart. Amazingly, Cochise has allowed a Butterfield stop to be built in Apache Pass and routinely provides the whites with firewood, as well as grass for their horses.
The stone and adobe station rests in the center of the valley, just a half mile from Apache Springs. It is manned by three Butterfield employees and fortified with Sharps rifles and ammunition in case of trouble.
But until January 27, 1861, there was no trouble at all. Cochise has made it plain that his warriors “would not molest the whites” provided the settlers “not interfere with Apache incursions into Sonora.”
The kidnapping of Felix Telles changes all that.
One day after the abduction, Lieutenant George Bascom and Lieutenant Richard Long are dispatched to find the perpetrators. Within hours, they locate the trail used by the Apache as an escape route. It heads east, into Apache Pass. This confirms to both lieutenants that Cochise and his men are the culprits. The Chiricahua are the only band known to use this route.
Unbeknownst to either officer, the construction of Fort Breckinridge to the north has caused other tribes to alter their traditional paths when returning from raids in Mexico. To avoid U.S. Army patrols, Coyotero, Pinal, and Western Apache no longer travel via Sonoita Creek and Redington Pass. Instead, they now follow the same route as the Chiricahua along the Babocomari River.
Had Lieutenant Bascom known of these changes, he might not have been so certain Cochise is guilty. But as he lures the chief into his tent on February 4, just before sundown, Bascom’s plan is simple: keep Cochise hostage until Felix is returned. The lieutenant is sure Cochise’s band is holding the boy. A simple prisoner swap will put the matter to a successful end.
But Cochise vows he is innocent. Through translator John Ward, he swears that neither the boy nor the twenty stolen head of cattle are in his possession. Cochise suspects that a band of Western Apache has done the kidnapping. He asks for ten days to find the kidnappers and bring the boy home safely.
The lieutenant is equally convinced Cochise is lying. Bascom informs the chief that he is now a prisoner of the U.S. Army, not to be freed until the Chiricahua return Felix Telles to his parents. Coyuntura will be sent to find the boy and bring him back. Cochise’s wife and children will remain in custody with him.
The confinement should have produced fear in Cochise. The tent is heavily guarded. The chief appears to be unarmed, holding a coffee cup in his left hand. Lieutenant Bascom stands with his back to the tent flap, blocking any path to escape. Most men would have conceded defeat there and then.
Cochise is not most men.
* * *
The code of the Apache is stealth and self-preservation. Producing a heretofore unseen knife, Cochise quickly slices open the tent wall and runs for his life. Coyuntura, who also holds a hidden knife, slits open another tent wall and sprints after him.
“Shoot them down!” cries Bascom. John Ward is the first to open fire, but soon all the sentries are shooting. Cochise has been told that the rifles are not loaded, but that is obviously not the case.
In haste, Coyuntura trips on a tent rope and is soon set upon by soldiers.
Cochise escapes. Gunshots ring out as the chief sprints across the meadow and up a hill. He has been trained since a very young man to quickly bound up these rocky hillsides and run long distances for hours on end. So even as his lungs burn with effort and his legs grow heavy from the steep incline, Cochise is unstoppable. Only when he crests the summit and knows for certain that he has escaped does the chief realize he still clutches a coffee mug in his fist.
* * *
One hour later, Cochise appears atop a different hill and looks down upon the American camp. He loudly calls out, demanding that Coyuntura and his family be released. Cochise’s demand is met with a volley from Lieutenant Bascom’s soldiers.
The chief raises his hand and cries out in his native tongue: “I will have my revenge.”
* * *
Fearing his campsite is not well fortified, Lieutenant Bascom moves his detachment into the Butterfield stage station. The thick rock walls will endure bullets and prevent a frontal assault. Bascom adds to the fortifications by dragging supply wagons around the perimeter, then tilting them on their side to form a barricade. The men then dig trenches behind the wagons as fighting holes. Strategically placed bags of flour and grain form an additional shield. The Americans have enough rations for twenty days, but the nearest water is up the valley at Apache Springs.
Cochise is also hard at work, attempting to kidnap three Butterfield employees to hold hostage. One escapes, and one is mistakenly shot by American soldiers while running to the safety of the station, but the third man, stage driver James Wallace, is captured by the Indians. The Massachusetts native is thirty-three and newly married. His bride remains behind at their home in Tucson. She will never see him again.
Just after noon on February 5, less than one day after the incident that would go down in Apache history as “cut the tent,” Cochise stands atop a summit known as Overlook Ridge next to James Wallace. The stage driver has a noose around his neck and his hands are bound behind his back. Cochise offers to exchange Wallace and sixteen mules he has recently stolen from the army in return for his family and friends.
Lieutenant Bascom refuses. There will be no negotiation. Either Cochise delivers the boy or there is no deal.
Cochise is growing more frustrated with each passing hour.
On the morning of February 6, the chief orders his warriors to attack a wagon train en route to Las Cruces, New Mexico, loaded with flour. After surrounding the wagons, Cochise’s men take three Americans and nine Mexicans prisoner. Cochise has a lifelong disdain for Mexicans and chooses to kill them all. First, they are tied to wagon wheels and tortured. Then the wagon wheels are set afire, burning the men to death.
The Americans, however, are useful leverage for Cochise. Sam Whitfield, William Sanders, and Frank Brunner are brought back to the Apache camp, where they join Wallace under guard. But as the days pass and it becomes clear the Americans have no intention of bargaining, the hostages lose their value. Cochise and his band make plans to leave Apache Pass. The four prisoners, however, will not be joining them.
The methods of torture used upon Wallace, Whitfield, Sanders, and Brunner are undocumented, though there is some evidence that Apache women were allowed to work on the men with knives—a hellish fate reserved for only the most hated enemy.
In any event, the four men all die a brutal death and are not found until long after the Chiricahua move on from Apache Pass.
* * *
It is February 18, 1861—almost two weeks after they are killed—when the four Americans are discovered dead. Lieutenant Bascom’s infantry troops have
been extensively reinforced, but the additional men are unnecessary. Not for the first time, Cochise and his Apache band have slipped away, preferring to wait and fight another day. Corpses of the hostages are buried beneath a large oak tree near the western edge of Apache Pass.
Left unsaid is that Cochise has abandoned his family and close friends.
It is decided by the American officers that Cochise’s wife and children will be set free. But not the warriors—they are to be hanged.
The Indians ask for whiskey before they are dispatched.
This is denied.
They ask to be shot instead of hanged.
Again, denied.
So it is that a small squad of U.S. Cavalry throws their lariats up and over the high branches of the same four oak trees under which the American prisoners were recently buried. “The Indians … were hoisted so high by the infantry that not even the wolves would touch them,” notes one eyewitness.
The Americans return to their forts, thinking the incident is over, not realizing that this confrontation will soon lead to all-out war.
“Tread on a worm and it will turn,” writes one soldier who was in Apache Pass as witness to the conflict. “Disturb a hornet’s nest and they will sting you. So with savage Indians: misuse them and you make revengeful foes.”1
Chapter Thirteen
JULY 3, 1863
GETTYSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA
2:00 P.M.
Brevet General George Armstrong Custer is in a bad place.
It is day three of the battle that will go down in history as simply “Gettysburg.”
The twenty-three-year-old Custer has spent the day in the saddle, leading Union cavalry into battle for the first time since his promotion just one week ago. Custer is not really a general but was given the temporary “brevet” title in recent Civil War battles.
Killing Crazy Horse Page 10