Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26)

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

  South of Casa Grande, near a place which the Apaches called Gosoda, a road wound out of the town through a mountain pass. Many were the freight trains that lumbered through the dust along this road; and near here hid Geronimo, the Apache Devil, and their followers.

  Here the renegades remained for some time, killing freighters, taking what supplies they desired, and destroying the remainder; but the reputation that this road achieved was such as to discourage freighting for the nonce, though it attracted Mexican soldiers in embarrassing numbers. Geronimo then led his followers into the Sierra de Antunez Mountains where they found all that now remained of their depleted tribe and learned that the United States soldiers had not left the mountains of Mexico but, on the contrary, were becoming more active than ever.

  Geronimo was disheartened when he learned of this, for he had banked wholly on the belief that he would be rid of the menace of United States troops if he returned to Mexico without committing more depredations in the United States.

  “What are we to do?” he demanded at the council fire. “Every man’s hand is against us. If we return to the reservation we shall be put in prison and killed; if we stay in Mexico they will continue to send more and more soldiers to fight us.”

  “There is but one thing to do,” replied Shoz-Dijiji when Geronimo had finished. “We must continue fighting until we are all killed. Already we are reckless of our lives, let us be more so, let us give no quarter to anyone and ask no favors. It is better to die on the war trail than to be put in prison and choked to death with a rope about the neck. I, Shoz-Dijiji, shall continue to fight the enemies of my people until I am killed. I have spoken.”

  “You are a young man,” said Geronimo. “Your words are the words of a young man. When I was young I wanted nothing better than to fight, but now that I am getting old I should like a little peace and quiet, although I should not object to fighting to obtain them if I thought that I might win them thus.

  “But now,” he continued, sadly, “I cannot see any hope of winning anything but death by fighting longer against the pindah-lickoyee. There are too many of them, and they will not let us rest. I would make a peace treaty with them, if I could.”

  “They do not want to make a peace treaty with us,” said Shoz-Dijiji. “They want only to kill us all that there may be no more Apaches left to dispute the ownership of the land they have stolen from us. Let the old men and the women and the children make a peace treaty with the pindah-lickoyee. Shoz-Dijiji will never make peace if it means that he must return to San Carlos and be a reservation Indian.”

  “I think that we should make peace with them,” said Na-chi- ta, “if they will promise that we Shall not be killed.”

  “The promises of the pindah-lickoyee are valueless,” growled a warrior.

  Thus they spoke around their council fires at night, and though most of them wanted peace and none of them saw any other alternative than death, they clung doggedly to the war trail. During three months they had many skirmishes with the white soldiers; and five times their camps were surprised, yet in no instance were the troops of the pindah-lickoyee able either to capture or defeat them; never was there a decisive victory for the trained soldiers who so greatly outnumbered them.

  In July 1886 Geronimo’s force numbered some twenty-five fighting men, a few women, and a couple of boys. Outside of their weapons and the clothing that they wore they possessed a few hundred pounds of dried meat and nineteen ponies — the sole physical resources at their command to wage a campaign against a great nation that already had expended a million dollars during the preceding fourteen months in futile efforts to subjugate them and had enlisted as allies the armed forces of another civilized power.

  Moving farther and farther into Old Mexico as the troops pressed them, the renegades were camped on the Yongi River, nearly three hundred miles south of the boundary, late in July. They believed that they had temporarily thrown their pursuers off the track and, war weary, were taking advantage of the brief respite they had earned to rest. Peace and quiet lay upon the camp beside the Yongi. The braves squatted, smoking, or lay stretched in sleep. The squaws patched war worn moccasins. There was little conversation and no laughter. The remnant of a once powerful nation was making its last stand, bravely, without even the sustaining influence of hope.

  A rifle cracked. War whoops burst upon their ears. Leaping to their feet, seizing the weapons that lay always ready at hand, the renegades fell back as the soldiers and scouts of Lawton’s command charged their camp. The surprise had been complete, and in their swift retreat the Apaches lost three killed; whom they carried off with them, as they abandoned their supply of dried meat and their nineteen ponies to the enemy. Now they had nothing left but their weapons and their indomitable courage.

  Clambering to inaccessible places among the rocks, where mounted men could not follow, they waited until the soldiers withdrew. Shoz-Dijiji arose and started down toward the camp.

  “Where are you going?” demanded Geronimo.

  “The white-eyes have taken Nejeunee,” replied the war chief. “Shoz-Dijiji goes to take his war pony from them.”

  “Good!” exclaimed Geronimo. “I go with you.” He turned and looked inquiringly at the other warriors before he followed Shoz-Dijiji down the steep declivity. After the two came the balance of the grim warriors.

  Keeping to the hills, unseen, they followed Lawton’s command in the rear of which they saw their ponies being driven. As the hours passed, Geronimo saw that the distance between the main body of troopers and the pony herd was increasIng.

  A few miles ahead was a small meadow just beyond which the trail made a sharp turn around the shoulder of a hill. Geronimo whispered to Shoz-Dijiji who nodded understanding and assent. The word was passed among the other warriors; and at the same time Shoz-Dijiji turned to the left to make a detour through the hills, while a single warrior remained upon the trail of the troops.

  At a smart trot the Be-don-ko-he war chief led his fellows through the rough mountains. For an hour they pushed rapidly on until Shoz-Dijiji dropped to his belly near the summit of a low hill and commenced to worm his way slowly upward. Behind him came twenty painted savages. In the rear of concealing shrubbery at the hill top the Apache Devil stopped, and behind him stopped the twenty.

  Below Shoz-Dijiji was a little meadow. It lay very quiet and peaceful in the afternoon sun, deserted; but Shoz-Dijiji knew that it would not be deserted long. Already he could hear the approach of armed men. Presently they came into sight. Captain Lawton rode in advance. At his side was Lieutenant Gatewood. Behind them were the scouts and the soldiers. The formation was careless, because they all knew that the renegades, surprised and defeated, were far behind them.

  Shoz-Dijiji watched them pass. In the rear of the column he saw Lieutenant King who had been temporarily detached from his own troop to serve with this emergency command of Lawton’s. The length of the meadow they rode. The head of the column disappeared where the trail turned the shoulder of a hill, and still Shoz-Dijiji and the twenty lay quietly waiting.

  Now half the column was out of sight. Presently Shoz-Dijiji watched King disappear from view, and once again the little meadow was deserted, but not for long.

  A little pinto stallion trotted into view, stopped, pricked dainty ears and looked about. Behind him came other ponies — nineteen of them — and behind the ponies three sun parched troopers in dusty, faded blue.

  Silently Shoz-Dijiji arose, and behind him arose twenty other painted warriors. They uttered no war whoops as they raced silently down into the meadow in front of the ponies. There would be noise enough in a moment; but they wished to delay the inevitable as long as possible lest the main body of the command, warned by the sounds of combat, should return to the meadow before the mission of the Apaches was completed.

  The first trooper to see them vented his surprise in lurid profanity and spurred forward in an attempt to stampede the ponies across the meadow before the renegades could turn them. His
companions joined him in the effort.

  Shoz-Dijiji and six other warriors raced swiftly to intercept the ponies, while the other renegades moved down to the turn in the trail where they could hold up the troop should it return too soon.

  The Apache Devil whistled sharply as he ran and the pinto stallion stopped, wheeled, and ran toward him. Three ponies, frightened by the shouts of the soldiers, raced swiftly ahead, passing Shoz-Dijiji and his six, passing the balance of the twenty who had not yet reached their position, and disappeared around the turn.

  Shoz-Dijiji leaped to Nejeunee’s back and headed the remaining ponies in a circle, back in the direction from which they had come and toward the six who had accompanied him.

  It was then that one of the three soldiers opened fire, but the Apaches did not reply. They were too busy catching mounts from the frightened herd, and they had not come primarily to fight. When they had recaptured their ponies there would be time enough for that, perhaps, but it was certain that there was no time for it now. They had their hands full for a few seconds, but eventually seven warriors were mounted; and Geronimo and the remainder of the renegades were coming down the meadow at a run as Shoz-Dijiji and his six drove the herd along the back trail. Hopelessly outnumbered, cut off from their fellows, the three troopers looked for some avenue of escape and fell back in front of the herd, firing. It was then that the Apaches opened fire; and at the first volley one of the soldiers fell; and the other two turned and raced for safety, rounding the side of the herd, they spurred their mounts along the flank of the renegades. A few hasty shots were sent after them; but the Apaches wasted no time upon them, and they won through in safety while Shoz-Dijiji and the six urged the ponies at a run along the back trail toward camp, as those on foot took to the hills and disappeared just as Lawton’s command came charging to the rescue, too late.

  Lawton followed the Apaches; but, being fearful of ambush, he moved cautiously, and long before he could overtake them the renegades had made good their escape.

  14. SKELETON CANYON

  The weeks dragged on — lean and hungry weeks of slinking through the mountains with an implacable enemy always on their heels. The renegades had little food and little rest. Their cause seemed hopeless even to the most war-like and the most sanguine of their number. Only Shoz-Dijiji held out for war. That was because he had nothing to live for. He courted death, but no bullet found him.

  At last the others determined to give up; and Geronimo sent a messenger to the commander of a body of Mexican troops that was camped near them, asking for a parley.

  All that the Mexicans asked was that Geronimo should take his band out of Mexico; and this the old chieftain promised to do, both sides agreeing not to fight any more against the other.

  Moving northward toward the border, Geronimo made no effort to elude the American troops, as he was really anxious to arrange for a parley with them; but by chance they did not come into contact with any, and at last the renegades went into camp near the big bend of the Bivaspe River in Sonora.

  “How can you remain here?” demanded Shoz-Dijiji. “You have promised the Mexicans that you will leave their country, and you cannot go into Arizona or New Mexico because the soldiers of the pindah-lickoyee will not let you. Where are you going? You should not have promised the Mexicans that you would leave. Now they will attack you, when they find that you have not left, for they know that you have had time enough to get out of Mexico.”

  “We cannot remain here,” replied Geronimo, “and we cannot go elsewhere - as long as we are at war with the pindah-lickoyee. We are too few to fight them. There remains nothing but to make the best peace with them that we can.”

  “It is right that you should do so,” said Shoz-Dijiji, “for that is to the best interests of the Be-don-ko-he for the welfare of the tribe; but for Shoz-Dijiji there can be no peace. I shall not go back to the reservation with you.”

  “That is the right of every Apache, to choose for himself,” said Na-chi-ta; “but for the tribe it is better that we make peace and go back to the reservation. Na-chi-ta will vote for peace if the pindah-lickoyee will promise not to kill any of us.”

  “I shall send White Horse, my brother, to arrange for a parley with the white-eyed chiefs,” said Geronimo. The day after White Horse left upon his mission the renegades sent two squaws into Fronteras to purchase food and mescal, and as they returned to camp they were followed to the last, hiding place of the great war chief of all the Apaches.

  Scarcely had the squaws laid aside their burdens when one of Geronimo’s scouts hurried into the camp and reported to the war chief that two government scouts had come, bringing a message to Geronimo.

  “I will talk with them,” said the old chief, and a few minutes later Ka-yi-tah, the Cho-kon-en, and Marteen, the Ned-ni, stood before him, the red head-bands of their service alone differentiating them from the warriors who crowded about them.

  “You bring a message from the white-eyed chiefs to Geronimo?” demanded the war chief.

  “With Lieutenant Gatewood we have brought a message from General Miles, the new chief of the white-eyed soldiers,” replied Ka-yi-tah.

  “Speak!” commanded Geronimo.

  “The message is that if you will surrender you will not be killed, but will be taken some place to the East, you and your families — all of you who are now upon the war trail and who will surrender.”

  “How many soldiers has Gatewood with him?” demanded Geronimo.

  “There are no soldiers with Gatewood,” replied Ka-yi-tah, “but Lawton’s soldiers are not far away.”

  “Geronimo will talk with Gatewood,” announced the old chief, “but with no one else. Gatewood does not tell lies to the Apache. Tell them not to let any soldiers come near my camp, and I shall talk with Gatewood. Go!”

  And so it was that through the confidence that Geronimo felt in Lieutenant Charles B. Gatewood, Sixth United States Cavalry, arrangements were made for a parley with General Miles; and on September 4th 1886 Geronimo and Na-chi-ta surrendered at Skeleton Canyon, Arizona.

  Shoz-Dijiji did not accompany the other chiefs to the parley. With only his own sad thoughts as company he remained in camp, and there Geronimo found him when the parley was over. Shoz-Dijiji arose and faced the old chieftain.

  “I do not need to ask Geronimo what has happened,” said the young chief. “I see sorrow in his eyes. It is the end of the Apaches.”

  “Yes,” replied Geronimo, “it is the end.”

  “What talk passed between Geronimo and the white-eyed war chief?” asked Shoz-Dijiji.

  “We shook hands; and then we sat down, and the white-eyed war chief said to Geronimo: ‘The President of the United States has sent me to speak to you. He has heard of your trouble with the white men, and says that if you will agree to a few words of treaty we need have no more trouble. Geronimo, if you will agree to a few words of treaty all will be satisfactorily arranged.’

  “He told me how we could be brothers to each other. We raised our hands to heaven and said that the treaty was not to be broken. We took an oath not to do any wrong to each other or to scheme against each other.”

  “And you believed the pindah-lickoyee?” demanded Shoz-Dijiji. “Each time that we go upon the war trail they promise us many things to induce us to lay down our arms — and do they keep their promises? No! Nor will they keep this promise.”

  “I do not know. All that I can do is hope, for no longer can we fight against them,” answered Geronimo, wearily.

  “What else said the pindah-lickoyee ?” asked the Apache Devil.

  “He talked with me for a long time and told me what he would do for me in the future if I would agree to the treaty. I did not greatly believe him, but because the President of the United States had sent me word I agreed to make the treaty and to keep it.

  “He said to me: ‘I will take you under government protection; I will build you a house; I will fence you much land; I will give you cattle, horses, mules, and farming implements.
You will be furnished with men to work the farm, for you yourself will not have to work. In the fall I will send you blankets and clothing so that you will not suffer from cold in the winter time.”

  “There is plenty of timber, water, and grass in the land to which I shall send you,” he told me. He said that I should live with my tribe and with my family and that if I agreed to the treaty I should be with my family within five days.

  “Then I said to General Miles: ‘All the officers that have been in charge of the Indians have talked that way, and it sounds like a story to me; I hardly believe you.’

  “‘This time,’ he said, ‘it is the truth,’ and he swept a spot of ground clear with his hand and said: ‘Your past deeds shall be wiped out like this, and you will start a new life.’

  “All this talk was translated from English into Spanish and from Spanish into Apache. It took a long time. Perhaps the interpreters did not make any mistakes. I do not know.”

  “Are you going to live on the reservation at San Carlos?” asked Shoz-Dijiji.

  “No. They are going to send us out of Arizona because they say that the white men whose families and friends we have killed would always be making a lot of trouble for us, that they would try to kill us.”

  “Where are they going to send you?”

  “To Fort Marion in a country called Florida.” The old man bowed his head. Could it be that there were tears in those cold blue eyes? Shoz-Dijiji placed a hand on his father’s shoulder.