Geronimo organized and led the expedition. That he attracted sixty-three men to what must have seemed a risky and futile venture testifies to his persuasive powers; they loom even larger in the array of outstanding leaders he enlisted: Naiche, Chatto, Kayatena (a Chihenne chief who had fought with Victorio to the last), Mangas (son of Mangas Coloradas), Sánchez (an influential Chihenne), Bonito, and even the normally thoughtful Chihuahua. Significantly, Juh chose to remain behind.
Nor did Geronimo contemplate a surprise attack. In mid-December 1881, scarcely two and a half months after the escape into Mexico, the chiefs decided to let Loco know they were coming. They selected Bonito, who had left thirty of his people behind in the breakout, to carry the word. With seven men, Bonito easily crept into the White Mountain Reservation. Late in January 1882, he entered Loco’s lodge and informed him that within forty days a Chiricahua force would come to take him and all his people to Mexico. Any who refused would be killed. In coming weeks two other delegations followed Bonito to deliver the same message.
Loco did not want to go, and each time he made sure the authorities knew of the threat. Thus alerted, both the agent and General Willcox reacted. Expecting the attack sometime in February 1882, they deployed both police and roving military patrols to screen all the southern and eastern approaches to the reservation. When nothing happened in February or March, they relaxed their vigilance. Three policemen remained posted south of the reservation, but the army units returned to their respective posts. Eighty days after Bonito’s warning, April 19, 1882, the blow fell.3
“Just as the sun was beginning to shine,” remembered Jason Betzinez, a young man in Loco’s camp, “we heard shouts along the river. Running out of our tepee we saw a line of Apache warriors spread out along the west side of our camp coming our way with guns in their hands. … One of their leaders [Geronimo] was shouting, ‘Take them all! No one is to be left in the camp. Shoot down anyone who refuses to go with us!’ “4
The raiders rousted the Chihennes from their beds, tore down their dwellings, and hastened them all east along the north bank of the Gila. Loco tried to argue, but Chatto leveled a rifle at his chest and threatened to kill him. Chihuahua and some of his men stayed behind at Loco’s camp. They fired two shots. As expected, that alerted the agency and brought police chief Albert Sterling and his sergeant galloping across the San Carlos River to the scene. Men at once shot down Sterling, a competent former army scout disliked for enforcing the tiswin ban. The sergeant raced back to the agency and returned with more police. He was killed, and the demoralized police retreated.
Including the Chokonens who had not broken out in October and Geronimo’s sixty-three raiders, the cavalcade that made its way up the Gila on April 19, 1882, numbered about four hundred. While the army sought to organize a pursuing force, White Mountain Apaches seized the initiative. The Chiricahuas had made off with a White Mountain horse herd. Behind these Apaches straggled the agency police under the post trader and cavalry units hastily assembled at Fort Thomas.
All day Geronimo pushed the procession hard, turning northeast into the Gila Mountains and briefly pausing to rest at a spring. Aware that cavalry had taken up the trail, the Apaches pressed on in the darkness. Before dawn on April 20, having come down from the Gila Mountains, they stopped at Eagle Creek to rest. At daybreak a troop of cavalry attacked, setting off a brief skirmish before the Indians withdrew. The soldiers followed a few miles but then bivouacked. Indian scouts returned with word that the Apaches had scattered, and the soldiers turned back to Fort Thomas.5
The Apaches had scattered, but in small groups to raid ranches on both sides of the Gila in both Arizona and New Mexico. They needed horses and provisions. Once supplied, they could rendezvous and take the usual Apache route down the Peloncillo Range into Mexico. The roving groups killed ranchers, scooped up herds of horses and mules, and loaded themselves with plunder.
Jason Betzinez had observed the discipline with which the Chiricahua leaders conducted the trek to Mexico, and he particularly admired the leadership of Geronimo: “Geronimo was pretty much the main leader although he was not the born chief of any band and there were several Apaches with us, like Naiche, Chatto, and Loco, who were recognized chiefs. But Geronimo seemed to be the most intelligent and resourceful as well as the most vigorous and farsighted. In times of danger he was a man to be relied upon.” 6
Stein’s Peak had been set as the rendezvous for the various groups, and on April 23 they began converging on a tangled, rocky canyon four miles north of the peak. It took the name of Horseshoe Canyon. They had made camp on the canyon floor to greet the returning groups. Nearly all the fighting men had gathered, about one hundred counting Loco’s men. Lookouts posted on the canyon rims spotted a small group of horsemen cautiously threading its way up the narrow access to the wider canyon floor where the Apaches camped. They quickly doused their cooking fires and backed out, posting themselves on the canyon slopes to ambush any who came this far.
As the Chiricahuas well knew, southern New Mexico and Arizona teemed with troops, mobilized from all the forts and reinforced by units from other departments. Those of the most danger to the Apaches began reaching the Southern Pacific Railroad at the telegraph office at Separ, New Mexico, on April 19, the day of the outbreak. Lieutenant Colonel George A. Forsyth commanded. Forsyth shuttled troops back and forth on the railroad looking for where the Indians may have crossed. Scouts, however, could only find trails pointing north, which Forsyth erroneously assumed represented groups coming from Mexico to help their comrades. In fact, they were his quarry hastening to the rendezvous. Setting San Carlos as his destination, Forsyth gathered five troops of his regiment, the Fourth Cavalry, and headed north. He also sent Lieutenant David N. McDonald with a soldier and six Indian scouts to reconnoiter the Stein’s Peak area.
McDonald and his party ventured into the narrow access gorges to Horseshoe Canyon and spotted a faint pall of smoke in the distance, the residue of the cooking fires so hastily extinguished. Only one of his scouts, the legendary Yuma Bill, would accompany the officer in further reconnoitering, although the rest grew shamed and came up. As McDonald came close enough to spot the smoldering campfires, the Apaches sprang the ambush, killing Yuma Bill and sending all the rest hastily to the rear. McDonald sent one of the scouts on the regiment’s fastest horse to summon Forsyth, while he and the remaining scouts dug rifle pits. The lieutenant himself crawled forward and saw Apaches dancing around the body of Yuma Bill and several other scouts killed in the ambush. One spotted McDonald and rode toward him. He set his sights at five hundred yards and fired, killing the Apache.7
McDonald’s messenger found Forsyth and the main command about sixteen miles distant. The colonel swiftly turned the column around and took up the gallop, one that did not lessen until he reached McDonald with the horses verging on collapse. Organizing his five troops into two battalions, Forsyth advanced into the canyon and encountered the Apaches posted on the rocky slopes.
Although the battalions maneuvered and attacked, perhaps in less orderly battle formation than Forsyth described, essentially the fight unfolded as Betzinez recounted:
When the soldiers had reached a point about a mile from our hiding place our warriors stripped off their shirts and prepared for action. I heard our leaders calling all the able-bodied men to assemble for battle. … Soon we saw our warriors moving down toward a deep U-shaped ravine. The soldiers were approaching up the canyon while our men were on the rim. The fighting began. Three of our men were wounded and were carried back up the mountainside. … The firing grew very heavy, almost continuous. The soldiers fired ferocious volleys. Those of us who were watching were shivering with excitement as our men slowly withdrew under this fire. Finally toward sunset our whole band moved to the southwest side of the mountain and the fire died out. I don’t think we ever found out how much damage we did to the troops.8
Not much: one man killed and five wounded. Forsyth reported two Indians killed and blood on the
ground suggesting more, although the Apaches admitted to only one killed, the one shot by McDonald. The colonel liked to think he had won a great victory, but all he did was scatter the Indians without slowing their race toward Mexican sanctuary. Curiously, he did not even pursue; still convinced that he had fought “renegades” from Mexico hastening to help their brethren, he pointed his column north, toward the Gila and San Carlos, leaving his true objective behind to continue their flight to Mexico.9
Geronimo continued to lead them in the flight. Their story is a saga of skill and tragedy.
After the battle in Horseshoe Canyon, Geronimo waited for nightfall, and then slipped out into the San Simon Valley to the west. By dawn of April 24 the people had reached a spring in the Chiricahua Mountains about fifteen miles southeast of Fort Bowie. Resting here briefly, they proceeded to another spring to the south, near the little mining community of Galeyville. By this time, Loco’s people had accepted the reality of their forced removal and knew they had become part of the “hostiles.” They followed the lead of Geronimo. Betzinez, in fact, proudly boasted of being designated “an apprentice or helper to Geronimo.”10
As the people rested most of the day, a few men stole some horses at Galeyville and killed two men at another mining camp to the west. But in the afternoon they spotted a dust cloud approaching across the San Simon Valley. (The truth had finally dawned on Colonel Forsyth.) They quickly gathered their possessions and embarked on a long, hard night march, back across the San Simon Valley to the southeast. They traveled through the next day, across the Peloncillos, and after another night march dropped into Mexico southeast of Cloverdale, New Mexico. The day was April 26, 1882, only a week since their descent on San Carlos.11
Under Geronimo’s leadership, the Chiricahuas had achieved a masterly raid and withdrawal, encountering only one force of soldiers despite the many searching for them. They had incorporated Loco and his people into their ranks, and he reluctantly assumed the mantle of a “hostile” chief. Now nearly all the Chiricahuas had reached the safety of Mexico and deserved a rest. After crossing the Espuelas Mountains, they descended into a valley near the eastern face of the Enmedio Mountains, about seventeen miles south of the protective border. They settled into camp for two nights of feasting and dancing, April 26 and 27. So confident were they that on the second night they failed even to post lookouts.
Before daybreak on April 28, as the adults ended the night’s dances and crawled into their bedding, three women and a man edged out into the darkness to the east to check a pit in which mescal roasted. As they approached, a shot rang out and the youngest of the women fell dead. The others ran back to the camp. Immediately after the single shot, a volley of shots from the same area swept the Indian camp. Startled Apaches emerged from their wickiups and raced to a rocky defensive butte to the south. Jason Betzinez had already gone there to get his mule for the day’s move. He turned to see two troops of cavalry charging the camp, one from the northwest, the other from the southwest. The Apaches, well positioned, made a stubborn stand against the attacking troops, aiming a fire so heavy it forced the troopers to stop and dismount.
Sam Hauzous told his story, although he confused this fight with a later one against Mexicans. Eliminating that confusion, he described the scene accurately: “Geronimo he holler, he call the men—his fighting men—so there’s soldiers on the west side. … There’s [more] American white man soldiers in that side. … Then on the east side, Indian scouts that way, that’s the way they hold us right there so we can’t get away.” Troops had seized the horse herd and kept up the exchange of fire until near noon, the Indian scouts, as Hauzous recounted, blocking the escape into the Enmedio Mountains behind them. But some daring men got behind the scouts and opened fire. Also, the scouts had nearly run out of ammunition. With the scouts’ attention distracted, the chiefs led the people out of their defenses and escaped into the Enmedio Mountains. The surprise attack had left five men and three women dead on the battlefield, including Loco’s son. Most of the horse herd had also been seized. Thinking they were safe in Mexico, the Chiricahuas had suffered a disaster when American soldiers and scouts unlawfully ignored the boundary.12
Driven now by the likelihood of pursuit by the US troops who attacked them at Enmedio, the Chiricahuas prepared for another night march in the effort to reach the safety of Juh’s stronghold in the Carcay Mountains. Exhausted by hard travel and little sleep since Horseshoe Canyon, on the night of the battle they emerged from the Enmedio Mountains and struck south across a sandy plain cut by shallow ravines. They formed a long procession: an advance guard of fifteen men, including Chatto, Naiche, and Kayatena; Loco and his people, mostly women and children, strung out a mile behind; and two miles farther back a rear guard of most of the fighting men under Geronimo and Chihuahua prepared to fight off any attack by pursuing American soldiers. Thirty or forty horses captured by the Americans had been recovered, but most of the people shuffled along slowly on foot.13
The advance guard had ranged far forward, perhaps an hour in advance of Loco and his people. At dawn they entered a shallow ravine that contained the dry streambed of Alisos Creek, which ran southeast to the Rio de Janos, here almost dry. The foothills of the mountains lay only a mile beyond the creek. The advance guard had already left the ravine and aimed for the foothills. As Loco’s people turned into the creek bed, however, a hail of bullets swept through them. They had walked into a Mexican ambush.
Betzinez, with his mother and sister, lagged behind the main body. He saw what happened:
Almost immediately Mexicans were right among us all, shooting down [and bayoneting] women and children right and left. Here and there a few Indian warriors were trying to protect us while the rest of the band were running in all directions. It was [a] dreadful, pitiful sight, one that I will never forget. People were falling and bleeding, and dying, on all sides of us. Whole families were slaughtered on the spot, wholly unable to defend themselves.
Or as Sam Hauzous remembered the chaotic scene, “just fighting, fighting, fighting.”14
Geronimo and his rear guard, thirty-two well-armed and mounted men, charged into the fray and drove the Mexicans back. The men gathered such women and children as they could in a steep arroyo and repulsed a second Mexican charge. The women began scooping rifle pits out of the sides of the draw. Geronimo, Chihuahua, and Loco were all present. Chatto, Naiche, and Kayatena, part of the advance guard, had stopped to rest and have a smoke. Unaccountably, they remained where they had stopped and took no part in the fighting. The Mexicans had let the advance guard pass unharmed to allow the main body to walk into the trap.
The two sides exchanged heavy gunfire until midmorning, when the beleaguered Apaches saw a formation of Mexican soldiers charging with fixed bayonets. Before they reached their objective, however, the commander fell dead, shot by Geronimo himself, he insisted. The soldiers quickly turned back. The firing continued for another hour, with both sides running low on ammunition. Sporadic firing continued all afternoon.
At dusk, the Apaches began to steal out of the arroyo in small groups. After nightfall, someone proposed that the mothers strangle their babies to prevent their crying, but no one accepted the proposition. Various individuals in the always factionalized Apache society named Geronimo as the instigator of this tactic and further accused him of cowardice during the arroyo fighting. The controversy continues, but the evidence is not strong enough to verify the charge.15
In fact, Geronimo had performed at his best in taking Loco’s people by surprise at San Carlos, then leading them in the flight toward Mexico. Since he had planned and carried out the operation, he must have fought with distinction at Horseshoe Canyon. He also fought effectively in the arroyo at Alisos Creek. As Betzinez declared, “In times of danger he was a man to be relied upon.”
But the ambush at Alisos Creek had dealt the Chiricahuas a shattering defeat. Seventy-eight people lost their lives, nearly all women and children of Loco’s Chihennes. The Mexicans also b
ore off thirty-three captive women and children, including Loco’s daughter. But the survivors of the slaughter made good their escape. Climbing into the Carcay Mountains, they united with Juh and Nana. Now 650 Chiricahuas, nearly all the tribe, had lodged themselves in the Sierra Madre.
The Carcays are mere foothills of the soaring Sierra Madre, long providing haunts for Apaches from the north and resident Tarahumari Indians. The Sierra Madre consists of two north-south ranges enclosing the great central plateau of Mexico. The Sierra Madre Oriental faces Chihuahua and parallels the Gulf of Mexico for seven hundred miles. The Sierra Madre Occidental, farther north, curves through Sonora facing the Pacific Ocean for a thousand miles. A few peaks are permanently snow-covered. A dominant characteristic of the mountains is plunging, steep-sided canyons called barrancas. Chaparral covers the canyon cliffs. Oak and pine forests rose from the tortured landscape between five and ten thousand feet. (Logging has denuded them in modern times.) The slopes facing east and west are humid and thickly vegetated while the inner slopes are nearly barren. Winters are mild and summers humid and rainy. Wolves, bears, deer, and other animals roam the forests. Snakes, including three species of rattlesnake, share the land with a wide variety of insects, some venomous.
The Apaches knew how to hide and live in these lofty mountains. The canyons, with many tributary canyons, pocked with rocky gouges and ledges, offered secure refuges for the Apaches. Game animals provided food, and ramshackle Mexican villages and ranches in the river valleys afforded food and plunder when game proved scarce. Both Mexican and American troops found the Sierra Madre virtually impossible to penetrate, and therefore impossible for military operations.
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