Gatewood replied that he had been ordered by General Miles to say what he had said and no more. This would probably be their last chance to surrender. If the war continued, they would all eventually be killed, or if captured the terms would not be as generous.
The impasse set the stage for hours of talk. Geronimo explained all the wrongs the whites had inflicted on his people. The Apaches would give up part of their homeland, but not all. He then led the men into a canebrake for an hour’s private discussion. Returning at noon, they joined in a brief lunch with coffee. Then Geronimo looked Gatewood directly in the eye and declared, “Take us to the reservation, or fight.”
Gatewood then startled all the Apaches with a revelation. General Miles had rounded up all the Chiricahuas on the reservation and sent them to Florida. If Geronimo and his people went back to the reservation, they would live among their hereditary enemies, the White Mountain Apaches. Again Geronimo fixed the lieutenant with an intense stare and asked if he told the truth or made up the story to get them to surrender. He quizzed Gatewood at length about how such a thing could happen to a people always on the alert. Finally, Geronimo led the men back to the canebrake for another conference. They returned in an hour, and Geronimo announced that they stood by their original terms. But he also said he wanted Gate-wood to get on his mule, ride to the nearest army post, get in touch with Miles, and try to persuade him to modify his terms, at least to allow them all to be collected and settled somewhere in the West. Gatewood explained that he did not know where Miles was, and anyway Miles had made up his mind. Furthermore, Gatewood was sick, and he could not do more hard riding.
More talk ensued, until once again the Chiricahuas retired to the cane-brake. They emerged an hour later to repeat that they would not surrender on Miles’s terms. Geronimo thought they ought to talk all night, and he asked Gatewood to find a beef to eat. Gatewood declined. The argument continued late into the afternoon.
Then Geronimo turned the talks to General Miles. They didn’t know him. What kind of a man was he? How old? How large? What color eyes and hair? Did he talk ugly or nice? Is he liked? Large or small heart? Gatewood answered all the questions. Then Geronimo said, “He must be a good man, since the Great Father sent him from Washington, and he sent you all this distance to us.”
At sundown Gatewood gathered his gear and said he would return to his bivouac, that the Indians should discuss the matter all night. As he prepared to leave, Geronimo asked him to stay a few minutes, then said: “We want your advice. Consider yourself one of us and not a white man. Remember all that has been said today, and as an Apache, what would you advise us to do? Should we surrender, or should we fight it out?”
“I would trust General Miles and take him at his word.”
Geronimo said they would return to their mountain camp, make medicine, hold a council, and reach a decision. He would let Gatewood know the result the next morning, August 26. He did. Geronimo and five men appeared near the army bivouac and shouted for Gatewood by his Apache name, Bay-chen-daysen (Long Nose). A few hundred yards from the camp, Gatewood and Geronimo shook hands. The night’s council had produced a decision. He and all his people would meet with General Miles north of the border and talk the matter over with him. They would keep their arms and travel separately, but the American force would accompany them and protect them from any Mexican attack.
Geronimo then asked to meet the American commander. Gatewood escorted him into the bivouac and introduced him to Captain Lawton. Geronimo hugged him, and all sat down for a smoke. Lawton agreed to Geronimo’s proposal. They selected as a place of meeting Skeleton Canyon, in the Peloncillo Mountains about sixty miles southeast of Fort Bowie. All the Chiricahuas came down and relaxed for the rest of the day.
On August 27 they remained in camp, waiting for Lawton’s pack train to find its way to them. Geronimo dictated to George Wrattan a letter to General Miles. He began by demanding that he be allowed to go back to Turkey Creek, and he expected the government to have his family there when he arrived. After naming the exiles in Florida he wanted brought back, he stated that he wanted to meet the general in person, not talk on paper. He and his people would meet Miles north of the border. Captain Lawton’s command and his people would move north separately and freely visit each other. Gate-wood could travel with whom he wished. Geronimo made his mark, and Lawton signed as witness.
In a month, Geronimo had allowed his mind to drift from the adamant refusal even to use the word “surrender” to an agreement in which the word “surrender” was at least being talked about. He had not decided to surrender, only to keep his arms and meet with General Miles. But the talks with Gate-wood and the nightly councils and medicine-making in the cane brake had wrought an unprecedented softening of his attitude. A number of observers, as far back as Fronteras, had commented on how worn down and emaciated Geronimo and his followers looked. As Gatewood had made explicit, the choice was war to the death or surrender. The exhaustion of July and August 1886 at least made Geronimo more receptive to an alternative to continued flight, although the prospect of “surrender” probably had yet to lodge in his mind.
He himself would decide whether General Miles could be persuaded to change his mind and whether he could be trusted any more than General Crook.
TWENTY-FOUR
GERONIMO SURRENDERS, 1886
FOR CAPTAIN HENRY W. LAWTON, the crucial day was August 26, 1886. Gatewood and his two Apache scouts, Kayitah and Martine, had accomplished their mission. Geronimo and Naiche came to Lawton’s bivouac and met with him. They all stayed in his camp the rest of the day and the next. Geronimo continued to talk both days, including dictating his letter to General Miles. Lawton felt certain the war would soon be over if only Miles would consent to meet personally with Geronimo and Naiche.1
But Miles did not want to meet with them. Preoccupied with getting the reservation Chiricahuas off to Florida, he wanted Lawton to handle the surrender. (They had not been moved when Gatewood told Geronimo they had.) On August 29, Miles’s adjutant acknowledged receipt of Lawton’s dispatch reporting the talks and said that the general directed Lawton to inform the Apaches that their best course was to surrender to him as prisoners of war and trust the government to do the right thing. If they were acting in good faith, they would place hostages in Lawton’s control. Pressed again by Lawton, Miles responded that if the Apaches could give any guarantee that they would surrender, such as hostages, he would meet with them. Otherwise Lawton should use his best judgment.2
Stressful as Miles’s evasion proved for Lawton, he dealt with even more severe stress. Moving up the San Bernardino on August 28, both the Chiricahuas and the troops spotted a skirmish line of Mexicans, uniformed in white, advancing over a ridge. Both camps began throwing up defenses. Lawton ordered Wood, Lieutenant Abiel L. Smith, and interpreter Tom Horn to hurry down to the Mexicans. Wood took the lead, the other two following when ready. He met them coming single file out of a canebrake. Wood told the leader to halt, that if he came farther a fight would take place. Both the troops and the Apaches were united and prepared for battle. Smith went back to get Lawton while Wood and Horn stalled by keeping the talks going. Lawton arrived and said the Indians had surrendered to the United States and he would not allow them to be interfered with.
Both Lawton and Wood knew the Mexican leader, the belligerent prefect of Arispe, Jesús Aguirre, with whom they had talked in Fronteras. He had almost two hundred infantrymen. He clearly did not want a fight, but they were all in a foul temper, and he wanted to take the Apaches back to Fronteras for punishment.3
The Chiricahua camp boiled with excitement. An agitated Geronimo told Gatewood that he and his people would run with him north toward the border. Lawton’s men could stand off the Mexicans. Hastily the women packed up the camp, and the run began. They ran fast, crawling up and over ridges and down in gulches. Naiche and a rear guard of skirmishers brought up the rear. After an hour, having traveled about ten miles, the group halted. They wanted
to remain close enough to Lawton to help him fight the Mexicans if necessary. Geronimo had sent a messenger with this assurance.
Soon Leonard Wood galloped into the group. He brought word that Aguirre would not be satisfied until he heard from Geronimo himself that he intended to surrender to the Americans. Lawton had arranged a meeting place, distant from the body of Mexican troops. The Mexican leader and seven men would meet with Geronimo and seven men, all armed. Geronimo saw treachery in such a scheme, and he yielded only after lengthy persuasion by Gatewood.
The Mexican leader and his officers lounged under a cottonwood when Geronimo and Naiche emerged from the brush, Geronimo dragging his Winchester by the muzzle and carrying a holstered pistol in front of his left hip. Aguirre jumped up and, introduced by Lawton, shook hands with Geronimo. But he also grasped his own holstered pistol and partially withdrew it. Geronimo, with a look of burning hatred on his face, began to pull his. Behind, the Mexican officers fidgeted with their weapons. All the Apaches leveled their Winchesters. Lawton and his officers jumped between the two sides. The Mexican prefect returned his pistol to behind his back, and Geronimo relaxed.
The prefect asked why Geronimo had not surrendered at Fronteras. Geronimo replied that was because he did not want to be murdered. “Are you going to surrender to the Americans?” asked the prefect. “I am,” said Geronimo, “because I can trust them. Whatever happens, they will not murder me and my people. I have nothing further to say.” “Then I shall go along and see that you do surrender,” declared Aguirre. “No,” answered Geronimo, “you are going south and I am going north. I’ll have nothing to do with you or with any of your people.” Except for one soldier left to keep watch, Aguirre and his command did as Geronimo demanded.4
With troops of both nations roaming the area, the Chiricahuas broke camp early on August 29 and moved warily up the San Bernardino. Lawton’s command lagged behind. Lawton, Wood, and Lieutenant Thomas Clay caught up with them and asked them to wait for Lawton’s command. But it did not come. Throughout the day, one after another, including Lawton, went in search but did not return. Near nightfall, Geronimo moved another eight miles and found a defensible position for the camp. At daybreak on August 30, the Apaches moved another eight miles and found a creek on which to wait for the command. It finally arrived that morning.
The next day, August 31, both parties crossed the border and paused in Guadalupe Canyon, near the head of the San Bernardino River. The Chiricahuas grew restive. They had overheard remarks made by some of the officers that aroused their suspicion. Leaving the troops behind, they hurried forward, out of the canyon.
Gatewood rode hard to overtake Geronimo. The pace slowed, and the two talked. Geronimo asked Gatewood what he would do if fired on by the American troops. He replied that he would rush out and try to have the firing stopped. If he failed, he would run away with the Apaches. Naiche had joined and advised Gatewood to stay with him and Geronimo because some of the young men, suspecting treachery, might try to kill the lieutenant.5
The danger, however, lay not with suspicious Apaches. It lay with the American soldiers themselves.
When the troops finally caught up with Geronimo, Lieutenant Abiel L. Smith, not Lawton, commanded. A strong-minded officer of twelve years’ service, he had done nothing to distinguish himself but was known to believe that the best course of action was simply to kill Geronimo. Lawton had left the command to him after he found it six miles south of the San Bernardino Ranch. Lawton had decided to ride into the ranch and try to communicate with Miles by heliograph (mirrors flashing from peak to peak), and Smith was the next ranking officer.6 Before leaving, Lawton confided to Smith his fear that he might fail to keep his promise to Miles and deliver the Chiricahuas safely. Ominously, Smith replied, “I haven’t promised them [the Apaches] anything. You … communicate with Miles, and I’ll take command.”
Guided by Leonard Wood, Smith led the command to the Chiricahua camp, and on August 31 both Apaches and troops crossed the border and made their way into Guadalupe Canyon. The Apaches traveled in advance, and after several miles a lieutenant caught up with them. Almost certainly he brought copies of dispatches Lawton had received from Miles, by heliograph, instructing him to do anything necessary, including “any other measures,” to end the standoff. Plainly, Miles did not want to meet with Geronimo, and Lawton could use his own judgment. Smith, and even Wood, took that to justify aggressive measures, as Miles intended. Some of this talk found its way to the Apaches and set off the flight from Guadalupe Canyon.
Learning of the belligerent attitude of Smith, Wood, and other officers, Gatewood took Wrattan and Geronimo back to confront them. They approached in single file. Smith said he wanted to meet with the Chiricahuas. Gatewood refused. Smith pointed out that he ranked Gatewood (both were first lieutenants, but Smith had seniority) and demanded a meeting. An angry exchange followed, but Gatewood stood his ground and declared that he knew what Smith intended and would “blow off the first man if they didn’t stop.” Both Smith and Wood backed down, but Wood sent his orderly galloping back to bring Lawton to the scene. His arrival later that night calmed the situation. With Wood and their orderlies, Lawton went forward to the Indian camp, took supper with them, and calmed them, too.7
But Gatewood would not be mollified. He had lost faith in himself—if he ever had it. He had voiced doubts about the mission from its inception. Gatewood went to Lawton and proposed to take his baggage and join some other column. He had been ordered to put Kayitah and Martine in touch with Geronimo. He had done that. His mission was completed. Lawton argued that Gatewood was indispensable to completing the surrender. If the Indians escaped, both would be in trouble. If necessary, Lawton would use force to keep Gatewood. Pressure was applied and Gatewood stayed.8
The Apaches and Lawton’s command reached their destination on the afternoon of September 2. Skeleton Canyon opened on the west side of the Peloncillo Mountains. Venturing into the narrow entrance, the Apaches noted that it widened and divided into two branches. But they also noted that several army units had already bivouacked, and more arrived before they could go into camp. The numerous soldiers, together with the many couriers who came and went, made all the Chiricahuas more nervous and suspicious than they already were. They informed Lawton that they would move deeper into the canyon and camp alone. Like Crook at Canyon de los Embudos, the absence of General Miles further upset them. With his usual acute eye for topography, Geronimo selected a plateau at the confluence of the two canyons. From here they could watch the soldiers below and scan the San Bernardino Valley beyond, as well as defend themselves if it became necessary. Gatewood and Wrattan stayed with them.
The agitation persisted through the night and into September 3. Finally, from their elevated perch, the Apaches sighted dust arising from the approach of vehicles. They assumed that at last the general had come. They could talk with him and “look him in the eye.” Geronimo pressed Gatewood to take him to meet Miles. Near the mouth of the canyon, the great Apache leader and the great American general stood face to face. It was a more dramatic and meaningful encounter than Geronimo’s with Crook at Canyon de los Embudos. For both Geronimo and Miles, the outcome would be momentous. It could mean Apache surrender, in the full sense of the word that Geronimo had never entertained, or an immediate exchange of fire between Apaches and soldiers and a stampede of Apaches back to Mexico. The two warily shook hands and then talked briefly. Gatewood, sitting to the rear, recalled that Miles simply told them to surrender and be sent to Florida to await the action of the president. Then Geronimo turned to Gatewood and said, “Good, you told the truth,” shook hands with Miles, and declared he would go with him regardless of what the rest decided.
Naiche had neither accompanied Geronimo nor decided to surrender. Naiche’s brother had gone to Mexico looking for a lost pony and perhaps been killed by Mexicans. Naiche had gone into the hills to mourn. After meeting with Miles, Geronimo went in search of Naiche and persuaded him to meet the general.
They met with him on the morning of September 4. Naiche remained suspicious of the good intentions of Miles, and he had not yet surrendered his following, which was much larger than Geronimo’s. Miles explained in more detail his plan for the Chiricahuas. Somewhat reassured and encouraged by Geronimo, Naiche surrendered his following. All laid down their arms.9
According to Geronimo, Miles’s explanation took place before Naiche and the band as a whole had agreed to surrender or laid down their arms; only Geronimo himself had yielded. Doctor Wood and Lieutenant Clay were present. Miles said, “You go with me to Fort Bowie and at a certain time you will go to see your relatives in Florida.” He drew a line on the ground and said it represented the ocean. Placing a stone beside it, he said, “This represents the place where Chihuahua is with his band [Fort Marion].” He then picked up another stone and placed it a short distance from the first. “This represents you, Geronimo.” He then picked up a third stone and placed it a short distance from the others. “This represents the Indians at Fort Apache. The President wants to take you and put you with Chihuahua.” He moved the Geronimo stone, and then he moved the Fort Apache stone next to the Chihuahua stone. “That is what the President wants to do, get all of you together.”
Accompanied in an army ambulance by Geronimo and Naiche and three men and a woman, Miles and Lieutenant Clay pushed forward on the morning of September 5, moving hastily to reach Fort Bowie the same day. Lawton followed with the rest of the Chiricahuas, traveling at a more leisurely pace. They arrived at the fort early on September 8.
While waiting at Fort Bowie, Miles again explained his idea of the future to Geronimo and Naiche. He said, “From now on we want to begin a new life.” He held up one of his hands with the palm open and marked lines across it with a finger of the other hand. “This represents the past; it is all covered with hollows and ridges.” He rubbed the other palm over it and said, “That represents the wiping out of the past, which will be considered smooth and forgotten.”
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