“Pindah-lickoyee! White-eyed man!” he cried contemptuously, almost spitting the words from his mouth. “Had you told me that I am a coyote I could have carried my shame and faced the world, but to be a white man!” He shuddered.
“My son,” said Geronimo, “it is not the color of our skin or the blood that runs in our veins that makes us good men or bad men. There are bad Apaches and there are good white men. It is good to be a good Apache. It is not bad to be a good white man. Now, perhaps, it is better to be a good white man than even a good Apache. Times have changed. Usen does not look with favor upon the Shis-Inday. Time will heal your wound. Go and live among your own people, and some day you will thank Geronimo because he told you.”
“Never!” cried the Black Bear. “Good-bye, Geronimo. You have been a good father to Shoz-Dijiji. Now Shoz-Dijiji has no father. Shoz-Dijiji has no mother. Shoz-Dijiji has no people, for he is not an Apache; and he will not be a pindah-lickoyee. But he is still a war chief of the Apaches. He is the only war chief that goes upon the war trail. Now, I think, he is the only Apache left in the world. All the rest of you are pindah-lickoyee, for do you not go to live with the pindah-lickoyee? Only Shoz-Dijiji lives like an Apache.”
He wheeled Nejeunee about, and then turned on his blanket and faced Geronimo again.
“Good-bye! Shoz-Dijiji, last of the Apaches, war chief of all the Apaches, rides out upon the last war trail.”
Down the rocky hillside toward the south the pinto war pony bore his gorgeous master, while an old man, seeing dimly through blue eyes that were clouded by unaccustomed tears, watched the last martial gesture of his once powerful people until pinto stallion and painted war chief disappeared into the blue haze that lay upon the early morning trail that wound southward toward Sonora.
Chapter Fifteen
The Last of the Renegades
GERONIMO had surrendered! For the first time in three hundred years the white invaders of Apacheland slept in peace. All of the renegades were prisoners of war in Florida. Right, at last, had prevailed. Once more a Christian nation had exterminated a primitive people who had dared defend their homeland against a greedy and ruthless invader.
Imprisoned with the renegades, and equally prisoners of war, were Apaches who had long been loyal and faithful servants to the government; but what of that! Who was there to defend a friendless people?—friendless and voteless.