Chapter Six
The War Trail
SHOZ-DIJIJI, riding cross-country, picked up the trail of Geronimo where it lay revealed to Apache eyes like a printed message across the open pages of Nature’s book of hieroglyphs, and in the evening of the second day he came to the camp of the War Chief.
Gian-nah-tah and several of the warriors who had accompanied Shoz-Dijiji in the pursuit of Cheetim and his unsavory company were already with Geronimo, and during the next two days other warriors and many women came silent footed into the camp of the Be-don-ko-he.
The Apaches were nervous and irritable. They knew that troops were out after them, and though the cunning of Shoz-Dijiji had sent the first contingent upon a wild goose chase toward Sonora the Indians were well aware that it could be but a matter of days before their whereabouts might be discovered and other troops sent to arrest them.
Among those that urged upon them the necessity of immediately taking the war trail was Mangas, son of the great dead chief, Mangas Colorado; but Geronimo held back. He did not wish to fight the white men again, for he realized, perhaps better than any of them, the futility of continued resistance; but there were two forces opposing him that were to prove more potent than the conservatism of mature deliberation. They were Sago-zhu-ni, the wife of Mangas, and the tizwin she was brewing.
It was in the early evening of May 16, 1885 that Shoz-Dijiji rode into the camp of Geronimo. The sacred hoddentin had been offered up with the prayers to Evening, and already the Be-don-ko-he had gathered about the council fire. Tizwin was flowing freely as was evidenced by the increasing volubility of the orators.
Mangas spoke forcefully and definitely for war, urging it upon Na-chi-ta, son of old Cochise and chief of the Chihuicahui Apaches and ranking chief of all those gathered in the camp of Geronimo; but Na-chi-ta, good-natured, fonder of tizwin and pretty squaws than he was of the war-trail and its hardships, argued, though halfheartedly, for peace.
Chihuahua, his fine head bowed in thought, nodded his approval of the moderate counsel of Na-chi-ta; and when it was his turn to speak he reminded them of the waste of war, of the uselessness and hopelessness of fighting against the soldiers of the white men; and old Nanáy sided with him; but Ulzanna, respected for his ferocity and his intelligence, spoke for war, as did Kut-le, the bravest of them all.
Stinging from the insults of the father of Wichita Billings, Shoz-Dijiji was filled with bitterness against all whites; and when Kut-le had spoken, the young war chief of the Be-don-ko-he arose.