The war chief

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Like sheep they went to the slaughter, only a few escaping, while the handful that had remained to offer their fellows this meager chance for life were wiped out to the last man.

Shoz-Dijiji, slipping away from the camp, had sneaked to a vantage point from which he might witness the battle, and as he watched his heart filled with pride at realization of the superior generalship and strategy of his savage sire. His blood leaped to the excitement of the moment and his brown fingers itched to draw the bow against the enemy.

He saw the rout of the Mexicans and he joined the rush of yelling, whooping braves that swarmed down the sides of the canyon to dispatch the wounded and loot the dead. In his path a wounded Mexican raised himself upon one elbow and Shoz-Dijiji shot him through the throat. As the trooper sank to earth again the lad drew his hunting knife and scalped him, and his eyes blazed with the deep fire of what was almost religious exaltation as he consummated this act in the Apaches’ sacred drama—war.

All about him the warriors were torturing the living and mutilating the dead and Shoz-Dijiji watched, interested; but he did not follow their examples in these things. Why he did not, he could not have told. He felt neither pity nor compassion, for he had been taught neither one nor the other by precept or example. Deep within him, perhaps, there was forming, nebulously, the conviction that in after years guided him in such matters, that it added nothing to the luster of a warrior’s fame to have the blood of the defenseless upon his weapons.

He could kill with savage delight, but he took no joy in the sufferings of his victims; and in this respect he was not the only exception among his fellows to the general rule that all Apaches took delight in inflicting diabolical sufferings upon the helpless. This was not the first time that he had seen Mexican soldiers fight, and having found them fearless and worthy foes he had conceived for them that respect which every honorable fighting man feels for a brave antagonist. To have killed one, then, was a high honor and Shoz-Dijiji was filled with justifiable pride as he viewed the dripping trophy of his prowess.

Geronimo, blood-spattered, grim, terrible, saw him and smiled, and passed on to send a small party after the retreating Mexicans who had escaped, that he might be assured that there was not a larger party of the enemy to the south, or that the others did not turn back to seek revenge.

The grim aftermath of an Apache victory completed, the victorious warriors, laden with loot and bearing a few scalps, returned, exulting, boasting, to the camp, where the women and children greeted them with shrill cries of praise.

That night there was feasting and dancing—the scalp dance—and the loot was divided.

The following day four of the tribes withdrew to separate camps short distances apart, leaving only the Be-don-ko-he and the Cho-kon-en in the main camp, and there they waited until the trailers had returned and reported that the Mexicans had crossed the border in retreat; then they scattered to their own hunting grounds.

Cochise was yet very ill and so Geronimo held his tribe with the Cho-kon-en, for to him the old war chief was as a second father. He exhorted Nakay-do-klunni and Nan-ta-do-tash, the medicine men, to exert their utmost powers in behalf of the old warrior; but though they made their best medicine Cochise grew weaker day by day. And then one day he called Geronimo to him where he lay in his rude shelter upon blankets and furs.