“Of course,” laughed Micky scornfully. “Everybody in Arizona knows that. You see it yourself, Cheemie. You read the talking papers. The talking papers of Mexico say that the Chiricahua from Arizona are sneaking down there and stealing cattle. That is true. Even Gatewood is getting afraid. He is losing Chiricahua all the time; they go somewhere and his counts are always different. I think he will move to Fort Apache. It is only twelve miles, and he will be safer.
“The Geronimo Chiricahua see that the San Carlos Apaches and the White Mountains are unhappy, with two fathers bossing them. So they trade their goods for whiskey and guns. Sibi went to Geronimo and asked him what he was planning to do. Geronimo said: ‘It is no use to lie to you, Sibi. You read my thoughts. The truth is this: When my men came up with Cluke from Mexico they expected to go back every little while, to get horses and cows. There is no harm in stealing cattle from those Mexicans. Besides, Cluke took away the cattle that we first brought up. If my men are not allowed to do that, they would rather live in Mexico and act as they please. It is only my talk that holds them, and some day they won’t listen.’
“To hear Geronimo pretend peace talk would make a mule laugh,” concluded Micky. “Now because Cluke is in Washington we have come down here with Tom Horn, and Sibi who has a lame leg is coming in a wagon. They will talk with Bourke. Sibi says to capture all the Chiricahua and send them far away. That will end war. But I guess it won’t be done.”
Captain Bourke—who had been promoted to major—was at Bowie, waiting for the general to return from Washington. The general had gone to Washington in the hopes of getting more authority to deal with the Apaches.
He did not succeed. All this fall and winter of 1884 the War Department and the Interior Department could not agree upon the control of the reservations.
The officers at San Carlos staked out an irrigating ditch for the Apaches to dig, and the agent declined to permit the digging. The Indians believed nobody. Captain Crawford asked to be transferred to his regiment, the Third Cavalry, and Captain F. E. Pierce, of the First Infantry, was assigned to the military charge of San Carlos. He had lost an eye in the Civil War.
In February of 1885 Major-General John Pope, who commanded the Military Division of the Pacific, from San Francisco announced, to Washington:
If General Crook’s authority over the Indians at San Carlos be curtailed or modified in any way, there are certain to follow very serious results, if not a renewal of Indian wars and depredations in Arizona.
Consequently, with matters at sixes and sevens, the outlook at Fort Bowie was very gloomy.