CHAPTER ELEVEN
Geronimo in Chains
In the Apache camp at Warm Springs, New Mexico, Victorio and Geronimo braced themselves against the side of a big wooden building which had once been a barracks for white soldiers. All about them wickiups sprouted like misshapen plants. A large herd of horses grazed near by. Women and older children ground corn in their stone grinding bowls.
Others prepared freshly killed meat, but they were not working over the carcasses of elk, deer, and antelope. These were stolen range cattle that the women made ready for cooking pots. But they were as tasty as any wild game. And they also furnished a great deal more meat for every shot expended.
The warm sun had made Geronimo and Victorio sleepy, so that neither warrior felt like moving unnecessarily. But their conversation was lively enough.
"The days of our fathers are truly gone, and I do not believe they will ever be again," said Geronimo. "Even war as we once knew it is no more. There was a time when Apaches fought more for adventure and plunder than anything else. But now, since the white men have become our enemies, both sides fight only to kill."
"That is how Cochise fought the white men for ten long years," Victorio remarked.
Geronimo said bitterly, "But finally even he made terms. He promised to fight no more if his Chiricahuas were permitted to stay in their homeland, the Chiricahua Mountains. General Howard, with whom Cochise treated, pledged his word that they might.
"Yet, less than eighteen months after Cochise has gone to join his ancestors, all his people have been rounded up by troops and shipped to a new reservation. It is somewhere here in New Mexico, and the Chiricahuas do not like it. Many have already deserted to go back on the warpath. Many more will desert. There will be much trouble."
Victorio said bitterly, "The white soldiers are great fools. If they had left the Chiricahuas alone, there would have been no trouble. But has there ever been a time when white soldiers did not promise us one thing and give us another?"