Lozen's War—An Apache Story

LATE SUMMER 1880

FROM THE SHADE OF a massive rock formation, Conor Doyle nudged the old roan into the blistering Arizona sun, cautiously tracking a northeasterly direction. He had cleared the secluded waterhole shortly after daybreak and had been constantly checking his back trail. He knew that every Apache within two hundred miles would know about the waterhole as well.

Doyle was three days out of Fort Huachuca where he had resigned his position as a civilian scout. He had spent almost seven years hunting Apache for the U.S. 9th Cavalry, and it was enough. Time to turn the page and move on. While he felt no love for the Apache, he respected them for their courage and skill on the battlefield. They were fighting for their homeland and way of life against adversaries who had them outgunned and outnumbered.

Doyle was cautious by nature, but travel through Apache country required extra vigilance. He preferred seldom-used game trails and never highlighted himself against the skyline by riding ridge tops. He also scouted water holes carefully and never stayed longer than it took to water his horse and refill his canteens.

At midday the unrelenting hot sun lay directly overhead. A strong, hot wind blew out of the Sonoran Desert, and the temperature was pushing 110 degrees. The relentless wind blew often and angry across the desert southwest, something Doyle hated. The wind and heat torched the soul and cooked the skin, tossing small grains of sand, rock, and alkali dust into his eyes, forcing him to view the world through a teary, perpetual squint that left him feeling drowsy, a bad idea in Apache country.

The roan was starting to labor, and Doyle knew he needed to find a shady spot soon to wait out the worst of the day’s heat. “Hang on old girl. We’re gonna stop soon.” He moved slowly among winding hills, through scattered stands of mesquite, prickly pear, greasewood, and towering saguaro cactus, looking for a spot that offered shade and the chance to surveil the distant plain below. He found that spot when he crossed over a saddle with irregularly shaped boulders on one side.

Doyle led the horse through a narrow opening next to the boulders and came out on a flat terrace with an outcropping of large, overhanging rocks. From his elevated perch, he had an unobstructed view of the desert below and just enough shade for the horse and himself. He loosened the cinch on the McClellan saddle, watered, and gave the tired girl a rubdown. He removed his hat and bandana, soaked the bandana with water from one of the canteens, and wiped his face, neck, and the inside of his hat band.

He removed a pair of field glasses from his saddlebags and scrambled over several rocks settling on a boulder top with a clear view into the parched valley. The intense heat sent shimmering waves from the sky to the ground, making it difficult to see anything and forcing Doyle to adjust the focus. A small speck appeared on the desert floor—too far away to tell who or what it was, if anything at all.

Doyle had learned from Apache scouts that if you planned on surviving in Apache country, you’d better learn patience. He waited for almost an hour, sipping water and eating dried venison and a can of peaches, until a second look confirmed what he suspected, that two riders were moving in his direction. What he hadn’t noticed was that one of the approaching riders was an Apache woman, heavy with child, and riding a burro. The Apache warrior beside her rode a large, sorrel stallion, and was doing everything possible to hurry the burro along. Doyle guessed the pregnant woman was his woman.

What Doyle hadn’t seen before was a second group of riders, moving quickly, and raising a large dust cloud they seemed uninterested in trying to hide. They could be Indians, bandits, or perhaps a U.S. cavalry patrol.

As the second group came into focus, Doyle realized these men were not U.S. cavalry nor a rival band of Indians. They were a mobile, fast-moving group of bandits who made their living as scalp hunters and slavers. Since the mid-1830s, the Mexican government had paid a bounty for Apache scalps.

He could see two outriders flanking the main group, reading trail sign, and maintaining pressure on the fleeing couple. Through the towering dust cloud, it was difficult to get an accurate count of the group’s size, though it seemed the party had at least a dozen riders. They appeared well-mounted and well-armed. Doyle guessed that the Apache couple would likely be overtaken before nightfall.

—

DOYLE BELIEVED WITH ABSOLUTE certainty that the unfolding drama was none of his business. People on both sides lived and died in this unforgiving desert, and he had no intention of sticking his nose where it wasn’t wanted. His thoughts drifted to the deed packed away in his saddlebags for 160 acres of prime ranch land in southeast New Mexico Territory, high in the mountains near the small village of Ruidoso. He’d scouted the area several times with the U.S. cavalry and recognized the land’s potential. None of it would have been possible without his father’s death in Ohio that left him the small family farm. With proceeds from the farm’s sale, he had enough cash to buy the land, build a house, and begin purchasing livestock.

The Doyle family had immigrated from Cork, Ireland, in 1846, at the height of the Irish Potato Famine. They settled in rural Ohio on a small farm. Over time the farm prospered with the help of two growing sons, Conor and his older brother, Dennis.

All that changed in 1861 with the Civil War when Dennis enlisted in the Union army. He was killed two years later during the Battle of Gettysburg.

For Conor, life was never the same after his brother’s death. The thought of spending the rest of his days toiling on a rural farm felt overwhelming. So, in the spring of 1864, after a tearful parting with his parents, Doyle hired on as a hunter for a westbound wagon train of settlers heading to Texas in search of free land to farm. While passing through Santa Fe, he learned that famed frontier scout Kit Carson was seeking volunteers to join the 1st New Mexico Cavalry, a state militia charged with driving out any pockets of Confederate forces trying to hold on in New Mexico. Finding little Confederate resistance, the group focused on fighting Indians, a path that eventually led Doyle to his service as a civilian scout for the army.

The Apache couple had stopped less than a quarter mile below Doyle’s current position. The woman waited while the warrior backtracked a short distance to surveil the position of the pursuing scalp hunters. He quickly returned to the woman, and after a brief exchange, they hurried on. Soon they left the main trail and rode into a shallow box canyon that dead-ended at the base of a steep rock face that rose several hundred feet. The canyon path climbed gently through clumps of sage and scattered rocks until the Indians came to several boulders at the base of the cliff. The rock formation ensured adequate shelter and provided an open field of fire to the valley below.

If this was where they intended to make a stand, it was a good place, thought Doyle. They held the high ground, and there were few places for the pursuing bandits to find cover. The scalp hunters would ultimately prevail, but victory might come at a steep price.

The Apache warrior appeared on foot from behind the rock formation and hurried down the narrow path to where the woman was struggling with the burro. She had dismounted, released the burro, and was lumbering slowly up the trail carrying food, water, and other supplies. As Doyle focused closely on the man, something wasn’t right. He adjusted the focus again and muttered, “Well, I’ll be damned.” Closer examination revealed the warrior was, in fact, a woman. The facial features were a dead giveaway—softer and clearly more feminine. He could also see the faint outline of breasts under the petite woman’s cotton shirt. What the hell were they doing out here? And where were their men?

For Doyle, this changed nothing. Women or not, he had no intention of riding into this fight. There was nothing to be gained and plenty to lose—like his hair, his life, and his future. If he tried to intervene, it was just as likely he would be killed by the Apache woman as the bandits. And she was no ordinary Apache woman—nothing domestic-looking about her. No, it was time to saddle up and ride.

Frustration plagued Doyle in the short mile he rode. He struggled with his decision to desert the women but couldn’t escape the fact that he was deserting two women, one pregnant, to face certain death. He pulled the roan to a stop. “Damn,” he muttered. “Sorry, old girl, but we’re goin’ back.”

He returned to the overlook but tied his horse outside the narrow shelf in case he had to skedaddle in a hurry. From his scabbard he removed a .50 caliber, single-shot Sharp’s buffalo gun—particularly useful at long range. He returned to his perch high above the scene playing out below. The scouts had found the Apache women and now awaited the arrival of the main party.

The sun was fading quickly, and it would soon be dark. What Doyle didn’t know was whether the scalp hunters would strike after dark or wait for daylight. Apache were a superstitious people who rarely fought at night. If he struck now, he would create confusion among the bandits, and if the big Sharps reduced their numbers sufficiently, he might succeed in driving them off. If he did nothing, and they attacked in darkness, there would be little he could do to help the women. Doyle decided he could ill afford to waste what little daylight remained, so he loaded a .50 caliber cartridge, adjusted the front site, and waited.

—

AFTER THE MAIN GROUP of bandits arrived, Doyle noticed two men off to one side, probably plotting tactics. Their horses had been driven to the rear with one man standing guard. The others stood around laughing, talking loudly, sharing what Doyle guessed was a bottle of mescal and thinking the fight they were about to start was going to be easy.

The bandits soon formed a rough skirmish line across the front of the U-shaped bowl and sent one man up each side to flank the Apache women. The sides of the small box canyon presented the greatest challenge because it provided better cover for the attackers. When the ragtag lot opened fire, the Apache woman returned fire with deadly accuracy. One of the men on the skirmish line yelped and went down, holding his bloody and useless left arm. Moments later, another followed. This one looked to be gut shot.

Doyle eased into a comfortable firing position, sighted the buffalo gun on one of the flankers closest to him, and fired. The big gun roared, and the bandit’s head exploded like a soft melon, pitching him several feet backward. Doyle ducked out of sight, reloaded, and came up again, this time focusing on a fighter on the skirmish line. The big gun roared again, and the man’s body was lifted off the ground and blown backward, his chest turned into a bloody shade of crimson. Doyle ran to a new position, reloading as he moved. This time as he raised to fire, he was met with a barrage of rifle fire from below, causing his own shot to miss. One of the bandit’s shots ricocheted off a boulder in front of Doyle, blasting sand and rock fragments into his face. One of the fragments struck his cheek and immediately drew blood. Doyle wiped the blood on the sleeve of his cotton shirt as he retreated. It was time to move.

With at least two wounded and two dead, the scalp hunters withdrew. It wouldn’t take the leaders long to dispatch several men to hunt for the interloper, and while Doyle had no intention of sticking around for that, he did have a plan that might force the bandits to reconsider whether this fight was worth the cost.

Doyle rode as quickly as the impending nightfall allowed. He followed a circuitous route around the outlaw’s camp, traveling northeast through rolling hills dotted with stands of barrel and organ pipe cactus, ocotillo, and sage. He dropped into a shallow arroyo, maneuvering between boulders before climbing out the other side. In darkness, Doyle dismounted and walked the roan. When he had traveled far enough north of the scalp hunter’s camp, Doyle turned south, planning to approach the bandits closest to where their horses were picketed. About a quarter mile out, he tied his horse in a small alcove and advanced cautiously on foot. When he was close enough to smell wood smoke from the dying campfire, he dropped to the ground and crawled forward until he spotted their horses in a makeshift corral that backed into a 10-foot-high rock formation fronted by bushes and sage.

One man had been left on watch, a sleepy-looking Mexican seated against a rock next to the corral. His head bobbed up and down as he struggled to stay awake. Doyle crawled forward on his belly, stopping every few feet. His heart pounded so hard he was sure the guard would hear it. If he was discovered now, his chances of getting out alive were slim. Doyle unholstered the Colt Peacemaker figuring that a blow to the guard’s head gave him the best chance of keeping him quiet. Doyle moved close and rose quickly. He brought the barrel of the Colt down on the back of the Mexican’s head. The guard gave a shallow grunt and toppled over. Fortunately, the camp remained quiet.

Doyle scurried back to his horse, mounted, and readied himself for the charge. He checked his ammunition, canteens, and the pouch of dried venison— things he would need if he made it to the Apache alive. He carried the Spencer carbine and started the roan forward at a trot.

When the corral came into view, he kicked the horse into a full gallop. In seconds he opened the makeshift corral and drove the horses directly into the outlaw’s camp. Doyle fired a round into the air as he yipped and howled, pushing the frightened animals through the camp. The horses scattered in every direction as disoriented and half-drunken bandits reached for their guns and struggled to get out of their blankets. By the time most of them realized what had happened, Doyle was through the camp and closing fast to where the Apache women were holed up.

Doyle figured the odds were pretty good that if one of the bandits didn’t shoot him, the confused Apache woman probably would. Sudden shots rang out from all sides, and he felt the heat of a bullet clip the sleeve of his shirt, burning his skin. Seconds later, he saw a muzzle flash off his left side and felt the roan shudder as her front legs collapsed. Doyle was tossed headlong over the horse landing hard on his shoulder in a clump of prickly pear cactus. The wind knocked out of him, he managed to ignore the pain as he scrambled along the ground trying to recover his rifle. As he reached for the Spencer, he heard the unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked. He looked up and saw a grinning, sombrero-clad Mexican, sighting down on him with an old Hawken gun. He closed his eyes and waited for the end that never came. A shot sent the Mexican backward, his throat becoming a fountain of blood. Doyle grabbed the carbine and scrambled for cover in the rocks. He’d barely caught his breath when he found himself staring down the barrel of a Sharps carbine carried by a fierce-looking Apache warrior with a streak of white paint running from under one eye, over the bridge of her nose, and under the other eye. If ever he’d seen a look of pure hatred on the face of another, it was staring at him now. She wore the clothing of a male warrior, a yellow headband, a breechclout, a simple cotton tunic shirt, and deerskin moccasins that rose to just under the knee.

In near panic, Doyle managed to mumble in mixed Spanish and English, “Woman, I am not your enemy.” For what seemed like an eternity, the warrior woman stared back without so much as a flinch. Slowly she lowered the carbine. Turning away, she replied in the same broken English, “All white-eye, enemy.”

Doyle climbed high into a rock formation where he could see the pandemonium playing out below. The scalp hunters were busily trying to recover their horses without making themselves easy targets. The Apache woman occasionally snapped off a shot, but things soon became quiet.

Doyle figured the bandits would lick their wounds and decide what to do next. In the meantime, he had some wounds to attend to. The gun shot only grazed his arm, leaving a superficial wound. The painful injury was the prickly-pear thorns, several of which were embedded in his upper back. Doyle knew the thorns needed to come out, but several were out of reach.

He built a small fire, made coffee, and heated his Bowie knife, hoping he could avoid having to cauterize the wound. He took off his shirt and gently removed the thorns he could reach. Then, mysteriously as she had appeared before, the Apache woman stood several feet away, bathed in shadow, her rifle lying in the crook of her arm.

He pulled the knife from the fire and held it above the imbedded thorns in his shoulder. She stepped forward, shook her head warning him, “Don’t use the knife on that wound.” She moved closer and examined the damage before removing a large, Arkansas Toothpick from a sheath at her side. Doyle remained impassive but hoped the woman was planning to use the knife on the thorns and not his throat. Using her fingers and the tip of the razor-sharp blade, she removed five thorns from his back.

“Agua?” she said. Doyle handed her his canteen and watched as she cleansed the wound. She opened a small buffalo gut bag and removed a pasty concoction that stunk something awful but once applied, immediately soothed the wound. When she’d finished, Doyle said, “Gracias.” She nodded once, then turned to leave. Doyle patted himself on the chest and said, “Mi nombre, Doyle.”

She stared at him for a moment and replied, “Doy al.”

He nodded. “Si.”

Pointing at her, Doyle asked, “Usted nombre?”

She hesitated, then replied, “Lozen.”

Using a clumsy combination of Spanish and English, he learned that Lozen was escorting the frightened pregnant squaw back to her home on the Mescalero reservation in southeastern New Mexico. They had traveled for days from somewhere in the Mexican State of Sonora. Doyle was amazed the women had made it this far, dodging ranchers, miners, bandits, the Mexican army, and the U.S. cavalry.

Lozen asked what a white man was doing traveling alone in Apache country. Doyle explained that he owned a ranch near Ruidoso where he intended to raise livestock. Lozen pointed at the pants he was wearing, blue with a gold stripe running down the side, “Pony soldier pants,” she said. Pointing to himself, Doyle said, “Scout.”

The short conversation ended abruptly when they heard movement from below and scrambled into defensive positions along the rocky shelf about thirty feet apart. Daylight was still a couple hours off and so began a nerve-wracking wait-and-see what the Comancheros would try next. Doyle doubted the bandits were simply going to ride away. If he was right, they would attack soon with everything they had left.

—

IN THE NARROW VALLEY, the slightest sound was amplified as though it came through an echo chamber. Doyle could hear the movement, the sound of a boot settling in sandy soil or an article of clothing brushing against sage. And if he could hear it, he had no doubt the Apache woman could as well. The sky overhead was clear, and stars of every size bathed the night sky.

Doyle figured the scalp hunters would use the available moonlight to close in. They had about a dozen fighters remaining, and if they succeeded in getting inside their rocky defensive enclosure, numbers alone would dictate the outcome. Perhaps Lozen agreed because the next time he glanced her way, she had disappeared. She’d left her rifle against a rock where she had stood watch, but she was now nowhere in sight. That did not bode well for the bandits.

Moments later, a loud scream announced the presence of Lozen among the scalp hunters, and then Doyle heard a dull thud, followed by a bandit cursing in Spanish while screaming for help. He went down with an arrow protruding from his thigh and immediately began crawling away in a desperate attempt to flee the impending fight.

If the scalp hunters were angry before, they were furious now. After a brief pause, they opened fire in unison and surged forward in a ragged skirmish line, seeking cover wherever they could. Lead flew in every direction. Doyle shot a fighter who had nearly breached their position. Lozen had returned and rained fire on the bandits with deadly accuracy. Doyle concentrated his fire on the line’s scattered center from which the largest number of remaining bandits were bunched.

Despite their best efforts, one of the outlaws had flanked their position and gotten behind him. Doyle dropped his rifle and grabbed his pistol as the rifle-toting bandit stepped into the open and fired a wild shot that barely missed his head. Doyle dove off the rock just as the bandit raised the carbine to fire again. The rifle discharged at their feet as the men struggled for control of the weapon. They rolled over and over until the muscular Indian had Doyle pinned on his back and was using the barrel of the rifle to crush his throat. A shadow appeared above the man and Doyle watched as the pregnant woman raised both arms above her head and plunged a ten-inch blade into the Indian’s back several times. He screamed once, agony and shock etched on his face, and then rolled to his side, dead.

As the volume of gunfire began to diminish, Doyle returned to his position in the rocks. The surviving bandits had begun pulling back. In the waning darkness, they gathered their horses, broke camp, and disappeared. Neither he nor Lozen moved from their perch, unsure whether the departure was permanent or merely a ruse.

At dawn, Doyle cautiously left their rocky fortress to reconnoiter the immediate area for signs of the surviving bandits. A thin trail of smoke rose from their campfire. Doyle counted three bodies, including the one killed by the Apache woman, scattered over a couple of hundred yards. Unlike Apache, who removed their dead whenever possible, scalp hunters had no such predilection. The bodies of the dead were left where they fell for the benefit of scavengers who would soon have the bones picked clean.

By midmorning, he had returned from his scout having found no signs of the hostiles. He had also recovered his saddle and gear from the dead roan. He would miss the old girl. They had been partners for more than a decade, and she had helped him through more than one tough spot.

Lozen had somehow managed to capture two of the bandits’ horses during the chaotic standoff. She gave one to Doyle without saying a word. Doyle offered to share his remaining food and water with the women. During the remainder of the day, they cared for the horses, kept watch, and rested.

By nightfall, things remained quiet, and Doyle took a moment to thank the Almighty for allowing him to help save the Apache women while surviving the ordeal himself. He also focused on his own good fortune at having the chance to begin a new life high in the New Mexico mountains. With those pleasant thoughts, Doyle drifted off to sleep. He awoke with a start several hours later, just before sunrise. It was deathly quiet. Rifle in hand, he knelt on one knee for several minutes, listening to the sounds of night. As he moved cautiously through their defensive enclosure, Doyle realized that he was alone. Lozen and the squaw were gone.

Doyle arrived in the village of Ruidoso four days later. He hoped the Apache women arrived safely at the Mescalero reservation, though he had no way of knowing. What he knew for certain was that he’d been in the presence of an extraordinary woman, a fighter, a healer, a defender of her people and way of life.

—

SEPTEMBER 1884

IN THE YEARS AFTER the encounter with Lozen, my ranch outside Ruidoso prospered. I’d built a home and watched as my horse and cattle herds grew. Although I hadn’t seen Lozen since, she was never far from my thoughts. I followed the Apache campaign by reading whatever accounts I could find or by word of mouth from friends or strangers passing through.

Early one morning in the fall of 1884, I stepped outside to haul water from the well. The aspens were shouting out in bright colors of yellow, gold, and orange. I don’t know what prompted me to glance up, maybe that nagging feeling that something was amiss. Seated astride a pinto some two hundred yards away, sat an Apache warrior, watching. I glanced at the rifle leaned against the wall of my front porch stoop. The warrior’s back was to the rising sun, and I had to shade my eyes with my hands to see him clearly. I muttered, “Well, I’ll be damned.” The rider was Lozen, I was sure of it. I raised my hand high above my head, palm extended outward in a gesture of friendship. After a short pause, she extended her right arm above her head returning the gesture. She sat for a full minute before turning the horse and disappearing into the thick aspens. It was the last time I ever saw her.

It wasn’t until after the final surrender of Geronimo two years later, in 1886, that I happened upon an El Paso newspaper account that mentioned Lozen was among a small group of Chiricahua fighters who had fought alongside Geronimo until fatigue, starvation, and death finally forced their surrender. The Apache were subsequently loaded into box cars and banished to Florida. The days of the free Apache were over.

The article described Lozen as a respected shaman and healer among her people, a fierce warrior who had killed many enemies in battle, and that she was the younger sister and right hand of the famous Chiricahua Chief, Victorio. How well I remembered him. We’d chased Victorio all over the southwest, getting only close enough to catch sight of his dust trail. Lozen was not with him at the time of his death when he and most of his warriors were ambushed by the Mexican army at the Battle of Tres Castillos in northeastern Mexico. She had chosen, instead, to guide a vulnerable, pregnant Apache woman through northern Mexico to the Mescalero reservation in southeast New Mexico Territory, only then to learn about the death of her brother.

Like most of my neighbors, I’d lost a few head of cattle over the years to predators. That was to be expected. Unlike my neighbors I had not suffered the loss of a single head of cattle to Apache raids, something that made some of those neighbors suspicious and a couple of them downright hostile. It was almost, as one old friend told me, like I had a guardian angel.

I would just smile.

—

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Any work of historical fiction must blend fact with the author’s imagination because often, many facts are either unknown or in dispute. One thing not in dispute in this story: Lozen, in 1880, embarked on a dangerous journey to return a frightened and vulnerable Mescalero Apache squaw to her home in southeastern New Mexico. During Lozen’s separation from her brother, Chief Victorio, he and most of his men were ambushed and killed by the Mexican army. What is also known is that Lozen joined Geronimo’s small band of fighters who eluded thousands of U.S. and Mexican troops before finally surrendering in 1886. The fighters were soon loaded into boxcars and exiled to Florida for what they were promised would be a two-year stay. The government ignored that promise, and the Apache remained prisoners of war for twenty-seven years, until their repatriation to their beloved New Mexico in 1913. As for Lozen, she would not live to see her homeland again. She died of tuberculosis in 1889 and was buried in an unmarked grave at Mount Vernon Barracks, Alabama. The character and storyline of former U.S. Army scout, Conor Doyle, is purely fictitious and a product of the author’s imagination.

MICHAEL NORMAN is a published mystery author with five books in print (and a 6th currently in the oven). These books include: The Commission (Named by Publisher’s Weekly as one of their 100 Best Books of 2007), Silent Witness, On Deadly Ground, Skeleton Picnic, and Slow Burn. The Poisoned Pen Press published four of the above titles. Norman is a long-time member of the Mystery Writers of America, and more recently, he joined the Western Writers of America. Lozen’s War is Norman’s first western short story, and the first to appear in the pages of Saddlebag Dispatches. He is currently working on a second 19th century western, undecided about whether to leave it as a short story or expand it to novel length. With doctoral degree in hand, Norman spent 25 years in academia, serving in the Criminal Justice departments at both Illinois State University and Weber State University.