W. Michael Farmer—"The Death of Geronimo"

“GRANDSON, I NEED SOME whiskey. Take this money and get some for me.”

The hand dropping the five-dollar gold piece in mine was firm and steady despite the knot of gray hair tied tightly behind the old man’s head, a thin boney face, and deeply wrinkled skin that anywhere else might have passed for fine leather. It was not the hard, scowling face I remembered when we were on the run with my father in Mexico. Now, twenty years later, I worked in Custer’s old regiment, the 7th Cavalry, and had not seen Geronimo for many moons.

A break in winter weather brought the People and White Eyes out to Lawton for supplies and to socialize with neighbors. The old man had come to sell bows and arrows he and his friends had made. Apache children would have thrown the souvenirs away as too weak or too crooked for hunting or shooting contests, but he made good money selling them to curious White Eyes wanting a remembrance from the most feared Indian in captivity. For an extra fifty cents he autographed the bow. Most were sold that way, even if he didn’t personally make them.

When we met that day in Lawton it was the middle of the afternoon. Geronimo, from his eighty-six years of living and having sat outside wrapped in his blanket this day in the near freezing air, was cold, and his joints were stiff. When he saw me, he immediately knew who I was and with a puffing grunt pulled himself up to speak so he could look me straight in the eye.

Years ago he had married my grandmother, Francesca, after she had escaped from five years of slavery in Mexico and my blood grandfather was gone. Geronimo knew who I was. As a boy I was able to escape going to the Industrial School at Carlisle, but I had learned to read from labels on cans and to do arithmetic on supply orders when I worked in the fort sutler store helping George Wratten. I had become popular among both Apaches and soldiers during our imprisonment at San Augustine in Florida, Mount Vernon Barracks in Alabama, and now here at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, for my play with the soldier baseball teams. Sometimes I had won big games hitting homeruns or by catching long hits made by the other side.

Geronimo didn’t waste time in idle chatter and asked for the whiskey to warm his insides and to reward himself for a good day of taking White Eye money for meaningless toy weapons and buttons off his coat that he kept replacing.

I knew the gold piece he dropped in my hand was an invitation to disaster and could get us both in a lot of trouble, but I said, “I’ll see what I can do, Grandfather. I’ll be back in a little while.”

He smiled, nodded, and murmured, “Enjuh.”

Selling whiskey to an Indian was punishable by hard labor in the penitentiary. I had friends in the Seventh who would buy it for me, but my uniform fit so well and tight I couldn’t hide a wart under my coat without it being noticed. Down the street, I saw an old White Eye friend and went to ask if he might help me.

“Hey, amigo, I need your help.”

“Eugene! What do you need, my friend. Anything that’s mine is yours too after the way you won that game at Fort Bliss the end of last summer.”

“Here’s the thing. My grandfather has been sitting outside all day here on the boardwalk to sell his souvenir stuff to White Eyes. He’s in need of a little something to warm up his insides. Here’s a five-dollar gold piece. Can you buy him a little whiskey, which would do the trick, and avoid getting us all in trouble?”

He laughed out loud, scratched the bristling whiskers on his face, and looked across the street at the saloon crowded with soldiers looking for a drink, a warm woman, or a game of Monte or Poker to help increase the size of their payday. The saloon was a white two-story building that sat in a crossroads corner. A high paling fence went across the back and down the side by the road. The fence slats had been nailed to a frame of two-by-fours that met in a nice right angle near the back corner of the saloon.

“You got a good fast horse?”

“Just a regular army pony. Nothin’ to brag about.”

“Well, go find a fast one. I ain’t never knowed Apaches where at least one of ’em didn’t have a pony that ran like the wind. Give me the money for the whiskey, and you come racing by that saloon an hour before sundown. There’s gonna be a quart of rye sitting on top of that there two by four frame at the corner where the roadside and back fences meet. You just reach out and snatch it and keep on ridin’. Don’t be late, or some fool will see it and try to steal it. Follow me?”

I grinned and dropped the coin in his hand. “I’ll be comin’ fast. Thanks, Mick.”

He made a little two-finger salute off his hat brim and calling over his shoulder said, “Just keep those homeruns comin’ this spring.” He headed for the saloon.

I went back to Geronimo and said, “Grandfather, I need to swap horses with you for a little while. You’re still riding that fast roan, ain’t you?”

The wrinkles in his leathery face deepened as he smiled. “I still have him. He’s tied round back of the stores here. He’s a good pony. I could have killed a lot of White Eyes and gotten away riding that pony in the old days.”

“I’ll tie my pony in his place. You use mine while I’m using yours. Meet me out on the road into town at the bridge across the creek when the sun is a hand width off the horizon.”

“Enjuh. Don’t forget whiskey.”

I grinned, nodded, and went to swap ponies.

When the sun began casting long shadows, I rode Geronimo’s roan down Main Street at a fast trot that turned into a thundering gallop after I turned down the road by the fence and raced by the saloon. I leaned forward stretching out from his neck, snatched the quart of rye whiskey sitting on the inside corner of the fence, and exhilarated at my success in simultaneously breaking the White Eye’s law and pleasing Geronimo, made the pony break into a dead run as we raced out of town.

Geronimo, like an old fire horse, saw me coming in a hurry and took off down the road to Cache Creek as fast as he could make my army mount run, which wasn’t nearly fast enough to stay in front of his fine roan pony. When we were well out of town, and I had caught up with him, he looked over at me. I held up the bottle of rye, and he grinned and swung his arm forward as he somehow coaxed my army mount to run a little faster.

The wind had died to nothing in the low light as we entered the timber at Cache Creek and found a place under the bare limbs of a big cottonwood where we could make a little fire and drink the whiskey after we watered and rubbed down the horses and hobbled them in good grass.

Geronimo sat down between the roots thrust out from the bottom of the tree like a giant’s fingers and leaned back against its trunk cradling the whiskey in the crook of his arm waiting for me to dig a little pit, gather some wood and twigs, and start a little fire.

In a while I warmed my hands over the yellow blaze and the old man, his slash mouth turned up in a smile as he handed me the bottle, said. “Here, Grandson, you open it. My fingers are too cold and stiff to get that cork to move.”

The cork was tight all right, and it took me a few hard twists to get it out. I handed it back to him. He held it up and looked at the light bronze amber in the firelight, smacked his lips, and took a couple of long of swallows, his Adam’s apple bouncing up and down, before he handed it back to me as he licked the last precious drops off his lips and said, “Ahhh. That’s good. The White Eyes know how to make good whiskey.”

I took a small sip and handed it back to him. I had to be careful, a drunk Indian in a Seventh Cavalry uniform would not be tolerated by any Blue Coat. He took another big swallow but held the bottle this time as he looked at me through the narrow slits of his eyes.

“Grandson, you’ve grown big and tall. You are your father’s son. Your sister, Ramona, took my nephew, Daklugie, for a husband, and your father found you Viola Massai. Massai was a great warrior, the only one to escape the Blue Coats on the train to Florida, but he’s long gone now. Is she a good woman for you?”

I nodded. Off in the distance we heard cattle bawling and a couple of dogs barking at some village house. He took another swallow and pulled his coat closer.

The whiskey loosened his tongue, and he started to ramble through his years of memories. “I’ve had many wives, maybe seven or eight, but your grandmother, Francesca, she was the bravest. She killed a mountain lion with her knife even after it chewed her up pretty good and tore off part of her scalp. She looked bad after that, no man wanted her, but I did. I took her for a wife. I loved her bravery. She was a strong woman. I wish she were still with us. I had to divorce Ih-Tedda and send her back to the Mescalero when we were at Mount Vernon. She was young, and it got her out of this prison. I wanted her, and she wanted to stay, but I told her to go. I kept Zi-yeh instead. She went to the Happy Land soon enough. Now, I only have Azul for a wife and Eva, my daughter with Zi-yeh, living with me. Eva goes to the White Eye school at Chilocco, but she is sick. She has signs of the worms the White Eye di-yen (doctor) calls tuberculosis.”

I slumped back next to him and puffed my cheeks. Life was hard for all of us under the White Eyes but hardest for the old ones. Far away we heard the yips of coyotes and the wind rattling the branches together above us. I looked up through the leaf-bare limbs and saw patches of stars changing shape as clouds gathered over us.

I reached for the bottle and took a long swallow before handing it back to his eager fingers. “Viola is a good wife. My father picked her. He made me marry her because he decided I would be chief and had to live with the People here. I had wanted Belle at first. She was a friend of Ramona at the Carlisle School, but he said no. He said that I can’t marry some woman and move off to live with her family, wherever they are, and still be a chief here. Then I wanted a beautiful Shoshone woman who already had a child, but he said no. I have to stay here. It is a hard thing to be a future chief and a chief’s son. Your life is not yours. It belongs to the People.”

Deronimo took another long pull on the bottle and, smacking his lips, slumped down more between the big cottonwood roots trying to get comfortable. “Grandson, we have to do what Ussen, the great creator God, gives us to do. It’s always for the People that we do what we do. All our lives belong to the People. It is the only way we can survive. We have to put each other first

I nodded as I, too, slumped back against the tree. We swapped the bottle back and forth and taking smaller sips to make the whiskey last longer, talked about the old wild and free days, the fights we had with the Mexicans and White Eyes and the warriors we had known. Despite the whiskey warming our bellies, the wind had a sharp chill and made my head hurt a little. I looked up through the branches again and could no longer see any stars. The sky had filled with clouds. I staggered up to get a little more wood for the fire, make water, and get our horse blankets to wrap up in to keep away the cold.

When I returned to the fire, the bottle lay empty between Geronimo’s boots, and he was coughing with a deep-breaking growl from his chest. I laid his blanket over him. He nodded his thanks and staring out into the darkness said, “Grandson, I made a big mistake many harvests ago.”

“What was the mistake, Grandfather?” “I surrendered.” He coughed up phlegm and spat it into the fire. “I never should have surrendered, especially to that lying Blue Coat, Miles. I should have killed as many White Eyes and Mexicans as I could before they took me. I should have fought to the last warrior. Fought until the White Eyes killed me. I should have died like Victorio, sticking a knife in my own heart, not like some kicked around dog on a chain. But long ago in my Power vision, Ussen told me I would die a natural death, and so it will be.”

He wheezed and coughed some more and murmured more to himself than me, “Never surrender... never surrender... kill more White Eyes.” Gradually, the whiskey made him sleep. I stuffed the blanket around him before lying down in mine and passing out. It had been a long day.

A cold, drizzling rain awoke me. I could barely see in the dim gray light. Dawn was coming fast. Geronimo was awake and coughing hard, and the wheezing down in his chest sounded strong and bad. He didn’t look so good in the dim early morning light. I felt his face, and it was hot. He looked up at me and said, “Grandson, I’ve been sick all night.”

“Why didn’t you get me up, Grandfather?”“

I thought the whiskey would soon make me get better. No need to wake you if it did, but it didn’t.”

I shook my head. “I’ll saddle the horses, and then I’m taking you over to the Apache hospital where a Blue Coat Di-yen can give you some medicine.”

He sucked in a gurgling breath, stood up, and put his wet hat on. “All right. The Blue Coat di-yens know how to make good medicine, but you go in that Apache hospital, you don’t come out alive. The People are afraid to go in there.”

The soldier in charge of the hospital heard Geronimo wheezing and gurgling as I helped him through the door, and as soon as he recognized him, he led us to a room with a bed and said he would go find a doctor. I knew what the doctor was likely to say and helped Geronimo off with his hat, coat, and boots and told him to lie down on the bed until the doctor came.

The doctor was an old military surgeon, most of his hair gone and wearing silver frame glasses across his long, hooked nose. He knew me from when I played baseball on a soldier team. He didn’t even have to use his listening ropes after feeling Geronimo’s hot face and hearing his breaking wheeze. He said, “Mr. Geronimo, you have pneumonia. Stay in that bed, and we’ll do all we can for you.”

“Hmmph. I stay. Sometimes Blue Coat medicine is strong. Will I leave this bed alive?”

The doctor slowly shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe you’ll live, maybe you’ll die. We’ll do all we can. I’ll be back this afternoon, and I’m sending you some medicine now to make you feel better.”

Geronimo coughed hard and spit in a pan next to the bed. “Enjuh.”

I stepped out in the hall with the doctor and closed the door. “Sir, how much time do you think he has?”

The doctor shrugged his shoulders. “It’s bad. I’ve seen it this way in other Apaches. They don’t last more than three or four days when they’re like him. I’ll send a nurse with some laudanum. Give him a spoonful in a glass of water. It’ll make him sleep.” “Yes, sir, I will.” The doctor nodded and turned down the hall toward his office. I saw a figure mopping the floor coming toward me. It was one of my friends from playing baseball with the Blue Coats. I walked over to him and said, “Ho, brother! I need a favor. Can you help me?”

He dropped the mop in his bucket and cocked his head to one side. “Hey, Chihuahua. No see you in a long time. What you need?”

“You know where Geronimo lives?”

He grinned. “Sure. Everybody knows Geronimo lives at Guydelkon’s house with his wife Azul.”

“I need you to ride over there right now and tell Azul that he’s sick here in the hospital w ith pneumonia. She needs to come quick. Can you go tell her that?”

His eyes grew big and round. “I’m leaving right now.”

Azul stopped at Daklugie’s house on her way to the hospital and told him his uncle was sick in the hospital. Daklugie and Azul swooped into Geronimo’s room like racing horses. I told them what the doctor had said. We stayed with him all that day and Daklugie that night. Many Apaches came to the hospital to see him, but the nurses and orderlies wouldn’t let them in. We never left him alone and rotated in shifts twelve hours long. The doctor’s words haunted me. I asked Daklugie to make Apache medicine for him, and he did. I made medicine too, but I prayed as a Christian. I didn’t think my medicine was as strong as Daklugie’s. The doctor and nurses did all they could too. It wasn’t enough. It was Geronimo’s time.

Daklugie was with him when he died. Daklugie’s mother was Geronimo’s sister, Ishton. When Daklugie was born, his father, Juh, was off raiding in Mexico, and his mother struggled for four days to birth him. Geronimo thought she was going to die, so he went up on Mount Bowie to pray. Ussen spoke to him. He heard, Go back to your sister. Both she and her child will survive. And you will live to be an old man, and you will die a natural death. It was as Ussen said. In his wars, Geronimo was badly wounded several times, but he lived. Now, unlike Victorio, the fearless old warrior was dying in a hospital bed like a woman.

Daklugie told me that during the night he drifted in and out of consciousness, but when he was lucid, he said several times how sorry he was he had surrendered and spoke of warriors who had always been loyal and some whose loyalty failed. Old, feeble, and dying, he still had his fighting spirit.

He drifted off for a while, then raised a gnarled hand letting it circle in the air. He took Daklugie’s offered hand, and opened his eyes as his fingers closed on Daklugie’s fingers in a solid grip. He wheezed, “My nephew, promise me that you and Ramona will take my daughter Eva into your home and care for her as you do your own children. Promise me you’ll never let her marry. If you do, she’ll die. The women in our family have great difficulties. Do not let this happen to Eva.”

He closed his eyes and drifted for a little while still holding Daklugie’s hand. Daklugie was patient and waited for his uncle to come back, and soon he did. He coughed and growled deep in his chest. His eyes snapped open. “I want your promise.”

Daklugie said, “Ramona and I will take your daughter and love her as our own. But how can I prevent her from marrying?”

“She will obey you. She has been taught to obey. See that she does.”

He closed his eyes, sighed, and was gone still holding Daklugie’s fingers.

—

AROUND 1950, EUGENE CHIHUAHUA told Eve Ball how Geronimo died. The history is his, the words are mine in this imaginative recreation of what happened Lawton and inside the gates of Fort Sill, Oklahoma. See the story, “A Daughter of Geronimo,” in the next issue of Saddlebag Dispatches to learn what happened to Eva.

W. MICHAEL FARMER combines fifteen-plus years of research into nineteenth-century Apache history and culture with Southwest-living experience to fill his stories with a genuine sense of time and place. A retired PhD physicist, his scientific research has included measurement of atmospheric aerosols with laser-based instruments. He has published a two-volume reference book on atmospheric effects on remote sensing as well as fiction in anthologies and award-winning essays. His novels have won numerous awards, including three Will Rogers Gold and five Silver Medallions, New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards for Literary, Adventure, Historical Fiction, a Non-Fiction New Mexico Book of the Year, and a Spur Finalist Award for Best First Novel. His book series includes The Life and Times of Yellow Boy, Mescalero Apache and Legends of the Desert. His nonfiction books include Apacheria, True Stories of Apache Culture 1860-1920 and Geronimo, Prisoner of Lies. His most recent novel is The Odyssey of Geronimo, which took home the Will Rogers Medallion Silver Medal earlier this year in the ultra-competitive Western Fiction category.