“Where did you get this, Gian-nah-tah?” asked Geronimo.
“A white-eyed man is selling it just across the border in Mexico. He is
selling it to the soldiers too. He says that they are boasting about
what they are going to do to Geronimo and his band. They make much bad
talk against you.”
“What do they say they are going to do to us?” demanded Geronimo, taking
another drink.
“They are going to shoot us all as soon as we are across the border.”
Chihuahua laughed. “The foolish talk of drunken men,” he said.
“Many of the white-eyed soldiers are drunk,” continued Gian-nah-tah.
“When they are drunk they may kill us. Let us turn back. If we must be
killed let us be killed in battle and not shot down from behind by
drunken white-eyes.”
“Now would be a good time to attack them,” said Na-chi-ta, “while they
are drunk.”
“If we do not kill them they will kill us,” urged Gian-nah-tah. “Come!”
“Shut up, Gian-nah-tah!” commanded Shoz-Dijiji. “The strong water of the
white-eyed men does not make you a war chief to lead the braves of the
Shis-Inday into battle—it only makes you a fool.”
“Shoz-Dijiji calls Gian-nah-tah a fool?” demanded the young warrior
angrily. “Shoz-Dijiji does not want to fight the pindah-lickoyee because
Shoz-Dijiji is a coward and himself a pindah-lickoyee.”
Shoz-Dijiji’s eyes narrowed as he took a step toward Gian-nah-tah. The
latter drew his great butcher knife, but he retreated. Then it was that
Geronimo stepped between them. “If you want to kill,” he said, “there is
always the enemy.”
“I do not want to kill Gian-nah-tah, my best friend,” said Shoz-Dijiji.
“Perhaps it was the strong water of the pindah-lickoyee that spoke
through the mouth of Gian-nah-tah. Tomorrow, when he is sober,
Shoz-Dijiji will ask him; but no man may call Shoz-Dijiji a white-eyes
and live. Juh learned that when Shoz-Dijiji killed him.”
“Shut up, Gian-nah-tah,” advised Na-chi-ta; “and go to the white-eyed
fool who sold you this strong water and buy more. Here!” He handed
Gian-nah-tah several pieces of silver money. “Get plenty.”
Many of the braves already felt the effects of the adulterated, raw
spirits that Tribollet was selling them at ten dollars a gallon, and
most of those that had been drinking were daubing their faces with war
paint and boasting of what they would do to the soldiers of the
pindah-lickoyee.
They greeted Gian-nah-tah with shouts of savage welcome when he returned
with more whiskey, and as they drank they talked loudly of killing all
the white soldiers first and then taking the war trail in a final
campaign that would wipe out the last vestige of the white race from the
land of the Shis-Inday.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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