Apache Indians -- Fiction; Historical fiction; Western stories
From among the squaws and children gathered behind the warriors arose
anguished wails—the wives and children of Mangas Colorado had heard.
“Tell the Be-don-ko-he how their chief died,” said Go-yat-thlay.
“The hearts of the white-eyes are bad,” continued Bi-er-le. “With smiles
upon their lips the soldiers of the great White Father came to your
camp, as you know, and invited your chief to a council.
“With four warriors he went, trusting to the honor of the pindah
lickoyee, who are without honor; and when they had come to the fort,
where there are many soldiers, the five were seized and thrust into a
hogan with strong doors and iron bars at the windows, and at night
soldiers came and killed Mangas Colorado.
“Cochise, Chief of the Cho-kon-en, heard of this and sent Bi-er-le to
his friends the Be-don-ko-he, for his heart grieves with the hearts of
his friends. Great was the love of Cochise for Mangas Colorado. This
word, too, he sends to the Be-don-ko-he: Wide is the war trail; many are
the warriors of the Cho-kon-en; filled are their hearts with rage
against the pindah lickoyee; if the Be-don-ko-he take the war trail for
revenge the warriors of Cochise will come and help them.”
A savage rumble of approval rolled round the circle of the warriors.
“Cochise takes the words of Juh from his mouth.” Thus spoke the Chief of
the Ned-ni. “Juh, with his warriors, will take the war trail with the
Be-don-ko-he against the white-eyes.”
That night the warriors of the Be-don-ko-he sat in council, and though
Mangas, son of Mangas Colorado, the dead chief, was present,
Go-yat-thlay was elected chief, and the next morning smoke signals rose
from mountain peaks a hundred miles apart. Go-yat-thlay was calling his
allies to him and Cochise, the great chief of the Chihuicahui Apaches,
was answering the call; and bloody were the fights that followed as the
relentless avengers, following the example of the foe, took toll of
innocent and guilty alike.
But of all this wee Andy MacDuff recked naught. His big, brown eyes
surveyed the world from the opening in his tsoch, in which he rode
fastened securely to the back of Sons-ee-ah-ray. He gurgled and smiled
and never cried, so that Morning Star and Go-yat-thlay were very proud
of him and he was made much of as are all Apache babies.
Back and fourth across New Mexico and Arizona, beneath blistering sun,
enduring biting cold, drenched by torrential rains, Andy jounced about
upon the back of Morning Star and laughed or crowed or slept as the
spirit moved him, or in camp, his tsoch suspended from the bough of a
tree swayed gently with the soft evening winds.
During that year his little ears became accustomed to the cry of the
coyote at night, the sudden _ping_ of the white man’s bullets, the wild
war whoops of his people, the death shrieks of men, and of women, and of
children; and the next year he made his first descent upon Old Mexico.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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