GERONIMO'S CATTLE

Geronimo's Cattle A STOLEN HERD VANISHES BY SHARON S. MAGEE

IN MAY 1883, Geronimo promised Gen. George Crook he'd round up his far-flung people and bring them from Mexico to the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona. By October, Crook began wondering if Geronimo had stood him up. Crook sent Lt. Britton Davis to the border with some scouts to escort the errant Chiricahua Apache to the reservation and protect him from the up-in-arms ranchers and miners.Finally, a ragged line of Apaches straggled across the border. Geronimo rode up to Davis and said he had made peace with the whites. So why was an escort needed? Davis explained that he was concerned only about some drunken white men who might try to harm them. Geronimo grudgingly accepted his explanation and shook hands, Davis said.

Davis then asked about a dust cloud, thinking Mexican soldiers were on their trail. "Gando," Geronimo said. "Cattle." He had stolen 135 head of Mexican livestock for trading on the reservation.

This alarmed Davis. Driving cattle meant the Apaches and soldiers had to go slowly and follow main routes, where they could find feed and water but also face greater threat. But Geronimo refused to leave the herd. Knowing that any dispute could send the wary Chiricahuas back into Mexico, Davis agreed to let the herd come along.Geronimo asked to rest the animals for three days. Davis agreed to one. To Geronimo's complaints, Davis replied that the Mexicans could still cross the border after him. Davis said that Geronimo growled, "Mexicans! My women can whip all the Mexicans in Chihuahua."

But Geronimo, Davis said, was low on ammunition.

Again Geronimo harrumphed, "I fight [Mexicans] with rocks and keep my cartridges to fight the white soldiers."

The next day they started, making 18 to 20 miles a day. But at Sulphur Springs, Geronimo said he would go no farther until his cattle had rested. If Davis wanted to go on ahead, fine, but he would stay. Davis agreed to just one day's respite. They camped at a ranch with a small house. Before supper, two civilians strolled out of the ranch house. One told Davis he was the U.S. marshal for the Southern District of Arizona. The other was the customs collector from Nogales, Arizona Territory. They had come to arrest Geronimo and his men for the murder of Arizona citizens and to confiscate the cattle. The marshal told Davis, "I order you to arrest them and take them with their smuggled stock to Tucson for trial."

Davis replied that he obeyed orders only from General Crook. "I am going to have those Indians," the marshal told Davis, "and then I am going to see that you answer to the federal court for your refusal to obey my order."

Fuming, Davis stayed outwardly cool. Then, a friend and fellow officer that Davis had invited to the ranch, J.Y.F "Bo" Blake, rode in from Fort Bowie. Blake outranked Davis and ordered him to remain at the ranch. If Geronimo would move out with the cattle, Blake would escort him.

The challenge was to get Geronimo to move without alerting the two civilian authorities. "The plan looked simple," Davis later wrote. "So does flying."

After supper, Davis and Blake joined the civilians, offering to share Blake's good Scotch whiskyand making sure the civilians drank most of it. When the officials said good night, the marshal bedded down on the porch, giving the two officers a moment of despair. Upon hearing their snores, though, Davis sent a scout to awaken Geronimo.

Soon scouts and warriors surrounded Geronimo, Davis and Blake. Davis told the Apache leader he should start immediately for the reservation, that the two men had come to collect $1,000 for the cattle. If Geronimo refused to pay, the civilian officials would simply take the livestock to Tucson for sale.

Geronimo angrily said he was going back to bed. He had come in peace and had found nothing but trouble. Let them try to take his cattle. He intended to stay. "Then he contemptuously demanded to know why I had disturbed him for a trivial talk that meant nothing," Davis said.

A sergeant of scouts stepped up. "He was of a tribe hostile to the Chiricahua, and he hated Geronimo from the depths of his soul," Davis later wrote in his book, The Truth About Geronimo.

The scout spoke rapidly to Geronimo. The situation became so tense that interpreter Mickey Free dared not speak, so Davis never knew what the scout had said, but Geronimo became subdued. Davis took advantage of the change and of Geronimo's pride. Knowing the Apaches "could leave me standing where I was and I would not know that they were gone," such was their skill at swift, silent desert travel, Davis gibed that the