Endgame for an Outlaw

THE DEATH OF THE APACHE KID

WAS ONE OF THE WORST OUTLAWS IN THE TERRITORY. Now, in 1895, the Apache Kid was mortally wounded and on the run from the troopers of seven Army posts and the sheriffs of five counties. Some-how he found strength enough to return once more to the home of his youth, Peeples Valley in Yavapai County, and the ranch belonging to my grand-father, Charley Genung. The story of The Kid's tragic end has never been told. It's been locked away in the pages of Charley's yellowed and withering journals for 80 years until now.

He just appointed a young Indian, thought to be a Yavapai and called The Kid, to the rank of sergeant. The Kid dressed neatly in white man's clothes boots, jacket, and broad-brimmed hat - with no emblems to confirm his tribal identity. His scouting skills were unequalled, proved on many a pursuit of renegades, including Geronimo. "Kid, you're chief of scouts while I'm gone," Sieber told him as he left on an inspection tour that spring. The post commander questioned Sieber's decision, but the old scout was adamant. "He's the man for the job," he said. During the months ahead, The Kid's scouting tasks were routine. Then in the summer of '88, Fate stepped in to rip apart his life forever. A large group of Apaches had obtained a quantity of liquor, and they were having a rowdy time of it. The Kid was ordered to take some scouts to their camp and head off any trouble. But something went awry, and the scouts, including The Kid, joined the merrymakers. When the scouts failed to return, Sieber sent troopers to bring them in. Arriving back at the agency office, where an outraged Sieber was waiting for them, the miscreants reeled drunkenly in their saddles. A noisy argument broke out, and, as a crowd gathered, two shots were fired, one of them striking the old scout in the ankle. Who did the shooting would never be clear, but The Kid was arrested on the spot and charged with assault with APACHE KID intent to kill. The three other scouts with him were charged with aiding and abetting the crime. Ten years in an Ohio prison was their sentence.

One year later, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the scouts had been tried falsely, and The Kid and the members of his patrol were released.

Furious, Al Sieber ignored the Supreme Court's decision and swore out warrants against the scouts. Within two days, they were back in irons.

At the second trial, Sieber spat venom, flatly naming The Kid as the one who had fired the shots. The Kid's denial, and the fact the four were unarmed, failed to move the jury despite support from a number of witnesses. The court's decision was guilty as charged.

The next stop for the former scouts was the Yuma Territorial Prison, for them, a sentence of death since it was well known that Indians jailed in the caves soon died of tuberculosis.

Enlisting a deputy, Hunky Dory Holmes, and a freighter named Gene Middleton, Sheriff Glenn Reynolds set out for Yuma with 10 prisoners: the four ex-scouts, five other Indians, and a Mexican embezzler. They would never reach their destination.

On the second day of the journey, eight handcuffed prisoners were ordered to ease the load on the horses by getting out of the wagon and walking up a steep sandy hill. The Kid and a scout named Hoscalte, considered the most dangerous of the group, remained shackled in the freight wagon.

By November 2, 1889, every sheriff's office in Arizona was notified of the incident by telegraph, and troops from forts Thomas, Grant, Lowell, Apache, McDowell, Huachuca, and the San Carlos reservation were ordered into the field. The great manhunt had begun.

Four months later, all the escapees were dead except one: The Kid.

From that time on, every crime committed in the territory was blamed on him. But The Kid was never spotted. He'd simply disappeared.

Was he dead? It was true that during the manhunt, Hualapai Clark, a scout and prospector, had shot at an Indian he thought was one of the outlaws. Blood splattered on the trail showed the man had been wounded, perhaps fatally.

Another explanation for The Kid's disappearance came in June, 1890, when James G. Blaine, U.S. secretary of state, mailed Arizona Governor Lew Wolfley an embossed watch that had belonged to Sheriff Reynolds. It had been taken from the body of one of three Indians who had attacked a troop of Mexican rurales.

No frontiersman believed The Kid would have engaged in such a stupid assault. But on February 27, 1893, the Territorial Legislature increased the reward money for his capture from $1,000 to $6,000. Still, no Apache Kid.

An item in the Phoenix Republican in 1895 stated the Apache Kid and an Indian woman had been spotted in Gila Bend. But the folks in Peeples Valley regarded this as just another wild rumor. Unbeknownst to Grandpa Charley, however, he was about to stumble over The Kid's true hideout.

FROM THAT TIME ON, EVERY CRIME COMMITTED IN THE TERRITORY WAS BLAMED ON HIM. BUT THE KID WAS NEVER SPOTTED. HE'D SIMPLY DISAPPEARED.

When questioning some Yavapai woodcutters he'd hired about the signal fires appearing nightly in the Harquahala Mountains, Charley learned the Apache Kid had returned. The Yavapais said he was very ill and had come back from Mexico to die near his boyhood home.

Near the top of the rise, an unseen signal passed between the prisoners walking beside the wagon. Quickly they overpowered and killed Sheriff Reynolds and Deputy Holmes and wounded Middleton, the driver. Then the killers freed the two scouts still in the wagon. One of the killers, Elcahn, shoved the sheriff's .45 against Middleton's head and would have pulled the trigger had The Kid not snatched the weapon and blurted out an order. Middleton, who survived to tell the story, said that The Kid's words sounded like, "This one already dead."

Returning to the ranch, Charley sent off son Dan to Gov. Sam Hughes in Phoenix to find out if the reward offer still stood. Dan returned with an affirmative answer and a photograph of the 10 prisoners taken before the doomed departure for Yuma.

Charley, who was thinking about going after the reward, did nothing until Al Marsh, who had been prospecting in the Bradshaws, stopped at the ranch and inquired about the signal fires.

"What's wrong with you, Charley?" Marsh asked when he'd learned about The Kid's return. "You know these mountain trails; let's go after the reward."

Charley resisted at first, but Marsh's persistence finally won out. The next day, at a seldom used trail inland from the Hassayampa River, the two men came across a young Indian man and woman making a cold camp. As they visited with the pair, Charley and Marsh became aware of a shadowy figure concealed nearby. The Indian man then said that The Kid was with them.

Uncertain and fearful about being easy targets for a hidden marksman, the two white men rode off, Marsh muttering under his breath.

At the Genung ranch the next evening, the family was butchering a beef when two Indian men and a woman quietly walked up.

One of the young Indian men did all the talking, saying that the other was too deaf to hear and was very sick. This was obvious to the Genungs, who gave the three the beef entrails and the heart, then continued butchering as their unexpected visitors walked away.

The next morning, the three approached afoot once more as the Genungs were slicing the meat for jerky, while sons Frank and Dan and the other children were sitting on the porch cracking black walnuts and digging out the meats with horseshoe nails.

The sick man walked slowly to the end of the porch, gripped the rail, and sank next to Frank and Dan, who recognized him immediately as their boyhood playmate, the Apache Kid. He selected two metate stones from a pile and began to crack nuts. Dan handed him a nail, which he accepted gravely, as he studied the two boys with a half smile on his lips. They thought he was on the verge of speaking.

Daughter May, 20, recognized him also, from the photo Dan had brought back from Phoenix. She could stand the suspense no longer and rushed into the house, found the photo, and returned to the doorway, waving it at Charley.

Deep in conversation with the other young Indian man, he signalled her to keep quiet. Lengthy silences came after each question. Then Charley asked, "How long you be here?"

Before the youth could say a word, The Kid turned toward Charley and snapped, "Tell him tomorrow."

The "deaf" man could hear after all. Then he rose, gazed at Frank and Dan with that same half smile and led his two followers away toward the creek.

"Pa, don't you know . . . ," May started to caution. But Charley cut her off again. Then to Dan and Frank he said, "You two climb Arrowpoint Hill. See where they go."

A short while later, the two returned to report that the Indians had taken the trail to Congress.

May exploded, "What's the matter? Why didn't you . . ."

"Couldn't you see The Kid is dying?" Charley countered. "Quick consumption, probably, brought on by Hualapai Clark's bullet."

"He doesn't have long to live," May concluded quietly.

Then Frank broke in, "Are you going to try to capture him?"

"No," Charley said, the word dragging out slowly. "The Kid came to say goodbye. He trusted us. And if he's Yavapai, the tribe would think we betrayed their trust in telling me the meaning of the signal fires. We can't afford to turn any of them against us."

Three weeks later, one of the Indians from Congress was cutting wood with Charley and Dan. Charley asked, "Did The Kid come by?"

"Yes, he come by," the Indian said.

"Where is he now?"

"Oh, he died."

"What did you do with him?"

"Covered him up."

"You buried him. Where?"

"About a foot," was the puzzling reply. That was all the information my grandfather gained about the death of the Apache Kid, who, it turns out, was a Yavapai, not an Apache, and whose Indian name, Haskaybaynayntayl, when translated was in itself a dire prediction: "brave, tall, a mysterious end."