When the West Was Young Part 20

That was the way he put it to Captain Thomas Jonathan Jeffords, to whom he also confessed the weakness which had overcome him in the case of the tortured Mexican. And the knowledge of this side of Cochise's character helped Captain Jeffords to pave the way for the wind-up of the war-chief's maraudings. That knowledge came after a long strange intimacy which began in a remarkable manner.

This Captain Thomas Jonathan Jeffords owned a wagon outfit and not only contracted for government freighting in those times when teaming was a perilous venture, but rode as an express messenger for various military posts along the border. During the days when Cochise was using the northern end of the Dragoon Mountains as his stronghold, the days before these two men became acquainted, the lean brown warriors made several attacks on Jeffords's wagon-trains and on more than one occasion forced the old-timer himself to do some extremely hard riding.

Finally when he had lost fourteen employees and property amounting to thousands of dollars in ambuscades and raids, Jeffords decided that it was high time to put an end to this sort of thing as far as he was concerned. He had tried reprisals on his own account but although he and his leather-skinned followers had managed to kill off numerous Apaches, there were more warriors in the tribe than he could ever hope to ma.s.sacre.

He had worked with the soldiers as a scout but had found the cavalry hampered by too many conflicting orders from Was.h.i.+ngton, and in some cases too inefficiently officered in high places, to be very formidable. Cochise was too much for them to handle and that was all there was about it. Now he made up his mind to try a new scheme.

Captain Jeffords had mixed a great deal with Apaches of various tribes, until he knew their customs as well as they did themselves. He could speak their tongue and he knew the sign language which was the lingua Franca of the western tribes. He could read smoke signals; he had made friends among those of the renegades who sometimes took a long chance and drifted down to the government posts in company with peaceful Indians. Gradually he got such information as he could, and as he got it he stored it away in his mind until he felt he was as well equipped with knowledge as he could hope.

Then he set forth one day to pay a visit to Cochise in person. It was a risky venture but the old-timers never balked at taking long chances; else they would never have come west of the Rio Grande.

Jeffords induced an Apache who had been with Cochise to accompany him part way on the journey; and before the Indian back-tracked for the military post, he had him send up a smoke signal announcing the visit and stating that its nature was peaceable.

When the last shreds of smoke vanished in the clear sky the native departed and Jeffords resumed his journey toward the Dragoons. No answering sign had come from those scarred granite peaks; and as he rode on across the blazing plain they stood forth against the cloudless sky, frowning, inscrutable. For all that the eye could see they might have been deserted, without life among them since the beginning of time; or they might be at this moment sheltering hundreds of biding enemies. He had to wait until he got among those rocks before he knew what they held in store for him.

He rode to the edge of the plain and from the lowlands up the first slopes of talus at the mouth of a long, steep-walled canon. He pressed his horse on up the narrow gorge. On either side the cliffs loomed above him; in places they were so close together that he could have tossed a pebble from one to the other. There was no sign of life; no sound, no movement.

But this tall lean rider knew that somewhere among those granite pinnacles which stood out against the sky-line before him and on either side, scores of venomous black eyes were watching him. He knew that for every pair of eyes there was a rifle; and that many a crooked brown finger was fairly itching to press the trigger.

Thus he rode his sweating pony up and up where the gorge wound toward the summit, up and up until he reached the nests of enormous granite boulders which hang seemingly poised between the heavens and the flat plain beneath. And finally he saw before him the lodges made of bended bushes with skins and blankets spread over their curved sides. He reined in his horse, dismounted, and walked into the camp of the renegades.

Cochise was sitting in his lodge, which was but a bare shelter from the sun's rays--a number of bushes bound together at their tops formed the ribs for a haphazard sort of tent made of outspread skins,--and whether he was awaiting this visit no man knows. For the war-chief showed no sign of surprise or of welcome when Captain Jeffords entered the place. But when the tall white man had seated himself upon the skins which covered the dry earth and announced his purpose, Cochise betrayed astonishment.

"I have come here," Jeffords said with the deliberation which one must use when he is talking with an Indian, "to see you, to know you better, and to talk over certain matters with you. I will stay here two days or maybe three; and while I remain--to show my good faith--one of your squaws may keep my weapons." With which he laid aside his rifle and revolver.

After a silence whose length would have been disconcerting to any other than an old-timer owning a knowledge of the Indian ways, Cochise called a squaw, who picked up the firearms at his bidding and took them away with her. Then these two men of parts settled down to talk business.

It took them two days and two nights, for Jeffords was careful not to crowd matters in the slightest, hanging to the savage custom of long silences and few words at a time between them. As the hours went on he sat there patiently listening to the war-chief recounting at great length his experiences with the white men, reciting the stories of bad faith and broken compacts; and when these recitals were finished he continued to sit in silence for long intervals, before he resumed his own arguments.

Thus the talk went on in the little brush shelter during the hot days and the cool evenings; and what it all came to was this:

Jeffords said that this war between Cochise and the soldiers was not his war. It was, he maintained, no business of his excepting when the officers who carried the authority of the great father in Was.h.i.+ngton, bade him to do their bidding and act as a guide or scout. Otherwise, why should he take up his good time and risk his life in fighting a people against whom he held no personal grudge?

And why should that people bother their heads and risk their lives in fighting him? He followed that question by reminding Cochise of the reprisals which he had launched against the Chiracahua Apaches. They had killed fourteen of his men and stolen much of his property; but he and his men had killed several times fourteen of Cochise's warriors and had wrought devastation in proportion. Did that pay the Apaches?

Well, then, why keep on with it? He knew good things of Cochise and had respect for him. Cochise knew who he was and the sort of man he was. No need for them to go on injuring each other and each other's people. They could call it a draw and quit right now.

If the white soldiers demanded Jefford's services, all well and good; he would go and serve them as scout or interpreter or guide, and do what fighting one must do when he is on the war-path. And on such occasions, if the warriors of Cochise could kill him or capture him, all right; it was their privilege. But no more of this attacking each other out of season. If Cochise would let his men and property alone, he would no longer make any raids on Cochise's people.

That was the gist of it and it took a long time to say; a long time during which Cochise told Jeffords many things and Jeffords spoke with Cochise of many subjects outside the direct line of discussion. For that was the Indian manner; they must feel each other out and satisfy themselves each as to the other's personality.

In the end they shook hands on their bargain, and Captain Thomas Jonathan Jeffords got back his weapons from the squaw, saddled up his pony, and rode forth from the camp of the Apache war-chief, the party of the first part to a compact such as never had been heard of up to that time in the history of Indian warfare.

That compact stood. And there were times when its observance was a delicate matter; times when Captain Jeffords had to draw fine lines between his duty as a government scout and his obligations to Cochise.

But he managed to perform those duties and to keep the faith; and although he went forth with the cavalry troopers on many an occasion, serving them faithfully and well, he never fell out with the war-chief of the Chiracahuas.

In fact their friends.h.i.+p grew as the years went by and they came to regard each other as brothers. During such visits as he paid to the stronghold in lulls of the border warfare, Jeffords got to know much of Cochise's history, of his grievances, and of his point of view.

During these same years there came a change in the command, and General George Crook, who is looked upon by the old-timers as perhaps the greatest of our Indian-fighters, led the cavalry against the Apaches. Crook's understanding of the Indian was perfect; and not only was he able to beat the natives at their own game of ambuscade but he thoroughly sympathized with their cause. He knew how Was.h.i.+ngton and incompetent officers had blundered and lied to them.

It was therefore with the utmost willingness that he combined his campaign of savage fighting with another and quieter campaign of diplomacy which was being waged by General O. O. Howard.

The latter had been sent out by President Grant to get the Chiracahua Apaches back on the reservation. And one day he made up his mind to open negotiations with the war-chief in person.

He asked his scouts for a man who could find where Cochise was hiding at the time and conduct him to the place, and they told him that there was only one man in the territory of Arizona, who stood a chance of doing this--Captain Jeffords.

General Howard sent for Jeffords and the two conferred in the presence of a number of cavalry officers. And when the general had announced his purpose a dispute arose; the officers advised him to take along a strong escort of troops if he intended making this call. Jeffords declared flatly that such an escort would need all the cavalry along the border. No troops or else an army, was his way of putting it; and if there were an army he did not purpose accompanying the expedition.

On the other hand he would willingly take General Howard alone. They compromised by sending along a single aide, a captain.

Then these three men journeyed to the northern end of the Dragoon Mountains; and as they crossed the wide plains toward the somber range, they halted two or three times while Captain Jeffords built a little fire. The general and his aide watched the old-timer standing by the wisp of flame, sprinkling upon it now one sort of fuel and now another, occasionally smothering the rising fumes with his saddle blanket. And as they rode onward they saw the smoke of Apache signal-fires rising from the ragged summits ahead of them. They saw these things, and it is a fact that they thought but little of them.

So they marveled when Captain Jeffords chose his route into the mountains without hesitation; and their wonder grew when he pointed to a group of enormous boulders which topped the ridge ahead of them, saying--

"We will find Cochise's people camped there to-day."

They rode on upward and came into the camp of the Apaches. Here and there a ragged squaw peered out of a dirty lodge at them; they saw a group of children scattering like frightened quail. There were no warriors, only one or two old men.

"Where is Cochise?" General Howard asked.

"He will be here within an hour," Jeffords answered, "and when he comes you will know him because you will see riding ahead of him the ugliest-looking Apache in Arizona carrying a lance."

And because Jeffords had exchanged no word as yet with the Indians, the two white men marveled again.

The old-timer led them to the chief's lodge, where they sat down and waited.

Within the hour a group of Apaches came riding up the nearest gorge, and at their head General Howard saw one whose sinister face conformed to the description which Jeffords had given him. The warrior was carrying a lance. And behind him rode the war-chief. Cochise dismounted and entered his lodge. After the Mexican fas.h.i.+on he kissed Jeffords on both cheeks embracing him warmly. Then--

"What is it these men want?" he asked.

Jeffords introduced General Howard and the aide, and stated the former's motive in making this visit. Cochise sat silent for some moments. At length, pointing to General Howard--

--"Will he keep his word if we exchange promises?" he demanded.

"I have advised him not to promise too much, as is the habit of many white men," Jeffords answered, "and I believe he is honest."

The old war-chief fell silent again. Finally he turned to General Howard.

"Some of my young men," he said slowly, "are away now. They are making their living. They may come back at any time. And when they come back there may be trouble. It would be better if you were not here then."

And General Howard knew enough about the Apaches and their habits to be sure in what manner those young men were making their living; what sort of trouble would probably follow their arrival in the camp. It would be an awkward situation if he were to be in this place during a battle between the savages and his fellow-soldiers. But he was not a young man and the prospects of a long ride back to the nearest military post were not alluring. He said as much.

"Four of my young men will take you to a good place," Cochise told him, "and after the third day they will bring you back."

On the advice of Jeffords this course of action was agreed to; and four Apaches took General Howard down into the valley as far as the point where the Sulphur Springs ranch buildings now stand.

Jeffords and the aide bided here on the heights with the Indians. And on the second day, true to Cochise's prophecy, a band of renegades came riding hard up the gorge. The spot where the Indians were encamped was a saddle at the summit, some hundreds of feet lower than the adjoining ridges. Now as the fugitive warriors threw themselves from their lathered ponies, announcing that two troops of cavalry were close behind them, the aide of General Howard witnessed one of those spectacles which are easier to tell than to believe.

With the announcement of this emergency, the camp moved. In the same time that it takes to say the foregoing sentence, it moved--men, women, children, and every bit of impedimenta. It was like one of those magic transformations of which we used to read in fairy-tales when we were children.

One moment the Apaches were squatting among their lodges; and in the next moment people and goods and wickiups were gone; the place was bare.