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Cochise
by
In itself the matter at issue was a small one. A settler had lost a cow and he had accused the Apaches of stealing the animal. Young Lieutenant Bascom had summoned the chiefs to conference and they had come–they said–to help him find the culprit. After the manner of the Indian, of whose troubles the passing of time is the very least, they talked slowly, listened to the interpreter’s rendition of the lieutenant’s answers, and then talked more.
They did not know the man who had stolen the cow; that was the sum and substance of their speeches. And Lieutenant Bascom, fretting with the passage of the hours, looked on the ragged group in their dirty nondescript garments and chafed with fresh intolerance.
Cochise read that intolerance in the eyes of the smooth-cheeked officer and, being an Apache, managed to conceal the suspicion in his own eyes. He did not want trouble with the white man. He had never yet had trouble with soldier or settler. Ever since he had been a chief among the Chiracahua Apaches he had held down the turbulent spirits in his portion of the tribe; he had out-intrigued savage politicians and had smoothed over more than one difficulty like this. As a matter of fact he was assimilating some of the white man’s ways; he was getting into business; working a crew of his people at wood-cutting, selling cord-wood to the stage company at the Stein’s Pass station. He was doing well, saving money, and saw ahead of him the time when he would own many cattle, like some of the settlers.
All of this was very comfortable and to his taste, and because he liked it he held a firm stand against the suasions of warring chiefs from his and other tribes. He even came to cool terms with his relative Mangus Colorado, the greatest leader the Apaches had ever known. But while he was keeping to his position he had to listen to many an argument and many a tale of the white man’s treachery, and a man cannot listen often without sometimes finding himself inclined to believe.
Settler and soldier, so said Mangus Colorado and other men of parts among his people, regarded their promises to the Indians as nothing; they were forever trying to entice the Apaches into conference and then taking advantage of them–sometimes by massacre. While he argued slowly against the impatient utterances of Lieutenant Bascom, reading the growing intolerance in the other’s eyes, Cochise remembered some of the stories which he had frowned down when his people told them.
That was the state of affairs when Lieutenant Bascom, with the cocksureness of the young and the intolerance of the Easterner for frowzy Indians, made a decision. To him it was evident that these tattered savages were lying, they were a treacherous lot at the best, and always thieves. So, now that he was getting sick of the whole drawn-out business, he turned from the interpreter to his sergeant.
“Arrest ’em,” he said.
Cochise heard him and slipped to the rear of the tent as the troopers stepped forward. The other chiefs, who could understand no English, did not need an interpreter to tell them the meaning of this movement. At once the quiet of the Arizona night was shattered by the thud of blows and savage outcries. The crowded space within the tent was filled with struggling men.
And while that fight went on, Cochise, aflame with hatred, outraged by this violation of the sacred custom of conference, believing now every word that had been spoken to him by Mangus Colorado and the other war-chiefs, whipped out his knife. The sound of the blade as it rent the canvas was drowned by the other noises, and when Lieutenant Bascom and his breathless troopers surveyed their bound captives Cochise was in full flight across the darkened plain.
Now word was sent by courier to the agency, and government runners went forth that night to all parts of the reservation, but they found no Indians to receive their messages. The Chiracahua Apaches were already riding toward their mountains where Mangus Colorado and the renegade members of their tribe were biding on the heights, like eagles resting on the rocky peaks before they take their next flight.