Blood of the Devil
BLOOD OF THE DEVIL
BLOOD OF THE DEVIL
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF YELLOW BOY, MESCALERO APACHE, BOOK 2
* * *
W. MICHAEL FARMER
FIVE STAR
A part of Gale, a Cengage Company
Copyright © 2017 by W. Michael Farmer
Maps of both “Apacheria” and “Yellow Boy’s Northern Sierra Madre” were created by the Author.
Additional reading notes are located at the back of the book.
Five Star™ Publishing, a part of Gale, a Cengage Company.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: Farmer, W. Michael, 1944– author.
Title: Blood of the Devil / W. Michael Farmer.
Description: First edition. | Waterville, Maine : Five Star Publishing, a part of Cengage Learning, Inc., [2017] | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016058127 (print) | LCCN 2017004589 (ebook) | ISBN 9781432834142 (hardcover) | ISBN 1432834142 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781432834074 (ebook) | ISBN 143283407X (ebook) | ISBN 9781432836429 (ebook) | ISBN 1432836420 (ebook)
eISBN-13: 978-1-4328-3407-4 eISBN-10: 1-43283407-X
Subjects: LCSH: Apache Indians—History—19th century—Fiction. | Mescalero Indians—History—19th century—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Historical. | FICTION / Action & Adventure. | GSAFD: Historical fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3606.A725 B58 2017 (print) | LCC PS3606.A725 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016058127
First Edition. First Printing: June 2017
This title is available as an e-book.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4328-3407-4 ISBN-10: 1-43283407-X
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Printed in the United States of America
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 21 20 19 18 17
For Corky, my best friend and wife.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
MAP OF APACHERIA ABOUT 1875
MAP OF YELLOW BOY’S NORTH SIERRA MADRE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CHARACTERS
APACHE AND SPANISH WORDS AND PHRASES
APACHE RECKONING OF TIME AND SEASONS
BLOOD OF THE DEVIL
ADDITIONAL READING
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Map of the Apacheria About 1875
(Towns appearing after 1875 have been added to aid reader orientation.)
Yellow Boy’s North Sierra Madre
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A project of this magnitude is not done alone. I owe a debt of gratitude to many friends and associates who have supported and encouraged me in this work. There are several who deserve special mention.
Melissa Starr provided editorial reviews and many helpful questions, suggestions, and comments to enhance manuscript quality. Her work is much appreciated.
Bruce Kennedy’s knowledge of the southwest and invaluable commentary made many helpful contributions to this story. I thank him for his support.
Lynda A. Sánchez’s firsthand knowledge of Apache culture and history provided guiding light and clarity on many details. Her insights and comments on this story were invaluable. I owe her a debt of gratitude.
Pat and Mike Alexander have graciously opened their home to me during return visits to New Mexico for research and book tours, and they provided company on long roads across endless deserts and prairies and tall mountains. Friends such as these are rare and much appreciated.
Excellent descriptions of Apache culture, beliefs, and methods of raiding and war in the mid-to late-nineteenth century are provided by anthropologists, linguists, and historians. Some of the ones I found most helpful are provided in Additional Reading at the end of the story. The work by Eve Ball and her associates Lynda A. Sánchez and Nora Henn provided especially valuable insights into Apache life because they faithfully recorded the stories Eve’s Apache friends remembered of the old days, and they remembered those days very well.
CHARACTERS
FICTIONAL CHARACTERS
Beela-chezzi (Crooked Fingers)—Friend of Yellow Boy
Calico Dove—Second wife of Kitsizil Lichoo’
Carmen Rosario—Mexican wife of Beela-chezzi
Chawn-clizzay (The Goat)—Sergeant in the Mescalero Tribal Police and friend of Yellow Boy
Deer Woman—Wife of Kah, former lover of Delgadito
Delgadito—Warrior who rode with Victorio and the first lover of Deer Woman
Falling Water—Daughter of Sleepy, a young widow
He Who Catches Horses—Mescalero Apache Monte gambler
Ish-kay-neh—Oldest boy in the camp of Yellow Boy, son of Sleepy
Juanita—Yellow Boy’s first wife
Kah (Arrow)—Boyhood friend of Yellow Boy
Kitsizil Lichoo’ (His Hair Red)—Adopted Indah son of Juh and friend of Yellow Boy
Klo-sen—Warrior who was killed by the witch, a friend of Yellow Boy
Little Rabbit—Yellow Boy’s little brother
Lucky Star—Adopted Mexican child of Sons-ee-ah-ray, Yellow Boy’s mother
Maria—Juanita’s mother
Para-dee-ah-tran (The Contented)—First son of Kah and Deer Woman
Red Pony—Jicarilla warrior
Sangre del Diablo (Blood of the Devil)—Witch, scalp hunter, and leader of Comanches and banditos
Sergeant Sweeny Jones—US Cavalry officer, friend of Yellow Boy
Shiyé (My Son)—Little son of Carmen Rosario and adopted son of Beela-chezzi
Sleepy—Camp midwife, mother of Ish-kay-neh and Falling Water
Sons-ee-ah-ray (Morning Star)—Mother of Yellow Boy
Steps in Water—First wife of Kitsizil Lichoo’
Yibá (He Waits for Him)—Young Apache warrior, formerly named Ish-kay-neh
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS
Al Sieber—Chief of Scouts for General Crook
Captain Thomas Branigan—Chief of Mescalero Tribal Police for Major Llewellyn, who departed the reservation in November 1885
Cha—Leader of Mescalero Apaches in the Guadalupe Mountains
Chato—Chiricahua Apache chief
Chihuahua—Chiricahua Apache chief
General George A. Crook—Commander, US Army Department of Arizona, and known as Nantan Lupan, Chief Gray Wolf, by the Apaches
Dastine (Crouched and Ready)—Cibecue Apache scout
Elias (Jose Maria Elias also know as Nat-cul-bay-e)—Leader of a Sierra Madre Apache band
Fletcher J. Cowart—Agent at the Mescalero Reservation, who arrived in November 1885 and departed at the end of 1888
Haskehagola (Angry, He Starts Fights)—Apache scout
Jelikine (also known as Pine Pitch House)—Apache warrior, Geronimo’s father-in-law
John Rope—Apache scout on General Crook’s
Sierra Madre Expedition in 1883
Joseph H. Blazer, Dr.—Owner and operator of Blazer’s Mill and Store at the Mescalero Agency
Juh—Leader of Nednhi Apache band
Lieutenant Guilfoyle—Cavalry officer who chased Nana but never caught him
Major General George Crook—Commander of Sierra Madre Expedition in 1883
Major W. H. H. Llewellyn—Agent at the Mescalero Reservation, who arrived 16 June 1881 and departed end of 1884, also called “Tata Crooked Nose” by the Mescaleros
Mickey Free—Apache scout
“Miss Ida” Llewellyn—Wife of W.H. H. Llewellyn
Nah-da-ste—Geronimo’s sister
Nana—Victorio’s son-in-law and Segundo (second in command), an old and arthritic warrior
Nasta (He Knows A Lot)—Apache scout
Nautzile—Mescalero Apache chief
Nocadelklinny—Chiricahua Apache di-yen who brought the Ghost Dance to San Carlos
Tulan (Much Water)—Apache scout
Tzoe (also known as Peaches)—A White Mountain scout who led General Crook’s expedition to Chiricahua camps in the Sierra Madre
Ussen—Creator God of the Apaches
Victorio—Mimbreño Apache chief
APACHE AND SPANISH WORDS AND PHRASES
Aashcho—friend
Ahéhye’e—thank you
Alcalde—mayor (Spanish)
Áshood—thank you
Baile—dance (Spanish)
Be’idest’íné—binoculars
Bronco—wild or untamed horse (Spanish)
Brujo—male witch (Spanish)
Búh—owl
Dahtiyé—humming bird
D’anté—greetings
Di-yen—medicine woman or man
Dos Cabezas—two heads (Spanish)
Enjuh—good
Googé—whip-poor-will
Hacendado—wealthy landowner (Spanish)
Haheh—puberty ceremony
Hondah—come in, you are welcome
Idiits’ag—I hear you
Indah—white men (literally “the living”)
Indeh—the Apaches’ name for themselves (literally “the dead”)
Ish-tia-neh—woman
Jaadé—antelope
Ka-dish-day—goodbye
Kotulh—special tipi for the Haheh ceremony
Llano—dry prairie (Spanish)
Máquina—sawmill (literally “machine”) (Spanish)
Nakai-yes—Mexicans
Nakai-yi—Mexican
Nantan Lupan—Chief Gray Wolf
Nednhi—southern band of Chiricahua Apaches
Nish’ii’—I see you
Pesh líí’beshkee’é—iron horseshoes
Pesh-klitso—gold (literally “yellow iron”)
Pesh-lickoyee—nickel-plated or silver (literally “white iron”)
Que paso?—What’s happening? (Spanish)
Reata—rawhide rope (Spanish)
Río Grande—Great River (Spanish)
Shináá Cho—telescope (literally “big eye”)
Shis-Indeh—the Apaches’ name for their people (literally “People of the Woods”)
Tejanos—Texans (Spanish)
Teniente—lieutenant
Tobaho—tobacco
Tsach—cradleboard
Tsélkani—mulberry wood
Tsii”edo’a’tl—Apache fiddle (literally “wood that sings”)
Ugashé—go
APACHE RECKONING OF TIME & SEASONS
Harvest—used in the context of time, means a year
Handwidth (against the sky)—about an hour
Season of Little Eagles—early spring
Season of Many Leaves—late spring, early summer
Season of Large Leaves—midsummer
Season of Large Fruit—late summer, early fall
Season of Earth is Reddish Brown—late fall
Season of Ghost Face—lifeless winter
PREFACE
This novel continues an imagined autobiography of a Mescalero Apache warrior, Yellow Boy, who lived from about 1860 to 1951, a span of years that saw his people pushed to the brink of cultural extinction. They had to change or die as a people. The change demanded on the culture of the Mescaleros and other reservation Apaches over the period of the story in Book 2, 1880–1896, was great, but they evolved slowly. The Apache warrior, Yellow Boy, who tells his story about those years, was in his prime. He was a tribal policeman under Captain Thomas Branigan, a scout for General Crook, and a killer of the witch who had killed and scalped his people for money. These were the years that saw Victorio, the great warrior, surprised and wiped out by a Mexican army under General Joaquin Terrazas at Tres Castillos, and the breakout at San Carlos of the legendary Apache warriors Chihuahua, Loco, Chato, Pine Pitch House (also known as Jelikine), and Geronimo into the wilds of what Apaches called the Blue Mountains, the Sierra Madre, in Mexico.
General George Crook used a small army of Apache scouts who ran, rather than rode horses, over five hundred miles down valleys and across mountains in Sonora and Chihuahua for forty days to shepherd the runaways back to the reservations in a “good way.” Three years later, Geronimo, out again with a quarter of the US Army chasing him and eighteen warriors across Mexico and the United States, finally surrendered. The entire band of Chiricahua Apaches, including the scouts who brought Geronimo in and those who never left the reservation, became prisoners of war for the next twenty-seven years in Florida, Alabama, and Oklahoma before most returned to New Mexico and the Mescalero Reservation. During these years, the blundering bureaucracy in Washington tried to force the Mescaleros and Jicarilla Apaches on to a common reservation, and failed; tried to crush the culture and spirit of the Mescaleros by forcing their children into American-European-style schools, and failed; and tried to steal their land, and failed. These were hard years with small victories that slowly led the Mescaleros to the other side of a wide river of change.
One certain victory for every Apache family was the birth of a strong, healthy child. Considered the best of times and filled with prayers like the one used in Chapter 13 and recorded by Grenville Goodwin in his Social Organization of the Western Apache, the child was introduced to its community with the Apache Cradleboard Ceremony.
The events in General Crook’s Sierra Madre Expedition in 1883 as seen through the eyes of Yellow Boy, one of many scouts pursuing the Chiricahuas in Mexico, have their historical basis and timeline from stories told by scout John Rope to Grenville Goodwin in Western Apache Raiding and Warfare and from An Apache Campaign in the Sierra Madre by John G. Bourke. When John Rope’s story differed from John Bourke’s, I followed John Rope. A list of historical and fictional characters has been provided for the reader interested in learning more about those who played in one of the most daring and challenging military campaigns ever conducted by the US Army.
These stories are told through the eyes of Yellow Boy, who understood the changes that had to be made, learned from the whites, and grew in understanding and spirit in both cultures.
W. Michael Farmer
Smithfield, Virginia
May 2015
PROLOGUE
Yellow Boy, my Apache mentor and close friend for over fifty-five years, saved me from certain death in the winter desert when I was eight years old after I witnessed the murder of my father, Albert Fountain, in 1896. Yellow Boy helped Rufus Pike raise me, and they both helped me avenge my father and taught me to survive in the hard country of the southwest. In 1950, I persuaded Yellow Boy to tell me his life story.
Over the course of many afternoons and pots of coffee at his house in a canyon on the reservation, I wrote his story down as he told it in a mixture of Mescalero Apache, Spanish, and English in the whispery rasping voice of a vigorous old man. At the beginning of each session, I read back to him what I had written from the previous session, and after I explained the meaning of some of my fancy words, he usually agreed I had captured the essence of what he had said. When I
missed what he meant, I rewrote it until he said it correctly told what happened.
This is his story as he told it and meant it to be heard. The story has been written in three books. Book 1, Killer of Witches, covers the years 1865 to 1880. This Book, Book 2, covers the years 1881 to 1896, years when Yellow Boy, in his prime, had some of his greatest victories and hardest defeats.
—Dr. Henry Grace, 1953
CHAPTER 1
THE SEARCH BEGINS
The Stronghold of Juh, Great Nednhi Chiricahua Apache Leader, in the Sierra Madre of Northern Mexico, Early Summer, 1880
I am Yellow Boy, Killer of Witches, a Mescalero Apache grown to manhood in the Guadalupe Mountains in the land of the Tejanos. Once my People called me Nah-kah-yen (Keen-Sighted), but Ussen, the great Creator God of the Apaches, renamed me in a vision and gave me Power to use my Yellow Boy rifle. My rifle and I are one. What I can see, I never miss. I was given the Power to kill witches. This I reaffirmed to myself after singing my morning prayer to Ussen the day after I learned that the witch, Sangre del Diablo (Blood of the Devil), had killed his slaves, all women and children, after my warrior brother, Beela-chezzi, and I had freed them. This witch had killed, mutilated, and scalped many of our People, including my own father, for Nakai-yi (Mexican) gold. I had sworn vengeance against him, sworn to shoot out his eyes so he’d wander forever blind in the Happy Land.
We had wiped out most of his Comanche and pistolero followers and then plundered his stronghold after he and two Comanches barely escaped us. The warrior who brought us news of his killing the freed slaves also told us how to find Sangre del Diablo. His Comanches had gone to the camp of Elias three suns’ ride in the Blue Mountains to the north. Juh promised to send one of his warriors with us to show us the way.
At Juh’s insistence, Beela-chezzi and I waited four days before leaving after we swore to find and finish Sangre del Diablo and his Comanches. We waited in order to be wise, to see things as they truly were, and because, as Juh had said, we needed to make our minds smooth again before we took up the warpath.