Apache Campaigns - Fort Huachuca - U.S. Army

and straight at us—doubtless heading for where he knew his father had been. Naturally, he
was killed promptly by the troopers, to whom he was merely an advancing Indian. His pony
was caught by one of our packers.
The boy’s mother saw him killed and came to her feet with a scream. She ran as if to
get out of our camp, and nobody hindered her. But as she passed Hentig’s saddle she stooped
and snatched up his pistol. She was brandishing it at a trooper when he fired in self-defense.
Under General Carr’s orders the Cavalry began to advance upon the Indians, who
gave back. Stanton and Troop E, preparing to dismount when the shooting began, had
dropped hastily to the ground and deployed to fight. The Indians in retreat carried off about
forty of D Troop horses and my five pack mules, which had been loosed to graze. The
Apaches killed the soldier on herd guard as they ran off the stock.
Stanton’s men were sweeping the Indians—and my Scouts—out of the bushes on the
creek and across the stream to the bluffs beyond. Adjutant Carter, taking command of
Hentig’s troop, forced the hostiles on that side toward the ford. Very soon the troopers’ circle
of fire was so widened that danger of any overwhelming rush by the Indians was past for the
moment.
I stepped over to General Carr to report the death of Noch-ay-del-klinne at Sergeant
McDonald’s hand and to ask for further orders. It was then I learned of the treachery of the
Scouts.
It is difficult to describe the first of this Cibicu fight in any detail; description would be
misleading as to time. Practically all that happened occurred explosively, almost simultaneously.
Not more than five minutes had elapsed, since my first report to the General, when
I stood beside him for the second time.
General Carr assigned me to defend the side of our little mesa farthest from the creek.
So I gathered up the Chief of Scouts, three or four packers, and the three men left alive of my
herd guard. We pushed out upon the plain a couple of hundred yards, from the packs which
marked our camp. It was feared that the hostiles might rush us, horseback, from that side.
We went our to stop any such charge.
All this time hostiles were pouring a never-ceasing rifle fire into the camp, at three or
four hundred yards’ range. Occasionally they made a hit. Dr. McCreery, regardless of
personal exposure—there was a brave soldier for you!—gathered in the dead and wounded
and attended them under a cottonwood just under the slope of the creek bottom.
About five o’clock some of the men thought they saw Captain Hentig move, although
the doctor had examined him and pronounced him dead. Hentig’s body was a hundred feet in
front of Carter’s line, so Carter and two troopers rushed out and brought Hentig in. The
hostiles loosed a terrific fire on the party, mortally wounded Private Bird, and hit the other
soldier as they regained the line. Carter turned the body and the wounded man over to other
troopers. Then he ran back after Bird and brought him in under the heaviest firing I had ever
listened to. Bird died about an hour later.
By this time more than six hundred Indians were raining lead at us from every vantage
point that the terrain afforded—except on my side of the line. Out on the plain, two hundred
yards distant, Stanton’s horse and four pack mules grazed quietly. The horse had full equipment,
for it had jerked loose from the horse holders when burned by a bullet. I was seized
with the impulse to recover those animals, for it was quiet on our side and I knew that we
would be in sore need of transportation for our return to Apache. So, leaving the others to
A MAGAZINE OF THE FORT HUACHUCA MUSEUM
81