The First Book of the Pure (15 page)

His closest warriors eventually knew why he
couldn’t be stopped. Shoot him, and still he fought. Run a sword
through him, as one soldier did, and still he fought. They believed
he was unkillable, and the greatest war leader who had ever been
born. They weren’t far from the truth in those grandiose claims.
Geronimo apparently could
not
be killed. He was tough, and
smart. He intuitively understood strategies and elements which
would most likely defeat the enemy. He gathered his braves, and
they set out to damage the pale faced invaders and the hated
Mexicans. He had no cause but his people, and he watched as the
white-eyes pushed them from their lands, forcing them to live on
small, contained areas. He would not.

Between 1858 and 1886, Geronimo became famous
for being unkillable, unstoppable, and uncatchable. Well, he was
caught, but never held. He
always
escaped. People never saw
the wounds, and he always healed.

Goyahkla’s Death

One of the more famous episodes in the life
and times of Goyahkla, or Geronimo, was a pivotal point in his
life. It began his journey to the twentieth century. It occurred in
the Robledo Mountains of southwest New Mexico. He and his braves
entered a cave to evade the soldiers pursuing them. Troops dug in
to wait him out. Finally this mad, murdering Indian would be
theirs. Yet days later, they still waited. He didn’t come out.
Finally the unit commander had enough of waiting, and he ordered
his men into the cave. They searched, but found nothing.

Later, in another place, Geronimo rose up
again, and he finally did surrender. He was famous, and his fame
gave him an unusual pulpit from which to preach for the good of his
people; and preach he did. He encouraged them to embrace
Christianity, and to live in peace. He wrote his version of the
history he had helped create. He was a changed man from the days
when he’d fought and killed so many.

That was Geronimo later in life – truly a
different Geronimo in every way. But the Geronimo back in the cave
in the Robledo Mountains told his braves they must slip out through
a hidden way. He assured them that he would join them later. One of
them he kept with him, and to this man alone he entrusted his
story. “I cannot be killed by bullets or arrows. You must become
me, and continue our fight. My day is over; I’m dying. I will die
here, in this cave.”

The other brave was mystified, and asked many
questions. “
You
are now Geronimo. Lead the warriors, and
surrender before you’re all killed. You can’t win against the sea
of Whites and Mexicans, but do not die. Our people must live on.
I’ll show you how to become me.”

The sly warrior used paints and dyes to
change the looks of the man he’d chosen. The man was already about
the right size, and looked a lot like his war chief. He was already
the tallest man in the tribe after Geronimo, and that in itself
would help the illusion. Geronimo didn’t allow him to eat for days
– only water was offered. He lost weight and so became more the
size of Geronimo, changed his facial lines in tiny ways with dye,
and to a casual observer, ‘became” Geronimo.

“But our people will know.” This man was
leaving his life for his war leader. Geronimo was not a chief, but
the greatest of warriors, and the greatest of war leaders. He would
do as Geronimo said, though it cost him all.

Geronimo stood back and appraised the new
look of this brave and loyal man he was re-making. “Perhaps,
perhaps not, but they
will
accept you as me. They want a
leader, they need a leader, and so they’ll see you as that leader –
as Geronimo. I have great confidence in you, that you’ll lead them
as you should, and that you’ll fight until you can’t fight. Be
ruthless with them at first. If one speaks out against you and
opposes you, kill him quickly. They would expect that of me, and
you
must
do it. Don’t sacrifice all their lives by being
soft. At some point, and only you can decide when, you must yield
to the pale-faced ones. They are too many.” Days later, after
indoctrinating his brave as much as he could in the time available,
before the troopers gave up waiting and searched the caves, they
left. Geronimo however, slipped back in, sought out a small,
private part of the caves, sealed himself in it with rocks no
individual should have been able to maneuver, and lay down to
sleep. He did not wake up the next morning.

In the imposter’s later years he became
philosophical and did some writing, some public speaking, and lived
out Geronimo’s life to the fullest. He even took wives in his
Geronimo persona, making nine the total number of wives the great
warrior was credited to have had. He died as Geronimo, while the
real Geronimo lay at peace in his cave. The warrior now known as
Geronimo had a life that was broader and greater than it could
possibly have been otherwise. He was younger than Geronimo, so
people believed Geronimo’s great strength and vigor gave him eight
decades of life – an amazing feat in that era. The world was amazed
that this great, strong warrior of a man, an Apache of Apaches,
lived eighty years, truly a long life. They would have been
astonished to know the truth.

Goyahkla’s Return

In 1923, Geronimo woke up, a bit stunned that
his intuitive leap had worked and that he still lived. He’d been
tired of his life filled with fighting and bloodshed, and he had
fully expected to die, but hoped for a different outcome. He shook
off the dust of the cave, and walked out to this new world, feeling
reinvigorated from his long “sleep.” Eventually he determined that
he’d skipped close to forty years.

He found that while many of his people lived
on reservations, many did not. And while they weren’t completely
accepted into this United States of America, they were “kind of”
accepted. They could work, earn, own, and live among the whites he
had come to hate. Many Mexicans were around as well, and he wasn’t
as tolerant of them as he was of the whites.

After his first altercation with some
Mexicans, in a town just a few hours from where he had once lived,
he was arrested for killing three Mexican men in a fight that had
required very little provocation. His hatred was
almost
controllable at this point, but still seethed under the surface. It
had taken just one shove and remark about this “Indian getting out
of the way of good folk,” to set him off like a hot kettle breaking
into a boil. The three offenders were knifed to death before they
really knew what was happening. They had not met an Apache, in
their day, anything like Geronimo. His enthusiasm for life was
back, and his anger was still very strong.

The young sheriff had two others with him,
all holding rifles. “You’ve got to come with us, Mister. If you
don’t we’ll shoot you where you stand.”

Geronimo considered attacking them too, but
they had done nothing. “Why? So you can hang me?”

“You’ll get a trial, which is more than those
three got. Either way, you’ve got to come with us.”

The sheriff was just a boy, and Geronimo had
no desire to kill him. He was locked in a jail cell – a cage such
as he’d been locked in many times. But he had always escaped. This
time would no different. “Sheriff, I need some water!” He watched
the young man fill a cup from the basin on his desk and bring it
over. “You seem kind enough. How did you get to be the lawman
here?”

“Somebody had to do it, and I’m pretty quick
with a gun. I really will try to get you a trial. It’s not easy to
do. The judge who comes through every few months thinks it’s a
waste of time to hear an Indian
or
a Mexican.” He handed him
the cup. The town wasn’t great in size, but the law keeper’s house
was finer than any building Geronimo had known, while still rough
in a solid, western way. As the man warily slid the cup of water
between the bars, Geronimo seized him with lightning speed and
jerked him hard against the bars, rendering him unconscious. He was
far faster than the young jailer could possibly have anticipated.
It was a simple matter to take the keys from him as he lay
unconscious and leave the cell. Before he left, he looked at the
unconscious young man and wondered what he should do to his former
jailer. Geronimo had seen too much bloodshed and death, and desired
a different life now. He sat the man up, a boy really, not unlike
his own dead sons. He would cause no harm to this boy, so he
arranged his body to make sure he wouldn’t choke to death, and
stepped out into his new life.

He took his old name, Goyahkla, because he
found that none knew it. He sought out someone on the reservation
near his old haunts who could teach him English. She was a warm,
intelligent woman. She marveled at his archaic Apache dialect. Her
name was Ohma. Her petite stature belied her great inner strength
and insight. She was Apache, through and through. Her long black
hair, braided down her back, and her strong chiseled features still
left her attractive. In Geronimo she saw character, strength, and
real power.

He found some basic manual labor to do for
enough money to get by on, and spent many evenings speaking with
Ohma and learning from her. She had much more to teach him than a
new language. She taught him history, which amazed him. He found
that “he” had died in 1909, and that this was 1923. He learned of
the life finished off by his loyal follower from the cave those
many years ago. He decided that the man had done him justice, and
that his decision had been the right one. The man had even turned
to the Christian faith, and Geronimo filed that away to look at
later.

He studied history with a vengeance, and his
keen mind took in every discipline Ohma was willing and able to
teach him.

His English became “more good,” as he said
early on, and his hatred slowly burned down, like the last embers
of a hot fire, cooling as the fire aged. There was much to live
for, and he chose to not live for revenge any longer. Eventually he
married Ohma, and she bore him a son, Elihas. Their life was
good.

Geronimo knew they couldn’t stay there for
too many years. Already his wife seemed older than he, and there
was still much he would learn in this wide world that his beloved
Ohma couldn’t teach him. Her strong Apache bloodlines gave her a
naturally youthful appearance, which was very helpful.

He had tried to tell Ohma his real story, but
each time he did she was sure he was joking. “Husband, sometimes I
think you hit your head on your way to me. You simply can’t be that
old. We will grow old together, and our life until then will be
good.”

But Ohma, what of the dialect I spoke when I
first met you? What of the details of history that I know which
aren’t in the books? I
am
that old. Do you wish to know my
name from that time?”

“No. I want you to stop this nonsense. I love
you here and now, and we won’t speak of the past.” Her eyes
challenged him, and he backed down. Often he thought she knew, but
didn’t want to acknowledge that truth.

They moved to Chicago, and started a new life
there. He had become a fine craftsman, and built quality furniture
to support them. He was an expert with blades, after all, including
his wood carving knives and planes. Their son Elihas went to
college nearby, the same school his father attended at night. Both
had great intelligence, and a hunger for knowledge which rivaled
Geronimo’s length of years. Geronimo and Elihas spent many nights
discussing and arguing philosophy, science and world views.

One night Elihas was arguing, as he often
did, the same old argument. “Science is the future, and we can do
anything with the tools science will give us.”

His father, Goyahkla, enjoyed arguing with
his son. “The heart of a man is his future, and his actions, not
his science, are what will improve the world, or make it
worse.”

“How can you think that, father?” argued the
son to the father. “Sometimes you think like an old man, and can’t
see the real world around you. We
must
improve our machines,
and build better earth-moving equipment so we can mine minerals and
ores at a faster rate and build an even greater civilization.”

“Ah, my son, you’re so young. The
civilization you speak of would be made up of people with the same
problems they have now, and it would damage nature, perhaps
irreparably. You must improve the race, not the science. We must
instill morals, and compassion, not the knowledge of how to make a
better mousetrap. Why you can’t see this, I don’t know.” Goyahkla
sighed loudly. He loved his son, and wanted compassion to be so
ingrained in him that no tragedy could remove it. His own personal
tragedies had taken his compassion for many, many years. He wanted
a better life for Elihas, and probably pushed too hard to
accomplish that end.

“No!” Elihas slammed his hand on the dinner
table in his zeal. “People are people and will
never
change
much. History teaches us clearly that people never get better. But
science
can provide better lives.” He was heating up, as he
often did, this six foot three Apache. Inches taller than his
father, thin and muscled like an Olympic runner, he could argue for
hours.

“People can change.
I have
changed
over the years. You wouldn’t have liked me once Elihas, but today
I’m a different man. People change!”

Ohma finally stepped in and calmed them both
with coffee and some flatbread. “Boys, boys,” she jokingly scolded,
“Be nice. I believe a better man at heart may have better science,
and that science will help him do better things. What you two argue
about are not mutually exclusive things.”

“Wife, you shame us, as always. You’re the
wisest of us, and have both compassion and that keen intellect that
can cut to the quick far better than we.” He stood and held his
wife tightly and kissed her.