“Cochise, Alligator Juniper Tree, Arizona” © Stu Jenks 2020, 42 inches tall x 16 inches deep.
Price: $175, shipping included in the price. Simply contact me via my email address at [email protected] or Facebook message me, if you would like to purchase one of my pieces. Payments can be made with Paypal, Venmo or credit card with Square. All pieces are signed with its title, and can be hung from the wall. Love y'all, Stu.
Cochise was the primary chief and leader of the Chokonen band of the Chiricahua Apache tribe, who lived in what is now Southeastern Arizona. He fought long and hard for his people during The Apache Wars, and eventually negotiated a peace in 1872. He and his people lived, in peace, in the Chiricahua Mountains after the war ended until his natural death in 1874. Sadly, the peace didn't last.
Below is an excerpt from my book, The Transpersonal Papers (1861-2010). It's a lot to read, but it tells a lot about the start of The Apache Wars.
I will say one thing that is not in the original 2010 story or in any of my books:
Cochise was a great man and Geronimo was a son of a bitch.
No elderly White Mountain or Salt River Apache person has anything nice to say about Geronimo, because he kidnapped peaceful Apache men to fight in his stupid war, when Cochise and others had fought so hard for a satisfying and equitable peace.
Geronimo was probably a malignant narcissist, and Cochise was a very compassionate and strong leader of his people. Sound familiar?
So enjoy this chapter from The Transpersonal Papers, featuring Annie Gordon. It's a sweet and sad story.
Love you all,
Stu.
P.S. This fine piece of Juniper was found, on the ground, deep into Cochise's Stronghold, in his beloved Dragoon Mountains. I felt very lucky to have come across it.
“All Because Of A Spring That Flows Year Round”
Apache Spring, Arizona
Spring, 2005
The Pecan store’s closed. A house shaped like a teepee with gray tar shingles and blue bay windows sits along the deserted Main Street of Bowie, Arizona. No one appears to be home in Bowie, except a mutt dog on seemingly every corner. The wind's blowing hard today. To the East, a dust storm rages. Annie and I choose to get off I-10, here in Bowie, instead of going through the storm. I just got a new windshield for the Pathfinder a few months ago and I don’t want to pit it.
"Do you want to go to Fort Bowie?" I ask her. "I've never been there before myself. Gotten close a couple of times. What d'ya think?"
"Sounds good to me," says Annie.
We turn off Main Street and head south on Apache Pass Road. Just before we leave town, I see a real live human being. A tall elderly white man, dressed in pressed blue jeans, a bright white cowboy hat and a heavily starched white shirt, stands outside of his modified doublewide trailer. He’s smoking a cigarette. He waves at me before I have a chance to wave at him. I wave back.
"Annie, did you see that old cowboy?"
"No, I didn't," she says.
"Like something from another time," I add. I tell her what he looked like.
"I bet his wife doesn't like him smoking in the house," I speculate.
Or maybe he's a widower and has just come outside to see if the sand storm’s heading his way. I love that his shirt was starched and that he waved at me first. Like being back home in the Northern Neck of Virginia.
Annie and I continue out of town. We drive under the Interstate and past a huge grove of Pecan trees. The road becomes dead-eyed straight; a good paved two-lane road heading toward the northern foothills of the Chiricahua Mountains.
[All because of a spring, that flows year-round.]
We've been hiking a couple hours now, mostly in silence. Fort Bowie National Monument is unusual in that you park your vehicle and then hike a mile and a half to the ruins of the fort. You can’t drive to the fort unless you are handicapped. We just left the fort a few minutes ago beginning our hike back to the truck. We're taking the high ridge trail now, not the low valley trail we came in on. The fort was just OK. Nothing to write home about, just a nice territorial house, some ruins, and a flagpole, but the journey though the valley below, before the fort, caused us to be speechless from the story it told.
The wind's cold and hard now on this high ridge. Some rain clouds rise off to the West. A hump of a mountain to the South, covered in Pinon and Juniper trees, appears to be so close you can touch it when actually it’s miles away. And that valley below? That’s Apache Springs. I can see the graves of soldiers from up here. I can see the old stage road from up here. I can see the green trees around the spring from up here. And I feel very sad and more than a little angry.
This is the northern tip of the Chiricahua Mountains, named after the Chiricahua Apaches who lived here since the 1300's. They hunted, gathered, lived, loved and died here for hundreds of years. They kicked the asses of the Spanish when they first arrived in the 1400's, held their own against the Mexicans in the early 1800's, and finally lost to the Americans, in the late 1880's. They were known for being fierce in battle, and loyal and kind to their own people. They didn't take any shit from anybody nor did they go out of their own way to cause much trouble. A little trouble maybe; some revenge killings, and some stealing of Mexican cattle now and then. But more often than not, in their last years in these mountains, trouble came to them.
Here at Apache Spring, just East of Apache Pass, trouble came one day in 1861.
Annie's been behind me on the trail, and now she’s just joined me on this rocky peak. We take a little breather on a large set of boulders. Below us, we spy a small stand of trees, brighter and greener than the cottonwoods and the other foliage in the valley.
There is the spring.
The spring is why it all happened here.
All because of a spring that runs year round.
Apache Spring and the whole Apache Pass area were the winter camp of many Apaches for many years, the only water for miles around. Cochise, an Apache chief, was camped here in February of 1861, with many of his clan and family. Apache Springs and Apache Pass were a favorite residence of Cochise for many a year. Nearby was a way station for the Butterfield Mail Stage, and its stationmaster and crew lived in the station. Up to this point, most of the Chiricahua Apaches and the Americans got along fine, primarily because the Americans didn't mess with Cochise's people much and on occasion, gave the Apaches food and supplies. Cochise also had hopes that someday the Americans would help him in his fighting with the Mexicans to the South.
Anyway, here’s how the bloody war between the Apaches and the United States began:
A drunk good-for-nothing rancher named John Ward had twenty head of cattle and his 12-year-old one-eyed redheaded stepson, (I’m not making this up) by the name of Mickey Free, were taken by some Coyotero Apaches. Ward went to his nearest U.S. Army fort at Fort Buchanan (near modern-day Sonoita, Arizona) and complained, mostly about the cows, and said it was Cochise's Chiricahua Apaches who stole his cattle and yeah, the boy too. He mostly wanted his cattle back. He couldn’t have care less about the boy it appears. Ward was widely known to be a piece of shit, a 'worthless character' said one man. Anyway, the colonel of Fort Buchanan, distracted and looking more to the East at the impending Civil War than in his own backyard, send an idiot tenderfoot Second Lieutenant by the name of George Bascom to find Cochise, to demand the return of the boy and the cattle, and to use whatever force was necessary to accomplish this task. Full of piss and vinegar and leading 54 green horn mounted troopers, Lt. Bascom set out for Apache Pass to find Cochise. When he arrived at Apache Spring, he arranged with the stationmaster of the Butterfield Stage outpost to invite Cochise for a parley. Cochise wasn't worried. His lookouts at Apache Pass saw the detachment coming the day before. He knew many U.S. Army soldiers came to the Spring on their way to Texas and California. He heard about the invite but made Bascom wait. (Bet Bascom didn’t like that.) After a day or two, Cochise arrived to meet with Bascom. He came with his wife, a couple of his kids, his brother Coyuntura, and only three warriors in escort, two of them probably his nephews. He thought he was being invited for just a little chat and a little dinner too. Army food was pretty tasty.
Cochise and his family and his warriors were escorted into a tent and then things turned bad. First Bascom accused Cochise of stealing Ward's cows and the boy Mickey Free. Cochise denied it, and then after heated words and much yelling (through a translator, mind you,) Cochise figured out from Bascom's accusations, that it must have be a band of Coyotero Apaches who abducted the boy and stole the cattle. Even though Cochise was royally pissed off about being called a liar (Apaches hated being called liars), he agree to go to the Coyotero band in question and try and talk them into giving back the boy. Bascom would have none of it and ordered Cochise, his wife, his brother, his family and friends held hostage. Soldiers had surrounded the tent. As they attempted to arrest Cochise, he quickly pulled out his knife, sliced the side of the tent open and escaped. Shots were fired, but Cochise got away.
To Apaches far and wide for many years, the incident became known as "Cut Through The Tent", and hence the war began.
Cochise tried to negotiate with Bascom in the days to come to get his wife, brother, nephews, and kids back, but Bascom kept calling Cochise a liar, demanding he give him the one-eyed red-headed boy. One particular parley ended with guns being drawn again and more shots fired. For the next few days and nights, Apache campfires ringed the valley where Bascom and his men were camped, and the drums of war beat loudly down on them at night. Bascom sent for reinforcements from the distant Fort Buchanan. At one point, Cochise captured the stage master of the Butterfield depot and offered him in trade for his family. Bascom still refused. A few days later, Cochise burned a wagon train, killed the Mexicans in the train but captured four Americans and offered them in trade. Still no dice. Cochise then sent the women and children of his tribe south, out of harm's way and called for his own reinforcements. One of those warriors, by the way, was Geronimo.
On February 8th, 1861, Cochise attacked hard, first at soldiers at the spring, and then he drove away all of Bascom's horses and pack animals. They fought throughout the valley and Cochise attacked the stage depot again but it was too well defended now to be overrun. Cochise then heard that Army reinforcements were on the way. Hopeless over getting his wife, brother and kids back, he killed the four Americans he had captured, and left Apache Spring. Army reinforcements did come in a week or so and patrolled the nearby mountains and hills, looking for Cochise's people but without luck. Geronimo was quoted years later saying they laughed at the soldiers from their hiding places in the rocks as the Army blindly groped through the hills looking for them.
A few more days later, Bascom found the bodies of the four dead Americans Cochise had killed. In return he hung six of the captured Apaches he had in custody. He hung them from the limbs of the trees near where the dead Americans were found. The six bodies hung there for months, rotting in the sun. Before he left for his home fort, Bascom, without explanation, simply released Cochise's wife and children, unharmed.
But of the six corpses hanging from those trees, two were probably Cochise's nephews.
And one body was his brother Coyuntura.
It is said that Coyuntura went to the hanging tree dancing and singing.
Cochise was enraged at the news of his brother's death. He was very close with Coyuntura. He called for vengeance and vengeance came. Hard.
Thus began many years of war between Cochise and the Americans, a bloody horrid war on both sides. Within 60 days of the "Bascom Affair", Cochise and his warriors had killed 150 whites. The non-Indian population of Southern Arizona dropped from 34,000 in 1860 to under 10,000 in 1870. The roads were littered with headstones reading 'killed by Apaches'. It is estimated that in the years of The Apache Wars, over 5,000 Americans died, hundred of thousands of dollars of property were destroyed and uncounted Apache men, women and children were killed.
And the start of The Apache Wars with the Americans happened just below Annie and I in that valley. And as we descend this trail to go back to my truck, we can see some of the landmarks and scars from that time:
The old graveyard of soldiers killed, with new shiny headstones made by the U.S. Park Service.
The worn serpentine trail of the old Butterfield line, still wide and somewhat passable even after all these years.
The ruins of the Butterfield stage depot, with just its stone foundation remaining.
A wide-open grassy field where perhaps the tent that briefly held Cochise was pitched.
And again, to the South, the large grove of bright green trees that grow where Apache Spring flows.
We continue down the trail toward my truck. Annie and I take a few pictures of each other. The sun’s rapidly going down, the wind's still hard, the air turns colder. I see an old wind-knurled Juniper tree just off the path and take its picture in the Magic Hour light. Annie and I say little to each other. I look at the valley of battle below and sigh. I give Annie a weak smile.
"It just makes me so angry and so sad," I say to her.
"This used to all belong to the Chiricahuas,” I say, waving an arm toward the beautiful mountains to the South, “And now they're gone. No Indians live here now. None of them."
Annie nods and sighs too.
We continue down the trail, and say nothing for a while.
Soon, we're in the truck heading back the way we came. Down the laser-straight road past the Pecan trees, under the Interstate as we enter Bowie, past the trailer where the old cowboy lives (He’s inside now) and back on Main Street. We slowly driving through Bowie, remarking on what a sad but great time we had today and how powerful it was to have gone to Apache Spring. We get on Interstate 10. I squeeze Annie's thigh after I shift into fourth gear. It was a good day, but as I turn to look south toward the Chiricahua Mountains, I still feel a slight burning of rage and a small bit of sadness.
In the twilight, I see no Apaches fires on the ridge lines, nor any veil of juniper smoke floating up from the valley.
Just the cold solid darkness of a mountain in shadow, where nobody lives.
[Note: Lt. George Bascom died in the American Civil War, at the Battle of Valverde on the banks of the Rio Grande on February 21st, 1862, leading Company C of the 7th U.S. Infantry against the Confederates. He was killed on a sandbar in the middle of the river. And Mickey Free, the one-eyed red-headed stepchild? Well, he never saw his mother or John Ward again. He was raised by the Coyotero Apaches who kidnapped him in the first place, and due to his fluency in English, Spanish and Apache, later became a scout for the U.S. Army. He was said to have been a hardcore psychopath. He died in 1915. I don’t know how he died.]
#stujenks, #cochise, #extendedfamilyseries