Cry of Eagles Read Online Free PDF

cabin. “Do not forget Geronimo will return with warriors hiding in the Sierra Madres in Mexico, and he will steal many strong ponies from the Yaquis so our movements will be swift.”
    Otoe came to the cabin door to speak to Naiche. His arms and chest were drenched in blood. “Let us eat the white man’s beans, for I am very hungry.”
    Naiche pointed to the animals being taken from the sheds and corrals. “As soon as everything is lashed to the horses. We must be ready to escape quickly if the soldiers come. When all is finished, we eat. Chokole and I will gather the white mens’ guns and ammunition. One is a Winchester, a gift from the Great Spirit. With even one repeating rifle, we will kill many more of the enemy until Isa comes to the mountains with more warriors and Winchesters.”
    Otoe gave what might pass for a smile. “It is good, Naiche, to kill our enemies again. For too long we have been like dogs, kept in cages at the fort. My heart is happy to be free, killing the whites who have driven us from our lands.”
    Naiche turned toward the dark outlines of the Dragoons high above the settlement. “Very soon, the land will be ours again. We will take it back and cover Apacheria with the blood of those who took it from us.”
    â€œThe Spirits have answered Geronimo’s prayers,” Chokole said with a glance toward the sky.
    â€œIt is not only his prayers the Spirits hear. When Geronimo kills, the cries of his dying white enemies reach the Moon, the Winds, Mother Earth, and the Sun. It is his courage the Spirits reward.”
    â€œAs well as our own,” Chokole said.
    Naiche stared into her black eyes. “As well as our own, my warrior woman. We have only begun to fight.”

Chapter 5
    Naiche sat under the stars, admiring the Winchester, turning it over in his hands. He understood only a little of how the gun worked. With a box of cartridges between his folded knees he kept watch from a ridge above the Chiricahua’s hidden canyon where the wickiups of the women and children sat in an uneven line along the bare banks of a spring-fed stream high in the Dragoons.
    Roasting a mule carcass on a firepit below, several woman attended to the cooking, turning it often on a spit above dry pinyon limbs, giving off no telltale smoke that would alert the soldiers to their presence. Now the starving children would have something to eat—the mules and flour and sugar and salt pork taken from the settler’s cabin. It would serve to put some meat on their bones to help them survive the winter months ahead. The Spirits had indeed smiled on their successful raid tonight.
    Chokole walked softly up the ridge, balancing her Spencer in one hand. He gave her a single nod to acknowledge her presence and continued to examine the many-shoot rifle.
    He understood how the cartridges were fed through a metal loading gate into a tube below the barrel, counting five, and a sixth fit into the firing chamber. By working the lever under the stock, a shell was ejected while the hammer was drawn back in firing position, then another was somehow magically pushed into the chamber. By lowering the hammer gently with his thumb he did not have to waste a cartridge by firing it to see how the weapon worked.
    At last , he thought, I understand the white man’s deadly gun and I am ready to go to war with it.
    Chokole squatted beside him. “The meat is almost ready,” she said, also admiring the rifle. “Do you know how to make the bullets shoot?”
    â€œI will teach you its ways,” he promised. “But we must have many more, one for each warrior in our band.”
    Chokole watched the distant desert floor many miles to the north, in the direction of Fort Thomas. “It will be a long war,” she said, “even with many-shoot rifles. The white-eyes are so many, and we are so few. They are like ants moving across the land.”
    â€œMore will join