dren still eluded their pursuers for six months. When Apache scouts finally talked Geronimo into laying down his gun in early September 1886, the surrender was bloodless and strangely anticlimactic. Recounted Geronimo's cousin Jason Betzinex:"Kayitah [an Apache scout] delivered General Miles' message. The general wanted them to give themselves up without any guarantees. The Indians seemed stunned. Finally Geronimo's half-brother, White Horse, spoke out. 'I am going to surrender. My wife and children have been captured. I love them, and want to be with them.' Then another brother said that if White Horse was going, he would go too. In a moment the third and youngest brother made a similar statement. Geronimo stood for a few moments without speaking. At length he said slowly, "I don't know what to do. I have been depending heavily on you three men. You have been great fighters in battle. If you are going to surrender, there is no use in my going without you. I will give up with you.'" Almost immediately Gen Miles had Geronimo's band taken into custody-along with the Apache scouts who had tracked him down-and put on a train for Florida. Their destination was Ft Marion, the old Spanish fortress in St. Augustine where the army imprisoned its most dangerous Indians. There Geronimo would spend the next eight years. Released from confinement in 1894, the old guerilla accepted an offer from the Kiowa and Comanche to share their reservation in Indian Territory and spent his final years as a farmer outside Oklahoma's Ft Sill. He joined the Dutch Reformed church, where he taught Sunday school. Later, with government approval, Geronimo spent a ...
