Senora Fimbres Killed by Apaches

(as written by Nelle Spilsbury Hatch)

In the summer of 1927 Pedro Fimbres with his wife and two children, a boy of ten and a girl of five, set out for Bavispe in Sonora, Mexico.  It was a long, hard journey.  Some places were so steep they had to travel on foot, trailing or leading their horses up and down the tortuous mountain trails.  As they made their way down one steep descent, Senora Fimbres took the lead with the little boy riding behind.  Senor Fimbres followed on foot with the little girl in his arms, letting his horse pick its way down unhampered by a load.  When the little girl asked for a drink Pedro left the trail for a spring of water near by.  As he returned minutes later he heard his wife scream loud and agonizing.   Running toward her he saw Indian Juan jerk her from her horse, throw her onto the ground and begin pelting her with huge stones.  Shouldering the little girl he ran back to where some cowboys were rounding up cattle and gasped out his story.  They returned but when they arrived at the spot of the ambush she was not there.  At the top of a high ledge, on the rim of the round valley, they found the crumpled and mangled body of the woman.  The boy was gone.  As Pedro made his way down to her, through his crazed brain rushed recollection of all the losses he had suffered at the hands of Indian Juan–horses stolen, food caches looted, cattle driven off again and again and now the brutal murder of his wife and his son carried away to be tortured or raised as an Indian.

Pedro could endure no more.  Indian Juan must be made to pay.  Kneeling by the side of his murdered wife, he solemnly vowed “Come what will, I will never rest till you are avenged.”  He would follow Indian Juan to the remotest fastness; he would never stop till he had rescued his son and rescued and exacted full payment for his wife’s death.    By the time he had take her body to Nacori, his desire for vengeance was a consuming passion.  Enlisting friends to help, and being legally deputized to hunt and kill Indians, he left to carry out his vow.  For three hears he followed the wily savage, his thirst for revenge driving him into places where white man had never before set foot.  He combed mountain retreats in search of Indian hideouts following every clue or rumor no matter how wild or seemingly impossible.  When friends tired and left him he went on alone. He even crossed the border into the United States, told his story, and solicited help from the government there.  Failing to get it he returned to continue his search on his own.  Nothing could dissuade him.  No one could discourage him.  No warning checked him.  Even Lupa’s (Geronimo’s great grand daughter)  entreaty that he give up the search lest he lose his life went unheeded.

One day his brother, Calletano, heading his small party, climbed slowly to the top of a high, bald peak.  Weary and worn they sought water from the never failing Indian Spring.  There they would give the country one last over-look, refresh their weary horses, and eat their own meager lunch.  But as they neared the spring they unexpectedly saw Indians approaching it form the other side.  In a split second they realized that their long-sought enemies were near and that chance for vengeance had come.  Secreting themselves they waited.

First to appear was a squaw riding a burro.  They shot her as she was frenziedly trying to extract a gun from the side of her saddle.  A second Indian woman, following close behind darted into oak shubbery for protection but quick shots from the Mexicans wounded her in the arm.  Screaming she continued to run, her dangling arm impeding her as she scrambled over rocks and bushes.  The Mexicans in hot pursuit continued shooting until a fatal shot dropped her in the canyon bed.  Calletano fortunately had not joined in the chase but had remained on the spot where the shooting began.  Almost at once an Indian buck came in sight evidently in search of the reason for the shooting.  His eye took in the fleeing girl with Mexicans in close pursuit and cocking his gun he slipped along their trail stalking the pursuers under cover of rocks and brush, waiting for a favorable time to shoot.  He had not seen Calletano and not until a bullet spattered the rock near him did he realize his own danger.  He darted to cover behind a large tree.  Then began the shooting contest between the Indian behind the tree and Calletano concealed behind boulders.  Each was hidden by the other, except as one or the other darted a quick look to shoot.  Calletano could change his position but the Indian could only confuse by darting his head first from one side of the tree then the other.  Getting the exact level of which these quick peeks were made Calletano sighted his gun and in one deadly shot got his Indian.  Pedro returning with the others found Callentano bending over his fallen victim and recognized his archenemy Indian Juan.  The long search was over.  Indian Juan was dead–not by Pedro’s hand, but dead.  But were was his boy?  Not finding him Pedro’s brain reeled again and blind with rage and disappointment, he ordered the bodies placed in a pile.  He fiercely scalped them and left them to be buried by Cerilo Perez, a rancher they passed on their way home.

Pedro made a report of the killing to government officials and then prepared to continue the search for his son.  But the search ended before it begun.  Perez, when he went to bury the Indians, found that an attempt had already been made to bury them.  In a carefully laid up stone enclosure, covered by a beautiful Indian blanket, lay the three scalped bodies and on a pile of rocks by their side lay the scalped bodies and on a pile of rocks by their side lay the scalped and mutilated body of Fimbres’ son!

Who had killed the boy?  Certainly not Indian Juan who lay dead beside him.  Then who but the savage followers still at large in the hills.  And against them continued warfare must be waged if property and lives in and around the mountains were to be made safe.  Open season on Indians was therefore declared.  Capture or kill was the order.  Every rider through the mountains and every guard in the valley carried arms with which to fight this menace to the finish.

It was the vaqueros from Rancho Harris on the western slope of the Blues who finally located an Indian camp in a secluded valley of the Senora mountains.  With the aid of field glasses they studied the setup and made plans to take the camp by surprise making sure that none should escape.  No one but squaws could be seen, however, and the cowboys had scruples against killing women.  Only in urgent need of wiping out the menace made them decide to go with their plans.  They closed in, shouting and shooting as they rode, killing every squaw in camp as they scattered terrified and screaming, except one woman and girl.  By the trail of blood left, as the woman ran, they knew she could not go far before dying.

The girl was found two weeks later by Bill Byes near Alta Mirana as she roamed the hills in search of food.  Bye’s hounds treed her, the strangest cat they every treed, though one that could fight and scratch as fiercely as any feline.  She was induced to come down after the hounds had been called off, though she continued to fight and scratch at least provocation.  Byes took her to Casas Grandes where she was confined in the Juzgado comun (jail).  There she sat for days, glaring defiance at the crowds who clustered round her bars all hours of the day, contemptuously refusing food shoved in for her until her body collapsed and her proud spirit took flight–another wild heart broken by capture and confinement.

With her death the last Apache Indian in the Sierra Madre wilds was accounted for.  Her burial in the Casas Grandes cemetery rang the curtain down on the Apache menace to peace and safety which had persisted since Geronimo went on the rampage in 1880.