b'APACHE PROPHETS MURDERSPARKS BLOODY VENGENCEBy Bill Roberts Reprinted from The TravelerN OK-E-DA-KLINNE WAS HIS NAME. He was a White Mountain Apache that many believed had supernatural powers, among them the power to bring back to life all of the Apache dead. With the help of these returned ancestors, the Apache would be powerful enough to drive the white man from all Apache lands.It was an appealing message to the White Mountain Apaches that had for some ten years been confined to their reservation with the Armys Fort Apache in their midst. Once they were subdued by General Crook in 1872, the White Mountain Apaches were for the most part peaceful. Now, in August of 1881, the preachings of Nok-e-da-klinne were raising renewed hope among the tribe for the freedom to roam their ancestral lands at will, and live free, without white Indian agents as master and the blue coats as wardens.General Eugene A. CarrGeneral E. A. Carr, commander of Fort Apache,Arrest Draws Mob Captain Hentig fell in the first volley of Apache fire. had been hearing talk of Nok-e-da-klinnes warlikeNok-e-da-klinne was at his home some 40 miles westSo did six of his troopers. A sergeant and two privates preaching and feverish dances for weeks as theof Fort Apache, working in his cornfield, preparingwere wounded. One private later died of his wounds. summer progressed on the reservation. Carr didit for planting when the soldiers rode down on him.In the confusion of the first volley of the attack, scouts not like what he was hearing. To the general, andHe offered no resistance. Captain Hentigs concernDeadshot, Skitashe, and Dandy Jim made a rush for Indian Agent Tiffany, it appeared the increasinglywas not his prisoner. He had noticed that LieutenantNok-e-da-klinne inside the soldiers camp to free him.popular medicine man was preaching insurrectionCruses Indian scouts were acting sullen during the and inciting the Apache wards of the Unitedride out to make the arrest and that things seemedCold Blooded MurderStates government to rebel and destroy the whitesstrained between the scouts, Cruse, and the troopers.Private Aherns, a bugler, saw the scouts trying to controlling them. Carr decided to take action againstreach the prisoner. Ahrens got there first and pumped Nok-e-da-klinne, a decision that would prove oneThe scouts had been acting strange since they firstthree slugs from his Army Colt into Nok-e-da-klinnes of the biggest and bloodiest mistakes of the generalsheard that the Army might arrest the medicine man.head, eliminating in one cold-blooded act the goal career and in the history of the Armys attempts, oftenThat was some dozen days before Carr orderedof the scouts rush and the purpose for the Apache failed attempts, to handle the various Indian tribes ofHentig to make the arrest. The behavior of the scoutsattack on the troops. Those three slugs made a martyr the Arizona Territory. had caused Carr to send a dispatch to General Irwinout of what was but a phony medicine man with a McDowell in which he said he believed the scoutsfraudulent message.The Arrest were disposed to treachery and had ordered them It was August 30th, 1881, that Carr ordered Captaindisarmed. Following the arrest of the medicineNine men were dead or dying, several others E. C. Hentig to proceed to Cibicu, some 40 milesman, the troopers rode back toward Fort Apache.wounded, and command of the troop fell on deep into the reservation, with two troops of 6thAfter about five miles, Hentig ordered a halt and theLieutenant W.H. Carter with Captain Hentig among Cavalry soldiers and arrest Nok-e-da-klinne. Hentigtroopers made camp for the night. As dusk came,the dead. The Apache followers of Nok-e-da-klinne also took with him on the mission a company ofscores of Nok-e-da-klinnes followers appearedwithdrew with word that their leader had been Indian scouts under Lieutenant Thomas Cruse. Aaround the camp. Hentig and Cruse could slice themurdered. The medicine man was the only Apache number of the scouts, as it turned out, were followerstension with their swords. killed in the battle. Carter posted sentries and ordered of Nok-e-da-klinne.a detail to bury the dead. Sergeant John A. Smith was Scouts Bolt put in charge of the burial detail.Nok-e-da-klinne had no doubt attained widespreadHentig had ordered the scouts to camp some influence among the White Mountain Apaches. Whatdistance from the troopers guarding Nok-e-da- As the bodies were put in a line and graves were being Carr did not realize was that by arresting the medicineklinne. As darkness began to set in camp, one scout,dug, Smith saw a movement among the corpses. He man his influence would be increased, as the arrestMosby, moved toward the camped soldiers. Hentigran over to where the body of Nok-e-da-klinne was signified to the Apaches that if the whites fearedshouted to him to halt and return to the scoutsand to his horror, saw the medicine man, blood and Nok-e-da-klinne enough to arrest him, they must alsocamp. As Captain Hentig shouted his order, hebrain matter oozing out of his three head wounds, believe his power and his message. While the arrestturned to pick up a rifle. Mosby and several scoutscrawling blindly away from the other bodies. Smith itself did not make a martyr out of Nok-e-da-klinne,who had followed him toward the soldiers camppicked up the ax that was near a grave and brought it it increased his credibility with his many followers. Asrushed forward. Gunfire erupted from everywhere.down once, and then again, on his head. Nok-e-da-events turned out, it also would martyr the medicineThe Apache followers of Nok-e-da-klinne had comeklinne moved no further.man and bring bloodshed across Apache lands. well-armed to rescue their leader. 34 July 2021'