The tribe of the Jeronimo tribe hides in a cave.

The entrance to the cave faces another adjacent mound, so the fire in the cave doesn't shine too brightly at night in the wilderness.

"The rest of us are here." Geronimo gestured to the man next to the fire.

Chen Jianqiu looked around the cave.

It's a humble camp that couldn't be more rudimentary, not even the one from the Asuka tribe before it.

The cave is not small, and during the day, it provides shade for the Indians in the hot New Mexico desert;

Boxes and supplies were piled up in the corners, and the ground was made of cloth or animal fur to make rudimentary beds.

That's how these people live here.

Some of the women and the old men sat by the campfire, their hands mending their clothes, and they raised their heads when they noticed their chieftain coming in with strangers.

Extreme malnutrition made them look yellow and thin, and their eyes were tired.

Chen Jianqiu roughly counted the number of less than a hundred, half of them were old and weak, women and children, how did Geronimo take these people from Arizona to New Mexico to deal with several times the number of American troops himself?

"What do you usually eat?" Chen Jianqiu asked, he didn't find anything to eat in the cave.

"Usually we'd look for opportunities to attack their unguarded camps, transport convoys, or go to nearby white settlements to 'borrow' some food, but that would be easy to spot, and in that case we'd have to relocate the camp. Jerónimo said.

"More often than not, we had to hunt hares and pick cacti, barely surviving without supplies."

"I don't think they gave you a reservation for relocation?" Danny behind Chen Jianqiu asked, he and his lover were checking the injuries of an Indian warrior, ""

"Those are all lies." Jerónimo sighed, "The land assigned to our reservation is barren and inhospitable, and there is absolutely no way to compare it with our native land, and I have tried to bring my people back to the reservation to grow corn, but we have been greeted by the betrayal of the whites again and again. ”

"They're just going to imprison us in a small confinement and then take control of our race, and they'll take away our weapons and eat away at our will until we survive like a bunch of bedbugs." Asuka on the side felt the same way, "They won't keep their promises." ”

"Do you drink?" Geronimo pulled out a few bottles of wine from the pile of boxes at the edge of the cave and handed them over, "The Mexicans got it, sorry, I don't have anything to entertain you." ”

Adam took it unceremoniously, seemingly completely oblivious to Teresa's warning.

"Tequila, it tastes okay, Chen, you can taste it." He took a sip and said to Chen Jianqiu.

Chen Jianqiu picked up the wine, sat down on a horizontal tree trunk by the campfire, and took a sip.

The wine has a strong flavor with some bitterness.

Jeronimo sat across from him, the two across the campfire, and the chief watched him silently.

"Why don't you drink it?" Chen Jianqiu was a little strange.

If it weren't for Adam saying that the wine was fine, he probably wouldn't have touched the bottle. The old drunkard studied alcohol, poisons, hallucinogens, and narcotics.

Jerónimo smiled and shook his head, a smile bitter in his face.

"I was deceived by the Mexicans, who made peace with us more than a decade ago and sent us a whole case of tequila. My warriors were very drunk that night. ”

"The next day they attacked our camp and we killed dozens of people. Since then, I haven't drunk anymore. ”

Chen Jianqiu stopped talking and drank quietly for a while.

Asuka also sat down.

The three of them began to chat with each other.

During the casual conversation, Chen Jianqiu learned that the Chirikawa tribe led by Geronimo was a branch of the Apache people, and he had been fighting the Mexicans since he was a child, but later, he discovered that the Blue Shirt Cavalry of the American Federation was their most dangerous enemy.

The usual trick of the white rulers was to trick them into the peace talks, and then use the opportunity of the peace talks to kill their leaders at the place of the peace talks.

Many of the Indian leaders died in this way.

This was true of Chirikawa's previous tribal chieftain, as was Asuka's father, Crazy Horse.

When they leave their homeland, the tribe loses its roots; Without a leader, people lose their way forward.

The aborigines of this continent have disappeared in the long river of history.

"By the way, what are you doing here? It shouldn't be a simple escape, right? Jerónimo looked at the young man in front of him who was the same skin color as him.

This man was not like the outlaws of the West he knew, he was dexterous, brave, decisive, but not fierce.

"I have some ideas, but until then, we're still looking for something." Chen Jianqiu was open and honest, "This is also the reason why Astor kidnapped the high priest. ”

He called Holmes, took the notebook from his hand, opened it, and took out the humanskin map from it, and handed it to Geronimo.

Geronimo looked at the human skin map by the light of the campfire, and couldn't see why.

The high priest also sat down and took the map from the chief's hand.

He had seen a replica of this map in Asterna, so he hadn't looked at it for long.

He then began to communicate with Geronimo in his native language.

After a moment, Geronimo turned around and explained the results of their discussion to Chen Jianqiu in English, while the High Priest was still looking down at the human skin map.

"It's a Nahua thing, they're an Apache branch like us, but they speak a different language."

"They lived next to us, but they were driven out of the same place as us."

"Nahuas!" Holmes, who was sitting on the sidelines, exclaimed, "Yes! Why didn't I think that their culture had so much in common with the Aztecs, but was there anyone alive with them?"

"It's been a long time since I've heard from them." "We share the same culture and customs, but we heard from the old people that there were a lot of fights with each other. ”

There has never been peace between the tribes of the Indians, even if they belong to the same clan, let alone live in the same place.

While everyone was still discussing.

Suddenly, the High Priest pulled the axe from Geronimo's waist.

Except for Jerónimo and Chen Jianqiu, everyone present was shocked, they didn't know what this seemingly weak old man was going to do.

"Blood!" The priest pointed to the human-skin map and spoke in stiff English, his voice hoarse.

His hand was ready to reach the blade of the axe.

Just when everyone was still unclear, Chen Jianqiu had already understood what the priest meant.

"I'll do it anyway." He looked at the scrawny high priest and pulled the dagger out of his boot.

He roasted the dagger over the fire, and when the temperature had cooled down, he slashed his palm and raised it above the map of human skin.

Drop by drop, the blood dripped onto the human skin map, gradually spreading to every corner of the map.

Gradually, the map seemed to come alive.

Another screen appears on the back of the map.

Thanks to marklook、The hidden character of rebirth、I just want to read the book quietly for a while、F? The commuter pass of the song of Brian, the inseparable

Thank you, yes, yes, yes, I'm back with a big tip

Thank you for the recommendation tickets and subscriptions from Main Street, thank you very much

The first watch, the second watch is a little later

(End of chapter)