Virtue and downfall

…if they have one virtue—in most folk’s eyes, anyway—it is courage; you never saw a scared Apache yet. It’s been their downfall; unlike other tribes, they never knew when to quit against the pony soldiers; my old pal the Yawner fought on until there was only a tattered remnant of his band left to be herded on to the reservation…

Flashman and the Redskins, p.177, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, Apache.

How I remember him

…he shrugged and we found ourselves grinning at each other across the flower-bed—odd, that’s how I remember him, not as the old man I saw last year, but as the ugly, bow-legged young brave, all Apache from boots to headband, so serious as he arranged the blooms just so, cleaning the earth from his knife and looking sour and pleased among his flowers. A strange memory in light of history—but then he’s still the Yawner to me, for all the world learned to call him Geronimo.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.171, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, Geronimo.