The Florida Mountains didn't need to be high to be dangerous.

Rising 1500 feet above the Chihuahuan Desert of southern New Mexico, just north of the Mexican border.

The Florida's were jagged and dry. Their volcanic ridges were broken by steep draws and

patches of thorny brush. It was late January of 1877, and the winter wind sliced down from the

heights like a blade. It whistled through the rock gaps and scattered the dust at the horse's hooves.

The sun was bright and it cast long shadows that never seemed to hold still.

Corporal Clinton Greaves blinked through the glare and watched the Apache camp below.

It looked quiet.

A few low wikiups dotted the clearing.

They were small dome-shaped shelters of bent poles covered with brush. Cook fires smoldered in pits in the ground. Smoke curled into the sky and blew apart in the wind. Women and children worked near the fires. A few men watched

the soldiers as they approached, but otherwise the camp was still. Lieutenant Henry Wright rode

just ahead of Greaves as he led the small detachment from Sea Troop of the 9th Cavalry. There were

seven soldiers and three Navajo scouts.

Greaves was the second in command, the ranking non-commissioned officer.

He wasn't giving the orders, but he knew how quickly things could go wrong in country like this.

They had been tracking this band of Apache for days.

The soldiers and scouts had ridden hard out of Fort

Baird at the base of the Pinos Altos Mountains in southwestern New Mexico Territory.

Based on the trail of the Apache, it looked like the group had started in Arizona territory and had

ridden east into New Mexico. That matched reports that a group of Chiracawa Apache, joined

by warriors from the Warm Springs and Mescalero bands, had crossed the border after fighting

the 6th Cavalry. They were not bound for a reservation, they were raiders, and they were in no mood to

...