Goyathlay Is Bulletproof

August 28, 2019 

   Once Geronimo was at a water hole in Mexico getting a drink with several other Apache warriors when a pursuing Mexican soldier got close enough to fire off a shot, which hit Geronimo in the face, toppling him forward into the mud. With the rifle report, the Apaches with him fled and the swarming Mexican troops ran by Geronimo, assuming he was deader than a doornail.

Several minutes later, Geronimo regained consciousness and ran off. Another time, once again against Mexican troops, Naiche related that Geronimo was shot in the chest and still managed to mount his horse and escape.

   According to the artist E.A. Burbank, who was a guest in Geronimo's home and painted his portrait numerous times in the late 1890s. In one of these sessions, he reported that Geronimo bared himself to the waist. The artist recounted, "I was dumbfounded to see the number of bullet holes in his body. I knew he had been in many battles and had been fired on dozens of times, but I had never heard of anyone living with a least fifty bullet wounds on his body." Burbank went on to say, "some of the bullet holes were large enough to hold small pebbles that Geronimo picked up and placed in them. Putting a pebble in a bullet wound he would make a noise like a gun, then take the pebble out and throw it on the ground." 

Daily Whip Out: "Bulletproof"

"Bullets cannot kill me!"

 —Geronimo

   Now, whether or not, Geronimo had fifty bullet holes in his body, it's safe to say, he had more than a few, which is still nothing short of amazing. Going to be a good book.

"Bob Boze Bell is rightly celebrated for his historical artwork and for his narrative contributions to western American history. Geronimo is an ideal subject for this combination, and Bob does him full justice—in part, I suspect, because he probably got most of his information from my biography of Geronimo." 

—Robert M. Utley, aka Old Bison