Apache Pass

One of the inspirations to write “Geronimo’s Spirits” as a story about a 21st century Apache-Mexican war was “Apache Pass” by Andrew Ferris (INXS).

It wasn’t like listen to the song and think suddenly of a story. It was more feed the song into my subconscious and wait for connections. Much later while consuming news about cartels on the border, my reaction was that the US government should hire the tribes that depopulated Mexicans in the southwest to take out the Mexican cartels. A search for which tribes in that area hated Mexicans narrowed it down to Apache and Commanche. Geronimo’s raids into Mexico had me settle on the Apache.

I named the lead character Chappo after Geronimo’s son. Instead of working for the US govt, I decided to make him an independent actor avenging his brother’s fentanyl death. This gave him the freedom to potentially have the US govt as an adversary worried about Chappo destabilizing northern Mexico.