The narrative shifts to San Antonio in 1886, where Amyntor Blair McMillan and his wife, Helen “Ellie” Howard McMillan, arrive with their infant son to see the captured Apache prisoners at Fort Sam Houston. They are met by a massive, impenetrable crowd of diverse onlookers. 

Determined to see the prisoners before they are sent to Florida, McMillan pushes through the scrum to the gate. After getting the attention of Lieutenant Parker, McMillan arranges for his family to be admitted through a side entrance. Meanwhile, the crowd begins shouting “Geronimo.” Geronimo looks at them, silencing them.

In Guadalupe Canyon, Lieutenant Gatewood laboriously climbs to his tent after Geronimo’s surrender. He feels his important role in ending the Apache Wars has gone unappreciated by his superiors. He reflects that with the Apaches defeated, the United States is finally a single, unified country, fulfilling Andrew Jackson’s vision of Indigenous removal. 

As he struggles with the physical pain of the ascent, he contemplates the future of the US Army, predicting it will transform into a force for occupying foreign lands now that its internal conflicts are over. His thoughts turn to his wife in Virginia, seeing it as the only place left for him to go.

General Miles arrives at his military command office in Albuquerque to find a series of telegrams from Washington. The messages from Secretary of War Endicott and the White House grow progressively more furious. They reveal that Miles conducted unauthorized surrender talks with Geronimo and failed to ensure the prisoners were delivered to the civil authorities in Tucson, as President Cleveland had wished. The situation puts Miles at risk of a court-martial.

Having reached the top of the mesa, Lieutenant Gatewood sits on a rock overlooking the Chiricahua camp in Guadalupe Canyon. He watches the Apache men, women, and children below, who are waiting anxiously for news from the surrender talks with General Miles. He observes their calm dignity and reflects on the impending destruction of their culture. Gatewood foresees that their world will be erased and replaced by a monotonous, uniform American nation, a future he regards as “utter hell.”

After Zuloaga’s meeting with the chief, he and Camila walk toward the river, where Corredor is waiting. Zuloaga recounts his meeting with Mangas Coloradas, who was curious about Zuloaga’s boldness and wanted to send word to the Chihuahuan governor that he seeks peace. Mangas also affirmed that Camila is with him by her own choice but is free to leave after her child is born. 

Camila advises Zuloaga on how to show respect to the Bedonkohe Apaches. She reveals that Goyahkla is Mangas’s godson and a fierce, promising warrior. After they discover Goyahkla secretly following them, Camila calls him by the name she gave him: “Geronimo,” the patron saint of translators. She orders him to join them.

Furious after reading the telegrams, General Miles confronts his secretary for revealing his location at Skeleton Canyon to the War Department. Accusing him of insubordination, Miles orders the young man to lock himself in a cell, threatening him with execution if he speaks to anyone. 

Alone, Miles begins to compose an imaginary letter to his wife, Molly. He confesses that he could not, in good conscience, turn Geronimo and his men over to the Tucson sheriff to be hanged, viewing it as a dishonorable act that would ruin him, even if it also meant the end of his career.

Back in San Antonio, Ellie McMillan expresses her frustration with the crowd and initially refuses her husband’s suggestion to go to the stable entrance. After failing to get a view, she returns, dejected. Amyntor convinces her to come with him, revealing his secondary purpose: to meet Captain Elpenor Ware Lawton, the officer credited with capturing Geronimo, and offer his legal services.

Still on the mesa, Lieutenant Gatewood is in too much pain to stand on his own. Osceola, a daughter of Chief Chihuahua, helps him up and hugs him tightly around his lower back to crack it into place, causing him to briefly lose consciousness; she then revives him by brushing his nose with her hair. In the moment of relief before the pain returns, Gatewood is enveloped by her scent. He reflects sadly that this smell, like the entire Apache way of life, is about to vanish forever. Once he has recovered, he asks for Chief Naiche.

The meeting between Corredor and Goyahkla is tense and brief. Jealous of Corredor’s weapons, Goyahkla is hostile toward him. Corredor refuses to accompany them back to the camp.

The narrative then cuts to General Miles’s telegraph office, where he sends a series of deceptive messages to Washington. He claims Lawton received his orders directly from Secretary Endicott, bypassing Miles entirely, so that the broken chain of command explains the communications chaos. He feigns ignorance about a Lieutenant Gatewood and any surrender treaty, with the goal of creating confusion and stalling for time.

In the contemporary storyline, the narrator and his family are driving through Arizona. The mood is somber as they head to the Tucson airport to drop off Cruz. The younger children are upset, and despite the narrator’s pleas for him to stay a few more days and visit the San Carlos reservation, Cruz insists he must return to Guadalajara for a film project.

General Miles devises a plan to get the Apache prisoners out of Arizona jurisdiction. He orders the heliographer to instruct Captain Lawton to take his troops and the prisoners to Lordsburg, New Mexico, board a train in secret, damage his heliograph to cut off communication, and proceed to El Paso, Texas. From Texas, Lawton is to send a specific telegram claiming he never received any prior orders. To ensure secrecy, Miles chews and swallows the heliographer’s notes, sends the heliographer to a cell, and chains the telegraph operator to a chair in the office until Lawton is safely in Texas.

At the stable gate of Fort Sam Houston, the McMillans are admitted past a group of reporters by a corporal. They learn that Captain Lawton is unavailable because he is being interrogated by officials from Washington. Ellie is shocked and frightened when she realizes her husband intends for them to meet Geronimo in person, without the protection of bars. Arguing that it is a historic opportunity, Amyntor insists on taking their son, Phoenix, to see Geronimo, believing Phoenix will go on to tell his children about the experience.

The narrator confirms that Amyntor’s prediction was correct. Phoenix’s great-grandson would tell him the story of Phoenix’s encounter with Geronimo.

Ellie reluctantly agrees to meet Geronimo, on the condition that Captain Lawton ensures their safety. The corporal reiterates that Lawton is unavailable and that their escort will be Lieutenant Parker and an unnamed Mexican officer, who are the only ones currently speaking with the Apaches.

In the middle of the night, General Miles is awakened by a new telegram from the White House asking for an update. He replies claiming Captain Lawton must be traveling along a remote Apache trail in the mountains, which is why he remains out of contact. The response from Washington is curt, ordering Miles to have Lawton halt and await instructions the moment he is reached.

At the edge of the mesa, Chief Naiche and Lieutenant Gatewood share a final, friendly conversation, aware they will likely never see each other again. To spare Gatewood from the excruciating pain of the descent, Naiche insists on carrying the lieutenant down the steep, sandy slope on his shoulders. Gatewood agrees, and the two men begin their descent together.

Via telegram, Miles informs the White House that Lawton did not receive their instructions until he had already left New Mexico for Texas.

By the river, Camila tells Zuloaga the story of her brutal arrival at the ranchería, where Mangas Coloradas’s other two wives led the camp’s women in a vicious beating that nearly killed her. She was nursed back to health by an old woman, with help from Goyahkla and his sister. When she was finally well enough to emerge, a woman who had beaten her brought a platter with roasted meat and a raw fawn’s liver; Camila snatched the platter and consumed the raw liver, and was accepted by the tribe. The story serves as her final farewell to her old life and language.

Inside the barracks courtyard at Fort Sam Houston, the McMillans see the Apache prisoners, including Chief Naiche, moving about freely. They are greeted by Lieutenant Parker and Lieutenant Estrada, who is there as an observer for his government. Parker informs McMillan that Captain Lawton is forbidden from speaking to anyone. As they talk, McMillan realizes Ellie has walked off toward the prisoners.

General Miles informs the president that Lawton has arrived in Texas, thereby placing the prisoners outside of Arizona’s jurisdiction and thwarting the plan for a civil trial in Tucson.

Naiche carries Gatewood on his shoulders down the slope from the mesa. The other Chiricahuas, who had been laughing, now watch the strange procession in somber silence. Gatewood understands this moment marks the end of the Apache world. The narrator reflects that endings are rarely recognized as they occur.

In the contemporary timeline, the narrator’s family shares a painful and emotional farewell with Cruz at the Tucson airport. The hugs are long and mostly silent, and the younger siblings are visibly upset. The narrator sees that his son is trying to be brave as they part ways.

The novel’s final chapter weaves together its multiple storylines. In 1886 San Antonio, Ellie approaches the Apache prisoners. Geronimo tells her she reminds him of a woman who was married to Mangas Coloradas, a Chihuahuan woman who was Naiche’s grandmother and who died among the Apaches. Fascinated, Ellie allows Geronimo to hold Phoenix. 

Elsewhere, Camila tells Zuloaga she will never return to her old life and will become an Apache warrior. 

Near Ánimas, Gatewood has a vision of a future where Indigenous peoples will return to reclaim their lands. Meanwhile, Miles releases his incarcerated officers. In San Antonio, Lawton believes he will be exonerated by Cleveland. Years later, Lawton will be sent to fight in the Philippine-American War, where he will be killed by a Filipino soldier named Geronimo.

In the contemporary timeline, the narrator’s family visits the bleak San Carlos reservation. Later, at the New Mexico-Colorado border, the children shout the names of the great Apache leaders Nana, Cochise, Mangas, and Geronimo into the landscape, affirming that they are remembered. 

The book closes on the image of Geronimo holding the baby Phoenix, with the words: “The land would endure, but the world had ended” (452).