Apache Tears Legend. The legend of the Apache Tears goes like this: A warrior party of seventy-five Apache galloped to the top of a pink-hued mountain, chased closely behind by the cavalry. The warriors wheeled their horses around, realizing they were trapped. Behind them, the sheer face of the mountain plummeted hundreds of feet to the desert floor. In front of them, hundreds of cavalry officers circled, guns in hand. At a signal from their leader, the officers fired. In the first round of shots, fifty Apache died. The remaining twenty five warriors were trapped and faced death at the hands of their enemies. These men knew there was no way out. Rather than be killed by the enemy, the remaining Apache warriors spun their horses around and leaped over the edge of the mountain. When the Apache women and children discovered their fathers, husbands, and sons dead at the bottom of the cliff, their tears fell. Each tear drop, as it hit the hard, dry earth, turned to black stone. They mourned the death of their warriors. They mourned the loss of their fighting spirit. They mourned the life they had carved in the Arizona desert. Soon the ground at the bottom of the mountain, once bleached white from the searing sun, was blackened by Apache tears.