The Apache Indians and the white settlers came face to face after the Mexican War, when the migrations across the continent reached the Southwest. In depicting the long, bitter resistance of the Apaches, Death in the Desert reveals incidents that provoked their undying hatred of whites.   This rousing narrative history by Paul I. Wellman begins in 1837 with the rise to tribal leadership of Mangas Coloradas and ends in 1886 with the surrender of Geronimo. For a half century the dust never settles as U.S. troops fight the Apaches in Arizona and New Mexico and defeat the single uprisings of the Navajos and Pueblos. Two chapters describe the Modoc War in northern California from 1871 to 1873.