STRANGE VISITORS—SOME APACHE CUSTOMS—MEXICAN CAPTIVES—SPEEDY AND THE
GHOST—THE ATTACK UPON KENNEDY AND ISRAEL’S TRAIN—FINDING THE
BODIES—THE DEAD APACHE—A FRONTIER BURIAL—HOW LIEUTENANT YEATON
RECEIVED HIS DEATH WOUND—ON THE TRAIL WITH LIEUTENANT
CUSHING—REVENGE IS SWEET.
We had all sorts of visitors from the adjacent country. The first I
remember was a squaw whose nose had been cut off by a brutal and jealous
husband. The woman was not at all bad looking, and there was not a man
at the post who did not feel sorry for the unfortunate who, for some
dereliction, real or imagined, had been so savagely disfigured.
This shocking mode of punishment, in which, by the way, the Apache
resembled some of the nations of antiquity, prevailed in full vigor
until after General Crook had subjected this fierce tribe to law and
discipline, and the first, or, at least, among the very first,
regulations he laid down for their guidance was that the women of the
tribe must be treated just as kindly as the men, and each and every
infraction of the rule was threatened with the severest punishment the
whole military force could inflict. Since then the practice has wholly
died out among both the Apaches and the Hualpais.
Then there came an old withered crone, leading a woman somewhat younger,
but still shrivelled with the life of care and drudgery which falls to
the lot of the Apache matron, and a third member of this interesting
party, a boy ten or twelve years old, who was suffering from the bite of
a rattlesnake, which had caused his right leg to shrink and decay. The
medicine-men of their band had sung vigorously and applied such medicine
as they thought best suited to the case, but it proved to be beyond
their skill, and they had advised this journey to Camp Grant, to see
what the white man’s medicine could do for the sufferer.
Still another interesting picture framed in my memory is that of the
bent old dotard who wished to surrender on account of frankly confessed
impotency to remain longer on the war-path. Battles were for young men
only; as people grew older they got more sense, and all should live as
brothers. This world was large enough for everybody, and there should be
enough to eat for the Indians and the white men, too. There were men
whose hearts were hard and who would not listen to reason; they wished
to fight, but as for himself, his legs could not climb the mountains any
longer, and the thorns were bad when they scratched his skin. His heart
was good, and so long as this stone which he placed on the ground should
last he wanted to let the Great Father know that he meant to be his
friend. Had his brother, the post commander, any tobacco?
Many an hour did I sit by the side of our friend and brother, watching
him chip out arrow-heads from fragments of beer bottles, or admiring the
dexterity with which he rubbed two sticks together to produce flame.
Matches were his greatest treasure, and he was never tired begging for
them, and as soon as obtained, he would wrap them up carefully in a
piece of buckskin to screen from the weather. But we never gave him
reason to suspect that our generosity was running away with our
judgment. We were careful not to give him any after we found out that he
could make fire so speedily and in a manner so strange, and which we
were never tired of seeing.
These members of the tribe were all kept as prisoners, more to prevent
communication with the enemy than from any suspected intention of
attempting an escape. They were perfectly contented, were well fed, had
no more to do than was absolutely good for them in the way of exercise,
and except that they had to sleep under the eyes of the sentinels at
night, were as free as any one else in the garrison. Once or twice
Indian couriers came over from Camp Apache—or Thomas, as it was then
called—in the Sierra Blanca. Those whom I first saw were almost naked,
their only clothing being a muslin loin-cloth, a pair of pointed-toed
moccasins, and a hat of hawk feathers. They had no arms but lances and
bows and arrows. One of them bore a small round shield of raw-hide
decked with eagle plumage, another had a pretty fiddle made of a joint
of the bamboo-like stalk of the century plant, and a third had a pack of
monte cards, cut out of dried pony skin and painted to represent rudely
the figures in the four suits.
Their lank, long black hair, held back from the eyes by bands of red
flannel; their superb chests, expanded by constant exercise in the lofty
mountains, and their strongly muscled legs confirmed all that I had
already learned of their powers of endurance from the half-breed
Mexicans and the tame Apaches at the post—people like Manuel Duran,
Nicolas, and Francisco, who were what were then known as tame Apaches,
and who had never lived with the others in the hills, but belonged to a
section which had made peace with the whites many years previously and
had never broken it; or escaped captives like José Maria, José de Leon,
Victor Ruiz, or Antonio Besias, who had been torn away from their homes
in Sonora at an early age, and had lived so long with the savages that
they had become thoroughly conversant with all their ideas and customs
as well as their language. Nearly all that class of interpreters and
guides are now dead. Each had a wonderful history, well worthy of
recital, but I cannot allow myself to be tempted into a more extended
reference to any of them at this moment.
The fact that the post trader had just received a stock of _new_ goods
meant two things—it meant that he had made a mistake in his order and
received a consignment different from the _old_ goods which he had
hitherto taken so much pride in keeping upon his shelves, and it meant
that the paymaster was about to pay us a visit, and leave a share of
Uncle Sam’s money in the country.
There were two assistants in the store, Paul and Speedy.
Paul was getting along in years, but Speedy was young and bright. Paul
had at one period in his life possessed some intelligence and a fair
education, but whiskey, cards, and tobacco had long ago blunted what
faculties he could claim, and left him a poor hulk, working for his
board and drinks at such odd jobs as there were to do about the
premises. He had been taught the trade of cabinet-making in Strassburg,
and when in good humor, and not too drunk, would join and polish, carve
and inlay boxes, made of the wood of the mesquite, madroño, manzanita,
ash, and walnut, which would delight the eyes of the most critical.
Speedy was the most active man about the post. He was one of our best
runners, and by all odds the best swimmer in the cool, deep pools which
the San Pedro formed where it came up out of the sands a short distance
below the officers’ quarters, and where we often bathed in the early
evening hours, with some one of the party on guard, because the lurking
Apaches were always a standing menace in that part of Arizona.
I do not know what has become of Speedy. He was an exceptionally good
man in many ways, and if not well educated, made up in native
intelligence what others more fortunate get from books. From a Yankee
father he inherited the Maine shrewdness in money matters and a keenness
in seeing the best points in a bargain. A Spanish mother endowed him
with a fund of gentle politeness and good manners.
When he came to bid me good-by and tell me that he had opened a “Monte
Pio,” or pawnbroker’s shop, in Tucson, I ventured to give him a little
good advice.
“You must be careful of your money, Speedy. Pawnbroking is a risky
business. You’ll be likely to have a great deal of unsalable stuff left
on your hands, and it don’t look to me as if five per cent. was enough
interest to charge. The laws of New York, I believe, allow one to charge
twenty per cent. per annum.”
“Cap., what’s per annum?”
“Why, every year, of course.”
“Oh, but you see mine is five per cent. a week.”
Speedy was the only man I ever knew who had really seen a ghost. As he
described it to us, it had much the appearance of a “human,” and was
mounted on a pretty good specimen of a Sonora plug, and was arrayed in a
suit of white canvas, with white helmet, green veil, blue goggles, and
red side whiskers. It didn’t say a word to my friend, but gave him a
decidedly cold stare, which was all that Speedy cared to wait for before
he broke for the brush. A hundred yards or so in rear there was a train
of pack mules, laden with cot frames, bath-tubs, hat boxes, and other
trumpery, which may or may not have had something to do with the ghost
in advance. Speedy and his mule were too agitated to stop to ask
questions, and continued on into Hermosillo.
Information received about this time from Sonora reported that an
English “lud” was “roughing it” in and about the Yaqui country, and it
is just possible that he could have given much information about the
apparition had it been demanded; but Speedy persisted in his belief that
he had had a “call” from the other world, and was sorely depressed for
several weeks.
Speedy rendered valuable help in our self-imposed task of digging in the
“ruins” alongside of our quarters—vestiges of an occupancy by a
pre-historic race, allied to the Pueblos of the Rio Grande or to the
Pimas and Papagoes.
Broken pottery, painted and unpainted, a flint knife or two, some
arrow-heads, three or four stone hatchets, and more of the same sort,
were our sole reward for much hard work. The great question which
wrought us up to fever heat was, Who were these inhabitants? Felmer
promptly decided that they were Phœnicians—upon what grounds I do not
know, and it is very doubtful if Felmer knew either—but Oscar Hutton
“’lowed they mout ’a’ bin some o’ them Egyptian niggers as built the
pyramids in th’ Bible.”
The paymaster had come and gone; the soldiers had spent their last
dollar; the last “pay-day drunk” had been rounded up and was now on his
way to the guard-house, muttering a maudlin defiance to Erin’s foes; the
sun was shining with scorching heat down upon the bed of pebbles which
formed the parade-ground; the flag hung limp and listless from the pudgy
staff; the horses were out on herd; the scarlet-shouldered black-birds,
the cardinals, the sinsontes, and the jays had sought the deepest
shadows; there was no sound to drown the insistent buzz of the
aggravating flies or the voice of the Recorder of the Garrison Court
just assembled, which was trying Privates A. and B. and C. and D. and
others, names and rank now forgotten, for having “then and there,” “on
or about,” and “at or near” the post of Camp Grant, Arizona, committed
sundry and divers crimes against the law and regulations—when, straight
across the parade, with the swiftness of a frightened deer, there ran a
half or three-quarters naked Mexican, straight to the door of the
“comandante’s” quarters.
He was almost barefooted, the shoes he had on being in splinters. His
trousers had been scratched so by the thorns and briars that only rags
were now pendent from his waist. His hat had been dropped in his
terrified flight from some unexplained danger, which the wan face,
almost concealed by matted locks, and the shirt covered with blood still
flowing freely from a wound in the chest, conclusively showed to have
been an Apache ambuscade.
With faltering voice and in broken accents the sufferer explained that
he was one of a party of more than thirty Mexicans coming up from Tucson
to work on the ranch of Kennedy and Israel, who lived about a mile from
our post down the San Pedro. There were a number of women and several
children with the train, and not a soul had the slightest suspicion of
danger, when suddenly, on the head of the slope leading up to the long
“mesa” just this side of the Cañon del Oro, they had found themselves
surrounded on three sides by a party of Apaches, whose strength was
variously put at from thirty to fifty warriors.
The Americans and Mexicans made the best fight possible, and succeeded
in keeping back the savages until the women and children had reached a
place of comparative safety; but both Kennedy and Israel were killed,
and a number of others killed or wounded, our informant being one of the
latter, with a severe cut in the left breast, where a bullet had
ploughed round his ribs without doing very serious damage. The Apaches
fell to plundering the wagons, which were loaded with the general
supplies that ranchmen were in those days compelled to keep in stock,
for feeding the numbers of employees whom they had to retain to
cultivate their fields, as well as to guard them, and the Mexicans,
seeing this, made off as fast as their legs could carry them, under the
guidance of such of their party as were familiar with the trails leading
across the Santa Catalina range to the San Pedro and Camp Grant. One of
these trails ran by way of Apache Springs at the northern extremity of
the range, and was easy of travel, so that most of the people were safe,
but we were strongly urged to lose no time in getting round by the
longer road, along which the Apaches were believed to have pursued a few
men.
The Mexican, Domingo, had seen Sergeants Warfield and Mott, two old
veterans, on his way through the post, and they, without waiting for
orders, had the herd run in and saddles got out in anticipation of what
their experience taught them was sure to come. Every man who could be
put on horseback was mounted at once, without regard to his company or
regiment, and in less than twenty minutes the first detachment was
crossing the San Pedro and entering the long defile known as the Santa
Catalina Cañon—not very well equipped for a prolonged campaign, perhaps,
as some of the men had no water in canteens and others had only a
handful of crackers for rations, but that made no difference. Our
business was to rescue women and children surrounded by savages, and to
do it with the least delay possible. At least, that was the way Colonel
Dubois reasoned on the subject, and we had only our duty to do—obey
orders.
A second detachment would follow after us, with a wagon containing water
in kegs, rations for ten days, medical supplies, blankets, and every
other essential for making such a scout as might become necessary.
Forward! was the word, and every heel struck flank and every horse
pressed upon the bit. Do our best, we couldn’t make very rapid progress
through the cañon, which for its total length of twelve miles was heavy
with shifting sand.
Wherever there was a stretch of hard pan, no matter how short, we got
the best time out of it that was possible. The distance seemed
interminable, but we pressed on, passing the Four-mile Walnut, on past
the Cottonwood, slipping along without a word under the lofty walls
which screened us from the rays of the sun, although the afternoon was
still young. But in much less time than we had a right to expect we had
reached the end of the bad road, and halted for a minute to have all
loose cinches retightened and everything made ready for rapid travelling
on to the Cañon del Oro.
In front of us stretched a broken, hilly country, bounded on the east
and west by the Tortolita and the Sierra Santa Catalina respectively.
The summer was upon us, but the glories of the springtime had not yet
faded from the face of the desert, which still displayed the splendors
of millions of golden crocuses, with countless odorless verbenas of
varied tints, and acres upon acres of nutritious grasses, at which our
horses nibbled every time we halted for a moment. The cañon of the Santa
Catalina for more than four miles of its length is no wider than an
ordinary street in a city, and is enclosed by walls rising one thousand
feet above the trail. Wherever a foothold could be found, there the
thorny-branched giant cactus stood sentinel, or the prickly plates of
the nopal matted the face of the escarpment. High up on the wall of the
cañon, one of the most prominent of the pitahayas or giant cacti had
been transfixed by the true aim of an Apache arrow, buried up to the
feathers.
For the beauties or eccentricities of nature we had no eyes. All that we
cared to know was how long it would take to put us where the train had
been ambushed and destroyed. So, on we pushed, taking a very brisk gait,
and covering the ground with rapidity.
The sun was going down in a blaze of scarlet and gold behind the
Tortolita Range, the Cañon del Oro was yet several miles away, and still
no signs of the party of which we were in such anxious search. “They
must have been nearer the Cañon del Oro than the Mexican thought,” was
the general idea, for we had by this time gained the long mesa upon
which we had been led to believe we should see the ruins of the wagons.
We were now moving at a fast walk, in line, with carbines at an
“advance,” and everything ready for a fight to begin on either flank or
in front, as the case might be; but there was no enemy in sight. We
deployed as skirmishers, so as to cover as much ground as possible, and
pick up any dead body that might be lying behind the mesquite or the
palo verde which lined the road. A sense of gloom spread over the little
command, which had been hoping against hope to find the survivors alive
and the savages still at bay. But, though the coyote yelped to the moon,
and flocks of quail whirred through the air when raised from their
seclusion in the bushes, and funereal crows, perched upon the tops of
the pitahayas, croaked dismal salutations, there was no sound of the
human voices we longed to hear.
But don’t be too sure. Is that a coyote’s cry or the wail of a
fellow-creature in distress? A coyote, of course. Yes, it is, and no, it
isn’t. Every one had his own belief, and would tolerate no dissent.
“Hel-lup! Hel-lup! My God, hel-lup!” “This way, Mott! Keep the rest of
the men back there on the road.” In less than ten seconds we had reached
a small arroyo, not very deep, running parallel to the road and not
twenty yards from it, and there, weak and faint and covered with his own
blood, was our poor, unfortunate friend, Kennedy. He was in the full
possession of his faculties and able to recognize every one whom he knew
and to tell a coherent story. As to the first part of the attack, he
concurred with Domingo, but he furnished the additional information that
as soon as the Apaches saw that the greater number of the party had
withdrawn with the women and children, of whom there were more than
thirty all told, they made a bold charge to sweep down the little
rear-guard which had taken its stand behind the wagons. Kennedy was sure
that the Apaches had suffered severely, and told me where to look for
the body of the warrior who had killed his partner, Israel. Israel had
received a death-wound in the head which brought him to his knees, but
before he gave up the ghost his rifle, already in position at his
shoulder, was discharged and killed the tall, muscular young savage who
appeared to be leading the attack.
Kennedy kept up the unequal fight as long as he could, in spite of the
loss of the thumb of his left hand, shot off at the first volley; but
when the Mexicans at each side of him fell, he drew his knife, cut the
harness of the “wheeler” mule nearest him, sprang into the saddle, and
charged right through the Apaches advancing a second time. His boldness
disconcerted their aim, but they managed to plant an arrow in his breast
and another in the ribs of his mule, which needed no further urging to
break into a mad gallop over every rock and thorn in its front. Kennedy
could not hold the bridle with his left hand, and the pain in his lung
was excruciating—“Jes’ like ’s if I’d swallowed a coal o’ fire, boys,”
he managed to gasp, half inarticulately. But he had run the mule several
hundreds of yards, and was beginning to have a faint hope of escaping,
when a bullet from his pursuers struck its hind-quarters and pained and
frightened it so much that it bucked him over its head and plunged off
to one side among the cactus and mesquite, to be seen no more. Kennedy,
by great effort, reached the little arroyo in which we found him, and
where he had lain, dreading each sound and expecting each moment to hear
the Apaches coming to torture him to death. His fears were unfounded. As
it turned out, fortunately for all concerned, the Apaches could not
resist the temptation to plunder, and at once began the work of breaking
open and pilfering every box and bundle the wagons contained, forgetting
all about the Mexicans who had made their escape to the foot-hills, and
Kennedy, who lay so very, very near them.
Half a dozen good men were left under command of a sergeant to take care
of Kennedy, while the rest hurried forward to see what was to be seen
farther to the front.
It was a ghastly sight, one which in its details I should like to spare
my readers. There were the hot embers of the new wagons, the scattered
fragments of broken boxes, barrels, and packages of all sorts; copper
shells, arrows, bows, one or two broken rifles, torn and burned
clothing. There lay all that was mortal of poor Israel, stripped of
clothing, a small piece cut from the crown of the head, but thrown back
upon the corpse—the Apaches do not care much for scalping—his heart cut
out, but also thrown back near the corpse, which had been dragged to the
fire of the burning wagons and had been partly consumed; a lance wound
in the back, one or two arrow wounds—they may have been lance wounds,
too, but were more likely arrow wounds, the arrows which made them
having been burned out; there were plenty of arrows lying around—a
severe contusion under the left eye, where he had been hit perhaps with
the stock of a rifle or carbine, and the death wound from ear to ear,
through which the brain had oozed.
The face was as calm and resolute in death as Israel had been in life.
He belonged to a class of frontiersmen of which few representatives now
remain—the same class to which belonged men like Pete Kitchen, the
Duncans, of the San Pedro; Darrel Duppa and Jack Townsend, of the Agua
Fria; men whose lives were a romance of adventure and danger, unwritten
because they never frequented the towns, where the tenderfoot
correspondent would be more likely to fall in with some border
Munchausen, whose tales of privation and peril would be in the direct
ratio of the correspondent’s receptivity and credulity.
It was now too dark to do anything more, so we brought up Kennedy, who
seemed in such good spirits that we were certain he would pull through,
as we could not realize that he had been hit by an arrow at all, but
tried to console him with the notion that the small round hole in his
chest, from which little if any blood had flown, had been made by a
buck-shot or something like it. But Kennedy knew better. “No, boys,” he
said sadly, shaking his head, “it’s all up with me. I’m a goner. I know
it was an arrow, ’cause I broke the feather end off. I’m goin’ to die.”
Sentinels were posted behind the bushes, and the whole command sat down
to keep silent watch for the coming of the morrow. The Apaches might
double back—there was no knowing what they might do—and it was best to
be on our guard. The old rule of the frontier, as I learned it from men
like Joe Felmer, Oscar Hutton, and Manuel Duran, amounted to this: “When
you see Apache ‘sign,’ be _keerful_; ’n’ when you don’ see nary sign, be
_more_ keerful.”
The stars shone out in their grandest effulgence, and the feeble rays of
the moon were no added help to vision. There is only one region in the
whole world, Arizona, where the full majesty can be comprehended of that
text of Holy Writ which teaches: “The Heavens declare the glory of God,
and the firmament showeth His handiwork.” Midnight had almost come, when
the rumble of wheels, the rattle of harness, and the cracking of whips
heralded the approach of wagons and ambulance and the second detachment
of cavalry. They brought orders from Colonel Dubois to return to the
post as soon as the animals had had enough rest, and then as fast as
possible, to enable all to start in pursuit of the Apaches, whose trail
had been “cut” a mile or two above Felmer’s, showing that they had
crossed the Santa Catalina Range, and were making for the precipitous
country close to the head of the Aravaypa.
The coming day found our party astir and hard at work. First, we hunted
up the body of the Apache who had shot Israel. Lieutenant George Bacon,
First Cavalry, found it on a shelf of rock, in a ravine not a hundred
yards from where the white enemy lay, shot, as Israel was, through the
head. We did not disturb it, but as much cannot be averred of the hungry
and expectant coyotes and the raw-necked buzzards, which had already
begun to draw near.
The trail of the savages led straight toward the Santa Catalina, and a
hurried examination disclosed a very curious fact, which later on was of
great importance to the troops in pursuit. There had been a case of
patent medicine in the wagons, and the Apaches had drunk the contents of
the bottles, under the impression that they contained whiskey. The
result was that, as the signs showed, there were several of the Indians
seriously incapacitated from alcoholic stimulant of some kind, which had
served as the menstruum for the drugs of the nostrum. They had staggered
from cactus to cactus, falling into mesquite, in contempt of the thorns
on the branches, and had lain sprawled at full length in the sand,
oblivious of the danger incurred. It would have been a curious
experience for the raiders could we have arrived twenty-four hours
sooner.
Fully an hour was consumed in getting the horses and mules down to the
water in the Cañon del Oro, and in making a cup of coffee, for which
there was the water brought along in the kegs in the wagons. Everything
and everybody was all right, excepting Kennedy, who was beginning to act
and talk strangely; first exhilarated and then excited, petulant and
despondent. His sufferings were beginning to tell upon him, and he
manifested a strange aversion to being put in the same vehicle with a
dead man. We made the best arrangement possible for the comfort of our
wounded friend, for whom it seemed that the ambulance would be the
proper place. But the jolting and the upright position he was compelled
to take proved too much for him, and he begged to be allowed to recline
at full length in one of the wagons.
His request was granted at once; only, as it happened, he was lifted
into the wagon in which the stiff, stark corpse of Israel was glaring
stonily at the sky. A canvas ’paulin was stretched over the corpse, half
a dozen blankets spread out to make as soft a couch as could be
expected, and then Kennedy was lifted in, and the homeward march resumed
with rapid gait. Animals and men were equally anxious to leave far in
the rear a scene of such horror, and without whip or spur we rolled
rapidly over the gravelly “mesa,” until we got to the head of the Santa
Catalina Cañon, and even there we progressed satisfactorily, as,
notwithstanding the deep sand, it was all down grade into the post.
In crossing the San Pedro, the wagon in which Kennedy was riding gave a
lurch, throwing him to one side; to keep himself from being bumped
against the side, he grasped the first thing within reach, and this
happened to be the cold, clammy ankle of the corpse. One low moan, or,
rather, a groan, was all that showed Kennedy’s consciousness of the
undesirable companionship of his ride. The incident didn’t really make
very much difference, however, as his last hours were fast drawing near,
and Death had already summoned him. He breathed his last in the post
hospital before midnight. An autopsy revealed the presence of a piece of
headless arrow, four or five inches long, lodged in the left lung.
The funeral ceremonies did not take much time. There was no lumber in
that section of country for making coffins. Packing boxes, cracker
boxes, anything that could be utilized, were made to serve the purpose,
and generally none were used. The whole garrison turned out. A few words
from the Book of Common Prayer—“Man that is born of woman,” etc.; a few
clods of earth rattling down; then a layer of heavy rocks and spiny
cactus, to keep the coyotes from digging up the bones; more earth; and
all was over, excepting the getting ready for the pursuit.
This was to be prosecuted by Lieutenant Howard B. Cushing, an officer of
wonderful experience in Indian warfare, who with his troop, “F” of the
Third Cavalry, had killed more savages of the Apache tribe than any
other officer or troop of the United States Army has done before or
since. During the latter days of the preceding fall, 1869, he had struck
a crushing blow at the courage of the Apaches infesting the country
close to the Guadalupe Range in southwestern Texas, and had killed and
wounded many of the adults, and captured a number of children and a herd
of ponies.
But Lieutenant Franklin Yeaton, a brave and exceedingly able officer,
just out of West Point, was fatally wounded on our side, and the more
Cushing brooded over the matter, the hotter flamed his anger, until he
could stand it no longer, but resolved to slip back across country and
try his luck over again. He had hauled Yeaton and the rest of the
wounded for four marches on rudely improvised “travois” across the snow,
which lay unusually deep that winter, until he found a sheltered
camping-place near the Peñasco, a branch of the Pecos, where he left his
impedimenta under a strong guard, and with the freshest horses and men
turned back, rightly surmising that the hostiles would have given up
following him, and would be gathered in their ruined camp, bewailing the
loss of kindred.
He had guessed rightly, and at the earliest sign of morning in the east
was once again leading his men to the attack upon the Apaches, who, not
knowing what to make of such an utterly unexpected onslaught, fled in
abject terror, leaving many dead on the ground behind them.
All this did not exactly compensate for the loss of Yeaton, but it
served to let out some of Cushing’s superfluous wrath, and keep him from
exploding.
Cushing belonged to a family which won deserved renown during the War of
the Rebellion. One brother blew up the ram _Albemarle_; another died
most heroically at his post of duty on the battle-field of Gettysburg;
there was still another in the navy who died in service, I do not
remember where; and the one of whom I am speaking, who was soon to die
at the hands of the Apaches, and deserves more than a passing word.
He was about five feet seven in height, spare, sinewy, active as a cat;
slightly stoop-shouldered, sandy complexioned, keen gray or bluish-gray
eyes, which looked you through when he spoke and gave a slight hint of
the determination, coolness, and energy which had made his name famous
all over the southwestern border. There is an alley named after him in
Tucson, and there is, or was, when last I saw it, a tumble-down,
worm-eaten board to mark his grave, and that was all to show where the
great American nation had deposited the remains of one of its bravest.
But I am anticipating altogether too much, and should be getting ready
to follow the trail of the marauders. Cushing didn’t seem to be in any
particular hurry about starting, and I soon learned that he intended
taking his ease about it, as he wanted to let the Indians be thrown off
their guard completely and imagine that the whites were not following
their trail. Let them once suspect that a party was in pursuit, and they
would surely break up their trail and scatter like quail, and no one
then could hope to do anything with them.
Every hoof was carefully looked at, and every shoe tacked on tight; a
few extra shoes for the fore-feet were taken along in the pack train,
with fifteen days’ rations of coffee, hard tack, and bacon, and one
hundred rounds of ammunition.
All that could be extracted from the Mexicans in the way of information
was pondered over, and submitted to the consideration of Felmer and
Manuel Duran, the guides who were to conduct the column. Some of the
Mexican men were composed and fully recovered from the effects of their
terrible experience, and those who were wounded were doing well; but the
women still trembled at the mere name of an Apache, and several of them
did nothing but tell their beads in gratitude to Heaven for the miracle
of their escape.
In Arizona, New Mexico, and southwestern Texas it has been remarked that
one has to ascend the bed of a stream in order to get water. This rule
is especially true of the Aravaypa. There is not a drop, as a usual
thing, at its mouth, but if you ascend the cañon five or six miles, the
current trickles above the sand, and a mile or two more will bring you
to a stream of very respectable dimensions, flowing over rocky boulders
of good size, between towering walls which screen from the sun, and amid
scenery which is picturesque, romantic, and awe-inspiring. The raiders
left the cañon of the Aravaypa at its most precipitous part, not far
from the gypsum out-crop, and made a straight shoot for the mouth of the
San Carlos. This, however, was only a blind, and inside of three miles
there was no trail left, certainly not going in the direction of Mount
Turnbull.
Manuel Duran was not at all worried; he was an Apache himself, and none
of the tricks of the trade had the slightest effect upon his equanimity.
He looked over the ground carefully. Ah! here is a stone which has been
overturned in its place, and here some one has cut that branch of
mesquite; and here—look! we have it, the shod-hoof track of one of
Israel’s mules! There is nothing the matter at all. The Apaches have
merely scattered and turned, and instead of going toward the junction of
the Gila and the San Carlos, have bent to the west and started straight
for the mouth of the San Pedro, going down by the head of Deer Creek,
and over to the Rock Creek, which rises in the “Dos Narices” Mountain,
not twelve miles from Grant itself. Patient search, watching every blade
of grass, every stone or bush, and marching constantly, took the command
to the mouth of the San Pedro, across the Gila, up to the head of the
Disappointment Creek, in the Mescal Mountains, and over into the
foot-hills of the Pinal—and not into the foot-hills merely, but right
across the range at its highest point.
The Apaches were evidently a trifle nervous, and wanted to make as big a
circuit as possible to bewilder pursuers; but all their dodges were
vain. From the top of the Pinal a smoke was detected rising in the
valley to the north and east, and shortly afterward the evidence that a
party of squaws and children, laden with steamed mescal, had joined the
raiders, and no doubt were to remain with them until they got home, if
they were not already home.
Cushing would hardly wait till the sun had hidden behind the
Superstition Mountains or the Matitzal before he gave the order to move
on. Manuel was more prudent, and not inclined to risk anything by undue
haste.
He would wait all night before he would risk disappointment in an attack
upon an enemy whom he had followed so far. Manuel wouldn’t allow any of
the Americans to come near while he made his preparations for peeping
over the crest of the “divide.” Tying a large wisp of palmilla or bear’s
grass about his head, he crawled or wriggled on hands and knees to the
position giving the best view down the valley, and made all the
observations desired.
The night was long and cold and dark, and the men had been at least an
hour in position overlooking the smouldering fires of the enemy, and
ready to begin the attack the moment that it should be light enough to
see one’s hand in front of him, when an accidental occurrence
precipitated an engagement.
One of the old men—one of the party of mescal gatherers who had joined
the returning war-party—felt cold and arose from his couch to stir the
embers into a blaze. The light played fitfully upon his sharp features
and gaunt form, disclosing every muscle.
To get some additional fuel, he advanced toward the spot where Cushing
crouched down awaiting the favorable moment for giving the signal to
fire. The savage suspects something, peers ahead a little, and is
satisfied that there is danger close by. He turns to escape, crying out
that the Americans have come, and awakening all in the camp.
The soldiers raised a terrific yell and poured in a volley which laid
low a number of the Apaches; the latter scarcely tried to fight in the
place where they stood, as the light of the fire made their presence
perfectly plain to the attacking party. So their first idea was to seek
a shelter in the rocks from which to pick off the advancing skirmishers.
In this they were unsuccessful, and death and ruin rained down upon
them. They made the best fight they could, but they could do nothing.
Manuel saw something curious rushing past him in the gloom. He brought
rifle to shoulder and fired, and, as it turned out, killed two at one
shot—a great strong warrior, and the little boy of five or six years old
whom he had seized, and was trying to hurry to a place of safety,
perched upon his shoulders.
It was a ghastly spectacle, a field of blood won with but slight loss to
ourselves. But I do not care to dilate upon the scene, as it is my
intention to give only a meagre outline description of what Arizona was
like prior to the assignment of General Crook to the command. The
captured women and boys stated they were a band of Pinals who had just
returned from a raid down into Sonora before making the attack upon the
wagons of Kennedy and Israel. Some of their bravest warriors were along,
and they would have made a determined fight had they not all been more
or less under the influence of the stuff they had swallowed out of the
bottles captured with the train. Many had been very drunk, and all had
been sickened, and were not in condition to look out for surprise as
they ordinarily did. They had thought that by doubling across the
country from point to point, any Americans who might try to follow would
surely be put off the scent; they did not know that there were Apaches
with the soldiers.