THE RETURN TO CAMP GRANT—LANCED TO DEATH BY APACHES—THE KILLING OF
MILLER AND TAPPAN—COMPANY QUARTERS—APACHE CAPTIVES—THE
CLOUD-BURST—APACHE CORN-FIELDS—MEETING COLONEL SANFORD—ENTRAPPED IN
AN APACHE AMBUSCADE—AN OLD-TIMER’S REMINISCENCES OF TUCSON—FUNERAL
CROSSES ON THE ROADSIDE—PADRE EUSEBIO KINO—FIRST VIEW OF TUCSON—THE
“SHOO FLY” RESTAURANT.
Of the return march very little need be said. The story would become too
long, and there would be needless repetition if an attempt were to be
made to describe each scout in detail. There are others to come of much
more importance, and covering the same region, so that the reader will
lose nothing by the omission.
There was the usual amount of rough mountain climbing, wearing out shoes
and patience and nerve strength all at one and the same time; there was
the usual deprivation of water to be expected in the arid wastes of
southern Arizona, where springs are few and far between; there were the
usual tricks for getting along without much to drink, such as putting a
pebble or twig in the mouth to induce a more copious flow of saliva; and
when camp was made and the water was found to be not all that it might
be, there were other tricks for cleaning it, or, at least, causing a
deposition of the earthy matter held in suspension, by cutting up a few
plates of the nopal and letting them remain in the kettle for a short
time, until their mucilaginous juice had precipitated everything. But a
still better plan was to improve the good springs, which was a labor of
love with officers and men, and many a fine water hole in Arizona has
been the scene of much hard work in digging out, building up with
cracker boxes or something to hold the water and keep it from soaking
into the earth.
Camp Grant was reached at last, and the prisoners turned over to the
care of the guard, and Lieutenant Cushing, his first duty in the
Territory accomplished with so much credit to himself and his men, made
ready to start out on another and a longer trip just as soon as the
signal should be given by the post commander.
Our troop was peculiarly situated. It had a second mount of ponies,
captured from the Apaches against whom Cushing had done such good
service in southwestern Texas. Orders came down in due time from San
Francisco to turn them in and have them sold by the quartermaster; but
until these orders came—and owing to the slowness of mail communications
in those days, they did not come for several months—we had the advantage
of being able to do nearly twice as much work as troops less fortunately
placed.
The humdrum life of any post in Arizona in those days was enough to
drive one crazy. The heat in most of them became simply unendurable,
although here the great dryness of the atmosphere proved a benefit. Had
the air been humid, very few of our garrison would now be alive to tell
of temperatures of one hundred and twenty and over, and of days during
the whole twenty-four hours of which the thermometer did not register
below the one hundred notch.
There was a story current that the heat had one time become so excessive
that two thermometers had to be strapped together to let the mercury
have room to climb. That was before my arrival, and is something for
which I do not care to vouch. I give the story as it was given to me by
my friend, Jack Long, of whom I am soon to speak.
In every description of Arizona that I have ever seen, and I claim to be
familiar with most if not all that has appeared in print, there occurs
the story of the soldier who came back to Fort Yuma after his blankets,
finding the next world too cold to suit him. I make reference to the
story because many worthy people would find it hard to believe that a
man had been in Arizona who did not tell this story in his first
chapter, but it has grown to be such a mouldy military chestnut that I
may be pardoned for omitting it.
There were all kinds of methods of killing the hours. One that
interested everybody for a while was the battles which we stirred up
between the nests of red and black ants, which could be found in plenty
and of great size close to the post. I have seen the nests in question
three or four feet high, and not less than six feet long, crowded with
industrious population. The way to start the battle was to make a hole
in each nest and insert cans which had lately been emptied of peaches or
other sweets.
These would soon fill with the battalions of the two colors, and could
then be poured into a basin, where the combat _à outrance_ never failed
to begin at once. The red ants were much the braver, and one of that
color would tackle two, and even three, of the black. If the rumpus
lasted for any length of time, queens would appear, as if to superintend
what was going on. At least, that was our impression when we saw the
large-bodied, yellow-plush insects sallying from the depths of the
nests.
We had not been back in the post a week before we had something to talk
about. A Mexican who was doing some work for the Government came up to
confer with the commanding officer as to details. He left the adjutant’s
office before mid-day, and had not gone one thousand yards—less, indeed,
than rifle-shot—from the door, when an Apache, lurking in ambush behind
a clump of palmilla, pierced him through and through with a lance, and
left him dead, weltering in his own blood. To attempt pursuit was worse
than useless, and all we could do was to bury the victim.
It was this peculiarity of the Apaches that made them such a terror to
all who came in contact with them, and had compelled the King of Spain
to maintain a force of four thousand dragoons to keep in check a tribe
of naked savages, who scorned to wear any protection against the bullets
of the Castilians, who would not fight when pursued, but scattered like
their own crested mountain quail, and then hovered on the flanks of the
whites, and were far more formidable when dispersed than when they were
moving in compact bodies. This was simply the best military policy for
the Apaches to adopt—wear out the enemy by vexatious tactics, and by
having the pursuit degenerate into a will-o’-th’-wisp chase. The Apaches
could find food on every hillside, and the water-holes, springs, and
flowing streams far up in the mountains were perfectly well known to
them.
The Caucasian troops, of whatever nationality, would wander about,
half-crazed with thirst, and maddened by the heat of the day or chilled
by the cold winds of night in the mountains, and unable to tell which
plants were of value as food and which were not.
The Apache was in no sense a coward. He knew his business, and played
his cards to suit himself. He never lost a shot, and never lost a
warrior in a fight where a brisk run across the nearest ridge would save
his life and exhaust the heavily clad soldier who endeavored to catch
him. Apaches in groups of two and three, and even individual Apaches,
were wont to steal in close to the military posts and ranchos, and hide
behind some sheltering rock, or upon the summit of some conveniently
situated hill, and there remain for days, scanning the movements of the
Americans below, and waiting for a chance to stampede a herd, or kill a
herder or two, or “jump” a wagon-train.
They knew how to disguise themselves so thoroughly that one might almost
step upon a warrior thus occupied before he could detect his presence.
Stripped naked, with head and shoulders wrapped up in a bundle of yucca
shoots or “sacaton” grass, and with body rubbed over with the clay or
sand along which it wriggled as sinuously and as venomously as the
rattler itself, the Apache could and did approach to within ear-shot of
the whites, and even entered the enclosures of the military camps, as at
Grant and Crittenden, where we on several occasions discovered his
foot-prints alongside the “ollas,” or water-jars.
On such occasions he preferred to employ his lance or bow, because these
made no sound, and half or even a whole day might elapse before the
stiffened and bloody corpse of the herder or wagoner would be found, and
the presence of Indians in the vicinity become known. At least twenty
such examples could be given from my own knowledge, occurring at
Prescott, Tucson, Camp Grant, Camp Crittenden, Tres Alamos, Florence,
Williamson’s Valley, and elsewhere. They were regarded as the natural
features of the country, and every settler rather expected them as a
matter of course. Well did Torquemada, the Spanish writer (A.D. 1709),
deplore the inability of the Spaniards to make headway against this
tribe of naked savages.
Californians old enough to remember the days when San Francisco had a
Mining Stock Exchange, may recall the names of Lent and Harpending, who
were two of the most prominent of the members. An expedition, equipped
at the expense of these gentlemen, made its way into Arizona to examine
the mining “prospects” discovered in the vicinity of Fort Bowie. They
had to come overland, of course, as there were no railroads, and wagons
had to be taken from Los Angeles, the terminal point of steamer
navigation, unless people preferred to keep on down to San Diego, and
then cross the desert, via Fort Yuma, and on up the dusty valley of the
Gila River to Tucson or Florence. The party of which I am now speaking
was under the command of two gentlemen, one named Gatchell and the other
Curtis, from the Comstock Mines in Nevada, and had reached and passed
the picturesque little adobe town of Florence, on the Gila, and was
progressing finely on the road toward Tucson, when “Cocheis,” the bold
leader of the Chiricahuas, on his march up from Sonora to trade stolen
horses and have a talk with the Pinals, swooped down upon them. It was
the old, old Arizona story. No one suspected danger, because there had
been no signs of Indians on the trip since leaving the villages of the
peaceful Pimas, on the Gila, near Maricopa Wells.
It was a perfect duplication of the Kennedy-Israel affair, almost to the
slightest details. Mr. Curtis received a bad wound in the lungs. Mr.
Gatchell was also wounded, but how severely I cannot remember, for the
very good reason that there was so much of that kind of thing going on
during the period of my stay at Camp Grant that it is really impossible
to avoid mixing up some of the minor details of the different incidents
so closely resembling one another.
When this party reached the post of Camp Grant they could easily have
demanded the first prize at a tramp show; they were not clothed in
rags—they were not clothed in anything. When they escaped from the
wagon-train they were wearing nothing but underclothing, on account of
the excessive heat of the day; when they got into Camp Grant most of the
underwear had disappeared, torn off by the cactus, palo verde, mesquite,
mescal, and other thorny vegetation run against in their flight. Their
feet evidenced the rough, stony nature of the ground over which they had
tramped and bumped, and thorns stuck in their legs, feet, and arms.
There was not much done for these poor wretches, all of whom seemed to
be gentlemen of education and refinement. We shared the misery of the
post with them, which was about all we could pretend to do. Vacant rooms
were found for them in the Israel ranch, and there they stayed for a few
days, just long enough for every one to catch the fever.
Before we start out in pursuit of the attacking Apaches, let me relate
the story told all over southern Arizona about the spot where this
Gatchell-Curtis train had been surprised. It was known as the scene of
the ambuscade of the Miller-Tappan detail, and frontier tale-tellers
used to while away the sultry hours immediately after the setting of the
sun in relating how the soldiers under Carroll had been ambushed and
scattered by the onslaught of the Apaches, their commander, Lieutenant
Carroll, killed at the first fire. One of the survivors became separated
from his comrades in their headlong flight into Camp Grant. What became
of him was never fully known, but he had been seen to fall wounded in
the head or face, and the soldiers and Mexicans seemed to be of but one
opinion as to the direction in which he had strayed; so there was no
difficulty in getting a band of expert trailers to go out with the
troops from the camp, and after burying the dead, make search for the
missing man. His foot-prints were plainly discernible for quite a
distance in the hard sand and gravel, until they led to a spring or
“water-hole,” where one could plainly read the “sign” that the wounded
man had stopped, knelt down, drunk, washed his wound, torn off a small
piece of his blouse, perhaps as a bandage, and written his name on a
rock in his own blood.
So far, so good; the Mexicans who had been in the searching party did
not object to telling that much, but anything beyond was told by a shrug
of the shoulders and a “Quien sabe?”
One day it happened that José Maria was in a communicative mood, and I
induced him to relate what he knew. His story amounted to just this:
After leaving the “water-hole,” the wounded man had wandered aimlessly
in different directions, and soon began to stagger from bush to bush;
his strength was nearly gone, and with frequency he had taken a seat on
the hard gravel under such shade as the mesquites afforded.
After a while other tracks came in on the trail alongside of those of
the man—they were the tracks of an enormous mountain lion! The beast had
run up and down along the trail for a short distance, and then bounded
on in the direction taken by the wanderer. The last few bounds measured
twenty-two feet, and then there were signs of a struggle, and of
SOMETHING having been dragged off through the chapparal and over the
rocks, and that was all.
Our men were ready for the scout, and so were those of the detachment of
“K” Troop, First Cavalry, who were to form part of our expedition—a
gallant troop and a fine regiment.
The quarters were all in bustle and confusion, and even at their best
would have looked primitive and uncouth. They were made of unhewn logs
set upright into the ground and chinked with mud, and roofed in the same
early English style, with the addition of a ceiling of old pieces of
canvas to keep the centipedes from dropping down.
On the walls were a couple of banjos, and there were intimations that
the service of the troop had been of a decidedly active nature, in the
spoils of Apache villages clustered against the cottonwood saplings.
There were lances with tips of obsidian, and others armed with the
blades of old cavalry sabres; quivers of coyote and mountain lion skin
filled with arrows, said by the Mexican guides to be poisonous; and
other relics of aboriginal ownership in raw-hide playing-cards, shields,
and one or two of the century-plant fiddles.
The gloom of the long sleeping room was relieved by the bright colors of
a few Navajo blankets, and there hung from the rafters large earthenware
jars, called “ollas,” the manufacture of the peaceful Papagoes, in which
gallons of water cooled by rapid evaporation.
There were no tin wash-basins, but a good substitute was found in the
pretty Apache baskets, woven so tightly of grasses and roots that water
could no more leak through them than it could through the better sort of
the Navajo blankets. A half a dozen, maybe more, of the newspaper
illustrations and cartoons of the day were pasted in spots where they
would be most effective, and over in the coolest corner was the wicker
cage of a pet mocking-bird. There were other pets by this time in the
Apache children captured in the skirmishes already had with the natives.
The two oldest of the lot—“Sunday” and “Dandy Jim”—were never given any
dinner until they had each first shot an arrow into the neck of an
olive-bottle inserted into one of the adobe walls of the quartermaster’s
corral. The ease with which these youngsters not over nine or ten years
old did this used to surprise me, but it seemed to make them regard the
Americans as a very peculiar people for demanding such a slight task.
Out on the trail again, down the San Pedro and over the Gila, but
keeping well to the west until we neared the Mineral Creek country; then
up across the lofty Pinal Range, on whose summits the cool breezes were
fragrant with the balsamic odors of the tall, straight pines, over into
the beautiful little nook known as Mason’s Valley, in which there was
refreshing grass for the animals and a trickling stream of pure water to
slake their thirst. Then back to the eastward until we struck the waters
of the Pinal Creek, and had followed it down to the “Wheat Fields,” and
still no signs of Indians. The rainy season had set in, and every track
was obliterated almost as soon as made.
One night we bivouacked at a spot not far from where the mining town of
Globe now stands, and at a ledge of rocks which run across the valley of
Pinal Creek, but part for a few feet to permit the feeble current to
flow through. The sky was comparatively clear, a few clouds only
flitting across the zenith. Back of us, hanging like a shroud over the
tops of the Pinal, were heavy, black masses, from whose pendulous edges
flashed the lightning, and from whose cavernous depths roared and
growled the thunder.
“That looks very much like a cloud-burst coming,” said Cushing; “better
be on the safe side, anyhow.” So he gave orders to move all the bedding
and all the supplies of the pack-train higher up the side of the hill.
The latter part of the order was obeyed first, and almost if not quite
all the ammunition, bacon, coffee, and sugar had been carried out of
reach of possible danger, and most of the blankets and carbines had been
shifted—everything, in fact, but the hard tack—when we noticed that the
volume of water in the creek had unaccountably increased, and the next
moment came the warning cry: “Look out! Here she comes!” A solid wall of
water—I do not care to say how many feet high—was rushing down the
cañon, sweeping all before it, and crushing a path for itself over the
line along which our blankets had been spread so short a time
previously.
The water didn’t make very much noise. There was no sound but a SISH!
That meant more than my pen can say. All that we had carried to the
higher slopes of the cañon side was saved. All that we had not been able
to move was swept away, but there was nothing of value to any one
excepting a mule belonging to one of the guides, which was drowned, and
a lot of harness or rigging from the pack-train, which, with the hard
tack, found a watery grave.
Cushing, too, would have been swept off in the current had he not been
seized in the strong grasp of Sergeant Warfield and “Big Dan Miller,”
two of the most powerful men in the troop. The rain soaked through us
all night, and we had to make the best of it until dawn, when we
discovered to our great surprise and satisfaction that the stream, which
had been gorged between the rocks at our camp, widened below, and this
had allowed the current to expand and to slacken, dropping here and
there in the valley most of the plunder which was of consequence to us,
especially the hard bread.
All this meant an exasperating delay of twenty-four hours to dry our
blankets upon the rocks, and to spread out our sodden food, and save as
much of it as we could from mildew.
From there we made a detour over to Pinto Creek, where I may inform
those of my readers who take an interest in such things, there are one
or two exceptionally well-preserved cliff-dwellings, which we examined
with much curiosity.
Not far from there we came upon the corn-fields of a band of Apaches,
and destroyed them, eating as many of the roasting ears as we could, and
feeding the rest to our stock.
Such were the military instructions of twenty and twenty-five years ago.
As soldiers we had to obey, even if we could feel that these orders must
have been issued under a misconception of the Indian character. The more
the savage is attached to the soil by the ties of a remunerative
husbandry, the more is he weaned from the evil impulses which idleness
engenders. This proposition seems just as clear as that two and two make
four, but some people learn quickly, and others learn slowly, and
preachers, school-teachers, and military people most slowly of all.
Our presence was discovered by the Apache look-outs before we were able
to effect a surprise, or, to be candid, we stumbled in upon the nook, or
series of nooks, in which this planting was going on, and beyond
exchanging a few shots and wounding, as we learned afterward, a couple
of the young men, did not do much at that moment; but we did catch two
squaws, from whom some information was extracted.
They agreed to lead us to where there was another “rancheria” a few
miles off, in another cañon over toward Tonto Creek. We found the enemy,
sure enough, but in such an inaccessible position, up among lofty hills
covered with a dense jungle of scrub oak, that we could do nothing
beyond firing shots in reply to those directed against us, and were so
unfortunate as to lose our prisoners, who darted like jack-rabbits into
the brush, and were out of sight in a flash. Why did we not catch them
again? Oh, well, that is something that no one could do but the gentle
reader. The gentle reader generally is able to do more than the actors
on the ground, and he may as well be allowed a monopoly in the present
case.
We growled and grumbled a good deal at our hard luck, and made our way
to the Mesquite Springs, where the ranch of Archie MacIntosh has since
been erected, and there went into camp for the night. Early the next
morning we crossed the Salt River and ascended the Tonto Creek for a
short distance, passing through a fertile valley, once well settled by a
tribe whose stone houses now in ruins dotted the course of the stream,
and whose pottery, stone axes, and other vestiges, in a condition more
or less perfect, could be picked up in any quantity. We turned back,
recrossed the Salt or Salado, and made a long march into the higher
parts of the Sierra Apache, striking a fresh trail, and following it
energetically until we had run it into the camp of a scouting party of
the First Cavalry, from Camp MacDowell, under Colonel George B. Sanford,
who had had a fight with these same Indians the previous day, and killed
or captured most of them.
Sanford and his command treated us most kindly, and made us feel at home
with them. They did not have much to offer beyond bacon and beans; but a
generous, hospitable gentleman can offer these in a way that will make
them taste like canvas-back and terrapin. When we left Sanford, we kept
on in the direction of the Sombrero Butte and the mouth of Cherry Creek,
to the east, and then headed for the extreme sources of the San Carlos
River, a trifle to the south.
Here we had the good luck to come upon a village of Apaches, who
abandoned all they possessed and fled to the rocks as soon as our rapid
advance was announced in the shrill cries of their vedettes perched upon
the higher peaks.
In this place the “medicine-men” had been engaged in some of their
rites, and had drawn upon the ground half-completed figures of circles,
crosses, and other lines which we had no time to examine. We looked
through the village, whose “jacales” were of unusually large size, and
while interested in this work the enemy began to gather in the higher
hills, ready to pick off all who might become exposed to their aim. They
had soon crawled down within very close proximity, and showed great
daring in coming up to us. I may be pardoned for describing in something
of detail what happened to the little party which stood with me looking
down, or trying to look down, into a low valley or collection of swales
beneath us. Absolutely nothing could be seen but the red clay soil,
tufted here and there with the Spanish bayonet or the tremulous yucca.
So well satisfied were we all that no Apaches were in the valley that I
had already given the order to dismount and descend the steep flanks of
the hill to the lower ground, but had hardly done so before there was a
puff, a noise, and a tzit!—all at once, from the nearest clump of
sacaton or yucca, not more than a hundred yards in front. The bullet
whizzed ominously between our heads and struck my horse in the neck,
ploughing a deep but not dangerous wound.
Our horses, being fresh “broncos,” became disturbed, and it was all we
could do to keep them from breaking away. When we had quieted them a
little, we saw two of the Apaches—stark naked, their heads bound up with
yucca, and their bodies red with the clay along which they had crawled
in order to fire the shot—scampering for their lives down the valley.
We got down the hill, leading our horses, and then took after the
fugitives, all the time yelling to those of our comrades whom we could
see in advance to head the Indians off. One of the savages, who seemed
to be the younger of the two, doubled up a side ravine, but the other,
either because he was run down or because he thought he could inflict
some damage upon us and then escape, remained hidden behind a large
mesquite. Our men made the grievous mistake of supposing that the
Indian’s gun was not loaded. Only one gun had been seen in the
possession of the two whom we had pursued, and this having been
discharged, we were certain that the savage had not had time to reload
it.
It is quite likely that each of the pair had had a rifle, and that the
young boy, previous to running up the cañon to the left, had given his
weapon to his elder, who had probably left his own on the ground after
once firing it.
Be this as it may, we were greeted with another shot, which killed the
blacksmith of “K” Troop, First Cavalry, and right behind the shot came
the big Indian himself, using his rifle as a shillelah, beating Corporal
Costello over the head with it and knocking him senseless, and then
turning upon Sergeant Harrington and a soldier of the First Cavalry
named Wolf, dealing each a blow on the skull, which would have ended
them had not his strength begun to ebb away with his life-blood, now
flowing freely from the death-wound through the body which we had
succeeded in inflicting.
One horse laid up, three men knocked out, and another man killed was a
pretty steep price to pay for the killing of this one Indian, but we
consoled ourselves with the thought that the Apaches had met with a
great loss in the death of so valiant a warrior. We had had other losses
on that day, and the hostiles had left other dead; our pack-train was
beginning to show signs of wear and tear from the fatigue of climbing up
and down these stony, brush-covered, arid mountain-sides. One of the
mules had broken its neck or broken its back by slipping off a steep
trail, and all needed some rest and recuperation.
From every peak now curled the ominous signal smoke of the enemy, and no
further surprises would be possible. Not all of the smokes were to be
taken as signals; many of them might be signs of death, as the Apaches
at that time adhered to the old custom of abandoning a village and
setting it on fire the moment one of their number died, and as soon as
this smoke was seen the adjacent villages would send up answers of
sympathy.
Cushing thought that, under all the circumstances, it would be good
policy to move over to some eligible position where we could hold our
own against any concentration the enemy might be tempted to make against
us, and there stay until the excitement occasioned by our presence in
the country had abated.
The spring near the eastern base of the Pinal Mountains, where the
“killing” of the early spring had taken place, suggested itself, and
thither we marched as fast as our animals could make the trip. But we
had counted without our host; the waters were so polluted with dead
bodies, there were so many skulls in the spring itself, that no animal,
much less man, would imbibe of the fluid. The ground was strewn with
bones—ribs and arms and vertebræ—dragged about by the coyotes, and the
smell was so vile that, tired as all were, no one felt any emotion but
one of delight when Cushing gave the order to move on.
The Apaches had been there to bury their kinsfolk and bewail their loss,
and in token of grief and rage had set fire to all the grass for several
miles, and consequently it was to the direct benefit of all our command,
two-footed or four-footed, to keep moving until we might find a better
site for a bivouac.
We did not halt until we had struck the San Carlos, some thirty-five
miles to the east, and about twelve or fourteen miles above its junction
with the Gila. Here we made camp, intending to remain several days. A
rope was stretched from one to the other of two stout sycamores, and to
this each horse and mule was attached by its halter. Pickets were thrown
out upon the neighboring eminences, and a detail from the old guard was
promptly working at bringing in water and wood for the camp-fires. The
grooming began, and ended almost as soon as the welcome cry of “Supper!”
resounded. The coffee was boiling hot; the same could be said of the
bacon; the hard tack had mildewed a little during the wet weather to
which it had been exposed, but there was enough roasted mescal from the
Indian villages to eke out our supplies.
The hoofs and back of every animal had been examined and cared for, and
then blankets were spread out and all hands made ready to turn in. There
were no tents, as no shelter was needed, but each veteran was wise
enough to scratch a little semicircle in the ground around his head, to
turn the rain should any fall during the night, and to erect a
wind-brake to screen him from the chill breezes which sometimes blew
about midnight.
Although there was not much danger of a night-attack from the Apaches,
who almost invariably made their onset with the first twinkle of the
coming dawn in the east, yet a careful watch was always kept, to
frustrate their favorite game of crawling on hands and feet up to the
horses, and sending an arrow into the herd or the sentinel, as might
happen to be most convenient.
Not far from this camp I saw, for the first time, a fight between a
tarantula and a “tarantula hawk.” Manuel Duran had always insisted that
the gray tarantula could whip the black one, and that there was
something that flew about in the evening that could and would make the
quarrelsome gray tarantula seek safety in abject flight. It was what we
used to call in my school-boy days “the devil’s darning-needle” which
made its appearance, and seemed to worry the great spider very much. The
tarantula stood up on its hind legs, and did its best to ward off
impending fate, but it was no use. The “hawk” hit the tarantula in the
back and apparently paralyzed him, and then seemed to be pulling at one
of the hind legs. I have since been informed that there is some kind of
a fluid injected into the back of the tarantula which acts as a
stupefier, and at the same time the “hawk” deposits its eggs there,
which, hatching, feed upon the spider. For all this I cannot vouch, as I
did not care to venture too near those venomous reptiles and insects of
that region, at least not until after I had acquired more confidence
from greater familiarity with them.
We saw no more Indian “sign” on that trip, which had not been, however,
devoid of all incident.
And no sooner had we arrived at Camp Grant than we were out again, this
time guided by an Apache squaw, who had come into the post during our
absence, and given to the commanding officer a very consistent story of
ill-treatment at the hands of her people. She said that her husband was
dead, killed in a fight with the troops, and that she and her baby had
not been treated with the kindness which they had a right to expect. I
do not remember in what this ill-treatment consisted, but most likely
none of the brothers of the deceased had offered to marry the widow and
care for her and her little one, as is the general custom, in which the
Apaches resemble the Hebrews of ancient times. If the troops would
follow her, she would guide them into a very bad country, where there
was a “rancheria” which could be attacked and destroyed very readily.
So back we went, this time on foot, carrying our rations on our backs,
crossing the Piñaleno to the south of the Aravaypa, and ascending until
we reached the pine forest upon its summit; then down into the valley at
the extreme head of the Aravaypa, and over into the broken country on
the other side of the Gabilan, or Hawk Cañon.
Everything had happened exactly as the squaw had predicted it would, and
she showed that she was familiar with the slightest details of the
topography, and thus increased our confidence in what we had to expect
to such an extent that she was put in the lead, and we followed on
closely, obeying all her directions and instructions. Our men refrained
from whistling, from talking—almost, I might say, from breathing—because
she insisted upon such perfect silence while on the march. There were
few instructions given, and these were passed from mouth to mouth in
whispers. No one dared strike a match, lest the flash should alarm some
of the enemy’s pickets. We had no pack-train, and that great source of
noise—the shouting of packers to straying mules—was done away with. All
our rations were on our own backs, and with the exception of one led
mule, loaded with a couple of thousand rounds of extra ammunition, we
had absolutely nothing to impede the most rapid march. We walked slowly
over the high mountains, and down into deep ravines, passing through a
country which seemed well adapted for the home of Indians. There were
groves of acorn-bearing oaks, a considerable amount of mescal, Spanish
bayonet, some mesquite, and a plenty of grasses whose seeds could be
gathered by the squaws in their long, conical baskets, and then ground
between two oblong, half-round stones into a meal which would make a
pretty good mush.
It was very dark and quite chilly as dawn drew nigh, and every one was
shivering with cold and hunger and general nervous excitement. The squaw
whispered that we were close upon the site of the “rancheria,” which was
in a little grassy amphitheatre a short distance in front. Slowly we
drew nearer and nearer to the doomed village, and traversed the smooth,
open place whereon the young bucks had been playing their great game of
“mushka,” in which they roll a hoop and then throw lance staves to fall
to the ground as the hoop ceases to roll. Very near this was a
slippery-faced rock—either slate or basalt, the darkness did not permit
a close examination—down which the children had been sliding to the
grass, and, just within biscuit-throw, the “jacales” of saplings and
branches.
[Illustration: AN APACHE RANCHERIA.]
Two of our party crawled up to the village, which preserved an ominous
silence. There were no barking dogs, no signs of fire, no wail of babes
to testify to the presence of human or animal life—in one word, the
Apaches had taken the alarm and abandoned their habitation. But they did
not leave us shivering long in doubt as to where they had gone, but at
once opened from the peaks with rifles, and at the first fire wounded
two of our men. It was entirely too dark for them to do much harm, and
utterly beyond our power to do anything against them. Their position was
an impregnable one on the crest of the surrounding ridges, and protected
by a heavy natural _cheval de frise_ of the scrub oak and other thorny
vegetation of the region.
Cushing ordered the command to fall back on the trail and take up
position on the hill in the pass overlooking the site of the
“rancheria.” This we did without difficulty and without loss. The
Apaches continued their firing, and would have made us pay dear for our
rashness in coming into their home had not our withdrawal been covered
by a heavy fog, which screened the flanks of the mountains until quite a
late hour in the morning, something very unusual in Arizona, which is
remarkably free from mists at all seasons.
Indignation converged upon the wretched squaw who had induced us to come
into what had all the appearance of a set ambuscade. The men had bound
her securely, and a rope was now brought out—a lariat—and cries were
heard on all sides to “hang her, hang her!” It is easy to see now that
she may have been perfectly innocent in her intentions, and that it was
not through collusion with the people in the village, but rather on
account of her running away from them, that the Apaches had been on the
look-out for an advance from the nearest military post; but on that
cold, frosty morning, when all were cross and tired and vexed with
disappointment, it looked rather ominous for the woman for a few
minutes.
She was given the benefit of the doubt, and to do the men justice, they
were more desirous of scaring than of killing her for her supposed
treachery. She stuck to her story; she was dissatisfied with her people
on account of bad treatment, and wanted to lead us to a surprise of
their home. She did not pretend to say how it came about that they were
ready for us, but said that some of their young men out hunting, or
squaws out cutting and burning mescal, might have seen us coming up the
mountain, or “cut” our trail the night previous, and given the alarm.
She would stay with us as long as we chose to remain in those hills, but
her opinion was that nothing could now be done with the people of that
“rancheria,” because the whole country would be alarmed with signal
smokes, and every mountain would have a picket on the look-out for us.
Better return to the camp and wait until everything had quieted down,
and then slip out again.
There was still a good deal of growling going on, and not all of the men
were satisfied with her talk. They shot angry glances at her, and freely
expressed their desire to do her bodily harm, which threats she could
perfectly understand without needing the slightest knowledge of our
language. To keep her from slipping off as the two other squaws had done
a fortnight previously, she was wrapped from head to feet with rope, so
that it was all she could do to breathe, much less think of escaping.
Another rope fastened her to a palo verde close to the little fire at
which our coffee was made, and alongside whose flickering embers the
sentinel paced as night began to draw its curtains near. She lay like a
log, making not the slightest noise or movement, but to all appearances
perfectly reconciled to the situation, and, after a while, fell off into
a profound sleep.
We had what was known as “a running guard,” which means that every man
in the camp takes his turn at the duty of sentinel during the night.
This made the men on post have about half to three-quarters of an hour’s
duty each. Each of those posted near the prisoner gave a careful look at
her as he began to pace up and down near her, and each found that she
was sleeping calmly and soundly, until about eleven o’clock, or maybe a
few minutes nearer midnight, a recruit, who had just taken his turn on
post, felt his elbows pinioned fast behind him and his carbine almost
wrenched from his grasp. He was very muscular, and made a good fight to
retain his weapon and use it, but it fell to the ground, and the naked
woman plunged down the side of the hill straight through the chapparal
into the darkness profound.
Bang! bang! sounded his carbine just as soon as he could pick it up from
the ground where it lay, and bang! bang! sounded others, as men
half-asleep awakened to the belief that there was a night attack. This
firing promptly ceased upon Cushing’s orders. There was not the
slightest possible use in wasting ammunition, and in besides running the
risk of hitting some of our own people. The squaw had escaped, and that
was enough. There lay her clothing, and the cocoon-like bundle of rope
which had bound her. She had wriggled out of her fastenings, and sprung
upon the sentinel, who was no doubt the least vigilant of all whom she
had observed, and had tried to snatch his weapon from him and thus
prevent an alarm being given until she had reached the bottom of the
hill. All the clothing she had on at the moment when she made her rush
upon the sentinel was an old and threadbare cavalry cape which hardly
covered her shoulders.
Cold and damp and weary, we started on our homeward trip, feeling as
spiritless as a brood of half-drowned chickens. Even the Irish had
become glum, and could see nothing ridiculous in our mishap—a very bad
sign.
“Blessed are they that expect nothing.” We didn’t expect and we didn’t
receive any mercy from our comrades upon getting back to the mess, and
the sharp tongue of raillery lost none of its power when the squaw came
in close upon our heels, saying that she could not leave her baby, that
her breast cried for it. She had told the truth. If we did not believe
her story, we could kill her, but let her see her baby again. Her desire
was gratified, and no harm came to her. The ordinary stagnation of the
post had been interrupted during our absence by the advent of an
addition to the little circle of captives, and there was much curiosity
to get a good look at the little black-eyed mite which lay cuddled up in
the arms of its dusky mother.
I have purposely withheld mention of the only lady who shared the life
of Camp Grant with us—Mrs. Dodds, the wife of Doctor Dodds, our post
surgeon, or one of them, because we had two medical officers. She was of
a very sweet, gentle disposition, and never once murmured or complained,
but exerted herself to make the life of her husband as comfortable as
possible.
Their quarters had a very cosey look, and one would find it hard to
believe that those comfortable chairs were nothing but barrels sawed out
to shape and cushioned and covered with chintz. That lounge was merely a
few packing boxes concealed under blankets and mattresses. Everything
else in the apartment was on the same scale and made of corresponding
materials. There was a manifest determination to do much with little,
and much had been done.
Mrs. Dodds wore her honors as the belle of the garrison with becoming
graciousness and humility. She received in the kindest spirit the
efforts made by all of the rougher sex to render her stay among them
pleasant and, if possible, interesting. Not a day passed that did not
find her the recipient of some token of regard. It might not always be
the most appropriate sort of a thing, but that really made very little
difference. She accepted everything and tried to look as if each gift
had been the one for which she had been longing during her whole life.
She had a rattlesnake belt, made from one of the biggest and most
vicious reptiles ever seen in the vicinity. She had Apache baskets,
war-clubs, playing-cards, flutes, fiddles, and enough truck of the same
kind to load an army-wagon. The largest Gila monsters would have been
laid at her feet had she not distinctly and emphatically drawn the line
at Gila monsters. Tarantulas and centipedes, if properly bottled, were
not objectionable, but the Gila monster was more than she could stand,
and she so informed intending donors. She has been dead a number of
years, but it is hardly likely that she ever forgot until she drew her
last breath the days and weeks and months of her existence at Camp
Grant.
Our own stay at the delightful summer resort had come to an end. Orders
received from department headquarters transferred our troop to Tucson,
as being a more central location and nearer supplies. Lieutenant Cushing
was ordered to take the field and keep it until further orders, which
meant that he was to be free to roam as he pleased over any and all
sections of the territory infested by the Apaches, and to do the best he
could against them.
To a soldier of Cushing’s temperament this meant a great deal, and it is
needless to say that no better selection for such a duty could have been
made.
We were packed up and out of the post in such quick time that I do not
remember whether it was twelve hours or twenty-four. To be sure, we did
not have an immense amount of plunder to pack. None the less did we work
briskly to carry out orders and get away in the shortest time possible.
We had to leave one of our men in the hospital; he had accidentally shot
himself in the leg, and was now convalescing from the amputation. But
the rest were in the saddle and out on the road through the Santa
Catalina Cañon before you could say Jack Robinson.
And not altogether without regret. There was a bright side to the old
rookery, which shone all the more lustrously now that we were saying
farewell.
We had never felt lonesome by any means. There was always something
going on, always something to do, always something to see.
The sunrises were gorgeous to look upon at the hour for morning stables,
when a golden and rosy flush bathed the purple peaks of the Pinaleño,
and at eventide there were great banks of crimson and purple and golden
clouds in the western horizon which no painter would have dared depict
upon canvas.
There were opportunities for learning something about mineralogy in
the “wash” of the cañons, botany on the hill-sides, and insect life
and reptile life everywhere. Spanish could be picked up from Mexican
guides and packers, and much that was quaint and interesting in
savage life learned from an observation of the manners of the
captives—representatives of that race which the Americans have so
frequently fought, so generally mismanaged, and so completely failed
to understand.
There was much rough work under the hardest of conditions, and the best
school for learning how to care for men and animals in presence of a
sleepless enemy, which no amount of “book l’arnin’” could supply.
The distance from Old Camp Grant to Tucson, Arizona, over the
wagon-road, was fifty-five measured miles. The first half of the
journey, the first day’s march—as far as the Cañon del Oro—has already
been described. From the gloomy walls of the shady cañon, in which
tradition says gold was found in abundance in the earliest days of
occupation by the Caucasians, the wagons rolled rapidly over the
Eight-mile Mesa, over some slightly hilly and sandy country, until after
passing the Riito, when Tucson came in sight and the road became firmer.
All the way, on both sides of the road, and as far as eye could reach,
we had in sight the stately mescal, loaded with lovely velvety flowers;
the white-plumed Spanish bayonet, the sickly green palo verde, without a
leaf; the cholla, the nopal, the mesquite, whose “beans” were rapidly
ripening in the sultry sun, and the majestic “pitahaya,” or candelabrum
cactus, whose ruby fruit had long since been raided upon and carried off
by flocks of bright-winged humming-birds, than which no fairer or more
alert can be seen this side of Brazil. The “pitahaya” attains a great
height in the vicinity of Grant, Tucson, and MacDowell, and one which we
measured by its shadow was not far from fifty-five to sixty feet above
the ground.
On this march the curious rider could see much to be remembered all the
days of his life. Piles of loose stones heaped up by loving hands
proclaimed where the Apaches had murdered their white enemies. The
projection of a rude cross of mescal or Spanish bayonet stalks was
evidence that the victim was a Mexican, and a son of Holy Mother Church.
Its absence was no index of religious belief, but simply of the
nationality being American.
Of the weird, blood-chilling tales that were narrated as each of these
was passed I shall insert only one. It was the story, briefly told, of
two young men whose train had been attacked, whose comrades had been put
to flight, and who stood their ground resolutely until the arrows and
bullets of the foe had ended the struggle. When found, one of the bodies
was pierced with sixteen wounds, the other with fourteen.
On the left flank, or eastern side, the view was hemmed in for the whole
distance by the lofty, pine-clad Sierra Santa Catalina; but to the north
one could catch glimpses of the summit of the black Pinal; to the west
there was a view over the low-lying Tortolita clear to the dim, azure
outlines which, in the neighborhood of the Gila Bend, preserved in
commemorative mesa-top the grim features of Montezuma, as Mexican myth
fondly averred.
A little this side was the site of the “Casa Grande,” the old pile of
adobe, which has been quite as curious a ruin in the contemplation of
the irrepressible Yankee of modern days as it was to Coronado and his
followers when they approached it under the name of “Chichilticale” more
than three centuries and a half ago.
Still nearer was the “Picacho,” marking the line of the Great Southern
Mail road; at its base the ranch of Charlie Shibell, where the stages
changed teams and travellers stopped to take supper, the scene of as
many encounters with the Apaches as any other spot in the whole
Southwest. Follow along a little more to the left, and there comes the
Santa Teresa Range, just back of Tucson, and credited by rumors as
reliable as any ever brought by contraband during the war with being the
repository of fabulous wealth in the precious metals; but no one has yet
had the Aladdin’s lamp to rub and summon the obedient genii who would
disclose the secret of its location.
Far off to the south rises the glistening cone of the Baboquivari, the
sacred mountain in the centre of the country of the gentle Papagoes, and
on the east, as we get down nearer to the Riito, the more massive
outlines of the Santa Rita peak overshadowing the town of Tucson, and
the white, glaring roof of the beautiful mission ruin of San Xavier del
Bac.
Within this space marched the columns of the Coronado expedition, armed
to the teeth in all the panoply of grim war, and bent on destruction and
conquest; and here, too, plodded meek friar and learned priest, the sons
of Francis or of Loyola, armed with the irresistible weapons of the
Cross, the Rosary, and the Sacred Text, and likewise bent upon
destruction and conquest—the destruction of idols and the conquest of
souls.
These were no ordinary mortals, whom the imagination may depict as
droning over breviary or mumbling over beads. They were men who had, in
several cases at least, been eminent in civil pursuits before the
whispers of conscience bade them listen to the Divine command, “Give up
all and follow Me.” Eusebio Kino was professor of mathematics in the
University of Ingoldstadt, and had already made a reputation among the
scholars of Europe, when he relinquished his titles and position to
become a member of the order of Jesuits and seek a place in their
missionary ranks on the wildest of frontiers, where he, with his
companions, preached the word of God to tribes whose names even were
unknown in the Court of Madrid.
Of these men and their labors, if space allow, we may have something to
learn a chapter or two farther on. Just now I find that all my powers of
persuasion must be exerted to convince the readers who are still with me
that the sand “wash” in which we are floundering is in truth a river, or
rather a little river—the “Riito”—the largest confluent of the Santa
Cruz. Could you only arrange to be with me, you unbelieving Thomases,
when the deluging rains of the summer solstice rush madly down the
rugged face of the Santa Catalina and swell this dry sand-bed to the
dimensions of a young Missouri, all tales would be more easy for you to
swallow.
But here we are. That fringe of emerald green in the “bottom” is the
barley land surrounding Tucson; those gently waving cottonwoods outline
the shrivelled course of the Santa Cruz; those trees with the dark,
waxy-green foliage are the pomegranates behind Juan Fernandez’s corral.
There is the massive wall of the church of San Antonio now; we see
streets and houses, singly or in clusters, buried in shade or
unsheltered from the vertical glare of the most merciless of suns. Here
are pigs staked out to wallow in congenial mire—that is one of the
charming customs of the Spanish Southwest; and these—ah, yes, these are
dogs, unchained and running amuck after the heels of the horses, another
most charming custom of the country.
Here are “burros” browsing upon tin cans—still another institution of
the country—and here are the hens and chickens, and the houses of mud,
of one story, flat, cheerless, and monotonous were it not for the
crimson “rastras” of chile which, like mediæval banners, are flung to
the outer wall. And women, young and old, wrapped up in “rebosos” and
“tapalos,” which conceal all the countenance but the left eye; and men
enfolded in cheap poll-parrotty blankets of cotton, busy in leaning
against the door-posts and holding up the weight of “sombreros,” as
large in diameter as cart-wheels and surrounded by snakes of silver
bullion weighing almost as much as the wearers.
The horses are moving rapidly down the narrow street without prick of
spur. The wagons are creaking merrily, pulled by energetic mules, whose
efforts need not the urging of rifle-cracking whip in the hands of
skilful drivers. It is only because the drivers are glad to get to
Tucson that they explode the long, deadly black snakes, with which they
can cut a welt out of the flank or brush a fly from the belly of any
animal in their team. All the men are whistling or have broken out in
glad carol. Each heart is gay, for we have at last reached Tucson, the
commercial _entrepôt_ of Arizona and the remoter Southwest—Tucson, the
Mecca of the dragoon, the Naples of the desert, which one was to see and
die; Tucson, whose alkali pits yielded water sweeter than Well of
Zemzen, whose maidens were more charming, whose society was more
hospitable, merchants more progressive, magazines better stocked,
climate more dreamy, than any town from Santa Fé to Los Angeles; from
Hermosillo, in Sonora, to the gloomy chasm of the Grand Cañon—with one
exception only: its great rival, the thoroughly American town of
Prescott, in the bosom of the pine forests, amid the granite crags of
the foot-hills of the Mogollon.
Camp Lowell, as the military post was styled, was located on the eastern
edge of the town itself. In more recent years it has been moved seven or
eight miles out to where the Riito is a flowing stream. We took up
position close to the quartermaster’s corral, erected such tents as
could be obtained, and did much solid work in the construction of
“ramadas” and other conveniences of branches. As a matter of comfort,
all the unmarried officers boarded in the town, of which I shall
endeavor to give a succinct but perfectly fair description as it
impressed itself upon me during the months of our sojourn in the
intervals between scouts against the enemy, who kept our hands full.
My eyes and ears were open to the strange scenes and sounds which met
them on every side. Tucson was as foreign a town as if it were in Hayti
instead of within our own boundaries. The language, dress, funeral
processions, religious ceremonies, feasts, dances, games, joys, perils,
griefs, and tribulations of its population were something not to be
looked for in the region east of the Missouri River. I noted them all as
well as I knew how, kept my own counsel, and give now the _résumé_ of my
notes of the time.
The “Shoo Fly” restaurant, which offered the comforts of a home to the
weary wayfarer in Tucson, Arizona, circa 1869, was named on the
principle of “_lucus à non lucendo_”—the flies wouldn’t shoo worth a
cent. Like the poor, they remained always with us. But though they might
bedim the legend, “All meals payable in advance,” they could not destroy
the spirit of the legend, which was the principle upon which our most
charming of landladies, Mrs. Wallen, did business.
Mrs. Wallen deserves more than the hasty reference she is receiving in
these pages. She was a most attentive and well-meaning soul, understood
the mysteries, or some of the mysteries, of the culinary art, was
anxious to please, had never seen better days, and did not so much as
pretend to have seen any, not even through a telescope.
She was not a widow, as the proprieties demanded under the
circumstances—all landladies that I’ve ever read or heard of have been
widows—but the circumstance that there was a male attached to the name
of Wallen did not cut much of a figure in the case, as it was a
well-understood fact that Mrs. Wallen was a woman of nerve and bound to
have her own way in all things. Consequently, the bifurcated shadow
which flitted about in the corral feeding the chickens, or made its
appearance from time to time in the kitchen among the tomato peelings,
did not make a very lasting impression upon either the regulars or the
“mealers,” the two classes of patrons upon whose dollars our good
hostess depended for the support of her establishment.
One line only will be needed to lay before the reader the interior view
of the “Shoo Fly.” It was a long, narrow, low-ceiled room of adobe,
whose walls were washed in a neutral yellowish tint, whose floor was of
rammed earth and ceiling of white muslin. Place here and there, in
convenient positions, eight or ten tables of different sizes; cover them
with cheap cloths, cheap china and glass—I use the term “cheap” in
regard to quality only, and not in regard to the price, which had been
dear enough, as everything was in those days of freighting with mule and
“bull” teams from Leavenworth and Kit Carson. Place in the centre of
each table a lead castor with the obsolete yellow glass bottles; put one
large, cheap mirror on the wall facing the main entrance, and not far
from it a wooden clock, which probably served some mysterious purpose
other than time-keeping, because it was never wound up. Have pine
benches, and home-made chairs, with raw-hide bottoms fastened with
strings of the same material to the framework. Make the place look
decidedly neat and clean, notwithstanding the flies and the hot alkali
dust which penetrated upon the slightest excuse. Bring in two bright,
pleasant-mannered Mexican boys, whose dark complexions were well set off
by neat white cotton jackets and loose white cotton trousers, with
sometimes a colored sash about the waist. Give each of these young men a
fly-flapper as a badge of office, and the “Shoo Fly” is open for the
reception of guests.
Napkins designated the seats of the regular boarders. “Mealers” were not
entitled to such distinction and never seemed to expect it. There was no
bill of fare. None was needed. Boarders always knew what they were going
to get—same old thing. There never was any change during all the time of
my acquaintance with the establishment, which, after all is said and
done, certainly contrived to secure for its patrons all that the limited
market facilities of the day afforded. Beef was not always easy to
procure, but there was no lack of bacon, chicken, mutton, and kid meat.
Potatoes ranked as luxuries of the first class, and never sold for less
than ten cents a pound, and often could not be had for love or money.
The soil of Arizona south of the Gila did not seem to suit their growth,
but now that the Apaches have for nearly twenty years been docile in
northern Arizona, and left its people free from terror and anxiety, they
have succeeded in raising the finest “Murphies” in the world in the damp
lava soil of the swales upon the summit of the great Mogollon Plateau.
There was plenty of “jerked” beef, savory and palatable enough in stews
and hashes; eggs, and the sweet, toothsome black “frijoles” of Mexico;
tomatoes equal to those of any part of our country, and lettuce always
crisp, dainty, and delicious. For fresh fruit, our main reliance was
upon the “burro” trains coming up from the charming oasis of Hermosillo,
the capital of Sonora—a veritable garden of the Hesperides, in which
Nature was most lavish with her gifts of honey-juiced oranges, sweet
limes, lemons, edible quinces, and luscious apricots; but the apple, the
plum, and the cherry were unknown to us, and the strawberry only
occasionally seen.
Very frequently the presence of Apaches along the road would cause a
panic in trains coming up from the south, and then there would be a
fruit famine, during which our sole reliance would be upon the mainstay
of boarding-house prosperity—stewed peaches and prunes. There were two
other articles of food which could be relied upon with reasonable
certainty—the red beet, which in the “alkali” lands attains a great
size, and the black fig of Mexico, which, packed in ceroons of cow’s
hide, often was carried about for sale.
Chile Colorado entered into the composition of every dish, and great,
velvety-skinned, delicately flavored onions as large as dinner plates
ended the list—that is to say, the regular list. On some special
occasion there would be honey brought in from the Tia Juana Ranch in
Lower California, three or four hundred miles westward, and dried
shrimps from the harbor of Guaymas. In the harbor of Guaymas there are
oysters, too, and they are not bad, although small and a trifle coppery
to the taste of those who try them for the first time. Why we never had
any of them was, I suppose, on account of the difficulty of getting them
through in good condition without ice, so we had to be content with the
canned article, which was never any too good. From the Rio Grande in the
neighborhood of El Paso there came the “pasas,” or half-dried grape, in
whose praise too much could not be said.
The tables were of pine, of the simplest possible construction. All were
bad enough, but some were a trifle more rickety than others. The one
which wobbled the least was placed close to the north side of the
banqueting-hall, where the windows gave the best “view.”
Around this Belshazzarian board assembled people of such consideration
as Governor Safford, Lieutenant-Governor Bashford, Chief-Justice John
Titus, Attorney-General MacCaffrey, the genial Joe Wasson, Tom Ewing,
and several others. I was on a number of occasions honored with a seat
among them, and enjoyed at one and the same moment their conversation
and the “view” of which I have spoken.
There was a foreground of old tin tomato cans, and a middle distance of
chicken feathers and chile peppers, with a couple of “burros” in the dim
perspective, and the requisite flitting of lights and shadows in the
foliage of one stunted mesquite-bush, which sheltered from the vertical
rays of the sun the crouching form of old Juanita, who was energetically
pounding between smooth stones the week’s washing of the household, and
supplying in the gaudy stripes of her bright “serape” the amount of
color which old-school critics used to maintain was indispensable to
every landscape.
Juanita was old and discreet, but her thoughts were not altogether on
the world to come. Her face was ordinarily plastered with flour-paste,
the cosmetic of the Southwest. Why this attention to her toilet, the
wisest failed to tell; Often did I assure her that nothing could improve
her complexion—a statement not to be controverted—and never did she fail
to rebuke me with her most bewitching smile, and the words, “Ah! Don
Juan, you’re such a flatterer.”
The gentlemen whose names I have just given are nearly all dead or so
well advanced in years and dignity that what I have to say now will not
sound like flattery. They had each and all travelled over a great deal
of the earth’s surface, and several of them were scholars of ripe
learning. I was much younger then than I am now, and of course the
attainments of men so much older than myself made a deep impression upon
me, but even to this day I would place the names of Titus and Bashford
in the list of scholars of erudition whom I have known, and very high up
in the list, too.
The remainder of the patrons seemed to be about evenly divided between
the cynical grumblers who, having paid their score with regularity,
arrogated to themselves the right to asperse the viands; and the
eulogists who, owing to temporary financial embarrassments, were unable
to produce receipts, and sought to appease their not by any means too
hard-hearted landlady by the most fulsome adulation of the table and its
belongings.
Like the brokers of Wall Street who are bulls to-day and bears
to-morrow, it not infrequently happened among the “Shoo Fly’s” patrons
that the most obdurate growler of last week changed front and assumed
position as the Advocatus Diaboli of this.
But, take them for all in all, they were a good-hearted, whole-souled
lot of men, who had roughed it and smoothed it in all parts of the
world, who had basked in the smiles of Fortune and had not winced at her
frown; a trifle too quick on the trigger, perhaps, some of them, to be
perfectly well qualified to act as Sunday-school superintendents, yet
generous to the comrade in distress and polite to all who came near
them. The Western man—the Pacific Sloper especially—is much more urbane
and courteous under such circumstances than his neighbor who has grown
up on the banks of the Delaware or Hudson. There was bitter rivalry
between Mrs. Wallen and Mr. Neugass, the proprietor of the “Palace”—a
rivalry which diffused itself among their respective adherents.
I make the statement simply to preserve the record of the times, that
the patrons of the “Shoo Fly” never let go an opportunity to insinuate
that the people to be met at the “Palace” were, to a large extent,
composed of the “_nouveaux riches_.” There was not the slightest
foundation for this, as I can testify, because I afterward sat at
Neugass’s tables, when Mrs. Wallen had retired from business and gone
into California, and can recall no difference at all in the character of
the guests.
Tucson enjoyed the singular felicity of not possessing anything in the
shape of a hotel. Travellers coming to town, and not provided with
letters which would secure them the hospitality of private houses,
craved the privilege of “making down” their blankets in the most
convenient corral, and slept till early morn, undisturbed save by the
barking of dogs, which never ceased all through the night, or the
crowing of loud-voiced chanticleers, which began ere yet the dawn had
signalled with its first rosy flush from the peak of the Santa Rita. It
was the customary thing for wagon trains to halt and go into camp in the
middle of the plaza in front of the cathedral church of San Antonio, and
after the oxen or mules had been tied to the wheels, the drivers would
calmly proceed to stretch out tired limbs in the beautiful moonlight.
I never could see the advantage of such a state of affairs, and felt
that it belittled the importance of the town, which really did a very
large business with the surrounding country for hundreds of miles. There
are always two and even three different ways of looking at the same
proposition, and to Bob Crandall and Vet Mowry this manner of camping
“_à la belle étoile_” was the one thing “to which they pointed with
pride.” It was proof of the glorious climate enjoyed by Tucson. Where
else in the whole world, sir, could a man camp out night after night all
the year round? Was it in Senegambia? No, sir. In Nova Zembla? No, sir.
In Hong Kong? No, sir. In Ireland?—but by this time one could cut off
the button, if necessary, and break away.
So there were only three places in which people could get acquainted
with one another—in the “Shoo Fly” or “Palace” restaurants; in the
gambling resorts, which never closed, night or day, Sunday or Monday;
and at the post-office, in the long line of Mexicans and Americans
slowly approaching the little square window to ask for letters.
For the convenience of my readers and myself, I will take the liberty of
presenting some of my dead and gone friends in the “Shoo Fly,” where we
can have seats upon which to rest, and tables upon which to place our
elbows, if we so desire.
But first a word or two more about Tucson itself.
It was in those days the capital of the Territory of Arizona, and the
place of residence of most of the Federal officials. Its geographical
situation was on the right bank of the pretty little stream called the
Santa Cruz, a mile or more above where it ran into the sands. In round
figures, it was on the 32d degree of north latitude, and not far from
the 112th degree west from Greenwich. The valley of the Santa Cruz,
although not much over a mile and a half wide, is wonderfully fertile,
and will yield bountifully of all cereals, as well as of the fruits of
the south temperate or north tropical climes, and could easily have
supported a much larger population, but on account of the bitter and
unrelenting hostilities waged by the Apaches, not more than 3,200 souls
could be claimed, although enthusiasts often deluded themselves into a
belief in much higher figures, owing to the almost constant presence of
trains of wagons hauled by patient oxen or quick-moving mules, or
“carretas” drawn by the philosophical donkey or “burro” from Sonora. The
great prairie-schooners all the way from the Missouri River made a very
imposing appearance, as, linked two, and even three, together, they
rolled along with their heavy burdens, to unload at the warehouses of
the great merchants, Lord & Williams, Tully, Ochoa & De Long, the
Zeckendorfs, Fish & Collingwood, Leopoldo Carrillo, or other of the men
of those days whose transactions ran each year into the hundreds of
thousands of dollars.
Streets and pavements there were none; lamps were unheard of; drainage
was not deemed necessary, and water, when not bought from the old
Mexican who hauled it in barrels in a dilapidated cart from the cool
spring on the bishop’s farm, was obtained from wells, which were good
and sweet in the first months of their career, but generally became so
impregnated with “alkali” that they had to be abandoned; and as lumber
was worth twenty-five cents a foot, and therefore too costly to be used
in covering them, they were left to dry up of their own accord, and
remain a menace to the lives and limbs of belated pedestrians. There was
no hint in history or tradition of a sweeping of the streets, which were
every bit as filthy as those of New York.
The age of the garbage piles was distinctly defined by geological
strata. In the lowest portion of all one could often find arrowheads and
stone axes, indicative of a pre-Columbian origin; super-imposed
conformably over these, as the geologists used to say, were skins of
chile Colorado, great pieces of rusty spurs, and other reliquiæ of the
“Conquistadores,” while high above all, stray cards, tomato cans, beer
bottles, and similar evidences of a higher and nobler civilization told
just how long the Anglo-Saxon had called the territory his own.
This filthy condition of the streets gave rise to a weird system of
topographical designation. “You want to find the Governor’s? Wa’al,
podner, jest keep right down this yere street past the Palace s’loon,
till yer gets ter the second manure-pile on yer right; then keep to yer
left past the post-office, ’n’ yer’ll see a dead burro in th’ middle of
th’ road, ’n’ a mesquite tree ’n yer lef’, near a Mexican ‘tendajon’
(small store), ’n’ jes’ beyond that’s the Gov.’s outfit. Can’t miss it.
Look out fur th’ dawg down ter Muñoz’s corral; he’s a salviated son ov a
gun.”
It took some time for the ears of the “tenderfoot” just out from the
States to become habituated to the chronology of that portion of our
vast domain. One rarely heard months, days, or weeks mentioned. The
narrator of a story had a far more convenient method of referring back
to dates in which his auditory might be interested. “Jes’ about th’ time
Pete Kitchen’s ranch was jumped”—which wasn’t very satisfactory, as Pete
Kitchen’s ranch was always getting “jumped.” “Th’ night afore th’
Maricopa stage war tuck in.” “A week or two arter Winters made his last
’killin’’ in th’ Dragoons.” “Th’ last fight down to th’ Picach.” “Th’
year th’ Injuns run off Tully, Ochoa ’n’ DeLong bull teams.”
Or, under other aspects of the daily life of the place, there would be
such references as, “Th’ night after Duffield drawed his gun on Jedge
Titus”—a rather uncertain reference, since Duffield was always “drawin’
his gun” on somebody. “Th’ time of th’ feast (_i.e._, of Saint
Augustine, the patron saint of the town), when Bob Crandall broke th’
‘Chusas’ game fur six hundred dollars,” and other expressions of similar
tenor, which replaced the recollections of “mowing time,” and “harvest,”
and “sheep-shearing” of older communities.
Another strain upon the unduly excitable brain lay in the impossibility
of learning exactly how many miles it was to a given point. It wasn’t
“fifty miles,” or “sixty miles,” or “just a trifle beyond the Cienaga,
and that’s twenty-five miles,” but rather, “Jes’ on th’ rise of the mesa
as you git to th’ place whar Samaniego’s train stood off th’ Apaches;”
or, “A little yan way from whar they took in Colonel Stone’s stage;” or,
“Jes’ whar th’ big ‘killin’’ tuk place on th’ long mesa,” and much more
of the same sort.
There were watches and clocks in the town, and some Americans went
through the motions of consulting them at intervals. So far as influence
upon the community went, they might just as well have been in the bottom
of the Red Sea. The divisions of the day were regulated and determined
by the bells which periodically clanged in front of the cathedral
church. When they rang out their wild peal for early Mass, the little
world by the Santa Cruz rubbed its eyes, threw off the slight covering
of the night, and made ready for the labors of the day. The alarm clock
of the Gringo might have been sounding for two hours earlier, but not
one man, woman, or child would have paid the slightest attention to the
cursed invention of Satan. When the Angelus tolled at meridian, all made
ready for the noon-day meal and the post-prandial siesta; and when the
hour of vespers sounded, adobes dropped from the palsied hands of
listless workmen, and docile Papagoes, wrapping themselves in their
pieces of “manta” or old “rebosos,” turned their faces southward,
mindful of the curfew signal learned from the early missionaries.
They were a singular people, the Papagoes; honest, laborious, docile,
sober, and pure—not an improper character among them. Only one white man
had ever been allowed to marry into the tribe—Buckskin Aleck Stevens, of
Cambridge, Mass., and that had to be a marriage with bell, book, and
candle and every formality to protect the bride.
I do not know anything about the Papagoes of to-day, and am prepared to
hear that they have sadly degenerated. The Americans have had twenty
years in which to corrupt them, and the intimacy can hardly have been to
the advantage of the red man.