THE DIVERSIONS OF TUCSON—THE GAMBLING SALOONS—BOB CRANDALL AND HIS
DIAMOND—“SLAP-JACK BILLY”—TIGHT-ROPE WALKERS—THE THEATRE—THE
DUEÑAS—BAILES—THE NEWSPAPERS—STAGE-DRIVERS.
It has been shown that Tucson had no hotels. She did not need any at the
time of which I am writing, as her floating population found all the
ease and comfort it desired in the flare and glare of the gambling
hells, which were bright with the lustre of smoking oil lamps and gay
with the varicolored raiment of moving crowds, and the music of harp and
Pan’s pipes. In them could be found nearly every man in the town at some
hour of the day or night, and many used them as the Romans did their
“Thermæ”—as a place of residence.
All nationalities, all races were represented, and nearly all conditions
of life. There were cadaverous-faced Americans, and Americans whose
faces were plump; men in shirt sleeves, and men who wore their coats as
they would have done in other places; there were Mexicans wrapped in the
red, yellow, and black striped cheap “serapes,” smoking the inevitable
cigarrito, made on the spot by rolling a pinch of tobacco in a piece of
corn shuck; and there were other Mexicans more thoroughly Americanized,
who were clad in the garb of the people of the North. Of Chinese and
negroes there were only a few—they had not yet made acquaintance to any
extent with that section of our country; but their place was occupied by
civilized Indians, Opatas, Yaquis, and others, who had come up with
“bull” teams and pack trains from Sonora. The best of order prevailed,
there being no noise save the hum of conversation or the click of the
chips on the different tables. Tobacco smoke ascended from cigarritos,
pipes, and the vilest of cigars, filling all the rooms with the foulest
of odors. The bright light from the lamps did not equal the steely glint
in the eyes of the “bankers,” who ceaselessly and imperturbably dealt
out the cards from faro boxes, or set in motion the balls in roulette.
There used to be in great favor among the Mexicans, and the Americans,
too, for that matter, a modification of roulette called “chusas,” which
never failed to draw a cluster of earnest players, who would remain by
the tables until the first suggestion of daylight. High above the squeak
of Pan’s pipes or the plinkety-plink-plunk of the harps sounded the
voice of the “banker:” “Make yer little bets, gents; make yer little
bets; all’s set, the game’s made, ’n’ th’ ball’s a-rollin’.” Blue chips,
red chips, white chips would be stacked high upon cards or numbers, as
the case might be, but all eventually seemed to gravitate into the maw
of the bank, and when, for any reason, the “game” flagged in energy,
there would be a tap upon the bell by the dealer’s side, and “drinks all
round” be ordered at the expense of the house.
It was a curious exhibit of one of the saddest passions of human nature,
and a curious jumble of types which would never press against each other
elsewhere. Over by the faro bank, in the corner, stood Bob Crandall, a
faithful wooer of the fickle goddess Chance. He was one of the
handsomest men in the Southwest, and really endowed with many fine
qualities; he had drifted away from the restraints of home life years
ago, and was then in Tucson making such a livelihood as he could pick up
as a gambler, wasting brain and attainments which, if better applied,
would have been a credit to himself and his country.
The beautiful diamond glistening upon Bob Crandall’s breast had a
romantic history. I give it as I remember it:
During the months that Maximilian remained in Mexico there was a French
brigade stationed at the two towns of Hermosillo and Magdalena, in
Sonora. Desertions were not rare, and, naturally enough, the fugitives
made their way when they could across the boundary into the United
States, which maintained a by no means dubious attitude in regard to the
foreign occupation.
One of these deserters approached Crandall on the street, and asked him
for assistance to enable him to get to San Francisco. He had a stone
which he believed was of great value, which was part of the plunder
coming to him when he and some comrades had looted the hacienda of an
affluent Mexican planter. He would sell this for four hundred
francs—eighty dollars.
Crandall was no judge of gems, but there was something so brilliant
about the bauble offered to him that he closed the bargain and paid over
the sum demanded by the stranger, who took his departure and was seen no
more. Four or five years afterward Crandall was making some purchases in
a jewellery store in San Francisco, when the owner, happening to see the
diamond he was wearing, inquired whether he would be willing to sell it,
and offered fifteen hundred dollars cash for the gem which had been so
lightly regarded. Nothing further was ever learned of its early
ownership, and it is likely enough that its seizure was only one
incident among scores that might be related of the French occupation—not
seizures by the foreigners altogether, but those made also by the
bandits with whom the western side of the republic swarmed for a time.
There was one poor wretch who could always be seen about the tables; he
never played, never talked to any one, and seemed to take no particular
interest in anything or anybody. What his name was no one knew or cared;
all treated him kindly, and anything he wished for was supplied by the
charity or the generosity of the frequenters of the gaming-tables. He
was a trifle “off,” but perfectly harmless; he had lost all the brain he
ever had through fright in an Apache ambuscade, and had never recovered
his right mind. The party to which he belonged had been attacked not far
from Davidson’s Springs, but he was one of those who had escaped, or at
least he thought he had until he heard the “swish” and felt the pull of
the noose of a lariat which a young Apache hiding behind a sage-brush
had dexterously thrown across his shoulders. The Mexican drew his
ever-ready knife, slashed the raw-hide rope in two, and away he flew on
the road to Tucson, never ceasing to spur his mule until both of them
arrived, trembling, covered with dust and lather, and scared out of
their wits, and half-dead, within sight of the green cottonwoods on the
banks of the Santa Cruz.
Then one was always sure to meet men like old Jack Dunn, who had
wandered about in all parts of the world, and has since done such
excellent work as a scout against the Chiricahua Apaches. I think that
Jack is living yet, but am not certain. If he is, it will pay some
enterprising journalist to hunt him up and get a few of his stories out
of him; they’ll make the best kind of reading for people who care to
hear of the wildest days on the wildest of frontiers. And there were
others—men who have passed away, men like James Toole, one of the first
mayors of Tucson, who dropped in, much as I myself did, to see what was
to be seen. Opposed as I am to gambling, no matter what protean guise it
may assume, I should do the gamblers of Tucson the justice to say that
they were as progressive an element as the town had. They always had
plank floors, where every other place was content with the bare earth
rammed hard, or with the curious mixture of river sand, bullock’s blood,
and cactus juice which hardened like cement and was used by some of the
more opulent. But with the exception of the large wholesale firms, and
there were not over half a dozen of them all told, the house of the
governor, and a few—a very few—private residences of people like the
Carillos, Sam Hughes, Hiram Stevens, and Aldrich, who desired comfort,
there were no wooden floors to be seen in that country.
The gaming establishments were also well supplied with the latest
newspapers from San Francisco, Sacramento, and New York, and to these
all who entered, whether they played or not, were heartily welcome.
Sometimes, but not very often, there would be served up about midnight a
very acceptable lunch of “frijoles,” coffee, or chocolate, “chile con
carne,” “enchiladas,” and other dishes, all hot and savory, and all
thoroughly Mexican. The flare of the lamps was undimmed, the
plinkety-plunk of the harps was unchecked, and the voice of the dealer
was abroad in the land from the setting of the sun until the rising of
the same, and until that tired luminary had again sunk to rest behind
the purple caps of the Santa Teresa, and had again risen rejuvenated to
gladden a reawakened earth with his brightest beams. Sunday or Monday,
night or day, it made no difference—the game went on; one dealer taking
the place of another with the regularity, the precision, and the
stolidity of a sentinel.
“Isn’t it ra-a-a-ther late for you to be open?” asked the tenderfoot
arrival from the East, as he descended from the El Paso stage about four
o’clock one morning, and dragged himself to the bar to get something to
wash the dust out of his throat.
“Wa-a-al, it _is_ kinder late fur th’ night afore last,” genially
replied the bartender; “but ’s jest ’n th’ shank o’ th’ evenin’ fur
t’-night.”
It was often a matter of astonishment to me that there were so few
troubles and rows in the gambling establishments of Tucson. They did
occur from time to time, just as they might happen anywhere else, but
not with sufficient frequency to make a feature of the life of the
place.
Once what threatened to open up as a most serious affair had a very
ridiculous termination. A wild-eyed youth, thoroughly saturated with
“sheep-herder’s delight” and other choice vintages of the country, made
his appearance in the bar of “Congress Hall,” and announcing himself as
“Slap-jack Billy, the Pride of the Pan-handle,” went on to inform a
doubting world that he could whip his weight in “b’ar-meat”—
“Fur ber-lud’s mee color,
I kerries mee corfin on mee back,
’N’ th’ hummin’ o’ pistol-balls, bee jingo,
Is me-e-e-u-u-sic in mee ears.” (Blank, blank, blank.)
Thump! sounded the brawny fist of “Shorty” Henderson, and down went Ajax
struck by the offended lightning. When he came to, the “Pride of the
Pan-handle” had something of a job in rubbing down the lump about as big
as a goose-egg which had suddenly and spontaneously grown under his left
jaw; but he bore no malice and so expressed himself.
“Podners (blank, blank, blank), this ’ere’s the most sociablest crowd I
ever struck; let’s all hev a drink.”
If the reader do not care for such scenes, he can find others perhaps
more to his liking in the various amusements which, under one pretext or
another, extracted all the loose change of the town. The first, in
popular estimation, were the “maromas,” or tight-rope walkers and
general acrobats, who performed many feats well deserving of the praise
lavished upon them by the audience. Ever since the days of Cortés the
Mexicans have been noted for gymnastic dexterity; it is a matter of
history that Cortés, upon returning to Europe, took with him several of
the artists in this line, whose agility and cunning surprised those who
saw them perform in Spain and Italy.
There were trained dogs and men who knew how to make a barrel roll up or
down an inclined plane. All these received a due share of the homage of
their fellow-citizens, but nothing to compare to the enthusiasm which
greeted the advent of the genuine “teatro.” That was _the_ time when all
Tucson turned out to do honor to the wearers of the buskin. If there was
a man, woman, or child in the old pueblo who wasn’t seated on one of the
cottonwood saplings which, braced upon other saplings, did duty as
benches in the corral near the quartermaster’s, it was because that man,
woman, or child was sick, or in jail. It is astonishing how much
enjoyment can be gotten out of life when people set about the task in
dead earnest.
There were gross violations of all the possibilities, of all the
congruities, of all the unities in the play, “Elena y Jorge,” presented
to an appreciative public the first evening I saw the Mexican strolling
heavy-tragedy company in its glory. But what cared we? The scene was
lighted by bon-fires, by great torches of wood, and by the row of
smoking foot-lights running along the front of the little stage.
The admission was regulated according to a peculiar plan: for Mexicans
it was fifty cents, but for Americans, one dollar, because the Americans
had more money. Another unique feature was the concentration of all the
small boys in the first row, closest to the actors, and the clowns who
were constantly running about, falling head over heels over the
youngsters, and in other ways managing to keep the audience in the best
of humor during the rather long intervals between the acts.
The old ladies who sat bunched up on the seats a little farther in rear
seemed to be more deeply moved by the trials of the heroine than the men
or boys, who continued placidly to puff cigarettes or munch sweet
quinces, as their ages and tastes dictated. It was a most harrowing,
sanguinary play. The plot needs very few words. Elena, young, beautiful,
rich, patriotic; old uncle, miser, traitor, mercenary, anxious to sell
lovely heiress to French officer for gold; French officer, coward, liar,
poltroon, steeped in every crime known to man, anxious to wed lovely
heiress for her money alone; Jorge, young, beautiful, brave,
conscientious, an expert in the art of war, in love with heiress for her
own sweet sake, but kept from her side by the wicked uncle and his own
desire to drive the last cursed despot from the fair land of his
fathers.
(Dirge, by the orchestra; cries of “Muere!” (_i.e._, May he die! or, Let
him die!) from the semi-circle of boys, who ceased work upon their
quinces “for this occasion only.”)
I despised that French officer, and couldn’t for the life of me
understand how any nation, no matter how depraved, could afford to keep
such a creature upon its military rolls. I don’t think I ever heard any
one utter in the same space of time more thoroughly villainous
sentiments than did that man, and I was compelled, as a matter of
principle, to join with the “muchachos” in their chorus of “Muere!”
As for Doña Elena, the way she let that miserable old uncle see that his
schemes were understood, and that never, never, would she consent to
become the bride of a traitor and an invader, was enough to make Sarah
Bernhardt turn green with envy.
And Jorge—well, Jorge was not idle. There he was all the time, concealed
behind a barrel or some other very inadequate cover, listening to every
word uttered by the wicked old uncle, the mercenary French officer, and
the dauntless Helen. He was continually on the go, jumping out from his
concealment, taking the hand of his adored one, telling her his love,
but always interrupted by the sudden return of the avuncular villain or
the foe of his bleeding country. It is all over at last; the curtain
rings down, and the baffled Gaul has been put to flight; the guards are
dragging the wretched uncle off to the calaboose, and Jorge and his best
girl entwine themselves in each other’s arms amid thunders of applause.
Then the payazo, or clown, comes to the front, waving the red, white,
and green colors of the Mexican republic, and chanting a song in which
the doings of the invaders are held up to obloquy and derision.
Everybody would be very hungry by this time, and the old crones who made
a living by selling hot suppers to theatre-goers reaped their harvest.
The wrinkled dames whose faces had been all tears only a moment ago over
the woes of Elena were calm, happy, and voracious. Plate after plate of
steaming hot “enchiladas” would disappear down their throats, washed
down by cups of boiling coffee or chocolate; or perhaps appetite
demanded “tamales” and “tortillas,” with plates of “frijoles” and “chile
con carne.”
“Enchiladas” and “tamales” are dishes of Aztec origin, much in vogue on
the south side of the Rio Grande and Gila. The former may be described
as corn batter cakes, dipped in a stew of red chile, with tomato,
cheese, and onions chopped fine.
“Tamales” are chopped meat—beef, pork, or chicken, or a mixture of all
three—combined with corn-meal and rolled up in husks and boiled or
baked. Practically, they are croquettes. These dishes are delicious, and
merit an introduction to American tables. No one can deny that when a
Mexican agrees to furnish a hot supper, the hot supper will be
forthcoming. What caloric cannot be supplied by fuel is derived from
chile, red pepper, with white pepper, green, and a trifle of black,
merely to show that the cook has no prejudices on account of color.
The banquet may not have been any too grand, out in the open air, but
the gratitude of the bright-eyed, sweet-voiced young señoritas who
shared it made it taste delicious. Tucson etiquette in some things was
ridiculously strict, and the occasions when young ladies could go, even
in parties, with representatives of the opposite sex were few and far
between—and all the more appreciated when they did come.
If ever there was created a disagreeable feature upon the fair face of
nature, it was the Spanish dueña. All that were to be met in those days
in southern Arizona seemed to be possessed of an unaccountable aversion
to the mounted service. No flattery would put them in good humor, no
cajolery would blind them, intimidation was thrown away. There they
would sit, keeping strict, dragon-like watch over the dear little
creatures who responded to the names of Anita, Victoria, Concepcion,
Guadalupe, or Mercedes, and preventing conversation upon any subject
excepting the weather, in which we became so expert that it is a wonder
the science of meteorology hasn’t made greater advances than it has
during the past two decades.
The bull fight did not get farther west than El Paso. Tucson never had
one that I have heard of, and very little in the way of out-door “sport”
beyond chicken fights, which were often savage and bloody. The rapture
with which the feminine heart welcomed the news that a “baile” was to be
given in Tucson equalled the pleasure of the ladies of Murray Hill or
Beacon Street upon the corresponding occasions in their localities. To
be sure, the ceremony of the Tucson affairs was of the meagrest. The
rooms were wanting in splendor, perhaps in comfort—but the music was on
hand, and so were the ladies, young and old, and their cavaliers, and
all hands would manage to have the best sort of a time. The ball-room
was one long apartment, with earthen floor, having around its sides low
benches, and upon its walls a few cheap mirrors and half a dozen candles
stuck to the adobe by melted tallow, a bit of moist clay, or else held
in tin sconces, from which they emitted the sickliest light upon the
heads and forms of the highly colored saints whose pictures were to be
seen in the most eligible places. If the weather happened to be chilly
enough in the winter season, a petty fire would be allowed to blaze in
one of the corners, but, as a general thing, this was not essential.
The summer climate of Tucson is sultry, and the heat will often run up
as high as 120° Fahr.; the fall months are dangerous from malaria, and
the springs disagreeable from sand storms, but the winters are
incomparable. Neither Italy nor Spain can compare with southern Arizona
in balminess of winter climate, and I know of no place in the whole
world superior to Tucson as a sanitarium for nervous and pulmonary
diseases, from November to March, when the patient can avoid the
malaria-breeding fall months and the disagreeable sand storms of the
early spring.
The nights in Tucson during the greater part of the year are so cool
that blankets are agreeable covering for sleepers. There are times in
Tucson, as during the summer of 1870, when for more than a week the
thermometer never indicates lower than 98° by day or night. And there
are localities, like forts or camps—as they were then styled—Grant,
MacDowell, Mojave, Yuma, Beale’s Springs, Verde, and Date Creek, where
this rule of excessive and prolonged heat never seemed to break. The
winter nights of Tucson are cold and bracing, but it is a dry cold,
without the slightest suggestion of humidity, and rarely does the
temperature fall much below the freezing-point.
The moment you passed the threshold of the ball-room in Tucson you had
broken over your head an egg-shell filled either with cologne of the
most dubious reputation or else with finely cut gold and silver paper.
This custom, preserved in this out-of-the-way place, dates back to the
“Carnestolends” or Shrove-Tuesday pranks of Spain and Portugal, when the
egg was really broken over the head of the unfortunate wight and the
pasty mass covered over with flour.
Once within the ball-room there was no need of being presented to any
one. The etiquette of the Spaniards is very elastic, and is based upon
common sense. Every man who is good enough to be invited to enter the
house of a Mexican gentleman is good enough to enter into conversation
with all the company he may meet there.
Our American etiquette is based upon the etiquette of the English. Ever
since King James, the mild-mannered lunatic, sold his orders of nobility
to any cad who possessed the necessary six thousand pounds to pay for an
entrance into good society, the aristocracy of England has been going
down-hill, and what passes with it for manners is the code of the
promoted plutocrat, whose ideas would find no place with the Spaniards,
who believe in “_sangre azul_” or nothing. There was very little
conversation between the ladies and the gentlemen, because the ladies
preferred to cluster together and discuss the neighbors who hadn’t been
able to come, or explain the details of dresses just made or to be made.
Gentlemen invited whom they pleased to dance, and in the intervals
between the figures there might be some very weak attempt at
conversation, but that was all, except the marching of the gentle female
up to the counter and buying her a handkerchief full of raisins or
candies, which she carefully wrapped up and carried home with her, in
accordance with a custom which obtained among the Aztecs and also among
their Spanish conquerors, and really had a strong foothold in good old
England itself, from which latter island it did not disappear until A.D.
1765.
While the language of conversation was entirely Spanish, the figures
were called off in English, or what passed for English in those days in
Arizona: “Ally man let ’n’ all shassay;” “Bal’nce t’ yer podners ’n’ all
han’s roun’;” “Dozydozy-chaat ’n’ swing.”
What lovely times we used to have! What enchanting music from the Pan’s
pipes, the flute, the harp, the bass-drum, and the bull-fiddle all going
at once! How lovely the young ladies were! How bright the rooms were
with their greasy lamps or their candles flickering from the walls! It
can hardly be possible that twenty years and more have passed away, yet
there are the figures in the almanac which cannot lie.
After the “baile” was over, the rule was for the younger participants to
take the music and march along the streets to the houses of the young
ladies who had been prevented from attending, and there, under the
window, or, rather, in front of the window—because all the houses were
of one story, and a man could not get under the windows unless he
crawled on hands and knees—pour forth their souls in a serenade.
The Spanish serenader, to judge him by his songs, is a curious blending
of woe and despair, paying court to a damsel whose heart is colder than
the crystalline ice that forms in the mountains. The worst of it all is,
the young woman, whose charms of person are equalled by the charms of
her mind, does not seem to care a rush what becomes of the despairing
songster, who threatens to go away forever, to sail on unknown seas, to
face the nameless perils of the desert, if his suit be not at once
recognized by at least one frosty smile. But at the first indication of
relenting on the part of the adored one, the suitor suddenly recollects
that he cannot possibly stand the fervor of her glance, which rivals the
splendor of the sun, and, accordingly, he begs her not to look upon him
with those beautiful orbs, as he has concluded to depart forever and
sing his woes in distant lands. Having discharged this sad duty at the
windows of Doña Anita Fulana, the serenaders solemnly progress to the
lattice of Doña Mercedes de Zutana, and there repeat the same
heart-rending tale of disappointed affection.
It was always the same round of music, taken in the same series—“La
Paloma,” “Golondrina,” and the rest. I made a collection of some twenty
of these ditties or madrigals, and was impressed with the poetic fervor
and the absolute lack of common sense shown in them all, which is the
best evidence that as love songs they will bear comparison with any that
have ever been written. The music in many cases was excellent, although
the execution was with very primitive instruments. I do not remember a
single instance where the fair one made the least sign of approval or
pleasure on account of such serenades, and I suppose that the Mexican
idea is that she should not, because if there is a polite creature in
the world it is the Mexican woman, no matter of what degree.
The most tender strains evoked no response, and the young man, or men,
as the case might be, could have held on until morning and sung himself
or themselves into pneumonia for all the young lady seemed to care.
“No me mires con esos tus ojos,
(Fluke-fluky-fluke; plink, planky-plink.)
“Mas hermosos que el sol en el cielo,
(Plinky-plink; plinky-plink.)
“Que me mires de dicha y consuelo,
(Fluky-fluky-fluke; plink-plink.)
“Que me mata! que me mata! tu mirar.”
(Plinky-plink, fluky-fluke; plinky-plink; fluke-fluke.)
But it is morning now, and the bells are clanging for first mass, and we
had better home and to bed. Did we so desire we could enter the church,
but as there is much to be said in regard to the different feasts, which
occurred at different seasons and most acceptably divided the year, we
can leave that duty unfulfilled for the present and give a few brief
sentences to the christenings and funerals, which were celebrated under
our observation.
The Mexicans used to attach a great deal of importance to the naming of
their children, and when the day for the christening had arrived,
invitations scattered far and near brought together all the relatives
and friends of the family, who most lavishly eulogized the youngster,
and then partook of a hearty collation, which was the main feature of
the entertainment.
Funerals, especially of children, were generally without coffins, owing
to the great scarcity of lumber, and nearly always with music at the
head of the procession, which slowly wended its way to the church to the
measure of plaintive melody.
Birthdays were not observed, but in their stead were kept the days of
the saints of the same name. For example, all the young girls named
Anita would observe Saint Ann’s day, without regard to the date of their
own birth, and so with the Guadalupes and Francescas and others.
I should not omit to state that there were whole blocks of houses in
Tucson which did not have a single nail in them, but had been
constructed entirely of adobes, with all parts of the wooden framework
held together by strips of raw-hide.
Yet in these comfortless abodes, which did not possess ten dollars’
worth of furniture, one met with charming courtesy from old and young.
“Ah! happy the eyes that gaze upon thee,” was the form of salutation to
friends who had been absent for a space—“Dichosos los ojos que ven a V.”
“Go thou with God,” was the gentle mode of saying farewell, to which the
American guest would respond, as he shifted the revolvers on his hip and
adjusted the quid of tobacco in his mouth: “Wa-al, I reckon I’ll git.”
But the Mexican would arrange the folds of his serape, bow most
politely, and say: “Ladies, I throw myself at your feet”—“À los pies de
VV., señoritas.”
Thus far there has been no mention of that great lever of public
opinion—the newspaper. There was one of which I will now say a word, and
a few months later, in the spring of 1870, the town saw a second
established, of which a word shall be said in its turn. The _Weekly
Arizonian_ was a great public journal, an organ of public opinion,
managed by Mr. P. W. Dooner, a very able editor.
It was the custom in those days to order the acts and resolutions of
Congress to be published in the press of the remoter Territories, thus
enabling the settlers on the frontier to keep abreast of legislation,
especially such as more immediately affected their interests. Ordinarily
the management of the paper went no farther than the supervision of the
publication of such acts, bills, etc.; and the amount of outside
information finding an outlet in the scattered settlements of Arizona
and New Mexico was extremely small, and by no means recent. With a few
exceptions, all the journals of those days were printed either in
Spanish alone, or half in Spanish and half in English, the exceptions
being sheets like the _Miner_, of Prescott, Arizona, which from the
outset maintained the principle that our southwestern territories should
be thoroughly Americanized, and that by no surer method could this be
effected than by a thoroughly American press. Mr. John H. Marion was the
enunciator of this seemingly simple and common-sense proposition, and
although the _Miner_ has long since passed into other hands, he has, in
the columns of the _Courier_, owned and edited by him, advocated and
championed it to the present day.
There may have been other matter in the _Weekly Arizonian_ besides the
copies of legislative and executive documents referred to, but if so I
never was fortunate enough to see it, excepting possibly once, on the
occasion of my first visit to the town, when I saw announced in bold
black and white that “Colonel” Bourke was paying a brief visit to his
friend, Señor So-and-so. If there is one weak spot in the armor of a
recently-graduated lieutenant, it is the desire to be called colonel
before he dies, and here was the ambition of my youth gratified almost
before the first lustre had faded from my shoulder-straps. It would
serve no good purpose to tell how many hundred copies of that week’s
issue found their way into the earliest outgoing mail, addressed to
friends back in the States. I may be pardoned for alluding to the
reckless profanity of the stage-driver upon observing the great bulk of
the load his poor horses were to carry. The stage-drivers were an
exceptionally profane set, and this one, Frank Francis, was an adept in
the business. He has long since gone to his reward in the skies, killed,
if I have not made a great mistake, by the Apaches in Sonora, in 1881.
He was a good, “square” man, as I can aver from an acquaintance and
friendship cemented in later days, when I had to take many and many a
lonesome and dangerous ride with him in various sections and on various
routes in that then savage-infested region. It was Frank’s boast that no
“Injuns” should ever get either him or the mail under his care. “All
you’ve got to do with ’n Injun ’s to be smarter nor he is. Now, f’r
instance, ’n Injun ’ll allers lie in wait ’longside the road, tryin’ to
ketch th’ mail. Wa’al, I never don’ go ’long no derned road, savey? I
jest cut right ’cross lots, ’n’ dern my skin ef all th’ Injuns this side
o’ Bitter Creek kin tell whar to lay fur _me_.” This and similar bits of
wisdom often served to soothe the frightened fancy of the weary
“tenderfoot” making his first trip into that wild region, especially if
the trip was to be by night, as it generally was.
Whipping up his team, Frank would take a shoot off to one side or the
other of the road, and never return to it until the faint tinge of light
in the east, or the gladsome crow of chanticleer announced that the dawn
was at hand and Tucson in sight. How long they had both been in coming!
How the chilling air of night had depressed the spirits and lengthened
the hours into eternities! How grand the sky was with its masses of
worlds peeping out from depths of blue, unsounded by the telescopes of
less favored climes! How often, as the stars rose behind some distant
hill-top, did they appear to the fancy as the signal lights of distant
Apache raiding parties, and freeze the blood, already coagulated, by
suddenly coming upon the gaunt, blackened frame of some dead giant
cactus stretching out its warning arms behind a sharp turn in the line
of travel!
To this feeling of disquietude the yelping of the coyote added no new
horrors; the nervous system was already strained to its utmost tension,
and any and all sounds not immediately along the trail were a pleasant
relief. They gave something of which to think and a little of which to
talk besides the ever-present topic of “Injuns, Injuns.” But far
different was the sensation as the morning drew near, and fluttering
coveys of quail rose with a whirr from their concealment under the
mesquite, or pink-eared jack-rabbits scurried from under the horses’
feet. Then it was that driver and passenger alike, scared from a fretful
doze, would nervously grasp the ever-ready rifle or revolver, and look
in vain for the flight of arrows or await the lance-thrust of skulking
foes.
Through it all, however, Frank remained the same kind, entertaining
host; he always seemed to consider it part of his duties to entertain
each one who travelled with him, and there was no lack of conversation,
such as it was. “Never knowed Six-toed Petey Donaldson? Wa’al, I sw’ar!
Look like enough to be Petey’s own brother. Thought mebbe you mout ’a’
bin comin’ out ter administer on th’ estate. Not thet Petey hed enny t’
leave, but then it’s kind o’ consolin’ t’ a feller to know thet his
relatives hev come out ter see about him. How did Petey die? Injuns. Th’
Apaches got him jest this side o’ the Senneky (Cienaga); we’ll see it
jest’s soon ’s we rise th’ hill yander.” By the time that the buckboard
drew up in front of the post-office, what with cold and hunger and
thirst and terror, and bumping over rocks and against giant cactus, and
every other kind of cactus, and having had one or two runaways when the
animals had struck against the adhering thorns of the pestiferous
“cholla,” the traveller was always in a suitable frame of mind to invite
Frank to “take suthin’,” and Frank was too much of a gentleman to think
of refusing.
“Now, lemme give yer good advice, podner,” Frank would say in his most
gracious way, “’n’ doan’t drink none o’ this yere ’Merican whiskey; it’s
no good. Jes’ stick to mescal; _that’s_ the stuff. Yer see, the alkali
water ’n’ sand hereabouts ’ll combine with mescal, but they p’isens a
man when he tries to mix ’em with whiskey, ’specially this yere Kansas
whiskey” (the “tenderfoot” had most likely just come over from Kansas);
“’n’ ef he doan’ get killed deader nor a door-nail, why, his system’s
all chock full o’ p’isen, ’n’ there you are.”
The establishment of the rival paper, the _Citizen_, was the signal for
a war of words, waxing in bitterness from week to week, and ceasing only
with the death of the _Arizonian_, which took place not long after. One
of the editors of the _Citizen_ was Joe Wasson, a very capable
journalist, with whom I was afterward associated intimately in the Black
Hills and Yellowstone country during the troubles with the Sioux and
Cheyennes. He was a well-informed man, who had travelled much and seen
life in many phases. He was conscientious in his ideas of duty, and full
of the energy and “snap” supposed to be typically American. He
approached every duty with the alertness and earnestness of a Scotch
terrier. The telegraph was still unknown to Arizona, and for that reason
the _Citizen_ contained an unusually large amount of editorial matter
upon affairs purely local. Almost the very first columns of the paper
demanded the sweeping away of garbage-piles, the lighting of the streets
by night, the establishment of schools, and the imposition of a tax upon
the gin-mills and gambling-saloons.
Devout Mexicans crossed themselves as they passed this fanatic, whom
nothing would seem to satisfy but the subversion of every ancient
institution. Even the more progressive among the Americans realized that
Joe was going a trifle too far, and felt that it was time to put the
brakes upon a visionary theorist whose war-cry was “Reform!” But no
remonstrance availed, and editorial succeeded editorial, each more
pungent and aggressive than its predecessors. What was that dead burro
doing on the main street? Why did not the town authorities remove it?
“Valgame! What is the matter with the man? and why does he make such a
fuss over Pablo Martinez’s dead burro, which has been there for more
than two months and nobody bothering about it? Why, it was only last
week that Ramon Romualdo and I were talking about it, and we both agreed
that it ought to be removed some time very soon. Bah! I will light
another cigarette. These Americans make me sick—always in a hurry, as if
the devil were after them.”
In the face of such antagonism as this the feeble light of the
_Arizonian_ flickered out, and that great luminary was, after the lapse
of a few years, succeeded by the _Star_, whose editor and owner arrived
in the Territory in the latter part of the year 1873, after the Apaches
had been subdued and placed upon reservations.