Mrs. and Mrs. Oatman in Perplexity--Interview with Dr.
Lecount--Advises them to proceed--They start alone--Teams
begin to fail--The Roads are bad--The Country rough and
mountainous--Compelled to carry the Baggage up the Hills by
Hand--Overtaken by Dr. Lecount on his way to Fort Yuma--He promises
them Assistance from the Fort--The next Night the Horses of Dr.
Lecount are stolen by the Apaches--He posts a Card, warning Mr.
Oatman of Danger, and starts on Foot for the Fort--Reach the Gila
River--Camp on the Island late at Night--Their dreary Situation,
and the Conversation of the Children--The Morning of the 29th of
March--Their Struggle to ascend the Hill on the 29th--Reach the
Summit about Sunset--The Despondence and Presentiments of Mr.
Oatman--Nineteen Apaches approach them Profess Friendliness--The
Massacre--Lorenzo left for Dead, but is preserved--The Capture of
Olive and Mary Ann.
The reader should here be apprised that, as the entire narrative that
follows has an almost exclusive reference to those members of the
family who alone survive to tell this sad tale of their sufferings and
privations, it has been thought the most appropriate that it be given
in the first person.
Lorenzo D. Oatman has given to the author the following facts, reaching
on to the moment when he was made senseless, and in that condition left
by the Apache murderers.
“We were left to the severe alternative of starting with a meagre
supply, which any considerable delay would exhaust ere we could reach
a place of re-supply, or to stay among the apparently friendly Indians,
who also were but poorly supplied at best to furnish us; and of whose
_real_ intentions it was impossible to form any reliable conclusion.
The statement that I have since seen in the ‘Ladies’ Repository,’ made
by a traveling correspondent who was at Pimole village at the time
of writing, concerning the needlessness and absence of all plausible
reason for the course resolved upon by my father, is incorrect. There
were reasons for the tarrying of the Wilders and Kellys that had no
pertinence when considered in connection with the peculiarities of the
condition of my father’s family. The judgment of those who remained,
approved of the course elected by my father.
“One of the many circumstances that conspired to spread a gloom over
the way that was before us, was the jaded condition of our team, which
by this time consisted of two yoke of cows and one yoke of oxen. My
parents were in distress and perplexity for some time to determine
the true course dictated by prudence, and their responsibility in the
premises. One hundred and ninety miles of desert and mountain, each
alike barren and verdureless, save now and then a diminutive gorge
(water-coursed and grass-fringed, that miles apart led down from the
high mountain ranges across the dreary road) stretched out between us
and the next settlement or habitation of man. We felt, deeply felt,
the hazardous character of our undertaking; and for a time lingered in
painful suspense over the proposed adventure. We felt and feared that
a road stretching to such a distance, through an uninhabited and wild
region, might be infested with marauding bands of the Indians who were
known to roam over the mountains that were piled up to the north of us;
who, though they might be persuaded or intimidated to spare us the fate
of falling by their savage hands, yet might plunder us of all we had
as means for life’s subsistence. While in this dreadful suspense, one
Dr. Lecount, attended by a Mexican guide, came into the Pimole village.
He was on his return from a tour that had been pushed westward, almost
to the Pacific Ocean. As soon as we learned of his presence among us,
father sought and obtained an interview with him. And it was upon
information gained from him, that the decision to proceed was finally
made.
“He had passed the whole distance to Fort Yuma, and returned, all
within a few months, unharmed; and stated that he had not witnessed
indications of even the neighborhood of Indians. Accordingly on the
11th of March, finding provisions becoming scarce among the Pimoles,
and our own rapidly wasting, unattended, in a country and upon a
road where the residence, or even the trace of one of our own nation
would be sought in vain, save that of the hurrying traveler who was
upon some official mission, or, as in the case of Dr. Lecount, some
scientific pursuit requiring dispatch, we resumed our travel. Our
teams were reduced; we were disappointed in being abandoned by our
fellow-travelers, and wearied, almost to exhaustion, by the long
and fatiguing march that had conducted us to this point. We were
lengthening out a toilsome journey for an object and destination quite
foreign to the one that had pushed us upon the wild scheme at first.
And this solitary commencement on our travel upon a devious way, dismal
as it was in every aspect, seemed the only alternative that gave
any promise of an extrication from the dark and frowning perils and
sufferings that were every day threatening about us, and with every
step of advance into the increasing wildness pressing more and more
heavily upon us.”
Let the imagination of the reader awake and dwell upon the
probable feelings of those fond parents at this trying juncture of
circumstances; and when it shall have drawn upon the resources that
familiarity with the heart’s deepest anguish may furnish, it will fail
to paint them with any of that poignant accuracy that will bring him
into stern sympathy with their condition.
Attended by a family, a family which, in the event of their being
overtaken by any of the catastrophes that reason and prudence bade
them beware of on the route, must be helpless; if they did not, even
by their presence and peculiar exposure, give point and power to the
sense and presence of danger; a family entirely dependent upon them
for that daily bread of which they were liable to be left destitute
at any moment; far from human abodes, and with the possibility that,
beyond the reach of relief, they might be set upon by the grim, ghastly
demon of famine, or be made the victims of the blood-thirstiness
and slow tortures of those human devils who, with savage ferocity,
lurk for prey, when least their presence is anticipated; the faint
prospect at best there was for accomplishing all that must be performed
ere they could count upon safety; these, all these, and a thousand
kindred considerations, crowded upon those lonely hours of travel, and
furnished attendant reflections that burned through the whole being
of these parents with the intensity of desperation. O! how many noble
hearts have been turned out upon these dismal, death-marked by-ways,
that have as yet formed the only land connection between the Atlantic
and Pacific slopes, to bleed, and moan, and sigh, for weeks, and even
months, suspended in painful uncertainty, between life and death at
every moment. Apprehensions for their own safety, or the safety of
dependent ones, like ghosts infernal, haunting them at every step.
Fear, fear worse than death, if possible, lest sickness, famine, or
the sudden onslaught of merciless savages, that infest the mountain
fastnesses, and prowl and skulk through the innumerable hiding-places
furnished by the wide sage-fields and chaparral, might intercept a
journey, the first stages of which glowed with the glitter and charm
of novelty, and beamed with the light of hope, but was now persisted
in, through unforeseen and deepening gloom, as a last and severe
alternative of self-preservation, oppressed their hearts.
Monuments! monuments, blood-written, of these uncounted miseries, that
will survive the longest lived of those most recently escaped, are
inscribed upon the bleached and bleaching bones of our common humanity
and nationality; are written upon the rude graves of our countrymen and
kin, that strew these highways of death; written upon the moldering
timbers of decaying vehicles of transport; written in blood that now
beats and pulsates in the veins of solitary and scathed survivors,
as well as in the stain of kindred blood that still preserves its
tale-telling, unbleached hue, upon scattered grass-plots, and Sahara
sand mounds; written upon favored retreats, sought at the close of a
dusty day’s toil for nourishment, but suddenly turned into one of the
unattended, unchronicled deathbeds, already and before frequenting
these highways of carnage and wrecks; written, ah! too sadly, deeply
_engraven_ upon the tablet of memories that keep alive the scenes
of butcheries and captive-making that have rent and mangled whole
households, and are now preserved to embitter the whole gloom-clad
afterpart of the miraculously preserved survivors.
If there be an instance of one family having experienced trials that
with peculiar pungency may suggest a train of reflection like the
above, that family is the one presented to the reader’s notice in these
pages. Seven of them have fallen under the extreme of the dark picture;
two only live to tell herein the tale of their own narrow escape, and
the agonies which marked the process by which it came.
“For six days,” says one of these, “our course was due southwest,
at a slow and patience-trying rate. We were pressing through many
difficulties, with which our minds were so occupied that they could
neither gather nor retain any distinct impression of the country over
which this first week of our solitary travel bore us. While thus, on
the seventh day from Pimole, we were struggling and battling with the
tide of opposition that, with the increasing force of multiplying
embarrassments and drawbacks, was setting in against us, our teams
failing and sometimes in the most difficult and dangerous places
utterly refusing to proceed, we were overtaken by Dr. Lecount, who
with his Mexican guide was on his way back to Fort Yuma. The doctor
saw our condition, and his large, generous heart poured upon us a
flood of sympathy, which, with the words of good cheer he addressed
us, was the only relief it was in his power to administer. Father
sent by him, and at his own suggestion, to the fort for immediate
assistance. This message the doctor promised should be conveyed to
the fort, (we were about ninety miles distant from it at the time,)
with all possible dispatch, also kindly assuring us that all within
his power should be done to procure us help _at once_. We were all
transiently elated with the prospect thus suddenly opening upon us of
a relief from this source, and especially as we were confident that
Dr. Lecount would be prompted to every office and work in our behalf,
that he might command at the fort, where he was well and favorably
known. But soon a dark cloud threw its shadow upon all these hopes,
and again our wonted troubles rolled upon us with an augmented force.
Our minds became anxious, and our limbs were jaded. The roads had
been made bad, at places almost impassable, by recent rains, and for
the first time the strength and courage of my parents gave signs of
exhaustion. It seemed, and indeed was thus spoken of among us, that the
dark wing of some terrible calamity was spread over us, and casting the
shadows of evil ominously and thickly upon our path. The only method
by which we could make the ascent of the frequent high hills that
hedged our way, was by unloading the wagon and carrying the contents
piece by piece to the top; and even then we were often compelled to
aid a team of four cows and two oxen to lift the empty wagon. It was
well for us, perhaps, that there was not added to the burden of these
long and weary hours, a knowledge of the mishap that had befallen
the messenger gone on before. About sunset of the day after Dr.
Lecount left us, he camped about thirty miles ahead of us, turned his
horses into a small valley hemmed in by high mountains, and with his
guide slept until about daybreak. Just as the day was breaking and
preparations were being made to gather up for a ride to the fort that
day, twelve Indians suddenly emerged from behind a bluff hill near by
and entered the camp. Dr. Lecount, taken by surprise by the presence
of these unexpected visitants, seized his arms, and with his guide
kept a close eye upon their movements, which he soon discovered wore a
very suspicious appearance. One of the Indians would draw the doctor
into a conversation, which they held in the Mexican tongue; during
which others of the band would with an air of carelessness edge about,
encircling the doctor and his guide, until in a few moments, despite
their friendly professions, their treacherous intentions were plainly
read. At the suggestion of his bold, intrepid, and experienced guide,
they both sprang to one side, the guide presenting to the Indians his
knife, and the doctor his pistol. The Indians then put on the attitude
of fight, but feared to strike. They still continued their efforts to
beguile the doctor into carelessness, by introducing questions and
topics of conversation, but they could not manage to cover with this
thin gauze the murder of their hearts. Soon the avenging ferocity of
the Mexican began to burn, he violently sprang into the air, rushed
toward them brandishing his knife, and beckoning to the doctor to come
on; he was about in the act of plunging his knife into the leader of
the band, but was restrained by the coolness and prudence of Doctor
Lecount. Manuel (the guide) was perfectly enraged at their insolence,
and would again and again spring, tiger-like toward them, crying at
the top of his voice, “_terrily, terrily!_” The Indians soon made off.
On going into the valley for their animals they soon found that the
twelve Indians had enacted the above scene in the camp, merely as a
ruse to engage their attention, while another party of the same rascal
band were driving their mules and horse beyond their reach. They found
evidences that this had been done within the last hour. The doctor
returned to camp, packed his saddle and packages in a convenient,
secluded place near by, and gave orders to his guide to proceed
immediately to the fort, himself resolving to await his return. Soon
after Manuel had left, however, he bethought him of the Oatman family,
of their imminent peril, and of the pledge he had put himself under to
them, to secure them the earliest possible assistance; and he now had
become painfully apprised of reasons for the most prompt and punctual
fulfillment of that pledge. He immediately prepared, and at a short
distance toward us posted upon a tree near the road a card, warning us
of the nearness of the Apaches, and relating therein in brief what had
befallen himself at their hands; reassuring us also of his determined
diligence to secure us protection, and declaring his purpose,
contrary to a resolution he had formed on dismissing his guide, to
proceed immediately to the fort, there in person to plead our case
and necessities. This card we missed, though it was afterward found
by those whom we had left at Pimole Village. What “might have been,”
could our eyes have fallen upon that small piece of paper, though it
is now useless to conjecture, cannot but recur to the mind. It might
have preserved fond parents, endeared brothers and sisters, to gladden
and cheer a now embittered and bereft existence. But the card, and the
saddle and packages of the doctor, we saw not until weeks after, as the
sequel will show, though we spent a night at the same camp where the
scenes had been enacted.
“Toward evening of the eighteenth day of March, we reached the Gila
River, at a point over eighty miles from Pimole, and about the same
distance from Fort Yuma.
“We descended to the ford from a high, bluff hill, and found it leading
across at a point where the river armed, leaving a small island
sand-bar in the middle of the stream. We frequently found places on our
road upon which the sun shines not, and for hours together the road led
through a region as wild and rough as the imagination ever painted any
portion of our earth. It was impossible, save for a few steps at a
time, to see at a distance in any direction; and although we were yet
inspirited at seasons with the report of Dr. Lecount, upon which we had
started, yet we could not blind our eyes or senses to the possibilities
that might lurk unseen and near, and to the advantages over us that the
nature of the country about us would furnish the evil-designing foe
of the white race, whose habitations we knew were locked up somewhere
within these huge, irregular mountain ranges. Much less could we be
indifferent to the probable inability of our teams to bear us over the
distance still separating us from the place and stay of our hope. We
attempted to cross the Gila about sunset; the stream was rapid, and
swollen to an unusual width and depth. After struggling with danger and
every possible hinderance until long after dark, we reached the sand
island in the middle of the stream. Here our teams mired, our wagon
dragged heavily, and we found it impossible to proceed.
“After reaching the center and driest portion of the island, with the
wagon mired in the rear of us, we proceeded to detach the teams, and
as best, we could made preparations to spend the night. Well do I
remember the forlorn countenance and dejected and jaded appearance of
my father as he started to wade the lesser branch of the river ahead of
us to gather material for a fire. At a late hour of that cold, clear,
wind-swept night, a camp-fire was struck, and our shivering group
encircled it to await the preparation of our stinted allowance. At
times the wind, which was blowing furiously most of the night, would
lift the slight surges of the Gila quite to our camp-fire.”
Let the mind of the reader pause and ponder upon the situation of that
forlorn family at this time. Still unattended and unbefriended; without
a white person or his habitation within the wide range of nearly a
hundred miles; the Gila, a branch of which separated them from either
shore, keeping up a ceaseless, mournful murmuring through the entire
night; the wild wind, as it swept unheeding by, sighing among the
distant trees and rolling along the forest of mountain peaks, kept up
a perpetual moan solemn as a funeral dirge. The imagination can but
faintly picture the feelings of those fond parents upon whom hung such
a fearful responsibility as was presented to their minds and thoughts
by the gathering of this little loved family group about them.
“A large part of the night was spent by the children (for sleep we
could not) in conversation upon our trying situation; the dangers,
though unseen, that might be impending over our heads; of the past, the
present, and the cloud-wrapt future; of the perils of our undertaking,
which were but little realized under the light of novelty and hope that
inspired our first setting out--an undertaking well-intentioned but now
shaping itself so rudely and unseemly.
“We were compelled frequently to shift our position, as the fickle
wind would change the point at which the light surges of the Gila
would attack our camp-fire, in the center of that little island of
about two hundred square feet, upon which we had of necessity halted
for the night. While our parents were in conversation a little apart,
which, too, they were conducting in a subdued tone for purposes
of concealment, the curiosity of the elder children, restless and
inquisitive, was employed in guessing at the probable import of
their councils. We talked, with the artlessness and eagerness of our
unrealizing age, of the dangers possibly near us, of the advantage that
our situation gave to the savages, who were our only dread; and each
in his or her turn would speak, as we shiveringly gathered around that
little, threatened, sickly camp-fire, of his or her intentions in case
of the appearance of the foe. Each had to give a map of the course to
be pursued if the cruel Apaches should set upon us, and no two agreed;
one saying, ‘I shall run;’ another, ‘I will fight and die fighting;’
and still another, ‘I will take the gun or a club and keep them off;’
and last, Miss Olive says, ‘Well, there is one thing; I shall not be
taken by these miserable brutes. I will fight as long as I can, and if
I see that I am about to be taken, I will kill myself. I do not care to
die, but it would be worse than death to me to be taken a captive among
them.’”
How apprehensive, how timid, how frail a thing is the human mind,
especially when yet untutored, and uninured to the severe allotments
that are in this state incident to lengthened years. Experience alone
can test the wisdom of the resolutions with which we arm ourselves
for anticipated trials, or our ability to carry them out. How little
it knows of its power or skill to triumph in the hour of sudden and
trying emergency, only as the reality itself shall test and call it
forth. Olive lives to-day to dictate a narrative of five gloomy years
of captivity, that followed upon a totally different issue of an event
that during that night, as a possibility merely, was the matter of vows
and resolutions, but which in its reality mocked and taunted the plans
and purposes that had been formed for its control.
“The longed-for twilight at length sent its earliest stray beams along
the distant peaks, stole in upon our sand-bar camp, and gradually
lifted the darkness from our dreary situation. As the curtain of that
burdensome night departed, it seemed to bear with it those deep and
awful shades that had rested upon our minds during its stay, and which
we now began to feel had taken their gloomiest hue from the literal
darkness and solitude that has a strange power to nurse a morbid
apprehension.
“Before us, and separating the shore from us, was a part of the river
yet to be forded. At an early hour the teams were brought from the
valley-neck of land, where they had found scant pasturage for the
night, and attached to the wagon. We soon made the opposite bank.
Before us was quite a steep declivity of some two hundred feet, by the
way of the road. We had proceeded but a short distance when our galled
and disarranged teams refused to go. We were again compelled to unload,
and with our own hands and strength to bear the last parcel to the top
of the hill. After this we found it next to impossible to compel the
teams to drag the empty wagon to the summit.
“After reaching the other bank we camped, and remained through the heat
of the day intending to travel the next night by moonlight. About two
hours and a half before sunset we started, and just before the sun sank
behind the western hills we had made the ascent of the hill and about
one mile advance. Here we halted to reload the remainder of our baggage.
“The entire ascent was not indeed made until we reached this point,
and to it some of our baggage had been conveyed by hand. I now plainly
saw a sad, foreboding change in my father’s manner and feelings.
Hitherto, amid the most fatiguing labor and giant difficulties, he had
seemed generally armed for the occasion with a hopeful countenance
and cheerful spirit and manner, the very sight of which had a power
to dispel our childish fears and spread contentment and resignation
upon our little group. While ascending this hill I saw, too plainly
saw, (being familiar, young as I was, with my father’s aptness to
express, by the tone of his action and manner, his mental state,) as
did my mother also, that a change had come over him. Disheartening and
soul-crushing apprehensions were written upon his manner, as if preying
upon his mind in all the mercilessness of a conquering despair. There
seemed to be a dark picture hung up before him, upon which the eye of
his thought rested with a monomaniac intensity; and written thereon he
seemed to behold a sad afterpart for himself, as if some terrible event
had loomed suddenly upon the field of his mental vision, and though
unprophesied and unheralded by any palpable notice, yet gradually
wrapping its folds about him, and coming in, as it were, to fill his
cup of anguish to the brim. Surely,
“‘Coming events cast their shadows before them.
Who hath companioned a visit from the horn or ivory gate?
Who hath propounded the law that renders calamities gregarious?
Pressing down with yet more woe the heavy laden mourner;
Yea, a palpable notice warneth of an instant danger;
For the soul hath its feelers, cobwebs upon the wings of the wind,
That catch events, in their approach, with sure and sad presentiment.’
“Whether my father had read that notice left for our warning by Dr.
Lecount, and had from prudence concealed it, with the impression it
may have made upon his own mind, from us, to prevent the torment
of fear it would have enkindled; or whether a camp-fire might have
been discerned by him in the distance the night before, warning of
the nearness of the savage Apaches; or whether by spirit law or the
appointment of Providence the gloom of his waiting doom had been sent
on before to set his mind in readiness for the breaking storm, are
questions that have been indulged and involuntarily urged by his fond,
bereaved children; but no answer to which has broke upon their ear
from mountain, from dale, or from spirit-land. For one hour the night
before my father had wept bitterly, while in the wagon thinking himself
concealed from his family, but of which I was ignorant until it was
told me by my eldest sister during the day. My mother was calm, cool,
and collected; patient to endure, and diligent to do, that she might
administer to the comfort of the rest of us. Of the real throbbings
of the affectionate and indulgent heart of that beloved mother, her
children must ever remain ignorant. But of her noble bearing under
these trying circumstances angels might speak; and her children, who
survive to cherish her name with an ardent, though sorrowing affection,
may be pardoned for not keeping silence. True to the instincts that had
ever governed her in all trying situations, and true to the dictates
of a noble and courageous heart, she wisely attributed these shadows
(the wing of which flitted over her own sky as well) to the harassings
and exhaustion of the hour; she called them the accustomed creations
of an over-tasked mind, and then, with cheerful heart and ready hand,
plied herself to all and any labors that might hie us upon our way. At
one time, during the severest part of the toil and efforts of that day
to make the summit of that hill, my father suddenly sank down upon a
stone near the wagon, and exclaimed, ‘Mother, mother, in the name of
God, I know that something dreadful is about to happen!’ In reply, our
dear mother had no expressions but those of calm, patient trust, and a
vigorous, resolute purpose.
“‘O, Mother? bless’d sharer of our joys and woes,
E’en in the darkest hours of earthly ill,
Untarnish’d yet thy fond affection glow’d,
When sorrow rent the heart, when feverish pain
Wrung the hot drops of anguish from the brow;
To soothe the soul, to cool the burning brain,
O who so welcome and so prompt as thou?’
“We found ourselves now upon the summit, which proved to be the east
edge of a long table-land, stretching upon a level, a long distance
westward, and lying between two deep gorges, one on the right, the
other on the left; the former coursed by the Gila River. We had hastily
taken our refreshment, consisting of a few parcels of dry bread, and
some bean-soup, preparatory to a night’s travel. This purpose of night
travel had been made out of mercy to our famished teams, so weak that
it was with difficulty they could be driven during the extreme sultry
heat of the day. Besides this, the moon was nearly in full, giving us
light nearly the entire night; the nights were cool, and better for
travel to man and beast, and the shortness of our provisions made it
imperative that we should make the most of our time.”
Up, upon an elevated, narrow table-land, formed principally of lime
rock, look now at this family; the scattered rough stones about them
forming their seats, upon which they sit them down in haste to receive
the frugal meal to strengthen them for the night’s travel. From two
years old and upward, that group of children, unconscious of danger,
but dreading the lone, long hours of the night’s journey before them.
To the south of them, a wild, uninhabited, and uninhabitable region,
made up of a succession of table-lands, varying in size and in height,
with rough, verdureless sides, and separated by deep gorges and dark
cañons, without any vegetation save an occasional scrub-tree standing
out from the general sterility. Around them, not a green spot to charm,
to cheer, to enliven the tame, tasteless desolation and barrenness; at
the foot of the bold elevation, that gives them a wider view than was
granted while winding the difficult defiles of the crooked road left
behind them, murmurs on the ceaseless Gila, upon which they gaze, over
a bold precipice at the right. To the east and north, mountain ranges
rising skyward until they seem to lean against the firmament. But
within all the extended field swept by their curious, anxious vision,
no smoking chimney of a friendly habitation appears to temper the
sense of loneliness, or apprise them of the accessibleness of friendly
sympathy or aid. Before them, a dusty, stony road points to the scene
of anticipated hardships, and the land of their destination. The sun
had scarcely concealed his burning face behind the western hills, ere
the full-orbed moon peers from the craggy mountain chain in the rear,
as if to mock at the sun weltering in his fading gore, and proffering
the reign of her chastened, mellow light for the whole dreaded night.
“Though the sun had hid its glittering, dazzling face from us behind
a tall peak in the distance, yet its rays lingered upon the summits
that stretched away between us and the moon, and daylight was full
upon us. Our hasty meal had been served. My father, sad, and seemingly
spell-bound with his own struggling emotions, was a little on one
side, as if oblivious of all immediately about him, and was about in
the act of lifting some of the baggage to the wagon, that had as yet
remained unloaded since the ascent of the hill, when, casting my eyes
down the hill by the way we had come, I saw several Indians slowly and
leisurely approaching us in the road. I was greatly alarmed, and for a
moment dared not to speak. At the time, my father’s back was turned.
I spoke to him, at the same time pointing to the Indians. What I saw
in my father’s countenance excited in me a great fear, and took a
deeper hold upon my feelings of the danger we were in, than the sight
of the Indians. They were now approaching near us. The blood rushed
to my father’s face. For a moment his face would burn and flash as
it crimsoned with the tide from within; then a death-like paleness
would spread over his countenance, as if his whole frame was suddenly
stiffened with horror. I saw too plainly the effort that it cost him
to attempt a concealment of his emotions. He succeeded, however, in
controlling the jerking of his muscles and his mental agitations, so
as to tell us, in mild and composed accents, ‘not to fear; the Indians
would not harm us.’ He had always been led to believe that the Indians
could be so treated as to avoid difficulty with them. He had been
among them much in the Western states, and so often tried his theory
of leniency with success that he often censured the whites for their
severity toward them; and was disposed to attribute injury received
from them to the unwise and cruel treatment of them by the whites. It
had long been his pride and boast that he could manage the Indians so
that it would do to trust them. Often had he thrown himself wholly in
their power, while traveling and doing business in Iowa, and that,
too, in times of excitement and hostility, relying upon his coolness,
self-possession, and urbanity toward them to tame and disarm their
ferocity. As yet, his theory had worked no injury to himself, though
often practiced against the remonstrances of friends. But what might
serve for the treatment of the Iowa Indians, might need modification
for these fierce Apaches. Besides, his wonted coolness and fearlessness
seemed, as the Indians approached, to have forsaken him; and I have
never been able to account for the conduct of my father at this time,
only by reducing to reality the seemings of the past few days or hours,
to wit, that a dark doom had been written out or read to him before.
“After the Indians approached, he became collected, and kindly
motioned them to sit down; spoke to them in Spanish, to which they
replied. They immediately sat down upon the stones about us, and still
conversing with father in Spanish, made the most vehement professions
of friendship. They asked for tobacco and a pipe, that they might smoke
in token of their sincerity and of their friendly feelings toward
us. This my father immediately prepared, took a whiff himself, then
passed it around, even to the last. But amid all this, the appearance
and conduct of father was strange. The discerning and interested eye
of his agitated family could too plainly discover the uncontrollable,
unspoken mental convulsions that would steal the march upon the
forced appearances of composure that his better judgment, as well as
yearnings for his family, dictated for the occasion. His movements
were a reflecting glass, in which we could as plainly read some dire
catastrophe was breeding for us, as well as in the flashes and glances
that flew from face to face of our savage-looking visitants.
“After smoking, these Indians asked for something to eat. Father told
them of our destitute condition, and that he could not feed them
without robbing his family; that unless we could soon reach a place
of new supplies we must suffer. To all this they seemed to yield only
a reluctant hearing. They became earnest and rather imperative, and
every plea that we made to them of our distress, but increased their
wild and furious clamors. Father reluctantly took some bread from the
wagon and gave it to them, saying that it was robbery, and perhaps
starvation to his family. As soon as this was devoured they asked
for more, meanwhile surveying us narrowly, and prying and looking
into every part of the wagon. They were told that we could spare them
no more. They immediately packed themselves into a secret council
a little on one side, which they conducted in the Apache language,
wholly unintelligible to us. We were totally in the dark as to their
designs, save that their appearance and actions wore the threatening of
some hellish deed. We were now about ready to start. Father had again
returned to complete the reloading of the remainder of the articles;
mother was in the wagon arranging them; Olive, with my older sister,
was standing upon the opposite side of the wagon; Mary Ann, a little
girl about seven years old, sat upon a stone holding to a rope attached
to the horns of the foremost team; the rest of the children were on the
opposite side of the wagon from the Indians. My eyes were turned away
from the Indians.
“Though each of the family was engaged in repairing the wagon, none
were without manifestations of fear. For some time every movement of
the Indians was closely watched by us. I well remember, however, that
after a few moments my own fears were partially quieted, and from their
appearance I judged it was so with the rest.
“In a subdued tone frequent expressions were made concerning the
Indians, and their possible intentions; but we were guarded and
cautious, lest they might understand our real dread and be emboldened
to violence. Several minutes did they thus remain a few feet from us,
occasionally turning an eye upon us, and constantly keeping up a low
earnest babbling among themselves. At times they gazed eagerly in
various directions, especially down the road by which we had come, as
if struggling to discern the approach of some object or person either
dreaded or expected by them.
“Suddenly, as a clap of thunder from a clear sky, a deafening yell
broke upon us, the Indians jumping into the air, and uttering the
most frightful shrieks, and at the same time springing toward us
flourishing their war-clubs, which had hitherto been concealed under
their wolf-skins. I was struck upon the top and back of my head, came
to my knees, when with another blow, I was struck blind and senseless.”
One of their number seized and jerked Olive one side, ere they had
dealt the first blow.
[Illustration: THE MASSACRE.]
“As soon,” continues Olive, “as they had taken me one side, and while
one of the Indians was leading me off, I saw them strike Lorenzo, and
almost at the same instant my father also. I was so bewildered and
taken by surprise by the suddenness of their movements, and their
deafening yells, that it was some little time before I could realize
the horrors of my situation. When I turned around, opened my eyes, and
collected my thoughts, I saw my father, my own dear father! struggling,
bleeding, and moaning in the most pitiful manner. Lorenzo was lying
with his face in the dust, the top of his head covered with blood, and
his ears and mouth bleeding profusely. I looked around and saw my poor
mother, with her youngest child clasped in her arms, and both of them
still, as if the work of death had already been completed; a little
distance on the opposite side of the wagon, stood little Mary Ann, with
her face covered with her hands, sobbing aloud, and a huge-looking
Indian standing over her; the rest were motionless, save a younger
brother and my father, all upon the ground dead or dying. At this
sight a thrill of icy coldness passed over me; I thought I had been
struck; my thoughts began to reel and became irregular and confused; I
fainted and sank to the earth, and for a while, I know not how long, I
was insensible.
“When I recovered my thoughts I could hardly realize where I was,
though I remembered to have considered myself as having also been
struck to the earth, and thought I was probably dying. I knew that
all, or nearly all of the family had been murdered; thus bewildered,
confused, half conscious and half insensible, I remained a short
time, I know not how long, when suddenly I seemed awakened to the
dreadful realities around me. My little sister was standing by my side,
sobbing and crying, saying: ‘Mother, O mother! Olive, mother and father
are killed, with all our poor brothers and sisters.’ I could no longer
look upon the scene. Occasionally a low, piteous moan would come from
some one of the family as in a dying state. I distinguished the groans
of my poor mother, and sprang wildly toward her, but was held back by
the merciless savage holding me in his cruel grasp, and lifting a club
over my head, threatening me in the most taunting, barbarous manner. I
longed to have him put an end to my life. ‘O,’ thought I, ‘must I know
that my poor parents have been killed by these savages and I remain
alive!’ I asked them to kill me, pleaded with them to take my life, but
all my pleas and prayers only excited to laughter and taunts the two
wretches to whose charge we had been committed.
“After these cruel brutes had consummated their work of slaughter,
which they did in a few moments, they then commenced to plunder our
wagon, and the persons of the family whom they had killed. They broke
open the boxes with stones and clubs, plundering them of such of their
contents as they could make serviceable to themselves. They took off
the wagon wheels, or a part of them, tore the wagon covering off from
its frame, unyoked the teams and detached them from the wagons, and
commenced to pack the little food, with many articles of their plunder,
as if preparatory to start on a long journey. Coming to a feather bed,
they seized it, tore it open, scattering its contents to the winds,
manifesting meanwhile much wonder and surprise, as if in doubt what
certain articles of furniture, and conveniences for the journey we had
with us, could be intended for. Such of these as they selected, with
the little food we had with us that they could conveniently pack, they
tied up in bundles, and started down the hill by the way they had come,
driving us on before them. We descended the hill, not knowing their
intentions concerning us, but under the expectation that they would
probably take our lives by slow torture. After we had descended the
hill and crossed the river, and traveled about one half of a mile by
a dim trail leading through a dark, rough, and narrow defile in the
hills, we came to an open place where there had been an Indian camp
before, and halted. The Indians took off their packs, struck a fire,
and began in their own way to make preparations for a meal. They boiled
some of the beans just from our wagon, mixed some flour with water,
and baked it in the ashes. They offered us some food, but in the most
insulting and taunting manner, continually making merry over every
indication of grief in us, and with which our hearts were ready to
break. We could not eat. After the meal, and about an hour’s rest, they
began to repack and make preparations to proceed.”