“We’ll start at daylight, so get ready.”
The stockman routed out the Navajo interpreter, and they began
adjusting a Ford car, in the hope that it would hold together through a
nervous experience.
Just at daybreak a range Navajo rode in with another note. This was
from the redoubtable Ed, trading now in the Bakidbahotzne country of
the central North, and who kept me advised from that distant station.
Billa Chezzi and his gang have a Hopi boy up here, and all last
night they argued to kill him. I advised them to send for you. They
are not in the best of humors. Seems that this Hopi boy shot a
Navajo boy. Bring the doctor. The Navajo is not dead yet.
Now this looked a trifle better, but there was an ominous possibility
in his last sentence. “The Navajo is not dead—yet.”
There were four of us in the car: the physician, the stockman, the
Indian interpreter, and myself. Several policemen clattered their way
over the shorter trails, but I did not feel that they would help
matters much. On reaching the First Mesa we learned that a Hopi lad
named Lidge Palaquoto, the son of Pah-lah, a widow, and who was aged
about fourteen years, had been out with sheep in the upper Wepo Wash.
He had carried a .22 rabbit-gun. When he did not return at nightfall,
search developed that he was in the hands of the Black Mountain Navajo.
He had somehow and for some unknown reason shot a Navajo boy, about two
years older than himself.
We would have to round the First Mesa and go through the Wepo Valley
sand, but at that Henry’s contrivance would make better time than the
traditional bronk. In a novel, requiring at this stage a thrilling
rescue, we should have rushed to the corrals, subdued several chilly
and resisting horses, and consumed four hours pounding through sand and
greasewood, to arrive with a clatter and amid dust and revolver smoke.
We should have dashed down on them, spattered a volley, swept the lad
from the ground in passing, plunged on, and disappeared in a blaze of
glory. Yes, I have written that sort of nerve tonic. But we didn’t do
anything of the kind. We used a Ford. And despite all one’s imagination
and nervous energy, there is no glory in a Ford.
But in the more prosaic manner we could make the trip in two hours,
without saddle-sores, carrying all the believed-necessary tools for any
possible emergency. The doctor had his kit for his method of
life-saving. There were two Winchester carbines, the stockman packed
his cavalry-type .45, and I carried in a spring-sling under my left arm
one of Mr. Colt’s automatic specials. It did not invite attention
there, hampered no one, and could be withdrawn in less than an hour’s
time. The Government officials at Washington consider these adjuncts
altogether unnecessary, and often write words to that effect; and they
are unnecessary in Washington, where the writing officials who frown on
them are usually to be found at desks, nursing plans for future
campaigns. This affair was not billed for Washington. It did not
concern auto traffic. It was to be staged in the upper Wepo Wash, and
Ed’s note had stated that Billa Chezzi stood peevishly at the head of
his gang. One should keep in mind that the Navajo go armed. There would
be plenty of forty-fives and a few heavy rifles in that crowd. I had
prevented their procuring ammunition from the licensed traders of the
reservation, but no one prevented their procuring it off the
reservation, from unregulated traders and in the railroad towns. Both
Federal and Arizona State law decree against the furnishing of either
arms or ammunition to Indians, and despite numerous murders in the
Navajo country, these laws have been the deadest of defunct letters.
Perhaps, trending along the lines of recent admonitions, we should have
carried an outfit for the making of tea, together with several
hymnbooks. However, I had other ideas on this subject. I recalled how
this favored son of the Desert, to wit, Billa Chezzi, had held up
Hubbell the trader, threatening him with a rifle, until disarmed,
overpowered, and chained to a post. How he had started a war against a
former superintendent. How another Arizona pioneer had been forced to
beat Billa nearly to death in defense of his own life. This last affair
had occurred at Fort Defiance. And, of course, to be fair to the chief,
he had been drunk on all occasions; but could I be sure of his sobriety
on this one?
When the car swung around the point of the First Mesa, I counseled the
doctor thus:—
“Ed seems to think this Navajo boy will not live. Let us hope he is
alive when we get there. You examine him and, at first opportunity,
without inviting excitement, tell me about how long he will last. I
shall have just that much time in which to settle things. I may need
it.”
“Suppose he dies?” said the doctor.
“I am hoping he will not die until I have made arrangements. If he
kicks in before that, I don’t know just what will happen.”
And this did not appear to ease the physician’s mind.
Half an hour later we saw them, a large party of Indians in the central
flat. Some of them were mounted, but for the most part they had turned
their ponies loose to graze and were grouped in a throng on foot. It
would be there among them, probably haranguing, that I should find old
Billa Chezzi, alias Crooked Fingers, with a black silk handkerchief
swathed about his head, the perfect picture of a desert bandit. Old,
wrinkled, and yellow-toothed, with bleary eyes that narrowed when he
became sullen, Billa Chezzi was not the pleasantest of the Navajo
chiefs.
“When we get there,” I said to the stockman, “look around for that Hopi
boy. If you see a Hopi boy, and you have an opportunity, put him in the
car; and then you stay with him.”
“What then?” he asked.
“Well, if they want him that badly, compel them to climb into the car
and take him out of it.”
“Do you want me to bean one of those fellows, if they try that?”
“No—that wouldn’t help any. Simply compel them to take him away from
you by force. I’m afraid you will not have the chance. Keep your gun on
the seat, but don’t use it.”
“You mean—just let them see that it’s present?”
“Exactly. But don’t make the mistake of pointing it at any one of them,
even if he does clamber in.”
With the Navajo on his native heath, idle gun-play is a very dangerous
experiment, and may prove a grievous mistake. If one draws a gun, the
Navajo expects that it will be used. He too has one in his belt, the
Government being too pacific to object. There are no delicate
preliminaries, such as the usual invitation to elevate the hands and
behave. The Navajo reasons simply that a gun will explode in his face
anyway, and he hopes to beat one to it. It is not an exhibition of his
courage or judgment; nothing more or less than ignorant fatalism. While
few Indians suicide, often a moody Navajo will announce that he is
about to die, and perhaps, if the genii work upon him strongly enough,
he may step toward the event. It is all right, though, and creates no
comment or offense to have a somnolent gun in plain sight. The Navajo
is used to weapons and the gesture is not one of potential threat.
About sixty yards from the group of Indians we found a shelter at the
roadside. It had been hastily constructed—cottonwood poles, with a
blanket across them to afford a little shade. The doctor stooped and
crawled in to view his patient. Several elders of the family were
there, besides the mother and father of the boy, and I shook hands with
them. In a few moments the stockman was missed, but when next I looked
toward the car he had returned there. Beside him perched a little Hopi
boy.
“I’ve got him,” he called to me.
That part of it was finished nicely, but the question of keeping him
was yet to be decided. Just then the physician crawled out from the
shelter with no joy on his face.
“Bad,” he said. “Shot straight down through the top of the skull. Looks
as if he was fired on from above. He may live an hour—not longer than
that.”
Now from the direction of the mesas the Hopi were gathering. We had
passed a few of them on the road, trudging along determinedly. For the
first time in my experience with them, they were going doggedly into
the debatable country for a council with the old enemy, and with a view
to resisting him if necessary. It looked as if there would be a fight,
unless somebody weakened.
“They are not going to kill Lidge,” announced one sturdy fellow as we
passed him.
“Keep quiet about that,” I cautioned him. “Let me talk with those
fellows.”
So, when I walked toward the group of Navajo, I realized that Hopi were
coming up and making an equally sullen group behind me. The Navajo
crowd parted and old Billa Chezzi stepped out of it. He had a light
rifle in his hand, and a woeful expression on his aged face. He put his
arm around me and besought me as his younger brother. And then tears,
large, globular tears, coursed down the ragged furrows of his cheeks,
as he told me of the senseless crime that had been committed against
them. A small boy wickedly shot down, an innocent slaughtered, a wanton
killing. And so they must have blood for this thing: an eye for an
eye,—though he had no knowledge of the sacred Books. That was the old
law in the Desert. And he did not let go of the rifle. As he wept
copiously on my shoulder, I reached down and took hold of the gun, too.
Then we talked along sympathetic lines, each holding tenaciously to the
weapon. I understood that it was the evidence in the case.
When he went further into his recital, through the interpreter, he came
to mentioning the gun’s part, and it was necessary for me to examine it
closely. He did not want to give it up at first. But he finally yielded
it. I opened the breech, and was glad to find it empty. Then I took it
by the barrel, grounded the stock in the sand, and he never got hold of
it after that. Somehow, I felt a little easier in having it to myself.
In a measure, he had surrendered a bit of his problem into my hands.
And we talked. Finally we sat down on the ground and a number of his
band with us, the rest crowded up, standing. Now I had expected that Ed
would come up. He was the best interpreter in the Navajo country, and
not afraid of them. It was plain that the sympathies of my Indian
interpreter were not with the Hopi in this argument. Aside from the
impending death of the boy, here was another real danger, and one that
most Agents are forced to suffer. Indians cannot be rushed to a
decision. They must have their talk out, and through talking always
weaken their grievances. But untrustworthy interpretation has caused
more than one man’s death. “I will fix it up for you,” silently decides
the ignorant mouthpiece, thus fastening his poor intentions on the one
who will have to accept responsibility in the end. And sometimes he
fixes it entirely too well. Seldom it is that he interprets the full
value of the discourse. He avoids completely translating unpleasant
orders, for that might involve him among his people; and when the break
comes he will surely prove a traitor, and may be found largely
responsible for the break. His sympathies well-up when least expected,
and the emotions of my interpreter in this affair had begun to display
partizanship.
Finally there came a welcome call, and Mr. Thomas E. Thacker, otherwise
known as “Ed,” a square trader and a straight talker, rode up.
“They were at it all last night at the store,” he said. “They had the
boy there and, whether or no, they were for killing him. I told them
they would have to reckon with you first, and next with Washington, and
not to start anything they maybe couldn’t finish. How’s the other boy?”
“The doctor gave him an hour to live, and half of that is gone.”
“Make a deal then, before they savvy it,” advised Ed. “The squaw will
let out a yowl when he dies.”
That was what I had feared. With my back to that little shelter, I had
lived in dread of the Navajo mother’s wild wail.
“But, Citcili,” said Billa Chezzi, for the thirteenth time, “what will
this poor woman do without her son? She will have no boy at home. The
sheep will go untended, and—”
And for the fourteenth time I told him that matters of this kind must
be settled at Washington, that far-away indefinite place where so few
things are ever settled. Washington, to the Indian, has the force of a
legend. It is one of the four Corner-Posts, the city of the Dalai Lama.
The soldiers came from there when the Navajo were herded to the Bosque
Redondo in ’63, and Billa Chezzi could remember that, if his cohort of
sons and neighbors could not.
“Well then, she must keep the Hopi boy,” he decided. “He cannot go back
to his people any more. She must have a son.”
When I glanced at the car I noted that four or five husky Indians would
be leaning against it, talking with the stockman. He had taken the Hopi
boy between his knees. I was afraid something foolish might occur, and
went back.
“They have been over here four times now,” he said; “But they haven’t
quite got up the nerve to start anything.”
At least fifty Hopi Indians had gathered; they stood apart, watching
and waiting.
“Have you men any money with you, cash?” I asked them.
The Hopi can always be counted on to have something for a rainy day,
and it was very likely to storm.
“I’ve got five dollars,” said one.
“Get what you can from the others. One hundred will not be too much.”
And then to others who were stockmen: “Have you fellows any cattle in
this wash?”
“Our cattle are off there,” pointing.
“It’s this way,” I explained. “We can’t fight that gang. The boy will
die soon. I’ll have to buy them off. How many steers can I have from
your several bunches?”
This was quite in line with the Hopi method of dealing with the
aggressive Navajo, who had oppressed them so long. They held a rapid
discussion and came to quick decision.
“What you need for it,” said the spokesman.
“Understand: I don’t think Washington will approve of our being held
up, and I will have you repaid, if that is possible.”
He nodded.
“Take some of the boys and round up those cattle. I may likely require
seven or eight two-year-olds.”
By this time too they had collected a wad of bills. I went back to the
Navajo and began talking again.
“Let us understand this,” I told Billa Chezzi. “This shooting was not
like a fight between two men, enemies. These were boys—children. They
may have been playing together. It was an accident. Of course, that is
a careless boy, and Washington doesn’t want him loose in this country.
Sooner or later, he would likely hurt someone else. And I will send him
to a place where he cannot hurt any more people. We have such places
for bad boys.”
“But what will this poor woman do for a son?” he whined.
“You will have to find her a son from among the Navajo. She wouldn’t
want a Hopi boy. Every time she looked at him she would think of this
happening and be sad. That wouldn’t do. This is what I will do for the
father and mother: I will get money from these Hopi, and what is
lacking I will pay in cattle.”
There was a consultation among them. Some grumbled, but I knew that
most of them would regard cattle as better property than a Hopi lad who
would have to be watched. They saw too that the Hopi stockmen were busy
rounding up the herd. Then they talked a bit with the trader, who was a
man of good advices. Ed spoke to me:—
“They want to know if you will stay with the wounded boy until he
dies—you and the doctor; and then will you have him buried?”
“Yes, we will attend to that.”
“And they want to know if you will pay them now, to-day?”
“Just as soon as the steers are cut out from the bunch.”
Then I drew out the money. They eyed it covetously. We agreed on
approximately five hundred dollars in cash and stock at the current
prices. A dozen Navajo rode off to assist in cutting out the animals,
and I sent a Hopi to make the count. The crowd began dwindling away.
Something had been settled, and they wished to be off before Death
stalked across the plain. The Navajo have an awesome fear of the dead;
but they would rally again at the mourning feast.
Just then the woman raised her wail,—a long, quavering cry.
I have related before in this chronicle that the Navajo shun funerals.
We buried the lad in the sand-dunes close by, and carried Lidge off to
the Agency, giving notice to his mother, en route. A short time after
this I sent him to a non-reservation school. It would be well for him
to be out of the Desert for a few years,—five would be none too
many,—otherwise, he might be found along the trail some morning, gone
to join that other lad he had so strangely hurt.
It was not possible to get from Lidge a connected story of the
shooting. It is my opinion that the Navajo boy rode up, saw the gun,
and wanted it. “When a Navajo sees a Hopi with anything he wants, he
takes it.” Lidge was on foot. No doubt the Navajo boy threw himself off
his pony and came around under the horse’s neck, stooping. Lidge, more
in fright and dismay than in anger, let him have it in the skull.
I prepared a report of this affair for Washington. The details were
recited, and I referred to many reports of Navajo aggression, with the
Hopi always helpless and never supported. Now, in effect at least, they
had made their Agent stand and deliver. When last they had tried
something of this kind, against Agent Reuben Perry of the Navajo
Agency, who was caught in the Chin Lee country and held prisoner for
several days, Commissioner Francis E. Leupp had taken prompt, decisive
action. I could not plead an exactly similar case, for only the Hopi
had lost. But it seemed to me that an effort should be made to recover,
to impress a realization of law on these insolent tribesmen.
I waited patiently. In 1911, with troops on the reservation, it had
required four months to consider a similar injustice, and by that time
the soldiers were gone; and later, with respect to the restricted range
over which the Hopi and Navajo wrangled, the Office had concluded, as a
mild corrective, that “this is a very perplexing question.”
But less time was lost on this occasion. The answer was brief, pointed,
final. It was written on a half-sheet, for paper was being saved to
reduce the national debt.
Dear Mr. Crane:
Your report of —— date received, relating the facts in the case of
a Hopi boy named Lidge, who shot a Navajo of about the same age.
Your action in this matter is approved.
Cordially yours,