same stars and stripes should simultaneously wave over this and over
Delmonico's! This too I kept thinking as I killed more hours in walking
the neighborhood of Solomonsville, an object of more false hope to
natives whom I did not then observe. I avoided Jenks, who had business
clients in the town. I went among the ditches and the fields thus turned
green by the channelled Gila; and though it was scarce a paradise
surpassing the Nile, it was grassy and full of sweet smells until after
a few miles each way, when the desert suddenly met the pleasant verdure
full in the face and corroded it to death like vitriol. The sermon came
back to me as I passed the little Mormon homes, and the bishop rose and
rose in my esteem, though not as one of the children of light. That
sagacious patriarch told his flock the things of week-day wisdom down to
their level, the cleanly things next to godliness, to keep them from the
million squalors that stain our Gentile poor; and if he did not sound
much like the Gospel, he and Deuteronomy were alike as two peas. With
him and Moses thus in my thoughts, I came back after sunset, and was
gratified to be late for supper. Jenks had left the dining-room, and I
ate in my own company, which had become lively and full of intelligent
impressions. These I sat recording later in my journal, when a
hesitating knock came at my bedroom, and two young men in cowboy costume
entered like shy children, endeavoring to step without creaking.
"Meakums!" my delighted mind exclaimed, inwardly; but the yellow one
introduced the black curly one as Mr. Follet, who, in turn, made his
friend Mr. Cunningham known to me, and at my cordial suggestion they sat
down with increasing awkwardness, first leaving their hats outside the
door.
"We seen you walking around," said one.
"Lookin' the country over," said the other.
"Fine weather for travelling," said the first.
"Dusty though," said the second.
Perceiving them to need my help in coming to their point, I said, "And
now about your silver mine."
"You've called the turn on us!" exclaimed yellow, and black curly
slapped his knee. Both of them sat looking at me, laughing
enthusiastically, and I gathered they had been having whiskey this
Sunday night. I confess that I offered them some more, and when they
realized my mildness they told me with length and confidence about the
claims they had staked out on Mount Turnbull. "And there's lots of lead,
too," said yellow.
"I do not smelt," said I, "or deal in any way with ore. I have come here
without the intention of buying anything."
"You ain't the paymaster?" burst out black curly, wrinkling his forehead
like a pleasant dog.
Yellow touched his foot.
"Course he ain't!" said curly, with a swerve of his eye. "He ain't due.
What a while it always is waitin'!"
Now the paymaster was nothing to me, nor whom he paid. For all I knew,
my visitors were on his roll; and why yellow should shy at the mention
of him and closely watch his tipsy mate I did not try to guess. Like
every one I had met so far in Arizona, these two evidently doubted I was
here for my pleasure merely; but it was with entire good-humor that they
remarked a man had the right to mind his own business; and so, with a
little more whiskey, we made a friendly parting. They recommended me to
travel with a pistol in this country, and I explained that I should do
myself more harm than good with a weapon that any one handled more
rapidly than I, with my inexperience.
"Good-night, Mr. Meakum," I said.
"Follet," corrected black curly.
"Cunningham," said yellow, and they picked up their hats in the hall and
withdrew.
I think now those were their names--the time was coming when I should
hear them take oath on it--yet I do not know. I heard many curious oaths
taken.
I was glad to see black curly in the stage next day, not alone for his
company, but to give him a right notion of what ready money I had about
me. Thinking him over, and his absence of visible means of support, and
his interest in me, I took opportunity to mention, quite by the way,
that five or six dollars was all that I ever carried on my person, the
rest being in New York drafts, worthless in any hands but mine. And I
looked at the time once or twice for him to perceive the cheapness of my
nickel watch. That the Bishop was not his father I had indirect evidence
when we stopped at Thacher to change horses and drop a mail-sack, and
the Mormon divine suddenly lifted the flap and inspected us. He nodded
to me and gave Follet a message.
"Tell your brother" (wouldn't a father have said Tom or Dick?) "that
I've given him chances enough and he don't take 'em. He don't feed my
horses, and my passengers complain he don't feed them--though that's not
so serious!" said he to me, with a jovial wink. "But I won't have my
stock starved. You'll skip the station and go through to Thomas with
this pair," he added to the driver in his voice of lusty command.
"You'll get supper at Thomas. Everything's moved on there from to-day.
That's the rule now." Then he returned to black curly, who, like the
driver, had remained cowed and respectful throughout the short harangue.
"Your brother could have treated me square and made money by that
station. Tell him that, and to see me by Thursday. If he's thinking of
peddling vegetables this season I'll let him sell to Fort Bowie.
Safford takes Carlos, and I won't have two compete in the same market,
or we'll be sinking low as Eastern prices," said he to me, with another
wink. "Drive on now. You're late."
He shut the flap, and we were off quickly--too quickly. In the next few
moments I could feel that something all wrong went on; there was a
jingle and snapping of harness, and such a voice from the Bishop behind
us that I looked out to see him. We had stopped, and he was running
after us at a wonderful pace for a man of sixty-four.
"If you don't drive better than that," said the grizzled athlete,
arriving cool and competent, "you'll saw wood for another year. Look how
you've got them trembling."
It was a young pair, and they stood and steamed while the broken gear
was mended.
"What did California hold the record in before the Boy Orator broke it?"
said I, getting out.
He shot at me the same sinister look I had seen in the Capitol, the look
he must always wear, I suppose, when taken aback. Then he laughed
broadly and heartily, a strong pleasant laugh that nearly made me like
him. "So you're that fellow! Ho, ho! Away down here now. Oh, ho, ho!
What's your business?"
"You wouldn't believe if I told you," said I, to his sudden sharp
question.
"Me? Why, I believe everything I'm told. What's your name?"
"Will you believe I haven't come to buy anybody's silver mine?"
"Silver! I don't keep it. Unloaded ten years ago before the rabbit
died."
"Then you're the first anti-silver man I've met."
"I'm anti anything I can't sell, young man. Here's all there is to
silver: Once upon a time it was hard to get, and we had to have it. Now
it's easy. When it gets as common as dirt it'll be as cheap as dirt.
Same as watermelons when it's a big crop. D'you follow me? That's silver
for you, and I don't want it. So you've come away down here. Well, well!
What did you say your name was?"
I told him.
"Politician?"
"God forbid!"
"Oh, ho, ho! Well, yes. I took a look at those buzzards there in
Washington. Our Senate and Representatives. They were screeching a heap.
All about ratios. You'll be sawing wood yet!" he shouted to the driver,
and strode up to help him back a horse. "Now ratio is a good-sounding
word too, and I guess that's why they chew on it so constant. Better
line of language that they get at home. I'll tell you about Congress.
Here's all there is to it: You can divide them birds in two lots. Those
who know better and those who don't. D'you follow me?"
"And which kind is the Boy Orator?"
"Limber Jim? Oh, he knows better. I know Jim. You see, we used to have a
saying in Salt Lake that California had the smallest stoves and the
biggest liars in the world. Now Jim--well, there's an old saying busted.
But you'll see Arizona'll go back on the Democrats. If they put wool on
the free list she'll stay Republican, and they won't want her admitted,
which suits me first-rate. My people here are better off as they stand."
"But your friend Mr. Jenks favors admission!" I exclaimed.
"Luke? He's been talking to you, has he? Well now, Luke. Here's all
there is to him: Natural gas. That's why I support him, you see. If we
sent a real smart man to Washington he might get us made a State. Ho,
ho! But Luke stays here most of the time, and he's no good anyway. Oh,
ho, ho! So you're buying no mines this season?"
Once more I found myself narrating the insignificance of my visit to
Arizona--the Bishop must have been a hard inquisitor for even the deeply
skilful to elude--and for the first time my word was believed. He
quickly took my measure, saw that I had nothing to hide, and after
telling me I could find good hunting and scenery in the mountains north,
paid me no further attention, but masterfully laid some final commands
on the intimidated driver. Then I bade good-bye to the Bishop, and
watched that old locomotive moving vigorously back along the road to his
manifold business.
The driver was ill pleased to go hungry for his supper until Thomas, but
he did not dare complain much over the new rule, even to black curly and
me. This and one other thing impressed me. Some miles farther on we had
passed out of the dust for a while, and rolled up the flaps.
"She's waiting for you," said the driver to black curly, and that
many-sided youth instantly dived to the bottom of the stage, his boots
and pistol among my legs.
"Throw your coat over me," he urged.
I concealed him with that and a mail-sack, and stretched my head out to
see what lioness stood in his path. But it was only a homelike little
cabin, and at the door a woman, comely and mature, eying the stage
expectantly. Possibly wife, I thought, more likely mother, and I asked,
"Is Mrs. Follet strict?" choosing a name to fit either.
The driver choked and chirruped, but no sound came from under the
mail-sack until we had passed the good-day to the momentous female,
whose response was harsh with displeasure as she wheeled into her door.
A sulky voice then said, "Tell me when she's gone, Bill." But we were a
safe two hundred yards on the road before he would lift his head, and
his spirits were darkened during the remainder of the journey.
"Come and live East," said I, inviting him to some whiskey at the same
time. "Back there they don't begin sitting up for you so early in the
evening."
This did not enliven him, although upon our driver it seemed to bring
another fit as much beyond the proportion of my joke as his first had
been. "She tires a man's spirit," said black curly, and with this rueful
utterance he abandoned the subject; so that when we reached Thomas in
the dim night my curiosity was strong, and I paid little heed to this
new place where I had come or to my supper. Black curly had taken
himself off, and the driver sat at the table with me, still occasionally
snickering in his plate. He would explain nothing that I asked him until
the gaunt woman who waited on us left us for the kitchen, when he said,
with a nervous, hasty relish, "The Widow Sproud is slick," and departed.
Consoled by no better clew than this I went to bed in a down-stairs
room, and in my strange rising next day I did not see the driver again.
Callings in the air awaked me, and a wandering sound of wheels. The
gaunt woman stood with a lamp in my room saying the stage was ready,
and disappeared. I sprang up blindly, and again the callings passed in
the blackness outside--long cries, inarticulate to me. Wheels heavily
rolled to my door, and a whip was struck against it, and there loomed
the stage, and I made out the calling. It was the three drivers, about
to separate before the dawn on their three diverging ways, and they were
wailing their departure through the town that travellers might hear, in
whatever place they lay sleeping. "Boo-wie! All aboa-rd!" came from
somewhere, dreary and wavering, met at farther distance by the floating
antiphonal, "Aboa-rd, aboa-rd for Grant!" and in the chill black air my
driver lifted his portion of the strain, chanting, "Car-los! Car-los!"
One last time he circled in the nearer darkness with his stage to let me
dress. Mostly unbuttoned, and with not even a half minute to splash cold
water in my eyes, I clambered solitary into the vehicle and sat among
the leather mail-bags, some boxes, and a sack of grain, having four
hours yet till breakfast for my contemplation. I heard the faint
reveille at Camp Thomas, but to me it was a call for more bed, and I
pushed and pulled the grain-sack until I was able to distribute myself
and in a manner doze, shivering in my overcoat. Not the rising of the
sun upon this blight of sand, nor the appearance of a cattle herd, and
both black curly and yellow driving it among its dust clouds, warmed my
frozen attention as I lay in a sort of spell. I saw with apathy the
mountains, extraordinary in the crystal prism of the air, and soon after
the strangest scene I have ever looked on by the light of day. For as we
went along the driver would give a cry, and when an answering cry came
from the thorn-bush we stopped, and a naked Indian would appear,
running, to receive a little parcel of salt or sugar or tobacco he had
yesterday given the driver some humble coin to buy for him in Thomas.
With changeless pagan eyes staring a moment at me on my sack of grain,
and a grunt when his purchase was set in his hands, each black-haired
desert figure turned away, the bare feet moving silent, and the copper
body, stark naked except the breech-clout, receding to dimness in the
thorn-bush. But I lay incurious at this new vision of what our wide
continent holds in fee under the single title United States, until
breakfast came. This helped me, and I livened somewhat at finding the
driver and the breakfast man were both genuine Meakums, as Jenks had
told me they would be.
It surprised me to discover now that I was looked for along the Gila,
and my name approximately known, and when I asked if my friend Captain
Stirling had spoken of my coming, it was evidently not he, but the news
was in the air. This was a prominence I had never attained in any
previous part of the world, and I said to the driver that I supposed my
having no business made me a curiosity. That might have something to do
with it, he answered (he seemed to have a literal mind), but some had
thought I was the paymaster.
"Folks up here," he explained, "are liable to know who's coming."
"If I lived here," said I, "I should be anxious for the paymaster to
come early and often."
"Well, it does the country good. The soldiers spend it all right here,
and us civilians profit some by it."
[Illustration: "EACH BLACK-HAIRED DESERT FIGURE"]
Having got him into conversation, I began to introduce the subject
of black curly, hoping to lead up to the Widow Sproud; but before I
had compassed this we reached San Carlos, where a blow awaited me.
Stirling, my host, had been detailed on a scout this morning! I was
stranded here, a stranger, where I had come thousands of miles to see
an old friend. His regret and messages to make myself at home, and the
quartermaster's hearty will to help me to do so could not cure my
blankness. He might be absent two weeks or more. I looked round at
Carlos and its staring sand. Then I resolved to go at once to my other
friends now stationed at Fort Grant. For I had begun to feel myself at
an immense distance from any who would care what happened to me for
good or ill, and I longed to see some face I had known before. So in
gloom I retraced some unattractive steps. This same afternoon I staged
back along the sordid, incompetent Gila River, and to kill time pushed
my Sproud inquiry, at length with success. To check the inevitably
slipshod morals of a frontier commonwealth, Arizona has a statute that
in reality only sets in writing a presumption of the common law, the
ancient presumption of marriage, which is that when a man and woman go
to house-keeping for a certain length of time, they shall be deemed
legally married. In Arizona this period is set at twelve months, and
ten had run against Mrs. Sproud and young Follet. He was showing signs
of leaving her. The driver did not think her much entitled to
sympathy, and certainly she showed later that she could devise
revenge. As I thought over these things we came again to the cattle
herd, where my reappearance astonished yellow and black curly. Nor did
the variance between my movements and my reported plans seem wholly
explained to them by Stirling's absence, and at the station where I
had breakfasted I saw them question the driver about me. This interest
in my affairs heightened my desire to reach Fort Grant; and when next
day I came to it after another waking to the chanted antiphonals and
another faint reveille from Camp Thomas in the waning dark, extreme
comfort spread through me. I sat in the club with the officers, and
they taught me a new game of cards called Solo, and filled my glass.
Here were lieutenants, captains, a major, and a colonel, American
citizens with a love of their country and a standard of honor; here
floated our bright flag serene against the lofty blue, and the mellow
horns sounded at guard-mounting, bringing moisture to the eyes. The
day was punctuated with the bright trumpet, people went and came in
the simple dignity of duty, and once again I talked with good men and
women. God bless our soldier people! I said it often.
They somewhat derided my uneasiness in the Gila Valley, and found my
surmisings sensational. Yet still they agreed much ready money was an
unwise thing on a stage journey, although their profession (I suppose)
led them to take being "held up" less seriously than I with my peaceful
traditions of elevators and the down-town lunch. In the wide Sulphur
Springs valley where I rode at large, but never so long or so far that
Fort Grant lay not in sight across that miracle of air, it displeased me
to come one morning upon yellow and black curly jogging along beneath
the government telegraph line.
"You cover a wide range," said I.
"Cowboys have to," they answered. "So you've not quit us yet?"
"I'm thinking of taking a hunt and fish towards Fort Apache."
"We're your men, then. You'll find us at Thomas any time. We're
gathering stock up these draws, but that'll be through this week."
They spurred their horses and vanished among the steep little hills that
run up to Mount Graham. But indeed they should be no men of mine!
Stirling had written me his scout was ended, and San Carlos worth a
longer visit than I had made there, promising me an escort should I
desire to camp in the mountains. An escort it should be, and no yellow
or black curly, over-curious about my private matters! This fell in
excellently with the coming paymaster's movements. Major Pidcock was
even now on his way to Fort Grant from Fort Bowie; and when he went to
Thomas and Carlos I would go, too, in his ambulance; and I sighed with
pleasure at escaping that stage again.
Major Pidcock arrived in a yellow duster, but in other respects differed
from the Bishop, though in his body a bulky man. We were introduced to
each other at the club.
"I am glad, sir, to meet you at last," I said to him. "The whole Gila
Valley has been taking me for you."
"Oh--ah!" said Pidcock, vaguely, and pulling at some fat papers in his
coat; "indeed. I understand that is a very ignorant population. Colonel
Vincent, a word with you. The Department Commander requests me--" And
here he went off into some official talk with the Colonel.
I turned among the other officers, who were standing by an open locker
having whiskey, and Major Evlie put his hand on my shoulder. "He doesn't
mean anything," he whispered, while the rest looked knowingly at me.
Presently the Colonel explained to Pidcock that he would have me to keep
him company to Carlos.
"Oh--ah, Colonel. Of course we don't take civilians not employed by the
government, as a rule. But exceptions--ah--can be made," he said to me.
"I will ask you to be ready immediately after breakfast to-morrow." And
with that he bowed to us all and sailed forth across the parade-ground.
The Colonel's face was red, and he swore in his quiet voice; but the
lips of the lieutenants by the open locker quivered fitfully in the
silence.
"Don't mind Pidcock," Evlie remarked. "He's a paymaster." And at this
the line officers became disorderly, and two lieutenants danced
together; so that, without catching Evlie's evidently military joke, I
felt pacified.
"And I've got to have him to dinner," sighed the Colonel, and wandered
away.
"You'll get on with him, man--you'll get on with him in the ambulance,"
said my friend Paisley. "Flatter him, man. Just ask him about his great
strategic stroke at Cayuse Station that got him his promotion to the pay
department."
Well, we made our start after breakfast, Major Pidcock and I, and
another passenger too, who sat with the driver--a black cook going to
the commanding officer's at Thomas. She was an old plantation mammy,
with a kind but bewildered face, and I am sorry that the noise of our
driving lost me much of her conversation; for whenever we slowed, and
once when I walked up a hill, I found her remarks to be steeped in a
flighty charm.
"Fo' Lawd's sake!" said she. "W'at's dat?" And when the driver told her
that it was a jack-rabbit, "You go 'long!" she cried, outraged. "I'se
seed rabbits earlier 'n de mawnin' dan yo'self." She watched the animal
with all her might, muttering, "Law, see him squot," and "Hole on, hole
on!" and "Yasser, he done gone fo' sho. My grashus, you lemme have a
scatter shoot-gun an' a spike-tail smell dog, an' I'll git one of dey
narrah-gauge mules."
"I shall not notice it," said Major Pidcock to me, with dignity. "But
they should have sent such a creature by the stage. It's unsuitable,
wholly."
"Unquestionably," said I, straining to catch the old lady's song on the
box:
"'Don't you fo'git I's a-comin' behind you--
Lam slam de lunch ham.'"
"This is insufferable," said Pidcock. "I shall put her off at Cedar
Springs."
I suppose the drive was long to him, but to me it was not. Noon and
Cedar Springs prematurely ended the first half of this day most
memorable in the whole medley of my excursion, and we got down to dine.
Two travellers bound for Thomas by our same road were just setting out,
but they firmly declined to transport our cook, and Pidcock moodily saw
them depart in their wagon, leaving him burdened still; for this was the
day the stage made its down trip from Thomas. Never before had I seen
water paid for. When the Major, with windy importance, came to settle
his bill, our dozen or fourteen escort horses and mules made an item,
the price of watering two head being two bits, quite separate from the
feed; and I learned that water was thus precious over most of the
Territory.
Our cook remounted the box in high feather, and began at once to comment
upon Arizona. "Dere ain't no winter, nor no spring, nor no rain de hole
year roun'. My! what a country fo' to gib de chick'ns courage! Dey hens
must jus' sit an' lay an' lay. But de po' ducks done have a mean time.
"'O--Lawd!
Sinner is in my way, Daniel.'"
"I would not permit a cook like that inside my house," said Major
Pidcock.
"She may not be dangerous," I suggested.
"Land! is dey folks gwineter shoot me?" Naturally I looked, and so did
the Major; but it was two of our own mounted escort that she saw out to
the right of us among the hills. "Tell dem nigger jockeys I got no
money. Why do dey triflin' chillun ride in de kerridge?" She did not
mean ourselves, but the men with their carbines in the escort wagon in
front of us. I looked out at them, and their mouths were wide open for
joy at her. It was not a stately progress for twenty-eight thousand
dollars in gold and a paymaster to be making. Major Pidcock unbuttoned
his duster and reclined to sleep, and presently I also felt the
after-dinner sloth shutting my eyes pleasantly to this black road.
"Heave it, chillun! can't you heave?" I heard our cook say, and felt us
stop.
"What's that?" I asked, drowsily.
"Seems to be a rock fallen down," the Major answered. "Start it, men;
roll it!"
I roused myself. We were between rocks and banks on the brow of a hill,
down which the narrow road descended with a slight turn. I could see the
escort wagon halted ahead of us, and beyond it the men stooping at a
large stone, around which there was no possible room to drive. This
stone had fallen, I reflected, since those travellers for Thomas--
There was a shot, and a mule rolled over.
I shall never forget that. It was like the theatre for one paralyzed
second! The black soldiers, the mule, the hill, all a clear picture seen
through an opera-glass, stock-still, and nothing to do with me--for a
congealed second. And, dear me, what a time we had then!