ANIMAS VALLEY.--VI.
Amongst other trips of a similar nature, which we made about this time,
was one into the Cojon Bonita, or Beautiful Box, a district adjoining
Animas Valley (only lying on the Mexican side of the border), where the
Colonel had lately purchased 360,000 acres of land from the Mexican
Government. The few cattle that had drifted down there excepted, this
tract was as yet unstocked, and was said to contain a great quantity of
game. Unfortunately it was noted also as being a favourite haunt of the
hostile Apaches, to whom the broken nature of the ground peculiarly
recommended itself. An Indian there was as safe as a rat in a
rabbit-warren, and a white man as completely at his mercy as though he
had been a bound sheep.
As Apaches were known to have been recently in the neighbourhood, it
would have been foolhardy to go down there and camp with less than six
or eight men, and these we had not at our disposal. However, Major
Tupper simplified matters by saying that he himself wished to make a
reconnaissance in that direction, and would come with us and bring an
escort of ten men. F. and W., two friends of the Colonel's, accompanied
us from the Gray Place, and Huse joined us as we passed the Lang ranch.
With the addition of four packers for the inevitable pack-train,
therefore, we formed an extensive party. It augured badly for sport, and
the augury was verified, for the joint bag (and most of the men went
out) was one black-tail killed by F. Tramping and climbing, wading and
sliding, I tore two new pair of mocassins to rags, and only saw two head
of game--two black-tail in the distance--some wild turkey tracks, a
fresh Indian mocassin track (whether of scout or hostile I knew not, but
its Indian origin was proved by the in-turned toes, and absence of any
sign of instep, or of thrown-up dirt at the toes), and a lately deserted
camp-fire still burning. Nevertheless the trip was a delightful picnic,
and as such deserves grateful recollection.
A mile or so over the Mexican border-line, the track we followed
suddenly descended, and we found ourselves in a maze of beautiful glades
and valleys, the grassy hills which formed them being of the same height
as the level of the plain that we had quitted. As we proceeded, the
hills rose rapidly, here and there revealing their rocky framework in
gaunt cliffs and naked elbows; live-oaks intermingled with the
cotton-woods in the bottoms and towered above them on the hillsides,
whilst the richest and most luxuriant grasses spread everywhere. Truly
the district deserved its name of Beautiful Box.
The old Spaniards, by the way, displayed great felicity in their
nomenclature. They were evidently closely observant, too, for, in the
same virile spirit of simplicity and directness which characterises all
that is really typical of old Spanish art, they generally seized on the
salient features of the place to be christened, and allowed play to the
imagination only in so wording the title that, although apt and
descriptive, it did not become absolutely commonplace. In travelling
through the States, the poverty of invention, patent lack of
observation, and vulgarity displayed in the nomenclature is
extraordinary,[35] and is in striking contrast with the work of the
superseded Spaniards, or with the exquisitely beautiful names that
sprang like inspirations from the hearts of those admirable godfathers
and godmothers, the Indians, and remain a legacy of unset poetic gems,
croppings up of a great lead of poetry buried now for ever beneath an
avalanche of the Caucasian race. Nowhere can you find that the untutored
savage has bestowed his own name on a mountain or river! Such sublime
insolence is far less frequent even in Mexico (colonised though the
country was by the proudest and most egotistical race in the world) than
in the States. But in the States, with everything grand and beautiful in
nature to stimulate the imagination, the refined product of modern
culture has found nothing fitter to inscribe upon the newest and fairest
page that civilisation has turned than his own unmeaning appellation,
nothing more remarkable to call attention to than his own vulgarity, and
Jonesvilles, Smithtowns, Robinsonopolises, Brown Cities, and the like,
besides similarly denominated mountains and rivers, render the map
hideous and the Anglo-Saxon race ridiculous. Curious indeed is the
influence of modern culture. Has it not founded the mighty order of
Snobs, and created the distinctive spirit of modern
times--vulgarity--the religion without creed or God, fashioned as it has
been since faith and God-manufacture perished beneath the growing blight
of egotism?
In the Cojon Bonita we threaded our way along a narrow smuggler's trail,
through scenery that grew wilder and wilder every moment. The
topaz-tinted grasses of autumn contrasted with gray or purple cliffs,
the dark foliage of the live-oak with the pale leaves of the
cotton-tree, sycamore, or willow. Some of the clouds of colouring that
the latter triad presented were simply exquisite. Every shade of amber,
crushed strawberry, and all their next-of-kin, combined to make a chord
of marvellous delicacy, soft in its gradations as the clouds of heaven,
and as powerfully relieved against the velvet-toned rocks, as they
against the azure sky. Through all this chaos of colour and beauty,
shattered light and shadow, wound a little stream--_lento_, _piano_,
_dolce_, _allegro_, _vivace_, _forte_--gliding now over gold and
chocolate bars of shingle, now over purple shelves of rock, now silent
and deep, now garrulous and shallow, now unimpeded and smooth, now
checked by a great drift-wood trunk from below which trailed long liquid
tresses, foamy, rebellious, and white, or undulating, glossy, and dark
in hue, whilst everywhere amidst the crystal ripples danced flitting
reflections of blue sky and lovely foliage, crossed by the darting
phantoms of frightened fish. The _frou-frou_ of dried leaves and
herbage, the murmur of waters, and the whispering of the afternoon winds
as they played hide and seek in the thousand canons of the Cojon Bonita,
filled the air with a dreamy tumult. It was a wild spot--as wild
"As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon lover."
Here, if anywhere, it seemed that the old mythical people of the woods,
and mountains, and streams--the nymphs, the fauns, and satyrs, and other
damsels and gentry of irregular habits and questionable record that were
once the fashion, must have retreated. But if they had done so, like
"ole Brer Rabbit," they "lay low." No nymph, with scanty costume and
dishevelled tresses, sprang from the long grass and fled at our
approach. No satyr appeared and faded from sight amidst the aged trunks.
We were alone, apparently.
At length we reached the spot where it was decided that we should camp;
the stream that we had followed was joined here by another, and three
canons debouched upon a little open space, trefoil-shaped. It was too
late to start on a tramp, so the close of the afternoon was spent in
catching fish. How did we catch them?--we had neither tackle nor nets.
Well, we exploded a bit of giant powder in the midst of a shoal, and
that is the shameful truth of it. It was the only possible means at hand
of getting them, and the Colonel had set his affections on a fry for
that evening. The confession is disgraceful, but the crime was partly
expiated by our having to strip and wade into the icy water, in that
deep corner in the rocks, after sundown, in order to collect the stunned
fish that floated on the surface.
Hunting, as has been remarked, proved a failure. The size of our party,
though it ensured our own safety, militated against our success.
Moreover, not very long before, a band of native scouts had spent three
days here, and killed over a hundred deer. My most vivid recollections
of the trip, therefore, are connected with the evenings that we spent
round the camp-fire. A steep amphitheatre of hills surrounded us,
overspread by jewelled skies as serene and blue as the deepest coral
seas; at an hour that grew later and later, the red moon stole up over
the jagged ridges and shed its gorgeous light on the scene; a hundred
yards off, on ground below us, were the quarters of the men, and their
camp-fires flashed and twinkled amidst the cotton-woods, their laughter
and choruses reached us pleasantly on the night air.
Oh, the songs that were sung, and the tales that were told, the yarns
that were spun, and the jokes that were cracked in those few nights!
"Old songs," you say, "that we had each sung hundreds of times before,
and should have thought intolerably wearisome had we heard them on one
another's lips! Tales for which we were each prepared, and of which we
had sometimes even to remind one another in order that the lawful owners
should dispense them! Yarns which only the narrator believed, and that,
probably, only from force of repetition! And jokes--God save the
mark!--mellow already when they were cracked in the fo'k'sle of the
ark!" Likely enough, gentle cynic. There is nothing new; the freshest
lily is as old as the world. The "merry jest" may, as Andrew Lang sings,
descend to us from some Aryan brain. But the laughter is our own, and
that is all that concerns us.
"Hand me the canteen again, then," says the Major, as with his swarthy
face beaming joyously in the fire-light, he stands moistening the sugar
for a second round of toddies, in obedience to a general request. "You
boys remind me of the fellow who said that, 'When he had taken one drink
it always made him feel like another man, and then, of course, in common
politeness he felt obliged to treat the other man.'"
A general laugh followed the Major's sally.
"Do you remember Bat Hogan, at Georgetown, Major?--a fellow with a
hare-lip," asked Huse.
"Bat Hogan? Yes--every cold night that I miss the pair of Navajo
blankets he stole from me."
"Bat came in up there from a long drive on the stage one night, and got
hold of the whisky-bottle and a tumbler at the bar. Well, sir, he poured
himself out a full glass of it. 'Say! that ain't cider, you know,' said
the bar-tender. 'I shoul' hope no',' said Bat. 'I woul'n't drink tha'
much cider for a thousan' dollars.'"
A score of similar anecdotes succeeded this one. The Colonel stroked his
beard, removed his cigar deliberately, pausing every now and then as
deliberately at exciting junctures to keep it alight, and reeled off a
few; and by degrees the conversation drifted on to cards and gambling.
"Were you there, Colonel, the night that the fellows put that job up on
Mills' partner?" asked F.
"Why, of course I was. Didn't Tom Templeton come down to the 'Depot' to
tell us about it? It was the night that that dance was going on
there,--when Skippy said that when old Mac danced he put on so much
style that 'he only touched on the high places as he floated round the
room.'"
"Ah! and nearly got a six-shooter rammed down his throat for it, too!"
"Well, Tom came down just in the middle of that business, and told us
all that they were going to have a game with--what was his name,
anyhow?"
"Cuff."
"Old Cuff, yes."
"What was it?" asked some of us.
"Well, Mills and Cuff had a saloon and a faro-bank up town, in Deming,"
said the Colonel. "Mills was a smart fellow, and a square man, too; but
old Cuff was a sort of drivelling old jackass, only fit to sit under the
stoop in front of the house, and give the time of day to the passers
by. However, he wanted to do things--he would deal at faro, and he would
meddle in this, that, and the other, until Mills was very often so mad
that he could have taken him by the heels and dusted the ornaments with
him. One day he got half-a-dozen tin-horn gamblers together, and between
them they put up a cold deck[36] in a faro-box. Then, when there was
nothing particular going on, Mills gave up his place as dealer to Cuff,
and rung in the new box on him. Well, the tin-horns were there in a
body, with a few stacks of chips,[37] playing light--waiting for the
deal, you see--and as soon as Cuff took his place they began doubling
up, and doubling up, and just sousing it to him red-hot. Before half the
deal was over, the whole bank of checks was gone, and Cuff was giving
markers for hundreds as hard as he could go it. At the end of the deal
he was about nine thousand dollars out. And, by gosh! you never saw a
man in such a state in your life! The perspiration rolled off him in
streams; he began laughing and crying like an idiot. I thought he was
going to choke once."
"How did it all end?"
"Oh, the boys kept him on the 'anxious seat' for two or three days, and
that cured him. He never wanted to deal any more; he would hardly
believe that they _had_ been joshing him, when they did tell him the
truth."
"Talking about 'tin-horns,' Frank Therman used to tell a good yarn,"
observed the Major presently. "Dick Miller came to him one afternoon,
and said, 'Look here, Frank! I've got a dead sure thing on--can't lose!
I want you to lend me fifty dollars to work it with.' Frank gave him the
money--_he_ didn't care anyhow, he'd stake anybody. Pretty soon, in came
Jim Baker. 'Say, old pard! do you want to stake me with fifty
dollars?--it's a real good investment--can't help winning.' 'What's on?'
asked Frank. 'Oh, some suckers want to play poker.' He got his fifty
dollars, and quit. Just as soon as he had gone, in came Dutch Henry. 'I
vas joost looking for you, Fr-r-ank,' says he. 'I hef got something so
goot vat a man vants.' 'The ---- you have! Have you caught a sucker
too?' 'Sucker! Ven you poot 'im in zer son, he ron vays--melt, I min!'
'You don't want that,' said Frank. 'No--no, zir!--you pet! Look here,
Frenk, olt man! I got no tollars--von't you lent me a feefty-tollar
pill?' Well, he got his fifty-dollar 'pill,' and he hadn't been gone
long before Smiling Moses appeared. 'Frank, old pard! I just want fifty
dollars for an hour or two--give it to you again to-night. I've got a
"soft snap" on--can't miss it.' 'You don't say!' said Frank. 'Well, I'll
be good -- --, if those quail showers your tribe used to catch in the
wilderness were in it with our sucker storms! Here's your bill! go right
along and make an independent fortune while you can.' Well, Smiling
Moses skinned out, and the more Frank got to thinking of it, the more he
couldn't make out what in ---- had come to town to make the boys so
busy. So as there was very little faro play going on, he left Moore to
deal, and strolled out to look round a bit. He went into the
'Corral'--there were none of his men there. He looked into the 'Ranch'
and the 'Mine'--devil a sign of them. He went pretty well all round
town, and, finally, it occurred to him to drop into a little 'dive' on
Jim Street. He walked through the bar and pushed the card-room door
open. And there they were, sir, playing poker together--all four of
them! Each tin-horn with the most profound contempt for the others'
skill. I think that's a delightful bit of satire on humanity."
"Moore tells a tale of the old Mississippi steamer days that isn't bad,"
said W. "A tender-foot got in amongst the gamblers on board one of the
boats once, and what with 'strippers,' and 'stocking,' and 'cold decks,'
and 'bugs,' and 'reflectors,' and 'codes,' and so forth, he hadn't the
ghost of a show. They played him to h--l and gone in a very short time.
It was a regular case of 'Shuf', dad, shuf'! it's all you'll get.' They
soon cleaned him out. Well, walking round the deck afterwards, thinking
it over quietly, he found a ten-dollar bill left in one of his pockets,
which he had forgotten, and rushed back at once to the saloon with it.
'Boys,' he shouted, 'I want to bet this ten-dollar bill that I can
whistle louder than the engine.' 'Oh, quit!' they said; 'if you've got
ten dollars left, freeze on to it. Don't throw it away in any such
fooling.' 'That'll be all right,' he said, 'I know what I'm about; I'll
bet, anyhow.' So finally one of them took him up, and they went outside
to see the fun. The chap, he got up on one of the paddle-boxes, and
asked the captain to let off the whistle. Well, he just turned her
loose, and there was a shriek that you might have heard in China. Of
course the 'tender-foot' wasn't in it. However, he didn't seem
disappointed. He came down, and paid his bill cheerfully enough. 'You
can laugh, boys,' he said quietly, 'but I'll be durned if that ain't the
squarest deal I've had on board yet.'"
My stay in Animas Valley was drawing to a close when I returned to the
Gray Place one afternoon, bringing with me an antelope that I had shot,
and having parted with Jake, who had followed a fresh trail down into
the Skeleton Canon, to turn back a small band of cattle that were
straying in that direction. The house was empty. Don Cabeza had gone
over to the neighbouring camp to chat with the officers; Murray and Joe
were still out; and Squito was not seated, as was generally the case, on
the bench by the door, her curly black head bent over a dime novel.
While I was yet in the distance, I had noticed her little figure on one
of the hillocks behind the house, where she would often stand for an
hour at a time, shading her eyes, and scanning the valley for "old man
Murray," of whom she was passionately fond. But she had vanished now.
Unsaddling my horse, I turned him loose to join his fellows on the
_cienega_, and, lighting a cigarette, strolled up towards Squito's
favourite coigne of observation to enjoy the stillness which the great
expanse of the view from thence seemed to accentuate always.
The sky was fretted with the faint fires of a sunset, delicate in its
colours as pale orchids--colours that might have been conceived by a
fairy, and broadcast by a gale. The soft air mused and mused in the dry
crowsfoot gramma grass that clothed the country, making a music that
seemed a very air-treasured echo and tradition of sweet old-world sounds
become transiently audible again in the silence of the moment. From the
yellow slopes around its base, old Animas towered king-like above the
valley; and dim blue, mystic peaks and crests, like a company of ghosts,
low down on the horizon to the south, marked the commencement of the
Sierra Madre.
I was surmounting the brow of the first knoll, when involuntarily I
stopped. In a little hollow before me, Squito was dancing by herself--a
dance that probably had its origin in some old Spanish bolero, seen by
her in her early childhood, and partly retained in memory. But the
gestures, poses, motive and method of the dance were her own, and it
seemed that her mind was filled with some theme as she danced. The hot
blood of her race had sway over her, and totally unconscious of my
presence (for only my head and shoulders were visible, and these partly
concealed amidst cacti and rocks), she abandoned herself entirely to the
impulse of the moment. The slant, rosy gleams from heaven played upon
her, as she danced, partly in light and partly in shadow, turning and
swaying, and swiftly moving over the little flat that served her for a
floor. Pliant as a willow wand, lissom as a rabbit, her light form
changed its poise rapidly or slowly, but always with swimming ease and
continuity of motion. Where did her actions begin--where end? It was
impossible to say. They were, and they were not. They came, they passed
away; merged into one another, but measurable, distinctly, as little as
is the sound of something that travels. With steps small, or for a
moment boldly prolonged, she came and went. And now her little figure
seemed to dilate with passion, now droop in exquisite languor, her arms
and head moving in unison with the spirit of her mood--beseeching now,
now beckoning, scoffing, defying, imperiously commanding.
Oh, Squito, Squito! how many a _premiere danseuse_ would pledge her
jewels to acquire a tithe of the natural gift that you possess, of the
very existence of which you cannot be said to be fully conscious, and
the evidence of which, only old Animas, and the cacti, and the scored,
purple boulders of the hills, or, perchance, a select circle of cow-boy
familiars are permitted to witness.
Breathless she paused, her brown eyes flashing fire, and in a second she
caught sight of me. She started, halted, then turned precipitously and
fled. From that moment until when I left, a few days later, she never
addressed me unless forced to do so, and then only in the brusquest
monosyllables. However, when the Colonel and I were preparing to start,
she hovered round us restlessly for some time, and finally conquered her
shyness sufficiently to speak to me.
"The boys say that you're going down into Mexico--Chihuahua and there?"
"Yes, I shall run down there again shortly, Squito."
"Likely you'll see Sam somewheres."
"Sam? Who is Sam?"
"Sam," she repeated simply, in the glorious egotism of first love taking
it for granted that all the world knew her Sam. "Sam Rider, who used to
work in the Animas," and her increasing confusion suddenly reminded me
of the man she had taken up the cudgels for, on my first evening in the
valley, and who I had since heard had got into some shooting scrape and
fled into Mexico.
"Oh, yes, I remember--of course."
"Won't you give him a message for me?"
"Certainly, if I see him. What can I tell him for you?"
"Tell him--tell him----" and hesitating painfully, with a world of
trouble in her marvellous eyes, the child looked up at me earnestly. The
colour had faded from her face, all its lines were exquisitely softened,
and as she smiled apologetically her lips just trembled. "Tell him you
seen me--and--and--tell him I told yer to say so. Will you?--please. He
said he'd write."
"I'll tell him, Squito. Anything else?"
"No--_he knows_," she murmured almost inaudibly, turning her crimson
face aside.
"Good-bye, then."
"Good-bye," and she moved away rapidly.
But as we drove off, we saw the little figure in its broad leaf hat, on
the hillock behind the house, watching us. And as long as we were in
sight it remained there.
FOOTNOTES:
[35] Why is this? Americans lack neither imagination nor artistic
feeling.
[36] To "ring in a cold deck" is to order in and substitute a fresh
pack, in which the cards are prearranged.
[37] Counters.