On The Border With Crook - John Gregory Bourke

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rarely under the nineties even in winter at noon, and often climbing up to and over the 120 notch on the Fahrenheit scale before the meridian of days between April 1st and October 15th; it was hard to organize riding or hunting parties when all the horses had just returned worn out by some rough scouting in the Pinal or Sierra Ancha. There in the trader’s store was a pleasant, cool room, with a minimum of flies, the latest papers, perfect quiet, genial companionship, cool water in “ollas” swinging from the rafters, and covered by boards upon which, in a thin layer of soil, grew a picturesque mantle of green barley, and, on a table conveniently near, cans of lemon-sugar, tumblers and spoons, and one or two packs of cards. My readers must not expect me to mention ice or fruits. I am not describing Delmonico’s; I am writing of Old Camp Grant, and I am painting the old hole in the most rosy colors I can employ. Ice was unheard of, and no matter how high the mercury climbed or how stifling might be the sirocco from Sonora, the best we could do was to cool water by evaporation in “ollas” of earthenware, manufactured by the Papago Indians living at the ruined mission of San Xavier, above Tucson.

      To revert to the matter of drinking and gambling. There is scarcely any of either at the present day in the regular army. Many things have combined to bring about such a desirable change, the principal, in my opinion, being the railroads which have penetrated and transformed the great American continent, placing comforts and luxuries within reach of officers and men, and absorbing more of their pay as well as bringing them within touch of civilization and its attendant restraints. Of the two vices, drunkenness was by all odds the preferable one. For a drunkard, one can have some pity, because he is his own worst enemy, and, at the worst, there is hope for his regeneration, while there is absolutely none for the gambler, who lives upon the misfortunes and lack of shrewdness of his comrades. There are many who believe, or affect to believe, in gaming for the excitement of the thing and not for the money involved. There may be such a thing, but I do not credit its existence. However, the greatest danger in gambling lay in the waste of time rather than in the loss of money, which loss rarely amounted to very great sums, although officers could not well afford to lose anything.

      I well remember one great game, played by a party of my friends—but at Fort Laramie, Wyoming, and not in Arizona—which illustrates this better than I can describe. It was an all-night game—ten cents to come in and a quarter limit—and there was no small amount of engineering skill shown before the first call for reveille separated the party. “Fellows,” said one of the quartette, in speaking of it some days afterward, “I tell you it was a struggle of the giants, and when the smoke of battle cleared away, I found I’d lost two dollars and seventy-five cents.”

      As it presents itself to my recollection now, our life wasn’t so very monotonous; there was always something going on to interest and instruct, even if it didn’t amuse or enliven.

      “Corporal Dile’s har-r-r-se ’s bit by a ratthler ’n th’ aff hind leg”; and, of course, everybody turns out and gets down to the stables as fast as possible, each with his own prescription, which are one and all discarded for the great Mexican panacea of a poultice of the “golondrina” weed. Several times I have seen this used, successfully and unsuccessfully, and I do not believe in its vaunted efficacy by any means.

      “Oscar Hutton’s bin kicked ’n th’ jaw by a mewel.” Hutton was one of the post guides, a very good and brave man. His jaw was hopelessly crushed by a blow from the lightning hoofs of a miserable “bronco” mule, and poor Hutton never recovered from the shock. He died not long after, and, in my opinion, quite as much from chagrin at being outwitted as from the injury inflicted.

      Hutton had had a wonderful experience in the meanest parts of our great country—and be it known that Uncle Sam can hold his own with any prince or potentate on God’s footstool in the matter of mean desert land. All over the great interior basin west of the Rockies Hutton had wandered in the employ of the United States with some of the Government surveying parties. Now he was at the mouth of the Virgin, where there is a salt mine with slabs two and three feet thick, as clear as crystal; next he was a wanderer in the dreaded “Death Valley,” below the sea-level, where there is no sign of animal life save the quickly darting lizard, or the vagrant duck whose flesh is bitter from the water of “soda” lakes, which offer to the wanderer all the comforts of a Chinese laundry, but not one of those of a home. At that time I only knew of these dismal places from the relation of Hutton, to which I listened open-mouthed, but since then I have had some personal acquaintance, and can aver that in naught did he overlap the truth. The ground is covered for miles with pure baking-soda,—I decline to specify what brand, as I am not writing this as an advertisement, and my readers can consult individual preference if they feel so disposed—which rises in a cloud of dry, irritating dust above the horse’s houghs, and if agitated by the hot winds, excoriates the eyes, throat, nostrils, and ears of the unfortunate who may find himself there. Now and then one discerns in the dim distance such a deceiving body of water as the “Soda Lake,” which tastes like soapsuds, and nourishes no living thing save the worthless ducks spoken of, whose flesh is uneatable except to save one from starvation.

      Hutton had seen so much hardship that it was natural to expect him to be meek and modest in his ideas and demeanor, but he was, on the contrary, decidedly vain and conceited, and upon such a small matter that it ought not really to count against him. He had six toes on each foot, a fact to which he adverted with pride. “Bee gosh,” he would say, “there hain’t ennuther man ’n th’ hull dog-goned outfit ’s got ez menny toes ’s me.”

      Then there was the excitement at Felmer’s ranch, three miles above the post. Felmer was the post blacksmith, and lived in a little ranch in the fertile “bottom” of the San Pedro, where he raised a “patch” of barley and garden-truck for sale to the garrison. He was a Russian or a Polynesian or a Turk or a Theosophist or something—he had lived in so many portions of the world’s surface that I never could keep track of him. I distinctly remember that he was born in Germany, had lived in Russia or in the German provinces close to Poland, and had thence travelled everywhere. He had married an Apache squaw, and from her learned the language of her people. She was now dead, but Joe was quite proud of his ability to cope with all the Apaches in Arizona, and in being a match for them in every wile. One hot day—all the days were comfortably warm, but this was a “scorcher”—there was a sale of condemned Government stock, and Joe bought a mule, which the auctioneer facetiously suggested should be called “Lazarus,” he had so many sores all over his body. But Joe bought him, perfectly indifferent to the scoffs and sneers of the by-standers. “Don’t you think the Apaches may get him?” I ventured to inquire. “That’s jest what I’m keeping him fur; bait—unnerstan’? ’N Apache’ll come down ’n my alfalfy field ’n git thet mewel, ’n fust thing you know thar’ll be a joke on somebody.”

      Felmer was a first-class shot, and we naturally supposed that the joke would be on the deluded savage who might sneak down to ride away with such a crow-bait, and would become the mark for an unerring rifle. But it was not so to be. The wretched quadruped had his shoes pulled off, and was then turned loose in alfalfa and young barley, to his evident enjoyment and benefit. Some time had passed, and we had almost forgotten to twit Felmer about his bargain. It’s a very thin joke that cannot be made to last five or six weeks in such a secluded spot as Old Camp Grant, and, for that reason, at least a month must have elapsed when, one bright Sunday afternoon, Felmer was rudely aroused from his siesta by the noise of guns and the voices of his Mexican herders crying: “Apaches! Apaches!” And there they were, sure enough, and on top of that sick, broken-down cast-off of the quartermaster’s department—three of them, each as big as the side of a house, and poor Joe so dazed that for several minutes he couldn’t fire a shot.

      The two bucks in front were kicking their heels into the mule’s ribs, and the man in rear had passed a hair lariat under the mule’s tail, and was sawing away for dear life. And the mule? Well, the mule wasn’t idle by any means, but putting in his best licks in getting over the ground, jumping “arroyos” and rocks, charging into and over nopals and chollas and mesquite, and fast leaving behind him the valley of the San Pedro, and getting into the foot-hills of the Pinaleno Range.

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