LITMIR.BIZ

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      CHAPTER II.

       Table of Contents

      STRANGE VISITORS—SOME APACHE CUSTOMS—MEXICAN CAPTIVES—SPEEDY AND THE GHOST—THE ATTACK UPON KENNEDY AND ISRAEL’S TRAIN—FINDING THE BODIES—THE DEAD APACHE—A FRONTIER BURIAL—HOW LIEUTENANT YEATON RECEIVED HIS DEATH WOUND—ON THE TRAIL WITH LIEUTENANT CUSHING—REVENGE IS SWEET.

      WE had all sorts of visitors from the adjacent country. The first I remember was a squaw whose nose had been cut off by a brutal and jealous husband. The woman was not at all bad looking, and there was not a man at the post who did not feel sorry for the unfortunate who, for some dereliction, real or imagined, had been so savagely disfigured.

      This shocking mode of punishment, in which, by the way, the Apache resembled some of the nations of antiquity, prevailed in full vigor until after General Crook had subjected this fierce tribe to law and discipline, and the first, or, at least, among the very first, regulations he laid down for their guidance was that the women of the tribe must be treated just as kindly as the men, and each and every infraction of the rule was threatened with the severest punishment the whole military force could inflict. Since then the practice has wholly died out among both the Apaches and the Hualpais.

      Then there came an old withered crone, leading a woman somewhat younger, but still shrivelled with the life of care and drudgery which falls to the lot of the Apache matron, and a third member of this interesting party, a boy ten or twelve years old, who was suffering from the bite of a rattlesnake, which had caused his right leg to shrink and decay. The medicine-men of their band had sung vigorously and applied such medicine as they thought best suited to the case, but it proved to be beyond their skill, and they had advised this journey to Camp Grant, to see what the white man’s medicine could do for the sufferer.

      Still another interesting picture framed in my memory is that of the bent old dotard who wished to surrender on account of frankly confessed impotency to remain longer on the war-path. Battles were for young men only; as people grew older they got more sense, and all should live as brothers. This world was large enough for everybody, and there should be enough to eat for the Indians and the white men, too. There were men whose hearts were hard and who would not listen to reason; they wished to fight, but as for himself, his legs could not climb the mountains any longer, and the thorns were bad when they scratched his skin. His heart was good, and so long as this stone which he placed on the ground should last he wanted to let the Great Father know that he meant to be his friend. Had his brother, the post commander, any tobacco?

      Many an hour did I sit by the side of our friend and brother, watching him chip out arrow-heads from fragments of beer bottles, or admiring the dexterity with which he rubbed two sticks together to produce flame. Matches were his greatest treasure, and he was never tired begging for them, and as soon as obtained, he would wrap them up carefully in a piece of buckskin to screen from the weather. But we never gave him reason to suspect that our generosity was running away with our judgment. We were careful not to give him any after we found out that he could make fire so speedily and in a manner so, strange, and which we were never tired of seeing.

      These members of the tribe were all kept as prisoners, more to prevent communication with the enemy than from any suspected intention of attempting an escape. They were perfectly contented, were well fed, had no more to do than was absolutely good for them in the way of exercise, and except that they had to sleep under the eyes of the sentinels at night, were as free as any one else in the garrison. Once or twice Indian couriers came over from Camp Apache—or Thomas, as it was then called—in the Sierra Blanca. Those whom I first saw were almost naked, their only clothing being a muslin loin-cloth, a pair of pointed-toed moccasins, and a hat of hawk feathers. They had no arms but lances and bows and arrows. One of them bore a small round shield of raw-hide decked with eagle plumage, another had a pretty fiddle made of a joint of the bamboo-like stalk of the century plant, and a third had a pack of monte cards, cut out of dried pony skin and painted to represent rudely the figures in the four suits.

      Their lank, long black hair, held back from the eyes by bands of red flannel; their superb chests, expanded by constant exercise in the lofty mountains, and their strongly muscled legs confirmed all that I had already learned of their powers of endurance from the half-breed Mexicans and the tame Apaches at the post—people like Manuel Duran, Nicolas, and Francisco, who were what were then known as tame Apaches, and who had never lived with the others in the hills, but belonged to a section which had made peace with the whites many years previously and had never broken it; or escaped captives like José Maria, José de Leon, Victor Ruiz, or Antonio Besias, who had been torn away from their homes in Sonora at an early age, and had lived so long with the savages that they had become thoroughly conversant with all their ideas and customs as well as their language. Nearly all that class of interpreters and guides are now dead. Each had a wonderful history, well worthy of recital, but I cannot allow myself to be tempted into a more extended reference to any of them at this moment.

      The fact that the post trader had just received a stock of new goods meant two things—it meant that he had made a mistake in his order and received a consignment different from the old goods which he had hitherto taken so much pride in keeping upon his shelves, and it meant that the paymaster was about to pay us a visit, and leave a share of Uncle Sam’s money in the country.

      There were two assistants in the store, Paul and Speedy.

      Paul was getting along in years, but Speedy was young and bright. Paul had at one period in his life possessed some intelligence and a fair education, but whiskey, cards, and tobacco had long ago blunted what faculties he could claim, and left him a poor hulk, working for his board and drinks at such odd jobs as there were to do about the premises. He had been taught the trade of cabinet-making in Strassburg, and when in good humor, and not too drunk, would join and polish, carve and inlay boxes, made of the wood of the mesquite, madroño, manzanita, ash, and walnut, which would delight the eyes of the most critical.

      Speedy was the most active man about the post. He was one of our best runners, and by all odds the best swimmer in the cool, deep pools which the San Pedro formed where it came up out of the sands a short distance below the officers’ quarters, and where we often bathed in the early evening hours, with some one of the party on guard, because the lurking Apaches were always a standing menace in that part of Arizona.

      I do not know what has become of Speedy. He was an exceptionally good man in many ways, and if not well educated, made up in native intelligence what others more fortunate get from books. From a Yankee father he inherited the Maine shrewdness in money matters and a keenness in seeing the best points in a bargain. A Spanish mother endowed him with a fund of gentle politeness and good manners.

      When he came to bid me good-by and tell me that he had opened a “Monte Pio,” or pawnbroker’s shop, in Tucson, I ventured to give him a little good advice.

      “You must be careful of your money, Speedy. Pawnbroking is a risky business. You’ll be likely to have a great deal of unsalable stuff left on your hands, and it don’t look to me as if five per cent. was enough interest to charge. The laws of New York, I believe, allow one to charge twenty per cent. per annum.”

      “Cap., what’s per annum?”

      “Why, every year, of course.”

      “Oh, but you see mine is five per cent. a week.”

      Speedy was the only man I ever knew who had really seen a ghost. As he described it to us, it had much the appearance of a “human,” and was mounted on a pretty good specimen of a Sonora plug, and was arrayed in a suit of white canvas, with white helmet, green veil, blue goggles, and red side whiskers. It didn’t say a word to my friend, but gave him a decidedly cold stare, which was all that Speedy cared to wait for before he broke for the brush. A hundred yards or so in rear there was a train of pack mules, laden with cot frames, bath-tubs, hat boxes, and other trumpery, which may or may not have had something to do with the ghost in advance. Speedy and his mule were too agitated to stop to ask questions, and continued on into Hermosillo.

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