Part 3

The first rays of the sun were beaming upon the Eastern hills as we swung into our saddles, and, amid a chorus of good-byes and God-bless-yous from those left behind, pushed down the hot and sandy valley of the San Bernardino, past the mouth of Guadalupe cañon, to near the confluence of Elias Creek, some twenty miles. Here camp was made on the banks of a pellucid stream, under the shadow of graceful walnut and ash trees. The Apache scouts had scoured the country to the front and on both flanks, and returned loaded with deer and wild turkeys, the latter being run down and caught in the bushes. One escaped from its captors and started through camp on a full jump, pursued by the Apaches, who, upon re-catching it, promptly twisted its head off.

The Apaches were in excellent spirits, the “medicine-men” having repeated with emphasis the prediction that the expedition was to be a grand success. One of the most influential of them--a mere boy, who carried the most sacred medicine--was especially positive in his views, and, unlike most prophets, backed them up with a bet of $40.

On May 2, 1883, breakfasted at 4 A.M. The train--Monach’s--with which we took meals was composed equally of Americans and Mexicans. So, when the cook spread his canvas on the ground, one heard such expressions as _Tantito’ zucarito quiero_; _Sirve pasar el járabe_; _Pase rebanada de pan_; _Otra gotita mas de café_, quite as frequently as their English equivalents, “I’d like a little more sugar,” “Please pass the sirup,” “Hand me a slice of bread,” “A little drop of coffee.” Close by, the scouts consumed their meals, and with more silence, yet not so silently but that their calls for _inchi_ (salt), _ikôn_ (flour), _pezá-a_ (frying-pan), and other articles, could be plainly heard.

Martin, the cook, deserves some notice. He was not, as he himself admitted, a French cook by profession. His early life had been passed in the more romantic occupation of driving an ore-wagon between Willcox and Globe, and, to quote his own proud boast, he could “hold down a sixteen-mule team with any outfit this side the Rio Grande.”

But what he lacked in culinary knowledge he more than made up in strength and agility. He was not less than six feet two in his socks, and built like a young Hercules. He was gentle-natured, too, and averse to fighting. Such, at least, was the opinion I gathered from a remark he made the first evening I was thrown into his society.

His eyes somehow were fixed on mine, while he said quietly, “If there’s anybody here don’t like the grub, I’ll kick a lung out of him!” I was just about suggesting that a couple of pounds less saleratus in the bread and a couple of gallons less water in the coffee would be grateful to my Sybarite palate; but, after this conversation, I reflected that the fewer remarks I made the better would be the chances of my enjoying the rest of the trip; so I said nothing. Martin, I believe, is now in Chihuahua, and I assert from the depths of an outraged stomach, that a better man or a worse cook never thumped a mule or turned a flapjack.

The march was continued down the San Bernardino until we reached its important affluent, the Bávispe, up which we made our way until the first signs of habitancy were encountered in the squalid villages of Bávispe, Basaraca, and Huachinera.

The whole country was a desert. On each hand were the ruins of depopulated and abandoned hamlets, destroyed by the Apaches. The bottom-lands of the San Bernardino, once smiling with crops of wheat and barley, were now covered with a thickly-matted jungle of semi-tropical vegetation. The river banks were choked by dense brakes of cane of great size and thickness. The narrow valley was hemmed in by rugged and forbidding mountains, gashed and slashed with a thousand ravines, to cross which exhausted both strength and patience. The foot-hills were covered with _chevaux de frise_ of Spanish bayonet, mescal, and cactus. The lignum-vitæ flaunted its plumage of crimson flowers, much like the fuchsia, but growing in clusters. The grease-wood, ordinarily so homely, here assumed a garniture of creamy blossoms, rivaling the gaudy dahlia-like cups upon the nopal, and putting to shame the modest tendrils pendent from the branches of the mesquite.

The sun glared down pitilessly, wearing out the poor mules, which had as much as they could do to scramble over the steep hills, composed of a nondescript accumulation of lava, sandstone, porphyry, and limestone, half-rounded by the action of water, and so loosely held together as to slip apart and roll away the instant the feet of animals or men touched them.

When they were not slipping over loose stones or climbing rugged hills, they were breaking their way through jungles of thorny vegetation, which tore their quivering flesh. One of the mules, falling from the rocks, impaled itself upon a mesquite branch, and had to be killed.

Through all this the Apache scouts trudged without a complaint, and with many a laugh and jest. Each time camp was reached they showed themselves masters of the situation. They would gather the saponaceous roots of the yucca and Spanish bayonet, to make use of them in cleaning their long, black hair, or cut sections of the bamboo-like cane and make pipes for smoking, or four-holed flutes, which emitted a weird, Chinese sort of music, responded to with melodious chatter by countless birds perched in the shady seclusion of ash and cotton-wood.

Those scouts who were not on watch gave themselves up to the luxury of the tá-a-chi, or sweat-bath. To construct these baths, a dozen willow or cotton-wood branches are stuck in the ground and the upper extremities, united to form a dome-shaped frame-work, upon which are laid blankets to prevent the escape of heat. Three or four large rocks are heated and placed in the centre, the Indians arranging themselves around these rocks and bending over them. Silicious bowlders are invariably selected, and not calcareous--the Apaches being sufficiently familiar with rudimentary mineralogy to know that the latter will frequently crack and explode under intense heat.

When it came to my time to enter the sweat-lodge I could see nothing but a network of arms and legs, packed like sardines. An extended experience with Broadway omnibuses assured me that there must always be room for one more. The smile of the “medicine-man”--the master of ceremonies--encouraged me to push in first an arm, then a leg, and, finally, my whole body.

Thump! sounded the damp blanket as it fell against the frame-work and shut out all light and air. The conductor of affairs inside threw a handful of water on the hot rocks, and steam, on the instant, filled every crevice of the den. The heat was that of a bake-oven; breathing was well-nigh impossible.

“Sing,” said in English the Apache boy, “Keet,” whose legs and arms were sinuously intertwined with mine; “sing heap; sleep moocho to-night; eat plenny dinna to-mollo.” The other bathers said that everybody must sing. I had to yield. My _repertoire_ consists of but one song--the lovely ditty--“Our captain’s name is Murphy.” I gave them this with all the lung-power I had left, and was heartily encored; but I was too much exhausted to respond, and rushed out, dripping with perspiration, to plunge with my dusky comrades into the refreshing waters of the Bávispe, which had worn out for themselves tanks three to twenty feet deep. The effects of the bath were all that the Apaches had predicted--a sound, refreshing sleep and increased appetite.

The farther we got into Mexico the greater the desolation. The valley of the Bávispe, like that of the San Bernardino, had once been thickly populated; now all was wild and gloomy. Foot-prints indeed were plenty, but they were the fresh moccasin-tracks of Chiricahuas, who apparently roamed with immunity over all this solitude. There were signs, too, of Mexican “travel;” but in every case these were “_conductas_” of pack-mules, guarded by companies of soldiers. Rattlesnakes were encountered with greater frequency both in camp and on the march. When found in camp the Apaches, from superstitious reasons, refrained from killing them, but let the white men do it.

The vegetation remained much the same as that of Southern Arizona, only denser and larger. The cactus began to bear odorous flowers--a species of night-blooming cereus--and parrots of gaudy plumage flitted about camp, to the great joy of the scouts, who, catching two or three, tore the feathers from their bodies and tied them in their inky locks. Queenly humming-birds of sapphire hue darted from bush to bush and tree to tree. Every one felt that we were advancing into more torrid regions. However, by this time faces and hands were finely tanned and blistered, and the fervor of the sun was disregarded. The nights remained cool and refreshing throughout the trip, and, after the daily march or climb, soothed to the calmest rest.

On the 5th of May the column reached the feeble, broken-down towns of Bávispe and Basaraca. The condition of the inhabitants was deplorable. Superstition, illiteracy, and bad government had done their worst, and, even had not the Chiricahuas kept them in mortal terror, it is doubtful whether they would have had energy enough to profit by the natural advantages, mineral and agricultural, of their immediate vicinity. The land appeared to be fertile and was well watered. Horses, cattle, and chickens throve; the cereals yielded an abundant return; and scarlet blossoms blushed in the waxy-green foliage of the pomegranate.

Every man, woman, and child had gathered in the streets or squatted on the flat roofs of the adobe houses to welcome our approach with cordial acclamations. They looked like a grand national convention of scarecrows and rag-pickers, their garments old and dingy, but no man so poor that he didn’t own a gorgeous sombrero, with a snake-band of silver, or display a flaming sash of cheap red silk and wool. Those who had them displayed rainbow-hued _serapes_ flung over the shoulders; those who had none went in their shirt-sleeves.

The children were bright, dirty, and pretty; the women so closely enveloped in their _rebozos_ that only one eye could be seen. They greeted our people with warmth, and offered to go with us to the mountains. With the volubility of parrots they began to describe a most blood-thirsty fight recently had with the Chiricahuas, in which, of course, the Apaches had been completely and ignominiously routed, each Mexican having performed prodigies of valor on a par with those of Ajax. But at the same time they wouldn’t go alone into their fields,--only a quarter of a mile off,--which were constantly patrolled by a detachment of twenty-five or thirty men of what was grandiloquently styled the National Guard. “Peaches,” the guide, smiled quietly, but said nothing, when told of this latest annihilation of the Chiricahuas. General Crook, without a moment’s hesitancy, determined to keep on the trail farther into the Sierra Madre.

The food of these wretched Mexicans was mainly _atole_,--a weak flour-gruel resembling the paste used by our paper-hangers. Books they had none, and newspapers had not yet been heard of. Their only recreation was in religious festivals, occurring with commendable frequency. The churches themselves were in the last stages of dilapidation; the adobe exteriors showed dangerous indications of approaching dissolution, while the tawdry ornaments of the inside were foul and black with age, smoke, dust, and rain.

I asked a small, open-mouthed boy to hold my horse for a moment until I had examined one of these edifices, which bore the elaborate title of the Temple of the Holy Sepulchre and our Lady of the Trance. This action evoked a eulogy from one of the bystanders: “This man can’t be an American, he must be a Christian,” he sagely remarked; “he speaks Castilian, and goes to church the first thing.”

It goes without saying that they have no mails in that country. What they call the post-office of Basaraca is in the store of the town. The store had no goods for sale, and the post-office had no stamps. The postmaster didn’t know when the mail would go; it used to go every eight days, but now--_quien sabe?_ Yes, he would send our letters the first opportunity. The price? Oh! the price?--did the _caballeros_ want to know how much? Well, for Mexican people, he charged five cents, but the Americans would have to pay _dos reales_ (twenty-five cents) for each letter.

The only supplies for sale in Basaraca were fiery mescal, chile, and a few eggs, eagerly snapped up by the advance-guard. In making these purchases we had to enter different houses, which vied with each other in penury and destitution. There were no chairs, no tables, none of the comforts which the humblest laborers in our favored land demand as right and essential. The inmates in every instance received us urbanely and kindly. The women, who were uncovered inside their domiciles, were greatly superior in good looks and good breeding to their husbands and brothers; but the latter never neglected to employ all the punctilious expressions of Spanish politeness.

That evening the round-stomached old man, whom, in ignorance of the correct title, we all agreed to call the Alcalde, paid a complimentary visit to General Crook, and with polite flourishes bade him welcome to the soil of Mexico informed him that he had received orders to render the expedition every assistance in his power, and offered to accompany it at the head of every man and boy in the vicinity. General Crook felt compelled to decline the assistance of these valiant auxiliaries, but asked permission to buy four beeves to feed to the Apache scouts, who did not relish bacon or other salt meat.

Bivouac was made that night on the banks of the Bávispe, under the bluff upon which perched the town of Basaraca. Numbers of visitors--men and boys--flocked in to see us, bringing bread and tobacco for barter and sale. In their turn a large body of our people went up to the town and indulged in the unexpected luxury of a ball. This was so entirely original in all its features that a mention of it is admissible.

Bells were ringing a loud peal, announcing that the morrow would be Sunday, when a prolonged thumping of drums signaled that the _Baile_ was about to begin.

Wending our way to the corner whence the noise proceeded, we found that a half-dozen of the packers had bought out the whole stock of the _tienda_, which dealt only in _mescal_, paying therefor the princely sum of $12.50.

Invitations had been extended to all the adult inhabitants to take part in the festivities. For some reason all the ladies sent regrets by the messenger; but of men there was no lack, the packers having taken the precaution to send out a patrol to scour the streets, “collar” and “run in” every male biped found outside his own threshold. These captives were first made to drink a tumbler of _mescal_ to the health of the two great nations, Mexico and the United States,--and then were formed into quadrille sets, moving in unison with the orchestra of five pieces,--two drums, two squeaky fiddles, and an accordion.

None of the performers understood a note of music. When a new piece was demanded, the tune had to be whistled in the ears of the bass-drummer, who thumped it off on his instrument, followed energetically by his enthusiastic assistants.

This orchestra was augmented in a few moments by the addition of a young boy with a sax-horn. He couldn’t play, and the horn had lost its several keys, but he added to the noise and was welcomed with screams of applause. It was essentially a _stag_ party, but a very funny one. The new player was doing some good work when a couple of dancers whirled into him, knocking him clear off his pins and astride of the bass-drum and drummer.

Confusion reigned only a moment; good order was soon restored, and the dance would have been resumed with increased jollity had not the head of the bass-drum been helplessly battered.

Midnight had long since been passed, and there was nothing to be done but break up the party and return to camp.

From Basaraca to Tesorababi--over twenty miles--the line of march followed a country almost exactly like that before described. The little hamlets of Estancia and Huachinera were perhaps a trifle more squalid than Bávispe or Basaraca, and their churches more dilapidated; but in that of Huachinera were two or three unusually good oil-paintings, brought from Spain a long time ago. Age, dust, weather, and candle-grease had almost ruined, but had not fully obliterated, the touch of the master-hand which had made them.

Tesorababi must have been, a couple of generations since, a very noble ranch. It has plenty of water, great groves of oak and mesquite, with sycamore and cotton-wood growing near the water, and very nutritious grass upon the neighboring hills. The buildings have fallen into ruin, nothing being now visible but the stout walls of stone and adobe. Mesquite trees of noble size choke up the corral, and everything proclaims with mute eloquence the supremacy of the Apache.

Alongside of this ranch are the ruins of an ancient pueblo, with quantities of broken pottery, stone mortars, Obsidian flakes and kindred _reliquiæ_.

To Tesorababi the column was accompanied by a small party of guides sent out by the Alcalde of Basaraca. General Crook ordered them back, as they were not of the slightest use so long as we had such a force of Apache scouts.

We kept in camp at Tesorababi until the night of May 7, and then marched straight for the Sierra Madre. The foot-hills were thickly covered with rich _grama_ and darkened by groves of scrub-oak. Soon the oak gave way to cedar in great abundance, and the hills and ridges became steeper as we struck the trail lately made by the Chiricahuas driving off cattle from Sahuaripa and Oposura. We were fairly within the range, and had made good progress, when the scouts halted and began to explain to General Crook that nothing but bad luck could be expected if he didn’t set free an owl which one of our party had caught, and tied to the pommel of his saddle.

They said the owl (Bû) was a bird of ill-omen, and that we could not hope to whip the Chiricahuas so long as we retained it. These solicitations bore good fruit. The moon-eyed bird of night was set free and the advance resumed. Shortly before midnight camp was made in a very deep cañon, thickly wooded, and having a small stream a thousand feet below our position. No fires were allowed, and some confusion prevailed among the pack-mules, which could not find their places.

Very early the next morning (May 8, 1883) the command moved in easterly direction up the cañon. This was extremely rocky and steep. Water stood in pools everywhere, and animals and men slaked their fierce thirst. Indications of Chiricahua depredations multiplied. The trail was fresh and well-beaten, as if by scores--yes, hundreds--of stolen ponies and cattle.

The carcasses of five freshly slaughtered beeves lay in one spot; close to them a couple more, and so on.

The path wound up the face of the mountain, and became so precipitous that were a horse to slip his footing he would roll and fall hundreds of feet to the bottom. At one of the abrupt turns could be seen, deep down in the cañon, the mangled fragments of a steer which had fallen from the trail, and been dashed to pieces on the rocks below. It will save much repetition to say, at this point, that from now on we were never out of sight of ponies and cattle, butchered, in every stage of mutilation, or alive, and roaming by twos and threes in the ravines and on the mountain flanks.

Climb! Climb! Climb! Gaining the summit of one ridge only to learn that above it towered another, the face of nature fearfully corrugated into a perplexing alternation of ridges and chasms. Not far out from the last bivouac was passed the spot where a large body of Mexican troops had camped, the farthest point of their penetration into the range, although their scouts had been pushed in some distance farther, only to be badly whipped by the Chiricahuas, who sent them flying back, utterly demoralized.

These particulars may now be remarked of that country: It seemed to consist of a series of parallel and very high, knife-edged hills,--extremely rocky and bold; the cañons all contained water, either flowing rapidly, or else in tanks of great depth. Dense pine forests covered the ridges near the crests, the lower skirts being matted with scrub-oak. Grass was generally plentiful, but not invariably to be depended upon. Trails ran in every direction, and upon them were picked up all sorts of odds and ends plundered from the Mexicans,--dresses, made and unmade, saddles, bridles, letters, flour, onions, and other stuff. In every sheltered spot could be discerned the ruins,--buildings, walls, and dams, erected by an extinct race, once possessing this region.

The pack-trains had much difficulty in getting along. Six mules slipped from the trail, and rolled over and over until they struck the bottom of the cañon. Fortunately they had selected a comparatively easy grade, and none was badly hurt.

The scouts became more and more vigilant and the “medicine-men” more and more devotional. When camp was made the high peaks were immediately picketed, and all the approaches carefully examined. Fires were allowed only in rare cases, and in positions affording absolute concealment. Before going to bed the scouts were careful to fortify themselves in such a manner that surprise was simply impossible.

Late at night (May 8th) the “medicine-men” gathered together for the never-to-be-neglected duty of singing and “seeing” the Chiricahuas. After some palaver I succeeded in obtaining the privilege of sitting in the circle with them. All but one chanted in a low, melancholy tone, half song and half grunt. The solitary exception lay as if in a trance for a few moments, and then, half opening his lips, began to thump himself violently in the breast, and to point to the east and north, while he muttered: “Me can’t see the Chilicahuas yet. Bimeby me see ’um. Me catch ’um, me kill ’um. Me no catch ’um, me no kill ’um. Mebbe so six day me catch ’um; mebbe so two day. Tomollow me send twenty-pibe (25) men to hunt ’um tlail. Mebbe so tomollow catch ’um squaw. Chilicahua see me, me no get ’um. No see me, me catch him. Me see him little bit now. Mebbe so me see ’um more tomollow. Me catch ’um, me kill ’um. Me catch ’um hoss, me catch ’um mool (mule), me catch ’um cow. Me catch Chilicahua pooty soon, bimeby. Me kill ’um heap, and catch ’um squaw.” These prophecies, translated for me by an old friend in the circle who spoke some English, were listened to with rapt attention and reverence by the awe-struck scouts on the exterior.

The succeeding day brought increased trouble and danger. The mountains became, if anything, steeper; the trails, if anything, more perilous. Carcasses of mules, ponies, and cows lined the path along which we toiled, dragging after us worn-out horses.

It was not yet noon when the final ridge of the day was crossed and the trail turned down a narrow, gloomy, and rocky gorge, which gradually widened into a small amphitheatre.