Part 26

We were always far on the day's journey before the sun was fairly up; it was very early, to be sure, and often as the tents were struck when the _générale_ was sounded, the families occupying them could be seen tumbling out, the children only half-dressed; and it happened sometimes that carriages were left behind, when not ready to fall into line when the march was beaten. In times of danger from Indians, of course, this would not have happened; but at that time there was thought to be no danger, except at night.

Mrs. Melville had developed into an unmitigated tyrant, and one of her victims was an Englishman, a raw recruit, who had been given the lieutenant as servant. His name was either Ackley or Hackley, Ockley or Hockley. If he insisted it was one, Mrs. Melville said it was the other; and so completely cowed was he at last that he no longer dared to assert his right to any name. I often thought it was a national revenge she was wreaking on the poor fellow (she and her husband had sprung from the Emerald Isle). He had to do all the work that should have fallen to her share, and he never had a moment to spare for the lieutenant or myself. From the first day of starting, I had detected, among the detail of men sent to pitch our tent, a countryman of mine, a poor Dutchman, the greenest of his kind. I electrified him one day by speaking German to him, and ever after his pale, worn face would brighten, and his eyes light up, when I asked of him any little service or assistance. The general, knowing me to be a German, allowed the man to wait on us; and Mohrman was happy as a king when he could fondle Toby, or put our tent to rights, and fix things comfortably for me in the carriage. He was a cabinet-maker, and the camp-table he made for us was the envy of the whole camp. The poor fellow was weak in the chest (something unusual for one of his nationality), and a big Irish corporal, who was a good enough fellow otherwise, had always imposed on Mohrman, because he was ignorant of the language, and could make no complaint to his officer. He continued to bear with Stebbins's petty persecutions like a saint, till one morning he made his appearance at the tent-door, with tears in his eyes, and complained that the corporal had deprived him of the last thing he had left, coming from the "Fatherland"--his _Gesang-Buch_, which his mother had given him on the day of confirmation.

I stepped outside, where Corporal Stebbins with his detail stood, waiting to strike the tent at the sounding of the _générale_. There was a lurking grin on the corporal's face, as he approached at my summons.

"Corporal," said I, "have you Mohrman's book?"

"Sure, ma'am, and is it his prayer-book the poor b'y wants? Ye see, he complained yesterday that his knapsack was so heavy that he couldn't pack me blankets; so I thought I'd carry this for him a while;" and, amidst a half-suppressed snicker, he solemnly drew forth from his capacious pocket a big black hymn-book, substantially German-looking, about ten inches in length by five inches across.

"I'll take that book," said I, looking severe, and turning very quickly to hide my face.

After this Mohrman seemed to have more peace; and we journeyed on serenely till we reached Fort Lyon, Colorado, the first human habitation we had laid eyes on for many weeks. Sterile and rock-strewn as the country is, it was the boast of the post commander that he had as fine a company-garden as could be seen, twenty miles away from here; to which his wife added, "the only pity was that the vegetables should always be dry and wilted before they reached the garrison."

I was well pleased to think that our destination lay beyond Fort Lyon; though there were those among the ladies who so dreaded the crossing of the Arkansas just before us, and the passage of the Raton Mountains later, that they would have remained here, where no flower could be coaxed into blossom, rather than have gone on. The Arkansas river was to be crossed at Bent's old fort, where the overland mail-stage also had its crossing. The carriages were discreetly sent a mile or two above the fording-place, for the soldiers--poor fellows--had to swim across, their clothes, knapsack, and gun in one hand, while with the other they held to the stout ropes stretched from shore to shore. Not a man of the eight hundred was lost. There were mounted men in the river, ready to lend a helping hand at the first cry for aid, and they all crossed safely, though many, I dare say, in fear and trembling. When the men were over, the married officers were permitted to join the ladies, and we were ferried across in the skiff belonging to the stage line, for which little water-excursion we paid two dollars a head to the Overland Mail Company. Carriages and wagons were brought over by the wagon-master and teamsters; and when the whole train was on the other side, we thought we had spent rather a pleasant day.

Like sailors scanning the edge of the horizon for land, so the soldiers had for days been watching the nearer approach of the Spanish Peaks looming faintly in the distance, and breaking the grand monotone of the level, changeless plain, verging, where the eye could see no further, into limitless space. Those who had been out this way before commenced talking of the "Picketwire," and the beautiful valleys we should see, and the big onions the Mexicans would bring to the camp to sell. After a while I discovered that the "Picketwire" was a little river--the "Purgatoir" or "Purgatory"--along whose banks the Mexican raised vegetables and fruit, of which I saw specimens, later, in the big onion spoken of. I had not been in California then, and the onions produced there, of the size of a large saucer, certainly had a stunning effect on me.

I am not prepared to say why the little river was called Purgatory. For the most part the country was good enough--lovely, even; and sometimes grand. One or two days seemed rather purgatorial though, come to think of it. On one occasion we passed through steep, barren hills, strewn all over with little cylindrical pieces of iron, that looked exactly as though they had been melted in that place just below purgatory, and thrown up here to cool. Another day we marched along the bed of a river, over boulders from three to six feet high; if _we_ did not think it purgatory, the horses and mules certainly did. But the worst day of all remained.

It broke at last--the dreaded day in which the Raton Pass was to be attempted. The horrors of the Pass, however, must have been less vivid in the eyes of the general than in the minds of the ladies belonging to his command; for, contrary to all hopes and expectations, he allowed none of the married officers to remain with the carriages. It was a "steep" pass, undeniably. To this day I have not forgotten the sound of the grating of the wheels on the bare, unmitigated rock, as the carriage made ascents and descents that were truly miraculous--one wheel pointing heavenward sometimes, while the other three were wedged in below; scraping along a rock wall, bounding from rock to rock, with the pleasant prospect, on the other side, of a launch from a jagged, well-deep precipice, into eternity.

The crowning point to our terror, and to the grandeur of the scene, was a fearfully inclined plane of solid rock, with a frowning bank on one side, a gaping drop-off on the other, and a dark, heavy wall rising square in front of us; against which, to all appearances, the mules must dash their brains out, for neither bit nor brake was of the least avail on this road. Just where the crash against the wall seemed inevitable, there was a narrow curve, and the road ran on in spite of the seeming impossibility. True to the saying, that there is but a step from the sublime to the ridiculous, I fell to laughing here, so that Melville turned in surprise to see whether fear and terror had robbed me of my sober senses; but I had seen in passing, painted on that dreadful wall of frowning rock, the cabalistic words and signs: "Old Cabin Bitters; S---- T---- 1860 ---- X----;" and below this, "Brandreth's Vegetable Pills."

These horrors past, there lay before us valleys, hills, crags--that formed as picturesque a landscape as tourist's eye was ever gladdened by. At the foot of tall, straight pines, crowning the heights and covering the sloping hill-sides, was a carpet of short, soft grass, out of which laughed the merriest flower-eyes, and over which nodded the slenderest stalks, bearing blossoms that seemed exotic in their intensely bright hues. The balm-laden breath of the wind told enticing tales of the untrod velvet on the heights above, where the pine-trees bent and swayed in the passing breeze. We had come upon this all so unexpectedly that the lieutenant insisted on my mounting Toby to obtain a better view of the whole country. My saddle was in the wagon somewhere, and there was no time to hunt it up; but as I had seen Mrs. Lane start off on the colonel's horse and saddle sometime before, I clambered on Toby's back at once, into the lieutenant's saddle. By crossing some little low hills, which the command had to march around, I found myself pretty soon ahead of the train. Not aware that we were to pass any place where human beings dwelt, I kept bravely on--feeling all the more safe from seeing Captain Newbold's cow, with her guardian, just in front of me. When I saw a rude kind of gateway a little later, I could not resist the promptings of my curiosity, and quite forgot the command, which approached just then with beating drums and flying colors. Had I realized how near they were upon me, I think my native modesty would have prompted me to let General Sykes, with his command, pass in front of me; but seeing Captain Newbold's cow march through the gate, and an avenue of Mexican and Indian faces, I followed the lead, barely escaping the feet of the drummer-boys, who were close on my heels.

It was the residence of an old pioneer--old Wooten--a pioneer in the boldest sense of the word. In conversation with one of the officers, when Kit Carson was mentioned, he spoke of him as being a comparative stranger in these parts, having been in the country only some twenty-five or thirty years.

If, in the eyes of the straggling Mexicans gathered around, it was an honor to ride in front of the command--next after Captain Newbold's cow--that honor, and the privilege of riding in the lieutenant's saddle, was dearly paid for before night. Determined not to have the drummer-boys so close behind me again, I turned aside from the road, lured on by the magnificent fresh, soft grass before me. Toby seemed strangely averse to crushing the grass, for he stepped very gingerly, and made two or three attempts to turn back. Sky-gazing, I urged him on, till a sudden plunge he made had nearly thrown me out of the slippery saddle, and for the first time I saw that the fresh, treacherous green had only covered an ugly quagmire, in which Toby was wildly plunging about, getting in deeper at every fresh effort to raise himself. The command had nearly passed; only Colonel Bankhead lingered behind, picking the rare flowers for his wife--gallant man!--and my wild shouts caused him to look around. It was a slow job to rescue me; and by the time I was on dry soil, the colonel's clothing was very much the color of Toby's legs just then, for the frightened horse would not move a step, and Colonel Bankhead--I repeat my thanks to him now--had made his way into the horrible bog at the risk of his life almost. After this I could let Toby have the reins, and go anywhere--he never got mired again. But I took to the carriage that day, and never mounted Toby again till we reached Fort Union, some time later.

They were building very comfortable quarters at Fort Union when we got in, but that did us no good. General Sykes had his camping-ground assigned by General Carleton a mile or two outside the post; and our place was with the Fifth Infantry, until our regiment should get in. Now we used to strain our eyes looking for signs of "our regiment;" not that we were not well enough off where we were, but we used to congregate at the tent of some officer of the Third, and feel clannish, and speak of the delight we should feel when "old Howe" got in with the regiment--all out of sheer contrariness, I suppose.

One day Melville rushed wildly into the tent, and announced a great dust arising in the distance. We all rushed out, and a perfect fever took possession of the camp--cavalry and infantry, officers and men. Tables and mess-chests were brought out and spread; bottles were uncorked, and fruit-cans opened; dried-apple pie (a great luxury, I assure you) and salt pickles, raw sliced onions and raspberry jelly, were joyfully placed side by side.

Nearer rolled the dust--slowly--slowly; a snail might have moved faster, I thought, than this regiment, famed once as the Rifles, and blessed with the reputation of being very unlike a snail in general character. Mrs. Melville needed no stimulant to do her best; affection and ambition prompted her alike--she had served with the Third before, and was now again of them--and she worked like a beaver to have the table well spread for the expected guests. The slow, heavy tramp of the approaching troops shook the earth like far-off thunder; but the dust was so thick that it was hard to tell where the soldiers left off and the wagons commenced, while the train moved. At last there came the sudden clanging of trumpets, so shrill and discordant that I put my hands up to my ears, and then the command halted near our camp.

Let no one dream of a band of gay cavaliers riding grandly into the garrison on prancing steeds, and with flying banners! Alas, for romance and poetry! Gaunt, ragged-looking men, on bony, rough-coated horses--sun-burned, dust-covered, travel-worn, man and beast. Was there nothing left of the old material of the dashing, death-daring Rifles? Ah, well! These men had seen nothing for long weeks but the red, sun-heated soil of the Red River country; had drank nothing but the thick, blood-red water of the river; had eaten nothing but the one dry, hard cracker, dealt out to them each day; for they had been led wrong by the guide, had been lost, so that they reached Fort Union long after, instead of long before, the Fifth Infantry.

Their camping-ground was assigned them quite a distance from the Fifth, and we rode over the next day to visit the ladies who had come with the command. The difference between the two camps struck me all the more forcibly, I presume, because General Sykes was famed for the order and precision he enforced; and when we rode up to his tent two days later, to bid him good-bye (the officers of the Third having received orders to join their regiment), I exclaimed, in tones of mild despair:

"Oh, general, can you not come with us, and take command of the Third?"

He shook his head solemnly, looking over to the cavalry camp.

"Nothing would give me greater pleasure, madame, than to accede to your wishes; but really in this instance I must decline. _There are too many unruly horses for me in that camp._"

I hope the general meant only what he said; I hope too the Third will forgive me, when I say that an old soldier in the ranks, a German, once told me in confidence that every member of that regiment could pass muster for the Wild Huntsman, so well known in the annals of terror in German fable-history.

II.

It was a novel court-martial, whose last sitting was held at the dead of night, between Fort Union and Los Vegas, in New Mexico. Let no one think that a love of the romantic induced the general commanding to order this assembling at the "witching hour, when church-yards yawn," but dire necessity--"the exigencies of the service," as they have it. General Sykes, who was president of the court, was under orders to take up the line of march with his infantry, on the day following, for Fort Sumner, while Colonel Howe, with five companies of cavalry, was to proceed to Fort Craig; and as General Carleton understood no joking in regard to orders once issued, and as the board had not been able to finish up the business brought before it while convened at Fort Union, this midnight session was agreed upon--the command to separate and march in opposite directions, as soon as the court adjourned.

Of the prisoners at the bar, the lieutenant was one, though I have forgotten for what heinous crime arraigned; doubtless the charges against him and the other unfortunate wights were very grave and serious in the eyes of their superior officers, though trivial they might be in the estimation of civilians. Just as the gray dawn crept up the horizon, the lieutenant entered the tent, where I was waiting, fully dressed for the march, knowing that the tents would be struck as soon as the court was over.

Slowly the long train arranged itself, and lumberingly it wound its way out of the camp, entered only at a late hour the evening before. The blast of the bugle seemed fairly to cut the crisp morning air, and the horses neighed and stamped, while here and there a mule couple--part of the six attached to each wagon--would begin frisking and jumping, till called to order by the blacksnake of the irritable driver. As the lieutenant was under arrest, he was relieved from duty; and as this state of things was likely to continue until the proceedings and findings of the court had been sent to Washington and returned, we set out with the intention of enjoying the journey as well as was possible under the circumstances. We were expected to march with the command, but in the rear of the cavalry, and preceding the army-wagons. The dust, however, was anything but pleasant here, and as, altogether, Uncle Sam holds the lines of government somewhat slacker in these frontier countries, the lieutenant was allowed to take his carriage, the orderly, and the wagon containing our tent and camp furniture, to the end of the entire train. In this way we could make a halt, or an excursion into the neighboring country, whenever we felt inclined, and could catch up again with the command by the time it went into camp--where I was an object of envy to the other ladies, whose husbands were not under arrest.

Toward noon we reached Los Vegas, the first Mexican town I had seen--Fort Union being but the entrance to New Mexico. The country around Los Vegas is flat and uninteresting, but by no means barren, though only a small portion of it is cultivated. A little stream, the Gallinas, runs by the place, emptying later into the Rio Pecos; but the Mexicans are not content with this water-course alone--they have dug irrigating canals, which look again like little streams where grass and wild flowers have sprung up on the banks. It is the only branch of art or industry cultivated anywhere in New Mexico--this digging of irrigating ditches--and in it the Mexicans surely excel. Wherever we see a patch of green, we may be certain of finding canals on at least two sides of it; and they can lead the water where a Yankee, with all his ingenuity, would despair of bringing it.

The houses of Los Vegas, though looking very much so to me then, are not so hopelessly Mexican as those I found later along the Rio Grande and farther in the interior. The houses were one story high, the roofs of mud, of which material were also mantle-shelves, window-sills, walls and floors. But the little enclosed fire-places, with overarching mantle, were smooth and white, as were the walls; and the more pretentious houses, and where Americans lived, were set with glass. In the houses of the Mexicans I noticed that a width of red or yellow calico was tacked smoothly up around the wall, at a distance of three or four feet from the ground. The use of this drapery is just as incomprehensible to me as what benefit the trunks derive from being placed on two chairs, while the members of the family and visitors are requested to be seated on the floor. But then it is not every New Mexican family that can boast of having a trunk; and those who have one, and no chairs, build a kind of platform or pedestal for it to rest on.

The troops, while we were sight-seeing in Los Vegas, were not allowed to halt at all, but marched on toward Puertocito, where camp was made. At Fort Union a new driver had been assigned to our baggage-wagon--a little monkey-faced old man, Manuel--who had addressed me in Spanish, early that morning, praying that we should allow him to stop at Los Vegas, where his wife and his "pretty little girls" were living. I understood no Spanish, but his eyes looked so beseechingly when his request was made known to me, that I was glad to tell him we should stop there. The man was to go with us to the end of our journey, and it might be a long time till he could see his people again.

When the lieutenant sent the orderly for Manuel, with directions to move on and overtake the command, I saw the old man tumbling out of a little low house near by, his faithful wife and "pretty little girls" tumbling out after him--half a dozen of the scrawniest, most apish-looking specimens I ever saw of Spanish or Mexican people. For miles the "pretty little girls" followed the father and the army-wagon, and wherever we passed a house on the road, one or more women would come to the door--large-eyed and sweet-voiced--wishing good-day and good-journey to old Manuel. As far as my Spanish goes, _Puertocito_ signifies little gate, or entrance. It should be Grand Gate, so majestically do rocks and boulders arise from out of green meadows and tree-covered hillocks.

Large flocks of sheep are herded here, and the whole is said to belong to a Spanish widow lady, living either in Mexico or Spain. In the course of my travels through the country, I met with accounts of this or some other widow, owning fabulous stretches of land, mines, and treasures, so often that I came to regard this widow-institution as a myth or a humbug; but the people living here were always very earnest in their assurances to the contrary. However this might be, it was a beautiful, romantic spot, such as we came upon time and again in this strange country. Well do I remember the succession of little narrow valleys on the route between Fort Union and Santa Fé; the hard, smooth road, the tall gramma-grass on each side of it, and the shapely-grown evergreens bordering the lawn-like fields, till lines of taller trees, coming up close to the road, seemed to divide off one little valley from the other. Yet never a house did we see the whole of that day, though the garden for many a one seemed ready planted by kind mother Nature's hands. The land was but a desert, in spite of the waving grass and the dark green trees. There was no water to be found for long, long weary miles.

Before we had been long on our journey, an unfortunate circumstance brought us to doubt the honesty of poor old Manuel so seriously that it had almost resulted disastrously to him. We had made camp not far from San Jose, a place consisting of two and a half houses, on the Pecos river. We were to cross the river here; and in the morning, when the tents were being struck, and we were already seated in the carriage, waiting for the mules to be harnessed to it, these same mules were reported missing. The command moved on, of course, leaving our baggage-wagon, our cook, our orderly, and ourselves, behind; the old colonel chuckling to himself that as we were in the habit of looking out for ourselves, we might do so on this occasion too.