On the Border with Crook

by John Gregory Bourke

Everything had happened exactly as the squaw had predicted it would, and she showed that she was familiar with the slightest details of the topography, and thus increased our confidence in what we had to expect to such an extent that she was put in the lead, and we followed on closely, obeying all her directions and instructions. Our men refrained from whistling, from talking—almost, I might say, from breathing—because she insisted upon such perfect silence while on the march. There were few instructions given, and these were passed from mouth to mouth in whispers. No one dared strike a match, lest the flash should alarm some of the enemy’s pickets. We had no pack-train, and that great source of noise—the shouting of packers to straying mules—was done away with. All our rations were on our own backs, and with the exception of one led mule, loaded with a couple of thousand rounds of extra ammunition, we had absolutely nothing to impede the most rapid march. We walked slowly over the high mountains, and down into deep ravines, passing through a country which seemed well adapted for the home of Indians. There were groves of acorn-bearing oaks, a considerable amount of mescal, Spanish bayonet, some mesquite, and a plenty of grasses whose seeds could be gathered by the squaws in their long, conical baskets, and then ground between two oblong, half-round stones into a meal which would make a pretty good mush.

It was very dark and quite chilly as dawn drew nigh, and every one was shivering with cold and hunger and general nervous excitement. The squaw whispered that we were close upon the site of the “rancheria,” which was in a little grassy amphitheatre a short distance in front. Slowly we drew nearer and nearer to the doomed village, and traversed the smooth, open place whereon the young bucks had been playing their great game of “mushka,” in which they roll a hoop and then throw lance staves to fall to the ground as the hoop ceases to roll. Very near this was a slippery-faced rock—either slate or basalt, the darkness did not permit a close examination—down which the children had been sliding to the grass, and, just within biscuit-throw, the “jacales” of saplings and branches.

AN APACHE RANCHERIA.

Two of our party crawled up to the village, which preserved an ominous silence. There were no barking dogs, no signs of fire, no wail of babes to testify to the presence of human or animal life—in one word, the Apaches had taken the alarm and abandoned their habitation. But they did not leave us shivering long in doubt as to where they had gone, but at once opened from the peaks with rifles, and at the first fire wounded two of our men. It was entirely too dark for them to do much harm, and utterly beyond our power to do anything against them. Their position was an impregnable one on the crest of the surrounding ridges, and protected by a heavy natural cheval de frise of the scrub oak and other thorny vegetation of the region.

Cushing ordered the command to fall back on the trail and take up position on the hill in the pass overlooking the site of the “rancheria.” This we did without difficulty and without loss. The Apaches continued their firing, and would have made us pay dear for our rashness in coming into their home had not our withdrawal been covered by a heavy fog, which screened the flanks of the mountains until quite a late hour in the morning, something very unusual in Arizona, which is remarkably free from mists at all seasons.

Indignation converged upon the wretched squaw who had induced us to come into what had all the appearance of a set ambuscade. The men had bound her securely, and a rope was now brought out—a lariat—and cries were heard on all sides to “hang her, hang her!” It is easy to see now that she may have been perfectly innocent in her intentions, and that it was not through collusion with the people in the village, but rather on account of her running away from them, that the Apaches had been on the look-out for an advance from the nearest military post; but on that cold, frosty morning, when all were cross and tired and vexed with disappointment, it looked rather ominous for the woman for a few minutes.

She was given the benefit of the doubt, and to do the men justice, they were more desirous of scaring than of killing her for her supposed treachery. She stuck to her story; she was dissatisfied with her people on account of bad treatment, and wanted to lead us to a surprise of their home. She did not pretend to say how it came about that they were ready for us, but said that some of their young men out hunting, or squaws out cutting and burning mescal, might have seen us coming up the mountain, or “cut” our trail the night previous, and given the alarm. She would stay with us as long as we chose to remain in those hills, but her opinion was that nothing could now be done with the people of that “rancheria,” because the whole country would be alarmed with signal smokes, and every mountain would have a picket on the look-out for us. Better return to the camp and wait until everything had quieted down, and then slip out again.

There was still a good deal of growling going on, and not all of the men were satisfied with her talk. They shot angry glances at her, and freely expressed their desire to do her bodily harm, which threats she could perfectly understand without needing the slightest knowledge of our language. To keep her from slipping off as the two other squaws had done a fortnight previously, she was wrapped from head to feet with rope, so that it was all she could do to breathe, much less think of escaping. Another rope fastened her to a palo verde close to the little fire at which our coffee was made, and alongside whose flickering embers the sentinel paced as night began to draw its curtains near. She lay like a log, making not the slightest noise or movement, but to all appearances perfectly reconciled to the situation, and, after a while, fell off into a profound sleep.

We had what was known as “a running guard,” which means that every man in the camp takes his turn at the duty of sentinel during the night. This made the men on post have about half to three-quarters of an hour’s duty each. Each of those posted near the prisoner gave a careful look at her as he began to pace up and down near her, and each found that she was sleeping calmly and soundly, until about eleven o’clock, or maybe a few minutes nearer midnight, a recruit, who had just taken his turn on post, felt his elbows pinioned fast behind him and his carbine almost wrenched from his grasp. He was very muscular, and made a good fight to retain his weapon and use it, but it fell to the ground, and the naked woman plunged down the side of the hill straight through the chapparal into the darkness profound.