On the Border with Crook

by John Gregory Bourke

He and Garrett and Uncle Billy were making the best of their way home from supper at the “Shoo Fly” late one evening, and had started to cut across lots after passing the “Plaza.”

There were no fences, no covers—nothing at all to prevent pedestrians from falling into some one of the innumerable abandoned wells which were to be met with in every block, and it need surprise no one to be told that in the heat of argument about some trivial matter the worthy medical officer, who was walking in the middle, fell down plump some fifteen or twenty feet, landing in a more or less bruised condition upon a pile of adobes and pieces of rock at the bottom.

Garrett and his elderly companion lurched against each other and continued the discussion, oblivious of the withdrawal of their companion, who from his station at the bottom of the pit, like another Joseph, was bawling for his heartless brothers to return and take him out. After his voice failed he bethought him of his revolver, which he drew from hip, and with which he blazed away, attracting the attention of a party of Mexicans returning from a dance, who too hastily concluded that Semig was a “Gringo” spoiling for a fight, whereupon they gave him their best services in rolling down upon him great pieces of adobe, which imparted renewed vigor to Semig’s vocalization and finally awakened the Mexicans to a suspicion of the true state of the case.

The poor doctor never heard the last of his mishap, and very likely was glad to receive the order which transferred him to the Modoc War, wherein he received the wounds of which he afterward died. He showed wonderful coolness in the Lava Beds, and even after the Indians had wounded him in the shoulder and he had been ordered off the field, he refused to leave the wounded under fire until a second shot broke his leg and knocked him senseless.

Associated with Semig in my recollection is the name of young Sherwood, a First Lieutenant in the Twenty-first Infantry, who met his death in the same campaign. He was a man of the best impulses, bright, brave, and generous, and a general favorite.

This rather undersized gentleman coming down the street is a man with a history—perhaps it might be perfectly correct to say with two or three histories. He is Don Estevan Ochoa, one of the most enterprising merchants, as he is admitted to be one of the coolest and bravest men, in all the southwestern country. He has a handsome face, a keen black eye, a quick, business-like air, with very polished and courteous manners.

During the war the Southern leaders thought they would establish a chain of posts across the continent from Texas to California, and one of their first movements was to send a brigade of Texans to occupy Tucson. The commanding general—Turner by name—sent for Don Estevan and told him that he had been informed that he was an outspoken sympathizer with the cause of the Union, but he hoped that Ochoa would see that the Union was a thing of the past, and reconcile himself to the new state of affairs, and take the oath to the Confederacy, and thus relieve the new commander from the disagreeable responsibility of confiscating his property and setting him adrift outside his lines.

Don Estevan never hesitated a moment. He was not that kind of a man. His reply was perfectly courteous, as I am told all the talk on the part of the Confederate officer had been. Ochoa owed all he had in the world to the Government of the United States, and it would be impossible for him to take an oath of fidelity to any hostile power or party. When would General Turner wish him to leave?

He was allowed to select one of his many horses, and to take a pair of saddle-bags filled with such clothing and food as he could get together on short notice, and then, with a rifle and twenty rounds of ammunition, was led outside the lines and started for the Rio Grande. How he ever made his way across those two hundred and fifty miles of desert and mountains which intervened between the town of Tucson and the Union outposts nearer to the Rio Grande, I do not know—nobody knows. The country was infested by the Apaches, and no one of those upon whom he turned his back expected to hear of his getting through alive. But he did succeed, and here he is, a proof of devotion to the cause of the nation for which it would be hard to find a parallel. When the Union troops reoccupied Tucson Don Estevan resumed business and was soon wealthy again, in spite of the tribute levied by the raiding Apaches, who once ran off every head of draught oxen the firm of Tully, Ochoa & De Long possessed, and never stopped until they had crossed the Rio Salado, or Salt River, where they killed and “jerked” the meat on the slope of that high mesa which to this day bears the name of “Jerked Beef Butte.”

Another important factor in the formative period of Arizona’s growth is this figure walking briskly by, clad in the cassock of an ecclesiastic. It is Bishop Salpointe, a man of learning, great administrative capacity, and devoted to the interests of his people. He preaches little, but practises much. In many ways unknown to his flock he is busy with plans for their spiritual and worldly advancement, and the work he accomplishes in establishing schools, both in Tucson and in the Papago village of San Xavier, is something which should not soon be forgotten by the people benefited. He is very poor. All that one can see in his house is a crucifix and a volume of precious manuscript notes upon the Apaches and Papagoes. He seems to be always cheerful. His poverty he freely shares with his flock, and I have often thought that if he ever had any wealth he would share that too.