On the Border with Crook

by John Gregory Bourke

Sergeant Warfield, Cushing, and I stayed up all night talking over the situation, and doing so in a low tone, lest Shire should suspect that we had not been telling the truth when we persuaded him to believe that he had been hit by a glancing bullet, which had benumbed the whole leg but had not inflicted a very serious wound.

Our Mexican packers were called into consultation, and the result was that by four in the morning, as soon as a cup of coffee could be made, I was on my way over to the Aravaypa Cañon at the head of a small detachment in charge of the wounded man, who was firmly strapped to his saddle. We got along very well so long as we were on the high hills and mountains, where the horse of the sufferer could be led, and he himself supported by friendly hands on each side. To get down into the chasm of the Aravaypa was a horse of altogether a different color. The trail was extremely steep, stony, and slippery, and the soldier, heroic as he was, could not repress a groan as his horse jarred him by slipping under his weight on the wretched path. At the foot of the descent it was evident that something else in the way of transportation would have to be provided, as the man’s strength was failing rapidly and he could no longer sit up.

Lieutenant Cushing’s orders were for me to leave the party just as soon as I thought I could do so safely, and then ride as fast as the trail would permit to Camp Grant, and there get all the aid possible. It seemed to me that there could be no better time for hurrying to the post than the present, which found the detachment at a point where it could defend itself from the attack of any roving party of the enemy, and supplied with grass for the animals and fuel and water for the men.

Shire had fainted as I mounted and started with one of the men, Corporal Harrington, for the post, some twelve miles away. We did not have much more of the cañon to bother us, and made good speed all the way down the Aravaypa and into the post, where I hurriedly explained the situation and had an ambulance start up the cañon with blankets and other comforts, while in the post itself everything was made ready for the amputation in the hospital, which all knew to be a foregone conclusion, and a mounted party was sent to Tucson to summon Dr. Durant to assist in the operation.

Having done all this, I started back up the cañon and came upon my own detachment slowly making its way down. In another hour the ambulance had rolled up to the door of the hospital, and the wounded man was on a cot under the influence of anæsthetics. The amputation was made at the upper third of the thigh, and resulted happily, and the patient in due time recovered, although he had a close call for his life.

The winter of 1870 and the spring of 1871 saw no let up in the amount of scouting which was conducted against the Apaches. The enemy resorted to a system of tactics which had often been tried in the past and always with success. A number of simultaneous attacks were made at points widely separated, thus confusing both troops and settlers, spreading a vague sense of fear over all the territory infested, and imposing upon the soldiery an exceptional amount of work of the hardest conceivable kind.

Attacks were made in southern Arizona upon the stage stations at the San Pedro, and the Cienaga, as well as the one near the Picacho, and upon the ranchos in the Barbacomori valley, and in the San Pedro, near Tres Alamos. Then came the news of a fight at Pete Kitchen’s, and finally, growing bolder, the enemy drove off a herd of cattle from Tucson itself, some of them beeves, and others work-oxen belonging to a wagon-train from Texas. Lastly came the killing of the stage mail-rider, between the town and the Mission church of San Xavier, and the massacre of the party of Mexicans going down to Sonora, which occurred not far from the Sonoita.

One of the members of this last party was a beautiful young Mexican lady—Doña Trinidad Aguirre—who belonged to a very respectable family in the Mexican Republic, and was on her way back from a visit to relatives in Tucson.

That one so young, so beautiful and bright, should have been snatched away by a most cruel death at the hands of savages, aroused the people of all the country south of the Gila, and nothing was talked of, nothing was thought of, but vengeance upon the Apaches.

Cushing all this time had kept our troop moving without respite. There were fights, and ambuscades, and attacks upon “rancherias,” and night-marches without number, several resulting in the greatest success. I am not going to waste any space upon these, because there is much of the same sort to come, and I am afraid of tiring out the patience of my readers before reaching portions of this book where there are to be found descriptions of very spirited engagements.