On the Border with Crook

by John Gregory Bourke

This plan worked admirably, and, so far as we could judge, our shots were telling upon the Apaches, and irritating them to that degree that they no longer sought shelter, but boldly faced our fire and returned it with energy, the weapons of the men being reloaded by the women, who shared their dangers. A wail from a squaw, and the feeble cry of a little babe, were proof that the missiles of death were not seeking men alone. Brown ordered our fire to cease, and for the last time summoned the Apaches to surrender, or to let their women and children come out unmolested. On their side, the Apaches also ceased all hostile demonstration, and it seemed to some of us Americans that they must be making ready to yield, and were discussing the matter among themselves. Our Indian guides and interpreters raised the cry, “Look out! There goes the death song; they are going to charge!” It was a weird chant, one not at all easy to describe; half wail and half exultation—the frenzy of despair and the wild cry for revenge. Now the petulant, querulous treble of the squaws kept time with the shuffling feet, and again the deeper growl of the savage bull-dogs, who represented manhood in that cave, was flung back from the cold pitiless brown of the cliffs.

“Look out! Here they come!” Over the rampart, guided by one impulse, moving as if they were all part of the one body, jumped and ran twenty of the warriors—superb-looking fellows all of them; each carried upon his back a quiver filled with the long reed arrows of the tribe, each held in his hand a bow and a rifle, the latter at full cock. Half of the party stood upon the rampart, which gave them some chance to sight our men behind the smaller rocks in front, and blazed away for all they were worth—they were trying to make a demonstration to engage our attention, while the other part suddenly slipped down and around our right flank, and out through the rocks which had so effectively sheltered the retreat of the one who had so nearly succeeded in getting away earlier in the morning. Their motives were divined, and the move was frustrated; our men rushed to the attack like furies, each seeming to be anxious to engage the enemy at close quarters. Six or seven of the enemy were killed in a space not twenty-five feet square, and the rest driven back within the cave, more or less wounded.

Although there was a fearful din from the yells, groans, wails of the squaws within the fortress, and the re-echoing of volleys from the walls of the cañon, our command behaved admirably, and obeyed its orders to the letter. The second line never budged from its place, and well it was that it had stayed just there. One of the charging party, seeing that so much attention was converged upon our right, had slipped down unnoticed from the rampart, and made his way to the space between our two lines, and had sprung to the top of a huge boulder, and there had begun his war-whoop, as a token of encouragement to those still behind. I imagine that he was not aware of our second line, and thought that once in our rear, ensconced in a convenient nook in the rocks, he could keep us busy by picking us off at his leisure. His chant was never finished; it was at once his song of glory and his death song; he had broken through our line of fire only to meet a far more cruel death. Twenty carbines were gleaming in the sunlight just flushing the cliffs; forty eyes were sighting along the barrels. The Apache looked into the eyes of his enemies, and in not one did he see the slightest sign of mercy; he tried to say something; what it was we never could tell. “No! No! soldados!” in broken Spanish, was all we could make out before the resounding volley had released another soul from its earthly casket, and let the bleeding corpse fall to the ground as limp as a wet moccasin. He was really a handsome warrior; tall, well-proportioned, finely muscled, and with a bold, manly countenance; “shot to death” was the verdict of all who paused to look upon him, but that didn’t half express the state of the case; I have never seen a man more thoroughly shot to pieces than was this one; every bullet seemed to have struck, and not less than eight or ten had inflicted mortal wounds.

The savages in the cave, with death now staring them in the face, did not seem to lose their courage—or, shall we say despair? They resumed their chant, and sang with vigor and boldness, until Brown determined that the battle or siege must end. Our two lines were now massed in one, and every officer and man told to get ready a package of cartridges; then as fast as the breech-block of the carbine could be opened and lowered, we were to fire into the mouth of the cave, hoping to inflict the greatest damage by glancing bullets, and then charge in by the entrance on our right flank, back of the rock rampart which had served as the means of exit for the hostiles when they made their attack. The din and tumult increased twenty-fold beyond the last time; lead poured in by the bucketful, but, strangely enough, there was a lull for a moment or two, and without orders. A little Apache boy, not over four years old, if so old, ran out from within the cave, and stood, with thumb in mouth, looking in speechless wonder and indignation at the belching barrels. He was not in much danger, because all the carbines were aiming upwards at the roof, nevertheless a bullet—whether from our lines direct, or hurled down from the rocky ceiling—struck the youngster on the skull, and ploughed a path for itself around to the back of his neck, leaving a welt as big as one’s finger. The youngster was knocked off his feet, and added the tribute of his howls to the roars and echoes of the conflict. “Nantaje” sprang like a deer to where the boy lay, and grasped him by one arm, and ran with him behind a great stone. Our men spontaneously ceased firing for one minute to cheer “Nantaje” and the “kid;” the fight was then resumed with greater vigor. The Apaches did not relax their fire, but, from the increasing groans of the women, we knew that our shots were telling either upon the women in the cave, or upon their relatives among the men for whom they were sorrowing.

It was exactly like fighting with wild animals in a trap: the Apaches had made up their minds to die if relief did not reach them from some of the other “rancherias” supposed to be close by. Ever since early morning nothing had been seen of Burns and Thomas, and the men of Company G. With a detachment of Pima guides, they had been sent off to follow the trail of the fifteen ponies found at day-dawn; Brown was under the impression that the raiding party belonging to the cave might have split into two or three parties, and that some of the latter ones might be trapped and ambuscaded while ascending the mountain. This was before Ross and “Nantaje” and Felmer had discovered the cave and forced the fight. This part of our forces had marched a long distance down the mountain, and was returning to rejoin us, when the roar of the carbines apprised them that the worst kind of a fight was going on, and that their help would be needed badly; they came back on the double, and as soon as they reached the summit of the precipice were halted to let the men get their breath. It was a most fortunate thing that they did so, and at that particular spot. Burns and several others went to the crest and leaned over to see what all the frightful hubbub was about. They saw the conflict going on beneath them, and in spite of the smoke could make out that the Apaches were nestling up close to the rock rampart, so as to avoid as much as possible the projectiles which were raining down from the roof of their eyrie home.

It didn’t take Burns five seconds to decide what should be done; he had two of his men harnessed with the suspenders of their comrades, and made them lean well over the precipice, while the harness was used to hold them in place; these men were to fire with their revolvers at the enemy beneath, and for a volley or so they did very effective work, but their Irish blood got the better of their reason, and in their excitement they began to throw their revolvers at the enemy; this kind of ammunition was rather too costly, but it suggested a novel method of annihilating the enemy. Burns ordered his men to get together and roll several of the huge boulders, which covered the surface of the mountain, and drop them over on the unsuspecting foe. The noise was frightful; the destruction sickening. Our volleys were still directed against the inner faces of the cave and the roof, and the Apaches seemed to realize that their only safety lay in crouching close to the great stone heap in front; but even this precarious shelter was now taken away; the air was filled with the bounding, plunging fragments of stone, breaking into thousands of pieces, with other thousands behind, crashing down with the momentum gained in a descent of hundreds of feet. No human voice could be heard in such a cyclone of wrath; the volume of dust was so dense that no eye could pierce it, but over on our left it seemed that for some reason we could still discern several figures guarding that extremity of the enemy’s line—the old “Medicine Man,” who, decked in all the panoply of his office, with feathers on head, decorated shirt on back, and all the sacred insignia known to his people, had defied the approach of death, and kept his place, firing coolly at everything that moved on our side that he could see, his rifle reloaded and handed back by his assistants—either squaws or young men—it was impossible to tell which, as only the arms could be noted in the air. Major Brown signalled up to Burns to stop pouring down his boulders, and at the same time our men were directed to cease firing, and to make ready to charge; the fire of the Apaches had ceased, and their chant of defiance was hushed. There was a feeling in the command as if we were about to rush through the gates of a cemetery, and that we should find a ghastly spectacle within, but, at the same time, it might be that the Apaches had retreated to some recesses in the innermost depths of the cavern, unknown to us, and be prepared to assail all who ventured to cross the wall in front.

Precisely at noon we advanced, Corporal Hanlon, of Company G, Fifth Cavalry, being the first man to surmount the parapet. I hope that my readers will be satisfied with the meagrest description of the awful sight that met our eyes: there were men and women dead or withing in the agonies of death, and with them several babies, killed by our glancing bullets, or by the storm of rocks and stones that had descended from above. While one portion of the command worked at extricating the bodies from beneath the pile of débris, another stood guard with cocked revolvers or carbines, ready to blow out the brains of the first wounded savage who might in his desperation attempt to kill one of our people. But this precaution was entirely useless. All idea of resistance had been completely knocked out of the heads of the survivors, of whom, to our astonishment, there were over thirty.

How any of the garrison had ever escaped such a storm of missiles was at first a mystery to us, as the cave was scarcely a cave at all, but rather a cliff dwelling, and of no extended depth. However, there were many large slabs of flat thin stone within the enclosure, either left there by Nature or carried in by the squaws, to be employed in various domestic purposes. Behind and under these many of the squaws had crept, and others had piled up the dead to screen themselves and their children from the fury of our assault. Thirty-five, if I remember aright, were still living, but in the number are included all who were still breathing; many were already dying, and nearly one-half were dead before we started out of that dreadful place. None of the warriors were conscious except one old man, who serenely awaited the last summons; he had received five or six wounds, and was practically dead when we sprang over the entrance wall. There was a general sentiment of sorrow for the old “Medicine Man” who had stood up so fiercely on the left of the Apache line; we found his still warm corpse, crushed out of all semblance to humanity, beneath a huge mass of rock, which had also extinguished at one fell stroke the light of the life of the squaw and the young man who had remained by his side. The amount of plunder and supplies of all kinds was extremely great, and the band inhabiting these cliffs must have lived with some comfort. There was a great amount of food—roasted mescal, seeds of all kinds, jerked mule or pony meat, and all else that these savages were wont to store for the winter; bows and arrows in any quantity, lances, war clubs, guns of various kinds, with ammunition fixed and loose; a perfect stronghold well supplied. So much of the mescal and other food as our scouts wished to pack off on their own backs was allowed them, and everything else was given to the flames. No attempt was made to bury the dead, who, with the exception of our own Pima, were left where they fell.

Brown was anxious to get back out of the cañon, as the captive squaws told him that there was another “rancheria” in the Superstition Mountains on the south side of the cañon, and it was probable that the Indians belonging to it would come up just as soon as they heard the news of the fight, and attack our column in rear as it tried to make its way back to the top of the precipice. The men who were found dancing by Ross had, just that moment, returned from a raid upon the Pima villages and the outskirts of Florence, in the Gila valley, where they had been successful in getting the ponies we recovered, as well as in killing some of the whites and friendly Indians living there. We had not wiped out all the band belonging to the cave; there were six or seven of the young women who had escaped and made their way down to the foot of the precipice, and on into the current of the Salado; they would be sure to push on to the other “rancheria,” of which we had been told. How they came to escape was this: at the very first streak of light, or perhaps a short time before, they had been sent—six young girls and an old woman—to examine a great “mescal pit” down in the cañon, and determine whether the food was yet ready for use. The Apaches always preferred to let their mescal cook for three days, and at the end of that time would pull out a plug made of the stalk of the plant, which should always be put into the “pit” or oven, and if the end of that plug is cooked, the whole mass is cooked. We had smelt the savory odors arising from the “pit” as we climbed down the face of the cliff, early in the day. John de Laet describes a mescal heap, or a furnace of earth covered with hot rocks, upon which the Chichimecs (the name by which the Spaniards in early times designated all the wild tribes in the northern part of their dominions in North America) placed their corn-paste or venison, then other hot rocks, and finally earth again. This mode of cooking, he says, was imitated by the Spaniards in New Mexico. (Lib. 7, cap. 3.) The Apache-Mojave squaws at the San Carlos Agency still periodically mourn for the death of seventy-six of their people in this cave, and when I was last among them, they told a strange story of how one man escaped from our scrutiny, after we had gained possession of the stronghold.

He had been badly wounded by a bullet in the calf of the left leg, in the very beginning of the fight, and had lain down behind one of the great slabs of stone which were resting against the walls; as the fight grew hotter and hotter, other wounded Indians sought shelter close to the same spot, and after a while the corpses of the slain were piled up there as a sort of a breastwork. When we removed the dead, it never occurred to any of us to look behind the stone slabs, and to this fact the Indian owed his salvation. He could hear the scouts talking, and he knew that we were going to make a rapid march to reunite with our pack-train and with other scouting parties. He waited until after we had started out on the trail, and then made for himself a support for his injured limb out of a broken lance-staff, and a pair of crutches out of two others. He crawled or climbed up the wall of the cañon, and then made his way along the trail to the Tonto Creek, to meet and to turn back a large band of his tribe who were coming down to join “Nanni-chaddi.” He saved them from Major Brown, but it was a case of jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire. They took refuge on the summit of “Turret Butte,” a place deemed second only to the Salt River cave in impregnability, and supposed to be endowed with peculiar “medicine” qualities, which would prevent an enemy from gaining possession of it. But here they were surprised by the command of Major George M. Randall, Twenty-third Infantry, and completely wiped out, as will be told on another page.