On the Border with Crook

by John Gregory Bourke

We got away from the cañon with eighteen captives, women and children, some of them badly wounded; we might have saved a larger percentage of the whole number found, living in the cave at the moment of assault, but we were not provided with medical supplies, bandages, or anything for the care of the sick and wounded. This one item will show how thoroughly out of the world the Department of Arizona was at that time; it was difficult to get medical officers out there, and the resulting condition of affairs was such an injustice to both officers and men that General Crook left no stone unturned until he had rectified it. The captives were seated upon the Pima ponies left back upon the top of the mountain; these animals were almost played out; their feet had been knocked to pieces coming up the rocky pathway, during the darkness of night; and the cholla cactus still sticking in their legs, showed that they had been driven with such speed, and in such darkness, that they had been unable to pick their way. But they wore better than nothing, and were kept in use for the rest of that day. Runners were despatched across the hills to the pack-train, and were told to conduct it to a small spring, well known to our guides, high up on the nose of the Matitzal, where we were all to unite and go into camp.

It was a rest and refreshment sorely needed, after the scrambling, slipping, and sliding over and down loose rocks which had been dignified with the name of marching, during the preceding two days. Our captives were the recipients of every attention that we could give, and appeared to be improving rapidly, and to have regained the good spirits which are normally theirs. Mounted couriers were sent in advance to Camp MacDowell, to let it be known that we were coming in with wounded, and the next morning, early, we set out for that post, following down the course of what was known as Sycamore Creek to the Verde River, which latter we crossed in front of the post.

CHAPTER XI.

THE CAMPAIGN RESUMED—EFFICIENCY OF APACHE SCOUTS—JACK LONG BREAKS DOWN—A BAND OF APACHES SURRENDER IN THE MOUNTAINS—THE EPIZOOTIC—THE TAYLOR MASSACRE AND ITS AVENGING—THE ARIZONA ROLL OF HONOR, OFFICERS, MEN, SURGEONS, SCOUTS, GUIDES, AND PACKERS—THE STRANGE RUIN IN THE VERDE VALLEY—DEATH OF PRESILIANO MONJE—THE APACHES SURRENDER UNCONDITIONALLY TO CROOK AT CAMP VERDE.

The wounded squaws were forwarded to old Camp Grant, just as soon as able to travel, and our command remained for several days in the camp, until joined by other detachments, when we returned to the Superstition range, this time in considerable strength, the whole force consisting of the companies of Adams, Montgomery, Hamilton, Taylor, Burns, and Almy—all of the Fifth Cavalry, with the following additional officers: Lieutenants Rockwell, Schuyler, and Keyes, of the Fifth; Ross, of the Twenty-third Infantry; Bourke, of the Third Cavalry; and Mr. James Daily, General Crook’s brother-in-law, as volunteer. The guides, as before, were Macintosh, Felmer, and Besias, with thirty Apache scouts, under the leadership of “Esquinosquizn.” This march was simply a repetition of the former; there was the same careful attention to details—no fires allowed except when the light could not be discerned by the lynx-eyed enemy; no shouting, singing, whistling, lighting of matches, or anything else which might attract attention. There was the same amount of night-marching, side scouting to either flank or in advance, the same careful scrutiny of the minutest sign on the trail. The presence of the Indian scouts saved the white soldiers a great deal of extra fatigue, for the performance of which the Apaches were better qualified. It was one of the fundamental principles upon which General Crook conducted all his operations, to enlist as many of the Indians as could be induced to serve as scouts, because by this means he not only subtracted a considerable element from those in hostility and received hostages, as it were, for the better behavior of his scouts’ kinsmen, but he removed from the shoulders of his men an immense amount of arduous and disagreeable work, and kept them fresh for any emergency that might arise. The Apaches were kept constantly out on the flanks, under the white guides, and swept the country of all hostile bands. The white troops followed upon the heels of the Indians, but at a short distance in the rear, as the native scouts were better acquainted with all the tricks of their calling, and familiar with every square acre of the territory. The longer we knew the Apache scouts, the better we liked them. They were wilder and more suspicious than the Pimas and Maricopas, but far more reliable, and endowed with a greater amount of courage and daring. I have never known an officer whose experience entitled his opinion to the slightest consideration, who did not believe as I do on this subject. On this scout Captain Hamilton was compelled to send back his Maricopas as worthless; this was before he joined Brown at MacDowell.

All savages have to undergo certain ceremonies of lustration after returning from the war-path where any of the enemy have been killed. With the Apaches these are baths in the sweat-lodge, accompanied with singing and other rites. With the Pimas and Maricopas these ceremonies are more elaborate, and necessitate a seclusion from the rest of the tribe for many days, fasting, bathing, and singing. The Apache “bunches” all his religious duties at these times, and defers his bathing until he gets home, but the Pima and Maricopa are more punctilious, and resort to the rites of religion the moment a single one, either of their own numbers or of the enemy, has been laid low. For this reason Brown started out from MacDowell with Apaches only.

It was noticed with some concern by all his friends that old Jack Long was beginning to break; the fatigue and exertion which the more juvenile members of the expedition looked upon as normal to the occasion, the night marches, the exposure to the cold and wind and rain and snow, the climbing up and down steep precipices, the excitement, the going without food or water for long periods, were telling visibly upon the representative of an older generation. Hank ’n Yank, Chenoweth, Frank Monach, and Joe Felmer “’lowed th’ ole man was off his feed,” but it was, in truth, only the summons sent him by Dame Nature that he had overdrawn his account, and was to be in the future bankrupt in health and strength. There was an unaccountable irritability about Jack, a fretfulness at the end of each day’s climbing, which spoke more than words could of enfeebled strength and nervous prostration. He found fault with his cook, formerly his pride and boast. “Be-gosh,” he remarked one evening, “seems t’ me yer a-burnin’ everything; next I know, ye’ll be a-burnin’ water.” There were sarcastic references to the lack of “horse sense” shown by certain unnamed “shave-tail leftenants” in the command—shafts which rebounded unnoticed from the armor of Schuyler and myself, but which did not make us feel any too comfortable while the old veteran was around. Day by day, meal after meal, his cook grew worse, or poor Jack grew no better. Nothing spread upon the canvas would tempt Jack’s appetite; he blamed it all on the culinary artist, never dreaming that he alone was at fault, and that his digestion was a thing of the past, and beyond the skill of cook or condiment to revive.

“He ain’t a pastry cook,” growled Jack, “nor yet a hasty cook, nor a tasty cook, but fur a dog-goned nasty cook, I’ll back ’m agin th’ hull Pacific Slope.” When he heard some of the packers inveighing against Tucson whiskey, Jack’s rage rose beyond bounds. “Many a time ’n oft,” he said, “Arizona whiskey ’s bin plenty good enough fur th’ likes o’ me; it ’s good ’s a hoss liniment, ’n it ’s good ’s a beverage, ’n I’ve tried it both ways, ’n I know; ’n thet’s more ’n kin be said for this yere dude whiskey they gits in Dilmonico’s.” There wasn’t a drop of stimulant as such, with the whole command, that I knew of, but in my own blankets there was a pint flask filled with rather better stuff than was ordinarily to be obtained, which I had been keeping in case of snake bites or other accidents. It occurred to me to present a good drink of this to Jack, but as I did not like to do this with so many standing around the fire, I approached the blankets upon which Jack was reclining, and asked: “See here, Jack, I want you to try this water; there’s something very peculiar about it.”

“Thet ’s allers th’ way with these yere shave-tail leftenants they ’s gittin’ in th’ army now-a-days; allers complainin’ about su’thin; water! Lor’! yer orter bin with me when I was minin’ up on th’ Frazer. Then ye’d a’ known what water was * * * Water, be-gosh! why, Major, I’ll never forget yer’s long’s I live”—and in the exuberance of his gratitude, the old man brevetted me two or three grades.

From that on Jack and I were sworn friends; he never levelled the shafts of his sarcasm either at me or my faithful mule, “Malaria.” “Malaria” had been born a first-class mule, but a fairy godmother, or some other mysterious cause, had carried the good mule away, and left in its place a lop-eared, mangy specimen, which enjoyed the proud distinction of being considered, without dissent, the meanest mule in the whole Department of Arizona. Not many weeks after that poor old Jack died; he was in camp with one of the commands on the San Carlos, and broke down entirely; in his delirium he saw the beautiful green pastures of the Other Side, shaded by branching oaks; he heard the rippling of pellucid waters, and listened to the gladsome song of merry birds. “Fellers,” he said, “it is beautiful over thar; the grass is so green, and the water so cool; I am tired of marchin’, ’n I reckon I’ll cross over ’n go in camp ”—so poor old Jack crossed over to come back no more.