CHAPTER XXVI. A SUDDEN ORDER
In June, 1878, Jack was ordered to report to the commanding officer at Fort Lowell (near the ancient city of Tucson), to act as Quartermaster and Commissary at that post. This was a sudden and totally unexpected order. It was indeed hard, and it seemed to me cruel. For our regiment had been four years in the Territory, and we were reasonably sure of being ordered out before long. Tucson lay far to the south of us, and was even hotter than this place. But there was nothing to be done; we packed up, I with a heavy heart, Jack with his customary stoicism.
With the grief which comes only at that time in one's life, and which sees no end and no limit, I parted from my friends at Camp MacDowell. Two years together, in the most intimate companionship, cut off from the outside world, and away from all early ties, had united us with indissoluble bonds,—and now we were to part,—forever as I thought.
We all wept; I embraced them all, and Jack lifted me into the ambulance; Mrs. Kendall gave a last kiss to our little boy; Donahue, our soldier-driver, loosened up his brakes, cracked his long whip, and away we went, down over the flat, through the dark MacDowell canon, with the chollas nodding to us as we passed, across the Salt River, and on across an open desert to Florence, forty miles or so to the southeast of us.
At Florence we sent our military transportation back and staid over a day at a tavern to rest. We met there a very agreeable and cultivated gentleman, Mr. Charles Poston, who was en route to his home, somewhere in the mountains nearby. We took the Tucson stage at sundown, and travelled all night. I heard afterwards more about Mr. Poston: he had attained some reputation in the literary world by writing about the Sun-worshippers of Asia. He had been a great traveller in his early life, but now had built himself some sort of a house in one of the desolate mountains which rose out of these vast plains of Arizona, hoisted his sun-flag on the top, there to pass the rest of his days. People out there said he was a sun-worshipper. I do not know. "But when I am tired of life and people," I thought, "this will not be the place I shall choose."
Arriving at Tucson, after a hot and tiresome night in the stage, we went to an old hostelry. Tucson looked attractive. Ancient civilization is always interesting to me.
Leaving me at the tavern, my husband drove out to Fort Lowell, to see about quarters and things in general. In a few hours he returned with the overwhelming news that he found a dispatch awaiting him at that post, ordering him to return immediately to his company at Camp MacDowell, as the Eighth Infantry was ordered to the Department of California.
Ordered "out" at last! I felt like jumping up onto the table, climbing onto the roof, dancing and singing and shouting for joy! Tired as we were (and I thought I had reached the limit), we were not too tired to take the first stage back for Florence, which left that evening. Those two nights on the Tucson stage are a blank in my memory. I got through them somehow.
In the morning, as we approached the town of Florence, the great blue army wagon containing our household goods, hove in sight—its white canvas cover stretched over hoops, its six sturdy mules coming along at a good trot, and Sergeant Stone cracking his long whip, to keep up a proper pace in the eyes of the Tucson stage-driver.