But fire and water will not mix, and if honest dough-boys be shaken together with such sons of Belial the regimental traditions will suffer, and discipline will surely come to naught. And so it happened that the old Fourteeth had to undergo all the pangs of dyspepsia before it could make way with the indigestible mass that had thus been cast upon it. There is no telling what dire happening would have come to the regiment had this state of things been allowed to continue indefinitely. A period was put to it at last, however, by a telegram, which came to the commanding officer at dead of night, transferring the Fourteenth to Arizona. Then it was that the deserters and bounty-jumpers held council of the situation, and being of one mind as to the unpleasing outlook, took wing and troubled the service no more, and the old Fourteenth, weaker in numbers but stronger in men than it had been since Fredericksburg, was landed at Yuma, where it was appointed to garrison the abandoned posts and protect the overland mail from the depredations of the Apaches, who had been working their will of late upon the unprotected settlements in southeastern Arizona. Here, taking his chances with the rest, and doing his full share of escort and fatigue, Lawson served "honestly and faithfully," as it ran in his discharge papers, until his term expired and he was a free man again. And then it was that he went up to keep the mail station at the Cienega.
The Cienega, or, to give the place its fall name, the Cienega de las Pimas, was a low-lying, swampy valley through which a small stream ran, alternately rising and sinking after the manner of creeks and rivers in Arizona. To the west, twenty-eight miles away, was the pueblo of Tucson, a cathedral town, once the capital of the territory. To the east, twenty-two miles distant, was the middle crossing of the San Pedro. To the north there was nothing; while to the south were the Whetstone Mountains, then old Camp Wallen, the Patagonia Mine, and Old Mexico. The Cienega itself was flat, infested with all manner of poisonous vermin, submerged in the rainy season, and miry and impassable, in a military sense, at all times. It was also malarial, and to the last degree unlovely to the eye. A few dead cottonwood-trees, upon which the owls creaked at sunset, rose stiffly here and there out of the general dead level of sacaton grass and chaparral, while the tarantula and centipede and the ubiquitous rattlesnake reserved to their unhallowed uses the moist, impenetrable depths below. The station had been located just where it was because it broke into two fairly equal parts the long fifty-mile drive from Tucson to the crossings of the San Pedro. Wagon trains and occasional parties of prospectors or travellers camped at the Cienega on their way to the White Mountains, or to the Apache Pass and New Mexico, and from their small needs in the way of refreshment for man and beast Lawson and his partner eked out an extremely moderate existence. At very rare intervals a troop of regular cavalry passed that way, and the ranchmen ministered to its needs in the way of long forage to the extent of twenty dollars or more. These were red-letter days for Lawson—a very gold-mine, indeed—and led him to hope that, sometime in the uncertain future, he might be able to leave the Cienega forever, and go back to Ohio, where green grass and tall trees grew, where churches and kindred were, and where he might, perhaps, take a new start in life in a land beyond the dim eastern mountains, where pistols were not, and where civilization flourished throughout the year. This was a dream that came to Lawson in the night when a big escort camped at the Cienega and he could eat and sleep in peace.
No one who knows Arizona need be told that the Apaches were particularly bad in the early seventies. No place outside the towns or beyond the lines of the garrisoned forts was safe from their incursions. Depredations were of daily occurrence, and were only desisted from when there were no white men left to kill and no horses or cattle to steal and carry away. A single traveller journeyed south of the Gila and east of the Santa Cruz, not simply at his peril, but to certain, inevitable death. It was the same with two, or three; if four travelled together, one had a running chance to escape if the marauding party was less than ten, or if the attack came within an hour of darkness. On the whole, the best local judgment, both civil and military, was that five persons, alert, fully armed, and, above all, judiciously scattered along the trail, were the smallest company that could venture into the country ranged over by the Mescalero or Chiricahui Indians with any chance of getting out alive. The roads were dotted with the graves of those who had paid, with their lives, the awful penalty of being too venturesome, and the isolated ranches were heavily barred and otherwise defended against the common enemy. The Cienega was no exception to the rule; indeed, on account of its perilous situation, it had one or two defensive features which less-exposed ranches lacked, and which I shall presently describe. Partly because it was located near the junction of several large north and south Indian trails, and partly because of the ease with which it could be approached from the dense chaparral, it was always surrounded by hostile Apaches, and its occupants went in and out under their constant observation.
The ranch building proper, for there was but one, stood on the east bank of the muddy creek, just above where the old overland stage-road had managed to find a practicable crossing. As the trail left the ford, it wound sharply up the slope and passed between the ranch building and a huge outcrop of volcanic rocks which stood directly opposite the main entrance to the inner court, or corral. This pile of rocks had been regarded as having some defensive value when the ranch was built, apparently with the idea that, in the event of an attack, it might serve as a kind of outwork which could be defended for several hours before the garrison would be compelled to fall back to the shelter of the ranch proper. It was also so situated that, in case of siege, a small party could sally out of the main building and find cover behind the rocks long enough to enable its defenders to get a supply of water from the creek.
The enclosure, which was rectangular in plan, measured about sixty feet on each front or side. The middle of the front wall, facing the north, was pierced by a sally-port, or entranceway, about fifteen feet in width, which was closed by a heavy oaken gate. In conformity to the style of domestic architecture prevailing in all Spanish-American countries, where life and property are less safe than they are in the lands more favored of Heaven where the Anglo-Saxon dwells, this gateway was the only means by which an entrance could be effected, as the other walls were without openings of any kind save those which looked upon the inner court. The rudely constructed interior can be quickly described. On the east side of the entrance was a large living-room some twenty feet square; on the west were several smaller rooms for horse-gear and the storage of grain. The other three sides were roofed, but not otherwise enclosed, and were used as stables.
At the southeast corner, opposite the living-room, Lawson had built a circular flanking tower, which projected a little more than three feet beyond the outer walls, and from this corner tower, which was loopholed, the east and south sides of the enclosure could be raked or flanked. It was a novel construction, and Mexican cargadors, wrapped in their serapes of manta, sat squat on their haunches and soberly regarded it for hours, wondering at the Gringo's strange conceit in building. Curious travellers casually observed it in passing, and thought it a spring-house, or perhaps a place where whiskey and other precious valuables could be safely deposited; but none, even the most inquisitive, suspected its real purpose or gave it a moment's serious thought. We shall presently see, however, how useful it proved to be.
The living-room was simple and plain to the last degree. In the first place, there was a fireplace of adobe, at which all the cooking was done; there were two rude bunks, in which Lawson and his partner slept, and there was a rough table, made out of a discarded hardtack box, which stood under the window overlooking the interior court. These, with a half-dozen stout chairs with rawhide seats, completed the scanty array of furniture. Each man wore a pistol and a thimble-belt always, and was never far from a repeating Winchester rifle. At the head of each bed, ready for instant use, stood a perfect arsenal of weapons of all dates and calibres. Some were modern, and likely to be of service in an emergency, the rest were antiquated and obsolete, mere bric-à-brac indeed, and were kept because, as Lawson put it, "they might come in handy sometime."
So, as the matter stood, the garrison—that is, Lawson and his partner Green, an ex-Confederate from the Army of Northern Virginia—had thought the thing all over, and settled in their minds that, in the event of an attack, they would proceed in about this wise. If the attack came from the north, which was by all odds the most exposed and dangerous quarter, they would first hold the rock outwork to the last extremity. It was agreed between them that their principal danger would consist in an attempt on the part of the Indians to scale the walls, either to make a lodgement on the roof or to set it on fire. Now if such an attempt happened to be made on the east or south side, which was commanded by the flanking tower, the garrison would be heard from, and serious injury might be inflicted upon the assailants—enough, perhaps, to hold them in check until the mail-drivers, who passed daily in either direction, could carry the alarm to the regular cavalry posts at Tucson and the Apache Pass. It should be said, however, that so much of the partners' ingenious plan of defence as depended upon the arrival of a mail-rider was, at best, a feeble reliance, as they were more likely to be killed than not in the event of an attack; but feeble as it was, it was all that seemed to stand between the occupants of the ranch and a lingering death by torture, should the Apaches conclude to make a descent in force upon the Cienega; and thus matters stood there just before sunrise on the morning of the 21st of July, 1870.
AS GREEN SPED THROUGH HE FELT THE HOT BREATH OF HIS PARTNER'S WINCHESTER.