“Wall, ’xpec’ you want to hear all the news yourself,” proposed “Uncle” Joe, that evening, at the ranch, after Jimmie had told his own story in every detail.
“Yes, if you please,” answered Jimmie.
“Wall,” mused Joe Felmer, stroking his shaggy full beard, “lemme see. ‘Six-toed’ Hutton’s been kicked in the jaw by a mule, an’ he’s like to go under. The kick busted his heart, same time it busted his jaw, ’cause he ought to’ve known better than to get in the way.”
“Six-toed” Hutton’s real name was Oscar Hutton. He had six toes on either foot, and was one of the bravest scouts at Camp Grant. To be killed by a mule kick did indeed seem an untimely end for a scout.
“’Paches have been awful bad all ’long the line,” continued Joe. “Chiricahuas an’ Tontos an’ Pinals been raidin’ the stage road out o’ Tucson, both ways. Forty-seven whites an’ Mexicans have been killed down thar’bouts, an’ ten thousand dollars’ wuth o’ property burned or stolen. Up ’round Prescott the Hualpais an’ Apache-Mohaves have corraled the mail rider an’ run ranchers an’ miners off. An’ a passel o’ blamed rascals lit out with an old mule from my very pasture—three of ’em at once on her back, in broad day!”
The recollection of this evidently made “Uncle” Joe very angry again. He paused to mumble.
“Thar’s a band o’ Es-kim-en-zin’s Pinals an’ Arivaipas farmin’ on the creek ’bout a mile from Grant,” he resumed. “Gathered thar ag’in after that massacre last spring, when those whites an’ Mexicans an’ Papagos from Tucson way came up an’ wiped out ’most their women an’ old men an’ stole their children. Yessir, killed over seventy squaws an’ only eight bucks, some of ’em while asleep, an’ carried off thirty children. Sold ’em ’mongst the Mexicans an’ Papagos, they did. Now I hear tell that the Government’s sendin’ what it calls a ‘peace commissioner,’ from New Yawk, to fetch in other ’Paches an’ feed ’em an’ treat ’em nice. Wall, reckon he’ll have his hands full.”
Although Joe and others, soldiers and civilians both, at Camp Grant, insisted that there could be no good excuse for attacking Indians who had surrendered themselves, the Tucson papers and people declared that these very Pinals and Arivaipas had recently been murdering Americans and Mexicans, and stealing stock, and deserved Indian punishment instead of white protection. It would teach the Apaches a lesson.
Of course, when one’s father and mother and brothers and sisters have been tortured and killed only because they were white, it is hard to feel at all kindly toward the race that did it. Jimmie knew how that was. White persons’ clothing—the clothing of the very ones who had been murdered—was found in the Pinal and Arivaipa camp. Still, for the white people to act like Indians, set a bad example, if the Indians were to be shown that the white way of living was the better way.
The Camp Grant massacre aroused a great cry in the East. The East sided with the Apaches. But when he had arrived, Commissioner Colyer seemed to be going about with very odd notions. He was reported as thinking that the Apaches were only a poor ignorant race, who had been robbed of their lands and forced into war by the whites, and that they ought to be met with kindness alone. Then they would be peaceable. The Tucson Citizen asserted that he advised the Arizona people to avoid trouble by getting out of the Indians’ way. And the Citizen and the Prescott Miner published hot, sarcastic articles about him and the Peace Policy. The Apaches were being referred to as “Colyer’s babes” and “Colyer’s pets.”
“What’s that?” growled Joe. “Thinks the Chiricahuas an’ Tontos don’t know any better’n to hang folks up by their heels over a slow fire, does he? An’ that we ought to call off the troops an’ get off our ranches, so we won’t be irritatin’ the Injuns? Then they’d come in of themselves, to be civilized! Jest why the ’Paches who can live by fightin’ an’ stealin’ as they please will want to live by ploughin’, I’d like to hear. This is part o’ the United States, an’ the white people are jest as much entitled to protection as the ’Paches are.”
Camp Grant was a four- or five-company post located here in a desert basin where the valley of the Arivaipa Creek, from the east, and of the San Pedro River, from the south, joined. The San Pedro was supposed to flow on north, for a few miles, to the Gila River; but it and the Arivaipa were only dry sand-beds during the greater part of the year.
Camp Grant was not a pretty place; it was only a hollow square of clay or log huts and ragged tents, shaded in front by brush porches or ramadas.
Against it beat the sand-storms in the spring and the blazing sun throughout nine months of the year—temperature, one hundred and twenty in the shade! The giant cactuses, instead of trees, were many and extra large—and so were the rattle-snakes, scorpions and centipedes. And the Apache had always been extra bold.
One never might foresee what was about to occur, at Camp Grant. On some days it would be perfectly quiet, with only the sentries walking their hot beats, and the tame Indians squatting out of the sun; and again there would be a sudden running to and fro, and away would trot the cavalry, to rescue (if possible) a wagon train, and pursue the hostiles.
In a few days, at best, but likely enough not until after a week or more, back the troopers would come, maybe with wounded, maybe with prisoners, but in any case all fagged out, both men and horses.
Joe Felmer’s little ranch lay three miles south, up the San Pedro. As Joe was post blacksmith, and also sold ranch stuff to the quartermaster, Jimmie felt as though he belonged to the post, himself. He knew all the officers, and old Sergeants Warfield and John Mott, and others of the men; and “Six-toed,” and Antonio Besias the former Mexican captive of the Apaches, and Concepcion Equierre the half-Apache interpreter, and old Santos the short-legged Arivaipa ex-chief who was Chief Es-kim-en-zin’s father-in-law; and many more.
When he had left, last year, Grant had been occupied by some of the First and the Third Cavalry; but they had been transferred, Lieutenant Cushing’s and Lieutenant Bourke’s Troop K of the Third had been sent down to Camp Lowell near Tucson, and now the Fifth Cavalry was here.
It was in October when Commissioner Colyer, on his rounds, appeared at Camp Grant. Jimmie was lucky enough to drive down there, with Joe and a wagon-load of pumpkins, just in time to be present at some of the “doings.”
Mr. Colyer had arrived in a six-mule army ambulance (a black, covered spring wagon with high driver’s seat, and two bench-like seats inside, facing each other), escorted by a squad of cavalry from Fort Whipple, under Lieutenant Ross.
He was a square-set, benevolent-looking gentleman, in dusty black broadcloth, and white shirt and broad black hat. Attended by Colonel F. W. Crittenden, the post commander, and by other officers, he had been talking, through Concepcion the interpreter, to the tame Apaches at the post, and he was about to go out to Chief Es-kim-en-zin’s rancheria, where the surrendered Pinals and Arivaipas were farming.
“They are the same people who were so barbarously attacked last spring, I understand,” he remarked.
“Yes, sir,” replied Lieutenant Royal Whitman.
“You were in charge of the post then, were you not?”
“I was. But before I could reach their camp the deed had been done. I think you will see by my report upon the matter, to the Department, how I feel about it. It was a thorough outrage, and the members of the attacking party ought to be arrested, tried and punished.”
“Quite true,” uttered Mr. Colyer. “A shocking state of affairs exists through the whole Territory. All the Indians with whom I have talked declare that they would gladly gather upon reservations, accept the Government’s aid, and live at peace with mankind, if the soldiery and white citizens would only cease hunting them down. Some of the bands are so frightened and timid that they won’t confer even with me, their friend. I’ve tried in vain to meet Chief Cochise, of the Chiricahuas. You can see, my brothers,” he continued, addressing the group of soldiers and scouts and tame Apaches, “what an injustice has been done these simple savages. Our duty is not to punish them for defending their homes, but to gain their good-will by patience and kindness, until they are won to the benefits of civilization. That is why the President and the Society of Friends have delegated me to visit among you, and bring this bad feeling between the white men and the red men to an end.”
“‘Simple savages,’ are they?” afterwards commented Joe. “If thar’s anybody smarter’n an Apache in sizin’ things up, I’ve yet to find him. At present this hyar Quaker strikes me as bein’ ’bout the simplest pusson in Arizony. The ’Paches can understand straight talk, like that Gen’ral Crook gave ’em, an’ they can understand war; but they don’t understand coaxin’. When you coax a ’Pache he laughs in his insides an’ reckons he’ll do as he pleases as long as he can. Once you coax him, then he thinks you’re ’fraid of him, ’cause that’s Injun way.”
Mr. Colyer was driven out to the Chief Es-kim-en-zin camp, where he talked with old Santos and the chief, and others of the Pinals and Arivaipas. He informed them that the Great White Father at Washington would see to it that they were no longer ill-treated by the white men. All the Apaches might come in and live on the lands that the Government was giving them. They should have plenty to eat, and the white men who interfered should be punished.
When he returned to the post he acted much satisfied. He arranged to have a regular reservation set off, and said that an agent and teacher would be appointed, by the Society of Friends. Soon he left, with his escort, to continue his tour.
While nobody might doubt that Mr. Colyer was a very good and honest man, nobody put much faith in his methods. After having fought and raided all summer, many of the wild Apaches would be only too willing to be fed and protected upon the reservations, all winter.
Now the Indians of Arizona seemed to be provided for—except that Commissioner Colyer had not been able to find any Chiricahuas. He had sent word to them, but they had hidden from him. And when in western New Mexico he had stopped at the Cañada Alamosa, or Cottonwood Canyon, where Chief Victorio’s friendly Mimbres and Warm Spring Apaches were living, the most of them had run from his soldier escort. They liked their Cottonwood Canyon, and feared that they were to be removed.