Chapter VII: A GRAND CANYON CHRISTMAS
Funny how one can never get over being homesick at Christmas. Days and weeks and even months can pass by without that yearning for family and home, but in all the years since I hung my stocking in front of the big fireplace in the old home I have never learned to face Christmas Eve in a strange place with any degree of happiness. I believe the rangers all felt the same way. Several days before Christmas they began to plan a real "feed."
We had moved into our new house now, and it was decided to make a home of it by giving a Christmas housewarming.
The rangers all helped to prepare the dinner. Each one could choose one dish he wanted cooked and it was cooked, even if we had to send to Montgomery Ward and Company for the makin's. Ranger Fisk opined that turkey dressing without oysters in it would be a total loss as far as he was concerned, so we ordered a gallon from the Coast. They arrived three days before Christmas, and it was his duty to keep them properly interred in a snow drift until the Great Day arrived.
Ranger Winess wanted pumpkin pies with plenty of ginger; White Mountain thought roast turkey was about his speed. Since we would have that anyway, he got another vote. This time he called for mashed turnips and creamed onions. The Superintendent, Colonel White, being an Englishman, asked plaintively if we couldn't manage a plum pudding! We certainly managed one just bursting with plums. That made him happy for the rest of the day.
I didn't tell anybody what I intended to have for my own special dish, but when the time came I produced a big, rich fruit cake, baked back home by my own mother, and stuffed full of nuts and fruit and ripened to a perfect taste.
All the rangers helped to prepare the feast. One of them rode down the icy trail to Indian Gardens and brought back crisp, spicy watercress to garnish the turkey.
After it became an effort to chew, and impossible to swallow, we washed the dishes and gathered around the blazing fire. Ranger Winess produced his omnipresent guitar and swept the strings idly for a moment. Then he began to sing, "Silent Night, Holy Night." That was the beginning of an hour of the kind of music one remembers from childhood. Just as each one had chosen his favorite dish, now each one selected his favorite Christmas song. When I asked for "Little Town of Bethlehem" nobody hesitated over the words. We all knew it better than we do "Star Spangled Banner!" I could have prophesied what Colonel White would call for, so it was no surprise when he swung into "God rest ye merry, gentlemen, let nothing ye dismay." Fortunately, most of us had sung carols in our distant youth, and we sang right with the Colonel.
Someone suggested that each one tell of the strangest Christmas Day he or she had ever spent. For a while none of us were in Arizona. Ranger Winess was in a state of siege in the Philippines, while the Moros worked themselves into a state of frenzy for the attack that followed; Ranger Fisk scaled Table Mountain, lying back of Capetown, and there picked a tiny white flower which he had pressed in the Bible presented to him there that day; each sailor in port had received a Bible that day with this inscription: "Capetown, Africa, Christ's Birthday, December 25, 19—." White Mountain snowshoed twenty miles in Yellowstone to have Christmas dinner with another ranger, but when he got there he found his friend delirious with flu. "Did he die?" we questioned anxiously. Ranger Winess and the Chief looked at each other and grinned.
"Do I look like a dead one?" Ranger Winess demanded.
"I couldn't let him die," White Mountain said. "We had just lost one Government man, mysteriously, and hadn't any more to spare. So I got his dogs and sledge and hauled him into Headquarters."
Of course we wanted to know about the "lost" ranger. It seemed that there had broken out among the buffalo herd in the Park a strange malady that was killing them all off. An expert from Washington was en route to make a study of the ailment, and was due to arrive just before Christmas. Days passed into weeks and still he didn't show up. Inquiries to Washington disclosed that he had started as per schedule. Tracing his journey step by step it was discovered that on the train out of Chicago he had become ill with flu and had been left in a small town hospital. There he had died without recovering his speech, and had been buried in the potter's field!
"Well, then what happened to the buffalo?"
"Washington sent us a German scientist. We loved that nation just about that time, and on his arrival diplomatic relations were badly strained. He was too fat and soft to use snowshoes or skis, so we loaded him on a light truck and started for the buffalo farm. We stalled time and again, and he sat in lordly indifference while we pushed and shoveled out. We seemed hopelessly anchored in one drift, and from his perch where he sat swaddled up like a mummy came his 'Vy don't you carry a portable telephone so ve couldt hook it over the vires and call for them to come and pull us oudt?' One of the rangers replied, 'It would be nice for us to telephone ourselves to please pull us oudt. We are the them that does the pulling around here.'
"The old boy mumbled and sputtered but rolled out and put a husky shoulder to the wheel, and we went on our way rejoicing. He won our respect at the buffalo farm for he soon discovered the germ that was killing our charges, and he prepared a serum with which we vaccinated the entire herd."
"Wow!" Colonel White exclaimed. "I think I'd rather fight Moros than vaccinate buffalo." He, too, had spent years in foreign warfare; his experiences are graphically told in Bullets and Bolos.
While we heard about the buffalo, one of the rangers left the room. He came back presently, and White Mountain said to me: "Don't you want to see your Christmas present?"
I looked across at my proud new riding-boots, with their fancy stitching, and funny high heels just like those the rangers wore. "I'm crazy about them," I said.
But the whole bunch were laughing. White Mountain led me to the door, and there I had my first glimpse of Tar Baby! He was a four-year-old horse that had spent those years running wild on the range. A few months before he had been captured and partly tamed. But he was hard-mouthed, and stiff-necked and hell-bent on having his own way about things. I didn't know all that when I saw him this Christmas Day. To me he was perfect. He was round and fat, shiny black, with a white star in his forehead, and four white feet. One eye was blue, and the other one the nicest, softest, kindest brown! He was just that kind of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde horse, too! He was fitted out with a new saddle, a gaudy Navajo saddle blanket, and a bridle with silver inlaid fittings. The spade bit was necessary. I found that out later, also.
I would have stood there speechless with admiration the rest of the day, but the others reminded me it was time to light the big tree we had planned for the children in the Park.
The rangers had brought a slender fir into the Information Room and we had it trimmed within an inch of its life. Cranberries and popcorn ropes festooned its branches, and again Montgomery Ward and Company's catalogue had been searched for treasures to load it with. Every child in the Park, regardless of race or color, was remembered. Little brown brothers, whose Filipino mothers worked in the laundry, found themselves possessors of strange toys; Navajo babies and Hopi cupids from the Hopi House were well supplied. One small Hopi lass wailed loudly at the look of the flaxen-haired doll that fell to her lot. She was afraid to hold it—she wouldn't let anybody else touch it—so she stood it in a corner and squalled at it from a safe distance. When the party was over, an older sister had to carry it for her. I suspect she much preferred her native dolls.
After the tree was bare, we all went down to the Fred Harvey Recreation Room and danced the rest of the evening away.
I could hardly wait for morning to go for a ride on Tar Baby. Ranger West brought him down to the house to saddle him. While I dressed up in my new boots I overheard the conversation between the ranger and the horse. It was a rather one-sided talk, but quite interesting.
"Whoa there, Tar Baby!" very firmly and casually. "Stand still now!"
"Hey, now, you black devil, don't you try bitin' me again! Yes, he's a nice baby horse," this last remark quite saccharine. A slight silence fell while the cinches were being tightened, then—heels beating a tune on the side of the shed, and sultry, sulphuric remarks being fitted to the tune. About that time I was ready to go out.
"Have any trouble with Tar Baby?"
"No, oh, no. None whatever. Ready to go?"
Every morning as soon as I was in the saddle we had the same argument. Would he go where and as fast as I desired, or would he run as fast and as far as he pleased? Sore wrists and a strained disposition were the price I paid for winning the battle. He just went wild if he could race with another horse. Of course White Mountain put his foot down on such racing, and since the rangers were such good sports their Chief never learned that racing was part of the daily program!
One day, when some of the Washington officials were there, the Chief borrowed Tar Baby to ride. He said it took him half a day to get him to stay on the ground with the other horses. He came home fully determined that I must trade my Christmas gift for a more sensible horse. Tears and coaxing availed nothing, but I did win his consent to one more ride before I gave him up.
Ranger West was going to ride the drift fence and I started out with him. Tar Baby was a handful that day, and I was having all I could do to control him. We passed a bunch of tourists having lunch out of paper sacks, and one of the men had a wonderful idea. He said something to the others, and while they giggled he blew one of the bags full of air and exploded it right under my horse. Of course Tar Baby bolted, and even as he ran away I admired his ability to keep ahead of Ranger West, who was running full tilt after us. It was five minutes before I could get the bit out of his teeth and bring the spade device into play. I had to choke him into submission.
Ranger West and Ranger Fisk conducted those tourists out of the Park, and they had to leave without seeing the Canyon.
"Ve drove here from New York to see this Canyon," one complained, and made wide gestures with both hands.
"It wouldn't do you any good to see it," Ranger West told him grimly. "You'd probably push somebody over the edge to have a little fun."
I was sure the Chief would take Tar Baby away after that. But I guess he thought if the horse hadn't killed me with such a good chance as he had, I was safe. He never said another word about selling him.
Several Indians were camped around in the woods near the Park, and we visited them quite often. An Indian has as many angles in his makeup as a centipede has legs. Just about the time you think you have one characteristically placed, you put your finger down and he isn't there. Charge one with dishonesty, and the next week he will ride a hundred miles to deliver a bracelet you paid for months before. Decide he is cruel and inhuman, and he will spend the night in heart-breaking labor, carrying an injured white man to safety.
I suggested hiring a certain Navajo to cut some wood, and was told that he was too lazy to eat what he wanted. In a few days this same brave came to Headquarters with the pelt of a cougar. He had followed the animal sixty miles, tracking it in the snow on foot without a dog to help him. We knew where he took the trail and where it ended. He killed the big cat, skinned it, and carried the pelt back to the Canyon. You won't find many white men with that much grit! A tourist from New York saw the pelt and coveted it. He offered twenty-five dollars. Neewah wanted fifty. The tourist tried to beat him down. There wasn't any argument about it. The whole conversation was a monologue. The Indian saw that the tourist wanted the skin badly, so he just sat and stared into space while the tourist elaborated on how much twenty-five dollars would buy and how little the pelt had cost the Indian! The buck simply sat there until it was about time for the train to pull out, then he picked up the hide and stalked away. Mr. Tourist hastened after him and shelled out fifty pesos. I expect he told the home folks how he shot that panther in self-defense.
Ranger West did shoot a big cougar soon afterward. Not in self-defense but in revenge.
Not many deer lived on the South Rim then. That was before the fawns were brought by airplane across the Canyon! The few that were there were cherished and protected in every possible way. A salt pen was built so high the cattle couldn't get in, and it was a wonderful sight to see the graceful deer spring over that high fence with seemingly no effort at all. Ranger West came in one morning with blood in his eye—one of his pets had been dragged down under the Rim and half devoured by a giant cougar. A hunt was staged at once. I was told to stay at home, but that didn't stop me from going. Ranger Fisk always saddled Tar Baby for me when everybody else thought it best to leave me behind. So I wasn't far away when the big cat was treed by the dogs. He sat close to the trunk of the dead tree, defying the dogs and spitting at them until they were almost upon him. Then he sprang up the tree and lay stretched out on a limb snarling until a rifle ball brought him down. He hit the ground fighting, and ripped the nose of an impetuous puppy wide open. Another shot stretched him out. He measured eight feet from tip to tip. His skin was tanned by an Indian and adorns a bench in the Ranger Office.
Chapter VIII: THE DAY'S WORK
The snow had been tumbling down every day for weeks, until several feet lay on the ground. After each storm the rangers took snow plows and cleared the roads along the Rim, but the rest of our little world lay among big snow drifts. As we walked around among the houses, only our heads and shoulders showed above the snow. It was like living in Alaska. The gloomy days were getting monotonous, and when the Chief announced he was going to make an inspection trip over Tonto Trail, I elected myself, unanimously, to go along.
"But it's cold riding down there, even if there is no snow," protested White Mountain. "And, besides, your horse is lame."
"Well, it isn't exactly hot up here, and I'll borrow Dixie. I'm going!"
Ranger West obligingly lent Dixie to me and I went. The thermometer registered well below zero when we started down Bright Angel Trail. On account of the icy trail my descent threatened to be a sudden one. Dixie slid along stiff-legged, and I was half paralyzed with fright and cold. But every time the Chief looked back, I pulled my frozen features into what I considered a cheerful smile. I got more and more scared as we went farther down, and finally had a brilliant idea. "My feet are awfully cold, and couldn't I walk a while?" The Chief had probably heard that same excuse from a thousand others, but he gravely assented and helped me dismount. I started down the trail leading Dixie. My feet really were so cold they were numb. This was probably a mercy, since Dixie kept stepping on them! I began to run to "keep out from in under," and she kept pace until we were almost galloping down the trail. When we got below the snow line, my excuse wouldn't work, and I had to ride again.
There was sagebrush and sand and cactus. Then sand and cactus and sagebrush. Here and there we saw a lop-eared burro, and far away I saw an eagle sailing around. Having nothing else to do I counted the burros we passed—seventy. A bunch grazing near the trail looked interesting, so I made a careful approach and took their picture. Of course I forgot to roll the film, and a little later Friend Husband decided to photograph the enormous pillar that gives the name to Monument Creek. The result was rather amazing when we developed the film a week later. The wild burros were grazing placidly on the summit of a barren rock, a couple of hundred feet in the air, without visible means of ascent or descent. The Chief made a few sarcastic remarks about this picture, but I firmly reminded him my burros were there first! He didn't say anything else—aloud.
It took a long day's riding to reach Hermit's Camp just at dusk. We were warmly welcomed by a roaring fire and hot supper. After I ate and then sat a while I was too stiff to move. I knew I would stay awake all night and nurse my aches. That, added to my fear of "phoby cats," made me reluctant to retire. What's a hydrophobia cat? I don't know for sure that it's anything, but the camp man told me to keep my door locked or one would sneak in and bite me. He also said that I would go crazy if one chewed on me. I intended to keep at least one ear cocked for suspicious noises; but when I hit the cot everything was a blank until I heard the Chief making a fire in the little tin stove.
"Wake up and get dressed. Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes, and I want you to walk down to the creek and see the trout."
"Walk?" I never expected even to crawl again. Sore! Stiff!! I labored all of ten minutes trying to get my boots on. And I had to ride up Hermit Trail that day. I was glad to ride. I never mentioned walking to warm my feet. The trail wound up and up. Today I slid down on Dixie's tail, whereas yesterday I had braced my heels against her ears. A young snowslide came down the mountainside, and we almost went on with it. It missed us by such a very slight margin that fugitive snowballs rolled around Dixie's feet and left her trembling and cringing with fright.
Dixie and I had been loitering quite a distance behind, because White Mountain had made us a little mad about something; but we decided we really had no right to be killed without letting him know about it, and we kept close to his heels the rest of the way.
All too soon we reached near-zero weather again. It got zero, then zero-er, and quickly zero-est. I thought of all the hot things I could remember, endeavoring to raise the temperature.
Real chili con carne.
Pennsylvania Avenue in August.
Hornet stings.
Spankings sustained in my youth!
It was useless. I couldn't qualify as a Scientist. Maybe I lacked concentration, for between looking out for another avalanche and wondering how soon I could decently ask for another cup of coffee from the thermos bottle, my thoughts wandered.
Perhaps the Chief was cold, too. Anyway, we stopped at Santa Maria Spring and spread out our lunch. The quaint little shelter over the spring was being rapidly covered with Boston ivy. White Mountain said Earl Shirley used to ride down there twice a week after a hard day's work to water the newly set plants so they would grow. One is always learning new things about Western men!
It was mighty good to find Ranger Fisk at the top of the trail. He said he thought I would be cold and tired so he brought a flivver to take me the remaining six miles in to Headquarters. He had the house warm and had melted snow for drinking-water. All the water pipes had frozen while we were gone, and I washed my face with cold cream for several days.
I hadn't more than settled down comfortably when the Chief found it necessary to make another trip down. When he mentioned going I played the piano so loud I couldn't hear him. I had no desire to go. Not while I could sit in my warm house and read and sew in my comfortable rocking chair. It was without a single qualm that I waved him a floury adieu from the midst of cookie-making. I closed the door and went back to my baking, which was abruptly terminated by a blazing board falling into the crock of dough. The house was burning over my luckless head. I turned around and around a few times in the same spot, then tried to throw a bucket of water up against the ceiling. Had I been the conflagration it would have ended then and there, for I was thoroughly drenched. Failing to be my own fire engine I ran out and happened to see Ranger Winess crossing the road. He must have been startled at my war whoop, for he came running. By that time the smoke was rolling out through the roof. While he climbed into the loft and tore pieces of blazing boards away, I gave the emergency call by telephone, and soon we had plenty of help. After the fire was conquered, I went to the hotel and stayed until the Chief got back.
The months from Christmas to April are the dullest at Grand Canyon. Of course tourists still come but not in the numbers milder weather brings. There is little or no automobile travel coming in from the outside world. Very few large groups or conventions come except in June, which seems to be the month for brides and large parties. That left the ranger family more time for play, especially in the evenings, and we had jolly parties in our big living-room. The piano was the drawing card, and combined with Ranger Winess' large guitar manufactured strange music. When the other rangers joined in and sang they managed to make quite a racket. Perhaps the songs they sang would not have met with enthusiasm in select drawing-rooms, but they had a charm for all that. Cowboy songs, sea chanties, and ballads many years old were often on call. Kipling's poems, especially "I Learned about Women from Her" were prime favorites.
I soon learned to take my sewing close to the fire and sit there quietly a few minutes in order to be forgotten. There are realms of masculine pleasure into which no mere woman should intrude. Besides that, I never could negotiate the weird crooks and turns they gave to their tunes. Every time an old favorite was sung, it developed new twists and curves. Ranger Winess would discover a heretofore unknown chord on his guitar: "Get that one, boys. That's a wicked minor!" Then for the ensuing five minutes, agonizing wails shattered the smoke screen while they were on the trail of that elusive minor. I had one set rule regarding their concerts—positively no lighted cigarettes were to be parked on my piano!
One song Ranger Winess always rendered as a solo, because all the others enjoyed hearing it too much to join in with him:
OLD ROANEY
I was hangin' 'round the town, and I didn't have a dime.
I was out of work and loafin' all the time.
When up stepped a man, and he said, "I suppose
You're a bronco-buster. I can tell by your clothes."
Well, I thought that I was, and I told him the same.
I asked him if he had any bad ones to tame?
"I have an old pony what knows how to buck;
At stacking up cowboys he has all the luck."'
I asked him what'd he pay if I was to stay
And ride his old pony around for a day.
"I'll give you ten dollars;" I said, "That's my chance,"
Throwed my saddle in the buckboard and headed for the ranch.
Got up next morning, and right after chuck
Went down to the corral to see that pony buck.
He was standin' in the corner, standin' all alone——
That pig-eyed pony, a strawberry roan!
Little pin ears that were red at the tip;
The X-Y-Z was stamped on his hip.
Narrow in the chest, with a scar on his jaw,
What all goes with an old outlaw!
First came the bridle, then there was a fight;
But I throwed on my saddle and screwed it down tight,
Stepped to his middle, feelin' mighty fine,
Said: "Out of the way, boys, watch him unwind!"
Well, I guess Old Roaney sure unwound;
Didn't spend much of his time on the ground!
Went up in the East, come down in the West——
Stickin' to his middle, I was doin' my best!
He went in the air with his belly to the sun
The old sun-fishin' son-of-a-gun!
Lost both the stirrups and I lost my hat
Reached for the horn, blinder than a bat.
Then Old Roaney gently slid into high,
Left me sittin' on nothin' but the sky.
There ain't no cowboy who is alive
Can ride Old Roaney when he makes his high dive!
When the piano player stopped and Frank struck a few soft chords on his guitar I knew they were getting sentimental. Pretty soon someone would begin to hum: "When the dew is on the rose, and the world is all repose." ... Those rangers lived close to danger and hardships every day, but they had more real sentiment in their makeup than any type of men I know. Maybe it's because women are so scarce around them that they hold all womanhood in high regard. Most of them dreamed of a home and wife and children, but few of them felt they had a right to ask a woman to share their primitive mode of living. They might not jump up to retrieve a dropped handkerchief, or stand at attention when a woman entered a room, but in their hearts they had a deep respect for every woman that showed herself worthy.
Now and then, a certain son of Scotland, Major Hunter Clarkson, dropped in. He was a real musician, and while I sewed and the Chief smoked he treated us to an hour of true melody. He used to play the bagpipes at home with his four brothers, he said, and he admitted that at times the racket they made jarred his mother's china from the shelves!
He had served with the British forces in Egypt, and if he could have known how interested we were in his experiences, he would have given us more than a bare hint of the scenes that were enacted during the defense of the Dardanelles and the entrance into Jerusalem.
One night he was telling us something about the habits of the Turks they fought, when the telephone rang and interrupted the narrative, which was never finished. The Chief had to go and investigate an attempted suicide.
It seemed that a lad under twenty, in Cleveland, had seen on a movie screen a picture of Grand Canyon. He tucked that vision away somewhere in his distorted brain, and when he had his next quarrel with his mother he gathered together all his worldly wealth and invested it in a ticket to Grand Canyon. There he intended to end his troubles, and make his mother sorry she hadn't sewed on a button the instant he had asked her to! That was a touching scene he pictured to himself—his heart-broken mother weeping with remorse because her son had jumped into the Canyon.
But! When he reached the Rim and looked over, it was a long way to the bottom, and there were sharp rocks there. Perhaps no one would ever find him, and what's the use of killing one's self if nobody knows about it? Something desperate had to be done, however, so he shot himself where he fancied his heart was located (he hit his stomach, which was a pretty close guess) with a cheap pistol he carried, hurled the gun into the Canyon, and started walking back to Headquarters. He met Ranger Winess making a patrol and reported to him that he had committed suicide! Rangers West and Winess took care of him through the night, with Nurse Catti's supervision, and the next day the Chief took him to Flagstaff, where the bullet was removed and he was returned to his mother a sadder and a wiser boy.
There is some mysterious power about the Canyon that seems to make it impossible for a person to face the gorge and throw himself into it.
A young man, immensely wealthy, brought his fiancée to the Canyon for a day's outing. At Williams, where they had lunch, he proposed that she go on to the Coast with him, but she refused, saying that she thought it was not the thing to do, since her mother expected her back home that night. He laughed and scribbled something on a paper which he tucked carelessly into a pocket of his overcoat. They went on to the Canyon and joined a party that walked out beyond Powell's Monument. He walked up to the Rim and stared into the depths, then turned facing his sweetheart. "Take my picture," he shouted; and while she bent over the kodak, he uttered a prayer, threw his arms up, and leaped backward into the Canyon. He had not been able to face it and destroy the life God had given him. Hours later rangers recovered his body, and in his pocket found the paper on which he had written: "You wouldn't go with me to Los Angeles, so it's goodbye!"
Ranger West came in one day and told me that there was a lot of sickness among the children at an Indian encampment a few miles from Headquarters. I rode out with him to see what was the matter and found that whooping-cough was rampant. For some reason, even though it was a very severe winter, the Supai Indians had come up from their home in Havasu Canyon, "Land of the Sky-Blue Water," made famous by Cadman, and were camped among the trees on a hillside. The barefoot women and dirty children were quite friendly, but the lazy, filthy bucks would have been insolent had I been alone. They lolled in the "hewas," brush huts daubed with mud, while the women dragged in wood and the children filled sacks with snow to melt for drinking purposes. To be sure they didn't waste any of it in washing themselves.
They would not let me doctor the children, and several of them died; but we could never find where they were buried. It is a custom of that tribe to bury its members with the right arm sticking up out of the ground. In case it is a lordly man that has passed to the Happy Hunting Ground his pony is shot and propped upright beside the grave with the reins clutched in the dead master's hand.
I thought I might be able to reach a better understanding with the women if the men were not present, so I told them to bring all the baskets they made to my house and I would look at them and buy some of them. Beautiful baskets were brought by the older squaws, and botched-up shabby ones by the younger generation. Sometimes a sick child would be brought by the mother, but there was little I could do for it outside of giving it nourishing food. An Indian's cure-all is castor oil. He will drink quarts of that if he can obtain it.
The Supai women are without dignity or appeal, and I never formed the warm friendships with them that I did with women of other tribes. They begged for everything in sight. One fat old squaw coveted a yellow evening gown she saw in my closet; I gave it to her, also a discarded garden hat with big yellow roses on it. She draped the gown around her bent shoulders and perched the hat on top of her gray tangled hair and went away happier than Punch. In a few minutes a whole delegation of squaws arrived to see what they could salvage.
Wattahomigie, their chief, and Dot, his wife, are far superior to the rest of the tribe, and when it was necessary to have any dealing with their people the Chief acted through Wattahomigie. He had often begged us to visit their Canyon home, and we promised to go when we could. He came strutting into our house one summer day and invited us to accompany him home, as the season of peaches and melons was at its height. He had been so sure we would go that he left orders for members of the tribe to meet us at Hilltop where the steep trail begins. We listened to him.
Chapter IX: THE DOOMED TRIBE[1]
Wattahomigie reminded us the next morning that we had promised to go with him, so we rushed around and in an hour were ready to follow his lead.
It's a long trail, winding through forest and desert, up hill and down, skirting sheer precipices and creeping through tunnels. And at the end of the trail one stumbles upon the tiny, hidden village where the last handful of a once powerful nation has sought refuge. Half-clad, half-fed, half-wild, one might say, they hide away there in their poverty, ignorance, and superstition. But oh, the road one must travel to reach them! I hadn't anticipated Arizona trails when I so blithely announced to White Mountain, "Whither thou goest, I will go." Neither had I slept in an Indian village when I added, "And where thou lodgest, I will lodge."
We loaded our camp equipment into the Ford, tied a canvas bag of water where it would be air-cooled, strapped a road-building shovel on the running-board, and were on our way.
The first few miles led through forests of piñon and pine. Gradually rising, we reached the desert, where only cactus, sagebrush, and yucca grew. As far as we could see the still, gray desert lay brooding under the sun's white glare. Surely no living thing could exist in that alkali waste. But look! An ashen-colored lizard darts across the trail, a sage rabbit darts behind a yucca bush, and far overhead a tireless buzzard floats in circles. Is he keeping a death watch on the grizzled old "Desert Rat" we pass a little later? His face burned and seamed with the desert's heat and storms, the old prospector cheerfully waved at us, as he shared his beans and sour dough with a diminutive burro, which bore his master's pack during the long search through the trackless desert for the elusive gold. For us it would be suicide to leave the blazed trail. The chances are that the circling buzzard and hungry coyotes will be the only mourners present at his funeral.
Now and then we passed a twisted, warped old juniper that was doubtless digging for a foothold while Christ walked on earth. The Chief said these old junipers vie with the Sequoias in age. Nothing else broke the monotony of the heat and sand, until we came to the first water hole.
It was dry now, for the summer rains were long overdue, and bogged firmly in the red adobe mud was a gaunt long-horned cow. The Chief was too tender-hearted to shoot her and drive on, as he knew he should. Instead he stopped the car and got out to see if he could possibly "extract" her. Failing to frighten her into pulling herself out, he goaded her into a frenzy by throwing sharp stinging rocks at her. One landed on her tender flank and she tossed her horns and struggled. The Chief stooped, with his back to her, for another rock, just as she pulled out.
"Look out. She's coming for you!" I yelled.
Straight at her rescuer she charged with an angry rumble. Round and round a stunted piñon they raced, hot and angry. I was too helpless with mirth to be of any aid, and the Chief's gun was in the car. Still, an angry range cow on the prod is no joke, and it began to look serious. At last the impromptu marathon ended by the Chief making an extra sprint and rolling into the Ford just as her sharp horns raked him fore and aft.
"Well!" he exploded, and glared at me while I wiped the tears out of my eyes.
"Shall we drive on?" I inquired meekly. We drove on.
A few miles along the way a piteous bawling reached us. Since even Arizona cattle must drink sometimes, a cow had hidden her baby while she went to a distant water hole. Three coyotes had nosed him out and were preparing to fill up on unwilling veal. He bobbed about on his unsteady little legs and protested earnestly. The sneaking beasts scattered at our approach, and we drove on thinking the calf would be all right. Looking back, however, we saw that the coyotes had returned and pulled him down. This time the Chief's forty-five ended the career of one, and the other two shifted into high, getting out of range without delay. The trembling calf was loaded into the machine and we dropped him when the main herd was reached. Here he would be safe from attack, but I have often wondered if the mother found her baby again. At the next water hole a lean lynx circled warily around with his eye fixed hungrily on some wild ducks swimming too far from shore for him to reach. It seemed that the sinister desert mothered cruel breeds.
We had reached the "Indian Pasture" now, where the Indians kept their ponies. A score of Supai bucks were digging a shallow ditch. Upon being questioned they said the ditch was a mile long and would carry water to the big dam in their pasture when the rains fell. They were finishing the ditch just in time, for the first of the season's storms was closing down upon us. There was an ominous stillness, then the black cloud was rent with tongues of flame. And the rains descended—more than descended. They beat and dashed and poured until it seemed that the very floodgates of heaven had opened over our unfortunate heads. It was impossible to stay in the glue-and-gumbo road, so we took to the open prairie. Since this part of the country is well ventilated with prairie-dog holes, we had anything but smooth sailing.
"Stop," I shouted, trying to make myself heard above the roar of the storm.
"No time to stop now," was the answer.
We pulled under a sheltering juniper and slowed up.
"What did you want to stop there for? Don't you know we have to keep on moving if we reach a shelter tonight?" inquired the pilot of our ship. He had evidently been brooding over my unseemly mirth at the mad cow episode.
"Oh, all right," I agreed, "but the bedding-roll bounced out and I thought you might want to pick it up." The fugitive bedding recovered, we resumed our journey.
The storm ended as suddenly as everything else happens in that topsy-turvy land and in the eastern sky hung a double quivering rainbow. I rubbed my eyes and looked again. It was double! The Chief explained that this was due to a mirage, but I placed it to the credit of altitude, like all other Arizona wonders.
At Hilltop we found Indian guides with trail ponies to take us the rest of the way. They had been waiting two days for us, they said. Strolling to the Canyon's brink I encountered a fearful odor. "What in the world is that?" I asked Wattahomigie (which by the way means "Good Watchful Indian"). "Him pony," was the stolid reply. "But—?" "Buck and fall over trail," explained my Indian brave. I fled to the Chief for comfort and change of air. He investigated and found that when Wattahomigie had brought the ponies up from the village one had become unruly and pitched over the Rim, landing squarely across the trail a hundred feet below. It was the only trail, but it never occurred to the Noble Red Man to remove the dead horse. No indeed! If it proved impossible to get around the obstacle, why, stay off the trail until Providence cleared the way. In other words let Nature take its course. The Chief procured a few pounds of TNT from the Government warehouse located there, and with the aid of that soon cleared the trail.
"That good way to clear trail," approved Wattahomigie. "No pull, no dig, no nothin'." I hoped no TNT would be left roaming at large for promiscuous experiments by Wattahomigie while we were natives of his village.
We camped there at Hilltop that night, and after a supper of fried sage-rabbit, corn cakes, and coffee, I rolled into the blankets and fell asleep without worrying about the morrow. Something awakened me. I certainly had heard something. Inch by inch I silently lifted myself from the blankets and peered into the shadows. Standing there like a graven image was a beautiful doe with twin fawns playing around her. Curiosity had conquered caution and she was investigating our camp. Just then a coyote's wild cry sounded from the distance. She lifted her sensitive nose and sniffed the air, then wheeled and glided into the deep shadows. Other coyote voices swelled the chorus. Hundreds it seemed were howling and shrieking like mad, when I dropped to sleep to dream I was listening to grand opera at the Metropolitan.
Morning dawned clear and crisp. "Will it rain today?" I asked an Indian. "No rain; three sleeps, then rain," he told me; and this proved correct.
Wattahomigie had provided a long-legged race horse for me to ride. "Will he carry her all right?" the Chief asked him. Wattahomigie looked me over carefully and one could almost see him comparing me mentally with a vision of his fat squaw, Dottie. His white teeth flashed a smile: "Sure, my squaw him all time ride that pony." That settled the matter. "Him squaw" weighs a good two hundred pounds and is so enveloped in voluminous skirts that the poor horse must feel completely submerged.
This trail does not gradually grow steeper—it starts that way. I had been told that all other trails we had traveled were boulevards compared to this one, and it was well that I had been warned beforehand. My place was near the center of the caravan, and I was divided between the fear that I should slide down on top of the unwary Indian riding ahead and the one that the Chief's horse directly behind would bump me off the trail. It was a cheerful situation. The Canyon walls closed in upon us, and the trail grew worse, if that could be possible. The firm rock gave way to shale that slipped and slid under the feet of the horses. It was so narrow that one slip of a hoof would send the horse crashing on the rocks hundreds of feet beneath. Still this is the only path it has been possible to make down to the Indian retreat. It was carved out by a past generation when they crept down into the valley far below to make their last futile stand.
We rounded a point and came out near a sparkling pool of clear, inviting water fed by a stream bursting out of what appeared to be solid rock. I knelt to drink, but was jerked to my feet sharply by a watchful Indian. The water is unfit to drink on account of the arsenic it contains. I noticed that none of the hot, tired horses even dipped their dusty noses into the pool. Safely away from this unhealthy spot we came into Rattlesnake Canyon, so named for obvious reasons, where the riding was much easier. Twelve miles onward and two thousand feet farther down found us among bubbling springs and magnificent cotton woods. This is where the Thousand Springs come into the sunlight after their rushing journey through many miles of underground caverns. New springs broke out from the roots of the trees and along the banks of the stream until it was a rushing little river.
We were evidently expected, for when we reached the village the natives all turned out to see and be seen: brown children as innocent of clothing as when they first saw the light; fat, greasy squaws with babies on their backs; old men and women—all stared and gibbered at us.
"Big Jim" and "Captain Burros" headed what seemed to be the committee of welcome. Big Jim was clad in a full-dress suit and silk hat donated to him by Albert, King of the Belgians, and with that monarch's medal of honor pinned to his front, Jim was, speaking conservatively, a startling vision. Captain Burros wore the white shirt of ceremony which he dons only for special occasions, with none of the whiteness dimmed by being tucked into his trousers.
Big Jim welcomed us gravely, asking the Chief: "Did you bring my fermit?" This permit, a paper granting Big Jim a camping location on Park grounds, having been duly delivered, Jim invited us to share his hewa, but after one look at the surroundings we voted unanimously to camp farther up the stream among the cottonwoods. We chose a level spot near the ruins of an old hewa.
While supper was being prepared an aged squaw tottered into camp and sat down. She wailed and beat her breast and finally was persuaded to tell her troubles. It seemed that she and her husband had lived in this hewa until his death a year or two before. Then the hewa was thrown open to the sky and abandoned, as is their custom. She disliked to mention his name because he might hear it in the spirit world and come back to see what was being said about him.
"Don't you want him to come back?" I asked idly, thinking to tease her. Her look of utter terror was answer enough and shamed me for my thoughtlessness. These Indians have a most exaggerated fear of death. When one dies he and his personal belongings are taken to a wild spot and there either cremated or covered with stones. No white man has ever been permitted to enter this place of the dead. Any hour of the day or night that a white man approaches, an Indian rises apparently from out of the earth and silently waves him away. Until a few years ago the best horse of the dead Indian was strangled and sent into the Happy Hunting Ground with its owner, but with the passing of the older generation this custom has been abandoned.
From a powerful and prosperous tribe of thousands this nation has dwindled down to less than two hundred wretched weaklings. Driven to this canyon fastness from their former dwelling-place by more warlike tribes, they have no coherent account of their wanderings or their ancestors. About all they can tell is that they once lived in cliff dwellings; that other Indians drove them away; and that then Spaniards and grasping whites pushed them nearer and nearer the Canyon until they descended into it, seeking refuge. They are held in low esteem by all other Indian tribes and never marry outside of their own people. Ridiculous and unreasonable tales about their savage customs have kept timid explorers at a safe distance, and thus little has been learned about them. This last fragment will pass away within a few years and all trace will be lost. Tuberculosis claims a dozen yearly; the children are weaklings from diseased parents and the result of intermarriage, so they fall victims of comparatively harmless ailments. A few years ago an epidemic of measles swept through the tribe. Poor ignorant creatures, trying to cool the burning fever they spent hours bathing in the cold waters of the stream flowing through the village. More than eighty died in one week from the effects, and others that lived through it are invalids. This was almost too much for their superstitious minds. They were for fleeing from that accursed place, but the old men said: "Where can we go? We have no other place but this. Let us wait here for death." So they spent hours in dancing and ceremonies to appease the angry gods. They have no favoring gods, only evil spirits which they must outwit or bribe with dances. The Peach Dance which we had gone to see was for the purpose of celebrating good crops of melons, corn, and other products and to implore the mercy of harmful powers during the winter months.
After the sun was out of sight we followed Wattahomigie to the scene of the dance. There was no other light than that of the brush fires. A huge circle of howling, chanting Indians had formed a wide ring in which a dozen or more bucks and as many squaws were gathered. There seemed to be no prearranged procedure. When one of the dancers would feel so inclined, he, or she, would start a wild screeching and leaping about. This would continue until the singer ran out of breath. Occasionally a squaw would grow so enthused she would be quite overcome with emotion and fall to the ground, foaming at the mouth. No notice would be taken except to grab her by the hair and drag her to the edge of the circle. The dance lasted until the gray dawn and was the most ghastly and weird experience I ever went through. All I can compare it to is the nightmare I used to have after too much mince pie.
Safely back at our camp with a brisk fire crackling under a pot of coffee, I began to throw off the shivering sensation, and by the time the coffee pot was empty I was ready for new adventures. Word had gone forth that I would buy all the baskets the squaws brought to me. I hoped in this way to get some first-hand information about the feminine side of affairs. Squaws and baskets and information poured in. Baskets of all sizes and shapes were brought, some good, some bad, but I bought them all. If I hesitated a moment over one the owner put the price down to a few cents. Just a dime or two for a whole week's work. Time has no value to them, and the creek banks are covered with the best willows in the world for basket-making. The basket-making art is the only talent these squaws have, while the bucks excel in tanning buckskin and other skins. These they trade to the Navajo Indians for silver and blankets. Then they race their ponies or gamble for the ownership of the coveted blankets. How they do love to gamble! Horses, blankets, squaws—anything and everything changes hands under the spell of the magic cards. Even the squaws and children gamble for beads and bright-colored calico. When a few pieces of real money are at stake, all is wild excitement. How the black eyes snap, and how taut is every nerve!
Their hewas are merely shelters of willow, and there is absolutely no privacy about anything. Yet they are neither immoral nor unmoral. The girls all marry very young. At the age of twelve or thirteen the girl is chosen by some brave, who bargains with the father for her. A pony or its value in buckskin will buy almost any father's favorite daughter. But the girl is not forced to go with a lover whom she does not approve. The marriage ceremony is not elaborate; after all preliminaries are disposed of, the would-be bridegroom takes his blanket and moves into the hewa of the girl's people. If two or three moons pass without any quarrels between the young people, they move into a hewa of their own, and thus it is known that they are married. Divorce is just as simple; he merely sends her back to her father. An Indian brave of the Supai tribe can have as many wives as he can buy according to the tribal law. But since there is only about one squaw to every three braves, a man is lucky to have any wife, and divorce is rare. When two or more braves center their affections on one fair damsel, things are likely to happen. But three Indian judges solemnly sit in council and settle the question. Their solution is usually final, although two or three disgruntled braves have journeyed to our home at El Tovar sixty miles away to appeal to White Mountain for aid.
The valley is fertile, and all sorts of fruits and vegetables thrive. In fact the natives live on what they raise in their haphazard way. They have a rude system of irrigation which carries water to every little garden. One other thing grows in abundance there—dogs! Such a flock of surly, mangy mongrels one would have to travel far to find. I don't know what they live on, for I never saw one of them being fed.
"Big sing tonight," said one of the squaws squatting by our campfire.
"What is a sing, Dottie?"
"Much sing and dance. Medicine man drive away bad spirit from blind man."
Of course we were present at the "sing," although I would never have called it that. An old half-blind Indian afflicted with granulated eyelids was the victim. The night was chilly, but he was clothed only in a look of resignation. The medicine man had a shot-filled gourd, a bunch of dried herbs, and an unlimited capacity for howling. First of all the patient was given a "sweat bath." He was put into a little teepee made of willows closely covered with burlap. Hot rocks were introduced and a pan of water thrown on them. More rocks and more water went inside until the poor Indian could stand it no longer. He came forth choking and gasping with the perspiration running from him. Buckets of cold water were then dashed over him and the medicine man got busy beating him over the head with the bunch of herbs, keeping up an unearthly screeching. This would last until morning, they said, but my interest flagged just about the time the priest found his second wind, and I retired.
Five beautiful waterfalls are scattered down the valley, and I was most anxious to visit these. For some reason Wattahomigie hung back and we had trouble in persuading him to take us there. He reluctantly accompanied us when he saw we intended to go either with him or without. His attitude was explained when we were well along the trail; some freak of formation has made great sounding boxes of the Canyon, and these gather the noises of the water and the wind and return them again in shrieks of demoniacal laughter, barking of dogs, and sounds of talking and singing. It is startling to say the least, and no amount of explaining would convince Wattahomigie that it is not the revel hall of departed Indian spirits. The sun is lost there at midday, and darkness settles down soon after.
We camped at Mooney Falls that night, so called on account of an adventurous prospector of that name losing his life by falling over the ledge there. It took ten months for his comrades to get equipment together and recover his body, which they buried at the foot of the falls. This place naturally holds no attraction for our Indian friends, and we had literally to push them from under our feet. They almost sat in the campfire, so determined were they to stay near us.
The next day we started to Hilltop, with Big Jim and his squaw with us as an escort of honor. Jim rode serenely along, while Mary trudged after on foot.
"Jim," said the Chief, "how is it that you ride and Mary walks?"
Jim's voice was reproachfully astonished that anyone could be so dense: "Mary, she no got um horse!"
The Indians gathered to see us off. I looked at the faces before me. Even the babies seemed hopeless and helpless. It is a people looking backward down the years with no thought of the morrow.
"Can't you get them to be more hopeful or cheerful? Won't they even try to help themselves?" I asked Wattahomigie in desperation. He sadly shook his head.
"No help," he said; "plenty for today, maybe no tomorrow."
And maybe he's right. Not many more morrows for that doomed tribe.