On The Border With Crook. John Gregory Bourke
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fall months of the year. There was nothing whatever to do except scout after hostile Apaches, who were very bold and kept the garrison fully occupied. What with sickness, heat, bad water, flies, sand-storms, and utter isolation, life would have been dreary and dismal were it not for the novelty which helped out the determination to make the best of everything. First of all, there was the vegetation, different from anything to be seen east of the Missouri: the statuesque “pitahayas,” with luscious fruit; the massive biznagas, whose juice is made into very palatable candy by the Mexicans; the bear’s grass, or palmilla; the Spanish bayonet, the palo verde, the various varieties of cactus, principal among them being the nopal, or plate, and the cholla, or nodular, which possesses the decidedly objectionable quality of separating upon the slightest provocation, and sticking to whatever may be nearest; the mesquite, with palatable gum and nourishing beans; the mescal, beautiful to look upon and grateful to the Apaches, of whom it is the main food-supply; the scrub oak, the juniper, cottonwood, ash, sycamore, and, lastly, the pine growing on the higher points of the environing mountains, were all noted, examined, and studied, so far as opportunity would admit.
And so with the animal life: the deer, of the strange variety called “the mule”; the coyotes, badgers, pole-cats, rabbits, gophers—but not the prairie-dog, which, for some reason never understood by me, does not cross into Arizona; or, to be more accurate, does just cross over the New Mexican boundary at Fort Bowie in the southeast, and at Tom Keam’s ranch in the Moqui country in the extreme northeast.
Strangest of all was the uncouth, horrible “escorpion,” or “Gila monster,” which here found its favorite habitat and attained its greatest dimensions. We used to have them not less than three feet long, black, venomous, and deadly, if half the stories told were true. The Mexicans time and time again asserted that the escorpion would kill chickens, and that it would eject a poisonous venom upon them, but, in my own experience, I have to say that the old hen which we tied in front of one for a whole day was not molested, and that no harm of any sort came to her beyond being scared out of a year’s growth. Scientists were wont to ridicule the idea of the Gila monster being venomous, upon what ground I do not now remember, beyond the fact that it was a lizard, and all lizards were harmless. But I believe it is now well established that the monster is not to be handled with impunity although, like many other animals, it may lie torpid and inoffensive for weeks, and even months, at a time. It is a noteworthy fact that the Gila monster is the only reptile on earth to-day that exactly fills the description of the basilisk or cockatrice of mediaeval fable, which, being familiar to the first-comers among the Castillans, could hardly have added much to its popularity among them.
It may not be amiss to say of the vegetation that the mescal was to the aborigines of that region much what the palm is to the nomads of Syria. Baked in ovens of hot stone covered with earth, it supplied a sweet, delicious, and nutritive food; its juice could be fermented into an alcoholic drink very acceptable to the palate, even if it threw into the shade the best record ever made by “Jersey lightning” as a stimulant. Tear out one of the thorns and the adhering filament, and you had a very fair article of needle and thread; if a lance staff was needed, the sapling mescal stood ready at hand to be so utilized; the stalk, cut into sections of proper length, and provided with strings of sinew, became the Apache fiddle—I do not care to be interrupted by questions as to the quality of the music emitted by these fiddles, as I am now trying to give my readers some notion of the economic value of the several plants of the Territory, and am not ready to enter into a disquisition upon melody and such matters, in which, perhaps, the poor little Apache fiddle would cut but a slim figure—and in various other ways this strange, thorny-leafed plant seemed anxious to show its friendship for man. And I for one am not at all surprised that the Aztecs reverenced it as one of their gods, under the name of Quetzalcoatl.*
The “mesquite” is a member of the acacia family, and from its bark annually, each October, exudes a gum equal to the best Arabic that ever descended the Nile from Khartoum. There are three varieties of the plant, two of them edible and one not. One of the edible kinds—the “tornillo,” or screw—grows luxuriantly in the hot, sandy valley of the Colorado, and forms the main vegetable food of the Mojave Indians; the other, with pods shaped much like those of the string-bean of our own markets, is equally good, and has a sweet and pleasantly acidulated taste. The squaws take these beans, put them in mortars, and pound them into meal, of which bread is made, in shape and size and weight not unlike the elongated projectiles of the three-inch rifled cannon.
Alarcon, who ascended the Colorado River in 1541, describes such bread as in use among the tribes along its banks; and Cabeza de Vaca and his wretched companions, sole survivors of the doomed expedition of Panfilo de Narvaez, which went to pieces near the mouth of the Suwanee River, in Florida, found this bread in use among the natives along the western part of their line of march, after they had succeeded in escaping from the Indians who had made them slaves, and had, in the guise of medicine-men, tramped across the continent until they struck the Spanish settlements near Culiacan, on the Pacific coast, in 1536. But Vaca calls it “mizquiquiz.” Castaneda relates that in his day (1541) the people of Sonora (which then included Arizona) made a bread of the mesquite, shaping it like a cheese; it had the property of keeping for a whole year.
There was so little hunting in the immediate vicinity of the post, and so much danger attending the visits of small parties to the higher hills a few miles off, in which deer, and even bear, were to be encountered, that nothing in that line was attempted except when on scout; all our recreation had to be sought within the limits of the garrison, and evolved from our own personal resources. The deficiency of hunting did not imply that there was any lack of shooting about the post; all that any one could desire could be had for the asking, and that, too, without moving from under the “ramadas” back of the quarters. Many and many a good line shot we used to make at the coyotes and skunks which with the going down of the sun made their appearance in the garbage piles in the ravines to the north of us.
There was considerable to be done in the ordinary troop duties, which began at reveille with the “stables,” lasting half an hour, after which the horses and mules not needed for the current tasks of the day were sent out to seek such nibbles of pasturage as they might find under the shade of the mesquite. A strong guard, mounted and fully armed, accompanied the herd, and a number of horses, saddled but loosely cinched, remained behind under the grooming-sheds, ready to be pushed out after any raiding party of Apaches which might take a notion to sneak up and stampede the herd at pasture.
Guard mounting took place either before or after breakfast, according to season, and then followed the routine of the day: inspecting the men’s mess at breakfast, dinner, and supper; a small amount of drill, afternoon stables, dress or undress parade at retreat or sundown, and such other occupation as might suggest itself in the usual visit to the herd to see that the pasturage selected was good, and that the guards were vigilant; some absorption in the recording of the proceedings of garrison courts-martial and boards of survey, and then general ennui, unless the individual possessed enough force to make work for himself.
This, however, was more often the case than many of my readers would imagine, and I can certify to no inconsiderable amount of reading and study of Spanish language and literature, of mineralogy, of botany, of history, of constitutional or of international law, and of the belles-lettres, by officers of the army with whom I became acquainted at Old Camp Grant; Fort Craig, New Mexico, and other dismal holes—more than I have ever known among gentlemen of leisure anywhere else. It was no easy matter to study with ink drying into gum almost as soon as dipped out by the pen, and paper cracking at the edges when folded or bent.
The newspapers of the day were eagerly perused—when they came; but those from San Francisco were always from ten to fifteen days old, those from New York about five to six weeks, and other cities any intermediate age you please. The mail at first came every second Tuesday, but this was increased soon to a weekly service, and on occasion, when chance visitors reported some happening of importance, the commanding officer would send a courier party to Tucson with instructions to the postmaster there to deliver.
The temptations to drink and to gamble were indeed great, and those who yielded and fell by the way-side numbered many of the most promising youngsters in the army. Many a brilliant