XXIX
A comet blazed that autumn and winter for several months. The vaqueros said it portended a disaster. One of sorts did befall the Santa Cruz Valley that December in the coming of the Vicar General of the Diocese of New Mexico, Father Joseph Machebeuf. Sent by Bishop Lamy to minister to the long-neglected people of Arizona, the vicar frightened all the couples Colonel Poston had married by declaring the marriages null and void.
In spite of this scorning of his authority, Poston cheerfully surrendered all the sheets and tablecloths that could be scrounged to make a confessional. Machebeuf held services, and after some discussion with Poston, consented to regularize the colonel’s ceremonies for seven hundred dollars paid to the Church by the Sonora Exploring and Mining Company.
Poston was having trouble with his eyes as well as with Machebeuf. He went back east that Christmas and Arizona was left with no territorial official at all, though the Customs Collector and a notary public did perform marriages, as well as a Reverend Tuthill, a Methodist who preached at various ranches, at Tubac and at Fort Buchanan.
Eighteen fifty-nine was a strange period for the region. Mules, horses, cattle and oxen were driven off by Apaches and seldom recovered, though dragoons pursued when possible. Twenty head of cattle were stolen right out of the corral at Fort Buchanan. Fifteen were recovered, but a few days later three horses were successfully run off, and the next day, twelve more cattle.
The Pinal and Coyotero were after plunder but if they happened on a small party, it was wiped out like that of two sergeants, recently honorably discharged after long service, who were killed only twenty-two miles from Fort Buchanan, barely started on their way back to the States.
Captain Ewell, now in command at the fort, was planning a campaign against the Apaches but couldn’t get the necessary horseshoes, ammunition and equipment from the Santa Fe quartermaster. “Swear?” said John Irwin dryly. “What he says would take the scalp off an Indian! I look for him to burst an artery any day! What’s worse, we’re losing a company of dragoons and getting one of infantry! Infantry after Apaches!”
In spite of this constant danger and thievery, there were now seven farms along the Sonoita, and even a hotel a few miles from the fort, as well as one in Tubac.
Dr. C. B. Hughes had set up practice in Tubac though John Irwin, very skillful at amputations, still had numerous civilians come to him for help. There was a sutler’s store at Fort Buchanan, and Fred Hulsemann, once of the ill-fated Calabazas ranching venture, now ran the Sonora Exploring and Mining Company’s store in the old barracks.
The company flag flew above, and inside Hulsemann sold everything from calico to Colt’s Navy pistols and carbines. He was also the postmaster and until a regular government route was put in service, the company sent mail to Tucson each Friday and returned with whatever the Overland Mail, East and West, had brought for the Tubac region.
A mescal distillery was located on the Sonoita, and the Findlay ranch near Calabazas was installing a grist mill with French burr stones which would certainly produce wheat flour fine enough for cakes and bread.
And there was a newspaper! On the third of March a young man named Edward Cross brought out the first Weekly Arizonian at Tubac. The four columns on each of the four pages were tightly packed with news of Indian depredations, mining, developments in Mexico and the States, advertisements for a hotel in El Paso, merchandise that could be ordered from Cincinnati, a druggist in San Francisco and the San Antonio–San Diego Mail line’s schedule. The first issue also carried a notice of the death of James Gadsden, whose efforts had made the region part of the United States.
John Irwin brought the O’Sheas a copy and Talitha read it to Shea. He found it so interesting that he subscribed, and weeks when no one passed by to drop off his copy, he rode to Tubac after it.
Early in May, some Mexican workers murdered their employer, a young man named Byrd who had treated them well. They escaped to Mexico but gave an excuse for half a dozen Anglo toughs to terrorize the Mexicans in the region. They went along the Sonoita, driving away the workers, and at the mescal distillery, they killed four Mexicans and one Yaqui.
When the gang rode up to Rancho del Socorro, Shea and the vaqueros stood them off till they went on for easier pickings. Shea rode to the fort and Colonel Reeves, the new commander, sent fifteen troopers out to find the murderers, and soon captured three.
Shea attended a meeting in Tubac on May 14th when the leading citizens met to condemn the “Sonoita Massacre” and assure local Mexicans that such outrages would be punished and were not approved of by the citizenry. Copies of the proceedings were sent to officials in Sonoran towns, but in spite of this, many miners and laborers left Arizona.
The prisoners were sent to Mesilla for trial. That sort of distant justice brought on renewed demands for local courts and peace officers, which would increase through the summer, for it was a troubled one.
Apaches thieved on both sides of the border and Mexicans thieved in Arizona. The Overland Mail was harassed by Apaches who claimed they weren’t getting enough rations and Mangus Coloradas closed up Apache Pass with stones.
Late that June some Mexicans were passing a farm near Tumacácori when some dogs barked at them. The men went at the dogs with knives, and when the owner of the house, John Ware, went out to see what was wrong, the men stabbed him. His partner, James Caruthers, came out, shot one Mexican and knocked down the one who began the attack, a Rafael Polanco.
The others ran. In spite of Dr. Hughes’s efforts, Ware died the next night. Polanco was brought before a meeting of Santa Cruz Valley citizens, questioned and sent to Fort Buchanan with the request he be taken to Mesilla for trial.
The citizens’ meeting went on to resolve that until regular courts were established, they’d organize temporary courts and deal justice to murderers, horse thieves and other criminals. They also elected a constable and a Justice of the Peace who proceeded immediately to try a case of theft.
The Justice, James Caruthers, who’d just seen his friend and partner die, sentenced a horse thief to receive fifteen lashes. These were meted out By the new constable and everyone, including Shea, rode home feeling that they had taken an important step in bringing order to a region rapidly filling up with every kind of thief and killer run out of California and Mexico.
In reading Shea the paper having the account of the meeting, Talitha skipped the story of how a dragoon deserter from Fort Buchanan had been court-martialed and sentenced to fifty lashes, branding with the letter D, confinement, heavily ironed, at hard labor, and to be drummed out of the service.
It was interesting, in July, to read a brief notice of the duel fought between Cross, the Arizonian’s editor, who opposed Arizona’s being a separate territory, and Sylvester Mowry, who advocated it. Burnside rifles at forty paces. The first shots were harmless; on the second round, Mowry’s rifle failed to discharge. He was given another shot which Cross waited for, without arms. Mowry fired into the air, and all concerned retired to the company store for a drink, the two principals inserting a notice in the paper retracting their earlier insults.
A few weeks later, Mowry bought the paper and moved it to Tucson. He was again elected delegate for Arizona, but for the third time, he wasn’t seated, though he did succeed in getting ten bills introduced for the admission of Arizona as a territory. All of these were defeated and by spring of 1860, Arizonans decided to set up a provisional government.
In March, Mesilla deposed New Mexican appointees and elected their own. Further west, it was planned to hold a convention in Tucson April 2nd through 5th, but for a time people were more concerned with the fate of Larcena Page, Elias Pennington’s daughter.
She was living with her lumberman husband in a cabin at the mouth of a cañon leading to the pines of the Santa Ritas. One morning after Page went to his work, Larcena and a ten-year-old Mexican girl who lived with them were getting ready to do the washing when Apaches carried them off.
As soon as the alarm
was spread, dragoons and volunteers combed the area, and though they followed the trail, they never caught up with the abductors.
Two weeks later, Pinals brought the child to Captain Ewing, saying they’d taken her away from some Tontos and that Larcena had been killed.
For a wonder, she wasn’t. Sixteen days after her capture, Larcena dragged herself across the trail the lumbermen must follow and they carried her home more dead than alive, though she recovered to tell what had happened after the Apaches took her.
She’d been weak from recent fever and ague, not able to keep up, and by sunset, her captors decided to kill her. Stripping off all but one garment, they thrust their lances into her, wounding her eleven times, threw her over a rock ledge and hurled big stones after her to finish the murder.
Landing in a bank of snow, she lay there unconscious for several days, but when she roused, she cleaned her wounds with snow, thought about the direction the Apaches had driven her, and where the sunset was in connection with the cabin.
Almost naked, barefoot, she had to crawl when her feet gave out and scratch-holes in the sand to sleep in at night. On the fourteenth day, she found a lumberman’s camp and a little flour. She ate this and though she was too weak to go the few more miles to her home or the lumbermen, she did drag herself out to the road.
When they heard that Larcena was back, Talitha and Shea rode over to see her, taking gifts of food. Having eaten nothing but grass for over two weeks, Larcena was emaciated and she would carry the scars of her fearful wounds to her grave. One of her sisters had come to nurse her, but she was glad to see Talitha. Talitha held her hand and they stayed like that till Shea said it was time to go.
“Poor lass!” he muttered, as they started home. “Won’t there ever be any safety here? Why was the United States so set on having this country if it didn’t intend to protect the people? Now that they’ve replaced one company of dragoons with one of infantry, Fort Buchanan’s even worse off than it was.”
“Do you think the provisional government will do any good?”
With a shrug he answered, “It can’t make things any worse than they are, that’s certain!” He stiffened at the sound of hoofbeats, pulled his carbine out of the sling, then stared in gleeful surprise at the approaching horseman.
The mist-gray horse cantered lightly along the creek bottom, rutted now by the stage that traveled from Tucson to Fort Buchanan. The horseman swept off his fawn-colored hat, but even before that Talitha recognized him.
“Judah!” Shea called. He rode alongside and clasped hands, slapping the other man’s shoulder. “What brings you, man? Or more like, what’s kept you away so long?”
“Oh, I’ve been busy in Washington during the legislative sessions. And last summer Leonore had a passion to see Paris and London again.” He shook his silver head. “Poor Leonore! So happy, expecting our first child. I hope she never knew she lost it when she fell down a wicked flight of stairs. She died an hour later.”
“Judah!” breathed Shea, paling. “That sweet young lady! Sorry I am, man!”
Frost looked down like one controlling grief. “I try to remember that she had no pain. The fall paralyzed her. And I believe, with the child coming, she was happier than she’d ever been in what was a remarkably happy, though short, life.” He paused. “It’s been some months now. I’m more—philosophical.”
Shea nodded gratefully. “It’s good to see it like that. And it’s good to have you back. Did you get to Tucson in time for the convention?”
“Be sure I did!” Judah smiled. “Thirty-one delegates from thirteen towns voted to establish a provisional territorial government to function until the federal government gives us one.”
“How are they going to finance it? Tax on top of the customs we already have to pay for what we’re forced to import from Mexico?”
“That’s one of the big questions,” grinned Frost. “I’m heading back to Mesilla to look things over and see what should be done. Maybe this will convince Congress that Arizona can’t be governed out of Santa Fe and they’ll give us our rights during the next session.”
He went on to tell how “Baldy” Ewell and his dragoons had brought in the little Mexican girl, Mercedes Quiroz, who’d been captured with Larcena Page and given to Ewell by the Pinals.
Church bells had been rung and everyone gathered in the plaza to welcome the child and her escort. As many as could crowded into the church, a small house enlarged with a porch by Father Machebeuf when he found the old church too ruined for use. Young Mercedes knelt at the altar and the whole populace joined in thanks for her rescue.
“Ewell was quite the hero,” Frost said. “They gave him a place of honor at the convention and proposed to name one of the new counties after him; in fact they laid it on so thick that the good captain retired in confusion. But he enjoyed the big dance got up that night in his honor.” His cold eyes rested on Talitha. “So you’ve been to visit the other captive?”
“Yes.” Talitha spoke shortly. She was stunned by the news of Leonore’s death, and didn’t believe Frost’s account of it though she couldn’t think that even he would murder lovely, warm-hearted Leonore.
“A wonder Mrs. Page lived,” he mused. “She’s lucky the Apaches don’t scalp the way Comanches do or she’d have to comb her hair over a bald spot for the rest of her life.”
He went on to say the freight line was doing well and that Marc Revier had three mines operating in the mountains south of Yuma. “I need to see him, too, before I go to Mesilla,” Frost said. He glanced quizzically at Talitha. “I can scarce credit that he hasn’t been to see you since I left these parts!”
“He came to Colonel Poston’s Christmas party that year,” shrugged Talitha. “I haven’t seen him since.”
Not to anyone, much less to Frost, would she try to explain how forlorn and desolate Marc’s anger had left her. But sometimes even now, after all these months, she dreamed of his hard arms holding her, his mouth turning her blood to sweet fire. She never thought that way about Shea; it would have been a kind of sacrilege to imagine him loving her with his body until he wanted that himself.
It was sundown when they rode up to the corrals. Rodolfo took Ceniza whom Talitha had taken for the long trip instead of Ladorada, and Talitha hurried in to start supper with no real hope that Cat would have left off tagging the twins in time to put the pozole on to cook.
She had, though, and was engaged in trying to make tortillas with dough that was too watery. Meal was stuck at the edges of her silky hair where she’d pushed it back impatiently and when Talitha came in, she sighed between relief and exasperation.
“Help me, Tally! This old stuff sticks and sticks! Patrick said I couldn’t do it but Miguel thought I could!”
“You can,” promised Talitha. “You can do the hard part, pat out the tortillas. We just need more meal, like this.”
Correcting the masa, she joined in the tortilla making. Cat rubbed her hands till they were free of dough, took a piece and started over. Talitha nodded approval as the thin round cake took shape. “Your mother never really learned to make tortillas, Cat. She’d be proud of you.”
Patrick burst in the front door, followed by Miguel. When they weren’t tumbling in a Patrick-instigated jumble, that was their usual order of progression. At eleven-and-a-half, Patrick came to Talitha’s shoulder and was thin and wiry. Miguel was a fraction shorter and his bones were covered in a supple way that reminded her of Santiago.
Santiago, gone so long with never a word! Marc also. Talitha pushed that lingering sadness away and thought, as she watched the boys, that Socorro would have been proud of them, too, handsome, eager, spirited as young colts.
“I knew you’d need Tally!” Patrick whooped.
“She didn’t!” defended Miguel. “Look at that tortilla!”
“Look at the masa all over her face!” jeered Patrick. At the sound of voices, he ran to the door to the courtyard. “Why, it’s Mr. Frost!”
He pelted out but M
iguel, frowning, scraped his sister’s face clean of the scrappy meal and started setting the table.
“The silver man?” asked Caterina, jumping up, running to peer out.
In a moment Patrick brought Frost in and Shea poured him a drink while he told Caterina how she’d grown and answered Patrick’s breathless questions, behaving like an old, trusted friend. But his eyes, when Talitha met them once, were chill as winter ice.
Had Leonore fallen? Or been pushed? And now that she was out of the way, did he remember his one-time plans for Talitha? She was twenty that month. There was no longer any reason for him not to begin his wooing. When she refused him, what would he do?
Cold to the heart, Talitha put leftover venison on the table, the kettle of pozole, and tortillas. She sat as far as she could from Judah Frost but even with Patrick, Cat and Belen between them, she still felt his eyes.
Shea and Frost sat talking long after the twins and Cat had gone to bed. Though she hated being around the man who had menaced her since the day he caught her in the hot spring below the Place of Skulls, Talitha preferred to know what he was saying and doing while at the Socorro, but his talk of railroads and politics, after the long ride to visit Larcena, made her sleepy, and, stifling a yawn, she put down the dress she was letting out for Cat, said good night and went out through the courtyard. A figure rose out of the shadows.
Before she could cry out, hard fingers pressed on her mouth, but lightly. “Talitha!” the man whispered. “Don’t say anything! I must settle with him in there, that Judah Frost! But I had to see you first. Just a moment. My God, you’ve grown up beautiful!”
“Santiago!” She kept her voice down, though she was light-headed with joy. “So Frost did lie! What happened?”
“You’ll hear about that when I call him.” Hands she remembered from childhood smoothed her face. “Will you kiss me, Talitha?”
The Valiant Women Page 43