"JUST REGULARS"
In the dark depths of an Arizona canyon, with no light but that whichcame from the stars, a string of shadowy figures slowly worked its waythrough tangles of thorny mesquite and cat claw, over rocks and pastgreat bunches of cactus which pierced hands and limbs wherever theytouched.
If you looked closer, you saw that the figures were those of men, alsohorses and mules, most of the men leading their mounts, and here andthere the yellow chevrons on some sergeant's blouse, or the broad yellowstripe on an officer's trousers showed them to be cavalry.
There was no talking or unnecessary noise. At times they were fairly ontheir knees fighting their way up some rocky steep; again they droppeddown into the darkness, the well-trained animals following like goats.
At the head of the line, an officer, young in years but old in this kindof work, whispered occasionally to the veteran guide at his left.
Just ahead of him an Apache scout, stripped for the fight, a band of redflannel about his forehead, his body naked except for the white cottonbreechclout ("the G string") about his waist, the peculiar moccasins ofhis tribe on his feet, led the way, like some bloodhound on the trail.
Out of the darkness ahead came the weird hoot of an owl. Three times didit sound. The scout listened till the last echo died away, and then,with his hands gathered about his mouth, answered the call.
Quietly he slipped away into the night, the command stopping where theywere as the whispered order flew back along the line, each man sinkingdown to the ground, glad of the chance for the moment's rest.
The night was cold, although it was midsummer in a region where at noonthe earth is baked and burned with the heat.
An hour passed, and out of the darkness the Apache returned.
The quarry which they sought was not far ahead, and it was best to leavetheir animals and go the rest of the way without them.
Turning to the tall Sergeant behind him, the officer gave the orders forthe movement, and back down the shivering, scattered line went theinstructions: "Number fours hold the horses, every one else take allextra ammunition and their canteens and follow the column on foot."
Then came whispered pleadings from the unfortunate "number four men"doomed to remain behind to guard the horses and the rear while theothers went on into the darkness to--what? Perhaps death, perhaps awound from a poisoned arrow; in any event plenty of hardship andsuffering.
How those cavalrymen begged for the privilege of getting a hole shotthrough them. They urged the officers to cut down the rearguard andleave but a couple of men to look after the packs and horses.
"Very well, Sergeant," the commanding officer replied, well pleased whentold of the men's desire to go with the fighting force, "leave three orfour men to guard the animals and let the rest come on; God knows we arevery likely to need them."
Then the Sergeant, knowing his men as a schoolmaster his pupils, leftbehind: fat Corporal Conn whose asthmatic wheezings and puffings hadalready brought forth many a muttered curse upon his head; Private Hillwho couldn't see an inch beyond his nose in the dark and who had fallenover every bush and rock in the trail since they entered the canyon; andtwo other men whose physical condition was such that he doubted theirability to make the climb which he knew was ahead of them.
Not one of these accepted the detail without as vigorous a protest assoldierly duty made possible. Bless you no! Each of them felt himself anobject of especial pity, fat Conn even claiming that the higher heclimbed the less the asthma troubled him.
Then the command once more drove into the blackness ahead, following thelithe Apache up a mountain side which seemed almost perpendicular.
Each man carried two belts of cartridges about his waist with a thirdswung from his shoulder. Most of them wore the Apache moccasin whichgave forth no sound as they moved along.
At last they reached the summit of the mountain breathless and tired.Before them was a mighty canyon, the canyon of the Salt River. To theirleft four granite peaks, the "Four Peaks" of the maps, pierced theskyline like videttes on guard over the canyon.
From its bed, two thousand feet below, the dull murmur of the river, asit dashed along its rocky way, came softly to the soldiers' ears.
It was the dawning of December 27, 1872. The soldiers were a detachmentof the Fifth United States Cavalry, Major Brown in command.
At a little spring some twenty miles away they had left their suppliesand pack train.
Their Christmas holidays had been spent in pursuit of several bands ofApaches, and the scouts had reported that a large band of them waslocated in a cave on the Salt River canyon.
A pack mule had died in camp that day, and the Indian scouts wereallowed to make a great feast upon its remains that they might set outon the expedition with full stomachs.
For years efforts had been made to concentrate the Apaches, who had beenthe scourge of Arizona and the Southwest, upon one or two reservationswhere, under guard, they could be watched and kept in bounds.
In the summer of 1872 General George Crook, after having held numerouscouncils with the Apaches, issued an ultimatum to the effect that, ifthose who were outside of the reservation did not return by thefifteenth of the coming November, active operations would begin againstthem. After that date every Indian found outside the reservation was tobe treated as a hostile and dealt with accordingly.
The Apaches knew Crook only too well, for the "Old Grey Fox," as theycalled him, had always kept his word with them in the past.
Promptly on the day set General Crook took the field against the outlawApaches and hunted them down relentlessly day and night.
The region in which these operations took place is one of the roughestin the United States. It is located on the western side of the great"Tonto Basin" in central Arizona, and consists of ragged mountainranges, and isolated peaks, while the whole area is cut and seamed withdeep box canyons impassable for miles.
About fifty miles from the city of Phoenix, as the crow flies, andnear the great Roosevelt irrigation reservoir and dam, four granitepeaks pierce the sky.
Here Nature is found in one of her most inhospitable moods, and in thefastnesses of these "Four Peaks" several bands of the hunted, harassedApaches took refuge.
In its mighty canyons the Indians knew of caves and cliffs where they hadlived in safety from their old enemies for many years; there theybelieved no white man could possibly reach them.
Crook and his soldiers matched wits with the Indians and beat them attheir own game. Wherever the Indians went there the troops followedthem. They chased them on foot when their horses played out, lived onthe scantiest possible allowance of food, slept in the deep snows withbut a single blanket and without fires lest the telltale smoke give theIndians warning of their presence.
It was to surprise the occupants of one of these caves that Major Brownand his men were making this night march.
There the Apaches had fled, carrying into the cave great quantities offood and other necessary supplies, leaving their ponies behind to shiftfor themselves.
The cave itself is not a cave in the strict sense of the word, butrather a great weather-worn shelf, similar to those used by the ancientcliff dwellers for their habitations all over the Southwest.
At the outside edge the opening is about fifteen feet high from floor toroof, and sixty feet wide. The roof slopes back into the cliff for somethirty feet to a point where the rear wall is not over three feet high.
At the front, the floor of the cave projects some little distance beyondthe overhanging cliff forming a sort of platform. Entirely around thisplatform the Apaches had raised a stone-wall several feet high, insideof which they rested in fancied security.
On top of the mountain Major Brown's command, which numbered but fiftymen and officers, with two civilian guides, waited while the two scoutswormed their way into the blackness of the canyon's depths in an attemptto make sure that the Indians did not have any pickets outside the caveto guard against surprise.
The cool night
breeze made the soldiers' teeth chatter. Some dropped offto sleep, while others huddled together under the lee of the great rockswhose surface still gave off some slight warmth stored up during theday. Meantime they cursed, with a soldier's vehemence, the slowness ofthe scouts in returning.
Finally they came, dropping into the midst of the men as if from above,so quietly did they move.
Five minutes of whispering followed between the guide, the Major and theIndians, and then Lieutenant W. J. Ross and a dozen men crawled awayinto the darkness with one of the Indians to guide them.
Again, those soldiers had begged to be taken as one of the party. No useto call for volunteers, they were all volunteers and envied thefortunate ones whom the tall First Sergeant named for the trip.
Ross was to endeavor to locate the entrance to the cave in order thatthe rest of the command might be posted in the most advantageouspositions. His party dropped into the canyon and was quickly swallowed upin its sombre shadows. Down they crept, stumbling over rocks, treadingon the "Cholla" cactus balls that covered the ground everywhere, andwhose sharp needles will often pierce the heaviest buckskin gloves,moccasins or even leather boots. A misstep meant death far below in thecanyon, while every minute they looked for the crash of the Indians'rifles.
As they felt their way carefully along, they saw the faint gleam of acampfire. Ross worked his men up as closely as he could, placing them insafe positions behind rocks scattered about. By the light of the fire,they made out some fifteen Indians standing about it while a lot ofsquaws were preparing food for them. The fire was but a few feet fromthe cave which could be seen dimly in the background, and it was quiteevident the hostiles felt very secure in their retreat.
Scarcely daring to breathe, each picked out a brave for a target and ata whispered signal, fired. Those of the Indians who were not killed fledinto the cave, while the report of the carbines quickly brought the restof the command down into the canyon.
Major Brown placed his men about the cave so as to prevent the escape ofany of the Indians, waiting for daylight before attempting furtheroperations.
One Apache managed to work his way out of the cave and through thecordon by some means. He was seen after he had passed clear through thelines, standing for an instant on a great rock, his figure boldlyoutlined against the sky. His recklessness in his fancied security washis undoing, for one of the crack shots in the regiment, Private JohnCahill, took a hasty shot at the form, and it came tumbling down thesteep side of the canyon.
After Major Brown had formed his lines about the cave he called on theIndians to surrender. This they answered with cries of defiance,followed by a few scattering shots which did no harm. Later on Brownagain called on them to surrender, or if not that, to send out theirwomen and children, promising no harm should come to them. Again theIndians refused to accept the offer. They heaped epithets, dear to theApache heart, upon the soldiers, taunting them with cowardice, andassuring them that they would soon be food for the buzzards and ravens."May the coyotes howl over your grave," is a favorite Apache expressionof contempt, which they hurled at their opponents many times during thefight.
Daylight came slowly, and then the siege was on in earnest. Brown againrenewed his offer of protection to the women and children, but to nopurpose. Of arrows and lances, as well as fixed ammunition for theirrifles, the Indians seemed to have an unlimited supply. They showeredarrows upon the soldiers by hundreds, sending them high into the air, sothey would fall upon the men lying behind the rocks scattered about.Lances were also thrown in the same manner, but they were unable toinflict any damage upon the besiegers by such tactics. The Indians alsoplayed all the tricks belonging to their style of warfare. War bonnetsand hats were raised upon lances above the wall with the intention ofdrawing the fire of some soldier and getting him exposed to a returnshot. But Brown warned his men against all such schemes, and no harm wasdone by them.
Twice did small parties of the Indians make bold dashes out of the cave,evidently with the intention or hope of gaining the rear of the troopersto harass them from the heights above, or else to secure assistance fromother bands of hostiles known to be in the vicinity. But these sortieswere repulsed by the soldiers with a loss of several Indians.
Whether the trick of the Indians in shooting arrows at such an angle asto drop on the men behind the rocks suggested retaliation in kind, noone can say today; but finding direct firing without any great effect,Brown conceived the idea of having his men aim their carbines so thatthe bullets would strike against the roof of the cave; by so doing, hebelieved the bullets would be so deflected as to strike amongst theIndians huddled in the small space below.
For some time the soldiers poured their fire against the rocky roof withno apparent results, although the shriek of a wounded squaw or thepitiful cry of some child, struck by the spattering lead, convinced themthat some of the bullets were finding a mark.
The Indians fought with the desperation of trapped animals, but finallythere came a lull in their fire. From the cave came a weird wild chant.It was the death chant of the Apaches, which the scouts warned theofficers meant a charge.
Soon they came; about twenty picked warriors clambering over the rockywall, with the most desperate courage and recklessness. All were armedwith both bow and rifle. Each carried on his back a quiver full of theslender reed arrows peculiar to the Apaches and, with a volley fromtheir rifles, charged the soldiers behind their rocky breastworks.
Pandemonium reigned. The death chant was taken up by the squaws in thecave; the crack of guns in the deep canyon, the shrieks of wounded anddying squaws and children, the yells of the soldiers as they met thisfierce attack of the desperate savages, the flashing of rifle shots inthe darkness, all made what an officer who was present (the late CaptainJohn G. Bourke of the 3rd U. S. Cavalry) once told the writer was themost thrilling as well as the most appalling moment he ever knew duringa lifetime full of exciting incidents.
But the efforts of the despairing Indians were fruitless, and they weredriven back with heavy losses. Thus the fight went on for hours. The sunrose high in the heavens and beat down on the scene until the soldierslying in the hot rocks suffered fearfully for water. Major Brown'sscheme was working, however, with frightful success. The death chant wasceaseless and the cries of defiance, rage, and despair rang outconstantly from the penned-up savages.
One little Apache boy, possibly not over four years of age, toddled outof the side of the cave where the wall of rock was open, and stoodgazing with wide-eyed wonder at the sight before him. One of MajorBrown's Indian scouts sprang from his hiding place behind a rock a fewyards away, and running to the child, seized him by the arms, dragginghim into the soldiers' lines before a single shot could be fired at him.
The small detachment, left behind as a rearguard and anxious to takepart in the fighting, worked its way up to the cliff above the caves.Below them they could hear the roar of carbines and the shrieks of theIndians. By means of straps, two adventurous soldiers were lowered farenough over the edge of the cliff to get a clear view of the scenebelow. The wall erected by the Apaches was several feet outside of theline of the cliff or cave, and from their dizzy height they could seethe Indians lying behind their ramparts.
The top of the cliff was covered with boulders of all sizes, and the menat once conceived the idea of dropping boulders down on to the Indiansbeneath. This forced them to take refuge from the flying rocks, byretiring farther into the cave. When they did this the ricochette firefrom the soldiers became more deadly and the end was not far off.
By noon the firing of the Indians had ceased. No sounds but the criesof the squaws or groans of wounded came from the interior of the cave.Brown now prepared for a charge believing that the cave could be stormedwithout much if any loss. Corporal Hanlon of G-Troop, 5th Cavalry, wasthe first man over the stone-wall, the rest following him as rapidly asthey could.
Inside the cave was a scene that made the roughest soldier among themshudder. Men, women, and children, either dead or
in the agonies ofdeath, were lying in piles three and four deep. At first it appeared asif danger was to be expected from some wounded Indian, and while part ofthe soldiers worked among the debris on the floor, others watched withguns in hand for signs of hostile intent. But nothing of the kindoccurred.
Only one man was alive and he died soon after the soldiers entered thecave. Some seventy-eight dead bodies were lying in the cave, and of theliving there were but eighteen, all squaws. Many of the wounded squawscould have been saved had the troops been accompanied by a surgeon oreven provided with the necessary medical supplies.
The few that had lived through that awful hail of lead and rocks, weresaved by screening themselves from the missiles under great slabs ofslate which the squaws had packed into the caves for cooking purposes,or by hiding under or behind the dead bodies of their comrades.
The fight was over; the dead babies lay in their dead mothers' arms.Rough men as they were, the sights made the soldiers sick at heart; suchwarfare was not to their liking.
As it was impossible to bury the dead, they were left in the cave wherethey fell and where they lie today, in great heaps of skulls and bones,together with clothing and other camp impedimenta which have survivedthe years in the dry atmosphere of the region.
After satisfying themselves that no more living were among the bodiesthe soldiers tramped wearily back to Fort McDowell with their prisonersand wounded, and the brief official report of the affair closed theincident.
It was more than a thousand miles over desert and mountain to thenearest railroad station and civilization. No war correspondent trailedalong in their wake, armed with kodak and typewriter, to tell a waitingworld of their prowess; no flaming headlines in the morrow's paper wouldcry out their victory. They were "just regulars," and this was but theday's work.
Tales from the X-bar Horse Camp: The Blue-Roan Outlaw and Other Stories Page 6