Río Chama, page 14
Wade pulled the woman, practically swung her into the timber, grabbed at Cole. Dived. He landed in the mud. He couldn’t hear. Could hardly breathe. Wade coughed, made his lungs work, sat up. Paden was beside him, sweating, the Marlin booming like a cannon.
An arrow whistled overhead.
Wade rolled over, thumbing shells from his cartridge belt. Fenella was beside him, hands over her ears, tears streaming down her face, or maybe that was just water from the river. Cole was crouching, biting his lip, clutching his side, blood pouring between his fingers.
“Mother of Mercy!” Randy’s voice sounded higher than normal. “The whole damned Apache nation must be out there!”
Chapter Seventeen
From Concerning the Jicarilla Apache Incident
Occurring in New Mexico Territory, May 8-15, 1898;
56th Congress, 1st Session;
U.S. Senate Executive Document 47, 1899
Distinguished Gentleman of the United States Senate:
I have the honor to present to you a brief report pertaining to the so-called Jicarilla Apache outbreak of last year.
Shortly after the “Assembly for Buglers Call” on the evening of May 9th, 1898, I was instructed to report to headquarters at Fort Lewis, where I was stationed with my troop of 9th Cavalry, near the town of Durango in southwestern Colorado. I met Major Timothy B. Duncan, at that time serving as temporary post commander, and Victor Frazier, a dispatch rider from the Jicarilla Apache reservation that had been established in 1887 in the northwestern corner of New Mexico Territory, perhaps one hundred miles in distance from Fort Lewis. Major Duncan promptly handed me a hastily written note from Lamont Sanders, agent at that reservation.
I copy from that correspondence:
Quarter till Midnight, 8 May 1898
To the Commanding Officer, Fort Lewis:
Sir:
Earlier this evening, approximately ten to fifteen Jicarilla Apache males, most of them teenagers but under the leadership of a plug-ugly known as Escorpión, a hard-bitten, recalcitrant leader, approximately fifty years of age, who has been known to incite riot, did leave this reservation without proper authority.
No one has been able to provide a reason for their departure, but, as I know Escorpión, I fear it is to inflict harm on white settlers in this region. For the past few months, Escorpión has vowed to avenge Roman Cole, the territorial senator who lives in the Chama Valley due east of here, for some long-ago incident.
The wards were not armed with anything more than lances, and bows and arrows, but were well mounted, and believed to have been riding in a general southeastern course toward Cañon Largo.
It is urgently requested that you order a battalion to pursue, apprehend, and return the Indians to this reservation, as I fear we are in a state of emergency. I have also written a letter to the commanding officer at Fort Wingate in which I also request immediate assistance.
(Signed) L. Sanders
“He seems overly excited,” I said. “Two to seven companies, chasing a dozen or so Apache bucks?”
“Don’t make light of this, Captain,” I was rebuked. “Twenty minutes before Mister Frazier arrived with his dispatch, a deputy marshal said he had just received a complaint that the trading post at Boulder Creek was plundered. They made off with sugar, coffee, and perhaps a dozen or so rifles and revolvers, plus ammunition.”
Mr. Frazier interjected: “If those bucks wasn’t armed well when they skedaddled, they are now.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, “what is it the major desires, sir?”
Major Duncan quickly outlined my orders, instructing me to form my company and with all due haste proceed into New Mexico Territory, pick up the trail of the fugitive Apaches, using the Navajo scout, Joe Bitsillie, already at the fort, and capture and return the hostiles. Major Duncan also informed me that he would send two companies of cavalry, one to the town of Chama and the second to the nearby village of Tierra Amarilla, to assuage any fears that might arise among the white settlers in those New Mexico settlements once word of the outbreak reached them. If I needed help once I had found the fleeing savages, I could send a galloper to Tierra Amarilla and request reinforcements from one of the troops.
My troop would be outfitted with sixty rounds of ammunition and rations (three-quarter pounds meat, one pound hardtack per day) for two weeks.
“I will not be responsible for another Wounded Knee, Captain,” the major said. “You leave immediately.”
If I may address the plight of the Jicarilla Apaches on the reservation, allow me to state that the total population at this time was perhaps three hundred to three hundred and fifty men, women, and children. They have had a difficult go of things adjusting to life on the new reservation, raising sheep, goats, and some cattle, trading with whites and Mexicans, and watching many of their children be shipped off to boarding schools so that they may learn to exist in the white man’s world. Major Duncan’s use of words such as “hostiles” and “savages” seemed overzealous to me, as I thought these Indians had left the reservation to go hunting, and this was not an act of war, but the result of boredom.
Still, I, too, had heard of the Jicarilla leader Escorpión, so I proceeded into New Mexico Territory with 2nd Lieutenant Dean McCrea, Sergeants W. B. Boone, A. J. Kennedy, R. Boyd,
R. Claude, and T. T. Madison, seven corporals, and twenty-three privates, along with the aforementioned Navajo scout Bitsillie.
Bitsillie located the Jicarillas’ trail along the eastern slope of the Continental Divide, and we stopped at Taylor’s Trading Post on Boulder Creek, where we learned that Apaches indeed had robbed the post.
We traveled through the forest, and into the rugged country, and I must take time to praise my men for never complaining nor shirking their duties, traits I have come to respect of these fine Negro soldiers. Although the newspapers in Denver, Albuquerque, and Santa Fe credited B Troop with stopping the uprising, I must report that there never was an uprising, per say, and that B Troop did not locate the Apaches.
We merely ran into them.
Approximately four hours after dawn on May 11th, nine riders, two of them severely injured, the oldest not more than sixteen years of age, rode toward us, waving a flag of truce from a worthless trade rifle without a stock. Following orders I gave to them, which were translated into Spanish, a language the Apaches spoke fluently, by Bitsillie, the Apaches tossed away their weapons. We immediately started fires to heat up water and treat the injured braves, while Bitsillie and I interrogated the oldest of the Apache runaways.
They had left the reservation, we were told, and I have no reason to doubt the veracity of the statements given by three of the Jicarilla boys, to find and kill Jeremiah Cole, the son of the aforementioned senator from New Mexico Territory, who was being transported from the territorial capital to Tierra Amarilla to hang for a murder committed earlier in that year. It seems that Escorpión told his followers that killing Senator Cole’s son would exact a stiff payment, as Escorpión believed that the senator had stolen the Apache lands, and deflowered a few Apache maidens.
“Where is Escorpión?” I inquired, and was immediately told that the leader of the escape lay dead in the Río Chama, along with five young warriors.
The survivors said they had found the posse bringing in Jeremiah Cole deep in Chama Cañon, had waited on an island in the river, and attempted an ambush. As I have mentioned, the Apaches in this party were not seasoned warriors but mere boys, and the attack failed. Escorpión was killed early in the fight, they said, and quickly the posse, led by notorious gunman Britton Wade, as it has been reported in a myriad newspaper articles, repulsed subsequent attacks.
I dispatched most of my command back to Fort Lewis, under the command of Lieutenant Dean, but insisted that one of the Jicarilla boys take me to the spot of this engagement, and so I continued into Chama Cañon with Joe Bitsillie, 1st Sergeant Trevor Madison, Trooper Skip Cooper, and Trooper Tony Oscar, along with a Jicarilla Apache boy of thirteen named Ben-Mundo.
By the time we reached the site of the ambush, carrion had turned the scene into a nightmarish scene of blood and bone. The gunfight must have been intense, for we found many brass casings. On the banks of the Chama and, indeed, in the river itself, we discovered the remains of four horses, two Indians, and one white man who had died of a single gunshot wound to his head. Ben-Mundo said this white man, with long black hair, no taller than five foot seven, perhaps one hundred and fifty pounds, died early in the fight.
Another young Indian’s corpse was discovered by Sergeant Madison, bloated and ugly, lodged in an uprooted tree, about four miles downstream. The bodies of Escorpión and the other Apache youth were never found, but I believe they were indeed killed during the attack, and are somewhere beneath the surface of the Chama River.
On the 15th of May, I arrived back at Fort Lewis with the rest of my command, and Ben-Mundo.
The Jicarilla boys who were not seriously injured were confined in the post guardhouse for one month, while those with grievous wounds were treated at the post hospital. Post surgeon Adalric Grün was forced to amputate the left leg, below the knee, of one patient, who succumbed to infection, shock, and loss of blood, in the late evening of May 30th, and was interred in the post cemetery the following morning. The other patients recovered, and were returned, along with the prisoners in the guardhouse, to Agent Sanders on the 27th of June, 1898.
Many editorials have been written demanding further retribution, but I believe any debt these Apache boys owe has been paid with interest. Escorpión and six of his followers are dead, buried in the post cemetery, on the banks of the Chama River, or sunk deep in the water in the cañon. Using hides, ponies, and other trade goods, the Apache leaders also paid Jim Taylor for his losses sustained during the raid at his trading post on Boulder Creek.
Punishment is neither desired nor warranted, as it would only add to the degradation these Apaches have already suffered. The incident of May 8-15, 1898, was truly an insignificant affair, with tragic results.
Respectfully Submitted on this 19th day of March in the Year of Our Lord 1899,
Your obt. servant,
Robert A. Campbell IV, Capt.
B Troop, Commanding
9th U.S. Cavalry
Fort Lewis, Colorado
Chapter Eighteen
“My God.”
Wade stepped back, the revolvers suddenly heavy in his hands, and leaned against the dead cottonwood, coughing, not from the tuberculosis slowly killing him, but from the acrid smell of gunsmoke and the stench of death.
It had grown quiet, eerily still, the only sound coming from the river gurgling. He shoved the Merwin & Hulbert into the holster, dropped the Colt he had taken from Stew’s gun belt. He forced himself to walk to the nearest Apache, put his boot underneath the body, kick it over. A man’s shadow fell across the dead Indian’s face, and Wade knew it was Paden.
“Hell, he’s just a kid,” Paden said.
Wade just looked at unseeing black eyes staring back up at him.
Paden stepped over the dead boy, went to the river, and dragged another body to the shore. “Hell, he’s a boy, too,” Paden said with disgust. “Ain’t a one of ’em a man.”
“Like hell!” Randy called out. “I shot one of ’em dead, and his hair was gray as Robert E. Lee’s coat. And they was all tryin’ to kill us, sure enough.”
Spitting out a savage oath, Paden hurled his Marlin repeater into the sand next to the corpse, ran his fingers through his hair. “What’s this world coming to? I’m killing boys!”
“Apache nits!” Randy shouted. “I druther ’em be kilt, than me!”
“Kids.” Paden pointed at Wade. “I side with you, pard, but if I knew it would come to this . . .”
“Murderin’ savage red niggers!” Randy yelled. “Look what they done to Stew! They killed him, damn it. I don’t care if they was suckin’ their mama’s teats. They was damned Apaches. There ain’t nothin’ weighin’ heavy on my soul for sendin’ those red devils to hell’s hottest fires!”
Still not speaking, Wade ducked underneath the ancient trunk into what had been their fort. Fenella sat beside Jeremiah Cole, packing a mud poultice against his bloody side. Tears had carved lines down her dirty face. She knew he was staring at her, but refused to look at him.
“I thought you wanted him dead.” Randy stepped over Cole’s legs. “Women are so notional.”
“Like Paden said . . . ‘He’s no good to us dead.’” Her voice cracked. “I’m just saving him for the gallows.” She wiped her eyes, sniffed, her whole body trembling.
Chuckling, Randy dropped beside Stew. A purple hole in the gunman’s temple had only now begun to leak blood, and Randy went through his dead partner’s clothes, shoving coins and greenbacks into his trousers pocket, unbuckled the gun rig, then dragged the dead man out of the fort, up to the higher ground, and rolled his body into a shallow ravine. “So long, Stew,” he said. “You was a good pard these past two, three years.” He came back, smiling, the only one, it seemed, to have put the gun battle behind him, the only one no longer scared.
“You think ’em others might come back?” Paden asked. “Looked to be ten or so, though some of ’em was wounded.”
Wade shook his head. He asked the woman: “How’s Cole?”
“He’ll live. Bullet carved a furrow in his side is all. He’ll bleed a mite, but . . .” Then she was crying, backing away from Cole, and Paden had dropped beside her, pulled her close, let her sob on his shoulder, holding her tight, running his fingers through that long red hair.
“Hey,” Paden said softly, his face revealing his surprise and awkwardness, “it’s all right, ma’am. It’s all over.”
Wade watched a moment, glanced at Cole, and turned back toward the river. A bay horse lay dead in the water, in the shallows near the island. The woman sobbed. He felt Randy standing beside him, breaking open the breech of the shotgun to eject the shells and replace them with fresh loads.
“I gotta say one thing to you, Mister Wade,” Randy said. “What you done . . . that, was, well, that . . . well I just ain’t got the words, but they should write all about how you saved our hides in some book or newspaper, maybe in that there Frank Leslie’s Illustrated I’ve seen some. I’d write it up myself, but I don’t know how. You was something else.”
“Something else.” Wade coughed.
He remembered little about it. Tried to piece it all together. He had pulled the Colt from Stew’s holster, heard Paden duck behind the cottonwood, his rifle empty, and cry out: “Here they come!” Then Paden was diving to Fenella, covering her body with his own, knowing they would all die.
Closing his eyes, Wade could picture it now, clearly, as if he were looking down on himself, viewing what had happened on the banks of the Chama through one of those peep-show, penny-operated Mutoscopes he had seen in El Paso.
Cocking both pistols, standing, leaping over the dead tree, yelling: “Come on, you sons-of-bitches, let’s start the ball!” Firing, walking, feeling bullets and arrows buzz past him, waiting for one to kill him.
Just like he had waited at Chloride in 1895. Just like he had waited countless times before.
Waiting for someone to kill him.
But the Lord Jehovah, that jokester, would never let that happen. God wanted Britton Wade to die little by little.
Firing, knocking one Apache from the saddle into the river, killing a piebald gelding when it reached the banks, watching it send its rider into the sand. Clubbing the Apache with Stew’s Colt, now empty, crushing the skull, lifting the Merwin & Hulbert, squeezing the trigger. Yelling: “Come on, you sons-of-bitches, let’s shout at the devil today!”
He could hear God laughing at another fine joke.
Watching them retreat, gathering some wounded, but shaming themselves, leaving most of their dead on the banks, in the river, riding away, running.
Yelling: “Come back here, you damned cowards! Come back!”
“I never seen the likes,” Randy said.
* * * * *
“How’s the woman?” Wade asked.
He sat on a boulder away from the cave, closing A Tale of Two Cities as Clint Paden walked up to him.
They had made camp, no fire this time, farther from the river, in a small cave in the rocky ground, later that afternoon, after gathering their horses, not bothering to bury the bodies.
“She’s all right. Kind of rough on her, all that killing today. It’s one thing to think you want to kill somebody, but different when you see what killing is really like. Rough on all of us. But I reckon you don’t owe me no more. For savin’ your life, I mean. You saved all our hides today. I appreciate it. Is that a good book?”
Wade tapped the cover, started to return it to the Gladstone, then sighed and opened the worn, leather-bound edition, pulling a piece of folded parchment from inside the book and passing it to Paden.
“What’s this?” Paden opened the paper, leaned against the sandstone. He studied Wade. “A map?”
“Father Amado drew it for me,” Wade said. “Back in Parkview. That’s how I knew where to go in this cañon.”
“You had it all planned out, eh?” He handed the map back.
Wade’s head shook. “Not everything.”
“So that’s why you was always reading your books.”
He shrugged, but spoke the truth. “No, I’ve grown fond of Dumas and Dickens. I grew up reading Voltaire, Apuleius, Vergil, Homer, Socrates, Shakespeare, Milton, the Bible. But I’ve found a lot of truth in Dickens, a lot of adventure in Dumas.” He tapped his chest. “To take me far away from this.”
“I’m more interested in the map,” Paden said, “than books.”
“Figured you would be.”
“You think it’s worth the two hundred bucks ’em priests agreed to pay?”
“Let’s say it’s a job I need to finish.”
With a mirthless laugh, Paden shook his head again. “I can’t figure out why you’re pushing this, Brit. It ain’t like the Britton Wade I knew ten years ago. Well, the shootist today, killing, not fearing death, that was the Britton Wade I recollect. But . . .”
