The Valiant Women (56 page)

Jared nodded slowly. “You're right, Tally.” He sighed, watching her as if trying to find in her face something he'd longed for. “I must give thanks to God for sparing you, at least.” His shoulders slumped heavily and he stared out the door at the sunset. “Somehow, seeing you the age Judith was when we started keeping company brings it home. She's really gone. Not waiting somewhere.”

Rising, he stumbled out the door.

He had supper with them, answered Shea's questions about California, and held Caterina on his knee, letting her listen to his watch tick. Though Shea urged him to stay as long as he wished, Scott, who'd slept in Tjúni's house which was now the twins' bedroom, left next morning after breakfast.

“I'll try to let you know where I'm situated,” he said at parting. “But cut off like that Verde country is, I'd reckon we can't exchange news very often. Mr. O'Shea wouldn't take anything for your keep, Tally—said he was the one in debt. But keep these nuggets, and here's a little bag for each of the youngsters.”

He gave her a small, heavy leather pouch and three smaller ones. Kissing his rough-cheek, Talitha felt deep-buried grief stir. For several days after he rode away, she mourned silently for her mother who was dead, for James, gone away, and for this father she didn't know and for whom she'd had no comfort.

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.