The Pecan store is closed. A house shaped like a teepee with gray tar shingles and blue bay windows sits along the deserted Main Street in Bowie, Arizona. No one appears to be home in Bowie, except a mutt dog on seemingly every corner.
The wind's blowing real hard today. To the East, a dust storm rages. Annie and I choose to get off I-10, here in Bowie, instead of going through the storm, having just gotten a new windshield for the Pathfinder a few months ago.
"Do you want to go to Fort Bowie?" I ask her. "I've never been there before myself. Gotten close a couple of times. What d'ya think?"
"Sounds good to me," Annie says.
We turn off Main Street and head south on Apache Pass Road. Just before we leave town, I see a real live human being. A tall elderly white man, dressed in new blue jeans, a white cowboy hat and a heavily starched white shirt, stands outside of his modified double wide trailer, smoking a cigarette. He waves at me before I have a chance to wave at him. I wave back.
"Annie, did you see that old cowboy?" I say.
"No, I didn't," she says.
"Like something from another time." I add. I tell her what he looked like. "I bet his wife doesn't like him smoking in the house." I speculate aloud. Or maybe he's a widower and has just come outside to see if the sand storm is heading his way.
I love that his shirt is starched and that he waved at me first. Like being back home in the Northern Neck of Virginia.
Annie and I continue out of town. We drive under the Interstate, and past a huge grove of Pecan trees. The road becomes dead eyed straight, a good paved two lane road heading toward the northern foothills of the Chiricahua Mountains.
All because of a Spring that runs year round.
We've been hiking a couple hours now, mostly in silence. Fort Bowie National Monument is unusual in that you park your vehicle and then hike a mile and a half to the ruins of the fort. We just left the fort a few minutes ago beginning our hike back to the truck. We're taking the high ridge trail now, not the low valley trail we took coming in. The fort was OK, just OK. Nothing to write home about, just a nice Territorial house, some ruins, a flag pole, but the journey though the valley below, before the fort, caused us to be speechless, from the story it told.
The wind's cold and hard coming at us now, on this high ridge. Some rain clouds are off to the west. The hump of a mountain to the south, that covered in pinon and juniper trees, appears to be so close, you can touch it but it is actually miles away. And that valley below. I look at the trees around the Spring. Apache Springs. I can see the graves of soldiers in the distance. I can see the old stage road. And I feel very sad, and a little angry. More than a little.
This is the southern tip of the Chiricahua Mountains, named after the Chiricahua Apaches who lived here since the 1300's. They hunted, gathered, lived, loved and died here for hundreds of years. They kicked the asses of the Spanish when they first arrived in the 1400's, held their own against the Mexicans in the early 1800's, and finally lost to the Americans, in the late 1880's They were lead by charismatic medicine men like Geronimo, and warrior chiefs like Cochise. They were known for being fierce in battle and loyal and kind to their own people. They didn't take any shit from anybody nor did they go out of their own way to cause trouble. A little trouble maybe, some revenge killings, some stealing of cattle now and then, but not much. More often than not, in their last years in these mountains, trouble came to them.
Here at Apache Springs, just east of Apache Pass, trouble came one day in 1861. Annie's behind me a short ways on the trail, and now has just joined me of this rocky peak. We take a little breather. Below us is that small stand of trees, brighter and greener than the cottonwoods and the other foliage in the surrounding valley. There is the Spring. The Spring is why what happened here, happened here.
All because of a Spring that runs year round.
First, this was the winter camp of many Apaches for many years, the only water for miles around in the foothills of the Chiricahuas. Cochise was camped here in February of 1861, with many of his clan and family. Apache Springs and the whole Apache Pass area was a favorite residence of Cochise for many a year. Nearby was a way station for the Butterfield Mail Stage, and its stationmaster and crew lived there. Up to this point, most of the Chiricahua Apaches and the Americans got along, primarily because the Americans didn't mess with Cochise's people much and on occasion, gave the Apaches food and supplies, and Cochise had hopes that someday, the Americans would help him in his fighting with the Mexicans to the south.
Anyway, to make a long story a bit shorter, a drunk good-for-nothing rancher named John Ward had twenty head of cattle and his 12 year old one-eyed redheaded stepson, by the name of Mickey Free, taken by some Coyotero Apaches. Ward went to his nearest US Army fort at Fort Buchanan and complained, mostly about the cows, and said it was Cochise's Chiricahua Apaches who took his cattle and yea, the boy too, as an afterthought. He mostly wanted his cattle back. Ward was known to be a piece of shit, a ‘worthless character' said one man. Anyway, the colonel of Fort Buchanan, distracted and looking more to the east at the impending Civil War than at his own backyard, send an idiot tenderfoot Second Lieutenant by the name of George Bascom to find Cochise, to demand the return of the boy, and the cattle, and to use whatever force was necessary to accomplish this task. Full of piss and vinegar and leading 54 green horn mounted troopers, Bascom set out for Apache Pass to find Cochise. When he arrived at Apache Springs, he arranged with the stationmaster of the Butterfield Stage outpost to invite Cochise for a parley. Cochise wasn't worried. His lookouts at Apache Pass saw the detachment coming the day before. He knew that many U.S. Army soldiers came to the Spring on their way to Texas and California. After a day or two, he arrived to meet with Bascom. Cochise came with his wife, a couple of his kids, his brother Coyuntura, and only three warriors in escort, two of them probably his nephews. He thought he was being invited for just a little chat and perhaps dinner too.
Cochise and his family and his warriors were escorted into a tent and then things turned bad. First Bascom accused Cochise of stealing Ward's cows and boy. Cochise denied it, and then after heated words and much yelling (through a translator mind you), Cochise figured out from Bascom's accusations, that it must have be a band of Coyoteros who did the abduction of the boy and the cattle. Even though Cochise was royally pissed off about being called a liar, (Apaches hated being called liars) he agree to go to the Coyoteros Apache band in question and try and talk them into giving the boy back. Bascom would have none of it and ordered Cochise, his wife, brother, family and friends held hostage. Soldiers had surrounded the tent. As they attempted to arrest Cochise, he quickly pulled out his knife, sliced the side of the tent open and escaped. Shots were fired, but Cochise got away.
To Apaches far and wide for many years, the incident became known as "Cut Through The Tent", and hence began the war.
Cochise tried to negotiate with Bascom in the days to come to get his wife, brother, nephews, and kids back, but Bascom kept calling Cochise a liar, demanding the red headed boy. That particular parley ended with guns being drawn again and more shots fired. For the next few days and nights, Apache campfires ringed the valley where Bascom and his men were camped, and the drums of war beat loudly down on them at night. Bascom sent for reinforcements from the distant Fort Buchanan. At one point, Cochise captured the stage master of the Butterfield depot and offered him in trade for his family. Bascom refused. A few days later, Cochise burned a wagon train, killed the Mexicans in the train but captured some Americans and offered them in trade. Still no dice. Cochise then sent the women and children of his tribe south, out of harm's way and called for his own reinforcements, one warrior, by the way, being Geronimo.
On February 8th, 1861, Cochise attacked, first at soldiers at the Spring, then drove away all of Bascom's horses and animals. They fought throughout the valley and Cochise attacked the stage depot but it was too well defended to be overrun. Then Cochise heard that Army reinforcement were on the way. Hopeless over getting his wife, brother and kids back, he killed the four Americans he had captured, and left Apache Springs. Army reinforcements did come in a week or so and patrolled the nearby mountains and hills, looking for Cochise's people but without luck. Geronimo was quoted years later saying they laughed at the soldiers from hiding places in the rocks as the Army groped through the hills looking for them. A few more days later, Bascom found the four dead Americans that Cochise had killed. In return he hung the six captured Apache warriors that he had in custody, from the limbs of the trees near where the dead Americans were found. The six bodies hung there for months, rotting in the sun. Before he left for his home fort, inexplicably Bascom simply released Cochise's wife and children, unharmed.
But of the six corpses hanging from the trees, two were probably Cochise's nephews. And one body was that of his brother Coyuntura. It is said that Coyuntura went to the hanging tree, dancing and singing. Cochise was enraged at the news of his brother's death. He was very close with Coyuntura. He called for vengeance and vengeance came.
Thus began many years of war between Cochise and the Americans, a bloody horrid war on both sides. Within 60 days of the "Bascom Affair", Cochise and his warriors had killed 150 whites. The non-Indian population of this part of Southern Arizona dropped from 34,000 in 1860 to under 10,000 in 1870. The roads in Southern Arizona were littered with headstones reading ‘Killed by Apaches' for years to come. It is estimated that in the years of the Apache Wars, over 5,000 Americans died, hundred of thousands of dollars of property were destroyed and uncounted Apache men, women and children were killed.
Peace of a kind came in 1867 with the help of an enlightened white man named Thomas Jeffords (Another story, another time). Jeffords and Cochise became very close friends and the fighting stopped. In 1872, it was negotiated that the Chiricahua Mountains and other parts of Southeastern Arizona would become the reservation for the Chiricahua Apaches. Peace continued for a while with Jeffords as the Indian agent at the new Fort Bowie, a few hundred yards east of Apache Springs. But then in 1874, Cochise died, probably of cancer, and the reservation was terminated, beginning another time of war, and death, and extreme hardship for the Chiricahua Apaches under the leadership of Geronimo and others.
But the beginning of it all began just below Annie and I, in that valley.
As we descend this trail to go back to my truck we can see some of the landmarks and scars from that time: The old graveyard of soldiers killed, with new shiny headstones made by the U.S. Park Service. The worn serpentine trail of the old Butterfield line, still wide and somewhat passable after all these years. The ruins of the Butterfield stage depot, with just its stone foundation remaining. The wide-open field where the tent that briefly held Cochise was pitched. And again, to the south, the large grove of bright green trees that point to where Apache Springs flow.
All because of a spring that runs year round.
We continue down the trail toward my truck. Annie and I take a few pictures of each other. The sun is rapidly going down, the wind's still hard, the air turning colder. I see an old wind-knurled Juniper tree just off the path and take its picture in the Magic Hour light. Annie and I say a little to each other, now and then, but not much. I look at the valley of battle below and sigh. I look at Annie and give a weak smile.
"It just makes me so angry and sad," I say to her.
Waving my arm toward the beautiful mountain to the South, I say, "This used to all belong to the Chiricahuas, and now they're gone. No Indians live here now. None of them." Annie nods and sighs a bit, too.
I continue down the trail, and say nothing for a while.
Soon, we're in the truck heading back the way we came. Down the laser-straight road past the Pecan trees, under the Interstate as we enter Bowie, past the trailer where the old cowboy lives (He must be inside now) and back on Main Street. We slowing driving through Bowie, remarking on what a great time we had and how powerful it was to have gone to Apache Springs today. I squeeze Annie's thigh after I shift into fourth. It was a good day, but as I turn to look south toward the Chiricahua Mountains, I still feel a slight burn of rage and a small bit of sadness.
In the twilight, I see no Apaches fires on the ridgelines, no vale of juniper smoke floating up from the valley, just the cold solid darkness of a mountain in shadow, where nobody lives.
[Addendum: Lt. George Bascom died in the Civil War, at the Battle of Valverde on the banks of the Rio Grande on February 21, 1862, leading Company C of the 7th U.S. Infantry against the Confederates. He died in the middle of the river on a sandbar. Cochise died on June 8th, 1874 in his 60s. His family dressed him for battle and carried his body to a remote part of the Dragoon Mountains, now known as Cochise's Stronghold. No one but his closest family members and Thomas Jeffords knew where he is buried. He was buried with his dog, his horse and his weapons. And Mickey Free, the one-eyed redhead boy, never saw his mother or John Ward again. He was raised by the Coyotero Apaches and due to his fluency in English, Spanish and Apache, became a scout of the U.S. Army. He was said to have been a psychopath. He died in 1915.]
[References: "Cochise and the Bascom Affair" by Jay W. Sharp and "Cochise, Chiricahua Apache Chief" by Edwin R. Sweeney]
Hi Yi, Hi Yi, Iee Iee
Hi Yi, Yi Yi.
Cut the tent.
Then we'll go outside
Run hell bent
Fight for our tribe
Hi Yi, Hi Yi, Iee Iee
Hi Yi, Yi Yi.
Copyright © 2005, Stu Jenks