Frederick R. Bechdolt

“ Uncle Billy fired twice from the depths of his thicket, and both shots scored. The Apaches sought the rocks once more; but the old-timer lay among the willows with a broken elbow from one of their bullets. There was no time, nor were there means, for dressing the wound. He gritted his teeth, dug the elbow into the soft sand to stanch the flow of blood, and waited for the next onset.
It came within a few minutes, and Uncle Billy fired his last shot. The good luck which sometimes helps out a brave man in time of trouble saw to it that the ball from his revolver found the chief of the party. ”

“ Stage-driver and shotgun messenger usually saw plenty of perilous adventures during the days of Mangus Colorado, Cochise, Victorio, Nachez, and Geronimo; but if one was hungry for Indian-fighting in those times he wanted to be a mule-skinner. The teamsters became so inured to battling against Apaches that the cook who, when the savages attacked the camp near Wickenburg one morning before breakfast, kept on turning flapjacks during the entire fight and called his companions to the meal at its conclusion, is but an example of the ordinary run of wagon-hands. ”

“ The lieutenant started to turn toward his troopers. But he never had a chance to give his order. The whole blue-clad band was charging on a dead run. What followed did not take long. There was not a single prisoner brought back to the reservation.
When men are warring in that relentless spirit, no one who is blessed with the ordinary amount of reasoning power looks for mercy even if it be promised. And Uncle Billy Rhodes did well to run his bluff down there in the willows by the river.
Sometimes, however, the Apaches felt themselves forced to show respect for their dead enemies. ”

“ The bullet missed, as most Apache bullets had a habit of doing. Next to the courage of the old-timers the utter inability of the North American Indian to grasp the necessity of pulling down his front sight was perhaps the largest factor that helped the white man to win the country west of the Mississippi River. Uncle Billy Rhodes whirled his pony and started back in the direction he had come from.
But the ponies of the Apaches were fresh from the rest they had enjoyed while their masters were prolonging the death agonies of Uncle Billy's partner. ”

“ Therein lies the key-note to the incidents within this little chronicle; the contemptuous disregard for danger, the willingness to take the supreme risk, which made those old-timers perform exploits that were seemingly impossible; which made them outface their naked enemies—who were always looking out for their own swarthy skins—and come forth unscathed from situations wherein death seemed the only means by which they could emerge; which made them win in many a grim fight where the odds were one man against many. ”

“ He had hardly done this when the thud of hoofs came to his ears; and a band of Apaches appeared in the half-light passing his wagon. There was a company of soldiers in camp within a mile or two, and the savages were in a hurry; wherefore they had contented themselves with stealing the mules and forbore from searching for the teamster, who lay there choking the puppy as they drove the plundered stock within three yards of him.
Now it so happened that Bronco Mitchel's team included a white mare, who was belled; for mules will follow a white mare to perdition if she chooses to wander thither. ”

“ A band of renegade Apaches had left the reservation to go a-plundering down in Mexico. A certain troop of cavalry was riding after them with the usual instructions from Washington to bring them back without bloodshed.
The captain of the troop was a seasoned Indian-fighter, and he managed to keep the fugitives moving so fast that they got next to nothing to eat. When you are traveling without rations along the ridges during an Arizona summer and there is no time to stop for hunting, no time to bake mescal roots; when you need every pony for riding and you have eaten the last lean dog ”

“ The Apaches had stolen away, and Uncle Billy Rhodes crept forth from the willows to catch up his horse and ride with his broken arm to Tucson, where he told the story.
Now there is no doubt what would have happened to Uncle Billy had he been gullible enough to believe that statement of the Apaches as to his personal safety in case of surrender. As a matter of cold fact neither Indian nor white man had any particular reason to look for favor or expect the truth from his enemy during this long struggle. ”

“ With which he turned over his precious bean and—proceeded to draw another white one.
The tale is told to this day by white-bearded men who maintain that it came to them from the lips of Big Foot Wallace. It has been used as the basis for at least one bit of fine fiction, but in its original form it illuminates for us of a later generation the characters of those extraordinary men who won the great Southwest away from the Apaches. They were, whenever occasion came, perfectly willing to take a long chance against ugly death. That willingness made every one of the old-timers a host in himself. ”

“ One man against many. That was the case with Uncle Billy Rhodes. Back in the early sixties he and his partner had taken up some land down in the Santa Cruz valley near the pueblo of Tubac. If you drive southward in your car to-day from Tucson you will pass the spot where Tubac stood until the Apaches laid waste the town during Civil War times, and go within a stone's throw of the place where Uncle Billy Rhodes ran one of the biggest and finest bluffs in all the history of Indian-fighting. ”

“ Frequently the old thorough-brace Concord would come rattling in with driver or messenger missing; and on such occasions it was always necessary to supply the dead man's place for the ensuing run. Yet willing men were rarely lacking, and an old agent tells how he merely needed to wave a fifty-dollar bill in the faces of the group who gathered round at such a time to secure a new one to handle the reins.
In those days an Indian fight wasn't such a great matter if one bases his opinion on the way the papers handled one of them in their news columns. ”

“ And in the beginning the pursuers, who had encircled the willow thicket, contented themselves with shooting from a distance where they could keep to cover.
But evening was growing on, and these savages were imbued with more superstitious fears of the dark than the members of most Indian tribes. ”

“ Under a cloud of arrows and a volley of bullets they ran the gantlet and came forth with their wounded. Hanging grimly together, they retreated, holding off the pursuing savages, and eventually made their way to Camp Grant.
Now the point on which the little newspaper item dwells is the fact that the Indians burned the entire wagon-train, entailing a loss of twelve thousand dollars to Tully & Ochoa and of twenty thousand dollars to the United States government. On the heroics it wastes no type. It seems to have been regarded as bad taste in those days to talk about a man's bravery. ”

“ The Apaches deployed until they were surrounding the house. Then they opened fire once more, and as they shot they wriggled forward, coming ever closer until some of them were so near that they were able to place their bullets through the rude loopholes which the settler had made for defense of his home.
All the morning the battle went on. Sometimes the savages varied their tactics by rushes and even thrust the barrels of their rifles through the windows. The room was filled with smoke. ”

“ The idea was that each man must draw his bean, and he who got a white one lived, while he who picked a black kernel was lined up with his luckless friends before the nearest wall and shot within an hour. ”

“ Bronco Mitchel's experiences afforded another good illustration of the hazards of freighting. In the latter seventies and the early eighties, when Victorio, Nachez, and Geronimo were making life interesting for settlers, he drove one of those long teams of mules which used to haul supplies from Tucson to the military posts and mining camps of southeastern Arizona. ”

“ On Thursday, August 18, the mail buggy from the Rio Grande had come fifteen miles toward Tucson from the San Pedro crossing when the driver, the messenger, and the escort of two soldiers were killed by Apaches. ”

“ It was near Prescott—only four miles below the village—that a woman fought Apaches all through a long September afternoon. The Hon. Lewis A. Stevens was in town attending a session of the Territorial Legislature and his wife was in charge of the ranch near the Point of Rocks that day in 1867. A hired man was working about the place.
One hundred yards away from the house an enormous pile of boulders rose toward the nearer hills. Beneath some of the overhanging rocks were great caves, and the depressions between the ridges gave hiding-places to shelter scores of men. ”