AMBUSH AT APACHE PASS AT AMAZON
Preface:
LET ME TELL YOU, the
Territory was wild in those days. Old Arizona! Wilder than a Coyotero with a
too-tight breechclout. Ha! Wild—yessir, it had the bark on! This was just after
the Little Misunderstanding Between the States. Old Fort Hildebrandt, or Fort
Hell, as we all called it who were stationed there—was built in ’57, but during
the war, after the soldiers had pulled out to fight the graybacks, the Chiricahuas
led by Geronimo himself sacked it. Damn near burned that sweet ole darlin’ to
the ground.
After the war, three troops
of the Third Cavalry and one of the Fourth Infantry were sent back to rebuild
the post there near Apache Pass, west of the New Mexico line, at the junction
of Rattlesnake and Apache creeks. Creeks, my ass! Only if you call beds of
sand, yucca, and Gila monsters creeks! Don’t ever remember a spoonful of water
in either. (I was raised back East, you understand.) Well, it was there between
the Dos Cabezas Mountains and the Chiricahua Range, just north of Apache Pass,
that we rebuilt that humble little ’dobe town complete with a church and a
couple hog pens (whorehouses)! Troops C, D, and H garrisoned her to protect the
settlers, miners, prospectors, stagecoach passengers, freighting companies, and
the U.S. Mail from them cutthroat Apaches—Chiricahuas, Coyoteros, and Mimbreños,
mostly.
Camp Hell.
An oasis she became in a
country drier than a lime burner’s hat! Soldiers, wives and children of
soldiers, teamsters, cold-steel artists stock herders, horse breakers, whiskey
drummers, prospectors, cardsharps, confidence men, and, by Jehovah, even whores
and raggedy-heeled outlaws of every crooked stripe!—they all rubbed shoulders
with the cavalry yellowlegs and forted up for a time under them brush ramadas,
amongst them tan ’dobe hovels the scorpions and salamanders squiggled around on.
Wild as Apaches, all of ’em.
Even some of the women and the children. To go along with an Apache-wild land.
But them contract scouts
for the U.S. Cavalry—they was even wilder. Old Gila River Joe, or “the sergeant,”
as he was known by the men under him, was chief of scouts only because no one
else wanted the job, and he was too much soldier to say no when Colonel
Alexander offered! Amongst the scouts were the Aravaipa trackers: Chiquito,
Pedro, and One-Eyed Miguel. There was the former grayback and plantation owner,
Seth Barksdale, and the half-breed, Yakima Henry. Ah, how well I remember young
Henry. This was before he went on to become a legend of sorts. Or, maybe it was
back at ole Fort Hell that Yakima Henry’s legend really began.
Truth be told—an’ I’m here
to tell it, by God!—a whole lot of legends started at Fort Hell!
—from Memories of Old Fort
Hildebrandt by Sergeant William “Blinky Bill” Everwine, Quartermaster, Fort
Hildebrandt, Arizona Territory, 1868–1876
THE NEXT BOOK IN THE SERIES WILL BE OUT LATER THIS WINTER:
