You know, he said, Jimmy had made some other bad judgements before. So I asked him what did he mean, and is that why he was always so peevish toward Jimmy? Albert was about to answer when here came Savannah with milk-lassies for everyone, and he said no more about it.
We talked about making a trip to Tucson tomorrow or the next day, and I told them the Apache trouble the stage manager warned of. I hope Ernest is not fighting Indians but shoeing horses still. Albert is going to take five horses off my hands and sell them in Tucson if he can get a good price. He knows what Jimmy would want, he said.
May 4, 1885
It has been two terrible and dreadful days since I could write because as I gathered up my baby and some plates of gingerbread and sacks of fruit and quilt scraps Mama gave me, I looked toward the east where my house stands and saw a big commotion of dust in the air.
Albert got real serious looking and said, It’s too much dust, it looks like a stampede. And then he said, Or someone stealing your horses. Right away he went in the house and got his rifles and Savannah began loading them while he saddled a horse.
I said to him, Saddle up another one, I am going too, and he looked at me kind of curious while I ran to the wagon and pulled out my rifle. We will lay low and be careful and if we are too outnumbered to fight we will just be thankful I was not there to be killed for the horses and stay quiet.
Here came Harland toting a saddle with a determined look on his face, but Mama said, No, Harland, you can’t go, and he was mad.
I took him by the shoulder and put my kitchen pistol in his hands and said, We need a man here to watch over Mama and Savannah and the babies. Then I said, Always watch what is behind your aim when you shoot. If you miss your shot, don’t take down one of us, and he grinned at me and said, I know that already!
Then I took a last look at my sweet April and hugged her tight and kissed her little face and hands and handed her to Savannah who was grim faced. As we rode off my bonnet blew off and I realized it was the first time I had sat a horse in a while. My rifle was in my hand and the reins in the other, and April’s little face kept appearing in front of my eyes and I knew I was more afraid than ever before, and glad that no matter what, April would be in Savannah’s care.
We cleared the hill near my spread and saw the dust was still aways off. It might be coming from the Maldonados’ place further off, or beyond that is the Raalles’. There was something going on for sure, and I felt sweat running down between my shoulders. On we rode, pulling up short at the entrance to the Maldonados to creep between the stand of live oak trees before we could be seen.
There were Indians at their barn, shooting rifles, and other Indians on horseback riding near the house with bows and arrows, but it seemed they were done firing for the time being. From the house now and then came one or two lone gunshots. Beyond the hills black smoke began rising, first in little puffs, then bigger and bigger until we see flames rising over the hilltop. The Indians began screaming louder and louder when they saw it, and Albert and I began to whisper just what is our best defense, and wondering hard what is burning yonder.
There seemed to be at least a dozen Indians there, and two dead in the yard, and another man dead by the corral that might be a Mexican by the clothes. Albert and I have four rifles between us, and we are not sure we can do more than draw their fire and get ourselves killed for the trouble.
Another shot comes from the front window, and one of the Indians was hit in the back and fell to the ground. That started the others to hollering just awful and raining shots in at the window, then up from the south came a new Indian with a burning torch and threw it on the front porch.
All the Indians gathered there to watch the Maldonados either come out fighting or burn to death, for the flames went to the vigas on the roof like lightning. As they were bunched up together, it was our only chance, and we began to fire at them very carefully. We had sent five of them to the devil before they understood there was fire coming from behind.
Inside, people were crying out and someone threw a chair through a side window and smoke shot out like a cannon. The Indians began to turn and fire at us, and Albert got hit in the head but not killed, just skinned right near his left ear. He was bleeding bad, but kept loading and shooting.
I worked as fast as I could take sight. Sweat was burning my eyes and I couldn’t see. In a minute, two more hit the dust, and the Indians began to draw away, fired at from both sides and still not seeing us hidden in here. As they got out toward the far fence, they split up, heading different ways, on foot out to the desert. We would have let them go but they were headed toward our places, and we mounted up, loading up, and headed after them.
They had disappeared like a rabbit down a hole. For miles around, there was not a movement, not a sound, not even so much as a lizard crawling or a bird overhead.
When the Maldonados came out of their house they ran and ran around the yard just crazy. We got off the horses and Rudolfo walked slowly to the body on the ground. It was his brother Ruben, and his big old shoulders shook hard as he cried and picked up Ruben like he was a little child and held him close. Mr. Maldonado had an arrow sticking out of his leg above the knee, and he needed a doctor, but he was yelling for his wife, and couldn’t find her anywhere. Finally we found her in the back near the chicken coop. She had been out there tending her chickens when they first came. Then we saw that she was shot in the head, and in her own hand was a pistol with only one bullet gone.
Mr. Maldonado was beside himself and roamed around the yard, crying to God, walking with that arrow in his leg dancing in front of him as he moved, like he welcomed the pain. Their other children were all crying, just sitting on the ground hugging each other. The roof fell in on the house then, although the adobe walls stood fast, and all of us were covered with dirt and ash, breathing the black smoke from the house until we were black too.
Albert said to him, We will come back, we have to go check on our places, but I don’t think he understood, as Mr. Maldonado was still holding his hands up to the sky and crying out in Mexican when we rode away. At my place all looked peaceful, but Bear sniffed the air and he knew something was wrong. We decided I would ride to warn Harland and Savannah to hide in the cellar.
When I got to Mama’s, all were determined to help our neighbors, not to hide and wait, so together we hitched two wagons. They brought one wagon with shovels and drinking water, and Savannah came with the babies in another, as we figured the Indians would not return to where they thought all were destroyed. They came quick, all the babies were crying because they were disturbed, and they followed me back to the Maldonados’.
Then I went on to catch up with Albert. We made the crest of a hill, and laid eyes on the worst sight yet. There by the Raalle’s clearing was seven Cavalry men standing and firing in all directions, and at least eight more, laying dead or dying nearby in the dirt. At least twenty Indians surrounded them, dashing toward them on their horses as if the soldiers’ bullets couldn’t harm them.
Behind that scene sweet old Mr. Raalle lay tied hand and foot spread eagled from the branches of a tree and looking like a Indian pincushion. The Raalles’ house was already a stand of black boards and singed adobe, but fire had spread and the smoke rose from a hay stack and the chicken coop and outhouse. I whispered to Albert that those soldiers are surely counting their shots now.
To our thankful hearts, we heard hooves behind us, and Rudolfo rode up with a repeater rifle of his own and two full bandoliers on his shoulders. The three of us crept closer and closer, and at Albert’s word, all at once began to fire on them. Instead of returning fire, the Indians rode quick to the top of a rise further east, held each one’s weapon in the air, and whooped at us.
It was a word of defiance, I know. It was like the time when we were children and Ernest had wrestled me to the ground and made me say uncle, and then I ran off and stood on top of the corncrib and said I took it back and I would never say uncle to him for all my days. Some of t
he soldiers fired last shots, some quickly got on horses and went after them, and I saw them ride over the next hill and counted eighteen Indians that got clear away.
Behind us, here came Mama, Harland, and Savannah and the Maldonados, all carrying pitchforks and sickles and anything they could carry that would made a dent in a man, with the littlest children in the rear and holding tight to the babies. They were a little pathetic bunch of determined looking soldiers. In front of us, the battle suddenly turned. The Indians on horseback had led the soldiers in a grand circle, and came charging over the hills right at us all.
I had fired my last shot, and cried out to Rudolfo to throw me some shells, but he was cut off by a fast riding Indian. Albert was bleeding so bad from his head he looked like a moving dead man, but still was loading and firing, though too far from me as he moved back to protect the children. Even Harland has squeezed off some shots.
Someone yelled out, Sarah! And as I turned and looked, barreling toward me with a spear in his hand raised over his head is an Indian man with hellfire in his eyes. I slipped off that saddle fast but as weak-kneed as ever I have been, and the spear nicked the pommel and stuck in the dirt behind me. The Indian wheeled his horse around and pulled out a rifle, stopped and aimed it at my head. I fired at him, but there was no bullets. I pulled the trigger again and again, and he began to laugh and point the rifle at me, coming a step closer each time I pulled the useless trigger.
The empty clicking of my rifle sounded so loud, like a cannon near my ear, but still he stayed on the horse, smiling hard and aiming. Finally, he cocked the action, and I tried to scoot behind the horse, but it jerked and ran. There was so much dust and smoke, I could hardly see anything beyond that rifle barrel and I knew I was dead.
Oh, my baby April, I said, over and over. The Indian raised the rifle to sight it in on my head, and I dropped my useless aim on him. Just as I thought I would hear a bang and die, he flew off the horse, dragged down in a crazy confusion of dust and blue cloth. A soldier had him by the throat and I saw a hand go up with a knife. The Indian’s rifle went off wild into the air, and then he laid limp on the ground. I ran.
Again, the soldiers had the Indians on the run, there being only about six or so left alive, they mounted up and this time after just a few minutes, the soldiers returned weary and exhausted, but with no one left to chase.
Savannah was cuddling the swarm of children who seemed to be all sobbing at once. Mama was tying an apron around Albert’s head. He was talking to a soldier, and I saw them shake hands, and suddenly I recognized that soldier just from the way he stood and moved.
I was sitting in the dust near Rudolfo, shaking bad like a pot that is boiling over, and Rudolfo looked just terrible hard and pained, staring at it all. Then he turned to me and said very softly, Ruben loved you, Señora Reed.
I told him I knew, and then I hugged him, and I don’t know what came over me to tell such a lie, but I said, I loved Ruben, too.
Rudolfo looked cheered for a moment and then started to cry. It was the saddest thing, that big, man-sized boy strapped with guns and ammunition crying in the dust. I decided it would not matter to him that I only loved Ruben like a brother, but it mattered a lot that his brother died with a little happiness first.
Smoke was rising now from the last standing building on the place. Mr. Raalle had planted pretty hedges all around that turned out to be a fire path from each outbuilding to the next. As the dry wooden shed started up in flames, horrible child like screams came from inside it. The whole crowd of us ran to it, but stopped, it was already a huge fire and flames shot into the sky.
Then suddenly, there was Captain Elliot, sparks all around him, tearing at the door, kicking the embers, he went right through the wall and came out with Melissa Raalle in his arms, the both of them smoking and singed and little hot red cinders clinging to their clothes as if they could burst into flames together like a human torch. Melissa’s hair was matted and burned up, and part of the back of her dress fell away, showing a bad scorch place on her back.
Mama was there, and Melissa shrieked Mama! and held out her arms, and the two of them fell to the ground, Mama rocking her back and forth like a baby, and Melissa wailing and shrieking without stopping for many minutes.
It was a long time before anyone could move. At last, one by one, soldiers started to get a drink from the Raalle’s well, and to sit and get their breath. I just stood there, feeling that if I moved I would faint, but as long as I stayed rooted there, I could stand. All seemed to get quiet. There was no sound except for the crackling of the cooling coals left of the Raalle’s home.
April came to me calling Mama, Mama, but when she saw me all dirty and black, she ran back to Savannah, afraid of me.
Lieutenant, said Albert’s voice behind me, We have lots of folks here to bury. Could you spare your men a while to help us with a Christian burial before you leave? We’d take the soldiers, too.
Jack Elliot looked at him, and said, I’m not in command, here, Albert. The commanding officer is lying over there. Then he turned to the others. Will you men help bury these folks?
And they all nodded, looking around themselves at the horrible scene. One of them picked up a shovel right away, it had been leaning against the adobe wall and was not burnt.
Wait, I said. This is a homestead. If Mr. Raalle doesn’t live on it, he doesn’t own it. She’s just a child, she can’t live here alone. And if you bury him here Melissa may never see his grave again. Put him up at my place, next to Jimmy. And you men can clean up and I’ll feed you, and you can put down for the night there.
Captain Elliot said, Well, men, You’d better listen to the Colonel, there, and I saw him look at me real strange again.
So Mr. Raalle is buried next to Jimmy and four soldiers from Fort Grant. It is too far to carry them back all that way, since that fort is not near Tucson. And Ruben Maldonado is next to his Mama and Yoyo’s grave with three other soldiers near. His Papa begged the soldiers to dig his hole too, as he thinks he will die of the arrow in his leg. Somehow he had got it out before we got back, but he still thinks he will die of it.
One of the soldiers is well enough to travel back to the fort. All those men ate a big supper late at night when they got done with the burying, and I told them I would stay in the house while they cleaned up out back, and gave them all lanterns and plenty of the soaps that I couldn’t sell anyway, and thought how lucky it was that I had made all that and couldn’t sell it, so I had it on hand.
It is an awful thing to look on such sad circumstance and not be able to shed a tear. It is not because I do not feel for these folks, but maybe I feel too much. Part of me is glad, in a low down, mean way, that it is not Albert’s or Mama’s graves we are digging. Glad that it is some soldiers I don’t know and neighbors and friends but not family. Lord, I must be the cussedest woman there is to think that. Finally, I felt so guilty for thinking those things that I cried. Then I began to feel the heartaches of our friends and neighbors and I cried for them, too, as we said prayers over each and every grave.
Then I heard Savannah praying on her front porch, and she was saying Thank you, Father, that our home and family was spared, and I suspect she may feel the same way I did, and maybe it wasn’t so awful then.
May 5, 1885
Captain Elliot said I should stop calling him that as he is not in the regular Army and now holds the rank of Lieutenant anyway. I told him when he said he was off to fight Indians I thought he meant far away, but we agreed that the soldiers were our only chance for we might all have been dead. He said the leader of these Indians was Ulzana, part of Geronimo’s tribe or gang, and now maybe Geronimo would stay in Mexico.
One of the soldiers left early this morning to ride to Tucson to tell General Crook about their battle and how badly it went for all concerned. The others will leave after breakfast and having some fresh bandages and water for all. Then we were on the back porch while Captain Elliot was washing his hands and face as we talked and I
saw for the first time that his hands were blistered and burnt pretty bad.
He said it didn’t hurt, but I scolded him and made him let me bandage up all his fingers, as they looked down to the bone in places, and he could end up with gangrene or something and die. I wrapped all his fingers carefully.
When I was done he said Thank you, Sarah.
So I kind of smiled and said did he think saving all our lives gave him leave to be familiar with me?
He looked around us and saw no one near, and said to me, No, but this might. And then that Jack Elliot took my face between his mittened up hands and kissed me plum on the mouth. My heart jumped about three beats.
Captain Elliot! I tried to whisper in a angry voice. I never!
And he just grinned like he does, and said, I know.
Then he had me by the shoulders, and said, It’s just too dangerous, I wish you didn’t live out here alone, you should move back with your family for a while. Or come to town.
Well, I said, I hate Tucson, it is dirty and ornery.
And he said back, It just needs a few women that are clean but ornery to straighten it up.
And then he kissed me again, different that time. Real hard and took my whole mouth and wouldn’t stop even when I tried to push him away. He just kept on and kept on, and crushed me against him until I thought the life would go out of me for the feeling of lightheadedness and flush I felt. My heart was trembling inside and my legs felt watery and I couldn’t stop breathing so fast and whimpering a little. His hands moved up and down my back and his whole body pressed against me. Then it stopped being hard and forced and became real tender and soft and kind of hungry feeling. He was kissing me so that I felt myself get weak, and I held onto him from faintness. When he finally let me go, I had to grab the wall to keep standing.
Then that man just grinned at me, and laughed a bit and said, I thought so! and went and saddled his horse.