Camp Verde lay sixteen miles farther on; no one knew if the road were good or bad. I declared I could not travel another mile, even if they all went on and left me to the wolves and the darkness of Beaver Springs.
We looked to our provisions and took account of stock. There was not enough for the two families. We had no flour and no bread; there was only a small piece of bacon, six potatoes, some condensed milk, and some chocolate. The Baileys decided to go on; for Mrs. Bailey was to meet her sister at Verde and her parents at Whipple. We said good-bye, and their ambulance rolled away. Our tent was pitched and the baby was laid on the bed, asleep from pure exhaustion.
The dread darkness of night descended upon us, and the strange odors of the bottom-lands arose, mingling with the delicious smoky smell of the camp-fire.
By the light of the blazing mesquite wood, we now divided what provisions we had, into two portions: one for supper, and one for breakfast. A very light meal we had that evening, and I arose from the mess-table unsatisfied and hungry.
Jack and I sat down by the camp-fire, musing over the hard times we were having, when suddenly I heard a terrified cry from my little son. We rushed to the tent, lighted a candle, and oh! horror upon horrors!
his head and face were covered with large black ants; he was wailing helplessly, and beating the air with his tiny arms.
"My G.o.d!" cried Jack, "we"re camped over an ant-hill!"
I seized the child, and brushing off the ants as I fled, brought him out to the fire, where by its light I succeeded in getting rid of them all.
But the horror of it! Can any mother brought up in G.o.d"s country with kind nurses and loved ones to minister to her child, for a moment imagine how I felt when I saw those hideous, three-bodied, long-legged black ants crawling over my baby"s face? After a lapse of years, I cannot recall that moment without a shudder.
The soldiers at last found a place which seemed to be free from ant-hills, and our tent was again pitched, but only to find that the venomous things swarmed over us as soon as we lay down to rest.
And so, after the fashion of the Missouri emigrant, we climbed into the ambulance and lay down upon our blankets in the bottom of it, and tried to believe we were comfortable.
My long, hard journey of the preceding autumn, covering a period of two months; my trying experiences during the winter at Camp Apache; the sudden break-up and the packing; the lack of a.s.sistance from a nurse; the terrors of the journey; the sympathy for my child, who suffered from many ailments and princ.i.p.ally from lack of nourishment, added to the profound fatigue I felt, had reduced my strength to a minimum. I wonder that I lived, but something sustained me, and when we reached Camp Verde the next day, and drew up before Lieutenant O"Connell"s quarters, and saw Mrs. O"Connell"s kind face beaming to welcome us, I felt that here was relief at last.
The tall Alsatian handed the pappoose cradle to Mrs. O"Connell.
"Gracious goodness! what is this?" cried the bewildered woman; "surely it cannot be your baby! You haven"t turned entirely Indian, have you, amongst those wild Apaches?"
I felt sorry I had not taken him out of the basket before we arrived. I did not realize the impression it would make at Camp Verde. After all, they did not know anything about our life at Apache, or our rough travels to get back from there. Here were lace-curtained windows, well-dressed women, smart uniforms, and, in fact, civilization, compared with what we had left.
The women of the post gathered around the broad piazza, to see the wonder. But when they saw the poor little wan face, the blue eyes which looked sadly out at them from this rude cradle, the linen bandages covering the back of the head, they did not laugh any more, but took him and ministered to him, as only kind women can minister to a sick baby.
There was not much rest, however, for we had to sort and rearrange our things, and dress ourselves properly. (Oh! the luxury of a room and a tub, after that journey!) Jack put on his best uniform, and there was no end of visiting, in spite of the heat, which was considerable even at that early date in May. The day there would have been pleasant enough but for my wretched condition.
The next morning we set out for Fort Whipple, making a long day"s march, and arriving late in the evening. The wife of the Quartermaster, a total stranger to me, received us, and before we had time to exchange the usual social plat.i.tudes, she gave one look at the baby, and put an end to any such attempts. "You have a sick child; give him to me;" then I told her some things, and she said: "I wonder he is alive." Then she took him under her charge and declared we should not leave her house until he was well again. She understood all about nursing, and day by day, under her good care, and Doctor Henry Lippincott"s skilful treatment, I saw my baby brought back to life again. Can I ever forget Mrs. Aldrich"s blessed kindness?
Up to then, I had taken no interest in Camp MacDowell, where was stationed the company into which my husband was promoted. I knew it was somewhere in the southern part of the Territory, and isolated. The present was enough. I was meeting my old Fort Russell friends, and under Doctor Lippincott"s good care I was getting back a measure of strength.
Camp MacDowell was not yet a reality to me.
We met again Colonel Wilkins and Mrs. Wilkins and Carrie, and Mrs.
Wilkins thanked me for bringing her daughter alive out of those wilds.
Poor girl; "twas but a few months when we heard of her death, at the birth of her second child. I have always thought her death was caused by the long hard journey from Apache to Whipple, for Nature never intended women to go through what we went through, on that memorable journey by Stoneman"s Lake.
There I met again Captain Porter, and I asked him if he had progressed any in his courtship, and he, being very much embarra.s.sed, said he did not know, but if patient waiting was of any avail, he believed he might win his bride.
After we had been at Whipple a few days, Jack came in and remarked casually to Lieutenant Aldrich, "Well, I heard Bernard has asked to be relieved from Ehrenberg.
"What!" I said, "the lonely man down there on the river--the prisoner of Chillon--the silent one? Well, they are going to relieve him, of course?"
"Why, yes," said Jack, falteringly, "if they can get anyone to take his place."
"Can"t they order some one?" I inquired.
"Of course they can," he replied, and then, turning towards the window, he ventured: "The fact is Martha, I"ve been offered it, and am thinking it over." (The real truth was, that he had applied for it, thinking it possessed great advantages over Camp MacDowell. )
"What! do I hear aright? Have your senses left you? Are you crazy?
Are you going to take me to that awful place? Why, Jack, I should die there!"
"Now, Martha, be reasonable; listen to me, and if you really decide against it, I"ll throw up the detail. But don"t you see, we shall be right on the river, the boat comes up every fortnight or so, you can jump aboard and go up to San Francisco." (Oh, how alluring that sounded to my ears!) "Why, it"s no trouble to get out of Arizona from Ehrenberg.
Then, too, I shall be independent, and can do just as I like, and when I like," et caetera, et caetera. "Oh, you"ll be making the greatest mistake, if you decide against it. As for MacDowell, it"s a h.e.l.l of a place, down there in the South; and you never will be able to go back East with the baby, if we once get settled down there. Why, it"s a good fifteen days from the river."
And so he piled up the arguments in favor of Ehrenberg, saying finally, "You need not stop a day there. If the boat happens to be up, you can jump right aboard and start at once down river."
All the discomforts of the voyage on the "Newbern," and the memory of those long days spent on the river steamer in August had paled before my recent experiences. I flew, in imagination, to the deck of the "Gila,"
and to good Captain Mellon, who would take me and my child out of that wretched Territory.
"Yes, yes, let us go then," I cried; for here came in my inexperience. I thought I was choosing the lesser evil, and I knew that Jack believed it to be so, and also that he had set his heart upon Ehrenberg, for reasons known only to the understanding of a military man.
So it was decided to take the Ehrenberg detail.
CHAPTER XVII. THE COLORADO DESERT
Some serpents slid from out the gra.s.s That grew in tufts by shattered stone, Then hid below some broken ma.s.s Of ruins older than the East, That Time had eaten, as a bone Is eaten by some savage beast.
Great dull-eyed rattlesnakes--they lay All loathsome, yellow-skinned, and slept Coiled tight as pine knots in the sun, With flat heads through the centre run; Then struck out sharp, then rattling crept Flat-bellied down the dusty way.
--JOAQUIN MILLER.
At the end of a week, we started forth for Ehrenberg. Our escort was now sent back to Camp Apache, and the Baileys remained at Fort Whipple, so our outfit consisted of one ambulance and one army wagon. One or two soldiers went along, to help with the teams and the camp.
We travelled two days over a semi-civilized country, and found quite comfortable ranches where we spent the nights. The greatest luxury was fresh milk, and we enjoyed that at these ranches in Skull Valley. They kept American cows, and supplied Whipple Barracks with milk and b.u.t.ter.
We drank, and drank, and drank again, and carried a jugful to our bedside. The third day brought us to Cullen"s ranch, at the edge of the desert. Mrs. Cullen was a Mexican woman and had a little boy named Daniel; she cooked us a delicious supper of stewed chicken, and fried eggs, and good bread, and then she put our boy to bed in Daniel"s crib.
I felt so grateful to her; and with a return of physical comfort, I began to think that life, after all, might be worth the living.
Hopefully and cheerfully the next morning we entered the vast Colorado desert. This was verily the desert, more like the desert which our imagination pictures, than the one we had crossed in September from Mojave. It seemed so white, so bare, so endless, and so still; irreclaimable, eternal, like Death itself. The stillness was appalling.
We saw great numbers of lizards darting about like lightning; they were nearly as white as the sand itself, and sat up on their hind legs and looked at us with their pretty, beady black eyes. It seemed very far off from everywhere and everybody, this desert--but I knew there was a camp somewhere awaiting us, and our mules trotted patiently on. Towards noon they began to raise their heads and sniff the air; they knew that water was near. They quickened their pace, and we soon drew up before a large wooden structure. There were no trees nor gra.s.s around it. A Mexican worked the machinery with the aid of a mule, and water was bought for our twelve animals, at so much per head. The place was called Mesquite Wells; the man dwelt alone in his desolation, with no living being except his mule for company. How could he endure it! I was not able, even faintly, to comprehend it; I had not lived long enough. He occupied a small hut, and there he staid, year in and year out, selling water to the pa.s.sing traveller; and I fancy that travellers were not so frequent at Mesquite Wells a quarter of a century ago.
The thought of that hermit and his dreary surroundings filled my mind for a long time after we drove away, and it was only when we halted and a soldier got down to kill a great rattlesnake near the ambulance, that my thoughts were diverted. The man brought the rattles to us and the new toy served to amuse my little son.
At night we arrived at Desert Station. There was a good ranch there, kept by Hunt and Dudley, Englishmen, I believe. I did not see them, but I wondered who they were and why they staid in such a place. They were absent at the time; perhaps they had mines or something of the sort to look after. One is always imagining things about people who live in such extraordinary places. At all events, whatever Messrs. Hunt and Dudley were doing down there, their ranch was clean and attractive, which was more than could be said of the place where we stopped the next night, a place called Tyson"s Wells. We slept in our tent that night, for of all places on the earth a poorly kept ranch in Arizona is the most melancholy and uninviting. It reeks of everything unclean, morally and physically. Owen Wister has described such a place in his delightful story, where the young tenderfoot dances for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the old habitues.
One more day"s travel across the desert brought us to our El Dorado.
CHAPTER XVIII. EHRENBERG ON THE COLORADO