Tonio, Son of the Sierras: A Story of the Apache War

by Charles King

  Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttps://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from imagesgenerously made available by The Internet Archive/AmericanLibraries.)

  Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been correctedwithout note. Dialect spellings, contractions and discrepancies havebeen retained.

  Tonio, Son of the Sierras, erect and slender. _Frontispiece_]

  TONIO

  SON OF THE SIERRAS

  _A Story of the Apache War_

  By

  GENERAL CHARLES KING

  AUTHOR OF

  "NORMAN HOLT," "THE IRON BRIGADE,""THE COLONEL'S DAUGHTER,""A DAUGHTER OF THE SIOUX," ETC.

  Illustrations by

  CHARLES J. POST

  G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANYPUBLISHERS NEW YORK

  Copyright, 1906, by

  G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY

  _Entered at Stationers' Hall, London__All rights reserved_

  Issued June, 1906.

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  PAGE

  Tonio, Son of the Sierras, erect and slender _Frontispiece_ 8

  Scrambling down the adjacent slope every man for himself 81

  "Keep watch now all around, especially east and southeast" 175

  "They've opened on Case and Clancy" 188

  TONIO

  SON OF THE SIERRAS

  CHAPTER I.

  "Does it never rain here?" asked the Latest Arrival, with sudden shiftof the matter under discussion.

  "How is that, Bentley?" said the officer addressed to the seniorpresent, the surgeon. "You've been here longest."

  "Don't know, I'm sure," was the languid answer. "I've only been herethree years. Try 'Tonio there. He was born hereabouts."

  So the eyes of the six men turned to the indicated authority, an Apacheof uncertain age. He looked to be forty and might be nearer sixty. Hestood five feet ten in his tiptoed moccasins, and weighed less thanlittle Harris, who could not touch the beam at five feet five. Harriswas the light weight of the --th Cavalry, in physique, at least, andby no means proud of the distinction. To offset the handicap of lack ofstature and weight, and of almost cat-like elasticity of frame andmovement, he saw fit to cultivate a deliberation and dignity of mannerthat in his cadet days had started the sobriquet of "Heavy," lateraltered to "Hefty"; and Hefty Harris he was to the very hour this storyopens--a junior first lieutenant with four years' record of stirringservice in the far West, in days when the telegraph had not yet strungthe Arizona deserts, and the railway was undreamed of. He had only justreturned to the post from a ten days' scout, 'Tonio, the Apache, beinghis chief trailer and chosen companion on this as on many a previoustrip. The two made an odd combination, having little in common beyondthat imperturbable self-poise and dignity. The two elsewhere had metwith marked success in "locating" _rancherias_ of the hostile bands,and in following and finding marauding parties. The two were lookedupon in southern Arizona as "the best in the business," and now,because other leaders had tried much and accomplished little, it hadpleased the general commanding the Division of the Pacific to say tohis subordinate, the general commanding the Department of Arizona, thatas the "Tonto" Apaches and their fellows of the Sierra Blanca seemedtoo wily for his scouting parties sent out from Whipple Barracks, andthe valley garrisons of McDowell and Verde, it might be well to detachLieutenant Harris from his troop at old Camp Bowie and send him, with'Tonio, to report to the commanding officer at Camp Almy.

  Now the commanding general of Arizona had thought of that projecthimself, and rejected it for two reasons: first, that the officers andmen on duty at Almy would possibly take it as a reflection; second,that 'Tonio would probably take it as an affront to himself. 'Tonio, beit understood, was of the Apache Mohave tribe, whose hunting groundshad long been the upper Verde and adjacent mountains. 'Tonio had noscruples as to scouting and shooting Chiricahuas and Sierra Blancas orthe roving bands of Yaquis that sometimes ventured across the "GadsdenPurchase" from Mexico. 'Tonio had done vengeful work among thesefellows. But now he was brought face to face with a far differentproposition. The renegades of northern Arizona in the earliest of theseventies were mainly Tontos, but many a young brave of the ApacheMohave tribe had cast his lot with them. Many had taken their women andchildren, and 'Tonio would be hunting, possibly, his own flesh andblood. The junior general had ventured to remonstrate by letter, evenwhen issuing the order indicated, but the senior stood to hisprerogative with a tenacity that set the junior's teeth on edge, andstarted territorial and unbecoming comparisons between the divisioncommander's firmness on the fighting line a decade earlier, and farbehind it now. San Francisco was perhaps five hundred miles from thescene of hostilities, and those farthest away seldom fail to seeclearer than those on the spot, and to think they know better, soHarris and his dusky henchman came up to Almy with little by way ofwelcome, and back from their first scout with nothing by way of result.Therefore, the sextette of officers that had been but lukewarm at thestart became lavish in cordiality at the close. The failure of Harris,the favorite of the chieftain of the big Division, meant that nofurther criticism could attach to them. If Harris could accomplishnothing worth mention, what could be expected of others?

  Therefore, while awaiting the return of the courier sent up toPrescott, with report of what Harris had not accomplished, and askinginstructions as to what the gentleman would have next, the commandingofficer of the old post, built by California volunteers during theCivil War and garrisoned later by reluctant regulars, set a goodexample to his subordinates by doing his best to console the "casuals,"as visitors were officially rated, and his subordinates loyallyfollowed suit.

  But Harris seemed unresponsive. Harris seemed almost sulky. Harris hadadded silence to dignity, and spent long hours of a sunny day sprawledin a hammock, smoking his pipe and studying 'Tonio, who squatted in theshade at the end of the narrow porch of the old officers' messbuilding, still more silent and absorbed than his young commander.

  And this was the condition of things when the Latest Arrival appearedon the scene, fresh from head-quarters, some ninety miles northwest andtwo thousand feet higher. He had come late the previous afternoon. Hehad skated down the flinty scarp of Misery Hill, with the wheels of hisbuckboard locked, and hauled up at the adjutant's in a cloud of dustand misapprehension, with barely time for a bath and a shave beforedinner. He was a new aide-de-camp of the department commander. He hadserved him well and won his notice on Indian campaigns afar to thenorth in the Columbia valley, where gum boots and slickers were asindispensable as here they were superfluous. He had never been, hesaid, so dry in his life as when he scrambled from his mud-coloredchariot to the steps of the official residence. The temporal wants hadbeen spiritually removed, but not the impression. Now, some eighteenhours later, he wished to know if it never rained at Almy, and therewas no white man could tell him. So, one and all, they looked to'Tonio, whose earliest recollections were of the immediateneighborhood.

  And 'Tonio proved a reluctant witness. Urged by Stannard, the seniorcaptain referred to, Harris put the question in "Pidgin" Apache, and'Tonio, squatting still, gazed dreamily away toward the huge bulwark ofSquadron Peak, and waited for respectful cessation of all talk beforehe would answer.

  At last he rose to his full height and, with a sweeping gesture thelength of his arm, pointed to the domelike summit, dazzling in theslant of the evening sunshine, that seemingly overhung the dun-coloredadobe corrals on the flats to the south, yet stood full five milesaway. 'Tonio so seldo
m opened his lips to speak that the six menlistened with attention they seldom gave to one another. Yet what'Tonio said was translatable only by Harris:

  "When the picacho hides his head in the clouds, then look for rain."

  "Lord," said the doctor, "I doubt if ever I've seen a cloud aboveit--much less on it! If it weren't for the creek yonder the whole postwould shrivel up and blow away. Even the hygrometer's dead ofdisuse--or dry rot. But, talk of drying up, did you ever see the beatof him?" and the doctor was studying anatomy as displayed in thisparticular Apache.

  Five feet ten 'Tonio stood before them, not counting the thatch of hismatted black hair, bound with white cotton turban. Five feet ten inheight, but so gaunt and wiry that the ribs and bones seemed breakingthrough the tawny skin, that in flank and waist and the long sweep ofhis sinewy, fleshless legs, he rivalled the greyhound sprawled at hisfeet. "'Tonio has not half an ounce of fat in his hide," said Harris,in explaining his tireless work on the trail. "'Tonio can go sixtymiles without a gulp of water and come out fresh as a daisy at theend." 'Tonio's eminently fit condition had been something Harris everheld in envy and emulation, yet on this recent scout even 'Tonio hadfailed him. 'Tonio had complained. To look at him as he stood therenow, erect, slender, with deep chest and long, lank arms and legs,trammelled only by the white cotton breechclout that looped over thewaist belt and trailed, fore and aft, below the bony knee, his back andshoulders covered by white _camisa_ unfastened at the throat andchest, his feet cased in deerskin moccasins, the long leggings of whichhung in folds at the ankles, one could liken him only to thecoyote--the half-famished wolf of the sage plain and barren, for eventhe greyhound knew thirst and fatigue,--knew how to stretch at fulllength and luxury in the shade, whereas 'Tonio, by day at least, stoodor squatted. Never in all their long prowlings, by day or night, amongthe arid deserts or desolate ranges along the border, had Harris knownhis chief trailer and scout to hint at such a thing as weariness. Yet,within the week gone by, thrice had he declared himself unable to gofarther. Did it mean that at last 'Tonio would purposely fail him, nowthat there were some of his own people among the renegades?

  'Tonio had stoutly denied such a weakness. The few young men with thehostiles, said he, were more Tonto than Mohave--fools who had offendedtheir brothers and dishonored their tribe. Chiefs, medicine men, eventhe women, he said, disowned them. The braves would kill, and the womenspurn, them on sight. 'Tonio pointed to the "hound" scouts with theVerde company--Hualpais, some of them--splendid specimens from themountains; Apache Yumas, some of them, not quite the peer of theHualpais; but many of them--most of them, in fact--Apache Mohaves,fiercest, surest trailers of the wild Red Rock country, familiar withevery canon and crag in all the rude range from Snow Lake to the SierraBlanca. "All brothers," protested 'Tonio. "All soldiers. All braves,unafraid of a thousand Tontos, eager only to meet and punish theirtraitor fellows who had taken the White Chief's pay and bread, pledgedtheir best services and then gone renegading to the fastnesses of theMogollon," adding with scorn unspeakable, "taking _other_ women withthem."

  And still Harris was not content. Harris had sent a runner back whenthe scout was but half finished, with a note to be relayed to Prescott,to tell the general of his ill success and his evil suspicions, and thechief being himself out a-hunting, what did his chief of staff do butorder the Newly Arrived down to Almy to meet the home-coming party andsee for himself--and his general!

  And of all men chosen to meddle in matters concerning "Hefty" Harris,perhaps the latest suitable, in some ways, was his classmate andcomrade lieutenant, though in different arms of the service--HalWillett of "The Lost and Strayed," so called from the fact that theyhad been sent to desert wilds in '65, scattered over three territories,and despite some hard fighting and many hard knocks, had never, saidtheir detractors, been heard from since.

  Rivals they had been in cadet days and more than one pursuit. Rivalsthey still were in the field of arms, for the name Harris had won forhimself in Arizona Willett had matched in the Columbia, and now, freshfrom the ill-starred campaign of the Lava Beds, was one of the few mento get something better than hard knocks, censure and criticism. Untilthe previous evening, not since the day they parted at West Point hadthey set eyes one on the other, and, knowing nothing of what had gonebefore and never dreaming of what would come to pass, a benightedbureau officer had sent the one down to find out what was the matterwith the other.

  And thereby hangs this tale.

  For, as luck would have it, there was even then stationed in thatfar-away land a luckless lieutenant-colonel of infantry who had startedwith good prospects in the Civil War, had early been given command of abrigade of volunteers and within the month had had his raw concourse ofundrilled, undisciplined levies swept from under him in the firstfierce onset at Shiloh. What else could have been expected of men towhom arms had been issued but ten days before, and who had not yetlearned which end to bite from the cartridge? Hurled from his terrifiedhorse, the general had been picked up senseless, to see no more offighting until Stone's River, eight months later, where with a moreseasoned command the same thing happened. And still he persisted, whenwell of an ugly wound, and, while juniors in years and length ofservice were now heading corps and divisions, with double stars ontheir shoulders, and he had to begin again with a brigade, he got intoline for Chickamauga with his usual luck just within range of the fatalgap left by a senior in command--the gap through which poured theimpetuous gray torrent of the Southland--and for the third timeeverything crumbled away in spite of him, while he was left for deadupon the field. He had done his best, as had other men, and had faredonly the worst. It was a case of three times and out. The impatientNorth had no more use for names linked only with disaster. When,finally exchanged, he limped back to duty, they put him on courts,boards and other back-door business until the war was over, then senthim to the Pacific Slope, with the blanket brevet of March, 1865, andhere he was, eight long years thereafter, "The General" by way oftitle, without the command; silver leaves where once gleamed the starson his shoulders; silver streaks where once rippled chestnut and gold;wrinkled of visage and withered in shank; kindly, patient, yetpathetic; "functioning" a four-company post in a far-away desert, withgrim mountain chains on east and west, and waters on every side ofhim, four long weeks and four thousand miles by mail route from home,and much longer by sea; with nothing to do but send out scouts, signpapers, sing an old song or two when the spirit moved him; with not athing in his soldier past to be ashamed of, nothing much in his soldierpresent to rejoice in, nothing whatever in his soldier future to hopefor, finding his companionship in the comrades about him, and hissweetest comfort in the unswerving love of a devoted wife, and theirone unstinted pride and delight, Lilian, their only daughter--theironly surviving child.

  Many of these eight years of what then was exile, while he, at first asa major of foot, was campaigning in regions long since reclaimed fromsavagery, and rusticating at frontier forts long since forgotten,Lilian and her mother had dwelt in lodgings at "The Bay" that the childmight have the advantage of San Francisco's schools. Only once eachyear, until of late, had he been able to visit them, usually atChristmas-tide, but by every runner, courier, stage or post there cameto them his cheery letters, bearing such old-time, outlandishpost-marks or headings as "Lapwai," "Three Forks, Owyhee," and later"Hualpai," or "Hassayampa," until finally it became mild, civilized,pacific, even "Almy."

  The uniform of a general, that the law had let him wear just as long inpeace as had been the war in years, was finally packed in camphoratedhope of resurrection, and the garb of actual rank resumed in 1870. Hecould bear the title _ad infinitum_, but not the sign.

  The silver leaf, as said, had come to replace the worn and tarnishedgold by '73, then mountain fever had seized and laid him by the heels,and then all the Indians in Arizona, or the army women out of it, couldnot dissuade Mrs. Archer from her duty. She and Lilian were theheroines of a buckboard ride from Drum Barracks to the Colorado, fromthe Colorado to Prescott
, from Prescott down through wild and tortuouscanons to and beyond the valley of the Verde--to the wondering eyes ofthe waiting garrison and the welcoming arms of the fond husband andfather at Almy.

  And this was but the week gone by, just before the "Newly Arrived" hadreached Prescott--just before "Hefty" Harris had returned from scout.Not until this very morning--the first since their reunion of thatwarm, yet winter's evening of the previous day--had the two classmatesset eyes on Miss Archer (it was as she rode away by her father's sidefor a canter up the valley), and not until this late afternoon, as thesun was dipping behind the black range of the Mazatzal, did they haveopportunity to speak with her.

  Even as 'Tonio stood, silent and statuesque, while the doctor went onrecord as to the rainfall of the Verde watershed, there came suddenlyinto view, jogging quietly up the winding road from the lower ford,three riders, followed by half a pack of lagging, yapping hounds--"TheOld Man," the maiden and the orderly--and all men on the wooden porchof the unpainted mess building, rose to their feet in deference to theunited "powers above," rank and age, youth and beauty, and presentlythe commander was saying for the benefit of the two new-comers: "Mydaughter, gentlemen. Lilian, Mr. Harris, Mr. Willett."

  Inadvertently he had named them in the inverse order of rank--a smallmatter, though Willett had been promoted to his bar a year ahead ofHarris. Otherwise, it was with a fair field and no favor the old-timerivals of cadet days stood for the first time in the presence of theonly army girl at that moment to be found in the far-flung shadow ofthe Mazatzal--stood side by side, facing both the starter and the prizein what was destined to be the last great contest of their lives.