Tales of Aztlan; The Romance of a Hero of Our Late Spanish-American War, Incidents of Interest from the Life of a Western Pioneer and Other Tales

by George Hartmann

  CHAPTER IX.

  IN ARIZONA

  I left New Mexico with the intention of making Los Angeles in thegolden State my future home, and now, thirty years later, I have notreached there yet. Vainly have I tried to break the thraldom of myfate, for I did not know that here I was to meet face to face with themighty mystery of an ancient cult, the God of a long-forgottencivilization, a psychic power which has ordered my path in life andcontrolled my actions.

  As its servant, at its bidding, I write this, and shall now unfold, andin the course of this narrative give to the world a surprisingrevelation of the power of ancient Aztec idols, which would beincredible in the light of our twentieth century of Christiancivilization if it were not sustained by the evidence of undeniablefacts.

  Our road led through a hilly country toward the Little Colorado River.In the distance loomed the San Francisco Mountains, extinct craterswhich had belched fire and lava long, long ago at the birth of Arizona,when the earth was still in the travail of creation. We forded theLittle Colorado at Sunset Crossing, a lonely colony, where a fewMormons were the only inhabitants of a vast area of wilderness. We wereheaded due west toward a mesa rising abruptly from the plateau which wewere then traversing. This mesa was again capped by a chain of loftypeaks, one of the Mogollon mountain ranges. We ascended the toweringmesa through the difficult Chavez pass, which is named after itsdiscoverer, the noted Mexican, Colonel Francisco Chavez, who may beremembered as a representative in Congress of the United States, forthe Territory of New Mexico. A day's heavy toil brought us to thesummit of the mesa, which was a beautiful place, but unspeakablylonesome. This wonderful highland is a malpais or lava formation anddensely covered with a forest of stately pines and mountain juniper.Strange to say, vegetation thrives incredibly in the rocky lava; aknee-high growth of the most nutritious grama grasses, indigent to thisregion, rippled in the breeze like waves of a golden sea and we sawnumerous signs of deer, antelope, and turkey. Our road, a mere trail,wound over this plateau, which was a veritable impenetrable jungle inplaces, a part of the great Coconino forest. Think and wonder! Anunbroken forest of ten thousand square miles, it is said to be the mostextensive woodland on the face of the globe. This trail was the worstroad to travel I have seen or expect ever to pass over. The wagonsmoved as ships tossed on a stormy sea, chuck! chuck! from boulder toboulder, without intermittence. We found delicious spring water aboutnoon and passed a most remarkable place later in the day. This musthave been the pit of a volcano. A few steps aside from the road youmight lean over the precipice and look straight down into a great,round crater, so deep that it made a person dizzy. At the bottom therewas a ranch house, a small lake and a cultivated field, the whole beingapparently ten acres in area. I looked straight down on a man who waswalking near the house and appeared no larger than a little doll andhis dog seemed to be the size of a grasshopper, but we heard the dogbark and heard the cackling of hens quite plainly. On one side of thispit there was a break in the formation, which made this curious placeaccessible by trail.

  We had been advised that we would find a natural tank of rain water inthe vicinity of this place and camped there at nightfall. We turned ourstock out, but our herders did not find the promised water. Our cookreported that there was not a drop of water in camp, as the spigot ofhis water tank had been loosened by the roughness of the road and allthe water was lost. Now this would have been a matter of smallconsequence if Don Juan had not been taken ill suddenly. He threwhimself on the ground and cried for water. "Agua, por Dios!" (Water,for God's sake) he cried, "or I shall die." "Why, Don Juan," I said,"there is no water here. I advise you to wait till moonrise when thecattle are rested and then leave for the next watering place, which isBeaver Head, at the foot of the mesa; we ought to reach there about teno'clock to-morrow morning. Surely until then you can endure a littlethirst!" "Amiga, I cannot, I am dying," moaned Don Juan, in greatdistress. As I suspected that he had lost his nerve on the Navajoreservation, I felt greatly annoyed, and when he became frantic in hiscries I promised to go down to Beaver Creek to get him a drink ofwater, for I recalled to mind his little daughter who bid me farewellwith these words: "Adios, Senor Americano, I charge you with the careof my padrecito. If you promise me, I know that he will return to mesafely."

  I set out on my long night-walk, stumbling over rocks and boulders inthe darkness. It was a beautiful night, the crisp atmosphere was ladenwith the fragrant exhalation of the nut pines and junipers and therewas not a breath of air stirring. I got down to water at midnight, thetime of moonrise, filled my canteen and started on the return trip.Slowly I reascended the steep mesa, and when I reached the summit I satdown on a rock in a thicket of junipers. The moon had now risen abovethe trees and cast its dim light over an enchanting scene. The sense ofutter loneliness, a homesickness, a feeling of premonition, stole overme, and weirdly I sensed the presence of I knew not what. From theshadows spoke an owl, sadly, anxiously, "Hoo, hoo! Where are you? You!"and his mate answered him tenderly, seductively, "Tee, hee! Come to me!Me!"

  In the west, far, far away, clustered a range of mountains, spread outlike an enormous horse-shoe and in its center arose the form of asolitary hill. In the heavens from the east drifted a white, raggedcloud. The solitary hill seemed to rise high and higher and all themountains bowed before it. The spectral cloud resolved itself into aterrible vision which enveloped the central hill. Great Heavens! AgainI saw the phantom dog and fancied that I heard shrill screams of"Perro, perro, gringo perro!" A crackling noise, a coming shadow, andforward I fell on my face, ever on the alert, ever ready. An unearthlyyell and a great body flew over, fierce claws grazing me. Two balls offire shone in the bush, but my rifle cracked and a great lion fell inits tracks. I expected my companions to meet me soon, coming my way.Instead, I found them, after my all-night's walk, snugly camped where Ihad left them. Don Juan explained that with God's favor they had foundthe water soon after I had left them. He said that they had called loudand long after me, but I did not seem to hear.

  This day we descended the mesa and entered the valley of the VerdeRiver, one of Arizona's permanent water courses. This valley iscultivated for at least forty miles from its source to where it entersprecipitous mountains. We forded the crystal waters of the river atCamp Verde, an army post, and crossed another range of mountains andseveral valleys into a comparatively open country, and on the night ofa day late in November we camped on Lynx Creek, and were then within ahalf day's travel of our destination.