by Lou Cameron
Caldwell stared down at the Indians on the flat, and as if to prove the scout’s words, he saw they were building cooking fires and making themselves comfortable. Many of them had spread blanket sun-shades on lance poles driven into the clay, and the women seemed to be feeding some of the ponies from baskets of nondescript fodder. He said, “If we can’t get to the creek for water, at least we can keep them back from … ” and then his voice trailed off as he saw how foolish his first thought on the subject had been. The water soaking into the playa inside the Indians’ lines was brackish, true enough, but there was nothing to prevent them from simply going around his position out of range and drawing sweet water from further up the stream to the east. For the first time, he saw clearly just what a fix he’d led his people into.
To the scout, he said, “Maybe we will have to run for it before they have us completely surrounded.”
Greenberg shrugged. “Too late. They likely have already. No tellin’ how many of ’em there is now ahint them other rises all around. We’uns has the highest ground hereabouts, but it only takes a three-foot swell in the ground to hide most Injuns, and whilst that country out yonder looks dead flat, it ain’t.”
“Come now. I can see most of the band out there as plain as day.”
“I know. It’s the Apache you cain’t see as does you in most times.”
Caldwell shrugged and asked, “In other words, we just sit here and wait? You can’t think of anything else we might do?”
“If I could, I’da said it. I don’t cotton to gittin’ run over by Apache any more’n you do.”
The long morning wore on without further incident, to be followed by an afternoon distinguished only by heat, thirst, and the musty taste of fear in the mouth of everyone trapped on the rise. The sun was in their eyes now as they watched and waited for the Apache to make their next move. But nothing happened. If the Indians had sent anyone upstream for water, they’d done it surreptitiously by circling out of sight of their intended victims atop the mound. The patrol members were beginning to suffer eyestrain in the tricky desert light. The near horizon shimmered, and the center of the playa to their west seemed to be filling up with ghostly water, as if the long-dead lake were coming back to life. As if to add a cutting edge to the thirst they felt on Caldwell’s limited water ration, the mirage that afternoon outdid itself in realism. The heat was broken from time to time as another cloud passed over, adding to the surreal quality of the desert light. The drifting clouds cast shadows black as ink in contrast to the dazzle of the sun-baked clay, and it was hard at times to be sure that nothing crept across the desert floor at you but empty shadow.
On the north side of the circle, Corporal Muller watched the two dead Indians in the creek for quite some time before he realized they were moving. He blinked and peered harder at the bodies, half awash in running water. Then he licked his dry lips and said, “Hey, them Injuns we shot are moving! I know they’re both dead, but they’re sort of creepin’ to the west. The current must be doin’ it. I think that creek down there is startin’ to rise.”
“Thunder on the mountains,” said Digger Greenberg. The man next to him muttered, “Hey, watch that danged spitting, Mr. Greenberg.”
The scout said, “I didn’t spit. I ain’t been able to spit fer a coon’s age,” but the injured trooper, Mulvany, insisted, “Sure you did. Right on me hand it was, and I’ll not be after tellin’ you again. I’m a peaceful man from Mayo, but I’ll not be spit on like a gaboon!”
“You’re loco,” muttered the scout as another man protested, “Damn it! Somebody just spit on me!”
Matt Caldwell half turned and said, “All right, let’s not have any more of this horseplay. Save your schoolboy pranks for those Indians down there!”
Then something wet plopped against his left wrist. Another great gob of liquid spattered on the barrel of his carbine, and Caldwell gasped, “I’ll be God damned —sorry, ladies—but it’s raining!”
The others laughed in surprise as other drops began to patter down, and Greenberg said, “It happens out here sometimes. ’Bout once ever’ ten or twenty years.”
The men looked up at the gray clouds drifting over them from the southwest, and some began to laugh while others took off their hats to catch what coolth this unusual desert weather might provide for the moment.
Down on the flat, the Indians were staring up, open-mouthed, at the darkening sky as suddenly a bolt of lightning flashed between the clouds. Another flash, much closer, answered, and without further warning, the rain was coming down in lashing solid sheets.
“Mind you keep your cartridges dry!” shouted Caldwell as the rain came down in a tropical torrent, soaking them all to the skin in less than a minute. The sky was getting darker, and the water in the braided stream was growling like some great prehistoric beast as it began to remember its former station in life as a great river. Someone shouted, “Jesus, it’s a regular gully-washin’ cloudburst!” and another shouted back, “Thanks for tellin’ us. We never woulda figured that out for our ownselves!”
The wind began to pick up as the sheets of rainwater swept to and fro across the playa. The lightning was a nearly constant cannonade, and somewhere a woman was screaming. Matt Caldwell stared out from under his dripping hat brim for a long, long time before he crawled over to Greenberg, nudged the scout for attention, and shouted. “I never heard of a mirage when the sun wasn’t shining, have you?”
The scout stared soberly out at the spreading shallow lake to their west and nodded as he opined, “That ain’t no mirage. It’s real. The goddamn lake is filling up!”
The Indians from their lower vantage point took only a few more minutes to become aware of what was happening. Hurriedly, they began to dismantle their camp, pack their ponies, and start looking for high ground. The nearest high ground, of course, was occupied by the camel patrol. Somebody yelled, “Sweet Jesus, here they come!” as man, woman, and child, Kaya-Tenay’s entire band, came up the gentle slope at them!
“Fire at will!” shouted Caldwell as, suiting action to his word, he brought the nearest pony down with a well-placed ball. The trooper next to him finished the rider, and neither commented on the fact that the rider had been a squaw. Cho-Ko-Ley, wife of Kaya-Tenay, had led the desperate charge with a Nadene lance in her upraised hand.
The others kept coming, and shot after desperate shot echoed the louder thunder of the fall rains. The top of the mound was enveloped in a small cloud of its own as gunsmoke made it difficult to see just what was happening. A dim figure dove headfirst over Greenberg’s camel and landed dead on Mulvany’s boot heels. A screaming man named Naiche loomed above Caldwell as the officer desperately reloaded his spent six-gun with a fresh cylinder. He never knew how close a call he’d had as his camel, Fatima, reacted to the frightening screams by stretching out her long neck and biting the Indian’s face off with her big green teeth.
The ragged fire died as bewildered men searched for new targets in the smoke and torrential rain. The wind swept Corporal Muller’s field of vision clear for a moment, and the noncom gasped, “Good God!” as he caught a glimpse of the area once occupied by a gentle braided stream. The creek was no longer there. In its place roared a brown and muddy river at least five miles across! As the last of the smoke drifted away, the men of the patrol saw they were no longer on a rise in the desert floor. They were on a slowly shrinking island, surrounded by a vast, rising lake!
Here and there, a frightened pony swam in circles or a human head bobbed above the swirling brown waves. The current was carrying them out to deeper water. There were not that many, for few Nadene knew how to swim. Somebody gasped, “Sweet Jesus! What happened to all them Injuns?” and Digger Greenberg spit again to reply quite calmly, “I tolt you, ever’ once in a while it rains out here.”
It would take the nameless lake several years to dry up again, but in only a few days the waters around what they’d remember as “Caldwell’s Island” had fallen enough for the long-legged camels to
ford them to the higher ground to their east.
The trip back to Fort Havasu was easy and without incident. Matt Caldwell had learned to live with Fatima’s constant stink and stubborn disposition and, having come to know the Great American Desert firsthand, respected his camel for what she was, the best possible mount for policing the arid lands between the Pecos and the coastal ranges of California.
Captain Calvin Lodge was of a different opinion.
It was the morning after the patrol had returned, with the captives rescued and the renegade Apache eliminated, that the captain called Matt Caldwell to his office for a private conference. He waved his junior officer to a seat, offered him a cigar, and then hooked his rump over one corner of his desk, saying, “I’ve been going over your report. It seems pretty fantastic, but I suppose you wouldn’t want to change any of it.”
Caldwell lit up, blew a thoughtful smoke ring, and asked, “What’s in there that you don’t agree with, Captain? It all happened pretty much as I wrote it down last night.”
“Oh, I’m going to write you up for a commendation, Caldwell. The Ungers are safe and sound and on their way to California. You wiped out Diablito and you never lost a man. It was a brilliant action, brilliantly conducted,”
“I owe a lot to Greenberg and his Indian, sir, and of course, we couldn’t have done it without the camels. High Jolly should be written up for the job he did, too.”
Lodge looked uncomfortable. “I’m putting Greenberg and the Digger in for a bonus. High Jolly will be leaving us. He’s expressed a desire to become an American citizen and I’ve expedited it. We’re seeing about letting him claim some land along the Gila, and, well, High Jolly will be taken care of.”
“I’m sure he’ll be pleased, sir. Who’ll be taking over in his place?”
“Nobody. The camels are being phased out. The new Secretary of War has decided the fool experiment was a waste of the taxpayers’ money.”
“Sir, that’s just not true! Why, without those camels ... Did you say new Secretary of War, sir?”
“Yes. Jefferson Davis has been fired. Even a wishy-washy half-ass like Buchanan has a little sense, and the rascal was just pushing his Slavocrat conspiracy too damned far. The President finally had to ask for his resignation, and Davis has gone back to Mississippi to rant and rave about his damned states’ rights. You, uh, can see where this leaves us on the matter of his camel nonsense, can’t you?”
“I’m not sure I can, sir. I’m against most everything Jeff Davis stands for, but to give the devil his due … ”
“We don’t give the devil shit when he’s an outspoken enemy of the Union, Mister!”
“Well, what do you want me to say, Captain? That I never found the camel patrol concept useful? I mean, damn it, we just wiped out a whole band of Apache with ...”
“Horses, Mister! You rode Diablito down with U.S. Army Issue horses, and I want you to remember that when you, uh, go over your report a second time.”
Caldwell shook his head. “I can’t be party to a lie, sir. I can see why Jeff Davis’s enemies in Congress want to make a laughing stock out of him, but...”
“All right, let’s try it another way. Let’s say you simply refer to what you and your men rode on as, well, mounts. That would leave your honor clean and satisfy a lot of people in Washington at the same time.”
“I guess it would, sir, but if I tell it like it happened, a lot of people are sure going to think we have great horses in our army. I mean, damn it, we drove them nearly a week without food or water and … ”
“I knew you’d see it my way,” the captain cut in, putting a friendly hand on Matt’s shoulder as he added, “There’ll be citations and promotions for your men, and you do want to help preserve the Union from Davis and those Secessionist madmen of his, don’t you?”
“I guess I do, sir.”
“Good. I’ll tell you what, Lieutenant: suppose I write up the report the way, uh, certain people would like to have it written, and you can just sign it.”
“If you think it’ll discredit the wild ideas of Jefferson Davis, sir, I suppose I have no other choice.”
Captain Lodge slapped him on the back and stood up, saying, “I’ll get right on it, Matt.”
Matt Caldwell got up, too, and walked over to the window. Outside, Fatima kneeled in the dust, chewing her cud and burbling contentedly in the hot sun. Caldwell wondered what would become of her and the others, and if anyone, ever, would remember the U.S. Camel Corps.
Afterword
In all, the U.S. War Department had purchased nearly a hundred camels in two shipments. When the War between the States broke out, some few dozen were still being kept at remote army posts, neglected and despised as the foolish experiment of the crank former Secretary of War and, to the army, traitor to the Union.
In the irregular guerrilla fighting of the Southwest, some few camels were used as pack animals by both Union and Confederate forces. By the end of hostilities, most had been killed by neglect, butchered for dog food, or simply turned loose to forage for themselves as best they could. Many would seem to have been killed by Indians. Others survived in the rugged dry lands and managed to reproduce themselves for a few generations. Wild camels have been reported as late as the 1940s in the Basin and Range country. Some people still think there are wild camels in the Mojave, and naturalists see no reason why they couldn’t be right.
Hadj Ali (High Jolly) lived to a ripe old age as an Arizona rancher. He married an American girl and founded the Jolly family of the Phoenix area. His grave has been designated a Historical Monument.
The Scalp Hunter
Robert E. Howard
The reason I am giving the full facts of this here affair is to refute a lot of rumors which is circulating about me. I am sick and tired of these lies about me terrorizing the town of Grizzly Claw and ruining their wagon-yard just for spite and trying to murder all their leading citizens. They is more’n one side to anything. These folks which is going around telling about me knocking the mayor of Grizzly Claw down a flight of steps with a kitchen stove ain’t yet added that the mayor was trying to blast me with a sawed-off shotgun. As for saying that all I done was with malice afore-thought—if I was a hot-headed man like some I know, I could easy lose my temper over this here slander, but being shy and retiring by nature, I keeps my dignity and merely remarks that these gossipers is blamed liars, and I will kick the ears off of them if I catch them.
I warn’t even going to Grizzly Claw in the first place. I’m kind of particular where I go to. I’d been in the settlements along Wild River for several weeks, tending to my own business, and I was headed for Pistol Mountain, when I seen “Tunk” Willoughby setting on a log at the forks where the trail to Grizzly Claw splits off of the Pistol Mountain road. Tunk ain’t got no more sense than the law allows anyway, and now he looked plumb discouraged. He had a mangled ear, a couple of black eyes, and a lump on his head so big his hat wouldn’t fit. From time to time he spit out a tooth.
I pulled up Cap’n Kidd and said: “What kind of a brawl have you been into?”
“I been to Grizzly Claw,” he said, just like that explained it. But I didn’t get the drift, because I hadn’t never been to Grizzly Claw.
“That’s the meanest town in these mountains,” he said. “They ain’t got no real law there, but they got a feller which claims to be a officer, and if you so much as spit, he says you bust a law and has got to pay a fine. If you puts up a holler, the citizens comes to his assistance. You see what happened to me. I never found out just what law I was supposed to broke,” Tunk said, “but it must of been one they was particular fond of. I give ’em a good fight as long as they confined theirselves to rocks and gun butts, but when they interjuiced fence rails and wagon-tongues into the fray, I give up the ghost.”
“What you go there for, anyhow?” I demanded.
“Well,” he said, mopping off some dried blood, “I was lookin’ for you. Three or four days ago I was in the vicinity of Bear Cree
k, and yore cousin Jack Gordon told me somethin’ to tell you.”
Him showing no sign of going on, I said: “Well, what was it?”
“I cain’t remember,” he said. “That lammin’ they gimme in Grizzly Claw has plumb addled my brains. Jack told me to tell you to keep a sharp lookout for somebody, but I cain’t remember who, or why. But somebody had did somethin’ awful to somebody on Bear Creek—seems like it was yore Uncle Jeppard Grimes.”
“But why did you go to Grizzly Claw?” I demanded. “I warn’t there.”
“I dunno,” he said. “Seems like the feller which Jack wanted you to get was from Grizzly Claw, or was supposed to go there, or somethin’.”
“A great help you be!” I said in disgust. “Here somebody has went and wronged one of my kinfolks, maybe, and you forgets the details. Try to remember the name of the feller, anyway. If I knew who he was, I could lay him out, and then find out what he did later on. Think, can’t you?”
“Did you ever have a wagon-tongue busted over yore head?” he said. “I tell you, it’s just right recent that I remembered my own name. It was all I could do to rekernize you just now. If you’ll come back in a couple of days, maybe by then I’ll remember what all Jack told me.”
I give a snort of disgust and turned off the road and headed up the trail for Grizzly Claw. I thought maybe I could learn something there. If somebody had done dirt to Uncle Jeppard, I wanted to know it. Us Bear Creek folks may fight amongst ourselves, but we stands for no stranger to impose on any one of us. Uncle Jeppard was about as old as the Humbolt Mountains, and he’d fit Indians for a living in his younger days. He was still a tough old knot. Anybody that could do him a wrong and get away with it, sure wasn’t no ordinary man, so it wasn’t no wonder that word had been sent out for me to get on his trail. And now I hadn’t no idea who to look for, or why, just because of Tunk Willoughby’s weak skull. I despise these here egg-headed weaklings.
