The Wild Girl: The Notebooks of Ned Giles, 1932

by Jim Fergus

  She did not sleep long, and when she awoke in the cave she was fully alert and lay listening for several minutes. She peered cautiously through the opening of the cave, unable to see the ridgetop from her hiding place. If she stayed low and moved carefully, she could conceal her movements behind the rocks. She would certainly hear the old man if he was nearby, for the rattling of the dog’s chain would betray him. Unlike the People, who had moved through this country for centuries as soundlessly as a breath of wind, both the Mexicans and the White Eyes were clumsy and made a great deal of noise when they traveled.

  She slipped from the cave and began working her way toward the arroyo up which the old White Eyes had himself ridden. He would be searching for her in the rocks or keeping to the ridge hoping to intercept her if she came over the top. He would not expect her to double back and pick up his old trail up the arroyo.

  When she reached it, she made her way quickly to the top, running lightly over the rocks, her feet barely seeming to graze the ground as she ran. At the head of the draw she peered carefully over the top, hoping to spot the White Eyes’ mule. And there it stood, dozing in the afternoon sun, head hanging low, eyes hooded, ears laid back, one hobbled front hoof cocked in repose. But in the same moment that she spotted him, the mule sensed her presence, perhaps he smelled her, for he raised his head and pricked his ears forward, his eyes opening wide. He nickered softly in alarm.

  Before giving the mule any more time to worry over the matter, the girl revealed herself to him. She had a great deal of experience with horses, mules and burros, had helped steal them from the Mexicans since the time that she could walk and was one of the best horse thieves in the band. Now she approached the animal quickly and confidently, speaking soothingly to him, as if she had every business being here. He remained vigilant, but relaxed somewhat once he identified the unknown danger as something specific, recognizable—a creature that walked upright on two legs.

  When the girl reached him she took hold of the reins just behind the bit, stroked his chin, and continued speaking in a language unknown to the mule, but in a tone he understood. She held him by the chin, and he raised his head slightly, his nostrils flared as he took in her scent, and then he nuzzled her chest and exhaled a warm humid breath onto her bare skin. Her peace thus made with the mule, she quickly unfastened the hobble, let it fall to the ground, picked up the reins from behind the saddle horn, and in one graceful bound was on his back.

  It was said that Billy Flowers’s bullwhip was at least thirty feet long, and as thick around as a man’s forearm, that the crack of the popper at its end sounded like a clap of thunder, like the voice of God Himself, a sound that drove terror into the hearts of men and beasts alike. And now, before they had taken two steps, it froze the mule, John the Baptist, in place. The second stroke came in what seemed the very next instant, and did not crack like the first, for this one curled over the girl’s shoulder, the force of it pulling her backward off the mule as if plucked from the saddle by a single marionette string. She tumbled to the ground, and before she could regain her feet, Flowers was atop her, his rope in hand to bind her.

  Billy Flowers was unprepared for the girl’s strength and ferocity. She squirmed like a wild panther, biting, scratching, and striking him, her quick slender limbs eluding his grasp. Yet despite his age, Flowers was all muscle and sinew himself. Still, though he had wrestled real panthers, and engaged in hand-to-hand combat with grizzlies, in those cases, he generally had a rifle in hand with which to administer the coup de grâce, or at the very least a knife to plunge into their black hearts. He had never tried to tie one up before.

  The girl struggled ferociously, drawing blood with her bites and scratches, but she was finally no match for the old man, who managed first to bind her arms and then to loop the rope around her head, pulling it tight across her mouth, neutralizing at last the weapon of her teeth. Lastly, he ran the rope down her back, tied her legs, and cinched them up tight. The bound girl lay on her side, breathing heavily, and looking at him with eyes wild and less impassive now, the eyes of a terrified, trapped animal.

  “I do hope you’re not rabid, girl,” Billy Flowers said as he inspected his wounds, his own breathing labored. He considered that he had been lucky the girl’s teeth had not found their way to his throat. “You know, you almost made it,” he added with a grudging respect. “Another few seconds and you’d have been gone. And I’d have been afoot, having lost my best mule. The only reason I caught you was that I got to thinking that I’d made a mistake leaving old John the Baptist all by himself up here. I’ve trailed a lot of varmints across the country over the years, missy, but I’m unaccustomed to following one that could double back and steal my mule. The only mistake you made was not getting here a moment sooner.”

  Billy Flowers picked up his old sweat-stained felt hat, dusted it off on his thigh, and put it back on his head. “And you, John,” he said to the mule. “Shame on you, son. Letting yourself be seduced by this naked heathen child. ‘Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.’ He works in cunning ways and you almost crossed over with him to the dark side. I’ve heard tell that the heathens ride their mounts until they drop from exhaustion beneath them, then cut their throats, carve steaks from their hindquarters, roast them on the fire and feast upon their flesh right then and there. That would have been your fate, John, had I not come back when I did. That’s where Satan was leading you. Straight into the fires of damnation.”

  Now Billy Flowers stood regarding the girl, hog-tied on the ground. He had caught her, that much was certainly true, but the real point of the exercise, he realized now that his blood was settling again, had been the hunt itself. And now he wondered, finally, what in the world he was going to do with her.

  THE NOTEBOOKS OF NED GILES, 1932

  NOTEBOOK II:

  The Great Apache Expedition

  We have always known about the existence of the In’deh in Mexico. It is believed by some that they are the spirits of former warriors and for this reason they are called the ghost people. Those on the reservation are afraid of them. In the old days, young men would sometimes slip away to join them, and they would never be heard from again. And from time to time women or children would disappear. They would vanish in the night; it was said that they had been stolen by the ghost people and taken back down into old Mexico. But no one ever really knew if this was true or not, for no one ever saw these people. They were like ghosts who came and went among us and all feared them.

  FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH JOSEPH VALOR,

  CHIRICAHUA APACHE (24 APRIL, 1932)

  Douglas Daily Dispatch, Ned Giles

  18 APRIL, 1932

  Douglas, Arizona

  Almost two weeks gone by without an entry. Busy with work and preparations for departure … some play … much to report …

  Volunteers for the Great Apache Expedition have continued to flood into Douglas: wealthy men from all over the country, arriving by private motorcar, or in private train cars, bringing, like Tolley Phillips, their strings of polo ponies, their bamboo fly rods, their English double shotguns. Others fly into town in private airplanes. The publicity campaign for the expedition has been successful beyond anyone’s wildest expectations, the committee so inundated with applications that they’ve had to post notices all over town stating that no more volunteers are being accepted. As it is, the town is filled to capacity with a broad cross section of humanity: There are veterans of the Great War, others who served under Pershing during the Mexican revolution, soldiers of fortune, adventurers, cowboys, mule packers, professional hunting guides, and cooks and the less savory element of petty criminals, prostitutes, and sundry border riffraff. There is even a pair of Apache Indian scouts, recruited from the Mescalero Apache reservation in New Mexico, who have been hired to guide the expedition into the Sierra Madre. One is a very old man reported to have scouted for General George Crook in 1883.

  A bustling Hooverville has sprun
g up on the rodeo grounds east of town to accommodate all the new arrivals. This is keeping Chief Gatlin and his deputies busy, as nearly every night there is some kind of disturbance— reports of thefts, fistfights, drunken brawls, gunfire.

  In the afternoons, polo matches are held at the rodeo grounds between the Mexican army regulars and the American volunteers, followed by training sessions in which Colonel Carrillo drills his troops. Tolley plays in these scrimmages, and although he’s not much of a polo player, he’s got good horses and takes great pride in being the best dressed of the competitors. He’s decked out in white leather riding breeches and gleaming brown boots, which he has polished every day at the hotel.

  For my part, I’ve been spending my time learning to shoot the Leica that Wade Jackson has lent me. What a wonderful little camera, light and fast, although of course, I get nothing like the depth and definition with it that I do with my 8×10. Still it’s dandy for newspaper work, and my photographs of the polo matches and expedition preparations are appearing regularly in the Daily Dispatch. Big Wade has been a big help to me. It’s true that he drinks too much, but when he’s sober he’s a real pro. Critical of what he calls “tricked-up art photography” and “photography with a political agenda,” he preaches simplicity in his craft and refers to himself as strictly a “meat-and-potatoes shooter.” Although he is way better than that.

  “How did you ever end up in Douglas, anyway, Big Wade?” I asked him one afternoon when we were drinking a beer together across the border at Las Primorosas.

  “I’ve bounced all over the country, kid,” he said. “I was at the New York Daily News for a few years, the Miami Herald, the Phoenix Gazette … with a few stops in between. It’s been a long bumpy downhill road to the Dog-ass Daily News.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “With that kind of résumé, you could shoot for anyone.”

  “Could have,” he said. “Could have once shot for anyone. Not anymore, kid … my reputation in the business is shit now.” He held up his Mexican beer bottle to the light, peered through the clear glass. “Couldn’t keep away from the hooch. Finally gave up trying and came down here, where a man can walk across the border and have a legal drink.” Jackson signaled for the waiter. “Dos mescals, Miguel, mi amigo, por favor.” And when the shots arrived, he held his glass up to me and said, “Let me serve as a cautionary tale to you, kid,” he said. “It’s the most valuable thing an old rummy can do for a young fellow photog. Take a good look at me. This is not how, or where, you want to end up twenty, thirty years from now. Trust me on that.” And then he downed his shot. “But the best thing about working on the Dog-ass Daily Star,” he said, “other than its proximity to Mexico, is that even a washed-up old drunk like me can do the job.”

  I feel bad for Big Wade and I’m grateful to him for everything he’s done for me. Lucky for him, he has a pretty Mexican girlfriend named Maria, who takes care of him. I don’t know what’s in it for her but she seems to really care about him; she sees that he gets home from the bars every night and that he gets his work done when he needs to, not that the demands of the job are so great.

  With Big Wade’s help, I’ve also been writing short articles about the activities going on in town, and profiles of some of the volunteers. Or at least, I do the research and write the first draft and Wade rewrites it. To tell the truth, I think he’s taking a little advantage of me, having me do a lot of his own work. But I don’t mind.

  One morning last week, the official expedition director of aviation, Spider King, came over to my table in the hotel dining room during breakfast. King is a trick flier who has flown in fairs and air shows all over the country and was brought in especially by the committee to lead the expedition “air force.” He’s a brash, flamboyant fellow who sports aviator goggles and a long flowing white scarf.

  “I have orders to take you up today, Giles,” he said. “I was supposed to take Big Wade, but he begged off, said he was afraid he’d toss his cookies in my plane. Said I should take you instead. Just as well, because I think the big fella might put me over my weight limit. We’re flying down into old Mexico. Meet me at the airfield in an hour. And bring your camera. I have something to show you, and the newspaper is definitely going to want photographs of it.”

  It was a clear, windless morning and we flew due south out of Douglas. It’s the first time I’ve ever been in an airplane, and I have to admit I was a little nervous. But King is one of those fellows whose natural self-confidence inspires trust in others. We flew across the plains of northern Sonora, gaining altitude as we approached the foothills of the Sierra Madre. The overlapping mountain ranges in the distance were hazy with a light morning fog and appeared to run to infinity, stretching south and west as far as the eye could see. Timbered in tall pine, the massive peaks, jagged hogbacks, and steep-tilted rock formations are cut by a labyrinth of canyons and river valleys, a magical land that seems from the air to be pristine, untouched, somehow prehistoric. Spider leaned over to me, grinning, and said, “Now you know how God must have felt when He looked around at what He had made.”

  A bit later, King said, “Hang on,” and the airplane suddenly banked and fell away beneath me, leaving my stomach in the air. We dropped down into a canyon and flew a winding slalom course down the river, so close that you could see the shadows of the airplane cast upon the steep canyon walls; I felt that I could reach out and touch them.

  “Look at that, Ned,” King said, pointing to a series of caves connected by elaborate man-made rock structures at different elevations in the canyon walls, almost like an apartment building. “Those are pre-Columbian cave dwellings, built by an ancient civilization that inhabited this country over a thousand years ago. This is where the expedition is headed. The Mexicans think that the Apaches use them as hideouts. Look carefully and you can see the remains of recent fires in some of them, and what looks like cooking utensils and blankets. I’ll make another pass and get us closer.” King crested the canyon wall, banked the plane sharply, and dropped back down into the canyon. As he did so, I was looking out my side of the plane when I thought I saw something move, a figure in the rocks, and then clearly, just for a flashing moment, I recognized that it was a human being. I felt goose bumps and the hair stood up on the back of my neck. But in the next instant the figure was gone, like an afterimage.

  “Did you see that, Spider?” I said excitedly. “Did you see it?”

  “See what?”

  “I think I saw someone.”

  “Where?”

  “Right back there.”

  “Let’s have a look.”

  Spider banked the plane again and made another pass, but this time we saw nothing, and I began to doubt my own eyes. “Maybe I just imagined it,” I said, “but I could have sworn I saw someone.”

  “You didn’t imagine it,” Spider said. “They’re here.”

  King made a number of passes from different angles so that I could photograph the caves. Having never shot from an airplane before, I found the exposures and focusing tricky, but under the circumstances, some of the images turned out surprisingly well. They had a slightly grainy, mysterious quality, and in one of them, what might have been the figure of a human being crouched in the rocks was visible. The next day, the Daily Dispatch ran this image on the front page, under the headline EXPEDITION LOCATES APACHE HIDEOUT.

  Besides Spider, we have had a few other additions to the staff, including a young woman named Margaret Hawkins, a doctoral student in anthropology at the University of Arizona. Margaret is writing her dissertation on the bronco Apaches, and through the auspices of her department has managed to talk her way into a position as the unofficial expedition anthropologist. “Letting Margaret come along was a shrewd move on the part of the committee,” says Wade Jackson with his typical cynicism. “In case the rich guys actually get a chance to wipe out some Apaches, it allows them the illusion that they are doing so as part of an important scientific study.”

  Margaret herself is a tal
l, long-limbed, graceful woman in her midtwenties. She has short blond hair, a fine athletic figure, a deep rich laugh, and one of those brilliant smiles that makes everyone upon whom it shines feel graced, as if they are the most special person on earth. A number of the men, both among the volunteers and the staff alike, have already fallen in love with her. I interviewed and photographed her for the newspaper when she first arrived and she and I became friends right off in that easy, uncomplicated way that sometimes happens.

  As often as I am able, I cross the border and expose film in Mexico. What a vibrant country, full of life, energy, and color. The street urchin, Jesus, whom Tolley and I met on our first night in Agua Prieta, has become my unofficial guide, assistant, and translator. I’ve even begun to pick up a little Spanish. The first time I drove my Roadster into Agua Prieta, the boy looked at it wide-eyed, ran his hand reverently over the finish. “You must be very rich, Señor Ned,” he said.

  I’m still staying in the spare room in Tolley’s suite at the Gadsden, and he refuses any payment for it, which is certainly a good deal for me. In the evenings, we frequently cross the border together to drink and dance in the cantinas in Agua Prieta. Tolley may be a sissy but he loves to dance with the whores. He teases them and adjusts their hair and dresses, and makes them laugh, and because he wants nothing more from them than that, they treat him just like “one of the girls,” as he himself puts it. Las Primorosas has become the unofficial expedition watering hole and gathering place for both staff members and volunteers. Although he’s probably richer than any of the others, Tolley’s a bit of a black sheep among the volunteers, and he seems more comfortable hanging around with the “help.” Often Margaret joins us in the bar, and for her part seems completely uninterested in the other men who vie for her favors. She prefers to sit with Tolley and me and turns down all other offers to dance. She seems to be a competent, confident woman, and yet I sense in her some kind of sadness.