But Jack says you can’t just go building on some Army fort yourself, there’s something called protocol that is rules of order and command. Well, I gave him a look from the corner of my eye, and just like I’d asked it to make my argument for me, a chunk of wet dirt and grass slopped onto the Franklin stove and splashed on his uniform. Then a centipede crawled out of the slop, running from the heat, and he stomped the thing dead real quick.
While the mud dripped down the side of the stove, hissing like it was cooking, Jack looked at me and made a determined face. General Elliot, Ma’am, he says. You are about to get a new roof. Then he snapped to attention and saluted me and went off to find the commander.
February 3, 1887
It appears some of the other officers’ wives are real perturbed that our family has a new roof and they have all been putting up with the mud and grass ones for years. Well, I just think that is the problem, you put up with it instead of speaking your mind.
Baby Charlie is good natured and calm, not nearly as nervous and fretful as April was. When he wants to be heard, though, he can certainly make himself known. And I declare but he goes through diapers twice as fast as April. There is always a stack to be washed and a stack to be folded. It seems my whole time right now is spent keeping this baby dry.
May 5, 1887
As soon as there was dry weather, the Army started to drill their men in the fort walls here. What a dust they raise every day. I have hired an Apache lady who comes and helps me clean and keep up with the laundry, or I would do nothing but those two things every minute of every day. Her name is Juana, she says. There is a feeling of mystery around her, and I feel like something in her ways is not as straightforward as I would like. Her eyes never look at me when she talks, but Jack said that some Indians are like that, they must know you a long time and trust you for sure, before they will let you look into their eyes.
I have been so busy with children and cleaning, some days I feel worn out before I get out of bed. Juana helps a lot, and sometimes I even take a nap when the children do. Mama visited two weeks ago and said she wouldn’t know what to do, having an Apache in the house and talking about the weather with her and such. I said, Times are surely changing. It was so good to have her here for a while and hear about everyone at Cienega Creek. How I miss that place and all my dear family and friends.
Jack is leaving in two days and will be gone most of a month. I am taking the children and going back to the ranch for that time. The roundup will be starting soon, and I am excited to get to that work. If ever I have a spare minute or two between chores and making soap, I practice lassoing the rain barrel by the house. I’m not very good at it and miss more often than not. I have hired five more fellows to help with the roundup, and Jack laughs when he sees the list of things I want packed in a wagon to go on this visit.
May 31, 1887
If tiredness could be measured in buckets I am a deep well of tiredness. But it is good to see so much work being done and count all the new calves as they get their rumps branded. They didn’t like it at all, and a couple of the mama cows got mean hearing their babies holler, and one of the hands got horn-hooked real bad. He will live through it, but we were a man short and glad of the extras I hired, although only four of the five showed up. My roping skill, meager as it is, was not needed at all, because those fellows could throw and tie a calf faster than I could swing a loop. Still it was weeks of hard, dirty work, and I don’t think I have ever seen such filthy children as mine. They were browner than the dirt they were covered with. On top of everything, April caught a cold so she was miserable and cried during the night for our first two days. After that, though, it felt good to be outdoors all day and doing something besides sweeping and washing. My hands are toughened even with the leather gloves I’ve had on. My blouses are faded from the sun and my face is brown and freckled, too.
Heading back to town brought almost as much commotion as going to the ranch. Harland and Melissa wanted to come to Tucson and stay with us for a spell, and it was decided that little Clover will come along, since he is six now and big enough to be out on his own a bit. Harland is to take a commencement test at the schoolhouse, and if he passes it he will be able to continue his studies at a college. He is nervous and has been studying hard, but I think it did him some good to help with the branding and get a few calluses on his hands instead of his head.
He laughed and said did I think studying things made his head thicker and harder? So we all teased him some but we are proud.
On the way, Harland and Melissa both rode next to the wagon, and we had a fine time singing and remembering things from long ago. Melissa was on Rose, who is getting old now and has given us five beautiful foals. Melissa held April on her saddle and April was happy as a little bird to be sitting up there trotting along. As we came to the last long climb, we stopped to rest the horses and give them drinks, and we spread a blanket on the ground and sat ourselves in the shade of some cottonwood trees. In the spring this place runs with water, but now it is just low and shady, and will have to do.
Once we started up the rise, Harland noticed a rider following us. The man on a horse came a little closer after a time, as if he was not in a hurry. Pretty soon, he disappeared but then I spotted a rider off to the east. I don’t know if it was the same man or not, but where he was riding made me anxious, because I knew anyone simply headed north would sooner ride on this road than through the cholla and prickly pear. As our horses put their heads down into the last climb, we met up with the man right in front of us in the road. He didn’t move when he saw us, and was standing still with his horse reined in hard.
Good morning, I called out. Would you let my horses pass so they can make the top of this hill before they give out?
He just stood there. It is a habit I have never shed, carrying my little hunting rifle under the wagon seat and my kitchen pistol in my apron. The little pearl handled two-shooter, I keep in my bag with my hanky and some spare diaper pins, so it was not handy. My horses were stomping, trying to keep the load from rolling backward, so I slacked the reins and pulled back on the brake so they wouldn’t have to work so hard. I said louder, Sir, we’d like to pass by, if you’ll just take one side or the other. My horses are about to give out under this load. Again, the man stood there.
Next I tried talking to him in Mexican, and he perked right up. He made his horse walk slow around us, and was near Melissa and April when he stopped, blocking Rose from moving. He said something in Mexican but I couldn’t hear. He had hair black as a gun barrel and straight. He had a half empty bandolier over one shoulder, and a shotgun in a saddle holster, plus two pistols stuck in his belt without holsters. One of his hands was resting on the butt of one of the pistols, and he was tapping it with his fingers. After a long time of looking at us all, the man lifted off his hat and let it hang on his back, and he grinned real big and said, Ola, señorita.
Then he began to tell me I was real pretty and that Melissa was a fine young girl, and that he was interested in finding a young wife like her. He wanted to know did Melissa know how to cook. Harland was bristling like a porcupine, but I told him to keep still. By that time, we could all tell he wasn’t a real Mexican and was talking with an accent, because we’d been talking it since we were young. Melissa sat stiff as a poker, and April started to whimper and put her hands over her eyes.
It’s all right, honey, I said to April.
Harland said, No, she can’t cook a lick. And besides she’s my girl and we’re going to get married.
I suppose he thought that would turn the man’s mind away, but I don’t think Harland knew just what the fellow was really after. The man quit smiling and looked at us like he was sizing us up again, then just like lightning he pulled a pistol and held it right to Harland’s head. He said in English, She is not engaged any more, my friend. You see, it’s so sad, poor el novio is dead, and he pulled back the trigger until it clicked.
He was watching Harland and didn’t see me rea
ch for my rifle and put my right hand in my pocket. I shot the pistol right through my apron. All the children around me squealed and immediately began to cry. The man doubled over and aimed his pistol at me, so I shot again and he fell off his horse. The horse shied and bucked around, but that fellow must have been strung with barb wire because he managed to drag himself up into the saddle again. As he rode away I kept my rifle aimed at the middle of his back.
Then he headed north down the road. If he had only kept on going he would have been all right. But the man stopped, dead center in the road, as Harland and Melissa were settling the little ones and getting our breath. Over the sight of my barrel I saw him turn and raise one hand like he was waving, but when I blinked and saw the sun flicker off metal in his hand, I pulled the trigger. I saw the pistol fly from his hand just before his horse took off through the cholla with him barely alive, hanging on with his arms around the horse’s neck.
Clover started hollering Whoohoo! Shoot ’em, Auntie Sarah! Then Charlie started crying at the top of his lungs. We were a sober bunch by the time we got to town, and went straight to the Marshal’s office to tell him what happened. After all the times I have driven to Tucson alone, to meet someone with bad intentions on the day I had a wagon load of children to look after just set me back on my heels. If we weren’t so close to town, I would have turned back and taken Clover home.
I didn’t quite know what to make of his reaction, because he acted like the whole thing was a kind of excitement. He asked me if he could shoot the gun, too. I thought for a while, and then asked him to sit beside me on the wagon seat, and we talked about how dangerous it was to hold a gun, and how bad I felt for shooting that man. He is a little fellow, but I think he began to understand that what happened was not playing. My little April just stared with wide eyes while I talked. I’m fairly certain she understood without being told, and the poor child looked terrified for the last hour of our trip. She is not even four years old, but has grown up knowing some rugged times.
That night after supper, Melissa hugged and kissed me, and we talked about it all again as we bathed the little ones and put them to bed. She was still a bit shaken up, and was afraid of having nightmares later on. Jack came home about nine o’clock, and when I told him what happened, he was upset and went right away to talk to the Marshal. He found out that a man with long black hair, riding a sorrel, had come into town and the doctor took three bullets out of him before he died.
They looked, Jack said, like a familiar caliber.
Well, I said, he was tough as an old boot. And he was going to kill Harland and take Melissa away, as if I wouldn’t fight back.
He must not have been from around here, Jack said, or he’d have known better.
June 1, 1887
The Marshal came to our house this morning and asked me about the fellow on the road. Then he asked Melissa and Harland to tell him what happened, too, the same story three times. Then he nodded and said it sounded like a case of self defense, which also covers defending your loved ones. Well, Jack got mad and asked him right out what call did he have for questioning my word.
I was shaking in my chair, and holding tight to a coffee cup so my hands wouldn’t shake. I looked into my lap and hoped he wouldn’t notice the hole in my apron pocket that I washed but hadn’t patched yet.
The Marshal said that during the night someone dragged that man’s body out of the doctor’s surgery room and laid him up on a board by Dunbaker’s Cantina with a note pinned on his shirt reading, “Murdered on the road to Tucson.” Must have been that he had some friends in town, he said.
I looked at Jack. He looked back at me.
Well, the Marshal said, all I’m saying is this is a harsh place to raise a family, and Ma’am, I’d keep that pistol handy and watch your back, even inside the fort.
July 14, 1887
Harland is taking his test today. He was so nervous he didn’t sleep at all last night. I helped him study every day that he’s been here, and he said he wished it was me taking the test for him, and that I’d do a better job.
I have always wondered about those tests and the gumption it takes to pass one. If I didn’t have these little ones to watch, I’d sure be in there trying. So while he was writing, I happened to say that to Mrs. Fish, and she just smiled and said, I’ll order one for you and you can take it, too. I tried and tried to tell her that I’m not ready and I’d never pass, but she said, You’ll never know if you don’t try.
As I wait here for Harland to come home, it keeps running through my mind what Mrs. Fish has done. She has gone and written the United States Board of Normal Education that I have learned enough to pass a twelfth grade advancement. I begged her not to aim so high, and she said Nonsense, nonsense. I told her I was a wife and mother and she said, Does that make you stupid?
I’ll never have time to study with this houseful. My test will come in two or three weeks. Oh, blessed heavens, what have I gotten into?
July 17, 1887
They are building a university, it says in the Citizen. I am not sure why they need one here, as there are probably not even thirty young people in this town interested in going to it. But, the government has given the money and some ranchers have given the land, and it is in full swing. Education is a hard enough thing to come by in the Territories. The thirteenth Territorial Legislature, a pit of two headed rattlesnakes if there ever was one, had voted awhile back to allot money for the building of a University right here in Tucson. Of course, they only did it to atone for the shenanigans they pulled with all the illegal pay raises and complementary gratuities they voted in for themselves, but in the end it will be the children here who will benefit. In the calm of a morning you can hear the hammers going and men shouting orders to each other. After the bugle blows, though, all I can hear are the sounds of the fort and my children. I am glad that I speak some Mexican, because many of the other women here do not know much English.
I suppose it is known around town that I killed that bandito. Some folks are suddenly much more friendly with my family and seem downright glad to invite us in, and others turn up their noses and shy away. Mrs. Larcena Page said she’d trust me with her own grandchildren, and know they’d be safe. Well, I’d like to see the woman that wouldn’t defend her kin any way possible, and see what she’s made of. Anyone who hasn’t got some backbone has no business trying to live in the Territories.
My two children run me ragged some days, but this afternoon I am taking them in the buggy and we are going to drive over to that university land outside of town, and have a look. I am going to tell them both that they will go to that new school house when they are bigger, and get ready. Every time I think of that test coming for me from the Board of Education, my heart jumps up and down like beans on a hot stove.
Harland and Melissa and little Clover will head back to the ranch in a couple of days. He will have to wait a long spell for his grade. But he felt confident he knew everything. I’m proud of my little brother, and I wish Ernest could be here to see how tall Harland is. When we get his score, I’ll write Ernest about it. I have yet to open that history book that Jack gave me on my last birthday, so tonight while I stirred gravy and mashed potatoes, I propped it open on the table and began to read a paragraph at a time.
August 1, 1887
The children and I were out at the clothesline this morning, and while I hung sheets they were playing peekaboo under them, squealing merrily each time they popped out from under a damp white sheet flapping over their heads. I chased them and surprised them by being behind first this one then that. This kind of silly fun pleases me and we were all winded and giggling, when a man walked up to me sort of sheepish with his hat in his hands.
Señora, he says, I have a message for you. He startled me good, and I collared my little ones and held them behind me. The man scuffed at the dirt with one foot, and then saw that the dust flew up towards my wash and said, I’m sorry, your clothes will be dirty again.
It was an accident
, I said. What message? Who from?
From me, Señora, he said, and then put his chin down against his chest so hard I could barely make out what he was saying. The message, lady, is that I am not going to kill you.
Run to the house children, run fast and hide, I said.
No, Señora, there is no danger. I was real mad my brother Jaime was dead, and I swore to many people I would kill the hombre who did this thing. I found out it was you and I was going to avenge his blood with the life of the murderer. But you see I was real mad, and I had some liquor and he was my brother.
I watched him close and didn’t answer. He was looking as sad as anyone ever looked.
The man went on, After a while I buried him and then the Marshal tells me that the niños tell the story of my brother trying to steal the señorita. I know I made a vow to the Virgin to avenge my brother’s murder, but, lady, he was not a good man. I loved my brother but he did some things that were not right. So I came to tell you myself, I’m not going to kill you. I would have done the same thing to save my little Alejandra.
Well, I said, you can’t help what your brother was like. With a brother like you, he probably had some good in him somewhere, I heard myself say.
I don’t think so, he said. Jaime did a lot of bad things. He rode with some Apaches brutos, real bad ones, and did many things that broke our mother’s heart. Buenos dias, Señora.
The fellow walked away, his hat still in one hand, and while he walked he rubbed the back of his head with the other hand. I took up my wash basket and held it to me, feeling the cool of the wet things, shaking all over. Lands, I had put that day out of my mind so much, that if he hadn’t had second thoughts, it would have been an easy thing for him to kill me. I hurried inside to my children and found them quarreling over a toy pull cart, and I kissed and squeezed them and they were so startled they forgot their argument and went back to playing.
These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901 Page 31
