Black Range Tales

Chronicling Sixty Years of Life and Adventure in the Southwest

James A. McKenna

• Publisher: Normanby Press
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781787202382
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

First published in 1936, this book is a collection of sixteen stories recounting James ("Uncle Jimmie") McKenna's tales of prospecting, Indian Fights, exploration, town life and all the characters from the early days of the Black Range, the Mogollons, and the rest of the Gila Country of southwest New Mexico. The result is alternately humorous, poignant, amazing or insightful, and paints a vivid picture of a people who embodied the measured optimism of the American West.
"Uncle Jimmie" blazed a trail to the Southwest in his youth, and his life for the next sixty years was filled with all the history-making adventure and treasure that his ardent nature craved. It was not always the treasure of gold, although gold was there. But there was life while it lasted, death when it came, a mystery-ridged land and courageous people to explore it.
"THIS IS A GREAT BOOK! THE REAL THING IS RARE AND THERE'S NO MISTAKING IT."—Commonweal
"The greatness comes from McKenna's magic blend of Celtic wit, thirst for life, and modesty about the enormous importance of his own adventures."—Christian Science

LOST CANYON DIGGINGS

1. Baxter

In the summer of 1884 there drifted to the Hot Springs a man I hope to meet again when I cross my last divide. He was Jason Baxter, a great story-teller of early happenings in the West. Having whacked bulls across the plains from Missouri when only a boy, he had been at one time or another a Pony Express rider, scout, trapper, Indian fighter, and finally a prospector and mine-owner. Baxter was the swarthy type, about six feet tall, with very dark hair and eyes, and an extra-long mustache, the kind that was all the go in the eighties.

During the Civil War he was one of Quantrill’s men. He came back to the West when the war ended, but I never heard him talk of his Confederate leanings. I did, however, often hear him speak of having been with Sheridan on the Platte in his campaign against the Cheyennes. He was among the first in the rush into the Black Hills and also into Leadville, Colorado. At Antelope Hill he was with Weaver, and he was known among the pioneers at Tombstone, Arizona. It is claimed he made a rich stake near Taos, New Mexico, in the Red River district, and he was known to have made several fortunes which he spent like a stage robber. Baxter had never married, but like many another white man of frontier days, he took the woman he wanted and lived with her off and on. Among half-breeds in settlements like Taos, Santa Fe, Pinos Altos, or Tucson, there was no law but the gun, and they mated like the birds in the springtime. Baxter paid his respects to a good-looking senorita of mixed Irish and Mexican blood, named Barbarita. She was tall and slim with rosy cheeks and light hair. She was as neat as a pin and kept everything in apple-pie order. Besides, she was a fine cook, and the chili con came joint run by her did fairly well. Baxter was very good to her except once in a while when he was hitting the jug. He never took up with any other woman. He often promised to settle down and stay with her, but in the end the roving fever always got him. Barbarita helped him spend his money while it lasted, saw to it that she had a place for him to eat and sleep, and took care of his horse and outfit during a carousal.

The old prospector who came in after a long trip often took too much red eye, or bad whiskey, for his own good, and it seems to me this fact has harmed him more than he deserves with a lot of people, who do not remember his life of hardship and danger. The old timer lived mostly on meat; he dressed in overalls and brogans, or in buckskin and moccasins; he slept with his gun beside him; and for months at a time, far away from any post or settlement, he neither drank nor dissipated in any way. Since human nature is what it is, it is not surprising that he cut loose when he got back to the frontier town. He could not carry his liquor so well as those who had it every day and he sometimes made a fool of himself.

These frontiersmen lived very close to nature, becoming sharp observers. Baxter was typical of this group of men. He could read Indian signs and knew several Indian dialects. As a prospector and miner he ranked in the A class. Honest as the sun, free, liberal, outspoken, quick to resent an injury—such was Baxter. He had plenty of grit and was known as a dead shot. All the different mining processes from arastra to cyanide were known to him, and pay ore he knew to the queen’s taste as soon as he struck it.

Whatever Baxter put his hand to was well done, but his greatest gifts were his memory and imagination. Mountains, rivers, trails, and canyons—once he had seen them he could describe them clearly even years afterwards. This was the man I met among the Gila Hot Springs, where he had come “to boil out”, as he called it. I never tired of hearing him talk and would sit, Indian fashion, half the night before a blazing campfire listening to his tales.

Another old-timer around the evening campfire was Poland, gangling Alabaman, with a real southern drawl. He was a great hunter and trapper, famous as a dead shot He traded and sold off the game meat which he killed in nearby mountains to the many campers who came to these springs every summer. Poland also set a lot of store by Baxter.

Judging from his talk, Baxter must have had a fair education, for he could keep the ball rolling on a wide range of subjects. He always packed a few books even on the roughest trails, and he always got himself a few new ones after making a stake.

During one of these evenings I recall he turned to me with the question, “Have you ever heard of the Adams diggings?”

I told him that I had.

“But I’ll bet my bottom dollar you didn’t know I’d met Adams himself in Arizona? He was O.K. then, but later when I saw him at Pinos Altos, he seemed a kind of loco. Indian experience had somehow affected his mind. He gave it out that he had found a rich diggin’s and he even showed nuggets to prove it, gettin’ some Arizona people to form a company with him, but the Indians drove them out of the country before they could find anything. From time to time since then one party or another has looked for the diggin’s, but as you know, no trace of them has ever been found. For myself, I’ve never put much stock in Adams’ tale. I’ve seen too many prospectors in my day lookin’ for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Many of them, like me, have grown so they hardly believe their own lies any more. Adams himself has set out several times from Silver City, but each time he gets lost on Cactus Flat and comes back to the settlement. Now I feel mighty sure if these diggin’s are anywhere outside of Adams’ head, they are the same as the Snively diggin’s.”

Baxter fell silent at the end of these remarks, staring into the red ashes of the campfire. Some of us got up to throw more wood on the fire and to call back a straying burro. When we were settled, Baxter again turned to me. “I reckon you’ve heard all about the Snively diggin’s too? They date much farther back, Snively havin’ been one of the founders of Pinos Altos. I hev faith in those diggin’s, for I knew Snively, also Houston and Thomas, both reliable men up here in Pinos Altos, as you’ll agree. Thomas, Houston, and myself saw Snively and talked with him when he pulled his freight into Pinos Altos in the sixties with ten thousand dollars in gold nuggets. Cochise was raidin’ the country at that time with his red devils and it was too dangerous to go back to look for the rich find. Thomas felt sure that Snively hed a sluice-box and he was certain that he hed a cabin. Snively told Thomas and Judge Houston that he believed Mexican sheep-herders also knew of this place, as when he first went into the gulch he found signs of a camp.”

“Are the Snively diggin’s by any chance the same as what they call the Nigger Diggings?” I asked Baxter.

“In my opinion the Nigger Diggin’s, the Schaeffer Diggin’s, the Snively Diggin’s,—the Adams Diggin’s, if they exist at all,—and my own diggin’s, which I’ll tell you about some time, are one and the same. There’s not much known about the Nigger Diggin’s, but I reckon from what I’ve been able to gather of the tale that the nigger while on detail as a trooper must hev happened into the same gulch that Snively tells about. Findin’ coarse nuggets of gold, he located the place in his mind, by its distance from Island Mountain, and its direction from the mountain with the painted face of a woman on its eastern side. When he was discharged from the army he claims he went back there, but was chased out by Apaches the day after makin’ a rich find. Well boys, it’s time to roll in for the night—but if you care to hear it, I’ll tell you tomorrow night the tale of the Schaeffer Diggin’s.”

2. Baxter Tells McGurk’s Story of the Schaeffer Diggings

It was a fine evening for “swappin’ lies”. There was; just enough tang in the air to make the fire feel good. A flock of turkeys in a nearby grove of pinons kept up their evening chant of “peep, peep”. Some distance down the creek a mountain lion roared, and still farther away the sharp yap of the coyote broke the quiet of the evening. Quite a crowd had gathered around the fire to hear Baxter’s tale of the Schaeffer Diggings.

“Ay bain dreamin’ last night,” Swedish Nelson told us, “that ay bain to the lost diggin’s an’ chust as Ay bain about to leave with my sack of gould nuggets, them red Apaches come poppin’ up out’n the ground like corn from a skillet, and every one o’ them bain wearin’ a bunch o’ scalps at his belt and a long string o’ human ears and fingers around his neck instead of beads. My goodness, but Ay was glad to wake up an’ leave them nuggets where they be.”

“And you weren’t up against it in your dream,” began Baxter, “any worse than the German whose story I heard from a friend of mine named McGurk. In the year 1876 I pulled in my freight and went into camp at an old government post, called Fort Thomas, on the Gila, near the spot where Duncan now stands. I soon began to knock around with some of the troopers there. One of them was an Irishman named McGurk. Tonight I’m goin’ to tell you the tale of the Schaeffer Diggin’s as I got it from McGurk.

“‘I was a sergeant,’ began McGurk to me, ‘detailed to go in charge of some soldiers to he’p guard a band of wood choppers, sent from Fort Cummings in the fall of 1872. I was second sergeant in C Company of the Fourth Regiment under Captain Tucker. As there was no large timber nearer than the head waters of the Mimbres River, I was given ten men, and a farrier named Young, who hed done some scoutin’ in this section. All hed good ridin’ animals and there were enough pack animals to carry what supplies we needed. The captain give me leave to pick my own men, with orders to be ready to start the next evenin’ at sundown. “Your duties,” said the captain to me, “will be to see that camp is made, and to keep a close guard on your horses and stock, for maraudin’ Apaches under Cochise and Victorio have a stronghold near these headwaters and may give you a deal of trouble.”

“‘Young had a shepherd dog which was used by the troops at Ft Cummings for herding. He asked to take the dog along, and the captain said O.K.

“‘Among those I picked for the trip was a German, named Jake Schaeffer, intendin’ him for a cook, as it is well-known among frontiersmen that Germans, as a rule, can cook, but are no good in the woods. They seem to get lost as soon as they are out of sight of camp. Takin’ him along is the basis of this tale. Five of the ten men picked were all new in the country, and this was a fine chance to practice shootin’, game bein’ plentiful.

“‘I generally detail a rooky with a vet my experience being that too many vets do not do so well as where there are a few rookies. The latter are more anxious and willin’ to do what they are told, the old vets preferrin’ to play cards and sleep while out on these details, especially when there are no Indian signs of danger. The rookies recitin’ their guard duties and night experiences around the evenin’ camp fire gave the vets many a laugh.

“‘We had been in camp some three months and seen no signs of Indians. Everything was peaceful and quiet. The game was easy to get, comin’ often close to our camp. Jake Schaeffer, our German cook, got around me to let him go out and kill a deer or maybe a bear, he sayin’ that he had never even shot at one, and would like to have a chance now as they were plentiful. He asked me to let him go with Young the next time he went out for game. I spoke to Young about Schaeffer’s wish, Young sayin’, “By cracky, let him have a chance. I’ll take care of him.”

“‘I told Jake he could go and he talked of nothin’ else. At last the day came, they leavin’ early in the morning, Jake takin’ his carbine and a belt filled with cartridges. I was up to see them off and made the German fill his haversack with hard-tack, warnin’ him to be sure to keep his canteen full of water. That was the last I saw of Jake for three months.

“‘Young came back in the afternoon as glum as hell, sayin’ he could not find him. We saddled up the two best horses and Young and myself struck out to look for him, taking along the dog and a three-day supply of food. Ridin’ direct to the point where Young claimed he heard the rifle report, we found no sign of Jake. Both of us fired our rifles but we got no answer. The dog seemin’ to know what we wanted, started to circle, finally givin’ out some loud yelps and barks. On goin’ up to him we found the German’s tracks. Soon we sighted blood on the trail, and seein’ the deer tracks we followed slow, at times firin’ our rifles, but got no answer.

“‘The dog finally trailed the deer to where it lay dead, but no Jake was to be found. The moon had (gone down by this time, so we lit a fire and roasted some of the venison. We then pulled the saddles off our horses, hobbled ‘em, and turned ‘em loose, havin’ made up our minds to wait till daylight. The dog seemed uneasy, whinin’ at times. As soon as we laid down he kept pokin’ his cold nose into our faces; at times he would bristle up and growl as if afraid.

“‘Young said nothin’ but he seemed worried. About an hour before daybreak he sent the dog for the horses, though he did not want to go. He kept lookin’ up at Young with a pitiful whine, but at last he started. We never saw him or our horses again.

“‘Waitin’ about half an hour, and not hearin’ the dog bark, Young said, “By cracky, it’s time to vamoose. We’re sure surrounded by Apaches, or my name ain’t Young. I’m for pullin’ our freight back—the sooner the better!”

“‘Reachin’ the place where we had last seen Schaeffer’s tracks, without findin’ any Indian signs, Young said, “By cracky, McGurk I don’t believe they’ll get us this time, unless they’re hidin’ in that bunch of quakin’ asp over yonder.

“‘At that instant a perfect shower of arrows drove towards us from the thicket, one of them piercin’ Young’s brain, killin’ him instant. I got off without a scratch, reachin’ the wood camp about noon. Here another shock was waitin’ for me. Those damned Indians had killed all of the wood choppers and two of the troopers, and hed run off all the ridin’ and pack animals.

“‘I gathered the men that were left and we pulled freight for Fort Cummings. Captain Tucker after hearin’ the bad news, left a small detail to guard the post, takin’ the balance of the troops on the trail of the marauders; these troops were to bury the dead, and to find Schaeffer, if possible. Captain Tucker came to the conclusion to stay on the site of the wood camp until the lumber and cut timber could be hauled to Fort Cummings.

“‘After buryin’ the wood choppers and troopers, we hit the trail where Young had passed in his chips. When he was buried we followed the Indian signs up to the north end of the Black Range, across the San Augustine plains, and into the Datils. We back-tracked down the west side of this range, cut across the Burros, and on into the San Simon Valley, finally reachin’ the line of Mexico.

‘“Not being allowed on foreign soil, there was nothin’ for it but to pull back to the wood camp at the headwaters of the Mimbres. Captain Tucker got the wood to the fort that winter as he had planned.

“‘In the meantime soldiers from Fort Craig came to Fort Cummings with news of Schaeffer. He hed roamed for days and wandered at least two hundred miles, before he finally drifted into Fort Craig. The men told us the German came, in one day as crazy as a loon, and nearly naked. No gun, feet on the ground, no coat or hat, but holdin’ on like grim death to his haversack, which hed in it, I was told by Sergeant Jefferies of Company D of the 5th, nuggets that were almost pure gold, he havin’ as near as they could guess well on to ten pounds. He wouldn’t let anyone come near him and kept on yellin’ the name of Young every little while. On a sudden he started off as if haunted, runnin’ like a deer straight for the Rio Grande. He got out of sight before the men at Fort Craig knew what he was about. A detail was started out to find him. They came upon him near a Mexican jacal, or hut, naked as the day he was born, with not a trace of his clothes or haversack.

“‘They took him back to the post, and from there to the hospital, he hangin’ between life and death for weeks. All that he could remember was that he had wounded a deer and got lost followin’ it. He did not know where he got the nuggets, but he recalled crossin’ a wide plain or desert. He saw many wild horses and antelopes, and talked about a mountain with a woman’s picture painted on it in bright colors, but where it was he could not tell.

“‘Soon after the visit of the Fort Craig soldiers, Schaeffer pulled freight into Fort Cummings, but he was never like his old self. He would leave camp and be gone for days, always comin’ back empty-handed, and as glum as hell.

“‘My enlistment being up, we made up our minds to see if we could find the Schaeffer diggin’s. We knew it must be some place between the head of the Mimbres and the headwaters of the Little Colorado. We figured that Schaeffer even for gold would not throw away his rations. He had food enough with him when he lit out from the Mimbres camp to last him for two days, so we surmised he had found the gold on his fourth or fifth day. We believed he would cover at least twenty miles a day, and we felt sure the desert or plain he had crossed was the San Augustine, as both my pal and m...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• DEDICATION
• THE OLD-TIME PROSPECTOR
• INTRODUCTION
• PIONEERING FROM 1877 TO 1887
• LOST CANYON DIGGINGS
• OVER THE BLACK RANGE
• DANNY’S TROUBLE WITH THE DEVIL
• PILGRIMS, BURROS, AND BEARS
• A KINGSTON FOOT RACE
• CHRISTMAS IN KINGSTON
• A PROSPECTOR’S DREAM
• REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER