Chapter10

Over breakfast I talked with Diego about the trail ahead as he had moved his flock all over the area. He convinced me to head to the old Casa Grande Indian ruins, where water and graze was available, and from there move on to Maricopa Wells which had been a stage stop prior to the Civil War because of it’s year round water availability. I decided to take his advice and I got my small wagon train on the road.

Three days later, as we went through the pass of the Picacho Mts, I saw the graves of the few men killed in one of the westernmost Civil War battles, the Battle of Picacho Pass. That’s if you can call a skirmish involving a couple of dozen men a battle. I looked around; it seemed to be a poor excuse of a place to die for, no matter which side you were on. After we paid our respects to the departed, we moved on up the trail. Two days later, just before noon, we came to the old Indian ruins.

There was a small Indian community in the area, but from the ruins it was obvious that at one time a much larger farming community had existed on the site. From the state of the remains we could tell that it had been centuries since they were occupied. One could not help but wonder what happened.

We made an early camp and relaxed for the rest of the day. The locals told us that Maricopa Wells, which was a long, waterless day’s travel to the northwest, now had an Indian Agency and a trading post to service the local Maricopa and related Pima Indians. The stage line had also started to rebuild the old relay station that had been abandoned during the war. It looked like they were planning to restart operations. We filled every receptacle we had with water, and hit our bed rolls early, because we were going to move out well before dawn the next morning.

We were up at four, ate a cold breakfast, and were on the road by five. We rested the animals for an hour at noon, giving each of them a bucket of water. We pushed on all afternoon aiming towards Pima Butte which we could see in the distance. Diego said that Maricopa Wells was near that butte which was on the Pima-Maricopa reservation. Towards dusk we pulled into the small settlement.

We were a bit surprised at all of the activity around the place. We had expected a sleepy little Indian village around an Indian Agency. Instead we found that, plus a busy community, with a blacksmith shop, a mercantile- trading post, the Agency office, a stage relay station under construction, several wagons with Southern Pacific stenciled on the sides, a short row of army tents, and a bunch of other tents. Some enterprising individual had even set up a large tent as a saloon.

As we started to water the animals, a sergeant, who was obviously in charge of the dozen or so troopers, walked up to me.