Chapter 111

After their performance on their first assignment in Colorado back in October of 1896, the six Young Bucks’ names became well known at the Western District U.S. Marshal’s Service office in Kansas City.

During the next two years they were called upon time and time again to settle disputes.

They were sent to the Missouri border town of Fort Scott, Kansas, to help settle a railroad union dispute that had already gotten out of hand with clashes of violence by the time they arrived.

With strong words assuring fairness amid flaring tempers and threats from both sides, the Young Bucks managed to quickly establish a no-nonsense authority over the situation. Ten days after arriving, they were able to reconcile both sides to meet and negotiate a settlement in which a return-to-work agreement was reached.

They were sent to Victor, Colorado, to settle a series of claim disputes when a major mining company encroached upon small claim owners. Again, they were able to avoid violence and restore peace as the original boundaries to the claims were re-established. Yet, the young deputies yearned for another trip out into the open country where there were no claim jumpers or union strikes.

They were wrapping up a mission in Laramie, Wyoming, when they received a telegraph message that they were urgently needed in Mora, New Mexico Territory.

Las Vegas, New Mexico Territory May 2, 1898

The day they arrived in Las Vegas, the temperature reached 65° F which was average for this part of New Mexico Territory in early spring. The nighttime temperature dipped to a chilly 39° F.

They were on their way to Mora County where they would travel to Coyote Creek, a tributary of the Mora River.

They left their Pullman and cattle car on a sidetrack in Las Vegas at midday and stopped at the local mercantile to restock coffee, canned goods, flour, lard, salt pork and jerky. Their ride took them thirty miles or so northwest toward the town of Mora where they were to pick up their orders at the post office.

Each of them had packed two of their favorite two-piece fly rods and each of them had their recurve bows with plenty of hunting arrows. They had originally planned to take a few days off in Colorado to fish and hunt.

There was very little information available for the area they would be traveling to, but they had learned one thing — this was a remote wilderness with plenty of black bear, cougar, elk, mule deer, whitetail deer and small game. Plus the fishing was great in springtime.

US Post Office Mora, New Mexico Territory May 3, 1898

“I’m Deputy U.S. Marshal Eli Crow and these are my brothers. There’s supposed to be a package here for us,” Eli told the postmaster when they walked into the small one room adobe building.

“Yes Sir, Marshal. Got it right here for you. You marshals here to investigate the bloody massacre up on Coyote Creek last week?” the man replied, handing Eli the thick, kraft paper-wrapped package as the Young Bucks looked around at one another.

There went their peaceful getaway to a remote area for some hunting and fishing.

It was in May of 1898 that they learned to be careful what they wished for!

Coyote Creek May 5, 1898

They had done this many times as boys and now it came as second nature when they set up camp.

While two of them tended the horses, two more began gathering wood for a campfire and the other two set up the three tents.

They were near the junction where Big Blue Creek empties into Coyote Creek a few miles south of Agua Fria Peak (cold water).

For years the Ute, at their summer camps along Coyote Creek, called the glow against Agua Fria Peak ‘fire of the gods’.

Back in 1845, it was Kit Carson who coined the phrase, ‘Angel Fire’ for the glow cast upon snow covered Agua Fria Peak by the sun.

There was a letter attached to the outside of the package and they opened the envelope while at the post office. Inside the envelope, they found directions and a map to where Big Blue Creek empties into Coyote Creek.

Now that their camp was set up, they took time to open the package and examine the contents. Most of the contents was made up of one large folded map detailing northern New Mexico Territory, with additional smaller maps of the different canyons along and around the Coyote Creek area.

“Here’s what we’re looking for,” Eli said as he pulled the last of the pages from the brown wrapper.

“What is it, Eli?” Pike asked as they sat around looking their papers over.

“There were two dozen men and eight women of a small wagon train massacred near here. There’s a woman by the name of Millie Eno who lives near where the massacre occurred. She and her sons are the ones who reported the incident to the people over in Mora. We’ll need to find her to get some answers.

“There’s supposed to be a map in here with the exact location of the incident marked.”

“Here’s one, Eli. This has an ‘X’ marked on it and massacre written under the ‘X, ‘“ Micah told him as he unfolded the map to the fullest.

“According to this, we’re camped close to where the ‘X’ is marked on the map,” Isaac said as he looked over Micah’s shoulder.

“When we were watering the horses, we saw where the two creeks come together no more than two hundred feet through the willows from where we are now. This ‘X’ must be further downstream on Coyote Creek from where we’re camped,” Ezra told them as they studied the maps.

“We have a few hours yet before dark, let’s take a walk down that way to see if we can find the spot that’s marked on the map,” Caleb told them.

“Let’s go,” Eli said, reaching for his bow and a quiver of hunting arrows.

As he stood to string his bow, the others picked up their bows and strung them before picking up their quivers and slinging the strap over their shoulders.

Since that time in August 1889 when they were all together at Crow Valley and Eli had shown them how to use their new laminated recurve bows properly, the Young Bucks had added another pastime to go along with their love of fishing with fly rods.

Each of them had become expert archers over the years. Their bows and arrows were always with them when they were home. When they packed for a mission, their bows and arrows were just as important as their knives, hatchets, rifles and handguns, no matter where they were sent.

They had followed the creek south nearly a hundred yards when they came to an east-west wagon road crossing the rippling waters of Coyote Creek.

Scattered about were burned out wagons and carcasses of horses still in harness. There were arrows still protruding from some of the decomposing horse hides and there were arrow shafts in the charred wood of the wagon beds.

None of them had yet spoken when Pike waved to get their attention. There was a yearling Whitetail deer that had walked out of the willows to drink, not over fifty feet from where they stood.

Eli motioned for Pike to take him.

Just as Pike drew his arrow for the kill, the young deer leaped into the air and fell to the ground with an arrow in its side behind its left shoulder blade.

Eli and Ezra both motioned for the others to get down and stay hidden. As they squatted near the burned wagons, two young men walked out of the willows from the other side of the creek and waded across to where the deer lay.

They could hear them talking but they were too far away to make out what they were saying. One of the men quickly grabbed the small deer’s front legs and the other grabbed his hind legs as they carried it across the creek and into the willows on the other side.

Micah waved his hand, then pointed to himself and Caleb, motioning that they would follow the two young men.

“Anything happens, fire a shot and we’ll be there. Stay back, be careful and just find where they’re going. We’ll check them out tomorrow,” Eli whispered.

In no time, the brothers disappeared into the willow thicket on the far side of the creek.

While they were gone, the other four Bucks scoured the site for any signs of what may have happened there.

The place had been covered with scavengers feeding off the dead horses. The ground near the wagons had been trampled by bear, coyote, raccoons, opossum and vultures at one time or another. With no hope of finding sign near the wagons, they spread out and walked away from the scene in search of anything connected with the attack and massacre.

Since there were no bodies, they assumed that the locals had taken care of the dead, and hopefully any survivors.

In a matter of minutes, they had found two separate places where men had waited in the willows on either side of the trail. They determined there had been four men wearing moccasins back in the brush on either side of the wagon road when the wagons came through. The ambushers had waited until the first wagons in the train were just about to cross the shallow creek before they attacked.

Near where the attack had started, Eli found a small rag doll.

This brought a solemn look from the other three as Eli dusted the doll then held it out for all of them to see.

There was a rustling of dry leaves in the thick brush and in an instant there were four handguns aimed at a game trail. They watched as a small dog ran from the brush straight toward where Eli had dropped the doll when he pulled his gun.

The little dog sniffed the doll, then looked around at the men. Eli stooped to picked up the doll and the little dog wagged its short tail as it stepped closer.

“See if you can pet him, Eli,” Pike whispered as he stood next to him.

With the doll extended toward the dog in one hand, Eli held out his other hand. The dog came forward to sniff the doll, then turned to sniff Eli’s hand before licking his fingers.

He slipped his hand underneath the little dog’s belly and lifted him to his chest. The little critter was trembling as he looked up at Eli. He appeared close to starvation, but when Eli pulled his other hand close with the doll, the dog licked the doll and snuggled its head into the doll’s soiled and blood-stained dress.

“This is not good! Let’s get back to the creek and find Micah and Caleb. It’ll be dark soon and we’ll start sorting this out at daylight,” Eli told them.

Back at the creek, they waited as the sky darkened and still no sign of their brothers.

“Here they come,” Isaac said as they stood looking into the darkness and saw the outlines of two shadows walking toward them.

“What took so long?” Eli asked in a hushed voice.

“We followed them back to their mud huts about a mile and a half downstream. There are maybe five men from the number of horses in the corral and saddles on the rail. Not sure if there are any women. No one came out before or after the two men we saw skinned, gutted and took the deer inside,” Micah told them.

“What have you got there, Eli?” Caleb asked when he noticed the little dog in Eli’s arms.

“He came out of the brush where we found this doll.”

“If there’s a little girl with that bunch, they’ll die if they’ve done her harm!” Caleb told them as he looked at the doll.

“Our feelings exactly, Caleb. Let’s get back to camp and get this little man something to eat. He looks starved and he just may be able to tell us more about this than we’d be able to find out on our own,” Eli told them.

Back at their campsite, Eli built a fire and put coffee on. Isaac opened a can of beef and poured it into a tin plate. When he placed the plate on the ground, the little dog pounced on it, gulping the food down then licking the plate.

“Better not give you too much at once, you may get sick on us,” Isaac said as he picked the little dog up and reached for his saddlebags. He pulled out the stiff brush he used on his horse and started brushing the dirt and burs from his matted hair.

When the coffee had boiled, they let the fire die to smoldering coals as each of them ate from tin cans of cold pork and beans and cans of beef, drinking their coffee and talk.

“Eli, I was wondering if those folks who live in the mud huts by the creek are the ones who attacked the wagon train?” Micah said.

“I’ve been thinking about that too, Micah. Looks like they would knowingly bring the law down on themselves by attacking and killing members of a wagon train this close to where they live,” Eli replied.

“Then if it’s not them, they should know who it was or at least have an idea of who it could be,” Pike added.

“We’ll find out early tomorrow morning. It could possibly be the woman, Millie Eno who lives there. We need to be at their door come daylight,” Eli told them.

As they bedded down for the night, Eli laid the rag doll on his bedroll and the small dog immediately snuggled up to it.

“Hello the house. Come out with your hands up. U.S. Marshals here!”

Ezra called out when Eli gave him the signal that they were all in position to cover the front and back entrances of the two mud and straw huts built close together.

Suddenly, a small girl looked out from the doorway of the first mud hut to see who had hollered.

“Mee-Maw, there are some more of those Indians out here,” she turned to shout back into the hut.

“I see ‘em, Jewel. Them’s not the same bunch we been fightin’ off. Them’s the lawmen we been lookin’ for. Tell’em we’ll be right out...

“Arnie, you’n Archie get your asses out of bed, we got company and it’s the law this time!”

“Mee-Maw said she’d be right out. Are you Indians really the lawmen Mee-Maw sent for?” the young girl asked just as she was joined at the doorway by another girl.

Both of them were dressed in ragged, soiled dresses that barely covered them.

They were barefoot, their long yellow hair stringy and tangled, their faces smeared with food and dirt.

When the woman came to the door, she looked even worse than the two little girls.

Eli had been carrying the little dog with them in case they did find a small girl the dog and the doll belonged to. When the two girls stepped out into the sunlight, the little dog squirmed and leaped from Eli’s hands. He fell in the dirt and scrambled to his feet, yipping and whining as he ran to them.

“TINY!” Both girls yelled at once as he ran to them where they squatted in the dirt to grab him.

They stood with the dog held close between them as he licked and whined and squirmed, turning from one to the other as he licked their faces and hands.

“I’d say we found who little man belongs to,” Eli said as he, Ezra and Isaac stepped toward the front door while Micah, Caleb and Pike stood back away from the hut with their rifles at ready.

“Ma’am, are you Millie Eno?” Eli asked.

“We’re Deputy U.S. Marshals and we’ve come to investigate the attack and massacre of the members of that wagon train.”

“I’m Millie. You men sure got here in a hurry, we just got back from Mora day before yesterday.”

“Are these your sons?” Isaac asked as the four young men came out the door with their shoes in their hands.

“This is them. Arnie over here is the eldest. Then Archie is the second born. This is Morten and the youngest here is Marcus,” she pointed and introduced her sons. Each of them waved a hand and nodded as their names were called while they tied their shoes.

“Are these your girls?” Eli asked.

“Oh no, Marshal. These little girls are Jewel and Jennie Sloan. Their folks were killed in the ambush. We found them lost and wandering around on the creek out back of the house over there. They told us what happened and we went to have a look. We been keeping them here until the law or somebody we trusted showed up.

“I weren’t about to leave ‘em with that ornery looking bunch over’n Mora, that’s fer sure!”

“Who was it that ambushed the wagon train, do you know?” Caleb asked.

“Oh, we know alright. We been fightin’ ‘em off since we stopped at this old place. They’re some of the meanest, killingest, ungodly souls who ever walked in this valley, that’s fer sure.”

“Who are they and how many?” Micah asked.

“There’s at least two dozen that we know of. We’ve counted that many more’n one time. They’re some young Indians not even as old as you men who’ve come down out of the mountains in Mexico, so we were told when we went to Mora. They’ve been raiding, killing, raping and marauding in this whole part of New Mexico. We been here for two months and if we hadn’t found these little girls a few weeks ago, we’d been long gone from this place already,” Millie Eno told them.

“If there are that many of them, how do you keep them from overtaking you, with just you and your four sons?” Isaac asked.

“My pa always told me that Indians, and no offense to you men, were afraid of a crazy person. He said they’d never kill a crazy person for fear that their spirit would come back and haunt them.

“Me ‘n my boys been puttin’ on a show for ‘em when we see ‘em pokin’ around close to here. That’s how we got the five horses!”

“They gave you those five horses?” Pike asked.

“They did for a fact. When we first come upon this place a while back there was five old sun-dried saddles on the top rail of the corral. Me ‘n my boys would all climb upon them saddles and make out like we was riding our horses away from this place. We hollered and yelled and talked amongst ourselves about leaving here on our horses and one day right before the massacre, we looked out to see five horses in the corral.”

“Do the renegades ride horses?” Ezra asked.

“No and we’ve often wondered about that too. They don’t even have guns as far as we know. They use them bows and arrows though and they’re damn good with them too!” Arnie Eno spoke up for the first time.

“He’s right about that, Marshal. You won’t even see one of them and all of a sudden, he’ll let an arrow fly. They wear buckskins like you men, but they take them willow limbs and leaves and cover their face and bodies with them,” Archie Eno said.

“Do you know where they camp?” Eli asked.

“They have one camp up the creek a ways from here. About two miles or so above where that other creek empties into this’n. But that ain’t their main camp. They have another camp back at the bottom of them mountains over yonder where the Mora River comes out,” Archie told them.

“Can you show us on this map where the camp is?” Ezra asked and handed it to Archie.

“Sure I can. It’s right here near where the Mora comes out of the hills. We come through there once and nearly walked right into their camp before we saw them,” he answered and placed his finger on the map.

“They’ll be after you marshals as soon as they see you here,” Millie told them.

“What are your plans for the girls?” Eli asked her, ignoring her remark.

“As much as we’ve come to love these little girls, we need to get on with our travels. I reckon they’ve become your worry now, Marshal.”

“Marshal Eli, are you going to be our new daddy since our mother and daddy had to leave us out here by ourselves and go to heaven to take care of some business?” Jewel asked as she looked up at Eli, smiling.

“Do you have any kin back where you came from?” he asked her.

“No Sir, and Jennie and I want you to be our new daddy. Will you? We’re good girls and we can read and write too,” she looked up at Eli as she talked.

Eli knelt in the dirt in front of Jewel as she stood beside her sister. “We’ll take you with us when we leave and if we find that you have no known kin, you can be my girls,” he told them, pulling both of them close for a hug as they reached for him.

“Them two is some smart girls, Marshal. They’ve been teachin’ my boys to read ‘n write no longer’n they’ve been with us,” Millie told him.

“Millie, I’m going to ask you to keep Jewel and Jennie with you until we can take those young renegades into custody. Just keep doing the things you do and we’ll keep a check on all of you,” Eli told her.

After returning to their camp located upstream from the Enos’ mud huts, the Young Bucks decided on a plan of action — one that had never failed them in the past.

They were going after the renegades; they weren’t going to wait for another attack.

“We’ll need to take all our weapons including our Sharps and Winchesters. We’ll be loaded down, but we’ll need everything we have to take on more than two dozen men out here with them on their own stomping grounds,” Eli told his brothers as they prepared to leave camp on foot and head upstream.

“Eli, do we track them and take them out as we find them? Or do you plan to try and take all of them at once if we can?” Isaac asked.

“I don’t think we’ll ever be able to take them all at once. If we can take enough of them out, the others will know we’re after them and probably try to come after us.”

“Eli, I say we take out as many as we can before they realize we’re after them. We need to cut the odds and we need to do it in a way the others won’t know about us until it’s too late,” Pike added.

“I agree with Pike. If we can get as many as five or six, we’ll have the odds down to where we can pick them off as we come upon the group,” Micah spoke up.

“Archie told us that they use leaves and limbs to disguise themselves. I say we do the same,” Caleb added.

“Good idea, Caleb. Before we leave camp, we’ll help each other cover our clothes, faces and hands with leaves and twigs. They may be good at trying to conceal themselves, but we’ve done this since we were boys and we’ll be even better,” Eli agreed.

“One more thing, Bucks. No matter what happens, we’ll stay together and we’ll shoot to kill, no matter what weapon we use.”

Their .50 caliber Sharps and their .44-40 Winchesters both had swivels for attaching slings.

When Micah had his slings attached and his quiver filled with two dozen arrows equipped with razor sharp broadheads, he chopped a willow then cut off part of the pole and whittled it round on one end to make a pestle.

Gathering mud and sand from the edge of the creek, he made a large pile of the slimy mess on a wide flat rock. Then with both hands, he stripped piles of willow leaves from the long slender limbs. As he pounded the sap from the green leaves, mixing in the mud and sand, his concoction turned into a dull, greenish-brown paste. When he had just the right consistency they began to paint each other’s faces and necks.

Once their exposed skin was covered in the paste, they began to take more of the long willow limbs with the slender leaves still attached and tied them to their arms and legs, front and back. What one couldn’t reach, one of the others covered for him until they were literally concealed in leaves from head to toe.

Their long guns were slung over their shoulders with their quivers as they first headed out at a fast walk. Then, satisfied their willow leaves and limbs would stay in place, they began to run in long, slow strides toward the base of the mountains outlined against the night sky in the distance.

They kept their pace for nearly an hour before slowing to a walk. When they came to a shallow stream they stopped to drink from cupped hands before heading out again at a fast walk. For most of the long moonlit night, they made their way toward the mountains.