Chapter 8

A few days later, we pulled into Tucson. Just to be sure that there would be no trouble, I had asked Running Fox to stay with the wagons. With the current Indian wars going on, too many people shot first and asked questions later, if at all.

Every chance she had, Alice had been teaching English to Running Fox. He was not fluent in the language, but he was beginning to understand simpler statements. Running Fox seemed to be one of the smartest men I ever met, and he had a knack with languages.

While we were at Tucson, we dropped off a lot of the freight that we had been hauling and picked up some headed for Yuma. We didn't have as much going out as we did coming into Tucson, but there was enough to make it worth our while to haul it. There were no fixed freight rates, so each load involved a negotiation for the best rate for both sides. Based on my success with buying the wagon, Mr. Jackson asked me to come along to negotiate for him. He freely admitted that he was a very poor bargainer, and sometimes took a job at less money than he could have gotten for it.

I was happy to help him out, especially considering how kind he had been to me and to Alice. When we left the first customer, he slapped me on the back and commented that I had gotten twice the fee that he would have settled for. From then on, Mr. Jackson just introduced me as his agent, and stayed out of the conversation after that. I could not always do as well as I did on that first contract, but I always did better than he would have done without me. I really felt good about that.

We loaded up the freight from Tucson and evened out the loads in the wagons so that we had the same number of wagons, but each one was not as heavily loaded. I'm sure that this was appreciated by the oxen, though none of them actually commented on it.

We had spent three days in Tucson, and I had taken the opportunity to pick up four of the S&W top-break .44-40 revolvers as a present for Running Fox. I figured to have my friend on the wagon train make up a rig for him like he had done for me. In the meantime, he could use his current holster for a single S&W revolver.

Running Fox was ecstatic over the gift of the new revolver, and he almost kissed me when he realized that he was getting three more as soon as the holsters were ready. He had been practicing his pistol shooting and had become quite good with it considering how little time he'd had to work with a handgun. I had visions of him becoming as good as me, once he had enough experience. He was great when he had time to aim, but he needed to work on his draw and his quick shooting without the conventional aiming. I practiced with him as much as possible, and several of the other men in the crew joined us for my very informal classes. Alice even joined us with her .38, and she, too, got to be very proficient with it.

One day, she asked to try out a .44-40. The gun was really too big for her small hand to hold comfortably, but she did very well with two hands. Hell, we were not after style points, so I helped her with holding the pistol with two hands. This way, Alice could shoot as well with the .44-40 as she could with the .38 revolver she normally carried. That convinced me to switch her to a S&W .44-40 as soon as I could find one for her. In the meantime, she did switch to the Colt that Running Fox had been carrying.

We really had to be alert once we started out west of Tucson. The Yaquis were active along here, and they had the reputation of being the meanest Indians that a White man could run up against. Yaquis had been attacking wagon trains long before the full scale war had started, and they were expected to continue doing it long after the main war was over.

Running Fox and I were out one morning on our scouting run when we came upon a White man who had been tortured to death in a most gruesome way. Running Fox's only comment was, "Yaqui!" He looked around and estimated that the job had been done by 4-6 Yaquis, and it had been done yesterday. Without a doubt, we could expect an attack from them today or tomorrow. Running Fox warned me to be sure to shoot Alice before she could be captured by the Yaquis. Even a gut shot that would take hours to kill her was preferable to what the Yaquis would do to her over a period of several days.

We hurried to scout the rest of the road before taking up the trail of the Yaquis. Running Fox insisted that the Yaquis were not somebody to be taken lightly, and the two of us needed to stick together in Yaqui territory. I was happy after hearing that to know that Running fox had his four guns, and could use them to good effect.

We hurried back to the wagon train to report that the route was clear for the next 15 miles and to report that we were going looking for a party of 4-6 Yaquis. Mr. Jackson promised to be alert, and we were waved out with shouts of "Good luck" from the whole group. I even had the time for a kiss from Alice.

We found the trail of the Yaquis, and Running Fox was a bit concerned. He said that the trail was too easy to follow, and he feared that the Yaquis wanted to be followed. He was sure that they were planning some sort of ambush. Well, Running Fox was correct, as usual.

We followed the trail for about a mile south into the desert. Suddenly, Running Fox said, "Keep a close watch! There are not as many Yaquis leaving a trail, starting just up there about a hundred feet."

Hardly had he said that than two men burst up out of the sand. They had been hiding in slit trenches with just a light covering of sand. Neither man went for us. Instead, they cut long slits in our horses' throats. Whatever else it accomplished, it kept me from escaping because my horse fell in such a way that my leg was trapped under my horse. Shit! I was in desperate trouble!

The Yaqui who had attacked me turned on me with his knife, but I had been able to draw my revolver while he was coming around my fallen horse. It was a snap shot, but I hit him in the gut, and that put him out of the fight. At that range, a slug from a .44-40 makes a big mess as it travels through a man's body. Even the relatively low power of black powder, as compared to smokeless powder, puts enough energy into the bullet to scramble flesh and break bones as it passes through.

Meanwhile, Running Fox had not been so lucky. He had jumped free of his dying horse, but he landed too close to his attacker and received a nasty wound in his left forearm as he shielded himself from a swing from the man's knife that would have gutted him. I could see the attack on Running Fox, so I put a bullet through the chest of his attacker.

Definitely, we were in serious trouble! Running Fox was badly cut and bleeding profusely. I was pinned under my horse. We had no idea where the rest of the Yaquis might be. I waved Running Fox to me and had him keep watch while I tried to do what I could to stop the bleeding. Fortunately, no major artery had been cut. I cut off one sleeve of his shirt and used that with the handle of his tomahawk to make a tourniquet. That slowed down the bleeding enough for me to stop it completely with a compression bandage made from his other shirt sleeve.

There was still no sign of the rest of the Yaquis, so I began to work my leg from under my dead horse. I had made considerable progress when Running Fox announced the presence of the rest of the Yaquis by firing his revolver at them. There was no way he could use his rifle with his left arm messed up the way it was. Thank God that he was now proficient with his revolvers. My Winchester was buried under several hundred pounds of horse carcass, so I, too, was stuck with only my revolvers.