When the West was youngBechdolt, Frederick R. (Frederick Ritchie)
History
When the West was young
Bechdolt, Frederick R. (Frederick Ritchie)
West (U.S.) -- History
For this was no-man's-land. Bands of renegade Apaches lurked among its
empurpled peaks. Companies of Mexican smugglers came northward through
its steep-walled border canyons driving their laden burros to lonely
rendezvous where hard-eyed traders awaited them with pack-mules loaded
down with dobie dollars. A few lonely ranch-houses where there was
water in the lowlands; in the mountains a sawmill or two and some
far-flung mines; here the habitations were like arsenals. Honest men
must go armed to work and sleep with arms by their bedsides, and even
then it was advisable for them to ask no questions of those who rode
up to their cabins.
And it was best for them to make no protests at what such guests did
unto their own or the property of others. For since the days when the
first semblances of law had come to Tombstone this region had been the
sanctuary of the bad men.
When you crossed the summits of the Dragoon Mountains you were beyond
the pale. Hither the stage-robber came, riding hard when the list of
his crimes had grown too long. The murderer, the rustler, and the
outlaw spurred their ponies on eastward when the valley of the San
Pedro was too hot for them and took refuge here among their kind. On
occasion the bolder ones among them ventured back to show themselves
on Tombstone's streets or swagger into Charleston's dance-halls; but
never for long and never unless they were traveling in formidable
groups.
And then sooner or later they would slip away again to the wild passes
and the long and lonely valley flats where there was no law excepting
that which a man carried in his pistol-holster. One after another
those who were "short" in other places had drifted before the winds of
public opinion to gather in this eastern end of Cochise County where
two whose qualities of deadliness surpassed those of all the rest were
recognized, because of that superior ability at killing, as the big
"He Wolves." These two were Curly Bill and John Ringo.
When they were not leading their followers in some raid against the
herds of border cattlemen, or lying in wait to ambush one of the armed
bands of smugglers, or standing up the stage, these two were usually
to be found in Galeyville. You will not see Galeyville named nowadays
on the map of Arizona and if you look ever so long through the San
Simon country, combing down the banks of Turkey Creek ever so closely,
you will not discover so much as a fragment of crumbling adobe wall to
show that the town ever existed.
But it did exist during the early eighties and its life was noisy
enough for any man. There came a day when the neighboring mines shut
down and the little smelter which furnished a livelihood for the
honest members of the population went out of business; later the
Apaches erased everything that was combustible from the landscape and
the elements finished the business.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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