John Gregory Bourke - On The Border With Crook

It was a curious exhibit of one of the saddest passions of human nature, and a curious jumble of types which would never press against each other elsewhere. Over by the faro bank, in the corner, stood Bob Crandall, a faithful wooer of the fickle goddess Chance. He was one of the handsomest men in the Southwest, and really endowed with many fine qualities; he had drifted away from the restraints of home life years ago, and was then in Tucson making such a livelihood as he could pick up as a gambler, wasting brain and attainments which, if better applied, would have been a credit to himself and his country.

The beautiful diamond glistening upon Bob Crandall’s breast had a romantic history. I give it as I remember it:

During the months that Maximilian remained in Mexico there was a French brigade stationed at the two towns of Hermosillo and Magdalena, in Sonora. Desertions were not rare, and, naturally enough, the fugitives made their way when they could across the boundary into the United States, which maintained a by no means dubious attitude in regard to the foreign occupation.

One of these deserters approached Crandall on the street, and asked him for assistance to enable him to get to San Francisco. He had a stone which he believed was of great value, which was part of the plunder coming to him when he and some comrades had looted the hacienda of an affluent Mexican planter. He would sell this for four hundred francs—eighty dollars.

Crandall was no judge of gems, but there was something so brilliant about the bauble offered to him that he closed the bargain and paid over the sum demanded by the stranger, who took his departure and was seen no more. Four or five years afterward Crandall was making some purchases in a jewellery store in San Francisco, when the owner, happening to see the diamond he was wearing, inquired whether he would be willing to sell it, and offered fifteen hundred dollars cash for the gem which had been so lightly regarded. Nothing further was ever learned of its early ownership, and it is likely enough that its seizure was only one incident among scores that might be related of the French occupation—not seizures by the foreigners altogether, but those made also by the bandits with whom the western side of the republic swarmed for a time.

There was one poor wretch who could always be seen about the tables; he never played, never talked to any one, and seemed to take no particular interest in anything or anybody. What his name was no one knew or cared; all treated him kindly, and anything he wished for was supplied by the charity or the generosity of the frequenters of the gaming-tables. He was a trifle “off,” but perfectly harmless; he had lost all the brain he ever had through fright in an Apache ambuscade, and had never recovered his right mind. The party to which he belonged had been attacked not far from Davidson’s Springs, but he was one of those who had escaped, or at least he thought he had until he heard the “swish” and felt the pull of the noose of a lariat which a young Apache hiding behind a sage-brush had dexterously thrown across his shoulders. The Mexican drew his ever-ready knife, slashed the raw-hide rope in two, and away he flew on the road to Tucson, never ceasing to spur his mule until both of them arrived, trembling, covered with dust and lather, and scared out of their wits, and half-dead, within sight of the green cottonwoods on the banks of the Santa Cruz.

Then one was always sure to meet men like old Jack Dunn, who had wandered about in all parts of the world, and has since done such excellent work as a scout against the Chiricahua Apaches. I think that Jack is living yet, but am not certain. If he is, it will pay some enterprising journalist to hunt him up and get a few of his stories out of him; they’ll make the best kind of reading for people who care to hear of the wildest days on the wildest of frontiers. And there were others—men who have passed away, men like James Toole, one of the first mayors of Tucson, who dropped in, much as I myself did, to see what was to be seen. Opposed as I am to gambling, no matter what protean guise it may assume, I should do the gamblers of Tucson the justice to say that they were as progressive an element as the town had. They always had plank floors, where every other place was content with the bare earth rammed hard, or with the curious mixture of river sand, bullock’s blood, and cactus juice which hardened like cement and was used by some of the more opulent. But with the exception of the large wholesale firms, and there were not over half a dozen of them all told, the house of the governor, and a few—a very few—private residences of people like the Carillos, Sam Hughes, Hiram Stevens, and Aldrich, who desired comfort, there were no wooden floors to be seen in that country.

The gaming establishments were also well supplied with the latest newspapers from San Francisco, Sacramento, and New York, and to these all who entered, whether they played or not, were heartily welcome. Sometimes, but not very often, there would be served up about midnight a very acceptable lunch of “frijoles,” coffee, or chocolate, “chile con carne,” “enchiladas,” and other dishes, all hot and savory, and all thoroughly Mexican. The flare of the lamps was undimmed, the plinkety-plunk of the harps was unchecked, and the voice of the dealer was abroad in the land from the setting of the sun until the rising of the same, and until that tired luminary had again sunk to rest behind the purple caps of the Santa Teresa, and had again risen rejuvenated to gladden a reawakened earth with his brightest beams. Sunday or Monday, night or day, it made no difference—the game went on; one dealer taking the place of another with the regularity, the precision, and the stolidity of a sentinel.

“Isn’t it ra-a-a-ther late for you to be open?” asked the tenderfoot arrival from the East, as he descended from the El Paso stage about four o’clock one morning, and dragged himself to the bar to get something to wash the dust out of his throat.

“Wa-a-al, it is kinder late fur th’ night afore last,” genially replied the bartender; “but ’s jest ’n th’ shank o’ th’ evenin’ fur t’-night.”

It was often a matter of astonishment to me that there were so few troubles and rows in the gambling establishments of Tucson. They did occur from time to time, just as they might happen anywhere else, but not with sufficient frequency to make a feature of the life of the place.

Once what threatened to open up as a most serious affair had a very ridiculous termination. A wild-eyed youth, thoroughly saturated with “sheep-herder’s delight” and other choice vintages of the country, made his appearance in the bar of “Congress Hall,” and announcing himself as “Slap-Jack Billy, the Pride of the Pan-handle,” went on to inform a doubting world that he oould whip his weight in “b’ar-meat”—

“Fur ber-lud’s mee color,

I kerries mee corfin on mee back,

’N’ th’ hummin’ o’ pistol-balls, bee jingo,

Is me-e-e-u-u-sic in mee ears.” (Blank, blank, blank.)

Thump! sounded the brawny fist of “Shorty” Henderson, and down went Ajax struck by the offended lightning. When he came to, the “Pride of the Pan-handle” had something of a job in rubbing down the lump about as big as a goose-egg which had suddenly and spontaneously grown under his left jaw; but he bore no malice and so expressed himself.

“Podners (blank, blank, blank), this ’ere’s the most sociablest crowd I ever struck; let’s all hev a drink.”

If the reader do not care for such scenes, he can find others perhaps more to his liking in the various amusements which, under one pretext or another, extracted all the loose change of the town. The first, in popular estimation, were the “maromas,” or tight-rope walkers and general acrobats, who performed many feats well deserving of the praise lavished upon them by the audience. Ever since the days of Cortés the Mexicans have been noted for gymnastic dexterity; it is a matter of history that Cortés, upon returning to Europe, took with him several of the artists in this line, whose agility and cunning surprised those who saw them perform in Spain and Italy.