February 5


Dragoons at twilight.

I write tonight from Norco CA. I started home yesterday, spending last night in Apache Junction with a number of Washington friends who winter there.

I had carefully driven the route around the Dragoons in my truck, and had selected and gotten acceptance of two places to spend the night with horses, then returned with hay to the second one. I also got permission to leave my truck and trailer at the ranch near the West Stronghold. I closely inspected every cattle guard on the trail to be sure they had passage gates next to them.

This was way more involved than my cross country horse venture from years back. In that , however, I was on paved roads. It was simpler.

My start was at the site of the original Dragoon Ranch house, which is owned by the couple who developed the ranch 15 years ago. On the ranch they have an impressive program of breeding Spanish Barb horses, the horses that were brought to the New World early on by the Spaniards.

His wife had informed me earlier that Jerry Dixon was well-read in Apache history, so I opened that topic with him as I brushed bucket loads of early shedding hair off of my horses. We had as intense a conversation about Apache historians as one can have while at the same time harnessing horses. I wished we had had more time. I learned that Jerry is friends with the man who is probably the leading writer on Apaches today, Edwin Sweeney.

I was soon on my way through the ranch gate, headed south in bright sunlight. Fortunately the day was cool. With delays in the morning, I hadn’t been able to start until one o’clock.

(Picture A)

A friend of the Dixons, Kristin Wister rode with me. This was fortunate, as she brought a fancy Nikon and took pictures as we went along, including ones from the ground, the kind I can’t take. Most every picture I take has horse butts in it. In a couple of miles, Jerry arrived to take Kristin back.

(Picture B)

This first section, from the ranch, south along the mountain, close in, was a special treat. The Dragoons are notable for much variation, with a combination of volcanic and uplift mountain. The volcanic rock is in great rounded shapes. Some of the rocks lightly balanced on other round rocks or columns. One hill merges into another, making hiding opportunities everywhere, if you were an Apache, pursued by cavalry. I frequently imagined Apaches behind the rocks or the short mesquite trees. If Apaches were there or not, whether me or an army rider in 1870, it looked the same. The Apaches were known for their ability to disappear in their environment.

(Picture C)

I learned a day later that when Coronado came through this area, he referred to it as the “Displobado”, a land “unpeopled”. There were in fact Apaches here then, but were unseen by him. Apache history, such as it is, did not present evidence that Apaches had seen him either.

Before long I came to my first cattle guard. A cattle guard is a construction placed in the road where the road goes through a fence. They are usually steel bars crosswise to the road, close enough that a car can drive over, but spaced to a horse or cow foot would fall between. Animals have been known to break legs in them, but mostly I guess they work pretty well. My horses are unfamiliar with them, so I am extremely careful around them.

(Picture D)

My first cattle guard had a hinged metal gate. I drove the horses right up to it, close, where I attempted to open it with one hand while holding the horses’ reins next to their bits in the other. Having a second person was the obvious solution, but that wasn’t going to happen this trip. Once open, I drove the horses through, then got down to close. I made a key good choice for this procedure by bringing my four-in-hand leader horse reins instead of my normal pair lines. The leader lines were eight feet or more longer, and I could hold them from behind my wagon, looped over my arm as I wrestled with the gate.

The trail, which is part State Park road and part Forest Service, wound along next to the mountain. The surface was tan dust. There were pot holes, but the road was generally in good condition, and a delight to drive on. The surface was dusty.

I was very conscious of the horses’ temperatures, as they still had substantial winter coats. Even a brief trot warmed them up quickly, so we mostly walked. The air temperature was 60-65 degrees, which helped, and humidity was almost non-existent.

At the bottom of the first leg, I came to Middlemarch Road, which crosses the mountains. I am told it is called Middlemarch because the pass was about half way from Fort Huachuca to Fort Bowie, to the east. Both forts existed for management of the Apaches.

At Middlemarch I encountered my third cattle guard. This one had a faulty latch. With one hand I held the horses, and with the other I banged with a rock on the latch till it came free. The next step was to get on the wagon and drive through. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to relatch the gate, but just as I closed it, a truck drove up, so I asked the driver to help close the gate for me.

Closing the gates was essential, as there could be wandering cattle grazing the area. Not closing a gate securely would be considered a significant offense. My strategy, if unable to secure a fence, would be to tie it shut with hay twine. Fortunately I did not have to.

The climb up Middlemarch was not steep, but it was constant and long. As we rose, the pass took us between mountains, among mountains. Cattle guards appeared every so often, with wire passage gates. None were difficult to refasten. The worst was one that had standing Angus cattle nearby. The horses were anxious about the cattle, but kindly stood while I opened it. On the far side, I was slow to close the gate and as I struggled with it, the cattle glided closer on the far side, curious about events in their domain. My horses turned their heads, each to the outside, but they didn’t try to leave. I finished and we drove on, thanking them for their cooperation.

I have discovered these mountains have a lot of fans. Even people who have lived in the area all their lives have expressed fresh wonder. Dragoon Mountain admirers are a small subculture, or maybe even a large one. The West Stronghold was Cochise’s favorite place to return to, and he was buried somewhere in these mountains. The exact location was kept secret. His horse was buried with him.

With these mountains being Cochise’s resting place, and given that the government treaty with Cochise gave this territory to his people as a reservation, then took it away when best I figure they were in the way of silver mining (the Apaches referred to silver as “white iron”, and apparently had little interest in it), it would be an appropriate act of contrition on the part of the government to name these mountains for Cochise, rather than some sort of foreign soldier. Whether the Chiricahuas would welcome that renaming, I couldn’t guess, but the offer could be made.

(Picture E)

Going up the hill, I kept close attention to the boys’ heat. Reaching forward, I could put my hand on Solven’s butt and could tell when he was getting hot. We would pause from time to time for the horses to cool. I tried to keep moving as much as possible because I didn’t want to finish up after dark, and at this point the shadows were long.

Watching the light on the rocks of the hillside, the term “play of light” came to mind. Thinking back to my conversation with my philosopher, where perspective is changed by adding a new dimension, similarly perspective is changed by change of light, or more poetically, by the play of light. Late in the day, in particular, the light made the rocks their most dramatic.

Finally, at the top, we reached the grandest view of all. The road curved around to the left, along the top edge, Beyond the edge the land fell away steeply. Below was what in New England is a called a “gulf” - a large hollowing of the mountain, a half bowl, opening to the plain below. Step over the edge of the road and you could tumble down the side for hundreds of feet. Now, in the late afternoon, the distant plain was colored crosswise in strips of light and dark, Arizona colors of tan and yellow and shadow. The Chiracahua Mountains showed faintly in the far distance. The view took my breath away when I first saw it.

(Picture F)

The dirt road went across the top and then wound its way down in switchbacks. The boys, going downhill in the evening shade, cooled quickly. After several more cattle guards, we came out at the bottom, leaving the Forest Service land with a final cattle guard.

February 14

A few hundred yards further, I entered the ranch where I would stay the night. I had reached these people by phone a few days earlier. As they had no idea who I was, their first reaction was cautious, but with a reference from my host, who was their veterinarian, they gave me full welcome, and additionally contacted their friend, at the foot of Cochise Stronghold, who would let me bring the horses to his place the following night.

Barbara, I learned, was a veteran of riding in endurance and competitive trail events. I went through a phase in my horse competition when I did competitive drives, the driven version of the event. Also I had done lots of scribing for endurance veterinarians, and had lots of special friends in the endurance world. Having this common background we were immediately connected, and the whole visit flowed smoothly. My horses ate hay I had carried, in a pen next to Barbara’s four horses.

I was prepared to sleep on the ground in my sleeping bag, but on this chilly evening which would go to frost, I took the indoor option.

In the morning Barbara pointed my eyes to the red brightening of the dawn on the mountain slope behind their pasture. The day began bright and cool.

By nine my horses were harnessed and hooked to my wagon, and I started down the road, east towards Pierce Arizona. As soon as I could, I turned left back towards the mountains. My choice would have been to drive Cochise Stronghold Road, which edges the mountain, but from my scouting I knew this road, though continuous, was blocked by several ranches it crossed. I stayed a little further out. The roads were graded and level, making easy driving. We trotted part of the way, stopping for a few more cattle guards.

One passage gate was challenging to stretch enough to close. I man arrived in a state truck. I asked if he could help me. He said he was limited with a broken arm, so I had him hold the horses’ reins while I strained on the fence. He was close enough that I could have assisted him.

He told me he was a guard for a crew of inmates who were cutting brush on the road. Further down the road I saw a van full of them. By the look of them and their driver, we were the most interesting thing that had passed that morning.


Same as the other side, I watched the mountain, imagining Apache lives. This side appeared less variegated, but I learned my impression was wrong. Although seeming like a mountain without openings, it hid the remarkable Cochise Stronghold, where Cochise’s band camped from the 1840’s to 1870’s.

In early afternoon I arrived at the ranch just east of the Stronghold, which lies on hilly land which becomes plain. Although I was staying near the gate, I drove the horses up the road to the ranch house, to meet my host.

I did not know what to make of this ranch. The entrance was carefully groomed, and there was no evidence of grazing animals. Unlike ranches nearby, the grass was long enough to have seed heads. The ranch looked like it might the fancy rural home of some rich urban guy.

I am used to my first impressions being wrong. I get lots of examples. Doug, my host, came from a ranching family in Colorado. I believe I heard he owned other acreage that supported cattle, but he had decided not to graze this ranch. Soon after moving there he realized the archeological importance of this place. For something like a millennium, the Hohokam people lived on the ranch, followed in the 1400’s by the Apaches, who had migrated south from western Canada. Doug had been working with the archeologist of the Amerind Foundation in Dragoon to come up with a plan for studying sites on the ranch.

After Doug helped me settle the horses in his corral, he took me to an area a few hundred yards away where we quickly found numbers of pottery shards on the ground surface. Numbers of them were glazed, with patterns. I found sharp stone bits that would have been the waste from making arrow or spear points. In one place he showed me a built up mound, with lots of rock. Likely a wikiup structure would have been there. He said the rock was certainly transported from the mountain, as there was none in the soil.

When we returned to the corral, we saw the first black twin-propped Air Force plane come roaring low and fast through the Stronghold valley. Doug said he believed they were practicing for Afganistan. I saw several more that evening and a few in the morning. Doug, a pilot himself, said they were flying illegally low.

The Air Force again reminded me of the parallel of Afganistan and the Apaches. Hiding in the mountains was easier in the 1880’s, but here again the US military was haplessly fighting a dedicated local population in their home territory, similarly a successor to previous failure. With the Apaches, we followed the failures of the Mexicans. In Afganistans, the Russians and British. The Air Force returned here to a site of the previous conflict, but flew by too quickly to learn any lessons.

Back at the corral, Doug offered me the use of the apartment in his barn, where I could sleep. After showing me the route I could walk in the morning to meet up with him so he could guide me to the trail in to the Stronghold, he left, and I had the evening to myself. I spent it reading his book which was the telling of the story of Cochise’s grandson, who avoided the Army roundup of Apaches when they were shipped to Florida, who went with a small band into Mexico to live in a hidden stronghold in the northern Sierra Madres. I appreciated the apartment heat for the evening, but decided that the opportunity to sleep outside in the area of the Cochise Stronghold was too good to pass up. Getting the feel of the place mattered to me, despite Doug telling me about the mountain lion breeding pair that lived nearby, and also the large stuffed cat in Doug’s barn.

My solution was to sleep inside the horse corral, to reverse my role with the horses from protecting them, to them protecting me in my sleep. I layed down my Thermorest pad and got into my sleeping bag. Brisk came over to wonder what kind of crazy thing I was doing. The judgment was my interpretation, as Brisk approaches everything with pure curiosity. He put his nose down near my face. The view of a horse from underneath was comical and a bit bizarre. From the ground, he had this amazing long, long nose, and gangly legs that looked like awkward support for his big body. He looked at me and thought at length, then went back to his hay.

(Picture G)
If the cats were near in the night, catlike they would not have let me know till their claws were on me. With the coyotes, different story. Just before sleeping I began to hear them, first on one side then the other, calling and answering. They became much louder, till I was hearing them on all four sides. To the south I heard triumphant shouting that could have been a celebration of rabbit blood. The sounds became more distant and I fell asleep.

I believe the night sounds of the coyote were part of the life of the Hohokam and Apaches. The history books cannot communicate this.

(Picture H)

In the morning I fed the horses before dawn, and when I could see, I began the walk to join Doug. As we walked, we talked more about the Apaches. Doug said they typically would stay in an area about three weeks, then move to find fresh provision. There might be three or four hundred people in camp, which meant need for lots of food.

Doug showed me a rock near his house that had holes used for grinding grain or pinon nut.

(Picture I)

I asked Doug his opinion whether the Apaches used horses. He was certain that they used them extensively. Despite this, my own guess is that they both made some use of horses and also traveled lots on foot. From my own experience, horses needed lots of feed and water. Horses for everyone would have been a huge burden. I know the Apaches above all, were adaptable, so when it was convenient, such as following a raid, they would have used horses to herd horses. I would not think of them as a horse culture. I noted at the pow wow that in the varieties of Apache decoration and jewelry, horsehair as a material was totally absent.

(Picture J) Cochise Stronghold hides behind this view.

Doug said that probably even before the Spanish arrived, the Apaches were a raiding culture. Once they moved into the area, other tribes were absent. Something Doug said affected my thinking. He said the Chiricahua were efficient as raiders. They didn’t waste effort. They worked to perfect raiding. They were specialists.

Before 1840, the Chiricahua were living in Mexico and raiding there. The Spanish restrained them by attempting to put them on welfare, providing them life support if they stayed put and didn’t raid. This partly worked, except that the Apaches may not have understood white peoples’ agreements. When it said not to raid, they may have thought it applied to this group of people but not to that group. I picture the Spanish army being short-staffed with cultural advisors. Nonetheless, the system sort of worked. When the Spanish army more relied on Mexican resources, in 1840, the welfare ended, and the Mexicans opted for extermination. Geronimo, in particular, suffered from the Mexican attacks, having his first wife and children murdered by them. He claimed to a special hatred of Mexicans from that date and resolved to kill as many as possible in revenge.

By this time, and with the arrival of more settlers and miners, hunting was less productive, and the Chiricahuas relied more on provisioning by raiding.

With Doug’s guidance I came to the edge of his land, where a trail to the Stronghold continued up the mountain. I was entering not via the valley, but over the first ridge. The early morning sunlight highlighted the varied rock formations above me. Shortly after leaving Doug, I turned to see if I could spot him. We were both invisible to each other. The rocks and brush on the hillsides gave us cover.

When stopping to catch my breath, I thrilled on the huge silence that weighed on all the empty air between me and the distant Chiricahua Mountains. I heard only the occasional real-life twitter of a bird. But mostly silence.

On high ground I could see higher peaks of the Dragoons. Doug said if you climbed up there, you would find low rock walls the Apaches built. They could lie behind the rocks and watch progress of soldiers from Fort Bowie or Fort Huachuca.

As I went down the trail towards the Stronghold, I thought about hunting. Hunting, done efficiently as they would have, probably meant watching the trails that went to water. On the west slope, a stream flowed to the bottom.

I followed the road a couple of miles further into the Stronghold. Along the way I saw areas of frost still in the shade.

The Cochise Trail, which connects East and West Strongholds, rises from the end of the valley along a deep fast flowing creek. I am told even this creek goes dry in late summer, but springs remain. I tasted the water. I was drinking the water the Apaches drank. I was putting my feet on the trail where their feet walked.

I was concluding that Apache life was not as hard as I had imagined from Washington state. They weren’t foolish - they didn’t live in the desert. They traveled in it, they hunted in it, but they lived where the living was kinder, and where more wildlife existed. They knew their land well.

The first part of the trail was moist and green, nothing like desert. As I went higher, the trail became dryer. I was grateful that my legs were holding up. At Geronimo’s first surrender in 1886, Capt John Bourke wrote about the physical condition of the Apaches: “…every muscle was perfect in development and hard as adamant [diamond], and one of the young men…was as finely muscled as a Greek statue.” Lieutenant Wesley Shipp added, “No wonder our soldiers could not catch people like those. If our little army of 25,000 were composed of such men …it would be unconquerable by the best army now existing in Europe.” If I had spent a lifetime walking these trails, I would have a different sort of leg under me.

(Picture K)

(Picture L)

Volcanic rock formations along the trail had formed in fantastic shapes. Many had the green glow I had seen on the western side. An informational display at the Stronghold said the green is lichen growth, and that lichen is actually made of two plants: fungi and algae. The rocks I was seeing must have had Apache names. They looked like spirits would reside in them. I have no doubt these mountains were fully alive in the Apache mind. My own cultural background only gives me a glimpse of that relationship.

Along the trail on the east side I met some American Conservation Experience volunteers, who were digging water bars to protect the trail from erosion. I learned that ACE was attractive to many Europeans, who come to the US to volunteer. They told me their crew was all American, as only Americans are allowed to assist on federal lands. Foreigners work in state or local parks only. This must have been the Patriot Act at work.

I was happy to get to the western slope, to be striding downhill, as my uphill muscles were tiring. Going up or down, I thought about the issue of army troops following Apaches into the hills. Not only do the rock and flora give cover, but I realized that when you go up or down a rocky trail, your eyes are constantly on the ground. You are not looking for “hostiles”, and would be easy prey.

On the way down, the trail wound back and forth to ease the steepness of descent. Here the slopes were more vertical than the east side. Below and across the valley a waterfall came out of the rocks. At the bottom, in the West Stronghold, the ground flattened and a substantial creek ran down the middle. A state campground was at the head of the valley, in just the place everyone at any time would have wanted to camp.

I still had a walk of a few miles to get back to the ranch where my truck and trailer were. The day was warming and I was definitely tired now. The further out the Stronghold, the drier the land. Eventually the creek just disappeared into streambed gravel. Back at the truck, I guarantee I was happy to sit down for a little while, before driving around the top of the Dragoons to retrieve my horses.

In these three days in the end of January 2010 I found the completion to my venture into Arizona to learn about the Apache. My description does scant justice to the excitement I felt to be close to these mountains, to be in these mountains, to be close to the history of the people here. I was trying to learn about the people who were in such long conflict with the intruders to their land, to learn about them in my bones. When I finished crossing the mountains, somehow I was done. Something really changed. My sense of quest was gone for the moment. It was time to go home and let it all sink in, and do further study from books.