b'Scout continued from page 31hectoring and berating him on one hand, then, on the otherline between right and wrong, then being consumed in the hand, praising how serious a learner Burnham was, Holmesviolence of a terrible range war could, in the long run, be as nonetheless patiently taught the young man the skills ofdeadly as one\'s worst enemies. In the shadows of what would survival in the wilderness. He taught him the basics, howeventually be known as the Pleasant Valley War, a 20-year-to avoid hostile Indians, how the tracks of horses couldold Burnham would be sucked into the conflict by a kindly give pertinent and vital information, skills that despitefamily that had taken him in, but a family that was sucked Burnham\'s early years as a scout he had never seriouslyin, as Burnham would be, to reluctantly take sides due to the learned. Through Holmes, he learned to trust the instinctsvagaries of nature and their own financial failures.of animals, whether the instincts brought good tidings orthose not so well. For a time after leaving his scout friends, Burnhamroamed the Tonto Basin and the Mogollons prospecting He learned through Holmes, and the second "old-timer" heand seeking odd jobs, until, one wintry morning (circa met, an old ex-army scout named "Dead Eye" Lee, how to1879-1880) on his way to Globe,broke and busted, "make out" the scent of Apaches and how being able to placehe came across a ranch along the Salt River just south that scent could be the difference between life and death.of the Tonto rim. The ranch was owned by a family He was taught how to live off the land, that dried jerky,alternately known as the Gordons (Kemper) and the Wells powdered Venison, and desert "vegetables", i.e., potatoes,(Coddington, Coppock, Mike, Scout for Two Continents. flowers, seeds, certain plants were the foods of survival inTrue West, September 2014, pp. 38-41). Fred Wells, or hostile environments, and that clean water could be foundGordon, the patriarch of the family had tried to start in unusual places like the foot of high mountain crevicesa cattle ranch on the north side of the Mogollons but or inside a cut agave cacti. Or that even a crushed spider\'sit had failed, causing the family to move to a smaller web could provide vital information when men and animalsestablishment on the south rim closer to Globe. The family recently passed through. had very little left but they clearly saw that the ragged,filthy Burnham and his scrawny, starving horse had even To keep his newly acquired skills sharp and focused Burnhamless, so they immediately took him in, cleaned him up, fed gave up those vices so easily attained by so many others,him and his horse, and hired him on. For the first time especially Cowboys, in the Old West. Early on he gave upsince leaving Iowa, Burnham felt a sense of family and tobacco, and he studiously avoided regular consumptioncommunity, and he appreciated it greatly, but it was not of alcohol. Never a teetotaler, (Burnham would later in lifeto last very long, for the Wells/Gordons were harboringBurnham was the centerpiece oppose Prohibition), he nonetheless drank only on rarea terrible secret. Trying to restock their decimated cattle occasions and if he did, it was with "civilized" company in theherd and start anew, Fred and his son John had borrowedin Richard Harding Davis book, city, never out in the wilds, whether he was riding the Tontofrom a bank that was owned by the cattle interests in the Rim or camping beside the banks of the Zambezi (Kemper, Aterritory and were affiliated with the Graham family, theReal Soldiers of Fortune, Splendid Savage, pp.35-40). cattlemen who had turned on their former partners, the sheep herding Tewksburys, and were beginning to seekand the inspiration for Allandominance over the Tonto Basin and the Pleasant ValleyQuatermain in the H. Rider He learned and learned well, but there was this one thing thatthey lived in. Since Fred Wells was heavily in debt to that he didn\'t learn until it was almost too late for him, humanparticular bank, having borrowed a banknote to rebuildHaggard classic adventure nature. This human trait that people, no matter how goodhis herd, they began to pressure him - either pay up his and kind, if drawn into feuds or straddling the moral greydebt, which he couldn\'t do or join in with the Grahams.novel series that included Wells at first resisted as he wanted no part of the feud, but.the intense pressure to pay up or else finally forced him toKing Solomon s Minestake his herd and to try to flee back up north up the rim and away from the growing maelstrom."(I) soon became conscious of a strange undercurrent ofdiscerned a plot by the (Tewksbury) sheep holder faction mischief in the round-ups or in the dance halls of Globe"to murder the Wells-Gordons and their hired gun, the man (Coppock, Scout for Two Continents, p.38). with the "Remington six-shooter belt" (Coppock, Scoutfor Two Continents, p.40). That would be Burnham, who Burnham would add: "The hospitality and the consequentwhether he liked it or not was now, at 20, a fugitive from turning aside from my purpose forged the first link in athe law, a wanted man. He had to flee the Wells homestead chain of events that for years I could not break. I became aas they were targets themselves, aligning himself with the thread woven in a strange and intricate pattern.A patternCattle Barons, the Grahams, and becoming a hired gun and sometimes bright and cheerful, but never altogether freemessenger for that faction, never riding the same horse and of the black warp of crime and the red woof of bloodshedalways taking care to hide out in the mountains, away from which made up so much of the fabric of life in Arizonathose who would come looking for him. The bloodletting and Northern Mexico in those days" (Kemper, A Splendidhad begun, to Burnham\'s dismay, and no matter his original Savage, p.44). innocence in being loyal to the family that took him in, or his skills with a gun, he wanted out. He rode south to Burnham, loyal to this family that had taken him in joinedGlobe and met up with an old family friend, the editor of Wells-Gordon, his son, his wife and daughters riding up thethe Arizona Silver Bell and respected Globe citizen, Judge rim, only to find themselves being pursued by two deputyAaron Hackney. Hackney had known Burnham\'s uncles sheriffs sent up from Globe. The two sheriffs caught upthrough his newspaper connections and after listening to with the family and demanded they turn over their herd tothe woeful tale told by the young desperate nephew of his them. At this point the Wells-Gordon\'s family dog lungedfriends, he advised him to ride south to Tombstone, return Andy & Tina Incardona at one of the deputies, biting him, whereupon the deputyto his original plans of being a miner, and to lay low for a 623-258-0207 shot and killed the dog, only to be blasted out of his saddletime, avoiding all, even his Wells-Gordon friends.by (almost all accounts) Fred Wells\' Sharps Buffalo rifle ata distance of 800 yards. Burnham covered the survivingAt first, it seems Burnham did not heed the judge\'s sage advice. 7100 E. Cave Creek Rd., Ste. 135 deputy with his rifle, his own moral compass shaken byHe continued to drift in and out of the Tonto basin, which Cave Creek, AZ 85331 what he had just witnessed. As he would write later, "Inhad had its share of communal violence, and was subjected to that one act, a whole family and their best friend crossedeven more - an Apache uprising!Along with a fellow drifter, Tuesday - Friday 9:00 to 6:00 the Rubicon that divides the law-abiding citizen from thosea gregarious Cowboy from Kansas whom he had befriended, who live beyond" (Kemper, A Splendid Savage, p.51). Burnham signed up - for the first time - to act as a scout with Saturday 10:00 to 5:00the U.S. Army, and it was probably at this time when he made CaveCreekFarrierSupply@gmail.com The family was now forced to openly side with the Grahamsthe acquaintance of noted scout Al Sieber. His brief stay with as it was now a matter of life or death. They were able tothe army over, his Kansas companion sought to entice him into buy off the surviving deputy by saying they did not knowa "get rich quick" scheme by cattle rustling - for the Curly Bill cavecreeksaddlery_andy who fired the fatal shot and allowing the deputy to cut offBrocious gang! part of their herd and take it back with him to Globe, but even that was not enough as Burnham\'s scouting skillsNext month, Part 2.32 December 2019'