23 He made his way into his cabin and bathed himself. His feet were cut and swollen, his moccasins long ago torn to shreds on the trail. His body was bruised and scratched from the brush. His throat was almost swollen shut and he would have never been able to have nourished himself with the freshly killed steer if the animal’s blood had not eased the way down his throat. McKenna found some fresh clothes and was settling down in his own cabin, feeling safe for the first time in days, when he heard two Apache women going past, one with an infant strapped to her back. That was a sign the Apache raiding party was still around and would probably return for the remainder of the beef they had slaughtered. Sore and bleeding, Jimmie put his battered feet back on the trail to the east fork of the Gila and Tom Wood’s place. Silent Visitor He retraced his earlier torturous path, up the mountain, down the trail to the middle fork, across the divide and over to the east fork. Jimmie had been stalked by death so long now he moved silently. No one at the Wood’s place heard him coming up until he pushed open the door. Everyone at the cabin was excited when they saw Jimmie, who they all thought had been killed with Baxter by the Apaches. Poland had made it to safety and had set out for Sapello, Georgetown and Pinos Altos to get help to go back to the cabin and bury Baxter and Jimmie too if they could find where the Apaches had killed him. The crowd at Wood’s cabin was not concerned about the Apaches. Well protected and a sufficient force to fight them off, they sang and danced the night away. McKenna lapsed in and out of his senses much of the day. In fact, he would do that for the next several months. The fear he had when the Apache captured him had penetrated deep into his being and it was several years before he could get a good night’s sleep without jumping at the least sound from the bush. Poland & Posse Come In About nine that first evening, Captain Stanton Brannan from Georgetown along with Poland and a posse of some two dozen men rode into the Wood place. Poland said that soon after Jimmie left the camp by the McKenzie cabin where he put a wagon sheet over his fallen friend, a troop of soldiers on the trail of the Apache raiders found Baxter and buried him. They surmised McKenna had returned, found Baxter dead, covered him with a wagon sheet and fled as fast as he could. The posse went out from the McKenzie place to find McKenna before the Apache did, but they had no success. Jimmie was well hidden by the brush he was creeping through along White Creek and neither Apache nor posse could find him. No Rest from Apache Terror The posse told those at the Wood’s ranch cabin that another Tom Woods, a hunter, had set out to get help for his wife who was about to give birth at their cabin and had been chased by the Apache. He got away, made it back to his cabin and his wife, and barricaded them inside. Figuring he needed help, the posse was on its way to the cabin. Poland and McKenna volunteered to go help. The posse supplied them with guns and ammunition and they rode all night to the hunter’s cabin. A day later in the barricaded cabin, the hunter’s wife gave birth. It was the couple’s sixth child, and Tom said as soon as it was safe and his wife could travel, he was pulling out for better hunting grounds where the Apache’s did not haunt the woods. It was late June when Tom Woods, the hunter, packed his family up for a move to Alma. Joining Territorial Militia The Apache renegades were still raiding and a Colonel Blake rode up with 50 troopers on his way to the mouth of the Blue River where Apache raiders had been reported. He recruited Tom Woods and Poland, who had hunted that area, as scouts. Blake signed Jimmie, Poland, and Woods up on the spot into the Territorial Militia. He then ordered Jimmie and a man named Russell to stay and watch over the hunter’s family until they returned. Before the troops left, portholes were cut in the cabin walls and Tom told Jimmie that if he did not return in three weeks to take his family into Silver City. Meat was running short after the troops left. Jimmie and Russell went out to kill a steer. They left after the burros came in for water and they could catch one to use as a pack animal. They found a small herd of cattle and Jimmie dropped a nice fat steer. They dressed it out, cut the brand off the hide, and threw the hide over the front quarter, packing the rest on the back of the burro. Jimmie heard a rustling in the brush as they left. When they got back to the cabin they showed the children how to cut and salt the beef, then returned for the rest. Then they went back out for the rest of their kill. They had only been gone for an hour or so, but every scrap of the beef they had killed had been carried off. Dozens of moccasin tracks were all around where the half carcass had been left. Cabin - Lone Outpost The troops returned from the mouth of the Blue with no prisoners. The Apache were too elusive and the troops too tired and trail-weary to pursue them into rocky high mountain hideouts that horses could not reach. When the troops pulled out Russell went with them to Socorro. That left Jimmie, Poland and Woods and his family alone on the middle fork and east fork area of the Gila. The ranchers had all pulled out with their families. The nearest whites were at the small settlements of Alma and Sapello, and few had stayed in these communities. Jimmie and Poland stopped at the abandoned McKenzie cabin where Baxter fell while they were out hunting. They found the bullet that killed Baxter in the bean pot it had pierced after going through him. They found Baxter’s watch where he had tossed it as he fell. Poland wound it and it began ticking. While at the McKenzie place, Jimmie’s burro, Old Hog, came running up. Jimmie found out later that troopers pursuing the Apache raiders into old Mexico had spotted the burro following them about five miles behind the band. Old Hog Comes Home When the Mexican Federal troops pinned down Victorio and his band in the Sierra Madres, killing the great chief and most of his band, the survivors under Old Nana, made their way back to the old camps in the Mogollons and the Black Range. Old Hog apparently followed them back. The burro followed Poland and Jimmie back to the Woods place where the Woods children found him a delight. Jimmie had originally bought Old Hog from Woods and the children remember him well. By July the Apache raiders had left the area. Woods had enough mouths to feed, so Poland, McKenna and Old Hog headed for Kingston, 100 miles southeast in the Black Range, where they could renew their provisions. PART TWO of Apache Terror continued in our September Issue.