It was the dawn of the seventh decade of the nineteenth century, five years after Lee had surrendered to Grant at Appomattox on Palm Sunday, April 9, 1865—a victory President Abraham Lincoln did not live to savor. The single cartridge fired by John Wilkes Booth succeeded where all the firepower of the Confederacy had failed.
With that single shot Abraham Lincoln belonged to the ages and the presidency of the United States belonged to the man who had been elected vice president in 1864, Andrew Johnson. A former Tennessee tailor, small-town mayor, state legislator, member of the House of Representatives and Lincoln’s choice on his ticket for reelection, Johnson was also dubbed “Andy the Sot” after he showed up drunk during Lincoln’s inauguration ceremony.
The South looked upon Johnson as a traitor Tennessean who had sided with the North during the war, and the North considered him a turncoat who was too soft on the South after the war. In fact, Johnson was only trying to carry out Lincoln’s stated policy toward the South, but Andrew Johnson was no Abraham Lincoln. So, in the presidential election of 1868, the voters turned to a true hero of the North, Ulysses Simpson Grant, who had been nominated on a wave of acclamation on the first ballot at the Republican Convention in Chicago and succeeded in defeating his opponent, Horatio Seymour.
President Grant believed that both North and South and the entire United States and Territories would benefit with the expansion and development of the West. He expressed that belief in words and deeds, favoring “appropriations for river and harbor improvements and for fortifications and other advancements in whatever amounts Congress may deem proper.”
The East and West were linked by rail two months after Grant’s inauguration when the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads converged at Promontory Point, Utah, and the Southwest was further flooded by federal disbursements throughout the region.
One of the principal beneficiaries of this bonanza was the Arizona Territory.
Arizona . . . Beautiful. Bountiful. Fertile flatlands. Soaring rock-bound riches. But a battlefield since time remembered. Much of the land was hard and hostile, as hard and hostile as those who dwelled and fought on it—Comanche, Kiowa, Cherokee and Apache.
Then came the conquerors, from this and other continents. Mexicans. Spaniards. Bringing with them horses and gunpowder. And finally those who came to cultivate and stay—Americans. Possibly the most civilized, but definitely the most determined. Lusty. Land hungry. Unyielding. Undaunted. A perpetual procession of seekers. Miners. Cattlemen. Entrepreneurs. Farmers. Runaways. From the defeated South and the victorious North. Outcasts and outlaws. Lawmen and laborers. And with many of them, wives, women who would bear children; and also other women, prostitutes, who would provide the revelry of their profession.
At the western river port of La Paz, Arizona Territory, the steamboat Colorado Queen had docked and dropped anchor early that April Monday morning.
La Paz was the passageway to America’s last great frontier, one of the Creator’s most rugged, vast and complex creations. Dull, flat, monotonous in the places where the devil stomped the dust off his boots; spectacular, craggy and colorful in other places that were akin to paradise.
It was a place peopled by tough, sweat-stained miners who worked the tunnels and veins of the Wickenberg, the Congress, the Constellation and the MacMorris—men who dug up the earth’s treasure and raised a lot of hell in the process.
It was a place peopled by Indians, who in spite of treaties were still resentful, fierce and defiant, and who raised a lot of hell—and scalps.
It was a place peopled by soldiers—riding out of Fort McDowell, Fort Apace, Fort Thomas, Fort Breckenridge, Fort Whipple and Fort Lowell—men who swore to keep the peace, but who also raised a lot of hell in the process.
And it was a place where the Colorado Queen was unloading passengers and cargo.
The first passenger to leave the ship was a man with a bruised face and body who had lost six hundred dollars in a card game, who tried to get it back with a blackjack, who had instead been beaten almost senseless—a man named Slade, who wanted nothing to do with anyone named Silver.
He was followed by dozens of other passengers, among them four passengers named Silver.
Ike, Jake and the boys made their way down the gangplank.
“Are we in Azirona?” Obie inquired.
“Arizona,” Jed corrected.
“We’re here.” Jake grinned.
“I don’t see any Indians,” Obie remarked.
“Jake,” Ike said, “you and the boys wait ’til they unload the baggage. I’ll get the tickets and be right back.”
Ike Silver had changed from the gray suit of the previous night to more suitable duds for traveling through rugged country. He wore a wide-brimmed trail hat, light blue denim shirt, leather vest with a heavy gold watch and chain attached, a tan canvas jacket, bugger-red pants and round-toed McInery boots with three inch heels, placing the top of his head more than six and a half feet from the ground on which he walked with panther-like grace.
Ike Silver wore something else. Around his narrow waist was strapped a black cartridge belt and holster housing the latest model Remington handgun. Traveling by stagecoach wearing a holstered handgun might not be comfortable, but it might be prudent—particularly since just about all the Silver brothers’ monetary fortune was deposited in Jake Silver’s jacket.
Ike moved away from the wharf, where the air was redolent with the riverfront odors, toward the teeming center of town, where the aroma of tortillas, tacos, frijoles and other Mexican dishes mingled with the fragrance of manure. Dogs barked and scampered along with cats, and even chickens, among the polyglot of people, horses and mules.
Despite the early morning hour, several saloons were already in session with streams of thirsty customers entering and sated patrons exiting through the swinging doors.
At the stage depot a sign hung on the glass door—CLOSED.
A considerable crowd had assembled, waiting for the sign to be flipped and the door to be opened for business. Ike Silver joined the crowd and also waited.
Just as he started to reach for the watch and chain to check the time, a huge hand banged him on the back. Ike made a sharp turn ready for come-what-may.
A sturdy six-footer with green eyes peering out of a catgut face stood inches away, along with a half-dozen other sturdy specimens.
“Big Ike Silver, you son of a bonanza, how are ya!!”
“Sean Dolan!” Ike grinned. “You fugitive from a fistfight! How are you?”
“First-rate!” Dolan turned to the men close by. “Boys, this here’s Big Ike Silver. He delivers the goods. Weren’t for him, many a mining camp in California woulda been without beans, bacon and mountain dew. We cut up a few touches in our time too, didn’t we, Big Ike?”
“You might say that.”
“I just did. Sure am glad our trails crossed. . . .”
“So am I, Sean. What’re you doing in La Paz?”
“Passin’ through, I hope. Been three days trying to get out.”
“Out to where?”
“Prescott. You’re looking at the new partner– foreman of the Rattlesnake Mine—if he ever gets there. . . . Where you heading?”
“Well . . .”
The crowd reacted as the depot door opened and a bony hand flipped the sign to the opposite side—OPEN.
The hand was attached to a bald-headed cadaverous fellow who stepped onto the boardwalk and was greeted by a chorus of questions.
“What’s the word, Curly?”
“When’s the stage gonna run?”
“Are you selling tickets yet?”
“I gotta get outta this rat hole.”
“Good news us, Curly . . .”
“There ain’t no good news,” Curly shouted back. “The ‘word’ is injuns—and there ain’t gonna be any stage runnin’ to Prescott or any place else ’til an army escort shows up.”
“When’s that?”
“Yeah, dammit, when?”
“Could be in an hour or so. . . .” Curly grinned.
The crowd reacted with smiles, laughter, and even a smattering of applause.
“Or,” Curly continued, “could be a week—could be a month—or could be next winter. . . .”
The crowd reacted with displeasure.
“There’ll be a notice on that there board.” Curly pointed to a bulletin board next to the door. “ ’Til then, we’re closed.”
He turned back toward the door. But standing on the threshold blocking his way was a young nun who had been among the crowd.
“Excuse me, sir.”
Curly had no choice.
She was about twenty-one or twenty-two, sunny-faced and pert, with a sprinkle of freckles over the side of her turned-up nose, and wore the habit of the Sisters of Charity.
“Mister Curly”—she couldn’t help glancing up at his shiny pate and smiling—“could you please tell me if there is any other way of getting to Prescott?”
Ike and the rest of the assemblage stood by to listen.
“No, ma’am. Not unless you got wings under that outfit. Even then, them Apaches ’ud shoot you down. And things is gonna get a sight worse before they get any better.”
“Why is that?”
“I’ll tell you why is that, ma’am. Last night an Apache Chief called Colorados escaped from the Arizona Territorial Prison. Got hisself wounded. So, there’s two eithers.”
“Eithers?”
“Either Colorados is dead and there’s gonna be trouble—or else he ain’t dead and there’s gonna be trouble.”
“But I was told there was a treaty.”
“Yes, ma’am. Sometimes we break it—sometimes the Apaches do.”
“I’ve got to get to Prescott.”
“Yes, ma’am. And I’ve got to get to breakfast. Now, excuse me, lady.”
She stepped onto the boardwalk and Curly stepped inside, flipped the sign. CLOSED. And then he slammed the door.
“Oh, my,” she murmured, started to walk and bumped directly into Big Ike.
“I beg your pardon, sir.”
“Mea culpa, Sister.”
“Oh,” she said, “you’re Catholic.”
“No, Sister, my name’s Isaac Silver.”
“Oh, I see. I’m Sister Mary Boniface and I’m trying to get to Prescott.”
“Aren’t we all. Are you traveling alone, Sister?”
Sister Mary Boniface nodded.
“I thought nuns always traveled in pairs.”
“For a non-Catholic, Mister Silver, you know quite a bit about the ways of the church. I was traveling with Sister Mary Frances, but she took sick and had to turn back—but there’s no turning back for me. I’m going to Prescott one way or another.”
“I wouldn’t bet against you, Sister Boniface.”
“That’s very reassuring, I’m sure, Mister Silver. Good day.”
Ike tipped his hat as Sister Mary Boniface walked away, then he turned and shrugged at Sean Dolan.
“Neither would I.” Dolan grinned. “Well, Big Ike, would you care to look down a friendly bottle of bourbon with the boys and me? Cut up a few touches, like the old days?”
“No thanks, Sean. Jake and my boys are waiting at the dock.”
“I’d admire to see ’em. Catch up with you later, Big Ike.”
“So long, fellas.” Ike smiled at the miners and turned toward the river.
When his back was turned he stopped smiling.
He was thinking about those two hundred miles to Prescott.