Page 113 - Cooke's Peak - Pasaron Por Aqui

mark. Wilson, before Jose could make a third at- tempt, drew his pistol and killed the boy. Cochise was considerably upset, but Tevis declared that the incident had been provoked by the Chief and that
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Wilson had only defended
Another link in the chain of incidents that led to
the disintegration of all ties between Tevis and Cochise occurred when the station cook, identified only as Abbott, caught an Apache boy stealing sugar. Tevis, contrary to advice from Esconolea, spanked the lad before turning him loose. The little Apache’s older brother was Cochise’s brother-in-law, who was a good friend of Tevis (Tevis had loaned the warrior some horses to complete the purchase of his bride). Despite this, the Apache warrior warned Tevis to be on his guard in the future.
A few days later, Cochise’s brother-in-law and Dirty Shirt ambushed Tevis. The American managed to drop Dirty Shirt with a well placed pistol shot, but the other warrior was upon him before he could recock his weapon. In a desperate hand-to- hand struggle, Tevis received a painful cut before stabbing his opponent to death. He carefully buried both bodies and erased as much of the combat evidence as possible. The killing of the two Apaches was not Tevis’s secret alone. Esconolea had wit- nessed the entire grisly episode but, as he later ex- plained, had seen no reason to interfere as he planned to avenge Tevis should he be killed.
Tevis managed to conceal his painful wound from everyone, or so he thought, but proceeded to docu- ment the incident in the diary that he kept in a locked trunk. A few days later, while Tevis was at another station on company business, Abbott, who had noticed bloodstains on Tevis’s shirt, picked the lock on Tevis’s trunk and read the account of the ambush. He reconnoitered the site and went so far as to recover an arrow from each of the warrior’s bow quivers. When he confronted Tevis with the evidence, Tevis became enraged and threatened to kill him if he so much as hinted the truth to anyone. However, knowing it was only a matter of time until
Cochise discovered the reason for the two warriors’
cocted a plan to keep Tevis at the station. They had Abbott accuse Tevis of trading off company corn to the Indians without authorization, certain that Tevis would agree to remain at Apache Pass rather than risk arrest and trial. Instead, Tevis disarmed the Dona Ana County Sheriff, Samuel G. Bean, gathered his stock, and departed for the Rio Grande. He located Anthony Elder, and the two settled on a ranch near Canutillo, 16 miles up the
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river from El Paso.
In October of 1858, Postmaster General Brown
exercised the proviso he had inserted in the contract with Birch that Giddings and Doyle had inherited. The Butterfield line incorporated the El Paso to Fort Yuma portion of the mail route. Giddings was reduced to operating short lines between San An- tonio and El Paso and between El Paso and Santa Fe. On the other end of the mail route Giddings also retained the line between Fort Yuma and San Diego, because the Butterfield line veered off toward Los
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Angeles from the Yuma crossing (Figure 28).
In early 1860, the far western section was also sacrificed to the Butterfield Overland Mail Com- pany, and Giddings was left with only the San An-
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Despite the curtailment of government support, however, the old “Jackass” line continued to advertise pas- senger service in the San Antonio papers for points between New Orleans, Louisiana, and San Diego,
absence, he resolved to leave the station.
Tevis applied to the company superintendent for a transfer to the Rio Grande valley, but his superior feared that any new agent would not be able to control the Apaches. According to Tevis, the Over- land Mail lawyer in Mesilla, Samuel Woodworth Cozzens, and the company superintendent con-
himself.
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Chapter 4
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1
tonio to El Paso leg for postal subsidies.
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The Butterfield Overland Mail Company
As previously noted, Congress approved an act on March 3, 1857, authorizing the advertisement for bids for mail service between some point on the Mississippi and San Francisco and leaving it up to the Postal Department to work out the details. Among the nine bidders for mail route Number 12,587 was the Overland Mail Company headed by 56-year-old John Butterfield of Utica, New York.8-
Butterfield was born on November 18, 1801, at Berne, New York. He had little formal education but obviously had a good mind. By the time he was 19, Butterfield was a stage driver for the firm of Thorp and Sprague of Albany, New York. In 1830 he moved to Utica with another firm, and, with a
California, as late as August 18, I860.