HUMOR

redskins who make no distinction between Federal and Confederate soldiers, but lie in treacherous ambush alike for all."

Although it can't be confirmed, one of the unmarked graves here might belong to Capt. John Donaldson, a former Federal officer in the Mexican-American War.

In an obituary written shortly after the engagement, Patagonia mine operator Sylvester Mowry wrote that Donaldson, while returning from the cattle search, "fell in the rear of troops to accompany a friend who had charge of a large herd of beeves. The Indians ambushed the party and Donaldson was killed at the first fire."

Finch reports that Donaldson had once been a deputy customs collector, and Sam Ford was a customs patrolman, making it "probable that Ford was Donaldson's cattledriving friend."

Standing on this bluff, imagining the battlefield scene that day, I think of the small stories wrapped inside the larger One-that of one friend dropping back to help another and dying for his trouble.

And what about these Yankee prisoners taking up arms with their captors? With the passions the Southern rebellion produced on both sides, only sheer desperation-like an attack by Apaches-could have produced such a collaboration.

I wonder if they became friends after the battle? Having survived against a mutual enemy, maybe their enmity cooled. I can believe it did. According to newspaper reporting, the grave etchings were "neatly cut in rough stone, executed by one of the Union prisoners they had along."

A few days later, on May 9, the Rebels engaged the Apaches a second time.

A scout led by Lt. Robert Swope surprised some Apaches gathering cattle near the springs, according to Finch in Pathway. The lieutenant ordered a charge, "leading it himself at least three horse-lengths ahead of his men," recalled one of Hunter's troopers, who remembered the event as it was told to him by Pvt. Thomas McAlpine, an eyewitness. McAlpine saw Swope shoot an Indian, "and before the red could fall from his horse had him scalped." The Rebels killed five Apaches, lost none of their own and drove the cattle back to Tucson.

By then, Tucson had practically become a ghost town, according to historian Colton. Some residents sympathetic to the Southern cause had left with Hunter, or fled to Mexico, just as Union loyalists had departed with the arrival of the Rebels. But the citizenry gradually filtered back.

In making their exit, Hunter and his Confederates rode past Dragoon Springs on May 18. If they encountered any Apaches on that last ride, history does not record it.

As for Hunter, the Southern captain became embroiled in several failed attempts to retake Arizona for the Confederacy, including an effort to recruit an ex-patriot army in Mexico. No one knows when or where he died, although most believe he is buried in Mexico.

But those who rode with him remain in Arizona. And if you sit a while, letting the hours pass and the world elsewhere spin to its own concerns, you can relive their stories, atop this windy bluff that time has left alone. Al