The Vulture's Treasure

The Vulture's Treasure Strange Case Revives Drama of Blood-curdling Warfare in Southwest 66 Years Ago

HENRY WICKENBURG recog-nized the sinister symbols of death that hovered near him on the mountain slope. A de-spairing prospector half crazed by loneliness and suffering from hunger, he knew what the vultures seemed to know that soon the moun-tainside would offer more carrion. It was a gamble, he told later, whether starvation would kill him before the In-dians did. Odds were somewhat in fa-vor of the Indians.

Henry was hungry because his pack burros had strayed. With them he had been prowling the isolated hills of cen-tral Arizona, dozens of miles from any human habitation, hundreds of miles from any town. He had sat down to rest, and dozed off. The burros wan-dered. When he awoke, the great re-pulsive vultures were so close to him that he could see their naked red necks, and he shook his fist at them in anger. When he eventually did find his burros, he was so mad at them in turn that he picked up a rock to throw at the leader. But as the rock left his hand, Henry caught the quick gleam of gold!

Instantly he forgot his anger. He knelt on the spot and gathered more rocks with his bare hands. Some of them, quartz pieces as large as eggs, were half yellow! Henry was almost crazy now indeed but from a very dif-ferent cause. Within a month he was owner of the Vulture Mine, and within a year he was an immensely wealthy man. Many millions of dollars have been taken from that spot on the hill-side but no group in that vicinity has flourished more happily than the scowl-ing buzzards, who feed delightedly on the carrion of murdered men.

It was Apache arrows, not loneliness or starvation, that fed most of the vul-tures, and it was a band of 200 maraud-ing Apache Indians on September 7, 1869, who unwittingly created one of the strangest cases for the United States government in 1935, 65 years later. The Department of State at Washington had been scratching its head over this quan-dary for several weeks; and in Phoenix, M. L. Ollerton, a deputy county attor-ney, declared that the thing for a time was "driving him nuts."

OCTOBER, 1936 ARIZONA HIGHWAYS

HENRY WICKENBURG threw the rock at his burro on a point 15 miles from the Hassayampa River. It is essential to have water in working gold ore, where-fore a quick settlement on the Hassa-yampa became headquarters for the Vulture Mine, and at one time more than 40 arastras (ore handling mills) were busy there with ore from the Vulture. All of it had to be hauled in by wagon train. One Mr. Espiritu Arriola, a Mexican, secured a contract for some of the haul-ing. It is through him that the United States government came to face embar-rassment in 1936.

One morning Mr. Arriola was rum-bling along the trail driving the lead one of his 24 wagons, each of which had 10 mules. Presumably he was happy and carefree. Two pistols hung from his belt, and a brand new rifle rested on the seat beside him. Other men were armed, too. He hauled ore worth more than $100 per ton, and the wagons and mules themselves were valuable, but Indians would hardly dare molest a train of well-armed men. Mr. Arriola no doubt threw back his head occa-sionally to voice his happiness in a So-noran love song. Family and friends and sweethearts awaited him back at home, and he was making a fortune. These are the moments, however, when tragedy elects to strike.

With no warning save a sudden blood-curdling yell from 200 throats, a ver-itable rain of arrows and bullets struck at the wagon train. Mules screamed and men screamed. Teams tore from their harness in fright, and the answering, protective rifle fire was ineffective. Naked, painted savages with a lust to steal and kill swarmed from nowhere and rushed at the hapless Mexicans. The wagoners did the only logical thing they took to flight. On a mule if they could free one, on foot if need be, they ran for safety, abandoning all their property behind them. Outnum-bered, ambushed, only death or torture awaited them if they elected to fight. In but little more time than is required to tell it, the Apaches had full posses-sion of the train, were dancing glee-fully at so rich a haul. A few of their own number had suffered injury, and two Mexicans had been killed. That was many years ago. But what of it now? Save for literary or histori-cal interest, why revive one of the trage-dies of the old Southwest? Who has embarrassed the federal government with that old adventure, here in the 1930's? Mr. Espiritu Arriola is long since gone. But as unexpectedly as the Apaches attacked him, have the heirs of Espiritu gathered from the western hills and presented a formal claim against the United States government for $88,000.

dies of the old Southwest? Who has embarrassed the federal government with that old adventure, here in the 1930's? Mr. Espiritu Arriola is long since gone. But as unexpectedly as the Apaches attacked him, have the heirs of Espiritu gathered from the western hills and presented a formal claim against the United States government for $88,000.

They alleged that Espiritu was under contract which assured him protection from the Apaches by American soldiers, that the soldiers were negligent of their duty in permitting an attack on his train, and that therefore they should To be paid for losses he entailed. They have asked money not for the gold ore he was hauling, but only for the mules, wagons, harness and such chattels, val-ued at $88,000, plus interest at legal rate to-date. The claimants live now in scattered communities about Arizona and California, and the seven who pre-sented the formal demand at Washing-ton are Guillermo Arriola, Mariana Ar-riola de Fregoso, Rosa Maria Arriola, Aguiles Arriola, Angela Arriola de Ul-loa, Eugenio Arriola, and Alfredo Ar-riola.

The Department of State knew not where to turn when such a demand came in. In 1869, Arizona was of negligible importance in the management of fed-eral affairs, and no records were kept of such trivial things as Indian raids 3,000 miles from the capitol. Therefore when the recent claim was presented, the de-partment communicated with Governor B. B. Moeur. In turn Governor Moeur passed the plea for aid on to Mr. Oller-ton, of the Maricopa County attorney's office, who then handled civil affairs. His problem was to locate any old men of the region who might be old enough to have been in Arizona in 1869, and who, by some remote chance, might have known what happened when the Arriola train was attacked.

"Sixty-five years is a long time for clues to linger around the scene of a crime," says Mr. Ollerton. "Moreover, contrary to the usual practice in a prose-cuting attorney's office, it became my duty to gather evidence showing that the crime was not committed as alleged that is, I had to function somewhat(Continued on Page 19)