BACK ROAD ADVENTURE

back road adventure Legend-haunted Chavez Pass May Have Witnessed the Massacre of a Wagon Train

We drove along a rustcolored dirt road into Chavez Pass, named for frontiersman Jose Francisco Chavez. (See Arizona Highways, Jan. '90.) This is a lonesome but scenic place. Piñon and juniper trees cover the rolling hills.

Photographer Edward McCain and I had heard that one of the hilltops at Chavez was the site of an ancient Indian ruin. We wanted to find it.

We set out from the Coconino National Forest's Blue Ridge Ranger Station on State Route 87, about 35 miles southwest of Winslow. The rain poured down, the grayness of late afternoon broken only by occasional flashes of lightning.

From Blue Ridge, it's a few hundred feet to the turnoff onto Forest Service Road 211. We followed the signs to Long Lake, then Chavez Pass, an 18mile trip.

By evening the storm had become a curtain of gray in the rearview mirror, and sunset was throwing long shadows over Chavez Pass. But where was the ruin? The spot isn't detailed on any map, and our only guide was a yellowing newspaper clip. For more than a hundred years, searchers have come to Chavez Pass looking for evidence of an Apache massacre that happened, so they say, in the summer of 1878. A wagon train rolling toward California had stopped for the night at the east end of the pass.

All was quiet until morning, when Leander Wentworth stepped outside the circled wagons to check on the stock. Twenty feet out, he pitched face forward with an arrow in his back. Within minutes the settlers were overrun.

The attackers charged through the wagon camp, killing the men, women, and children with knives and revolvers.

wagons were torched. Then the raiding party fled back into the hills.

A captivating story with one drawback: It might never have happened. The ambush shows up in no military reports, and it received no mention in Territorial newspapers.

But belief in it persists, largely through the fevered prose of pulp-magazine writers.

One look at Chavez Pass could fire anyone's imagination. A depression between wooded, rock-strewn hills, the pass could provide cover to a hundred warriors. Achieving surprise would be easy, and there's no place to run. At least

that part of the massacre story adds up.

The existence of the ruins is far more credible. But the peaks of the hills are too high to see details with the naked eye, and they are topped by boulder formations so uniform they appear man-made But only one of them actually was. The question: which one? Using one of McCain's camera lenses, we zoomed in on the peaks and made our selection.

Although not positive we'd chosen the right one, we started hiking. About halfway up, we knew we'd hit the jackpot. Pottery shards littered the slope.

Boulders lay stacked around the rim of the hill in a defensive posture, and faded petroglyphs decorated the front of the big rocks. The clearest and biggest was a three-foot-long lizard with six legs.

Depressions laced the hilltop itself, their slopes piled with more rocks. People once lived in these hollow spaces. Many such pits are scattered across the hilltop.

I've explored countless ruins in Arizona, and it's always a guilty pleasure. I feel like a second-story man, dressed all in black, eyeing the jewels while the inhabitants sleep in the next room.

But we touched nothing. This was someone else's home, and we were careful not to disturb a single blade of grass. I wondered if Leander Wentworth felt that same sense of presence just before the Apache arrow struck.

The legend says the wound didn't kill him. He regained consciousness after the attackers left and walked some 30 miles to Sunset Crossing on the Little Colorado with an arrowhead protruding from his chest. The saga doesn't end there though.

It gets still more fantastic. A second survivor, Simms Goodman, later teamed up with Wentworth and returned to the battle site.

What were they after? What force on Earth held a power sufficient to draw men who'd nearly lost their lives back to the very same spot?

It was treasure.

The second part of the old legend has it that the California-bound wagon train carried more than $100,000 in gold and silver baubles. And in keeping with custom when crossing hostile territory, the men buried valuables beneath the wagons at night.

That was all the searchers needed to hear. They've been coming ever since.

In 1914 a Navajo deer hunter supposedly walked into Lorenzo Hubbell's trading post and sold three heavy silver dinner plates, each of them engraved and obviously part of a set. A flood had surged through Chavez Pass and washed them to the surface.

As late as 1971, a man recovered nine Springfield rifle shells that he believed were remains of the battle.

No one has found a hint of treasure.

But we did. It came in watching the darkness settle over that ancient hilltop like a mother's blanket. The silence up there was supreme, and the view stretched for probably 25 miles or more in every direction. And it came on the ride out.

TIPS FOR TRAVELERS

For current road, weather, and access conditions and restrictions on the route to Chavez Pass, contact the Coconino National Forest's Blue Ridge Ranger District, (520) 477-2255. And always adhere to these guidelines: Avoid climbing, sitting, or standing on walls or other archaeological features. Leave all artifacts untouched where they lie. Stay on trails. Do not touch rock art; the oils from human skin can damage the prehistoric glyphs. Back road travel can be hazardous if you are not prepared for the unexpected. Whether traveling in the desert or in the high country, be aware of weather and road conditions, and make sure you and your vehicle are in top shape and you have plenty of water. Don't travel alone, and let someone at home know where you're going and when you plan to return. Odometer readings in the story may vary by vehicle.

Twice we saw elk bound across the road in front of us and into the brush. They were so huge and moved so swiftly, the sight made my heart leap.

We had an escort, too. Night-hawks flew in the light of our high beams, just feet from the front of the car. They were feeding on bugs illuminated by the light.

They'd fly straight for several seconds, then dart left and dip back to the right with a swiftness and grace that no man-made creation could mimic. When one hawk had its fill, it would fly off, and another would veer into the light to take its place. It was a thrilling show, part of the true treasure of Chavez Pass.