Over the Chihuahua and Santa Fe trails, 1847-1848: George Rutledge Gibson's Journal

 

George Rutledge was born in Virginia around 1810. He later studied law and opened a law office in Vincennes, Indiana, in 1834. During the early 1840s he moved his practice to Weston, Missouri.

He also tried his hand at journalism, that is, publishing his own newspapers, both of these ventures failed, perhaps so for his law practice as well for when the Mexican War started, Gibson volunteered and was elected a second lieutenant.

He was part of Colonel Stephen Watts Kearny's Army of the West, which left Fort Leavenworth for the occupation of New Mexico in 1846. He later became assistant quartermaster and commissary and accompanied Colonel Alexander Doniphan's forces to El Paso and Chihuahua, seeing action at the Battle of Brazito on 25 December 1846 and the Battle of Sacramento on 28 February 1847.

The first section of Gibson's journal begins when he left Chihuahua in April 1847. During the one-month journey, Gibson provided descriptions of the land and people and the several hardships he encountered. The second section of the journal details his eight-hundred-mile trip from Santa Fe to Fort Leavenworth beginning in April 1848, after his stay of about one year in Santa Fe. Again, Gibson recorded his adventures, impressions, and feelings along the way.

As per usual, Men and Women who have lived many lives are almost invariably interesting.

Picture the following eerie sight. The reality rivals anything in Cormac McCarthy’s nightmare lands in Blood Meridian.

Monday, April 5^th

We took a long rest at the stone corral in the bottom, where there are some cottonwoods, and then rode over the field which covers the intermediate ground between the mountains and is very extensive. The stench from the dead carcasses both of men and animals made our stay much shorter than it would have been, nor was the spectacle of the kind calculated to kindle our antipathys or resentments, for the skeletons of our Enemies were strewed over the ground, having been dragged out of their graves by the wolves, great numbers of which we saw even in the daytime. They had eaten all the flesh off, but the bones were very offensive, human flesh of all others creating the most disgusting smell. This animal seems to relish it above all others, for they dug them out of the Redoubts and left the dead oxen, horses and mules almost untouched. There are still many marks of the conflict, but everything of the least value has been carried away.

[I offer the following far more sedate counterpoint as showing the Frontier’s reverence for Books—the capitalization of Book is Mr. Gibson’s choice. The West was a literature hungry society. The novel mentioned was a new one on me, I have since acquired it and am enjoying the read. It always rewards to nourish with what those of yore nourished with.

Saturday, April 10^th

The day was as pleasant as could be wished for and having determined to remain all night to recruit our animals we spent the evening reading, Mr. Hoffman having brought for his own use several Books. Agnes Serle by Mrs. Pickering fell to my share, which I found interesting and it was quite a novelty to sit down in the wilds on the banks of a clear spring branch and read one of the latest and most fashionable novels of the day. They want of Books to read at our leisure moments has been a source of greater annoyance since we first came into the country, a vexation which has to be experienced to appreciate.

[The final 10 words in the following are the Wise moral here. Many of us would be happier if would but embrace this philosophical stiffness of soul.]

Wednesday, May 5h

I found that there had been no mail since February and I determined to await the arrival of one, the state of things being such as to require it, consequently the traders go on without me. I was in hopes I should find several letters in the office but there were none and I have to put up with what I can't help.

[Another eerie scene—92 mule heads double bordering the trail. Good Lord!]

May 10^th

We made an early start, the road leading down the valley and we found it very sandy. In 6 miles we reached the Willow Bar which is nothing but a bank 3 feet high, with water occasionally in a Pool, and not a single willow to be seen, if ever any grew there. A short distance this side we passed a formidable row of 92 mule heads placed in double-line which Mr Spire lost in one night in 1844 in a snow storm, frozen to death.

[One more curious event, there is so much more story here, and yet in an eventful life the following merits a mere single paragraph in a journal entry.]

Wednesday, May 7h

We have in company a strange customer, no other than a woman in mans clothes. She enlisted in Col. Gilpins Battalion and performed all her duties as a soldier, nor was her sex suspected until it is she disclosed it herself. There is nothing in her appearance suspicious as she mixes with the Teamsters as one of them, and smokes, chews and acts like the man. Her sex being discovered she was sent back to the States by this train and furnishes rough jokes daily for these men of hardy habits. She has not yet laid aside mans clothes.

To those who Dare to Live Many Lives!

Resources for Livin’ the Warrior Life

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Lost Stage Valley by Frank Bonham

 

About the coach milled the usual crowd: relatives departing passengers, old men who read dead dreams of adventure in the dust of varnished panels, Mexican children waiting to run alongside the big yellow wheels is the stage rolled up the road.

This 1948 offering from the prolific Mr. Bonham was chosen by Editor Jon Lewis as one of The 100 Best Western Novels.

It is rife with well-observed ruminations of life, people, the land and the ever-rolling tapestry of Fate that we call history.

His terse pronouncements rival most more highly regarded craft found in what is termed “Literature” with a capital L.

I’ll allow a few more extracts to tell that tale.

Under a gray blanket of tattered clouds, they buried Tom Gilson in the cemetery on the hillside. Here lay Willie Crocker; a Mexican hostler dead of smallpox; and three immigrants who had been murdered in the past. Almost as many residents as some Western towns could boast.

Or this…

It had the appearance of a thriving town, but it was a rough one, dirty and careless of its appearance, like a bleary-eyed old man with food spilled on his vest. It was a town of church bells, crows, and rubbish, with little of beauty other than the tawniness of adobe walls against blue skies.

Or this summing up of how men often silently size up one another.

Holbrook's eyes picked him like a pawnbroker’s fingers, searching for the flaw he would go for in a scrap. But Broderick’s jaw was one for shaping anvils on, and his arms were long and the hands at the end of them big-knuckled and capable, and if he had a vulnerable spot it did not show.

Or here, his take on a tool in the feminine wiles’ arsenal.

And she did something with her eyes, a quick veiling of long lashes and the downward glance again, as though she had overstepped. He had seen it done before, but never so well.

The novel may come in the form of a formulaic Western and it contains it’s share of shoot-em-up scenes, but…these are never glorified.

Griff pondered. “Haunting is all in a man's mind. I saw Grandjon die tonight. Nobody ever died having less fun. He died because of the ball I put in his leg. Then I put a shot in McArdle. I guess he's done, too. Reminded me of a rabbit that almost made its hole, laying there kicking its life out and squealing like a pig. Death ain't pretty, Johnny. It ain't like going to sleep. It's big. Bigger than life, because people keep getting born, but nobody ever comes back carrying his coffin and brushin’ off the dirt. I've killed men in my time, and once in a while one walks in still, showing me the hole in his breast and saying, “You done that, pardner. Don't forget to tell God.”

Bonham’s West is both formulaic and real. Spangled how many of us like it, but also tattered, how others of us like it.

The girls were getting more haggard-looking. A couple had gone out and others came to take their places. The edge was off the fun, but the girls and patrons kept playing because they had things to forget or wanted something to remember.

Many who put pen to paper may hit their word count but how many, well, make it sing?

Or as Mr. Bonham would say:

“Powder’s cheap”, he said. “Anybody can talk loud, but how many can make it stick?”

Not a classic but head-and-shoulders above the herd.

At the Movies with The Old Man: Jim Kelly, Quiet Cool

 

[Taken from our book Frontier Fisticuffs: Brawls, Dustups & Mysterious Strangers--The Martial Arts Western on Film. To see another extract from the book, this time a delightful and accurate early Jonn Wayne film, hit the link. The behind the scenes scufflin’ is worth the read alone.]

Take a Hard Ride [1975]

This 1975 Italian-American coproduction was an attempt to blend the then popular Blaxploitation and Spaghetti Western trends. It was also the 2nd of three films starring the trio of Jim Brown, Fred Williamson, and our main man of interest here, Jim Kelly. [Three the Hard Way & One Down, Two to Go being the other two films.]

The director, credited as Anthony Dawson was the sometime screen name of Antonio Margheriti, a veteran of Italian exploitation cinema with Peplum, Spaghetti Westerns and cannibal films to his credit.

As per usual with Italian “Westerns” the film was shot nowhere near the American West, here, the Canary Islands stands in for the Southwest.

As is the practice here, plot details will be minimal to save that enjoyment for any who decide to screen the flick for themselves.

In precis, Pike [Jim Brown, wearing the tightest pants ever devised] accedes to his dying boss’s wish to take a saddlebag of $6,000 back to his ranch in Sonora, Mexico.

Along the way he acquires an untrustworthy but stylish gambler Tyree [Fred Williamson, wearing the second tightest pair of pants known to man.]

While on the journey they are pursued by various parties who think that $6 grand would look better in their own saddlebags.

Add to this they are being pursued by the ruthless bounty hunter Keifer [played by Spaghetti Western stalwart Lee Van Cleef.]

Also, along the way, they pick up a mute Indian scout by the name of Kashtok [played by Jim Kelly.]

Since fighting is our focus in these pages, let us turn to the non-gunplay action.

Jim Brown and Fred Williamson have a brief dustup, but neither lead seems up to really relinquishing cool status so it is a rather mundane affair.

Now, to Mr. Kelly.

Most of us remember him for his role as Williams in the iconic Enter the Dragon.

Jim Kelly, a Bonafide karateka began his study of Shorin-ryu karate in his college years. Kelly went on to perform well in Karate Championships of the early 70s, perhaps the acme being his winning of the world middleweight title at the 1971 Long Beach International Karate Championships.

Mr. Kelly parlayed this success into opening his own studio in Southern California, which led to more than a few celebrities giving karate a go, and these connections led to his debut in martial arts film.

Those of us who know Jim Kelly from Enter the Dragon, two films as Black Belt Jones plus a few others know the decision to have him play mute in this film was not because he could not deliver a line reading, oh, he could and deliver it with utter early 70’s Afro-Cool.

In Take a Hard Ride we may be denied his voice, but we do have the expressive vehicle of his body, and he uses that well here.

His easy grace fits the Indian scout role to a T. He does not mount a horse, rather, like actual Apache scouts who often preferred to “lope” vast distances afoot [see our offering on Apache Running here] or Larry McMurtry’s memorable character “Famous Shoes” from the Lonesome Dove quartet, we often see him treading easily and smoothly where our two tight-trousered stars stay ahorse.

Let’s get to what you came here for, the fights. Unlike the lackluster Brown-Williamson confrontation, we are treated to Kelly in a few brief scuffles moving smoothly, applying jump kicks on sand with facile ability and overall providing some of the more interesting aspects of the film.

Now, I adore Jim Brown, but…I don’t see this as his best film.

I’m not the biggest on Fred Williamson’s swagger style of “acting around his perpetual cigar,” so I can’t really say how he stacks up here—he always seems the same to me. Cocky and posing for the camera, never really performing.

The clear attractions, to this viewer are Van Cleef’s dependable laconic cool, and Jim Kelly’s mute grace.

It seems even without dialogue he out-cooled the main stars.

The film is no classic of the Wester-Frontier Martial Arts film but thanks to Jim Kelly it is worth a look for aficionados of the genre.

[Taken from our book Frontier Fisticuffs: Brawls, Dustups & Mysterious Strangers--The Martial Arts Western on Film. To see another extract from the book, this time a delightful and accurate early Jonn Wayne film, hit the link. The behind the scenes scufflin’ is worth the read alone.]

Old School Warrior Resources Below

The Black Box Warehouse

https://www.extremeselfprotection.com/

The Indigenous Ability Blog

https://indigenousability.blogspot.com/

The Rough ‘n’ Tumble Raconteur Podcast

https://anchor.fm/mark-hatmaker

“A Pause in the Desert” by Oliver La Farge

 

The Indian said, “No Sioux round here. They live up in Dakota. I’m ’Pache.”

The lean man looked down at him affectionately. “A murderin’, scalpin’ Apache.”

Huggins glanced at his wife, then at the man they called Steve. Apache was a word full of connotations and wonder. He felt the same discomfort he had known at Grand Canyon when he had been caught out identifying some Hopis as Navajos. It was important for him to be master of this wild country, and that was not easy when before he had always driven straight through, stopping only to eat and sleep.

Anthropologist and Pulitzer Prize Winning author, La Farge offered a book of short stories in 1957 titled “A Pause in the Desert.” The featured story from that collection is, in fact, the story “A Pause in the Desert.”

Editor and anthologist par excellence, Jon Lewis selected this story as one of his 100 Best Western Short Stories. If one is expecting horses, six-guns, steely-eyed men and other such tropes, you won’t find that here.

What you do find is a brief tale of a husband and wife driving across the rural southwest [perhaps Route 66 nearish Seligman]. The action is minimal, a stop at a ramshackle filling station for minor repairs and an encounter with locals.

Lest one think, “Ah, here we go, the encounter leads to confrontation?” Nope.

This is an interior tale, one made up of the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, the faces we wish to present to the world, the impressions we hope to make versus the realities when wishes abrade and suffer against men and women who actually live in the midst.

Have I made this story sound boring? Trite? Good lord, I hope not.

This brief tale is a Masterpiece—yes, I capitalized that M. I have thought about this story every day since I read it a week or so ago. I see so much of the husband in those around me, the yearning to be more but no impetus to go beyond the yearning.

I hear echoes in conversation of the two-meanings presented in almost all dialogue and encounters, the comforting bolsters offered spouse-to-spouse and the “necessary” [perhaps] “white lies” we tell the other and perhaps the self to preserve, “I made the right choice, didn’t I?”

A story written by a Man who Sees, for adults who also See.

A Masterpiece, plain and simple.

The Violent Land by Wayne D. Overholser

 

I did not like my father Bartram Nathan. I had never disliked him more than the first day we saw Howard Valley.

Those two short sentences begin this 1954 Spur Winner by Mr. Overholser. The fatherly distaste grows from there—the disdain for a poor provider, a vain man, a lazy man is palpable—almost uncomfortably so.

The lack of respect is warranted but complicated by making the father not wholly a bad man, more simply an ineffectual man who drags a family through the consequences of his continual “It’s not my fault” lifestyle.

This is more the story of the disdainful son than that of the father, a son who wants to set himself apart as the polar opposite of the man he disrespects.

In most ways the novel is somewhat standard for the 1950s course, but the father-son dynamics and the depth of the disdain give it an added interest.

While I may not have awarded it the Spur Award myself had I been on the advisory board of the year, I did not find the reading of the tale unrewarding.

I might also mention the novel is listed among Jon Lewis’ 100 Best Western Novels, so please consider my B-ish opinion likely in the minority.

“El Dorado: A Kansas Recessional” by Willa Cather

 

People who have been so unfortunate as to have travelled in western Kansas will remember the Solomon valley for its unique and peculiar desolation. The river is a turbid, muddy little stream, that crawls along between naked bluffs, choked and split by sand bars, and with nothing whatever of that fabled haste to reach the sea. Though there can be little doubt that the Solomon is heartily disgusted with the country through which it flows, it makes no haste to quit it. Indeed, it is one of the most futile little streams under the sun, and never gets anywhere. Its sluggish current splits among the sand bars and buries itself in the mud until it literally dries up from weariness and ennui, without ever reaching anything. The hot winds and the river have been contending for the empire of the valley for years, and the river has had decidedly the worst of it. Never having been a notably ambitious stream, in time it grew tired of giving its strength to moisten barren fields and corn that never matured. Beyond the river with its belt of amber woodland rose the bluffs, ragged, broken, covered with shaggy red grass and bare of trees, save for the few stunted oaks that grew upon their steep sides. They were pathetic little trees, that sent their roots down through thirty feet of hard clay bluff to the river level. They were as old as the first settler could remember, and yet no one could assert that they had ever grown an inch. They seldom, if ever, bore acorns; it took all the nourishment that soil could give just to exist. There was a sort of mysterious kinship between those trees and the men who lived, or tried to live, there. They were alike in more ways than one.

This story from the inestimable Ms. Cather appeared in New England Magazine, the June 1901issue. Jon Lewis selected it as one of his 100 Best Western Short Stories.

Mr. Lewis had also selected Cather’s “Along the Divide” [also reviewed in this blog] and that is also a story I hold dear.

As for this one---Masterpiece!

In brief, it is a tale of how towns could appear and disappear seemingly overnight on the Frontier. We view this municipal life cycle from the view of the land itself and then personalize the lifecycle with the sole remaining citizen of the Boom-and-Bust town.

So much incident, so much character, so much heart in these few pages. Many novels pad page counts and do not come close to matching the humanity and craft displayed here.

From one man’s 100 Best List to be placed even higher on another’s.

May it serve you as well.

“Siena Waits” by Zane Grey

 

The familiar hum of flies told him of the location of his quarry. The moose had taken to the water, driven by the swarms of black flies, and were standing neck deep, lifting their muzzles to feed on the drooping poplar branches. Their wide-spreading antlers, tipped back into the water, made the ripples.

This 1920 story by the prolific, and in many precincts, quite popular Zane Grey is included in Jon Lewis’s 100 Best Western Short Stories.

I have found Mr. Lewis to be a worthy guide to many fine reads.

I must also confess that I am a man somewhat immune to the presumed charms of Mr. Grey. In fact, I find much of his prose purple, wordy, and far too melodramatic, too unreal for my tastes.

With that said, this tale has its strengths. Zane was an avid sportsman, a hunter, a fisherman. A man who spent much time in the land and on the sea. His nonfiction hunting and fishing tales tend to compel me more than his fiction.

Here, the constraints of the short story seem to reign in much of his purplish excesses. The definitions of the land and the hunting lore ring true and well-observed.

The arc of the tale itself has its merits, but there is still an air of the melodramatic to it.

With all that said, I still found the story a pleasant, if not stellar read. It would not make my 100 Best List but…the fact that I found it a step above my usual Grey experience leads me to believe that those who enjoy Grey may find more to enjoy here than I am able to detect with my own shallow regard.

If you are a Grey fan, read on!

If you are less than enamored of Grey, it is an unessential read and safe to skip.