Peacock Ore
by
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"Sarge! Where'd they go?" Private Johnny Cheever bellowed over the screaming wind. "You mean Capt. Madden? Or the Apaches?" "That butcher, Victorio!" Cooney twisted in his saddle and looked at Cheever. "Where do y' think?" he hollered back. "South!" Cheever rode up to him. "But which way south?" Cooney shook his head. Sergeant James Cooney, U. S. Army Quartermaster Corps, blinked gritty tears out of his eyes. Cooney and a dozen soldiers trailed the main column. They had been left behind to bury a family of unlucky homesteaders killed by the marauding Apaches. Cooney cursed the wind, grinding sand between his molars. The wind had started to howl when the column had left Fort Bayard three days ago. They had traveled a hundred and twenty miles in that time, and had not seen a single marauding Apache. They had seen only the homesteaders, hideously mutilated over the ownership of seven horses. The trail now led them straight onto the Plains of San Agustín. A basin many miles across, ringed by low ridges, it was marked by curious rock formations which showed evidence of the receding waters of an Ice Age lake. It was so huge and flat and dry that the wind would drive into Cooney and his men with its full force. His heart sank. He couldn't think of a worse place to be in this wind. "The scouts are coming back!" Johnny said. Across the great basin, even a slight mirage was exaggerated. At first, the two scouts were indistinguishable from the blur of distance, and then they appeared as odd moving dots. As they came closer, the horses were nightmarish apparitions, fat, with crooked legs. The Chiricahua Apache scouts rode up and Cooney halted his men to confer with them. Although the wind snatched their words away, Cooney caught the meaning of their gestures. "The raiders split up. Some of them went east into the San Mateos, and some went south, toward the Mogollons," Cooney told Johnny. He glanced around, looking for Charlie Chick and motioned for him to come closer. Charlie had stood with him in Indian fights before. His horse ducked its head and swung away from Charlie. An able horseman, Cooney rode horses other men couldn't handle. He disciplined the animal with his spurs and jerked its head up before it had a chance to pile him on the ground. "Capt. Madden's taking the column and two of the scouts on east to Fort Craig to report the raid there. We're to take these two scouts and follow the trail that goes south." Charlie nodded, pulling his kerchief back up to protect his face from the blowing grit. They struck the second trail in a wide corridor between timbered ridges. When Cooney asked one of the scouts where the trail led, the Chiricahua pointed to a pass ahead.
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About the Book
Every conflict has two sides, A rousing tale of Irish miners and Apache power. Drawn by peacock ore, rock that glitters with the colors of a peacock's tail, Irish miners brave an isolated canyon Apaches have used for centuries. The meeting of Apaches and Manifest Destiny reveals hidden reserves of Apache power before it reaches its fateful conclusion. "Historical authenticity gives a solid underpinning to the fast-paced action of Peacock Ore. I recommend it to anyone interested in a good story and the frontier days of southwest New Mexico," says Joann Mazzio, author of Leaving Eldorado.
Every side has a reason to fight.
Victorio and his Apache warriors fight for their existence...
the "White Eyes" fight for the peacock ore.
About the Author
Drussilla Claridge has combined a fascination with history and an appetite for the outdoors since coming to New Mexico as a college student in 1974. Her checkered career in the state has included fire lookout work, historic preservation work for the town of Silver City, marriage and divorce, and lots of outdoor adventures. It could be said she has tried just about everything there is to do in the out-of-doors in New Mexico. She has backpacked to Mogollon Baldy in the Gila Wilderness. She has ridden horseback to McKenna Park in the Gila Wilderness and to Reeds Peak in the Aldo Leopold Wilderness. She has gone snow shoeing and cross-country skiing; and floated a portion of the Gila River. She has even donned moccasins and period gear and camped out in a teepee. That last activity is known as primitive camping, and it is practiced by black powder rifle enthusiasts nostalgic for the West before settlement. Claridge particularly enjoyed the creativity involved in making her own period gear. During her four seasons on a lookout tower on the Gila National Forest, Claridge took pictures and made a lot of notes. Her journal entries about the fire watch experience were included in Go Tell It on the Mountain. (Stackpole Books), a collection of lookout writings which contained the works of Edward Abbey. Following her divorce, Claridge lived in Santa Fe for two years and attended massage school. There, she continued to learn about the history of New Mexico, and enjoyed the benefits of living among artists and healers. After that she returned to Silver City to open a practice, and found herself writing about southwest New Mexico in her spare time. Claridge set herself the task of telling the story of the Mogollon Mining District, a remote and rugged area of the Gila National Forest. Peacock Ore springs from her love of the land, and her knowledge of the history and geography of New Mexico. The book merges a belief in the powerful spirituality of the Apache Indians with the historical imperative of the Victorian ethic. During this time, she conducted walking tours for the Silver City Museum, showing visitors and college students the historic districts. Her reputation as a local historian is such that when she gave a walking tour of remote Mogollon ghost town, an astonishing seventy people made the two-hour drive from Silver City to attend. In the 1990s, she unveiled another aspect to her creativity when she took up pastel painting. Her landscapes in pastels are yet another way to express her passion for the land. More of her writings on New Mexico can be found at
Claridge now lives in Albuquerque, where she is being successfully treated for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and sporadically works on the sequel to Peacock Ore.