With Their Own Blood: A Saga of Southwestern Pioneers

5. Murders and Marriages

FIVE: MURDERS AND MARRIAGES Not long after the 1858 Fourth of July celebration, Larcena's family moved into the old Gandara hacienda at Calabasas, a few miles distant from their farm. 1 It was the third of several places where the Penningtons dwelt between 1857 and 1870. They moved when danger from Apaches threatened seriously or when a particular location offered an economic advantage. Presumably Calabasas was a more convenient base than the remote farm for Elias Pennington's freighting. Elias worked other fields from time to time, but he retained his claim to the border farm, lived there again with his family in 1860, and in 1865 filed a homestead notice on it.2 The adobe Gandara ranch house- originally constructed in the 1770s as a small Jesuit church - was situated on a moderate bluff on the east side of the Santa Cruz River. A series of tenants preceded the Penningtons. Sonora's former governor Manuel Gandara, present owner of the building, had rented it a few years earlier to two Germans who tended his vast herds of goats and sheep. The Germans built an adobe addition to the old church, but Apaches drove them and their Mexican laborers away. Major Enoch Steen used the empty hacienda as a temporary residence when he established Camp Moore at Calabasas in November, 1856, but he vacated it when he moved the post to the head of Sonoita Creek in June, 1857, and renamed it Fort Buchanan. A U.S. Customs officer had occupied the hacienda since then and 59 With Their Own Blood kept a small store there. He collected duties on Mexican merchandise coming across the border.3 The Penningtons shared the hacienda buildings with the Customs collector. They had to carry water up a steep path from the river, as there was no well on the bluff. Larcena's sister Jane described the house they lived in as built around a courtyard containing an an-astra, or grinding device long used by Mexican millers and miners. It consisted of a sunken, stone-paved circle enclosing a large flat boulder drilled through the center. A burro walking round and round outside the circle dragged the stone over kernels of corn or wheat, grinding them into meal or, at a mine, reducing ore.4 While the family stayed at the hacienda, Larcena's brother Jack returned to them, and his new friend, Hank Smith, arrived about the same time. One can imagine the many Penningtons sitting around in the courtyard overlooking the river, listening to the youths tell of their recent escape from Indians. Larcena must have been as round-eyed as her little brothers and sisters at the adventure the two friends related. He and Jack, Hank said, were working at the Overland Mail station near present-day Gila Bend, when they learned that wild cattle were roaming to the east beside the Gila River. On foot, since they had no horses, they set out to find the herd and bring back fresh beef. Jesse Sutton, the station keeper, allowed his fourteen -year-old son, Abe, to go with them. After following the river about twenty miles, the boys found the cattle and shot four of them. They made a raft, loaded the beef, and started floating it back to the station, Jack and young Sutton riding the raft while Hank Smith walked along the brushy bank. Indians suddenly attacked , sending an arrow through Abe's left wrist. He and Jack dived into the river. A blast from Hank's gun surprised and frightened their assailants, who had not noticed anyone in the bushes. Leaving the boys, the Indians dashed after the meat-laden raft drifting downstream. They packed off all of its cargo they could carry, but the three young hunters made it back to the station with four quarters of beef.5 60 Murders and Marriages Jack's friend Hank soon accepted the enticing pay of five dollars a day from the Calabasas customs house officer to work a risky job: endangered by roving Apaches and some of his more desperate countrymen, Hank rode the line- the international boundary- on the lookout for smugglers trying to dodge the high duties that United States Customs agents collected on goods coming in from Mexico.6 Sonora was often the only source of supplies for impoverished Americans struggling to survive, and the prohibitive tax created an additional hardship for...