December 18, 2007
I'm reading Life Among The Apaches, by John C. Cremony. This is one of a series in the "Time-Life Classics of The Old West" published in 1981 from the 1868 edition. It's funny, but even the reprint is now fading into the past and is considered an antique.

My main interest is in the Battle of Apache Pass, which we are featuring in the next Classic Gunfights. Excellent narrative from Cremony, riding with the California Column, as they arrive at the San Pedro (probably about where Benson, Arizona is today). He describes an eerie incident. During a violent thunder shower, as Cremony is hunkered down in the stage station near the banks of the San Pedro, one of his detachment comes in and wakes him up at "about two o'clock A.M." The sergeant of the guard informed him that "strange lights were visible, coming down the hills on the west, north and south sides."

As the soldiers snuff all the lights and prepare for attack, Cremony notes "seven or eight more lights made their appearance, and seemed to be carried by persons walking at a rapid pace." After a tense hour and a half wait, the lights "gradually united and faded away toward the east."

A full year later, Cremony learned what he and his men had witnessed. Apache runners were dispatched throughout the area carrying torches, "which would indicate that the aid of all within sight was required." The scattered torches led the swelling forces of Apaches who would descend on the troops at Apache Pass.

Simply amazing, and a spectacular sight to put on film, but I don't recall ever seeing this in a Western.

Just got this news story from the TSW:

I Married Wyatt Earp (A New Musical)!

The musical was staged at the CSUF Performing Arts Center, Young Theatre, Fullerton, CA This exciting new musical mystery is a "creative nonfictional" West Coast premiere with an all-female cast blending a shocking and haunting ghost story with terrific songs. Phone: (714) 278-3371

It's always quite astounding to me how people can take the same old stuff and spin it out in new directions. I guess that's what imagination is all about. Gee, I wonder if Francis Bacon has anything to say about this?

"Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is."
—Francis Bacon