As Good A Man by Neala Ames

WE BOYS CALLED HIM “Ol’ Tom.”

Whenever one of us saw him ride into town towing his rangy mule behind him, his pack of dogs swirling around the animal’s hooves, the word would go out to all the boys in my age range. We’d gather together and follow a safe distance behind him, mocking his well-worn clothing and scuffed boots.

“Ol’ Tom, Ol’ Tom,” we’d chant together low under our breath, chortling softly, nudging each other with our sharp elbows.

He was old. We boys guessed he was probably a hundred, but my dad declared he was in his eighties. His trimmed beard began with the silvery mustache beneath his long, straight nose and ended above his collar button. I had a standing bet with Homer Billings that I could snatch a hair from that beard, but I was never able to collect it.

We all knew that if our mothers caught us taunting the old man, we would have stinging backsides. Therefore, we were very cautious. Sometimes we’d pretend we were following Peter’s dog or chasing a stray cat and dash as close as we dared to the old miner. Truthfully, we were trying to irritate him, to make him curse at us or take a swipe at us. But he never did. He just glared at us from Arizona-sky eyes set beneath frost-streaked eyebrows and turned away to his own business.

It was spring of 1914 when I realized I hadn’t seen Tom Jeffords for months. My mother overheard me asking our postmaster about it one afternoon, and she told my father what we’d been talking about. I know she did because after supper my father beckoned me to the discipline-spot beside his favorite armchair.

“Sullivan,” my father began, “your mother tells me you’re curious about the whereabouts of Tom Jeffords. Is that so?”

A lawyer by trade, Dad didn’t prod or shout or threaten. He just waited for me to hang myself. Inside our front parlor with the last rays of the March sun streaking our carpet, he sat patiently watching me try to avoid his noose.

I had to give in. “Yessir. All us guys were wondering where he is. We haven’t seen him since November.”

My father’s stony grey eyes scanned my face. “Well, that’s because he’s dead,” he replied.

Quickly I arranged my features into what I hoped my father would think was sorrow. It was actually disappointment. Who were we going to torment now, I wondered?

“Son, sit down. Here,” he demanded, pushing the ottoman into my knees. “I want you to know about the dusty old man that you boys tried to make miserable.”

The embarrassed flush that crept from my tonsils to my hair roots shut off my ability to speak in my defense. In the deadly quiet, I was forced to acknowledge that there really was no defense. I had done what my father declared. I was guilty. I didn’t feel badly about the taunting, though. I felt badly that I’d been caught doing what I knew was wrong.

“Old Tom, Tom Jeffords, helped to make your life here possible,” Dad began. His eyes softened in the fading light. “Your grandfather knew him right after the Bascom Affair turned this part of the territory into a slaughterhouse. Now Arizona is a state. I’m glad it happened before he died.”

I had never heard my father’s voice so tender.

Dad continued. “Sully, I didn’t stop you from harassing that man because I knew that Tom could handle himself. Tom always handled himself. I’ve never known anyone else who was as self-sufficient as that man was. I was hoping you would see the error of your ways and stop bothering him.”

I shifted on the hassock and tried to deflect my father’s attention away from my bad behavior. “Tell me about him. He was a miner, right?”

My dad smiled broadly. “Oh, son! He was so much more. He grew up on Lake Erie. He learned to sail when he was your age, and when he was not far beyond his teens, he captained one of the boats that traveled the lake. He knew how to command respect, and he got it. Do you think you could do that?”

“Charlie and Anthony follow me,” I said lamely.

My father gave me a dismissive wave of his hand. “Enough said, then. Now, while Captain Jeffords was still in his twenties, he left his home and family to travel to Colorado during the first gold rush there. He was part of the crew that built the road from Leavenworth, Kansas, to Denver. That’s hard work. Do you think you could do work that hard?”

I cringed. I had never done any hard work in my life. I knew it, and I knew that my father knew it. He was toying with me. I was becoming impatient to get the punishment over and done with so I could go outside before it got completely dark. I had heard the pea gravel hit the front window. That was Charlie’s signal for me to get free and go make mischief somewhere.

But my father wasn’t finished. I didn’t dare ask to be released. I sat as still as I could, plastered an expression on my face that I hoped mimicked interest, and waited. “Well, Sullivan? Do you think you’d want to work building a road hundreds of miles long?” he prodded.

“No,” I said gruffly.

My father didn’t acknowledge my disrespectful attitude. He continued. “Tom left Denver for New Mexico, then came on farther into the Arizona territory, all the while searching for gold. When the Civil War began, he served as courier to the Union. At the request of Colonel Canby, he rode over five hundred miles across Apache country to Fort Yuma. He returned with the California Column and remained in Union service until the war ended. Some of the old settlers here hated him for that. Most of the people who settled in the Tucson area were Confederate sympathizers.”

“Were we?” I asked. Somehow, against my will, I was being drawn into the story. Charlie threw another handful of gravel against the window. I ignored it.

“Your grandfather fought at Picacho Peak,” Dad disclosed quietly.

“Which side?” I begged.

“Does it matter now?” Dad answered. I knew from his expression that he didn’t want any more questions about that time. So, I pressed my lips together. Another handful of gravel hit the window. My father pushed himself to his feet and walked to the door. “Scat!” he barked at my friend. I saw Charlie’s shadow skitter across the window and disappear.

Reseating himself, my father furthered his tale. “Now, shortly before this, Apaches under Cochise had been wrongly accused of stealing. Cochise himself tried to ease the tensions, but he was taken hostage. This enraged his people, of course. One thing led to another, and all-out war broke out across southern Arizona, southern New Mexico, and northern Mexico.”

“Was Tom Jeffords involved?” I asked.

“Yes, as a civilian scout for the army. In 1867, partly due to his Civil War service, Jeffords was made superintendent of a mail line from Tucson to Socorro. Apaches killed many settlers along the route, and Jeffords was worried the mail wouldn’t get through. To protect his job as mail superintendent he went to see Cochise. I don’t know the particulars, only rumors, but the mail carriers rode safely after that.”

“What were the rumors?” I asked, tantalized.

“I ignore rumors,” my father said scornfully. “So should you. It’s not honorable for a man to encourage them.”

Clearing his throat, he continued the tale where he had left off. “At the same time, since the Civil War was over, the government turned its attention to the Apache War here. General Howard was sent to negotiate a peace with Cochise. Howard had heard about Tom Jeffords’s exploits and knew him to be a courageous man. Howard asked Tom to guide him to Cochise’s camp and be an interpreter. Tom didn’t want to go, but he finally decided that Howard could be trusted. You see, by this time Tom considered Cochise to be his friend, and apparently Cochise thought the same."

“Wow!” I breathed. I had heard of Cochise. Everyone living in southeastern Arizona had heard of Cochise. His name had sparked fear throughout Arizona and New Mexico for more than a dozen years. Though it was now forty years later, people still spoke his name in hushed, awe-filled tones. I was impressed.

I glanced at my father. It suddenly dawned on me that he had been using Mr. Jeffords’s first name. I wanted to know why. “Dad? Why do you call Mr. Jeffords Tom?” I probed.

“I’ll tell you at the end of my tale if you still want to know,” he said mysteriously, then continued. “Now, Howard and Cochise did make peace. But there were conditions. One of those conditions was that Tom be the agent on the newly created reservation. Tom didn’t want to do that. He didn’t want to hassle with government bureaucrats. He didn’t want to argue with disgruntled settlers or try and keep bootleggers from selling Apaches rot-gut whiskey. However, Cochise would not agree to the treaty without Tom as agent. Cochise was a brave and wily leader.

“Tom was the agent until Cochise died. Then Tom felt that he had done his duty for his friend. He was tired of the constant prying and prodding of military inspectors and emissaries from citizens’ committees interfering with his policies. Incensed citizens had written scathing letters to politicians calling Tom an Indian lover because he treated the Apaches fairly and humanely. He was removed in 1875. He left the agency a bitter man.

“Tom went to Tombstone and bought interests in mines in the area. But he didn’t stay long in that town. He craved solitude. He thrived on aloneness. It wasn’t unusual for people to spy him in their travels through the desert around Tucson. He loved the wild land he had known during his scouting days, and perhaps he relished living in the memories. I don’t know. He did come back to civilization years later. Maybe some of his worst demons had been conquered by then.

“He was the head of a water company that tried to bring artesian water here to Tucson in the 1880s. That failed. So once again he took refuge in the wild places. He built a little house in the Tortolita Mountains north of here near Owl Head Butte and prospected enough gold to live on. He died there, alone, in February.”

My father stopped talking and sat quietly in his chair. I remained on the hassock at his feet, thinking, imagining. “Dad, do you know where his house is?”

“Why?”

“I want to see it,” I replied.

“Why?” Dad looked at me, suspicion clouding his gaze.

“I… I just want to see where he lived,” I stammered.

“I don’t believe you,” Dad declared. “I will show you where he’s buried if you like.”

“Yes, please.”

Dad scanned my face for several seconds. “Sullivan, if I show you his grave, do you promise me, on your honor, to leave it undisturbed? I want your word that you won’t gather your friends and haunt the cemetery or desecrate his grave.”

I gasped. For the first time in my life I saw myself as my father saw me—a rowdy boy who spent hours every day causing trouble for others. I had tipped outhouses, drawn raunchy cartoons on the schoolyard fence, and even tied firecrackers to the tail of our minister’s horse. I had unpinned laundry to fall in the dust, opened the valve in the railroad water tank to flood the depot, and switched the signs of one of the town doctors with that of the undertaker.

I wondered if my father knew about all my antics. If he did, surely he’d have punished me. I decided that he didn’t know about most of them, and I wasn’t going to tell him about them now.

“Dad? Please don’t tell Ma.”

“Tell her what?” Dad probed. But I knew that he knew my meaning.

“You know. About what I’ve done.”

“Are you going to stop doing such things if I don’t tell her?” Dad asked, the twinkle in his eyes telling me that he did indeed know of my rowdy behavior.

“Yes.” I hung my head in embarrassment.

“Good.” My father got to his feet. “Come on.”

We walked together out our front door. The early spring moon was already over the edge of the mountains. By its light I saw we were heading to the Evergreen Cemetery. Soon I was standing beside the freshly turned earth of Tom Jeffords’s grave. The wooden tombstone starkly declared his name, birth date, and death date. Nothing more was etched there.

Below me laid the body of a humble pioneer. His choices were often at odds with the world. Still, in the end, he lived the life he chose for himself.

“Dad? How did you know Mr. Jeffords?”

My father sighed and gazed upward at the moon. “He came to see me last fall to make his will. I think he knew his time was coming to an end. It was a simple document. He didn’t leave much in the way of property. Most of what he left is intangible but still precious.”

“What did he leave?” I asked.

“A good example. He lived quietly, doing no harm, supporting what he considered to be right. He was a man of courage and independence. Sullivan, people often focus their entire lives on frivolities like wealth and status. Tom focused on truth and honor.”

Standing silently beside Tom Jeffords’s grave, I reviewed my own life. I had walked this rugged desert land for almost thirteen years. I had done nothing to improve my life or the life of anyone else. Waves of shame swept over me. Once more I gazed down at the resting place of the Arizona pioneer.

Maybe, with time, I could grow into as good a man as he had been.