Ca. March 5, 1880; Las Palomas, New Mexico: About six months after raiding ranches and killing a number of settlers in the fall of 1879 and shortly after several skirmishes with soldiers, Victorio's Apaches wiped out a civilian wagon train on the trail along the Rio Grande. The region's scattered cavalry units were unable to prevent such hit-and-run raids, Soon after the wagon train attack, two Sixth Cavalrymen from Capt. Curwen McClellan's Company L deserted while on herd duty. Absconding with their guns and horses, the pair rode out with the intention of going to a mining camp in Mexico.
About three weeks later, on 25 March, a Mexican traveler brought McClellan word that the deserters had been killed downriver, near the site of the wagon train massacre. Lt. Thomas Cruse, Sixth Cavalry, was ordered to verify the deaths. With a detachment of troopers, Cruse had ridden downriver about ten miles when the scouts signaled to him, exclaiming, "Damned Chillacagoes [Chiricahuas]!"
The soldiers rode down to find the remnants of the train. Cruse reported, "There were burned wagons, carcasses of animals, graves scattered around for several hundred yards marking where the bodies of people had been hastily covered with earth." Several wagons had apparently been pushed together and set on fire; they had "formed the funeral pyre of several, who either dead or alive, had been thrown thereon and partially consumed."
Cruse believed the train had been attacked as it was crossing the Rio Grande. The Indians were hidden along the steep banks, waiting until some of the wagons had crossed and some were still in midstream. The wagons on the slopes slid down and collided with the others to block the road, leaving the travelers sitting ducks. None escaped. About twenty people were killed, including two or three women and two children. "It was grisly!" wrote Cruse. "I dreamed of it for weeks afterwards."
About two miles farther down the road, Cruse's scouts found the remains of the two deserters. Later investigation revealed that the pair had ridden from Cuchillo to Palomas, where they bought breakfast, sold their carbines and ammunition to civilians for thirty dollars each, and exchanged their army-issued .45-caliber revolvers for .44s like civilians carried. They proceeded to the river crossing, where they saw the remains of the wagon train. Hurrying along and on the alert, they were nevertheless jumped by Apaches, who fired from a small knoll on their left. One horse went down and one of the men was hit in the arm. The other man hoisted his companion onto his horse and tried to gallop away. They got about half a mile farther before the Indians caught up with them and brought down the other horse. Both deserters dropped down among some rocks and, judging from the number of cartridges found at the spot, they put up a good fight. Finally, some warriors crept up to a cluster of cactus about ten yards behind the runaways and fired the final volley into them. Cruse commented, "Deserters as the dead men were, we felt like raising a cheer for the gallant fight they had put up."
There was little left of the bodies to bury. After covering the remains as best they could, Cruse led his detachment back to Palomas.
