The romance of Davis Mountains and Big Bend country; a history

Preface

I claim no literary merit for this work. Its very nature, wherein truth of statements is of the first importance, precludes the possibility of artistic writing. In gathering my data I have attempted to eliminate the personal viewpoint of the narrator, as well as of myself. I have used much material as it was given to me, simply because I feel that the original expresses more clearly than I could express the subject dealt with.

I have tried to produce a work that will be of value to my readers. This book has been written under varying and trying circumstances. It has taken me two and a half years to compile my data and write the manuscript. During that time I traveled 57,000 miles in a car, over good roads and bad and in all sorts of weather. My work has been interrupted by both sickness and sorrow, and very often my feet have wavered from the path I had chosen for them to tread. Still, I feel that I have done my best and that there are many who will appreciate this work. For those I am writing this introduction.

It is impossible to name separately the sources from which I have drawn my material, and I must rest content to express my appreciation collectively to the hundreds who have contributed their knowledge to this book. The cover design was drawn by Mr. Waldo Williams, who, like myself, is a native of the Southwest. To him and his father, Judge O. W. Williams, I owe much material and many suggestions. I further wish to thank for assistance rendered and data given, Mr. Barry Scobee, Capt. J. B. Gillett, Capt. John R. Hughes, Col. Geo, T. Langhorne, Mrs. Julia Lee Brown, Lieut. H, O, Flipper, and C. E. Way.

In this work I have tried to convey something of the real West as it was and as it is. I have before me a letter from an old pioneer, which breathes the spirit of the West. He says — "The West ? There is no more West. It lives only in memory

PREFACE

as the days that were. Sometimes when weary of the roar of the traffic on the streets, the clanging of the cars, the tramptramp of those who press the crowded thoroughfares in search for gold, I long for the old carefree days of thirty-five years ago ; for the mad rush after the cattle ; the shouts of the cowboys; the slap-slap of the quirts against the leather leggings, around the milling herd. In fancy I can see the glimmering of the campfires, smell the fragrant coffee and the roasting ribs, and the burning hair from the branding pen. I long for the free-masonry of the days that are gone and the friendships that were strong and true. Like the buffalo and the red man, they are gone forever, but to us who linger along the 'trail' we cherish them fresh and green in our memories as the richest experiences of life."

CARLYSLE GRAHAM RAHT.

The Palisades, Fort Davis, Texas.

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THE ROMANCE OF DAVIS MOUNTAINS AND BIG BEND COUNTRY

Chapter I

The first white man to set foot in the Big Bend of Texas was Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, the Spanish adventurer. Forty-three years after Columbus discovered America, de Vaca discovered the Big Bend. He found a great region of lofty peaks and deep canyons, magnificent valleys and wind-swept plains — a region, which is an empire in itself, three times the size of Belgium, and equal in area to Ireland, South Carolina, or Maine.

The Big Bend embraces the extreme southwestern portion of Texas, in the heart of the Spanish Southwest, and is sometimes called the Lower Panhandle, from the fact that it forms an entering wedge between New Mexico, on the north, and the Republic of Mexico, on the south. Again it is often referred to — and correctly so — as the Trans-Pecos region, as it is bounded on the east by the Pecos River; but more prominently it is bounded on the south and west by the Rio Grande, which here forms a great bend, or curve, embracing threefourths of the entire territory. For this reason, it is deemed proper to refer to it as the Big Bend country.

In the dark days of the Spanish Inquisition, so runs the legend, the Kings of Castile, Aragon, and Navarre, respectively, were seated in grave council beneath the canopy of their joint council tent. About them were gathered their captains and soldiers — the flower of Spanish knighthood.

Up in the mountain passes, strongly entrenched, crouched the Moors. Far outnumbering their Spanish foes, and conscious of their strength, they patiently awaited the hour to strike a fatal blow.

Realizing their desperate plight, the Spanish kings looked at their followers in growing perplexity. Should these soldiers be hurled against the Moors, in a desperate effort to break through the coils, which daily grew tighter about the allied armies?

The answer came in an unusual manner and from an unexpected quarter. A sentry, closely guarding a peasant in the garb of a goat-herd, pushed through the soldier throng, to the feet of the three kings. "Sires," said he, bringing up with a salute, "this man begs an audience with your Majesties."

"Let him speak," said the King of Castile, although he frowned at the interruption.

The peasant bent low over the King's hand. "Sire," he said, "my name is Martin Alhaja, a goat-herd. With your Majesties' permission, I can take you to a pass that I know in the mountains, which will lead you to the rear of yonder Moors. I have marked it well with la caheza de vaca (the head of a cow), so placed that you can see it from a great distance."

Due to this timely information, the allied armies gained a strong position, and on the nth day of July, 1212, the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa was fought and won by the Spanish kings.

In payment for his services, the humble goat-herd was ennobled, and he was given the name, Cabeza de Vaca — "The Head of a Cow" — to denote the origin of his improved social condition. From Martin Alhaja descended a long line of explorers and hardy adventurers.

When Governor Panfilo de Narvaez sailed from the Port of San Lucar de Barrameda, June 27, 1527, with orders from Charles V of Spain to explore and conquer Florida, he took with him as comptroller and royal treasurer, Alvar Nuiiez Cabeza de Vaca, a descendant of the one-time humble goat-herd. No doubt, in his day, the goat-herd had been looked upon as being a great adventurer; but it remained for Alvar Nunez and three followers to trace their footsteps across the

American continent, from ocean to ocean, unarmed and almost naked, in the greatest of all adventures. They were passed from tribe to tribe, sometimes as slaves, at other times as gods ; and, in the eight years of their wanderings, they saw no signs of white men and heard no speech, except the unintelligible jargon of the strange barbarians in whose midst they were thrown.

After reaching the shores of Florida, misfortune befell the Narvaez expedition. Governor Narvaez, with half his force, numbering three hundred men, marched inland in quest of rich cities ; while he ordered the five ships to proceed westward, where he would meet them upon his return to the sea. But few of his land force lived to return, and those who did saw no ships. Tired of waiting, and confident that Narvaez and his land force had perished, the ships' crews had sailed for the home port.

Already starving, the followers of Narvaez built five barges and put out to sea in search of a Spanish settlement known to be at Panuco, near the present-day seaport of Tampico, Mexico.

In a storm off Galveston Island, the barges were wrecked, and but a small remnant landed safely. So emaciated and ill were these that a dozen only survived. Four of the most able-bodied men were chosen to explore down the coast in search for Panuco, which the Spaniards believed to be nearby.

Following the departure of these men, the weather turned cold — so bitterly cold that the Indians, who had been feeding the Spaniards on roots and fish caught from the water's edge, could no longer work. The crude lodges afforded but scant shelter or warmth, and both Indians and Spaniards died. De Vaca says, in his naive way, that "five Christians, quartered on the coast, were driven to such extremity that they ate each other up, until but one remained, who, being left alone, there was nobody to eat him."

Almost immediately following the shipwreck and disintegration of the Narvaez expedition, de Vaca had been made a captive by the Indians, and he remained a slave for six years before he attempted to escape. The reason for this long deferred attempt was due to the fact that on an island not far from the abode of de Vaca's captors, there lived another member of the shipwrecked expedition, Lope de Oviedo, by name. Every year de Vaca went over to the island where lived this man and tried to persuade him to go in search of their countrj^men. But each year Oviedo put off going, until the sixth year, when he consented to accompany de Vaca on his westward journey.

The island, where de Vaca found Oviedo, was appropriately called the "Island of 111 Fate," and at the time the two Spaniards began their journey, they very reasonably supposed that all of their companions had perished. However, after journeying across four rivers, the fugitives met Indians of another tribe, who told them that further on were three white men. De Vaca called these Indians the Guevenes, and from them he also learned the fate of divers other Christians who had suffered great hardships and brutalities at the hands of the savages. By way of illustrating their accounts of ill treatment of the Christians, the Guevenes beat and kicked Oviedo in such a manner that death almost resulted, and de Vaca modestly stated that "neither did I remain without my share of it."

As a result of this ill-treatment, Oviedo refused to proceed further, preferring to return to the known dangers and hardships on the Island of 111 Fate, rather than face new perils. It is regrettable that Oviedo should have deserted de Vaca here, because in later years both men wrote largely of their experiences, and no doubt the combined observation of the two concerning what lay between the two oceans would have given a very complete and reliable history of the most remarkable journey ever undertaken by civilized man.

It must be borne in mind that no settlement had yet been founded in the United States. The great exploration movement, which started in England to counteract Spanish explorations, was yet in its infancy. The voyage, which resulted in the founding of Jamestown, was undreamed of, and the settling of St. Augustine and Santa Fe was the work of a later generation.

These were the conditions which confronted the intrepid explorer, Alvar Nuiiez Cabeza de Vaca, when he took sorrowful leave of Oviedo and saw his fellow-outcast take the "back trail." But one gleam of hope remained to keep black despair from overwhelming de Vaca: somewhere further on were three Christians like himself, and he turned his attention to establishing communication with them so that he might persuade them to undertake the perilous journey with him.

In the six years of slavery, de Vaca had learned many things about the ways and customs of the savages, which, while varying slightly with each tribe, remained basically the same throughout the country in which he lived. During these years of servitude, which he spent so miserably on the Island of 111 Fate and the nearby mainland, he became practiced in two arts. These were the art of healing and the art of barter. The first of these he had of necessity acquired that he might, in some degree, escape the ill-treatment accorded him by his brutal masters. Even the Indians must have felt the influence of de Vaca's personality, for while they beat and cuffed him unmercifully, they elevated him to the position of medicine-man, a place of high honor among them.

De \'"aca's manner of healing varied slightly from that of the Indian medicine-men. The general practice of the Indians was to make a few cuts where the pain was located and then suck the skin around the incisions. After this they cauterized with fire — a method which de Vaca says was very effective. However, this method caused great pain to the sufferer, and produced a very small per cent of cures.

Contrary to this method, de Vaca made the sign of the cross while breathing upon the patients, recited a Pater Noster and Ava Maria, prayed God to give them good health, and "inspire them to do us some favors." In answer to this not entirely disinterested prayer, de Vaca says, "Thanks to His will and the mercy He had upon us, all those for whom we prayed, as soon as we crossed them, told the others that they were cured and felt well again." This innocent statement would lead one to believe that the patient preferred to lie in favor of the Christian medicine-man, rather than have to undergo the pain and, perhaps, torture inflicted by the Indian methods.

For a time de Vaca fared better, but so great was the lack of food that sometimes he remained without eating for three days. Finally, unable to stand the torments of hunger and receiving such brutal treatment at the hands of the Indians, he decided to run away. So he struck out for the mainland, where he fell in with a tribe who treated him well. These Indians persuaded de Vaca to become a trader so that he might go from tribes along the coast to those further inland, bartering and exchanging those commodities held in esteem by the different tribes. Thus de Vaca would start from the coast with a stock in trade composed of sea shell, cockles and shell beads, journey inland, and shortly return with hides for clothing; red ocher, with which the Indians rubbed and dyed their hair and faces ; flint for arrow points ; glue and hard canes, with which they made arrow shafts and many ornaments.

It was impossible for de Vaca to gain a speaking acquaintance with all of the Indian tongues which he heard while a trader. Still, he mastered a great many useful words and a considerable vocabulary in the common sign language, which was understood at that time and is to-day by all Indians, whether of the East or of the West.

De Vaca's period of slavery equipped him wisely for the journey he was about to undertake. Being a man of quick wit, initiative, and determination, he looked westward with optimistic eyes.

Two days after Oviedo turned back, the Guevenes escorted de Vaca to a grove of pecan trees about three miles from the Indian village, and de Vaca found Andres Dorantes, one of the three of whom the Guevenes had already spoken. Later, Dorantes took de Vaca to where was Alonzo del Castillo, the second of the three men spoken of. These proceeded to find Estevanico, the Moor, who was the third man of whom the

Guevenes told. Together the four plotted to make their escape.

From these men de Vaca learned many things that had taken place concerning the shipwrecked crews of the five barges. Governor Narvaez had been swept out to sea and lost. One by one the other members of the crews were accounted for. The four concluded that the ships, with those on board who had not joined the land expedition of Governor Narvaez, must have returned to Spain. There remained but one thing for them to do — act upon the suggestion of de Vaca and proceed westward in search of the Spanish colonies known to exist in Sinaloa, Mexico.

It was now necessary to lull the suspicions of the Indians, so that the Indians might not kill them and thus prevent their escape. So de Vaca decided to remain six months longer with these Indians, who were called Mariames. With them also stayed Dorantes ; and again de Vaca found himself a slave — although, for once, a willing one. The family to whom de Vaca and Dorantes belonged, consisting of their master, his wife, their son, and another Indian, were all cross-eyed. Castillo and Estevanico belonged to their neighbors, the Iguaces.

These people, the Mariames and Iguaces, stand out more dearly in their tribal characteristics than any other people with whom de Vaca came in contact. Dorantes told de Vaca that a Christian, by name Esquival, had fled to the Mariames, and that because a woman had dreamed that he would kill her son, the Indians pursued and killed him. In proof of this, the Indians had shown Dorantes a rosary, a prayer book, and sword which had formerly belonged to Esquival.

This was the bloodthirsty people with whom de Vaca chose to remain as a slave until the time came when they should move westward to the place of the tunas, or prickly pears, upon which they lived three months in the year.

Unlike the powerful, well-organized tribes of the North, the Gulf Coast tribes were broken up into small, closely related family groups, each so-called tribe representing the strength of one family ; and it is highly probable that the dozen or more

B ROMANCE OF DAVIS MOUNTAINS

tribes to which de Vaca gave tribal names in his Neufragious, became known to Father Massenet, one hundred and fifty years later, as the Kingdom of the Tejas, or Texas.

It was the custom of these Indians to destroy all girl babies, because they might marry their enemies and give birth to children who would become their foes. Their own wives were bought from other tribes, the price paid for a woman being a bow and two arrows.

The women of these tribes were compelled to do all the hard work, for the men did nothing which might increase their hunger. Food was scarce, consisting largely of roots and herbs dug out of the ground, although occasionally, due to their great speed and endurance, the men would run down and kill a deer. During the time of the prickly pear, the Indians made merry with dancing and feasting. They were joined by other tribes from further west who traded bows and arrows for the dried tunas, and these were the tribes with whom the Christians meant to escape.

When the Franciscan father went among the Tejas Indians, he noted a much improved condition over that which de Vaca found and described ; but one hundred and fifty years elapsed between de Vaca's journey and that of Father Massenet, and in that length of time it is reasonable to suppose that these Indians showed some progress. Very probably, while de Vaca was learning much from them, they also were learning much from him,

r : Finally the great day arrived for the execution of their plans. The Indians went inland thirty leagues — ^practically ninety miles — to a country where the tunas were ripe. But the Christians were doomed to meet with disappointment. The Indians fell out among themselves about their women and began to fight; and they all separated, each one taking his family and going in different directions. So the four Christians had to part, but not before they agreed to meet again at the same place the year following.

A year! How slowly the time passed for the captives! Back to the old life of drudgery and abuse went the Christians, not knowing whether they would be alive to meet again. When they did come together the following year, they were separated by their captors, and each one was sent a different way. But they had agreed to meet at the same spot when the September moon became full. This they did and escaped.

At the time the four Christians made their escape from their Indian captors, they were in the vicinity of the Lavaca River. The tunas were still ripe, and de Vaca hoped to gain food from them until they should reach the tribes further west where game was more plentiful.

De Vaca journeyed along the Lavaca River which derives its name — the Cow River — from the fact that de Vaca saw his first buffalo there. His description, which follows, was the first description of the American bison, or buffalo, ever printed.

"Here also they (the Indians) came upon the cows; I have seen them thrice and have eaten their meat. They appear to me of the size of those in Spain. Their horns are small, like those of the Moorish cattle; the hair is very long, like fine wool and like a pea jacket ; some are brownish and others are black, and to my taste they have better and more meat than those from here (de Vaca wrote his account in Spain). Of the small hides the Indians make blankets to cover themselves with, and of the taller ones they make shoes and targets. These cows come from the north, across the country further on, to the coast of Florida, and are found all over the land for over four hundred leagues. On this whole stretch, through the valleys by which they come, people who live there descend to subsist upon their flesh. And a great quantity of hides are met with inland."

From here the four wanderers struck out boldly into the Unknown, keeping their general course westv/ard, although on account of natural obstacles they were often deflected northward from their course. For one thing, Castillo and Dorantes could not swim. This made it necessary that shallow fords should be sought in the rivers they crossed. Then, too, in order to obtain food and be able to learn the, whereabouts of nearby Spaniards, should there be any, they were compelled to lay their course from village to village.

On the afternoon of the first day, the tired fugitives saw a camp smoke at a distance ; and near sunset they struck the Tillage of the Avavares. These Indians de Vaca had known when they had brought bows and ornaments to barter with his former captors ; and for this reason, as well as because of his reputation as a medicine-man, de Vaca and his companions were made welcome.

Hardly had the Christians been properly lodged before a number of Indians went to Castillo and begged him to relieve them of their sickness. De Vaca says that as quickly as Castillo njade the sign of the cross over the sick one and recommended him to God, all pain and illness disappeared. In return, the Indians brought to them many tunas and pieces of venison, and so large a number of Indians were cured that the Christians had not room wherein to store the meat.

But the Indians of the sixteenth century were as improvident as those of later time ; and after five days of feasting and celebrating, during which the Indians ate their store of tunas, or prickly pear, and venison, they began to suffer greatly from hunger. This forced them to move to another spot where the tunas were plentiful.

At this new camp, de Vaca became separated from the others and was lost for five days. During this time he tasted no food and, being naked, he suffered from cold and bleeding feet. Just as he was about to give up, he happened to strike the shore of a river and there found the camp of his Indians.

The fame of the Christians had gone all over the Indian country, so that wherever the Christians went they were sought after to cure the sick and bless the well. In this new spot came many different tribes in quest of tunas, and among them they brought five people who were paralyzed. These Indians, Castillo was called upon to cure, which he did, as de Vaca affirms that God "seeing there was no other way of getting those people to help us so that we might be saved from our miserable existence, had mercy upon us, and in the morning all awoke in such good health as if they never had had any ailment whatever." Up to this time, Dorantes and Estevanico, the Moor, had not made any cures ; but the business of healing grew to such proportions that they, too, were compelled to become medicine-men.

After leaving these Indians, with whom tkey remained over a year, the Christians made rapid progress westward, and while they encountered many hardships and suffered hunger many times almost to the point of death, still they fared much better than they had fared in the coast country.

So westward toward the Pecos River marched de Vaca, Castillo, Dorantes, and the Moor. Sometimes they were alone, hungry, and almost dead of thirst ; at other times they formed a triumphal procession, with followers numbering three or four thousand, whose reverence and abject fear felt for the divine beings sent among them to cure and bless them, caused de Vaca to say with some impatience "that it was very tiresome to breathe on and make the sign of the cross on every morsel of food they ate or drank."

In this country, through which the Christians traveled, the Indians smoked tobacco and drank an intoxicating liquor, which they brewed from the leaves of a tree something like the water oak. The intoxicant might have been an early form of mescal, so extensively used by the Mexican Indian of to-day. Here the Indians celebrated the coming of the Christians with a great feast, at which they ate the mesquisuez, or the mesquite-bean. This bean the Indians pounded up into a meal which they mixed with earth and water, and which de Vaca says tasted very palatable to them. The Christians must have been hungry, indeed !

Now began a journey through many tribes, halting only long enough in a village to secure guides to conduct them to the next. After traveling until late in the afternoon, the four Christians crossed a large river, waist deep and swift of current. And at sunset they reached an Indian village. Here the people met them with much noise, which was made mainly with perforated gourds filled with pebbles, which the Indians told the Christians came from Heaven, and were sent down the river to them when the spring rises set in and overflowed the land.

De Vaca often had a following of a great many people. While this was ascribed largely to the belief in his divinity, still it was in a measure due to a mercenary reason. It was the custom when de Vaca and his companions reached a village, for those who came with him, guides as well as his followers, to take all of the possessions of the Indians in that particular place. In this way the last followers of the Christians returned to their villages reimbursed for those things of which they had lately been robbed; and the people of the last village to which the Christians had come learned this custom from those Indians who had despoiled them, and followed de Vaca to the next tribe, with the expectation of being reimbursed for the things which they had recently lost.

Perhaps this was fortunate for de Vaca, as at all times it kept him well supplied with guides. That the Indians did not bewail their losses, but rather looked forward to despoiling the tribe further on, is evident, for they told de Vaca not to permit this custom to worry him, as the tribes further on were rich.

The Christians now began to see mountains in the distance, and the Indians near them were of good physique and lighter skinned than any the Christians had seen in the land. Furthermore, these Indians were quite intelligent, for after those who arrived with the Christians had sacked their dwellings, they gave to the white men strings of beads, ocher, bags of mica, and other ornaments, which they had hidden away for this purpose. Knowing the custom of pillaging, the next day, when de Vaca was about to leave, these Indians tried to prevail upon him to go to their friends who dwelt on the spur of the mountain. As an inducement, they said there were a great many lodges, and the people would give much to the Christians. This would have been good business for the Indians, as they knew the Christians took nothing themselves, but gave it to their followers. Also, they said that nobody lived where the whites intended going, neither were there tunas nor any other kinds of food. But de Vaca persisted in maintaining his course, and sadly these Indians turned back down the river.

For four days, de Vaca and his companions marched up this river. Then they turned westward fifty leagues, following the direction of the mountains. Here they found a village where they remained a fortnight. Leaving this village, they crossed a mountain seven leagues long, and reached another village situated on the banks of a beautiful river.

Here the Christians saw for the first time the signs of precious metals, the hopes of finding which had motivated Spanish explorations more than recovering the lost souls of the savages. The Indians gave Dorantes a big rattle of copper, upon which was represented a face, and which appeared to de Vaca to have been cast in a foundry. Again, another tribe gave them pouches of mica and powdered antimony (silver). Also, these people ate tunas and nuts of the pine, which grew on the small trees of sweet pines. Here de Vaca proved himself skilled in surgery, by cutting an arrow-head from the breast of a savage, where it was athwart and had pierced a cartilage ; while with a deer-bone he made two stitches. Before de Vaca left the village, the Indian had wholly recovered and the wound had closed up. This successful operation increased de Vaca's fame ten- fold.