The Bloody Badge by Sloan K. Rodgers

A little over a century ago, the changing Fort Worth Police Department adopted a new and distinctive uniform badge. This symbol of office has a so-called panther or cougar surmounting a shield with a different numerical designation for each badge. Legend has it that the addition of this Texas wild cat commemorates an 1875 incident where a panther was seen running around town or sleeping in front of the old Tarrant County courthouse. The panther design concept was submitted by city electrician Joseph Wright and created by the C. N. Amesbury Company of Attelboro, Massachusetts. A hundred police officer badges and twelve similar detective shields were forged in German silver and given a nickel-plated coat. The new panther badges were issued on Sunday June 9, 1912, although some officers wanted to hang onto their old eagle-topped shields. One stubborn cop that simply went by the name Tom continued to wear his eagle-crested and battle-tested badge. Tom wasn’t just any police officer and his badge wasn’t just any shield.

Tom wore the Fort Worth Police Department’s infamous Badge #13, which was long denounced as the bloody badge by superstitious officers and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram newspaper. Many North Americans once believed that thirteen was a hoodoo or unlucky number. Since the 1891 issuance of the eagle badges, a few Fort Worth policemen had been killed or wounded by various suspects while this badge was pinned to their blue-uniformed chests. Mixed-race officer, Lee Waller, was the first victim in 1892. 

Officer Lee Waller

Some thought that Waller’s killer had placed an African curse on Badge #13 from death row. Over the years many officers refused to wear the badge and it was retired after a 1902 officer slaying. The police commission attempted to reissue Badge #13 in 1904 and 1909 however officer complaints shelved the idea. Tom was just a big street tough when he boldly marched into new police chief, June Polk’s central station office in May 1910 and applied for a recent vacancy. Astonished, Chief Polk had extreme reservations about hiring such an applicant. The crusty, but less prejudiced, Day Desk Sergeant Charles W. Newby ignored his commander’s view on Tom’s appearance. He immediately hired Tom and briefly took the rookie under his wing. Sergeant Newby was an old-school lawman from the vile Hell’s Half Acre district of the city. In one police station incident Sergeant Newby snatched a pistol away from threatening Texas Ranger J. M. “Grude” Britton.

As an untested and atypical patrol officer, Sergeant Newby sent Tom to Night Desk Sergeant George Almeras’ graveyard shift. Almeras was a slightly superstitious man, who reluctantly wore hoodoo Badge #23, which was a less deadly shield. Tom got to work walking a gas-lit beat around the dark castle-like city hall, central station and jail. Tom was not issued a weapon, but being larger, stronger and faster than most of his adversaries, he did not need one. Every Fort Worth officer’s idol was famed City Marshal and gunfighter Longhair Jim Courtright, who began his law enforcement career in the jail.

Tom quickly proved his mettle and earned his shield by catching and running off late-night trespassers. Tom allegedly killed some ner'er-do-wells in the shadow of the county courthouse, but documentation is vague. He was more publicly known about town for his daytime pranks and periodic disappearances than his meager arrest record. 

Tarrant County Courthouse

In 1911, Tom absconded again and his brother officers, fearing the worst, conducted a city-wide search for the wandering night watchman. A few days later, a worker found the top cop sleeping high above everyone in the city hall clock tower. As usual Tom did not explain why he climbed the ladder to the clock-less cupola and spent three long days without food or water. No longer above the law, Tom showed up at the next roll call. The meeting nearly broke up with the excitement of seeing the bearer of the bloody badge in good health. The hungry officer was given a hearty breakfast in celebration of his reunion with the fraternity of lawmen. The chief even declined to reprimand the officer for his odd behavior and absence.

One of Tom’s daytime pranks did backfire. It was a lazy Sunday afternoon and the matron of the women’s jail, Olive Hargraves had stepped out of her office without her keys. Tom decided to teach the forgetful turnkey a lesson on security as she walked down the long corridor. Tom pushed a door closed behind her, thus locking Mrs. Hargraves in the hallway. The irate matron was trapped for two hours while officers combed the city for the janitor with the only other set of women’s jail keys. Sergeant Newby and Tom’s other friends tried to protect him from criticism, but the story eventually broke in the newspaper. Mrs. Hargraves was a stern, but motherly widow, so on this occasion, the press, public and even some officers were not amused by the impractical joke. 

  Tom disappeared for the last time on July 18, 1912, but this time his fellow police officers attributed his absence to foul play and the deadly history of his badge. They lamented that the night officer seldom missed a morning roll call or breakfast in the main hall and was the friend to every man on the force. Three weeks later, Tom was still gone, but not forgotten when the Star-Telegram ran one of its last articles on the missing officer. The headline read: “Hoodoo Badge 13 Proves Jinx Even Upon Black Cat”. The article left no doubt that everyone blamed Badge #13, pinned to Tom’s collar, for the mysterious disappearance of their beloved mascot. On first meeting Tom, Chief Polk had believed that black cats were cursed, but other peace officers thought they had the magical ability to cancel out unlucky numbers. The newspaper reporter went on to imply that Tom would be the last officer issued a Badge #13, especially the big house cat’s shield since it still had not been returned to the central station or jail. A hook and ladder man with a nearby fire station tried to assuage the grief of the mourning lawmen by suggesting that the tom cat eloped in a heat with their missing fire cat.

As Fort Worth police mascots go, Tom was unmatched in catching rats and purging pigeons from city hall square. Despite Tom’s periodic pranks, he was a cherished officer in the brotherhood of the badge. For a long time he was sorely missed by the boys in blue, but nine months later, Tom was finally replaced by a scruffy white fox terrier. The law dog had neither the size, color, or character of the police cat, but the desk sergeant reluctantly adopted him and nostalgically named him Tommy. In 1913, the new mascot was settled into his position, when an old copper badge turned up like a bad penny. Strangely, Badge #13 resurfaced in the Tarrant County Humane Society, although it’s unlikely that Tom was ever an unrecognized or unwanted inmate. When Humane Society Secretary Zoe Mestralett was appointed a special police officer to handle animal related cases for the city, she pinned on the once lost shield. With a shortage of panther badges, special officers were allowed to wear old eagle badges. Officer Mestralett only wore Badge #13 for a year. She suddenly resigned from the Humane Society and police force in 1914 with a terse letter and no explanation. Did something happen that caused Mestralett to abruptly resign two coveted jobs and return her storied badge to the central station in a sealed envelope? Regardless, Badge #13 has not been seen since and is possibly hidden away in some dark police vault- away from future victims.

So far as the snarling feline displayed by Fort Worth’s Finest, perhaps this singular motif among American police badges honors a brave black cat that was protecting the city when the shield was created. Not a dozing or fleeing yellow panther from a 37 year old tall tale. Ironically, a bronze statue of a lazy panther fronts the Tarrant County Administration Building, while Tom’s service, like the sacrifice of many slain police officers was almost forgotten in old newspapers.

(In memory of my unlucky cat Moocher, R.I.P.)

Bibliography:

December 12, 1911 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, August 8, 1912 Fort Worth Star-Telegram and various other newspaper sources. 

The Dawson Massacre

                                                                             A blind man makes a poor scout.

Alsey Miller, later in life

Alsey Miller scrunched his eyes toward two great smears of color battling it out behind a white veil of smoke. Cannons belched; the vibrations sang through the ground like a tuner's fork up his horse's legs. The Kentucky stallion reared nervously as Alsey leaned over his saddle, trying to figure out exactly what was going on. The situation, in short, was this: The Mexican Army under General Adrian Woll invaded Texas, capturing San Antonio on September 11, 1842.  Couriers raced across the settlements drumming up volunteers to drive off the invaders. Father, husband, and son snatched up rifles and cornbread then rode off to liberate San Antonio. Forces gathered under Matthew "Old Paint" Caldwell now slugged it out with General Woll's much larger force on Salado Creek north of the city. The actual winner of the scrap was anybody's guess at this point. The 22 year old Kentuckian wasn't even entirely sure which writhing blur was Mexican and which was Texian. He'd been chosen to scout ahead because of his familiarity with the area. But he'd also neglected to inform any of his companions that he was extremely near sighted. And vanity refused him spectacles.

Muskets popped. One of the smears of color crumpled in the middle. Vague shouts and screams hummed like a beehive. He couldn't stay there exposed on the ridge much longer. The rolling pop of musket fire crawled in a centipede of smoke. The stallion's eyes darted nervously. "Easy, Selin, easy. I'm thinking that Caldwell is that group on the ridge being shot to pieces. I think." The smoke centipede raced, twisted and danced in another volley of popping rifles. "Our boys are getting slaughtered. I know it." Giving reign to Selin's terror, Alsey turned back towards Cibolo Creek. The cannon's rolling thunder carried the hurtling steed on a rushing tidal wave of echoes.

Cibolo Creek

Five miles away, a group of fifty-three men waited on the edge of the Cibolo. Grey haired frontiersmen and baby-faced teenagers filled their canteens in water vibrating with each cannon shot. Begrimed eyes exhausted by two days of hard riding - with only one coffee break - watched restlessly for Miller as their horses took a breather. It was already three or four o'clock. Looked like a thunderstorm was trying to boil up from the west. The heat was ratcheting higher and higher as the atmospheric pressure stacked up.

Norman Woods watched his father cinch up the saddle on his handsome blue roan, Rattler. Norman's mind drifted over the miles back up the Colorado to Woods Fort - to the moment when his family first heard the cry for aid. As the courier slurped from a water bucket, son watched father stalk back into his double log house to fetch his gun and supplies. Norman looked over at his youngest brother, Henry Gonzalvo. "This is a young man's game, Gon. We will have to tuck into the Mexicans without a break after days of hard riding and he is not up for it anymore. You go hide his saddle in the barn and I'll hide Rattler." He quickly lead his father's favorite horse off and Gon buried the saddle under a pile of hay. The old man figured out their scheme soon enough. Without breaking his stride from the house, he calmly walked up to Norman's white stallion, grabbed mane and sunk spur. Round and round the fort he flew, like angry Achilles racing round the walls of Troy, shaking his rifle above his head. Reigning in before his family and eyes glowing with wrath he roared out, "See, I can ride and handle a gun as well as any young man! And I'll be giving the enemy one more crack at Ol' Zadock!" Thus endeth the lesson.

As Norman looked at him now on the banks of the creek, Zadock Woods still made a fearsome sight. His long silver hair floated tossed in the rising wind under his broad brimmed hat. Add to that his long hoary beard, and he looked the very image of Odin filched from some antique painting. His highly stylized hunting jacket, a gift from Daniel Boone, set him completely apart from the vests, coats and top hats of his companion. He was a walking archetype, savagery clothed in civilized rags but beneath the facade all fire and steel. 

The Woods men formed the largest group within that company resting beneath the cypress. All over six foot with deep set, light eyes and long faces with high cheek bones. All handsome lesser shadows of Zadock. The family unit there included Zadock, his sons Norman, Henry Gonzalvo and teenage grandson, Milvern. Joe Robinson was a nephew. John Wesley Pendleton was Milvern's brother-in-law. They all stayed congregated around their patriarch, ready to charge behind him into hell with a bucket of water.

Samuel Maverick

Joe Griffin stood nearby the Woods boys. Joe was a mulatto and a slave. He'd been in San Antonio with his master, Samuel Maverick, when the Mexicans rode in. He'd escaped to get word to the Maverick family up on the Colorado. Samuel's wife Mary later wrote in her memoirs, "Our slave Griffin had come back from San Antonio and was greatly troubled about his master, to whom he was much attached. I called him to me, and talked to him about going to San Antonio to pass himself for a runaway, follow to Mexico, and do anything he could to free or even aid Mr. Maverick, and he could have his freedom."Such were the times that Mrs. Maverick didn't really grasp the insanity of the situation: a slave told to essentially runaway to a free country to his set his master free, then ride back to the slave Republic of Texas and hope his owners kept their promise of freedom. Maverick would later remember Griffin replying, "As for my freedom, I do not want anymore than I already have, master has always treated me more like a brother than a slave." Or at least, that's how Mary Maverick chose to remember the transaction. Regardless, here stood Joe, a handsome brown giant, bristling with weapons and the only man with coin on him. A ransom for his master.

Mary Maverick

"Sounds like we are missing all the fun." Nick Dawson grinned bravado but silently wondered why Alsey was taking so long. They were coming to aid Caldwell and if the battle was on, they needed to get in there before they were robbed of action. Elected to command by his comrades just the day before on the trail, the 34 year old Kentuckian held little real authority. The company just needed one fellow to bark decisive orders during a scrape to avoid pell mell confusion. Elected democratically, he could be quickly deposed as the mood suited his electors. Veteran of San Jacinto, member of the Republic's Army for a year or so, and old veteran of rangering campaigns against Comanche, the man was as close to a professional military man as this group of farmers, merchants, and grocers could find amongst them. Thus his election.

"We are late to the party! We better get there before there's no pepper bellies left to shoot." Harness shook and leather groaned as annoyed, exhausted horses submitted to being mounted once more. A sad-eyed pinto let out a plaintive grunt of dismay as her rider, Dick McGee, struggled aboard her weary back. McGee was a rather fleshy La Grange merchant fatter than a hog in pecan season. She jostled about and danced trying to shake off this unwanted burden. The sweaty McGee cursed and fumed as he yanked on the reigns hard to hold her still, sending her spinning in circles in reply. It took another minute before he'd wormed his way back on board and straighten up his clothing with an air of wounded dignity. "Dick, I swear that mare deserves to be the next President of Texas for hauling your carcass all this way without snapping like a twig." Dick opened his mouth to spew forth the vilest invective he could conjure. Instead he pointed past Dawson back down the prairie towards the sound of battle. Alsey rode hell for leather towards them.

"Caldwell's being shot to pieces!" he yelled out reigning in before them, sending clods of dirt flying. "Hotly engaged about two miles north of the San Antonio road. I ran into three Mex scouts on the way back here and managed to kill one of them. The other two rode off. Just barely made it here." Dawson looked over the scout's disheveled appearance but only hesitantly believed him. Something  rubbed him the wrong way about the man but he was the only one in their group really familiar with the area north of San Antonio.

"Hear that boys? Old Paint needs us." He spurred his horse forward as the other men roared out a cheer and dashed forward alongside the young bravo towards the faint sound of cannon fire.
Soon they could make out the rattle of guns popping through the cannon's roar. They charged over three miles of hills and hollows quick as their exhausted steeds allowed. They reigned in on the hill Alsey had used as a lookout. Everywhere they saw the glittering storm of sword and bayonet. They could also see what was actually going on far better than Alsey. The Mexicans saw them too. "Look at those swarming and breaking off the main body there." Joe Robinson pointed down towards a nice sized group of Mexican soldiers advancing in their direction. "Looks to be about one hundred and fifty or so...Dragoons." Mounted Mexican Lancers riding hard in their direction and in good order. Robinson was an atheist or else he would said a silent prayer - for he and the others were quickly realizing what predicament they had charged into. Seventeen year old Milvern Harrell was mounted up beside his cousin. "We are right between them and the city. That damned Miller has guided us right into their path.We are going to have to fight or retreat!" They both looked over at Zadock glaring down upon the advancing dragoons. "And we both know what he will choose," growled Robinson. Now there were two companies riding for them, lances flashing lighting in the stifling afternoon sun. Joe moved towards Dawson. "Captain, I think we might ought to start looking for a slightly more advantageous position than the one we are currently occupying." Dawson looked very worried and uncertain on what to do. Robinson's sarcasm didn't help.

Milvern Harrell later in life

"Boys, what do you think?" Puffy eyes regarded each other as they hesitated between fight or flight. Much of Dawson's bravado was wiped away."I'm thinking we fall back four miles yonder. Meet up with Jesse Billingsley and his reinforcements from Bastrop that we met on the road yesterday. Then we haul ass back with that extra eighty or so but ride in from a different direction so we don't have the whole damn Mexican army between us and Caldwell. We can't get to Caldwell from here. That would be suicide charging through the Mexican army. But we can ride around and hit them from the side with Caldwell."

The older men in the group began to grumble at the thought of retreat. Davie Berry, the oldest man there at 70, spat and cursed. "Why the hell did we ride so damned hard to get here if we are just going to tuck tail at the first sign of the enemy? We rode here to aid Old Paint and we are just going to run like some scared rabbits? I stormed Bexar with Ben Milam and I'll be damned 'afore I show my back to any yellow-belly greaser." When Berry first heard about the Mexican assault on San Antonio, he tried to join the men in his neighborhood mustering up. Some of his family tried to convince him that such adventures were better left to young men. In reply, old Berry calmly marched off seventy paces, plopped down a target, marched back to his gawking family, cooly leveled his rifle and sent a bullet straight through the bulls eye. "I figure I can still shoot and hit a Mexican as good as anybody," he quipped as he got on his horse and rode away. That same cold fire stared down the young army veteran.

"Listen here," snapped Dawson, "I am more than willing to meet the Mexicans if you boys prefer. But first I propose we move ourselves to that mesquite motte yonder so we aren't out here in the open with our asses exposed." He pointed to a clump of mesquite trees vaguely growing in the shape of a pair of spectacles.

"We came to fight!" bawled out Baptist Deacon Joseph Shaw. "Our horses are broken down anyway, those dragoons will catch up to us mighty fast and then we will be fighting on the run. Better to file up and meet them here head on."

One deep commanding voice cut through the conference like a blade. "We have marched a long way to meet the enemy and I do not intend to return without meeting them. I had rather die than retreat." 
"Well that settles that," Norman whispered to Gon as they watched their father scowl down their captain and cast the deciding vote. Dawson had no wish to stay and fight. He knew the better part of valor was to go back and join the other reinforcements coming up the road. Norman thought so too. But this wasn't a disciplined military unit. This was a democracy. And Dawson had to blow along with the wind or they'd simply demote him and do what they wanted anyway.  Gon seemed perfectly content to either to make a stand or fall back and regroup. He'd survived many a scrape with Indians. He reckoned this would be not be much different.

"Then let us fight," Dawson said in resignation. He lead the retreat towards the mesquite motte that sprouted about a hundred yards to their right. The thicket was sparse and stretched thinly over 2 acres of the prairie. "Dismount and tie off your horses." The die cast, Dawson was back to his old decisive self. As the men leaped down and began to take up position behind trees, a young Elam Scallorn, nephew of Old man Berry and little more than a boy, scurried around looking for a good position to take up. All the trees were taken now though. His face was white with terror. "Where must I get, Uncle Davie, where must I get?" "Hell boy, I don't know. Cozey up with someone and share a tree, dammit." The boy rushed up behind the ponderous Dick McGee and took up residence behind his massive frame. The fleshy fellow spun and cuffed his ears. "Get out from behind me boy and fight like a man. You can't use me for breastworks!"

Dawson saw a few of the other younger lads had a wild look in their eyes as they watched the two units of Mexican cavalry bear down on them. They slowly backed up, looking over their shoulders, wrestling with the choice of losing face or running for their lives. If the company collapsed and scattered every which way in terror, there would be no defense and they'd all be chased down and skewered like fish. Norman stood near Dawson, saw the boys beginning to fall back and looked back at the lancers, now only a few hundred yards away. "Captain, we are in a bad fix."

Possible painting of Norman Woods

Dawson drew his pistol. "I'll shoot the first man who runs." His voice quivered. Something terrible was suddenly building up inside him as he felt the noose around them tighten. He was losing control. "I have no intention of running," Norman replied with withering contempt. The five other Woods boys nudged their rifles towards Dawson, eyes aflame. Zadock shook his head slowly, smiling, more than ready to kill their captain. Dawson stepped away from Norman and instead leveled his pistol at the younger men still backing up. "You hear me? I'll shoot the first man who retreats or surrenders! We have to all fight together or none of us gets out of this alive." All attention turned back to the thundering hooves now only yards away.

The dragoons reigned up before them in a brightly clad line of cavalry. They sat there for a bit, watching the Texians. A small detachment melted out of the unit and rode closer to the upper edge of the timber line. A white flag flapped in the hot breeze. They called out for a parley in Spanish. Though Dawson's company didn't know it, the Mexicans were actually losing to Caldwell, not being shot to pieces as Alsey had surmised. They were sick of fighting. If they could work out a deal with these reinforcements to clear the path for the Mexican army's retreat, they'd do their best to make it a reality. Dawson motioned them away. "Nothing doing!" The lead dragoon hesitated, shocked that the Texians would so blatantly thumb their noses at a superior force without hearing them out. "Git! There will be no palavering today. Get out of here before he mow you down." The peace party took the hint and took off in a wide circle around the mesquite grove; a wheel of color and steel. The whole group began advancing at a slow trot as they joined back up with the other lancers. They knew the marksmanship of the Texians, had been schooled in it all day in fact, so they began feeling out the range. Old Davie Berry sighted and drew a bead on the foremost lancer and dropped him. Zadock and the other grayhairs fired off and emptied another Mexican saddle. The cavalry wheeled around and rode off another good 400 or so yards till they got out of range. Being whipped on both sides, their humors soured. In a rage then charged forward again, Texian rifles be damned, at full gallop in fully military order, ready to crash into the mare's nest of trees and sharpshooters. The lead horseman lifted high his gleaming sword and a shout arose from the thundering horde. Lightbursts fired from sword and lance. Dawson stepped out in front of the trees, calmly lifted his rifle and took out the lead swordsman to kick in the dust. "That's the way I used to do," he laughed as the men hurrahed. They all started firing, Mexicans hit the dirt right and left. The cavalry spun and beat a hasty retreat back out of range. More whoops sailed in the air alongside hats. "Run, you pepper-bellied sons of bitches, run!"

The firing continued but now randomly with little effect. The Mexican's Brown Bess muskets didn't have the range the Texian's rifles did. The balls fell well short of the mesquites. Now mostly out of range, the Texians weren't dropping as many as they were before but an occasional musket ball did manage to hiss past some dragoon's ear or cripple a horse. Zadock and Robert Barkley muttered their son's names each time as they fired, ticking off a rosary of hate. Zadock's son Leander died at Velasco and Robert's son died at Goliad. Norman and Gon had stopped firing long before their father and instead tried to figure out what the Mexicans were about. "They look to be awaiting something...more soldado's to help upset this stalemate, I reckon." Gon shook his head. "I wish pa would stop wasting ammunition. If more are about to swoop down on us, we'll need all the lead we can get. They are shouting some in Espanol but I can't make it out." Gon could speak Spanish well enough to be understood.

More soldiers were indeed rushing to the cavalry's aid. Infantry this time, that's why it took longer for them to catch up to the lancers. But now two squadrons were finally marching up right behind the skittish horses. "That's a helluva lot more soldados...but we can keep them pinned down up there for awhile. Why didn't they send more horsemen? We can pick off infantry like fish in a barrel. Doesn't make any lick of sense."

A sudden crack of cannon thundered across the prairie. The top of the mesquite grove exploded into a shower of branches and mesquite beans. They all hit the ground. "They pulled up a damned cannon!" Zadock crawled over towards his sons trying to reload as he did. None of them had seen the artillery piece hidden behind the infantry. Another shot screamed through trees, lower this time, turning the timber into a rain of mulch. "That shot was lower than the last! They are working their way down towards us." Norman thrust a protective hand over Zadock's head and pushed it lower as another round of grapeshot hissed over them. Even lower. Now they heard a few yelps and shouts from men finally feeling the impact of hot falling metal.  Zadock looked apologetically at his sons. He struggled for something to say. Finally he mustered up, "'If I am killed boys, I want my body burned and ashes thrown to the four winds of heaven." Norman's jaw dropped. "Are you off your head? It'll be a miracle if any of us get out alive!" Another thunderous roar and another swarm of grapeshot hissed over head. Men and horses started screaming in agony. The cannon had found its range. Another shot slashed through the grove. The horrible sound of screaming, thrashing horses beat in their brains. Men crawled on the ground, holding their intestines in with their hands, coughing out the the names of their wives and children. Norman thought of his wife, Jane and their children. Gon thought of Jane too. She was very beautiful. Brave as a tiger in battle, he was widely renowned for his timidity among the ladies back home. He was mocked by all the other men folk quite frequently about it. He couldn't tell them that he was in love with his sister-in-law.

Jane Woods, about 10 years later

There was a pause in cannonade to reload. Gon began crawling to a better firing position. "Somebody's got to pick those artillery men off. There'll be nothing left of us here soon." As he crawled away from Norman and Zadock, other men had the same idea and began firing back at the smoking cannons. The hissing lead pierced the white clouds of smoke and they heard a few screams of shock at the frontiersmen almost supernatural marksmanship. Gon suddenly realized that his shoulder was hurting and saw blood seeping through his shirt. He'd caught a little shrapnel that stung like a hornets nest but he could still move freely enough. He bear crawled past Jerome Alexander, tallest man in the company, but now diminished and hunched over on his hands and knees, trying to fire off his rifle with blood soaked hands. He let out a strangled cry and crumpled to the ground coughing up blood. Mexican and Indian snipers were working their way in around the mesquite motte. They started picking people off. The cavalry also now waited on both sides of the motte and fired at will into them in a scattered crossfire. Gon heard the fallen giant sputter out "God protect you all...My wife! My wife!" The rest was choked by upwelling gore. Gon crawled onward to turn his attention on the snipers. Screams and groans and coughing filled his ears. He saw the boy Elam Scallorn, no longer wailing for Uncle Davie, laid out in death alongside Dick McGee, their innards pouring out. Gon fought the urge to vomit and sent a sniper scurrying with a well aimed shot. He looked about him, surveying the damage. About a dozen of the men and almost all the horses had been killed so far...some instantly, most after lingering awhile with faces and torsos ripped to shreds by shrapnel. Tree trunks were peeled raw. The high grass mowed down. Floating mesquite leaves cascaded down through a haze of sawdust. Broken branches lay in piles alongside the broken limbs of men. Time slowed. He saw Dawson walking through the sun-dazzled haze, all action and heroic fire, urging the young men to remain cool, to reserve their ammo till they were sure of their shot. The cannons barked and another hot scythe of grapeshot whistled past. He heard his brother scream.

The last hail of lead caught Norman as he raised up slightly to reload his rifle. Metal bits tore deep into his hip. He collapsed in a mass of agony. Zadock threw himself across his son's body as another volley of shrapnel sailed overhead. He raised back up to help his son staunch the blood pouring from his hip. "I won't lose you too."  His chest exploded. A sniper's well aimed bullet caught him right in the heart and the old man collapsed over his son's body. Norman's cries of agony twisted into calling out "father, father" over and over again as the old man's body now proved the perfect shield for his wounded son.

Milvern and Joe Robinson heard Norman's cries and surmised what they meant but they couldn't see the dead father cradling his son. They were watching Captain Dawson still walking about the grove trying to encourage those left alive to hold fast and make their shots count. Almost all the horses were dead. They had no real means of retreat. He seemed to move almost in slow motion to them as he defied death to light a fire of hope in the survivors hearts. But then Milvern saw he was limping from a leg or hip wound. Blood ran down his pant leg. But behind the show of defiance, Dawson knew they were in an impossible position. Almost two thirds of them now lay cold as the clay. He had to ask for quarter. The cavalry crept ever closer, the snipers multiplied and the grapeshot reloaded. It was his decision but he still upheld the democratic nature of his office. He turned to the man laying on the ground beside his feet. "Should I hoist the white flag?" "Hell yes, or they will kill us all to a man." Dawson limped over to a dead horse and pulled a white Mackinaw blanket from a saddlebag. He tied if off to a empty rifle laying next to Old Davie Berry in a pool of blood. He began limping out towards the Mexican lines waving his homemade flag. The Mexicans would have none of it. The fighting rage was upon them. They were being whipped by Caldwell behind and had been shot up by Dawson's company -there would be no parley now. They began firing on Dawson as he limped towards the Mexican lines. Gon, Milvern, Joe and the remaining others fired back at the enemy while Dawson vainly waved the flag of surrender in a crossfire. He caught four or five bullets in the chest. He stumbled back into the mesquite motte dragging the flag in the dirt behind him. He stumbled towards pale faced boys, his life bleeding out. He hit his knees. Joe and Milvern rushed over just as the captain collapsed. Nick Dawson gazed up in the sky, a gorgeous violet muffled by the sulfurous powder smoke and snowing mesquite mulch. Then he couldn't see anymore. As he sunk into the soft arms of that final sleep, his wounded chest managed to croak out his last orders. "We must be like the Spartans, boys. Sell your lives dear. Let victory be purchased with blood."

Sunset approached. The grapeshot had ceased and now the lancers and infantry began to march in good order upon the depleted company, yellow tongues of flame flashing from their bayonets and sabers in the lowering sun. They could tell most of the Texians were dead. Time to go in and mop up. Their colonel wanted the wounded disarmed then shot. But as they marched along the soldados figured they could save ammunition by using their sabers to dispatch the wounded instead.

"Do not fire till they are within pistol shot!" roared out Gon to whomever would listen as he managed to crawl over to his brother. Norman still lay under Zadock, clasping him in a tight hug while he felt his strength ebb away with his hip wound. "I'm done for, Gon. If I don't bleed to death, those butchers will be chopping me up here directly. I can't walk, let alone run. You have to leave me. Now. Save yourself." He pressed a loaded pistol into Gon's trembling hand. "I am not going anywhere without you, if you die , then I die here too. " Gon almost sobbed as he looked over his father's body then up at the approaching lines of infantry. "Fool's talk! You have to make it out of here. I need you to take care of Jane and the children for me. If you won't get out of here for yourself, then do it for Jane." Norman knew of his brother's feelings. Known for years. There was a tense moment now that the secret had been actually spoken aloud. Gon finally nodded slowly. "I love you little brother." Gon tried to speak through the hot tears flooding his vision but all he could muster was a primal noise of rage as he fled his brother buried beneath their father's stiffening form.

Henry Gonzalvo Woods, in the late 1860's

Now it was hand to hand combat for the survivors. The soldados went from a march to a jog then a charge as they swarmed what was left of the grove. A melee of rifle butts and bowie knifes clashed with bayonet and saber. Men went down biting, clawing, gouging their assailants. Soldado and Texian fell together, knives sunk into each other's chest. The cavalry now swooped down from the sides with lances leveled, ready to spear any one who tried to escape from that web of death. As the men saw the walls close in, they ran. At last, it was every man for himself. That's exactly what the dragoons awaited. As each man darted from the "safety" of the mesquite grove, a pair of dragoons launched out, chased them down and speared the fleeing man like a fish. A bullet in the head made sure of the squirming victim. One man managed to run a desperate 400 yards away before a lancer finally over took him.  Gon saw it all. "They are massacring us like brutes! We are going to have to surrender or they'll cut us to pieces." Joe and Milvern kept swinging their rifle butts, stoving in Mexican heads. "I'm making a break for it." There was no other option. They didn't see any prisoners being taken. They'd have to take their luck with the wide open prairie and the dragoons. "Good luck, boys!" They each fled in opposite directions through the smoke choked forest of death.

Joe Griffin now stood ringed by soldados trying to actually capture him unharmed. He was making it bloody work for them. After braining a few with his musket, enough of them grabbed hold of it and yanked it away. He quickly swung back into them with a great mesquite limb blown off by the artillery bombardment. Like Hercules swinging his club, the leonine black man refused to surrender, eyes blazing with wrath at the slaughter about him. After another two or three soldados fell before his hammering blows, their captain watching the entire debacle, finally sighed in weary resignation. He wanted to take Joe alive. There was no slavery in Mexico and black prisoners of war were often given their freedom since the Mexicans assumed they were not fighting of their own free will. And thus did Colonel Jose Carrasco plan to do. But Joe wouldn't be taken a prisoner. Carrasco couldn't stand idly by and watch men under his command be beaten to death by the black man. Carrasco ordered him shot. As the smoke of rifle fire dissipated, he rode his horse up to Joe's body and doffed his hat as he bowed in his saddle. "This is the bravest man I have ever seen."

Norman awoke from his stupor as he felt hands tearing at his clothes. He was being stripped. As his eyes focused he looked up into the brown faces of battle maddened infantrymen, eyes glowing with the blood lust. "Quarter, for favor. Quarter." A half dozen swords flashed down upon his head. Blunted by hacking up the dead bodies around them, the swords slashed long furrows across his naked head. As he lifted his arms in vain protection he felt another dig deep into his side. The new pain electrified him and he managed to cry out louder. A sudden explosion of Spanish expletives roared out from somewhere he couldn't see and a sergeant rushed up and beat the soldados back with his sword. He stood over him like a guardian angel as the thwarted robbers took off to find an actual corpse to rob. "Gracias, muchos gracias," Norman gasped as he sought to stop the bleeding from his side. The sergeant kneeled, ripped up Zadock's clothing and helped tie a sort of shirt tourniquet around Norman's wound. He didn't know why he was even trying. This man was pale as death with all the blood leaking from his frame. But the sergeant didn't approve of the butchering going on around him and if he could save one defenseless man from being hacked to pieces then he would count it as a job well done. He watched the soldiers duck through the mesquite forest, completely stripping the dead bodies and rifling their pockets. Saddles overturned and bags emptied. Some laughed and hooted. Others were deadly serious about their work. They tried to glean some sense of victory from this day and took out their frustrations on the corpses. Arms and legs littered the ground; faces crushed and sliced beyond all recognition. The sergeant grew sick as he watched. Norman passed out once more.

Gon slowly put down his rifle and pistol and walked with arms raised towards an mounted officer. He figured the more calm he appeared the lest apt the dragoon would try to run him down. "Quarter, for favor. Quarter! Those left are all surrendering. Surrendering." His Spanish wasn't the best but the officer understood, nodded and trotted past the wonder struck young man. But then a group of infantry marching nearby saw Woods and decided here's an easy kill. They charged the lone man. One shot at him almost at point blank range but the gun misfired. Two others swung at the young man with rifle butts, punching his left ear and almost breaking his arm. Gon ran back towards the mesquite motte, darted quickly into the trees and saw a miraculous horse still tied to one. It took him only an instant to untie him . As he launched upwards into the saddle, a voice shouted "Woods! Woods! Don't take my horse!" John Church of La Grange ran towards him wild eyed and weaponless. Gon fought the temptation to sink spur and ride out anyway, but as he saw the look of desperate terror in Church's eyes he alighted and handed him the horse. He dove into a patch of high grass that hadn't been mowed by shrapnel. Worming on his belly across the dirt the grass covered him from sight for a bit as he tried to figure out which direction he should take. He heard a sudden eruption of musket fire, a scream and the cries of a horse in it's death throws and he knew John Church hadn't made it far. He continued to watch the marching enemy lines, drenched in sweat, the heat and humidity strangling him as he lay close to the ground. He felt his heart thumping into the ground and his breath blew up dust into his face. He wiggled further through prairie till he saw what he thought looked to be a large opening between the two groups of infantry that stood between him and the Cibolo. It was now or never. He took a deep breath, leapt to his knees and sprinted for that open window.

He felt hooves thundering up behind before he made it half way to freedom. He turned and raised his arms again to try and surrender. Four dragoons charged down on him. A lance stabbed over his head and sliced a groove into the top of his head while the another stabbed at his side. Gon whipped around and instinctively and took a holt the lance shaft, yanking with a great tug. The lances were attached to the Dragoons with a leather strap to prevent them from being dropped so Gon pulling with all his might yanked the lancer off his horse. As the dragoon kicked and cursed in the dirt, Gon leapt over and with a wild angry cry stabbed the man over and over and over with his own lance. He spun around with spear uplifted ready to launch into the horsemen hovering above him.The other three dragoons were riding away. This man put up too much of a fight for them to mess with. Let someone with loaded rifles deal with him. The young man yanked the spear free of its former owner's body and made for the dead man's horse. He started to try and mount it but the beast wanted nothing to do with the killer of it's master. It kicked and bit at him but he managed to get aboard. The furious horse refused to move faster than a trot. But at least it moved faster than he could afoot. Gon managed to steer the stubborn animal to the edge of the battlefield before a bullet hissed past his ear. He saw a soldado with a smoking musket and three others charging towards him. The horse suddenly refused to budge. He kicked and cursed it but it stood there awaiting the Mexicans. Gon leapt from the horse, still clutching the spear as his only weapon and ran. He felt the soldiers on his heels, thought he could hear them breathing behind, kept expecting a bayonet in the back. Then in a wild glance over his shoulders he say the soldados were nowhere near him and had instead stayed behind to secure the horse. Gon dodged into a thicket that at last hid him from the enemy. He collapsed into a bed of tall grass. He would wait there till sun down. Not long now. Then he'd start the long journey home on foot. He was bleeding from his shoulder, his head and his ears. His arm was numb and possibly cracked. But he had escaped. And now all he could see was Norman and his father laying alone in that mesquite abattoir.

General Adrian Woll

Out of a company of fifty three, only fifteen survived to be taken prisoner. Gon and, of all people, blind Alsey Miller, were the only two to escape. Alsey had given a good accounting of himself till retreat seemed the better part of valor and he took off from that death trap about the same time as Gon. His beautiful horse, Selin, lay dead, ripped open by grapeshot. Like any good Kentuckian, Alsey had a good eye for horseflesh, found a surviving horse with a dead owner that looked like it could outrun the Mexicans and lit out. He made it through the lines of infantry fairly easy. He almost laughed out joyously that he'd made it through unscathed - till his poor eyesight lead him straight into General Woll, commander of the entire Mexican army. He'd never seen Woll but he could certainly tell he was the heave-hoe of the operation with all the medals and feathers in his hat. The two stared awkwardly at each other while the officers around the general sat opened mouthed at the absurdity of the situation. Woll finally broke the silence with "Venga aqui pronto, venga aqui pronto!" (Come here quick) Alsey had no clue what he should do, he finally came out with "Uhm, No, over there - pronto," in his best Spanish, pointing east. He turned the horse and galloped away. General Woll and his commanders simply stood there, smoking cigars in hand.

Blind Alsey headed back towards the mesquite grove till he was close enough make out the handful of prisoners having their hands tied behind there back. Milvern and Joe stood among them. Battered and bruised, the two cousins weren't too much worse for wear physically. Still, they were prisoners and facing a long hard march down into the belly of Mexico to an uncertain fate. They might wish they had died alongside Zadock rather than be shuffled off to where they were being sent. Milvern saw Alsey off in the distance and nudged Joe. "That fool is so blind he runs right back into the frying pan." Joe only laughed sardonically at the black comedy of it all. But now the dragoons saw Alsey too and started the chase. Off Alsey went, praying he was heading in the right direction and actually away from the enemy this time. It seemed like he was but as he looked down at his pants he saw flecks of crimson blossoming. He didn't feel shot and quickly felt around his leg. The blood sprayed from the somewhere on the horse's end and it's blood soaked tail flecked him with blood. He kicked the horse harder - he had to get a good distance before it started to weaken. Too late. But fortune sometimes favors the bold - and the blind - and a riderless horse was soon running up alongside him. He recognized it as Ed Manton's. Ed was among the captured. He also saw the dragoons gaining on him. With no time to stop and switch mounts, Alsey pulled a stunt worthy of a Hollywood swashbuckler. As the new horse galloped alongside him, Alsey leaped from his wounded horse at full gallop onto the back of Ed's horse. With the Mexicans shouting angrily at being robbed of their prey, Alsey rode east towards Seguin. He was at last going in the right direction. Ed Manton's horse was finding its way back home. Thunder cracked in the distance and lighting flickered over the last remains of the sunset.

Joe, Milvern and the others were stripped down to their pantaloons, robbed of their valuables and marched off to San Antonio. Norman, still passed out, was given some consideration now that tempers had cooled down. Soldados laid him delicately in a great ox cart beside the wounded Mexican soldiers. And thus he and other survivors began their long journey towards the infamous castle of Perote, a great walled prison between Mexico City and Veracruz. Perote means coffin in Spanish. The castle would indeed prove a coffin for six of the fifteen survivors.

Perote Prison

The mangled bodies of the dead were robbed, stripped and left to the tender care of the vultures and wolves. Already yellow eyes congregated in the darkness waiting to dig into the great feast laid before them. But at last, the long gathering thunderstorm burst like a sore over the prairie. The late summer rain fell cold and heavy, washing away the blood of the fallen, leaving behind white marble statues sprawled in icy repose. An almost full moon rose into the night of September 18, 1842.

It was Zadock Woods' 69th birthday.

Marker in the general vicinity of the Massacre, in far north San Antonio

                                                                                                Copyright: Ben Friberg, 2017

Once Upon a Time in Texas - The Devil's Own

This is a grim fairy tale of another sort. It first appeared in a collection of Texas folklore called Straight Texas back in '37 and has taken on new life in the internet age. I accidentally stumbled across it while researching a Texas Ranger gunfight that took place near Lake Espantosa back in the 1870's. I was captivated by the bizarre yarn. So I started searching for the original version that everyone kept citing as their source to see if there was more detail given than in the versions I'd found thus far.  I am not sure how much is actual folklore or how much was made up by the author. He's pretty specific with dates but includes no actual data to back up why he chose them. He also leaves the reader asking questions like "why did the wolves not eat the baby?" I don't attempt to answer those here. I think the questions raised are best answered by your own imagination. I am currently toying with the idea of weaving the legend into a larger novel I am working on. But I needed to write out my own version of the yarn in order to figure out where to insert it. So here 'tis. I stretched the blanket a bit and threw in some new twists and turns of my own with a dusting of pulp fiction style. Hope you enjoy this weird tale of South Texas. 

The Devil's Own

Dear Mother,

The Devil has a river in Texas all his own 

and it's made only for those who are grown.

Yours with Love,

Mollie

The old woman’s care-worn fingers traced her daughter's barely literate scribbling. The envelope bore a postmark from some place called Galveston in that far away land of Norte Mexico - a land where every American murderer, swindler, adulterer and debtor fled to escape the sword of justice. Now it had swallowed up her Mollie. She read the lines through the mist of her cataracts, her lips mouthing the words, anger and fear gnawing her heart. Mollie went missing months ago. April 13th - a Friday, of course. Gone out to milk the cows one morning and never returned. Her brothers found a wicked looking Bowie knife stuck in the ground, the handle crusted with black blood. They knew it to be the blade of John Dent: outlaw, card-sharp, drunk, man-killer. He was wanted for murdering his own partner and absconding with their fur profits. He and Mollie spent many a romantic moment together over the summer. But his proposals were refused by Mollie's clan, the Pertul’s. He vanished after his partner's murder. Mollie disappeared a week later. He left the Bowie knife to tease his heartsick new in-laws.

The Pertul's searched all through the county, screaming out her name under a sunset streaked with the color of blood and horror. They slowed through the muddy Chickamauga river bottoms, looking for any sign of their beloved daughter, sister, cousin. They finally found a few tracks near the banks and some sign that a canoe was launched into the chocolate brown waters. Whatever had happened, whether she had gone willingly or no, she lay now forever out of their reach. The Pertul cabin lay in the grip of mourning for months. The night creatures of the Georgia hills listened mutely to the sobbing of a mother drifting from beyond cabin walls. This letter was the first news of Mollie since her vanishing. It was very cold comfort. Mollie Pertul’s mother neatly folded it up and placed it inside the giant trunk that kept all their important papers and keepsakes. Then she laid down and died.

John Dent and Mollie Pertul bound themselves in the chains of holy matrimony quickly in Georgia before rushing overland to New Orleans. From there they sailed for the Mexican port of Galveston. The feelings of excitement and love still burned bright enough in the young beauty to instigate her sending such a coldly worded letter to her mother, teasing her with the strange names of the places John told her they were heading to. She rejoiced in her new found freedom. But before another month passed she began to wish herself safely back home on the banks of the Chickamauga, for John took her to the farthest outpost of civilization in a country already composed of almost nothing but wilderness and Indians. The destination was Devil’s River and the magnet was Spanish gold.

Devil’s River flows into a fog-capped lake aptly named Espantosa. In Spanish it means something like "Fear." It’s entire history is one black whirlpool of tragedy sunk in the great desert of the Texas borderlands. When the Spaniards first discovered it, they found the waters literally black with alligators. But this natural jewel of water in the parched lands of South Texas made the lake and river a vital stop on the journey between Mexico City, El Paso, and Santa Fe. A golden thread of commerce soon strung along it’s reptilian shores, and mule trains pregnant with the weight of Spain’s millions trekked to Mexico’s capitol city. At least, till the Comanches discovered the roadway.

It took one raid to cut that golden thread - an entire wagon train decimated in a few minutes, mutilated bodies of Spaniards and horses dumped into the lake. Even the bags of gold sunk amongst the roiling backs of gators for the Comanches had no use for them other than a few bars they kept as trinkets. They also figured the hungry reptiles would prove safeguard against any other Spaniards on the hunt for what spoils they left. Spain had been fighting a losing battle with these fierce lords of the plains for decades. It hadn’t been long since an army of two thousand Comanches and Kiowas wiped an entire mission off the face of the earth. His Spanish majesty's forces decided to find another route. The gold was left to be hoarded by alligators like the dragons of yore.

A century passed over the sickly waves, empires fell, and a new colony picked this ill-starred spot to settle. The Dolores Colony - the colony of Sorrow nestled on the banks of Lake Fear. Actually named after the Empresario’s wife, Dolores, the name is too close to the word "Dolorous" to refrain from a grim pun. The colony still thrived at the time of the Dents arrival but it’s doom fast approached. Insects, hail storms, late freezes, triple digit temperatures in spring annihilated the sustenance of the poor colonists. Depression settled upon the colony's shoulders. Family after starving family fled failure by moving to nearby San Fernando Springs (Del Rio.) 

As any good Texian knows, Revolution reared it’s head in 1836. Rumors of massacre and rape bellowed forth from Zacatecas as Santa Anna's army marched north through the snowstorms of an unusually frigid winter. The bleak news sent most of the Anglo colonists scurrying for American soil. One of the larger refugee groups found themselves surrounded on the Matamoros road by Comanches taking advantage of the general confusion to go on the war path. All were slaughtered except for two women and two children. The women were eventually rescued by American traders. The children vanished into the vast endless horizon of Comancheria. They either died or were raised as Comanches. Their family's corpses sank beneath the murky waters of Lake Fear and fattened the insatiable guardians of the waters.

John Dent refused to leave. The shimmering siren of Spanish gold held him like a vice. Now he’d be able to work in peace with most of the settlers gone. He'd always been afeared of people figuring out why he was dredging the lake on moonlit nights and try to claim the treasure for their own. He’d already murdered his best friend over a share of meager fur trapping profits. He wasn’t about to share a Conquistador’s ransom. He continued to traul the black waters under the nightlight of a Comanche moon heedless of the dangers he ran - or of the danger he placed Mollie in. He watched for the burning witch fires that legend say float like lanterns above buried treasure. In his mind's eye he saw a firmament of lights burning like stars floating upon the waves. Dreams of El Dorado danced in his head all the time now: golden phantasms of Spanish doubloons, bar silver, the horrific faces of Indian gods melded out of molten gold haunted his dreams, seasoned his food, and squeezed out in any room he had left in his heart for Mollie. Their marriage died more or less in its crib.

That is why her pregnancy filled her with such sadness. Mollie lived essentially alone in a small cabin on a packed dirt floor behind walls daubed with mud to haphazardly keep the wind out. All the white women were gone. Only a few Mexican families lived nearby and they were more Indian than Spanish. They never visited her and she never made the trek to their thatched jacales. More and more she thought of her mother, her brothers, and all that she so recklessly left behind. All she had now was a symbol of the love she once had for John growing inside of her to keep her company as his days and nights spent on the lake left their bed cold and empty. After the settlers moved away, Nature began to close in upon the lone cabin, taking back Her territory foot by foot.  Deer, geese, ducks, grouse, quail, curlews, rabbits, all overran the land. They were never short of meat - but their meager garden the pregnant Mollie tended everyday was quickly packed into the bellies of all these critters. And at night the wolves howled.

Mollie was used to hearing the lone cry of a wolf at night growing up in the dark forests on the Chickamauga. But the South Texas nights were filled with the dreadful cry of immense wolf packs crying out in one tongue to their lunar goddess. The howls at night swelled in intensity till it sounded as if the entire cabin lay in a crawling circle of wolves. Livestock vanished one by one. Their horses screamed at night in terror. Sometimes as she looked out the window she saw what seemed like a sea of fireflies floating in the dark. Eyes. Yet, John seemed not to care. He floated upon the waters of Espantosa day and night, steering clear of the baleful reptilian eyes that bobbed to the surface and watched his every move. There were less gators than in the days of Spain but many a shadow sliding beneath the surface attested to their plentiful number. John cursed them and spat but stayed away. He hoped that the treasure didn't lie within a cove of the lake where the things sunned themselves in the heat of the day. It was the one spot of the lake he could never get close to. The gators never left it. 

Mollie's frustration and distress mounted higher and higher as each day passed. She felt her baby kicking inside of her. Her maternal instincts worked at her heart and she felt her days weigh heavier and heavier as a constant dread gripped her. The few hours John spent at the cabin were not spent talking. She had food prepared - meager fare. Not even enough corn for cornbread. Some dried venison soaked and turned into a stew that did nothing but fill the belly with monotony. Her mouth revolted at the constant menu but their child needed the sustenance. Mollie stared out over the table length at her husband - scraggly beard, hollowed eyed, skin burned brown by the South Texas sun. A mute stranger.

Months passed. 

A farmer and his wife watched a  lone rider racing over the hill towards their jacale. They knew the galloping silhouette against the dark thunderheads before he came anywhere near them. Only one other man lived anywhere nearby and from the wife's guesstimation it would be near time for the wild-eyed man's child to be born. The eyes burning above a forest of mustachios and beard made the woman sick to her stomach. John told her in through signs and broken Spanish that Mollie had been in labor for days and was bleeding heavily. The woman grabbed a sack and filled it with all the herbs and secret things a curandera (healing woman) might need to bring a life into the world. Little time could be lost if Mollie wasn't dead already.  She launched out of the hut. She looked right and left for John and saw only a cloud of dust trailing back to the Dent home. Thunder cracked the sky and the fast approaching storm plunged all into a shadow world.

She followed the best she could. Lightning followed in her wake and deep surges of thunder shook the ground under her, speeding her chase. Faint howling crackled to life all around her. It surged louder and louder. Deep, savage, starved. Lobos. The wild howls exhaled as one long moan from the jaws of hundreds of wolves. Nature at last came to square accounts with the last white invaders of their domain. Two great hordes of fur and fang closed in on the lone shack on the Devil's River like ravenous jaws. 

In her mind, the curandera saw the young woman set on by the wolves, limbs torn from her body, heard her screams mixed with howls on the wind. Lightning threw her to earth with a blinding flash and cataclysmic boom that shook her very bones. It took her a few minutes to regain sight and pull herself to her feet. The Lobos had stopped howling. All sound had stopped but a soft ringing in her ears. She struggled to her feet gripping her head in her hands. Bright splotches flooded her eyes; vision swam past islands of neon colors. She collapsed on her haunches waiting for the effect of the lighting strike to wear off. 

Precious minutes blew by before the woman could finally begin to run again towards the Dent shack. Another mile of cactus and caleche flew beneath her worn feet before she saw the pile of horseflesh crumpled up on the trail ahead of her. She neared the burnt mess. John Dent's horse. A large black blotch showed the lightning's kiss. Blood lay everywhere. She couldn't tell if it came from the horse or the missing body of his master. She ran about in a wide circle looking for Dent, hunting a wounded man crawling in search of succor. Nothing. Not even a trail. 

"Merciful God, was he was blown to dust? It's not possible..." 

Suddenly remembering the horrible situation of Mollie, she quickly left the search for a disintegrated John and dashed off for the shack on Devil's River.

She arrived too late. She only wished that Mollie had been blown to atoms like her ne're do well lover. There was not much left. A great sticky puddle of dark crimson, bits of limbs scattered and a rib cage much gnawed upon. No head. And no sign of the baby. The woman dropped to her knees in a wave of nausea. Life in the desert is harsh and unremitting. Many horrors and acts of natural brutality are daily dinner conversation. But the meaningless horror of an innocent mother and child literally swallowed up by predatory Nature was too much to bear even for this seasoned mystic who had seen the demons of the Wild Horse Desert and whispered to the dead in the lonely watches of the night. She wretched as thunder trailed away in the distance. 

The remains of Mollie Pertul Dent were buried by the hands of a witch and the rain soaked earth accepted her to it's cold forgetfulness. Her undertaker whispered a hail Mary and prayer for the lost girl's soul then began to root around inside the run down shack. Mollie's touch lay upon the place in small subtle ways. She had done her best to keep the house as clean as you can keep a bundle of sticks with a dirt floor but in the last few terrible months of pregnancy she hadn't been able to much of anything. The bruja hated to think of the days and nights of bitter loneliness as the young woman cried herself to sleep as her husband floated the black waves of the haunted lake. Then her agonizing hours of labor as she struggled to bring a child into a world, the terror that swallowed her as the ring of lobos charged the cabin, and her last few moments as she dragged her bleeding body and new born child in the dust before the final moments. The witch didn't like to think of the newborn's brief introduction to the world. She finished rooting around in the now unspeakably cold and lonesome shack. She found a handful of letters with Mollie's handwriting that she never had a chance to mail to her mother - words of sorrow and pleadings of forgiveness. The brujah couldn't read English but she deduced her name from the signature. She tucked them into her shawl and promised to herself to see them mailed the next time she and her husband traveled to a trading post. She closed the door on the dark feeling that she felt strangling her every second she stood inside that sad place. She walked back out into the evening sky. The violet crown falling over the horizon's brow seemed a sharp contrast to the bleakness she felt inside. She shook off the brooding evil angel on her shoulders and walked into the twilight.
      And miles away, a newborn baby nursed from a wolf's warm flesh under the lidless eye of a leprous moon.

Years passed... A Republic arose then absorbed into a larger Republic. Gold and Empire made their standard sacrifices to Mars as the United States and Mexico went to war. America won her empire in the halls of Montezuma. Borders became hotbeds of banditry and Indian tribes fought viciously at a Fate they felt quickly closing in on them...

   Emerald Eyes watched the scalps tear off with a fleshy pop. It reminded her of her brothers and sisters' teeth tearing back the skin of their latest kill and digging into a delicious buck or stray cow. The thought made her stomach growl hungrily but the site before her left her curiously ill at ease. Wolves never ate each other. She wasn't sure if the humans were eating each other but she sense that whatever was happening wasn't the natural order of things. But then again, she wasn't a great example of the natural order herself. All her pack loved her but still, she often felt an outcast. Hairless but for the thick mane of hair wrapping her from head to toe in a tangled blanket, she was envious of her wolf family's beautiful warm coats. Her teeth were not sharp or lovely as the fangs of her people, her broken nails nothing like the sleek claws of her sisters. She was a wolf in her soul but physically she was a teenage girl. A teenage girl watching the casual violence of other human beings with the curious mind of an animal. There was something more savage about these humans than the life of a Lobo could grasp. There lay a malignant streak of cruelty running beneath it all. Wolves never killed for sport. They killed for food or some other survival need. But this blood lust was driven by something more all consuming than hunger. She couldn't translate what she saw there but she knew that it was something terrible. Yet she was still fascinated by it. Perhaps her soul wasn't entirely that of a wolf. 

  Glanton finished sawing off the scalp from the Mexican child while the other men around him slashed and carved at the remains of the child's family. They wanted it to look like an Apache raid so no questions would be asked by Rangers. This required bits cut off to show proof of torture and other similar desecration of the corpses. "You about done over making your masterpiece over there?" Glanton barked out. "Rangers will be this-away before long."

    "Just about, boss. Let me finish stuffing this Christmas goose." A shaggy, broken toothed lieutenant kicked and shoved the dead family dog into the open chest of the family patriarch. He kicked at it venomously with a bleeding leg bearing the teeth marks of the now dead guardian. " 'Paches will get jealous at how good we are at playing Injun."

   "Helps if you are as ugly as one," laughed Glanton. "Gets you more into the spirit of things, right Kid?" He winked at one of the men, a Cherokee youth who went by the very original nickname of "The Cherokee Kid." The Kid just scowled silently at Glanton as he lit the family's home on fire. Glanton tied off the child's scalp to his saddle.  "I reckon that is enough. We better all vaminose now." He pressed his ear to the ground. "Horses heading this a-way." Glanton spat and mounted. "Best haul in a week." The other ragged and begrimed men of foul face and tangled beards mounted up too. They were a motley crew of outcasts: Anglo, Sonoran, Cherokee, Delaware, Canadian Frenchy, Texian, Irish, Comanche, and a black freedman.  

      "No hard feelings. Just business," grunted the dog kicker to the silent family as he kicked his horse and rode after his compadres. Smoke from the burning family jacale wrapped cold forms in its black tendrils. 

      Emerald Eyes watched the smelly men disappear through the curtain of fire. She also scented more horses headed towards her and felt the vibrations of the earth. She quickly decided she didn't need to be around when the critters called "Rangers" showed up. She followed the beast men - frightened but fascinated.

      John Glanton, scalp hunter, and his gang of human refuse had grown  weary of earning bounties from the Mexican government for Apache scalps. They were tired of the battles it took with full grown warriors. The fighting cut into their hide and, more importantly, their drinking, so when they realized that the black hair of innocent Mexican farmers served just as well, they thought Christmas had come early. Glanton found a perverse humor in serving Mexicans the same desserts they paid him to served up to the Mescaleros and Lipans. A veteran of the Mexican War, he bore the Mexicans no love and his brain always teetered on the brink of insanity anyway since the slaughter of his wife and child by Apaches back near San Antone. Since that bleak day he'd rode a endless warpath against all mankind - especially the Apache. Rumors whispered grotesque tales of mule loads of raised hair hanging on the walls of his home before he at last rode out and plunged into the forgetfulness of the Southwest.

      Emerald Eyes knew none of this. She followed at a cautious distance. They stank more than the usual human, ripe with sweat and other foulness she couldn't place. If a soul can stink she smelled it. She skirted the edges of their path avoiding wandering eyes as they looked out for Rangers. One of the gang drew her attention more than the rest. There was something vaguely familiar about him. She couldn't find a reason for it. She never came into contact with humans. Her brain never connected the dots between the similarities in their forms. Their souls weren't right. They gave her the same feeling in her belly as that woman in white she often glimpsed walking along Devil's River at night. She sobbed and wailed to the indifferent stars, hands writhing in agony as she clutched the empty air for her children. Her eyes were empty sockets searching a bleak night for the babies she had drowned before running off with her lover. Emerald Eyes didn't know anything about the specter's past but she sensed the empty vacuum in her chest that she also scented in Glanton. Both were devils damned to wander for a redemption that would not come and lost ones that would never return to their embrace. 

   She tracked them to their camp. Still out of reach, she squatted, wrapped in her cocoon of dirty hair, watching with lolling tongue as the men lit their camp fire and started roasting up some venison they had left tenderizing. Her nose drank in the biting spice of the mesquite and the smell of roasting flesh lured her to creep closer than she normally would have. She hadn't eaten all day and her belly howled within her. 

Glanton saw her first - a creeping, undulating hairy caterpillar-like thing. Then he reckoned her to be an Indian wearing the skin of some strange animal. Emerald Eyes didn't see him bring his rifle to his shoulder. The explosion catapulted his men to cover. The ball hit the dirt right beneath her, ricocheted, creased her neck and sail off into the rocks about her. She hit the earth paralyzed. Her wild mind clawed frantically at her new prison.  She smelled the humans rushing towards her in an avalanche of rankness she couldn't escape. She growled and barked as menacingly as she could as they surrounded her with their rifles pointed inches from her. Glanton squatted on his haunches and pulled back the curtain of hair. 
      "Hell's Bells boys! Ain't 'Pache at all. We caught ourselves a wild girl." 
      A few of the men chuckled as they leered. "Think she is crazy, boss?"
      "More than likely. Even greasers and you redskins wear clothes and bathe every once in a while."
       Emerald Eyes howled in terror. It was a strange wail that writhed and twisted into something bestial and agonizingly sad. The men shivered. Even these men, calloused by the causal horrors  of frontier life and warfare were unsettled by a sound so unnatural. It was as if all the suffering they had every inflicted was concentrated in one long accusation of grief and condemnation.
       "Reckon she's a bruja?" Dog Lover felt more unsettled than the rest. "I've known a few of them and got my belly full of the supernatural." 
       Glanton shook his head. "I don't think so. A bruja would have eaten the bullet or blocked it somehow. I think this gal actually thinks she is a lobo. Maybe her family was kilt and it drove her insane. Either way, she will not stay stunned for long. Let's get her back to the camp and figger out what to do with her." Dog Lover nodded. He was less talkative than he'd been before. Something about the girl filled him with a strange unsettled feeling...like he was living in a nightmare that he'd had before but forgotten in the morning light.
      The girl howled and barked and snapped her yellow teeth at the men as they tied her up and carried her back to camp. The hands of more than a few wandered and explored. In those days a completely naked female rippling with muscle was not easy to come by. Many a man could go their whole life without seeing a completely naked woman. So they took immense pleasure in their discovery. Strange water flowed from her eyes for the very first time in her life. She didn't know what her tears were and none of her people could tell her. Wolves don't feel shame.  
      They tossed her inside the broken down ruin of an old trading post at the corner of their camp. They had turned it into their scalp smoker. The scents overwhelmed her mind. All the scalps on their "hunting expedition" dangled by their hair drying in the mesquite smoke of a small fire smoldering on the dirt floor. The stone walls were black with the stink of burning mesquite. She could smell the hair and their many scents drifting above her like thoughts, short stories woven into each strand of hair. Her mind raced with sensory  overload. She heard each voice, each scream and cry from each scalp. They spoke to her in the unknown language of humans. She couldn't understand their pleas but felt the terrible fear and last agonies in each piece of that firmament dangling above her. All her fear and other emotions she couldn't identify found voice in her long drawn out howls to the deaf desert stones. At last she felt a tingling in her limbs. Her body was waking up...



      Her howling sank into Dog Lover's brain. It burned and stabbed and twisted in his head. "The howling is driving me insane, boss." He spat out the pemmican he'd been munching on. "She's been  yowling all day. What the hell are we going to do with her?"
      Glanton took a pull at his bottle of mescal. He'd acquired an all consuming passion for it during the war in Mexico. He spent most of his time at the bottom of a bottle.
      "I do not know. She belongs to someone. She's some crazed lost soul that's been living out here a long time. She's white - you can tell by her eyes. Someone will be looking for her. And that means a reward. Since the Rangers will be sniffing around back where we came from, we can take her on up to Fort Leaton. Get a reward or sell her off. Easy money." He drank deep. "Since none of your tales of witchfires and buried treasure have panned out to much, I reckon she can do your share of the work."
      "I done told you, it's out there. Somewhere. I don't seem to remember any of y'all wanting to risk your hide with those gators. Nor did any of y'all over tax yourselves with the shovels." He yanked the bottle from Glanton's hand and took a long pull. "Well, reward or no reward, I am going to muzzle the bitch." Dog Lover stumbled from the camp fire towards the scalp smoker. The moon bled silver through chinks and cracks in the stone walls, weaving a great spider's web of moonbeams about the dangling scalps.
      "Hellooooooo pretty puppy."
       She glared at him through curtains of mane. She had been gnawing hard at her bonds and finally seemed to be making some progress at splitting the rope fibers. His shadow moved towards her through the shafts of pale light.  His eyes seemed to glow with a demonic gleam.
      "I have got my bellyfull of your yowling. So you need to keep quiet and keep still." His Bowie knife was a liquid bar of silver in the moonlight. "Or am I going to give you a haircut you won't soon forget?" He loomed over her trembling form. "All your pretty pretty tresses would make many a trophy to add to the pack mule." Grimy fingers played with her filthy locks. "Rapunzel, Rapunzel...let down thy hair." His rank breath punched her highly sensitive nose with a brutal assault of mescal, tobacco and festering gums. She pressed herself against the wall and struggled at her bonds. She wanted to melt into the wall. The man's eyes burned with a fever of lust and moonlight as his hand sought her secret places. She snarled and snapped as she fought violently against the cords around her hands and feet. He shot backwards. Her hair fell back and her contorted face shone in the moonbeams.
      Dog lover looked stunned for a few moments. "Damned if you don't look like someone I used to know. Alrighty, you want to play a little rough, Rapunzel? I can oblige you. I like a little struggle anyway. Get's the juices flowing." He licked his lips loudly. The flapping noise sent the girl into another howl. Blood ran down her wrists and ankles from the ropes binding her. "Howl long and loud pet, for you will find it mighty hard to howl again through a slit windpipe. It'll be more like whistling." He laughed terribly and started whistling as he moved towards he again, knife upraised and blazing like a brand in the icy moonlight.
      His whistling wilted beneath a sudden howling from the hills. The girl's eyes flashed with fiery hope as more eerie notes blossomed out in the great Dark. More and more lifted up the song. Her spirit soared.
      'Hell's belched forth her choir." Glanton slowly stood and pointed his trembling rifle at the wheel of sound erupting about them. "Must be a hundred at least. Ain't no Lobo pack that size." Yet howls kept multiplying and swept closer and closer. The other men back up into an armed circle next to him. The noose of sound tightened around them - now peppered with snarls, yips and barking.
      Emerald Eyes howled and tried to leap to her feet. Her people were here to save her at last. She pulled and gnawed at her bindings. Her captor stumbled towards the exit. He felt her eyes on him and heard the low growl in her voice as she continued to gnaw her way to freedom. He couldn't get close to her for fear of her snapping jaws. "Stay back bitch!" He turned to run, tripped over the stones in the smoking fire and hit the ground hard. The world spun and the howling stopped.
      Glanton and crew now huddled together in the center of a ring of golden eyes. Absolute silence wrapped the earth in a shroud. "They're watching us, toying with us," whimpered a feller aptly named "Crying Tom" Hitchcock. "Ain't natural. Them ain't natural lobos. Damned devils from the pit. What we gonna do, boss?"
      Glanton tried to keep his trembling rifle steady and pointed at the wavering eyes. "We ain't going to be making any sudden moves, I can tell you that. Do NOT fire unless they charge us. If they do, then let 'er fly and devil take the hindmost." Cold sweat burned his eyes. 

      Emerald Eyes roared in triumph as her bonds snapped beneath her teeth and she leaped upon her stunned captor. His knife lay a few feet away, knocked away in his fall. His revolvers waited useless back in camp. He punched and kicked at her but her champing jaws tore at them and he screamed as he felt his fingers crunch to splinters in her mouth. "Help me boys, help me, she's done for me!" But his compadres couldn't move. For now a ring of stone silent wolves stared at them. Fur coats of rippling quicksilver in the moonlight, tongues dripping, eyes glowing hellfire, they stood silently around them.  Watching and waiting. The only sound was the heavy panting of man and beast.
      "HELP ME BOYS!" Emerald Eyes drank in his terror with relish. The fear in his own green eyes filled her with a feeling she'd never experienced before - glutted vengeance. Wolves never thought in those terms. She knew not what it was but it went beyond pure self defense. Her heart reveled in the new feeling like someone experiencing their first euphoric taste of intoxication. She reveled in it. She tossed her mane back wildly and let loose a paean of victory that froze the marrow of all who heard. Her face was wild and beautiful and terrible in the silver lamplight of the goddess of the hunt, framed by dozens of dangling scalps.
         "Mollie?" John Dent didn't have time to connect the dots before the face of his dead abandoned Mollie - stamped forever on their daughter - sank her teeth into his throat and tore it out...

         Emerald Eyes, face caked in the blood of her father, melted into the night with the rest of her pack. No one fired a shot. They watched in terrified wonder as the darkness took the girl and her adopted tribe. They stayed awake, pressed back to back till dawn broke blood red over the desert hills. Then they collected their scalps and rode away. But not before adding Dent's scalp to their haul. His hair was black so it would fit right in with the rest. They left the body as a peace offering for the wolves.
         The name of Glanton would become anathema soon along the US Border, from Texas to Arizona where he eventually met his much deserved end. Caught by surprise and surrounded by Apaches, his throat was slit from ear to ear, scalp shorn, belly gutted and remains burned in a great fire alongside a dog that had been tagging along with the gang. 
          Emerald Eyes, or the Lobo Girl of Devil's River as she came to be known, was never captured again. She had her belly full of mankind and never tracked them out curiosity again. There were still sightings of her now and again for a decade or so before she vanishes without a trace from the historical record. The wolf population of South Texas has largely disappeared as well. The "civilization" they fought so long against eventually won out.  The last time she was seen, a goatherd claimed to have happened upon her nursing wolf pups at the banks of Devil's River. Both humans fled the sight of the other. Some old timers spread talk about seeing wolves with faces that looked peculiarly human, as if man and beast had mated and born a child. Of course, that's physically impossible but they still swore the most solemn oaths that they saw strange hybrid beasts out there in the wild places about Devil's River. "If man can bear the Mark of the Beast, cannot Beast bear the Mark of Man?" Either way, nothing more was seen of Mollie Dent's daughter. Yet for decades to come, goatherds and cowboys working along Devil's River spoke in terrified whispers of eldritch howling in the night that sounded unlike any other wolf in Texas. 

copyright Ben Friberg 2017