The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier

by Edgar Beecher Bronson

The next forenoon's march to the head waters of the Alamo was an anxious one, and was made with the utmost caution, for we were sure the Lipans would be lying in wait for us; but no sign of them did we again see for three weeks.

Leaving the Alamo, we made a great circle through the desert, swinging first north toward the Sierra Mojada, then south, and ultimately eastward toward Monclova. The trip proved to be one of great hardship and danger, but only from scarcity of water; for while at isolated springs we found recent camps of one sort of desert prowler or another, we neither met nor saw any. Finally, late one night of the fourth week, we reached a little spring called Zacate, out in the open plain only about thirty miles south of Musquiz. But between us and only five miles south of the town stretched a tall range through which Tomas knew of only two passes practicable for horsemen; one, to the west, via the Alamo, the route we had come, would involve a journey of eighty miles, while by the other, an old Indian and smugglers' trail crossing the summit directly south of Musquiz, we could make the town in thirty-two miles. The latter route Tomas strongly opposed as too dangerous. Twelve miles from where we lay it entered the range, and for fifteen miles followed terrible rough cañons wherein, every step of the way, we should be right in the heart of the recent range of the Lipans, and where every turn offered chance of a perfect ambush. But with our horses exhausted, worn to more shadows from long marches through country affording scant feed, with not one left that could much more than raise a trot, we finally decided to chance the shorter route. That night we supped on cold antelope meat and biscuits, to avoid building a fire, and rolled up in our blankets, but not to rest long undisturbed.

Shortly after midnight Curly roused us with low growls. Though the moon was full, the night was so clouded one could hardly see the length of a gun-barrel. Curly's warnings continuing, George and Tomas rolled out of their blankets and crawled out among and about the horses, and lay near them an hour or more, till Curly's growls finally ceased. Then we called them in and all lay down, and finished the night in peace. Early the next morning, however, a short circle discovered the trail of three Indians who had crept near to the horses and reconnoitred our position. Their back trail led due northeast, the direction we had to follow; and when we had ridden out half a mile from the Ojo Zacate, we found where their trail joined that of the main band. The "sign" showed they had been south toward Monclova on a successful horse-stealing raid, for it was plain they had passed us in the night with a bunch of at least twenty horses, heading toward a point of the range only five or six miles west of where we should be compelled to enter it.

We were in about as bad a hole as could be conceived. Plainly the Indians knew of our presence in the vicinity. It was equally certain their scouts would be watching our every move throughout the day, and there was not one chance in a thousand of our crossing the range without attack from some ambush of such vantage as to leave small ground for hope that we could survive it. All but Cress and Thornton urged me to turn back, although we were all nearly afoot, and had no food left except two or three pounds of flour, and a little meat. After very short deliberation I decided to go ahead. The Lipans knew precisely where we were, and if they wanted us they could (in the event of a retreat) easily run us down and surround us and hold us off food and water until we were starved out sufficiently to charge their position and be shot down. Better far put up a bold bluff and take chances of cutting through them.

So on we plodded slowly toward the hills, all of us walking most of the way to save our horses all we could. At 2 p.m. we cut the old trail Tomas was heading us toward, and shortly thereafter entered the mouth of a frightfully rough cañon, its bottom and slopes thickly covered with nopal, sotol, and mesquite, and, later, higher up, with pines, junipers, oaks, and spruces, with here and there groups of great boulders that would easily conceal a regiment. Two or three miles in, the gorge deepened until tall mountain slopes were rising steeply on either side of us, and narrowed until we had to pick our way over the rough boulders of the dry stream-bed.

Our advance was slow, for it had to be made with the utmost caution. Thornton, Cress, and Tomas scouted afoot, one in the bottom of the gorge, and one half-way up each of its side walls, while Manuel and Crawford followed two hundred yards behind them, also afoot, driving the saddle and pack horses; and I trailed two hundred yards behind the horses, watching for any sign of an attempted surprise from the rear. Thus scattered, we gave them no chance to bowl over several of us at the first fire from any ambush they might have arranged.

From the windings of the cañon we were out of sight of each other much of the time; personally, I recall that afternoon as one of the most lonely and uncomfortable I ever passed. I slipped watchfully along, stopping often to listen, eyes sweeping the hillsides and the gulch below me, searching every tree and boulder, with no sound but the soughing of the wind through the tree-tops, and an occasional soft clatter of shingle beneath the slipping hoofs of my unshod horse.

But throughout the afternoon the only sign of man or beast that I saw was a lot of sotol plants recently uprooted, and their roots eaten by bears.

Shortly after dark we reached the only permanent water in the cañon, a clear, cold, sweet spring, bursting out from beneath a rock, only to sink immediately into the arid sands of the dry stream-bed. Immediately below the spring and midway of the gorge bottom stood an island-like uplift, twenty yards in length by ten in width, covered with brush, leaving on either side a narrow, rocky channel, and from either side of these two channels the cañon walls, heavily timbered, rose very steeply. Just above these narrows, the gorge widened into seven or eight acres of level, park-like, well-grassed benchland, and into this little park we turned our horses loose for the night, for they were too worn to stray.

Having made eight or ten miles up the cañon during the afternoon march, we were now within a mile of the summit, and no more than seven miles from Musquiz. Indeed we should have tried to reach the town that night had not Tomas told us the next three miles of the trail were so steep and rough he could not undertake to fetch us over it unless we abandoned our animals, saddles, and packs.