Epilogue

The big heavy-set Hispano sat at the table, chair against the back wall, methodically chewing his dinner. All the while, he was watching everything that went on in the noisy, dusty, smoke filled cantina. His head and face were covered in a mass of dirty wild hair and thick beard, as his small, perpetually blood shot eyes, were constantly moving as he evaluated everyone and everything around him.

Anger was in every crease and fold of his body, radiating off of him in an almost tangible presence that all but the drunkest immediately sensed and avoided. He was angry alright. Angry at everything and everyone. He was angry about the way he looked, the way people, especially woman, responded to his looks. Most importantly he was angry that he was sitting here in Chihuahua, when he should be out raiding.

His parents had been Comancheros, just as their parents before them. Peddlers and tinkers for the Comanche they traveled back and forth from Chihuahua, where they bought new items to trade, to the Comancheria, where they traded baubles, pots, hatchet heads, knives, and anything else the Comanche were interested in. It was a tough, hardscrabble existence, but it was what they knew, and they had taught him everything they knew.

That all changed in 1847 when his family was killed. Killed by Anglos from the north, who attacked one afternoon while he was out hunting. He returned just in time to see the last of the nine members of his family killed in brutal fighting as he watched from the top of a hill a few hundred yards away. Walking through the remains of the camp after the soldiers left, he made a sacred vow of vengeance. No Anglo would be safe from his wrath.

Eventually he found five men to lead, and he turned to a life of raiding small groups of settlers, farmers, and ranchers. Anglos mostly, with the odd Apache camp or turncoat Mexicans living in Texas or the New Mexico Territory. Robbing, kidnapping, murdering, and plundering became his new way of life. One he exulted in. The captives were sold to the Comanche as slaves, and what plunder the Comanche weren’t interested in he sold in Chihuahua.

His new version of Comancheros were successful, but he craved more. He wanted to kill more Anglos, attack bigger farms, ranches, and wagon trains. To cause more death and destruction. When the opportunity to join up with a much larger group came, he took it and, in the process, became the chief lieutenant of a gang of thirty-three raiders. He convinced the leader to take captives they could sell to the Comanche. To plunder after their raids for items the Comanche might want. Again, he was successful. For a time, it looked like they were unstoppable.

That all changed four and half months ago. They were on their way back to Chihuahua from their last visit to the Comancheria. This had been their most successful trip yet. They’d sold everything they brought with them. Slaves, horses, weapons, and plunder, the Comanche bought it all. When it was time to start back to Chihuahua, the money and gold had been divided up among the gang. The long walk began with the entire gang in a jubilant mood.

They were about halfway to Chihuahua when they hit the Rio Grande River near Socorro and turned south. A few nights later the scouts came running back into camp. Excitedly, they told of having spotted five large wagons, camped on the other side of the river. From what they could see from a distance, it was a small group of settlers setting up a farm or ranch, and they had blonde haired women with them. The camp was only two hours away which, combined with the presence of blonde-haired women and five large wagons filled with who knew what, made a perfect target for an early morning raid.

The moon was new, so there was only starlight to see by. Instead of sending out the scouts to infiltrate the area during the night, as they usually did just before a raid, the leader kept everyone in camp.

The scouts led the group out of camp, two hours before sunrise. Again, the leader kept everyone together on the Camino Real, instead of spreading out into small groups. As they walked, the leader told the big man that the big boss in Santa Fe had asked him to be on the lookout for a camp in this area, and if he found it, to wipe it out completely. There was a big reward if they were successful and he intended to get that reward.

When there was finally enough light to see by, the leader had stopped the group and angrily asked the scouts where the camp was. He was assured by the scouts that it was just to the south and that they hadn’t missed it. With the scout’s reassurances, the gang continued south.

The big man didn’t like it. They’d always been successful, but they’d never tried to start a raid during a new moon, they’d always sent scouts out the night before to be in a position to cover them if things went wrong, and they had never attacked this late after sunrise. With a strong premonition that this attack wasn’t going to go well he motioned his five men back and told them to hang near the back when the raid started. If anything went wrong, they’d meet back at the last camp.

And things had gone wrong from the moment they started the attack. Horribly wrong. Within seconds a third of the gang was dead, a third was locked in hand to hand combat with Apaches, and a third were retreating. To add insult to injury, someone had opened fire on them from the top of the cliff overlooking the camp site. Very rapid and very deadly fire.