Chapter 1

Oh, my God, what am I going to do? Here I am out here in this terrible place all by myself. Them Redskins done killed everybody else, and I ain’t sure just how it was that I escaped the same thing happening to me. We were a day out of El Paso, headed for Las Cruces, NMT (New Mexico Territory). Well, we were headed for California and the gold fields where Pa was sure to make us rich by picking up the gold what was littering the ground.

This was the middle of summer of 1851, and, as Pa used to say when Ma was not around, “It was hotter than Hell out in the sun.” Well, I did not know how hot Hell was, but I was inclined to agree with him. Ma kept after me to wear a shirt with long sleeves and pants with long legs whenever I was out in the sun. I had on my hat what I liked to call my sombrero that Pa had bought for me just before we joined the wagon train. I had my hightop shoes that did a good job of protecting my feet, so I was pretty well protected from the sun.

It sure was hot inside all of them clothes, but Ma and Pa both said that I would be worse off if I did not have all that protection. Man, let me tell you, I was sweating the worse that I had ever done, and I thought I was going to drink one of them water barrels entirely dry if it did not cool off by dark. I was getting a drink out of a water barrel when the Injuns struck.

The Comanches had hit us just after breakfast, before we had started on our way that morning. The wagonmaster had done a very poor job of arranging the wagons. Well, maybe it was because we had not had much chance to practice placing the wagons close enough together, end to end. Anyway, there were no mules hitched to the wagons, so there was plenty of room for them Injuns to ride between two wagons to get to us.

As I said, I was getting a drink from a water barrel when the Injuns showed up. By some lucky chance, I was leaning over a nearly empty barrel with the dipper to reach the water in the bottom of the barrel. I was only 8 years old, so it was quite a reach for me to get down to the water. We were supposed to refill all of the water barrels when we got to Las Cruces.

Anyway, I was leaning over as far as I could to reach the water when an Injun rode past me. He must of been caught by surprise when he saw me because he took a swipe at me with his war club. I saw it coming and tried to duck. That made me pitch headfirst into the open barrel. That really was a big barrel, so I had room to turn around and get my feet under me so that my head could stick out over the top of the barrel.

I guess that Injun figured that he had killed me because I never saw him again. I got a good look at the short battle where I saw all of the men and kids killed by the Comanches and most of the women rounded up. Oh, Dear Lord, I wish I had not been able to see what was going on after the battle. It was horrible. The women were screaming bloody murder, and I could not blame them. Every women got raped several times. It must of really hurt the way they were screaming.

When the rape party was over, and that must of lasted a couple of hours, all of the women had their heads bashed in by the Injuns’ war clubs. Blood and brains spattered everywhere, and them Injuns laughed like demons. That was when I ducked as low as I could in the barrel hoping and praying that the Injuns would not spot me.

I guess that none of them heathen Injuns saw me; otherwise, I would surely be dead or a slave, more likely dead. As far as I could tell from deep inside of that there barrel, no Injuns spent any time looting the wagons. Instead, they were only interested in taking all of the mules and horses with them as they rode away.

I sneaked a peek from the barrel when I heard them Injuns ride away. I did not try to escape from that there water barrel until after them Injuns were gone. I think I must of spent a good half-hour getting out of that there barrel. I knew that I was in trouble for standing in the drinking water, and I was going to get a good thrashing from Pa, but I had to own up to what I had done.

Oh, no, that was when it dawned on me that Ma and Pa were both surely dead. I kind of squatted on the ground and bawled like a baby. I do not know how long I was there crying for my folks and for myself, but I sure was hungry when I came to myself. From the looks of the sun, it must of been early afternoon.

I did not know what to do, but I did scavenge around for something to eat. I found some jerky and old biscuits, so I was able to push my hunger down some so that it did not bother me so much. Once I had eaten enough food to make my stomach back off from its nagging, it dawned on me to search the wagons to see what I might find that I would need to survive.

We had come from a farm in southern Indiana, so I did know something about survival in the woods. Well, there were no trees around here, but I figured that the principles were the same. Of course, the first thing I looked for was food, but I also looked for money and weapons. I found that one of the wagons had a wheelbarrow in it. Did the owner expect to need it to hold all of the gold that he was going to find when we got to California?

I used that wheelbarrow to hold the useful stuff that I found, and it really did not take long for me to fill it up with food and weapons. I did not find all that much money. I did find one double eagle that a man had hidden in his shoe, but all I came up with in the way of money was $32.43. Of course, that was a lot of money to me because I had never had more than a few copper pennies of my own.

I collected a few rifles and four hand guns. The best of the bunch was Pa’s 1849 Colt Pocket Pistol. The pistol was a five-shot revolver in 0.31 caliber. I also found a good bit of powder and a lot of caps and balls. Some of the powder was in paper cartridges sized for the Colt, so that was a help. Pa had taught me how to shoot the pistol and how to take care of it, so it was a useful weapon for me even if I was so young.

The rifles were not of much value to me because they were all muzzle loaders and so long that I could not reload them, even when I stood up. I did take them, figuring to sell them when I came to a town.

On the other hand, I managed to find 27 hunting knives, most of which were of the style of what came to be known as the Bowie knife. Pa had also taught me the basics of fighting with a knife, so I was pretty good with it. Frankly, I figured that if I had to fight, I would shoot my opponent with the Colt and then cut his throat with my knife. As you can tell, watching all of those innocent people from the wagon train being killed had turned on my blood-thirsty instincts.

I definitely hated Comanches, and I would have taken delight in killing every one of those evil creatures, man, woman, or child, that I could find. In fact, that was what I planned to do as soon as I got a little older. I was smart enough to realize that at 8 years old, I was not yet ready to declare war on the entire Comanche nation.

I knew that I could not stay at the site of the Comanche raid, so I planned to walk to Las Cruces starting the next morning. I had no idea of the geography of the situation, so I had no idea how long it would take me to walk that far, especially with the wheelbarrow.

Thank God, the wagonmaster had a crude map with the water holes and camping places marked on it, so I was not walking blindly into the unknown. I knew that I was in trouble, but I just did not know how much. I expected to spend only one night on the trail and reach Las Cruces the following evening. I do not know what I would have done if I had known how long it would actually take for me to walk to Las Cruces pushing that heavy wheelbarrow.

I spent the night in our wagon and fixed myself a minimal breakfast the next morning before leaving. I loaded the wheelbarrow with as much food and water as I could manage, dropped Pa’s, now my gun, in my pocket, and headed out with the wheelbarrow toward the west following the clear trail through the desert.

Ouch, this was a more difficult job than I had imagined! It was easy to handle the wheelbarrow as long as the trail ran on the hardpan, but the story was different when the sand was over half an inch deep. By noon, I realized that I was not going to make it even to the next waterhole with the wheelbarrow loaded as heavily as it was.

It was with considerable disgust that I got rid of everything I did not immediately need. All I kept was the food and water and the gunpowder, balls, and caps. I did keep the money in my pocket because that did not weigh enough to give me any sort of problem.

I was really shocked that after abandoning all of those things that I had planned to sell, I still did not move fast enough to reach a waterhole before dark. At least, it did cool off when the sun started to set. I gave up before it got completely dark and spent the night beside the trail. Fortunately, I did have some jerky to eat and plenty of water to drink.

The next morning, I got as early as start as I could, and I got to the first waterhole about noon. Man, was I tired! God was with me this time. I approached so quietly that I was able to get quite close to a jackrabbit before he spotted me. It may have been hunger that made it possible, but I jerked my pistol from my pocket and fired one shot at the jackrabbit.

One of the many miracles associated with that episode was that my bullet hit the jackrabbit in the head and killed it instantly. The jackrabbit had been only about 20 feet away, and I had held the revolver with both hands. At that range and using that stance, I had been amazingly accurate with this pistol at the end of Pa’s training.

The 0.31 caliber bullet from the Colt was the ideal size for such a shot. If I had used a 0.44 caliber bullet from an Army pistol, the jackrabbit would have probably been blown to pieces. In that case, I would have had a problem finding enough meat left to make a decent meal.

At this point, I was exhausted, so I decided to spend the rest of the day at this waterhole and push on tomorrow morning. I ate a little bit of jerky to hold me until I had prepared the jackrabbit for supper. I was able to do that because I had fixed many a rabbit while we lived on that farm in Indiana.