The Way Home And A Cowboy Raid

Kiowa war party. The Kiowa were good friends of the Comanche.

source

Howdy folks, greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas!

We're in a series about the Wild West and the incredible story of an 11 year old German boy, Hermann, who was captured by an Apache war party from his family's farm in 1870 in Central Texas.

He's now 17 years old at this point in the story and has become a full blown warrior who hates and fears the White man. And in fact, has taken many a scalp.

He's been with the Comanche for over a year now.

Yesterday's post

In the last post Hermann and two of his Comanche buddies, Watsacatova and Esatema, were caught on foot and had to outrun a pack of bloodhounds and Watsacatova got scalped by a bush!

They were able to escape their pursuers by jumping into a river and floating many miles downstream.

Today's story

When they came out of the river they started walking and came upon a bee cave in the rocky terrain so they ate honey and then saw some cattle so they killed one and made a nice fire.

A mixture of water, honey and beef fat was formed into a sauce and the roasted beef was coated with it and they had a fine feast.

Next they cut the hide into strips and made ropes or lariats out of it. They kept walking but soon found horses so they stole three of them and kept moving. When they came close to a small town they found a large herd of horses which they herded away toward their home camp.

NO horse was safe in Texas at that time! These boys were such proficient horse thieves. I would have been too if that was the best way to get a girl! I think I would have built a shed onto the house and kept the horse inside at night though, if I had a homestead.

They finally made it home

When they got home the other warriors, of course, gave Watsacatova a hard time about the missing patch of hair on his head which looked exactly like he'd been scalped! They teased him about running from the enemy so fast that he lost his hair! lol.

His squaw saw it and thought it was hilarious and laughed herself silly. The hair never grew back and he went to his grave with that bald spot on the top of his head.

This last incident gives us an indication of Watsacatova's sense of humor and his relationship with his wife that she could laugh at his bald patch and not get into trouble. Some of the squaws called their husbands "Master" and were more reverential. And much less playful.

Ambushing some cowboys

Hermann was on a raiding party down along the Rio Grande with his fellow Comanche and also some Kiowas.

Side note

The Kiowa were another great tribe of warriors who often joined the Comanche in raids.
Here's a Kiowa chief:

source

And just for fun here are two Kiowa ladies. I really admire the craftsmanship that went into making their clothes:

source

They came upon 10 or 12 cowboys with a large herd of cattle. The raiders were able to stampede and drive off the cattle and then concentrated on the cowboys.

The cowboys put up a good fight but two of them were killed. The others rode into tall brush and disappeared so they let them go, otherwise they would have killed them all as they outnumbered the cowboys two to one.

Hermann's party turned into cowboys themselves and made the long, slow trip home, driving that herd of cattle to their camp. They let them graze not far from camp and for a long time all they had to do for meat was to go get one of the cattle.

A chance meeting

Years later Hermann ran into one of the cowboys that was in that fight and the man told Hermann the names of the two who got killed. He said they buried them along the river there.

I wonder if that was an awkward moment at all? I mean, what did Hermann say.."Oh yeah, I was one of the Indians that killed your two friends."

It seems like he would have alot of enemies right from the start. I know the hatred between Texans and the tribes has simmered for generations here.

Hermann's account continues on the next post.

Thanks for reading folks, God bless you all!
-jonboy
Texas

source