Chapter VII: Part 7

“They [the Texas] are very familiar with the fact that there is
only one true God, that he is in Heaven, and that he was born of
the Holy Virgin. They perform many Christian rites, and the Indian
Governor asked me for missionaries to instruct them, saying that
many years ago a woman went inland to instruct them, but that she
has not been there for a long time; and certainly it is a pity that
people so rational, who plant crops and know there is a God, should
have no one to teach them the Gospel, especially when the province
of Texas is so large and so fertile and has so fine a climate.”
[100]

And Shea asserts that “the Franciscan writers all from this time [when Benavides published his account] speak of this marvelous conversion of the Xumanos by her instrumentality as a settled fact.” [101] The legend must have had wide acceptance in the Southwest in the last half of the seventeenth century. Among the important historians who take account of it are Bolton, Chapman, and Hodge. Bolton calls the story a “classic in the lore of the Southwest”; [102] Chapman refers to Maria Agreda as “the celebrated ‘Blue Lady’ of the American Southwest”; [103] and Hodge as editor of the translation of the Benavides Memorial gives a full account of the story in his excellent notes. [104]

So far as I know, the identity of the Blue Lady has been accounted for by no one except Benavides. What is the real basis of the story? Could there actually have been a female missionary who labored in the wilds of New Mexico and Texas before the coming of the Fathers? Or was there some young priest whom zeal led into that romantic region ahead of the most daring, and whom the natives mistook for a beautiful woman because of his youthful face and priestly robes? I wish I could answer.

THE HEADLESS SQUATTER

By John R. Craddock

A little to the right of where the old “Kenzie” Trail winds around the head of Presslar’s Draw, on the — C Ranch in Dickens County, Texas, stands a lone cottonwood tree that has for many years been a landmark. Just below the tree, one of the most beautiful springs of the western country empties out, and a short distance from the bank are the remains of a dugout—once the home of the first settlers in the country. By some miracle, the spring and the land immediately about it have escaped the ravages of progress and are as wild today as they were when the McKenzie Trail was dusty with travel. Only now, so the people say, the grass grown trail near by, with its rain-washed ruts cut deep, and the ruins of the long ago abandoned dugout, with broken bits of domestic utensils still strewn about, have become the habitation of phantoms—the haunt and the haunted.

Years ago, Ben —— and Burl —— squatted here and made what they called the Cottonwood Claim. They were firm friends and shared alike the joys and hardships of frontier life. Travelers came but seldom, and in their lonely seclusion the two men came to know each other and to depend on each other for human understanding as few brothers ever know or understand one another. When the cottonwood Burl had planted reached a height of some twelve feet, the country began to settle and land values to soar. Ben wanted to hold the claim, while Burl wished to sell out and return to the East. Their differences developed into a dispute that ended in a tragedy.

The dispute came to the point that neither of the men spoke to the other. For weeks they lived in sullen silence, wrath and hatred damming up for some terrible outbreak. It came one evening when Burl was digging out a grub with his spade. Ben was standing by, the ax that he had been chopping with in hand. Suddenly, while Burl was bent over almost to the ground, Ben swung the ax with a great choking cry and curse and at one blow cut his head off. Then he buried the body under a small cliff not far from the spring.

A few months afterward Ben became crazy, driven, it is said, into insanity by the ghost of his dead partner, which was constantly appearing before him as natural as in life—except headless. Of nights as Ben sat by his fire the ghost of his partner would steal in and take the vacant chair. As soon as he had done with supper and had sat down, Ben could hear a horse coming up the trail; he could hear the creaking of the saddle; he could hear the whir of the spurs as the ghost came in from the darkness; and then seated in his old chair, it mattered not whether the room was lighted or in darkness, would appear the murdered squatter. Sometimes when Ben was riding far out on distant ranges he would suddenly hear the galloping of a horse, and there alongside him would be coming the same apparition, headless, always headless.

Thus hounded, Ben finally told the story of his deed to a sheriff. But he had already acquired the reputation for being “cracked” and the sheriff paid no attention to him. Then one day a rider found the bloated body of Ben hanging from a limb of the cottonwood. Beyond all doubt he had killed himself.

The folk of the country still tell this tale, and they say that at night the phantoms can be seen crossing the old Trail or stealing about the dugout. Some say that they have heard the cry of “O-O-O, Ben” come as from far away and then a cry of despair answer back from the cottonwood tree.

MYSTERIOUS MUSIC IN THE SAN BERNARD RIVER

By Bertha McKee Dobie

[Material for this compilation, with the exception of Mr. Morris’ accounts published in the Freeport Facts and Mrs. West’s folk tales, was supplied through the Editor.]

The mysterious music in the San Bernard River at Music Bend in Brazoria County is not so haunting as the siren strains against which Ulysses waxed his ears or as the luring song of the Lorelei. But perhaps all that it lacks is its Homer or its Heine. This Texas music, if less enchanting, is less deceptive. It draws no one on to his destruction. The legend of the San Bernard is widely known and, like all truly popular legends, as yet unfixed by a master’s using, has many forms.

The account most expressive of the folk that has come to my notice is that supplied by Mrs. West of Velasco. This account is chiefly concerned with the character of the music and with the apparitions that appeared to Mrs. West’s mother and brother. According to Mrs. West, the music never plays for those who laugh at it or doubt it, but those who row out over Music Bend with an open mind may hear music sweeter than any played with hands. It sounds, she says, like the music of violins. Sometimes it is preceded by a very dreadful noise, resembling the sounds made by a steer which, having been knocked in the head, falls, kicking and beating the ground and bellowing in pain. After the noise has passed, the violins begin to play. Mrs. West is the only one of my authorities who mentions the dreadful noise. Mr. Eugene Wilson, Jr., writes in “Mysterious Music on the San Bernard,” The Gulf Messenger, Volume VII, December, 1894: “It has been likened to a number of musical instruments, by a few to the soft, sweet notes of the Aeolian harp.” This last is the sound most frequently heard by Mr. J. W. Morris of Freeport, though he also mentions the violin, the flute, and the human voice.

There is equal variation, indeed contradiction, in accounts of the time when the music may be heard. Mrs. West, who grew up on the San Bernard, says that the music may be heard by day or by night, though not continuously or regularly even by those who “believe in it.” This testimony is corroborated by Mr. F. D. Letts, an abstract of whose article, published years ago in the Galveston Daily News, has been supplied by Mr. E. G. Littlejohn. Mr. Wilson, in the article referred to above, states that it is audible at night only, and can be heard most distinctly when the moon is full. Miss Lorene Cook, who lived for a time at the mouth of the river, limits the music strictly to the time of the full moon, between the hours of twelve and one. Mr. Morris, in three separate accounts, published in the Freeport Facts, 1922, records impressions of the music at night, but does not expressly state that it cannot be heard during the day.

One point of interest, to which several auditors testify, is the permeating quality of the music. Some of them, in attempting to describe this quality, fall back upon other senses than hearing. Mrs. West says that she could almost see the sound, which began softly, as if at an elevation, and slowly came down to the boat. Miss Cook reports that the sound was “so close at times that I felt as if I could touch it with my hands.” Mr. Wilson’s article contains this sentence: “On first coming within its limits, one can easily perceive that it proceeds from under the water, but in a short while it is impossible to locate it, as it gets under the seats, in the bow and in all parts of the boat, overhead and around; in fact, it seems to pervade the atmosphere.”

I have heard of no apparitions in connection with the music except those seen by Mrs. West’s mother and brother. However, as they illustrate very well the workings of folk imagination, I record them here. Mrs. West’s mother, Mrs. Mary Ducroz, was one of a considerable party rowing at midnight on the river. Just as the boat drew over Music Bend she saw a man, with a bridle over his arm, come down to the water, turn, and go back into the woods. She could see only the upper part of his body. He seemed not to walk but to glide. He was not visible to any other member of the party, though Mrs. Ducroz tried very hard to make the others see him. She is quite certain about having seen him herself, as the moon was very bright. At another time Mrs. West’s brother, then a boy of fourteen years, was riding horseback at night when he saw before him a man and a woman sitting in the middle of the road. They did not seem to see at all a very large ant bed just in front of them. The boy had seen the ant bed many times in passing along the same road. Now he saw the most beautiful horse he had ever seen, dappled gray, tied with an extremely large and knotted rope to a tree at the side of the road. The horse evidently belonged to the man and woman who were sitting in the middle of the public way. The boy urged his horse forward, but the horse refused to go. Then the boy remembered that he was just above the ghostly Music Bend, and turned his horse about.

To Mrs. West I am also indebted for a relation of the effect of the music upon some of those who have heard it. When she was a child, an old gentleman boarded for a time at her father’s house. The old gentleman used to row out over the Bend day after day on the chance of hearing the music, and return at night to tell his hosts that surely they imagined the music. They knew that they did not imagine the music, but thought that perhaps the old gentleman could not hear it, as it is not given to all to hear such ghostly music. One evening, however, he came back in terror. Suddenly, as his boat was over the Bend, he had begun to tremble as if in a chill, and his hat seemed to rise from his head. At once he had begun to hear the sweetest and most terrible music that ever he had heard. He never wished to hear it again. In 1920—Mrs. West is again my informant—two girls were drowned in the San Bernard; and when the searchers told of finding the bodies, they told also of hearing the most beautiful funeral music that ever they had heard. But it was music that they hoped never to hear again.

The real legend of the music is the story of its origin. The several versions have only one point of identity: that a fiddler who played on the bank in life plays on in the waters in death; and in one version the fiddler played from a boat. One common story is that two men who froze to death beneath a tree at Music Bend were fiddlers. As Miss Lorene Cook has heard the tale, an old hermit fiddler was murdered by pirates who sought refuge in the San Bernard River during a storm. Mr. Wilson’s account explains: “The negroes really believe it to be a ghost. They say that many years ago, on a dark and stormy night ... a sloop with two sailors aboard ... was forced to seek shelter in the San Bernard; that one of the sailors was a fiddler, and that as soon as the winds began to lay, he began to fiddle for joy; that his mate, desiring to sleep, was so enraged that he attempted to stop him by force, and that in the scuffle the fiddler fell overboard and was drowned; that the other sailor, while angry, threw the fiddle and bow into the river; and that on that very night the ghost of the dead sailor played so touchingly that the living mate could not sleep, and that every night since then it has played the same tune, again and again.”

In most of the stories the musician lived alone at the Bend. The most romantic of them is that retold by Mr. J. W. Morris in the Freeport Facts with certain variations. “In life the musician lost his fiancée a few hours before they were to have been married. She walked to the river to pluck a white water-lily to braid in her shining hair for the marriage, but as she reached for the flower, a snake head sprang forth and bit her on her white neck and she fell dead in the water.” The musician then threw himself, with his violin, into the river. According to another account of Mr. Morris’ the lover moved to a small island in the stream, and there lived. At his death his violin and bow were buried with him, and still he plays strange, sweet music.

Another version of the love legend has been contributed by Miss Sarah S. King of San Antonio, who heard the story from Miss Arline Rather. In it the maiden was accustomed to go to the stream each evening for water, and there to meet her lover. One day an arrow struck her down. Her lover, approaching, called and played his liveliest tunes, and then found her dead in the waist-high ferns. As in the preceding account, the musician then flung his violin and himself into the river.

The version supplied by Mr. E. G. Littlejohn has considerable circumstantial detail. According to this account, the young hermit, son of a wealthy Eastern gentleman, had been jilted in a love affair, and had come to the lonely hut on the San Bernard in hope of forgetting his grief. This was long before Texas gained her independence. The young gentleman was a violinist of so much repute that the officers of a military post in Central Texas sent two troopers to engage his services for a ball. They found the violinist lying dead upon the floor, and near him an ax covered with congealed blood. His murderer had taken from the shack everything of value, even wearing apparel, except the violin, which hung still in its accustomed place on the wall. The troopers buried the body under an oak tree, and took the violin and private papers to the commanding officer of the fort. But on a spirit violin the young hermit has played for a century.

THE DEATH BELL OF THE BRAZOS

By Bertha McKee Dobie

[More than one early Texan was concerned with slave-running. Yoakum [105] says that the three Bowies, Rezin, James, and John, made sixty-five thousand dollars in this trade. Fannin also ran slaves, operating from Cuba to Texas under the name of J. F. Walker. With him, as with others, the Brazos was a port of entry. Writing from “Velasco, Rio Brazos, Prov. Texas, Aug. 27, 1835,” he says: “My last voyage from the island of Cuba (with 152) succeeded admirably.” [106] On May 26, 1837, it was reported from New Orleans to the British minister, Pakenham, that “some slaves were brought from Cuba and landed in Texas by the Am. Schooners Waterwich and Emperor. A some few Months ago a Cargo was run at the Brazos River by a Vessel under the Texas Colors.” [107] Until a few years ago the ruins of a house near Velasco were pointed out as marking the habitation of a man whose business had been the buying and distributing of smuggled slaves.

Charles D. Hudgins, a lawyer who grew up near the mouth of the Brazos, says in his book of poems called The Maid of San Jacinto: “It is said that shortly after Texas obtained her independence, a ship loaded with slaves from Africa was chased into the Brazos by a United States man of war; that she had a number of sick negroes on board; that the well negroes were landed and hurried through the woods, while the sick ones were weighed down with chains and thrown into the river.” [108]

However, Mr. Hudgins does not connect the “mysterious music” of the Brazos with the slave ship, though such a connection is common in the vicinity. He continues: “Three miles above the mouth of the Brazos River is what is known as the haunted Labore. Twain causes conspire to give rise to the superstition among the ignorant with regard to this spot. The first is a grave near the bank of the stream; the second is a peculiar humming noise, that can be heard there on still summer nights—this noise is soft, like the notes of an Aeolian harp, and superstition, coupling it with the grave, has woven many a tale of the haunted Labore.”[108]—Editor.]

This legend is set down in the words of Mrs. A. F. Shannon of Velasco.

“This is the account I heard as a child of the music in the Brazos. About 1836 or 1838 Texas passed a law forbidding the bringing of slaves from Africa. But boats, slave runners they were called, used to come from Africa to Cuba and wait there until they thought they could slip across the Gulf. One of these ships with three hundred slaves nailed down into the hold—they brought them over like freight—put into the Brazos. But before it could reach the safety of the timber, it was followed by—I don’t know exactly what it was, whether it was a revenue cutter or what, but anyway a government boat. This boat gained on the slave ship, and seeing that they were lost, the crew of the slave ship scuttled it, and it went down with its three hundred negroes in the hold, at Seaview Bend, about four miles from Quintana.

“When I was a child we could hear every evening at sunset the ringing of a great bell. Very plain it was. The negroes called it ‘the death bell.’ Mammy Kitty had stayed on with my grandmother after the Civil War, and when I was a child was about eighty or ninety years old and always sat in the ‘chimley corner.’ Every day when the bell tolled at sunset I would run to Mammy Kitty and put my head in her lap. She would run her hands over my head and croon until the bell stopped. The other negroes whispered ‘the death bell,’ and stood still while it rang. They thought the bell was ringing for the three hundred negroes in the scuttled ship. And then whenever we passed over Seaview Bend we could hear faint music like that of a guitar played at a distance. Since the jetties have been built and there has been so much traffic on the river, the music has gone away, and I have seen no one who has heard it of late years. I know now that ‘the death bell’ must have been the sunset bell of a big sugar plantation ten or twelve miles up the river. The water carried the sound down. But I still hear the death bell ringing in my ears and feel Mammy Kitty’s hand passing over my head.”

THE LEGEND OF THE SALT MARSHES (SAN LUIS PASS, BRAZORIA COUNTY)

By Bertha McKee Dobie

This legend was told me by Mrs. A. F. Shannon of Velasco. San Luis Pass is the narrow entrance from the Gulf into a small and sheltered bay on the Texas coast. It is a wild and mournful spot, where sea gulls scream and breakers roar. It is especially wild and mournful when the wind is east, as the few settlers say. Then three great billows roll in successively from the Gulf, overtake each other on the bar, and break together with the sound of thunder. This breaking together of the billows is called the boor [109] on the bar.

A great many years ago a fisherman lived with his wife and young child at the Pass. One day when the wind was east and the boor was on the bar, he went out in his boat to fish. The wind blew stronger, the billows rose higher, and a great tide came in, flooding the salt marshes that border the Pass. The fisherman did not return. A few days later other fishermen found the young wife, quite demented, wandering in the salt marshes and calling, “Come back! Come back!” Since that time, when the wind is east and the boor is on the bar, the white form of the woman flits over the marshes and cries, “Come back! Come back!” in warning to fishermen whose boats are on the water.

It is probable that the white wings and the hoarse cries of the giant gulls that come in to the marshes only when there is a high east wind and the lives of fishermen are threatened have given rise to this legend of the salt marshes. Such an explanation, at least, was suggested to Mrs. Shannon by Mr. Lon Follet.

RHYMES OF GALVESTON BAY

By John P. Sjolander

Years ago, when I used to run vessels on Galveston Bay and along the coast, I gathered up some stories told by old boatmen on nights when we lay wind-bound. Later I put them into rhyme and I may have tried to ornament them with some phrases of my own. Some of the “Rhymes” were published in the Galveston News, 1910, and later came out in the Texas Magazine (Houston).

THE BOAT THAT NEVER SAILED

(Note: In the early 70’s the hull of a boat, all overgrown with vines and briers, was found at a place then known as Hungry Cove, on San Jacinto Bay. The story of it was told me by an old boatman who had been a settler of that section of the country for many years.)

Like the moan of a ghost that is doomed to rove,
Is the voice of the wind in Hungry Cove.

And the brier bites with a sharper thorn
Than the fang of hate, or the tooth of scorn.

And the twining vines are as cunningly set
As ever a poacher placed snare or net.

And the waves are hushed, and they move as slow
As fugitives making headway, tiptoe.

For Nature remembers, as well as Man,
The time and the place, and the Mary Ann.

The time, man-measured, was long ago,
Some seventy fleeting years, or so.

The place, where the sea was with light agleam,
And the shore shone white as a maiden’s dream.

And the Mary Ann—how a prayer prevailed!—
Was the name of the boat that never sailed.

For the men who built it, a blackguard twain,
Had taken a maiden’s pure name in vain.

And she prayed that for taunts, and for many mocks,
The boat would not move from its building blocks.

But the builders laughed at the maiden’s prayer,
And spit on her name they had painted there.

And they swore, in defiance of God and man,
They would launch the boat they had named Mary Ann.

But when they stood ready at stern and stem,
The boat fell down on the heads of them.

And no one came to where crushed they lay,
And no one will come until judgment day.

For their guards are briers with thorns that bite
With a pain as keen as the sting of spite.

And their only dirge is the song of the loon,
When the sea is black, in the dark of the moon.

THE PADRE’S BEACON [110]

(Note: Boatmen, at night, staring into the fog and haze in search of certain marks and objects, often think to see them, only to have them disappear again when they blink their eyes. These visual illusions are called Padre’s Beacons. An old boatman, many years ago, told how the name originated, and his story is here set down in rhyme.)

With eager eyes an Indian peered
Into the darkness of the night,
And his canoe he swiftly sheered
From right to left, from left to right;
For lost within the blinding fog,
He saw the mad waves roll and toss,
And found both snag and sunken log
But not the Padre’s beacon cross.

He dipped his paddle in the sea,
And found its depth now less, now more;
And where he thought the Pass would be
He only found a weedstrewn shore.
He questioned of the hidden star,
And counseled with the waning moon,
But found no answer, near or far,
Only the lone cry of the loon.

And he had steered by wave and wind
To where the beacon cross should be,
That marked the place where all might find
The way into the Trinity.
For there, ’mong cypress trees grown gray,
The padre’s little hut showed white,
Beneath a shining cross by day,
And in a taper’s gleam by night.

But vandal hands had cut adrift
The padre’s beacon in the night,
And without prayer, and without shrift,
A sea wrecked soul at dawn took flight.
And now who sails the bay at night,
And scans the dark with eager eyes,
Out of the sea, grown gray with light,
Can see a beacon cross arise.

For since that night long, long ago,
When clouds hang wide and fogs lie deep,
For him that laid that beacon low
There is no rest in death, or sleep;
All night he lifts it from the sea,
All night he strives, and strives in vain;
He stands it up, but when set free
It sinks into the sea again.

BAFFLE POINT

(Baffle Point is on the north side of Bolivar peninsula, in what is known as East Bay. Many small sail-boats have been dismasted and upset in the vicinity of this point.)

A boatman loved a maiden, long ago,
And good and fair was she;
A maiden loved a boatman, even so,
And strong and true was he;
And one dark night the lovers sailed away
To where the good priest dwelt, across the bay.

A father’s heart grew fierce with raging hate,
And cruel as could be;
But he would plan and work, and work and wait—
A cunning man was he;
He swore that boatmen all, excepting none,
Should penance pay for the sin of one.

He planned and worked, and then he worked and planned,
Not idle night or day;
Sentinel sandhills raised he on the strand
In some mysterious way;
On sloping hills he planted phantom trees
That changed their shapes with every changing breeze.

Now when the south wind, singing, came inshore,
As gentle as could be,
For it he opened wide a cavern door
That none but him could see;
And then the trees would groan, and cringe, and sway,
Casting long shadows over shore and bay.

When the work was done as he had planned,
He laughed and danced in glee;
Then as the waters of the bay he scanned,
A boat his eyes did see;
And then the south wind in the cavern pent
Over the hills down to the sea he sent.

When he saw the wind in madness reel,
And strike the little boat,
And how down went the mast and up the keel,
A glad cry left his throat.
The waters grew quiet and dull as a sea of lead;
A man and woman at his feet lay dead.

By them, some boatmen found him, long ago,
As dead as he could be;
Deep, deep, they dug two graves, and all arow
At night they buried three.
Since then the winds are ever out of joint,
And play strange tricks and pranks at Baffle Point.

POINT SESENTA

(Note: All that is left of Point Sesenta—presumably so called from the sixty (sesenta) trees—is a reef known as Fisher’s Reef, on the north shore of Trinity Bay. The story of the Point was told to me by Captain James Armstrong, just as it had been told to him by an old Indian chief whose tribe used to visit the bay shore many, many years before the Republic.)

The mocking birds sang in the sixty trees,
And Inez walked in their shadow;
The soft winds came laughing from southern seas,
And the bay seemed a green-waved meadow;
But a wealth of song, and of wind and water,
Requites not the love of an Indio’s daughter.

Don Miguel’s pastures lay far and wide,
His herds by peons were tended,
But all he possessed was as naught beside
Fair Inez so young and splendid.
Still his heart was sore, for the winds kept saying:
“The trees sesenta are graying, graying.”

Inez the fair walked ’neath the moss-grown trees,
By the side of her gray-grown lover;
And oft times she dreamed that o’er many seas
He had come like a brave young rover;
But when for sight of him her dark eyes gleamed
They met dim eyes in a face deep seamed.

Then out of the north came a viking ship,
With a viking young and brawny;
A snare for love was his tender grip,
And a net were his locks so tawny.
Wherever man goes over hill and hollow,
There a woman loving him dares to follow.

Ah, that is the tale told in every zone,
A story told over and over.
Don Miguel one morning found Inez flown,
And the ship, and the bold young rover.
And the winds were hushed, and the trees unshaken,
And the birds had fled, their nests forsaken.

The boatmen passing beheld the trees,
Saw how they all were dying;
The winds grew fierce and angered the seas,
And the flurrying sands went flying,
Until Point Sesenta was quite departed,
And left but a name and a place uncharted.

GUMMAN GRO

(Note: Gumman Gro is phonetic Swedish for “The Woman Gray.” Skell, master of Sweet Cecilia, was a Swede; he and his boat disappeared from Galveston Bay one night and were never heard of again.)

They said that Gumman Gro had a great store
Of private treasure hid in Lone Tree Cove;
That she with cunning eyes watched sea and shore,
And that a curse was upon all who strove,
Always in vain, to cross the line afar
That she had marked outside of shoal and bar.

And it was said that many who had rushed
Upon the Cove with favoring wind and tide,
Had come away with heart and spirit crushed,
Bereft of courage and of manly pride,
To live their lives perpetual exiles,
Beyond the reach of cheering songs and smiles.

And so the boatmen, sailing up and down,
From Lone Tree Cove would sheer their boats away;
For on the shore a small hut loomed up brown,
And in the doorway stood a woman gray;
Whence she had come, or when, none seemed to know,
But Skell, the boatman, named her Gumman Gro.

And Skell would laugh the hearty laugh that springs
Straight from the hearts of men when young and strong,
While with a merry jest at men and things
He sailed his course, and hummed a seaman’s song;
Oft in passing Lone Tree Cove he’d sheer
His boat more close, and shout a word of cheer.

Then one dark night a storm swept o’er the bay,
And the mosquito fleet was scattered wide;
And many men and boats until this day
Have not returned to watch for wind and tide;
And ’mong the missing ones that all loved well,
Was Sweet Cecilia, and her master, Skell.

Often on nights when winds and tides are fair,
On nights of calm, when God’s stars search the deep,
Sounds from afar, like multitudes in prayer,
Across the waters to lone boatmen creep,
And then they see the dead sail to and fro,
But none knows whence they come, or where they go.

After the storm, when winds came from the west
On nights like these, Skell’s ghost from Lone Tree Cove
Set sail, so seamen saw; then on Skell pressed
To shun the shoals; straight out for the deep he drove,
But just so far he came, and then he stopped,
As if an anchor sternward had been dropped.

Then from the shore a cry, half laugh, half pain,
Mocking and pleading, rose, and dipped, and fell,
Stirring the waters like a shower of rain,
While Sweet Cecilia, and her master, Skell,
A moment wavered like a light wind blown,
Then flashed across the darkness and were gone.

Thus every night, when out of sunset land
The warm winds came and drowsed upon the bay,
Skell and his Sweet Cecilia left the strand,
And sailed and sailed as if to sail away;
And every night that cry, half laugh, half pain,
Would pleading come and call him back again.

This is the tale that old-time boatmen told,
One to the other, long, long years ago;
But not the greediest for shining gold
Would risk the fearful curse of Gumman Gro—
He’d hope, at last, whatever else befell,
Death would not land him where it landed Skell.

LEGENDS OF LOVERS

LEGENDS OF LOVERS

Legends of lovers are almost as numerous as those of treasure; in Texas, at least, the lovers are generally hapless and are nearly always associated with precipitous cliffs. Indeed, legends of lovers’ leaps principally make up this group. Some well known legends, such as those about the Lovers’ Leap at Waco and about the Lovers’ Leap at Denison, have been omitted. Reference to them is made in the bibliography near the end of this volume. On the other hand, various versions of certain other legends of lovers’ leaps are given in detail that the manner of legend growth may be fully illustrated. The lovers’ leap legend was popular in the time of Sappho (see Spectator paper Number 33, by Addison), and probably had vogue for as many years before her time as have passed since. A feature to be remarked about the lovers’ leap legends of Texas is that seemingly all of them purport to be of Indian derivation. The state is yet so young that to go back to anything like remoteness one must go to the time of the Indian—and all legend runs to remoteness. One need not be learned in Indian lore, however, to know that in many instances the basic customs of Indian marriage are violated in these legends; the attributing of his own customs of love-making and marriage by the white man to the Indian is indeed naive. [111] As a class, I should say that of all our Texas legends these of lovers are least indigenous and least varied.—J. F. D.

THE ENCHANTED ROCK IN LLANO COUNTY

By Julia Estill

[The fame of the Enchanted Rock in Llano County, as Miss Estill has pointed out, goes back a long time. There are various references to it in Texasana, as the bibliography will show; but it is noteworthy that none of the early accounts of the Enchanted Rock even so much as refer to the legend of the lovers, the details of which are very similar to those in the most popular version of the legend of Mount Bonnell. However, in more recent years the lover legend seems to have had a wide vogue. It has appeared in print various times, once in the form of a German novel, Die Tochter Tehuans, printed at Fredericksburg, and my correspondence files indicate an extensive popularity of the legend. The Indians no doubt had an awe for the mountain that they expressed in narrative detail; the early Texans heard these accounts; then the descendants of those early Texans invented a story in which the Spaniard played a part to fit the legendary atmosphere of the mountain. Thus should I account for the genesis of the legend that is now told.

Writing from “Colorado River, Texas,” October 31, 1834, W. B. Dewees tells of what must be the Enchanted Rock of the Llano. He says: “A short time since, a few of our young men started to go up to the headwaters of the Colorado and Brazos rivers to examine a large rock of metal which has for many years been considered a wonder. It is supposed to be platinum. The Indians have held it sacred for centuries, and go there once a year to worship it. They will not permit any white person to approach it. It is almost impossible to make any impression on it with chisel and hammers. When struck it gives forth a ringing sound which can be heard miles around. The party were successful in finding the rock, but were unable to break off any specimens to bring home.” Dewees, W. B., Letters from an Early Settler of Texas, Louisville, Kentucky, 1852, p. 152. (Mr. E. G. Littlejohn contributes this reference.)

Doctor Alex. Dienst of Temple, Texas, sends in an item copied from the New York Mirror of October 20, 1838, in which a traveler, lately returned to New York from a prospecting tour in the San Saba country, tells of having found an “Enchanted” or “Holy Mountain” on the upper waters of the Sandy—beyond all doubt the Enchanted Rock of other accounts. The traveler reports that “the Comanches regard this hill with religious veneration, and that Indian pilgrims frequently assemble from the remotest borders of the region to perform the Paynim rites upon its summit.”

Samuel C. Reid, Jr., in a book published in 1848, The Scouting Expeditions of McCulloch’s Texas Rangers, pages 111–112, says, in connection with a scouting trip that Captain Jack Hays had made into the then unsettled vicinity of the Enchanted Rock:

“We are unable to give to the reader the traditionary cause why
this place was so named, but nevertheless, the Indians had a great
awe, amounting almost to reverence, for it, and would tell many
legendary tales connected with it and the fate of a few brave
warriors, the last of a tribe now extinct, who defended themselves
there for many years as in a strong castle, against the attacks of
their hostile brethren. But they were finally overcome and totally
annihilated, and ever since, the ‘Enchanted Rock’ has been looked
upon as the exclusive property of these phantom warriors. This is
one of the many tales which the Indians tell concerning it.”

Reid goes on to tell that at one time Hays saved himself from such a tight place in a fight with the Indians near the Enchanted Rock that they became more convinced than ever that “Devil Jack” bore a charmed life.—Editor.]

In the southwestern part of Llano County, very near the Gillespie County line, lies a huge mound of solid granite covering 640 acres and known far and wide as the Enchanted Rock. At night spirit fires dance on the summit, and by day millions of isinglass stars glint in the sunlight. During an early morning shower in the hills, when the sun shines out from under the passing cloud, the streams of water coursing down the sides of the massive boulder resemble sheets of molten silver. Then above the gigantic dome there forms a rainbow-path which will lead the seeker directly to a mine of gold, so the old legend goes. In fact, the sands of the sluggish stream winding lazily around the base of the rock testify of gold in the vicinity. And the oldest pioneer in the neighborhood will tell you that there is a lost mine somewhere near the rock, the shaft having been sunk by Spaniards in the eighteenth century.

The Indian legends woven about the enchanted mound are, however, far more interesting to the folk-lorist than is the story of a fabulous mine. My great-grandfather, Thomas A. Likens, who was first lieutenant of Captain Highsmith’s Company of Texas Rangers when, in 1847, they camped near the Enchanted Rock, told my grandfather, William H. Estill, of the remarkable veneration the Comanches had for the Rock, and of the awesome fear they manifested when at night the spirit fires danced aloft on it. The daring ranger always knew that if he could induce his sure-footed pony to climb the Rock, horse and rider would be safe from the pursuing savage, for the Comanche would not follow, nor would he direct an arrow toward the white man who sought the protection of the Spirit of the Rock.

At the foot of the enormous boulder the Indians offered sacrifices—sometimes a beautiful captive snatched from the white man’s clearing at the edge of the woods. Then, for months, perhaps, the Spirit of the Rock would smile on the savage tribe, and success would attend their raids down the river valleys to the south.

On one such expedition, according to the story told by Father Hörmann, [112] a priest at one of the missions near San Antonio, the marauders ventured farther than usual and were within attacking distance of Mission San José, near San Antonio, when José Navarro, commander of the mission, learned of their designs. Forthwith, preparations for the defense of the mission were begun, Don Hesu Navarro, a recent arrival from Spain and a bold soldier of fortune, aiding enthusiastically in strengthening the defenses.

Now, within the mission lived the Indian chief Tehuan and his beautiful daughter, christened Rosa by the good fathers of the mission. The dashing young Spaniard fell desperately in love with the pretty dark-skinned maid, and succeeded in winning her love in return. Soon, though, came a desperate separation. In the attack by the Comanches that had been expected, Don Hesu fell by an Indian tomahawk and pretty Rosa was carried away by the alien savages. Fortunately, however, the young Spaniard had received merely a stunning blow, and, after a time, revived and dragged himself back within the mission walls, only to find his beloved gone. From an Indian boy, the distracted lover learned that Rosa was being taken away to the Enchanted Rock to be offered as a sacrifice to the Spirit of the Rock.

Realizing the futility of a single-handed combat with the fleeing Indians, Don Hesu hastened to Goliad for aid, and, together with a daring band of Spaniards and Texas colonists, started in pursuit of the Comanches. Upon discovering the camping place of the savages, the impetuous Spaniard proposed an immediate attack; but the remainder of the party, who were better versed in Indian ways and beliefs, persuaded Don Hesu that a better way would be to play upon the superstitious beliefs of the savages. Accordingly, the party secretly harassed the Indians by stampeding their horses and assaulting their guards in the dark. And the red men, believing that the spirits were incensed by the recent attack upon the mission, mounted their mustangs, and, with the captive maid safe in their midst, galloped away to the hills, where they intended to offer to the Spirit of the Enchanted Rock the fair prize they had won at San José.

The pursuers followed as best they might. However, when they reached the gulch between the Enchanted Rock and a neighboring peak, they saw, to their horror, that the beautiful captive was already bound to the stake, the faggots piled high around her. The rescue party was divided into two sections, one section skirting the peak so as to surprise the Indians encamped on the north while Don Hesu and a few chosen men rushed upon the guards who stood in the gulch. Frenzied by the sight of his beloved at the stake ready to be offered as a sacrifice, Don Hesu, fighting like a demon, succeeded in freeing the captive maid and escaping with her beyond the reach of the savages. Thus was the Spirit of the Enchanted Rock once, at least, deprived of the joy of a human sacrifice.

FRANCESCA: A LEGEND OF OLD FORT STOCKTON

By L. W. Payne, Jr.

This legend of old Fort Stockton was written for me in short-story form in 1911 by Miss Josephine Brown, on whose father’s ranch in Brewster County are the ruins of the old fort. The legend is frequently related by ranch people as well as by Mexicans in West Texas.

Fran——ces——ca! Fran——ces——ca!

I straightened up, listening. The low wailing sound that seemed to pronounce a name came again.

“Juan, what makes that noise?” Juan did not answer, and I turned in the seat to look at him. He was terrified. His eyes were stretched wide open, and he gasped out something about praying to the Virgin.

“What’s the matter, Juan? Tell me!”

“Oh, señor, that noise! The Virgin protect us!” he exclaimed. He began whipping the horses.

“Juan, stop! The road is rough. Be careful. There, give me the reins.”

He began saying his prayers, and I could occasionally distinguish the word “espiritus.”

I was very curious to know why he was so excited, but I thought I would wait until he calmed down a little before I asked him. Finally he became more calm, and I handed him the reins.

It was a cold, rainy night in the late fall. The big, piled-up mountains, at one side of the road, were barely visible through the rain. The creek, which ran on the other side, made a subdued, rustling sound. I could scarcely distinguish the road, and knew when we went up or down a hill only by the movement of the vehicle. We ran over a rock in the road, and the jolt seemed to loosen Juan’s tongue.

“You saw those big piles of rocks back there, señor? They are all that’s left of old Fort Stockton. Long time ago, in Indian times, there were a lot of soldiers here, and they lived in those houses. I’ve heard the padre tell tales of them. That one with the walls still standing is what was the church, and that’s where Ferenor”—here he interrupted himself to say some prayers.

“Well, Juan?” I said encouragingly.

“That’s where Ferenor calls for his sweetheart,” he said.

“Why?” I asked, as he seemed loath to continue.

“Get up, Maria! Steady there, Pierto. You see, señor, she was the most beautiful girl in all the country. Many young men wanted to marry her, but she loved Ferenor, the padre’s nephew, who was almost a padre himself, for he had taken some of the vows. His uncle preached to the soldiers and lived there behind the church. There were lots of Indians in those times, and one of the chiefs wanted Francesca for his wife. All this time Francesca was in love with Ferenor, but she couldn’t marry him on account of his vows.

“But one day Ferenor got desperate and swore he would marry Francesca anyway. That night, about this time of the year—and a night like this, only worse—they went to the padre to be married. Of course, he would not marry them, for it is unlawful for a young priest to marry. They begged and implored, but the padre refused to comply with their wishes. Finally the padre became very angry, and opening the door, he commanded them to go. Somehow, in the storm, they missed the trail to Francesca’s house, and after wandering around a while, they realized that they were lost. On and on they wandered, until Francesca was ready to drop with fatigue.

“Suddenly Ferenor exclaimed, ‘A light, Francesca!’ There was a light in the distance. They started toward it but Francesca dropped to the ground exhausted.

“‘I can’t go, Ferenor,’ she sobbed.

“‘I’m too tired to carry you that far, Francesca. You stay here, and I’ll come back for you when I get help.’

“He started out toward the light, but walking brought him no nearer to it. It seemed to move and lead him astray. He was very cold and sleepy. And where was Francesca? He knew; right over there she was waiting. He started to the place where he thought he had left her. Suddenly he slipped and fell, hitting his head on a stone. It was several hours later, just about dawn, that he regained consciousness.

“‘Francesca! Francesca!’ he cried, starting up. Vainly he searched. She was gone. Neither of the lovers was ever seen after that. Several months later a rumor was heard that just such a girl as Francesca was in the camp of Red Blanket. And Ferenor? On such a night as this, at this time of the year, he wanders around the old Fort, searching for his sweetheart, and always calling her name, ‘Francesca, Francesca.’ And señor, when a lover hears it, it means there is danger to him or his betrothed. Santa Madre preserve us!” Here Juan began saying his prayers again.

“What is that light, Juan?” I asked a few minutes later.

“That’s the headquarters of the H-Triangle, señor,” he said.

A good fire and jolly company did not altogether dispel the memory of the weird tale that Juan told me when we heard those strange sounds made by the wind in the ruins of the old Fort.

LOVER’S RETREAT AND LOVERS’ RETREAT (PALO PINTO)

By J. S. Spratt

I

Lover’s Retreat, or Lovers’ Retreat, as some would have it, is in Palo Pinto County, four miles west of the town of Palo Pinto. I got the first version, in which Lover makes his escape, from my father, Dr. J. T. Spratt. He heard it from a man named W. H. Walker, who related it in an address delivered while he was state secretary of the I. O. O. F. Walker said that the escape was made in the neighborhood of 1870 and that he was lying out on the prairie near by on the night that Lover eluded the Indians.

The other version I remember from a paper read in an English class in the Palo Pinto High School. I do not remember who wrote it, but I remember that we had a discussion over the place at the time, and that when I gave my version as to how Lover’s Retreat had got its name, none of the class had ever heard it, though most of them had heard the tale of the Indian lovers.

II

LOVER’S RETREAT

By 1870 the Indians had for the most part abandoned all that part of Texas east of the Colorado River. However, a few scattered bands still, on occasions, roamed over the territory east of the river, plundering lonely settlements and, when an opportunity presented itself, killing the pioneers. There is a story connected with one of these Indian raids into what is now Palo Pinto County.

Some four miles west of the town of Palo Pinto is a rough and beautiful ground covered with immense boulders. The enormous rocks have been left in an arrangement that reminds one of the streets of a badly surveyed old town. Vegetation of all colors and sizes grows on top of the old rocks and hangs down over the edges. Occasionally a tree rooted in some deep crevice reaches up thirty or forty feet, brushing the tops of the rocks. One has but to start climbing over the roots and gulches and through the breaks to think of what a good place it is to hide in. More than one man has found it to be such a place.