DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker tells it this way, and I'm just the one passin' it along. Somewhere close to where you're rolling right now, out in McCulloch County, something happened — 1874 or 1875, the record isn't entirely sure which — that could've gone a whole lot worse than it did. W.B.
Brown and two comrades were out here on this range, the way cowboys were in those days, probably thinking about nothing more dangerous than the next meal. And then, without much warning, eighteen Indians came at them. Eighteen.
Now here's where the story takes a turn that might surprise you. The attackers spooked one of the horses. They captured the bedrolls.
They took the grub — the food, the provisions. And then they let the men go. W.B.
Brown and his two comrades escaped. Thankfully. You might sit with that a moment.
Eighteen against three, and the three walked away. But the marker wants you to understand something about what that raid actually meant. In the 1870s, the Indians were being driven off the range.
Pushed out. And when you're being driven off and you're fighting to hold on, capturing supplies — bedrolls, food, the things that keep a man alive out here — that meant victory. That was the prize worth taking.
So what looks like a narrow escape for three cowboys was, at the same time, exactly what the other side came for. Two sides of the same fight, right here on this stretch of Texas ground.
What the marker says
Near here in 1874 or 1875, 18 Indians attacked W.B. Brown and two comrades, spooking one horse and capturing bedrolls and grub, but sparing the men, who thankfully escaped. In the 1870s, when they were being driven off the range, capture of supplies meant victory to the Indians. (1973)