DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker tells it like this, and I'm just here to do it justice. Now, Presidio County has seen its share of hard history, but there's one day the land out here doesn't forget. June 12th, 1880.
Right here in this vicinity — and you get the feeling the word "vicinity" is doing a lot of quiet work, because whatever happened here, it happened close enough to make the earth remember it. On that day, the Apaches made their last stand in Presidio County. That's the marker's own phrase — last stand — and it doesn't soften it, and neither will I.
What makes the story turn is this: the force that met them wasn't a cavalry regiment, wasn't a hundred mounted soldiers riding in with flags. It was four men. Four Pueblo Indian scouts riding under General Benjamin H.
Grierson, United States Army. Four scouts against twenty Apache warriors. Now, you can do the count yourself.
The math is not in their favor, not on paper. But out here in Presidio County, on the twelfth of June, 1880, those four scouts fought — and they won. The marker doesn't give us the names of those four men, and that silence has a weight of its own.
What it gives us is the fact: they fought, they defeated twenty Apache warriors, and with that, an era in this county closed. Four men. One day.
And the land out here still carries it.
What the marker says
In this vicinity, June 12, 1880, the Apaches made their last stand in Presidio County when four Pueblo Indian scouts of General Benj. H. Grierson, U.S.A. fought and defeated 20 Apache warriors.