DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I aim to do it justice. Now, June 24, 1841 — remember that date, because out here in this stretch of Texas, something happened that day that people saw fit to memorialize nearly a century later. Captain John Coffee Hays rode into this vicinity with his company.
Twelve Rangers. That's it. Twelve men.
And riding alongside them, thirty Mexicans under a Captain Flores. Forty-two fighters total, out in country that did not forgive carelessness. What they encountered was ten Comanche Indians.
Now, I want you to sit with that a moment before we go any further. Because the way this story ends is going to sound almost impossible, and yet here stands the marker. The fight was joined.
When it was over, eight of the ten Comanche had been killed. The other two were captured. And on Hays's side — twelve Rangers and thirty men under Captain Flores — not one Ranger was killed.
One, just one, was wounded. One wounded. Out of a fight like that, in country like this, on a day in June that the state of Texas saw fit to carve into stone.
The State of Texas erected this marker in 1936, and I reckon they wanted folks passing through to slow down, look out at this land, and understand what kind of men rode it — and what kind of days shaped it.
What the marker says
In this vicinity June 24, 1841, Captain John Coffee Hays and his Company of 12 Rangers assisted by thirty Mexicans under Captain Flores encountered ten Comanche Indians and killed eight and captured the other two and none of the Rangers were killed and but one wounded. Erected by the State of Texas 1936