DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker tells it this way, and I'm going to do it justice. May 16, 1869. Little Salt Creek.
Twelve men out on a cattle roundup — just doing their work, the kind of hard, dusty, ordinary work that fills most days on the Texas frontier. They had no reason to think this one would be any different. The crew came from all over.
Shapley Carter, Bill Crow, and Henry Harrison rode in from Palo Pinto County. Ira E. Graves was captain of the outfit, and he'd brought J.
W. Gray, W. C.
Kutch, and Jason McClain up from Jack County. Young County had its own men in the mix — George and John Lemley, and Rube Seachrist. And then there was Dick, the cook, down from Tarrant County.
Twelve souls total, each with a county to go back to, each expecting to do just that. The Comanches hit them while they were at their work. Fifty-seven of them.
Now, you do the math in your head on those numbers — twelve against fifty-seven — and you might start composing the eulogy right there. But these men did not fold. All day long, that roundup crew held their ground.
All day. The kind of day that stretches out like a bad dream, every hour longer than the last, with no relief coming and no guarantee of sunset. But sunset did come.
And when night fell, the Comanches withdrew. Nine of the twelve cowboys had been wounded. Three of them — Shapley Carter, Bill Crow, and John Lemley — did not survive.
The marker is plain about one thing: this was an unprovoked attack. Twelve men at their work, and the work they never got to finish. Texans never forgot it.
And now, out here on this stretch of Young County road, neither will you.
What the marker says
Duel between a cattle roundup crew and Indians, on May 16, 1869. Cowboys attacked at their work were Shapley Carter, Bill Crow, and Henry Harrison, all of Palo Pinto County; crew captain Ira E. Graves, J. W. Gray, W. C. Kutch, and Jason McClain, of Jack County; George and John Lemley and Rube Seachrist, Young County; Dick, the cook from Tarrant County. All day the crew held at bay 57 Comanches, who left that night. Nine cowboys were wounded--Carter, Crow, and John Lemley died. Texans never forgot the unprovoked attack.