DUANE
Duane's take
Now, the official marker tells it this way, and I'm just gonna do it justice. Nine miles west of here sits a place called the Enchanted Rock, and the story attached to it — well, it's the kind of story that makes you glad someone thought to write it down. Fall of 1841.
Captain John C. Hays finds himself at the summit of that great granite dome, and the situation he's in would make most men's knees go to water. A band of Comanche Indians has cut him off — completely cut him off — from his own ranging company.
Now, you've got to let that sink in for a second. His own men, somewhere out there beyond reach, and between him and them, the whole band. Not a handful.
Not a few. The whole band. Up on that summit, alone, Captain Hays doesn't come down.
He repulses them. Every last one. And he inflicts such heavy losses on that Comanche force that they flee.
They flee. A lone man on a rock, and the whole band turns and goes. Nine miles west of here, that rock is still sitting right where it was in 1841 — big, quiet, and not saying a word.
It doesn't have to.
What the marker says
From its summit, in the fall of 1841, Captain John C. Hays, while surrounded by Comanche Indians who cut him off from his ranging company, repulsed the whole band and inflicted upon them such heavy losses that they fled. Erected by the State of Texas 1936