The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez

Gregorio Cortez and his brother Romaldo were working as ranch hands at the W.A. Thulmeyer ranch in Karnes County one day when they saw County Sheriff W.T. Morris and his deputies riding toward them.

It was June 12, 1901, and life for Cortez would never be the same.

Within five minutes Cortez, 25, became a martyr, folk hero and central figure in a corrido (Hispanic folk ballad), one famous to this day.

The sheriff and his deputies, John Trimmell and Boone Choate, were at the ranch searching for a horse thief.

Sheriff Morris questioned the Cortez brothers and Choate acted as interpreter.

But Choate misunderstood several of Cortez’s replies.

When Morris asked if Cortez had recently traded a horse, Cortez replied “no.”

Choate didn’t understand the Spanish language distinguishes between horses (caballos) and mares (yeguas).

Cortez had traded a mare.

Things got heated and the sheriff was convinced Cortez was lying.

When Morris tried to arrest the brothers, Gregorio told the sheriff, “No me puede arrestar por nada” (You can not arrest me for nothing).

Choate thought Cortez was saying, “No white man can arrest me.”

Morris drew his gun.

Romaldo tried to protect his brother by lunging at the sheriff, but Morris shot and wounded Romaldo and then fired at Gregorio Cortez, narrowly missing him.

Gregorio Cortez shot and killed the sheriff.

Then he headed for the Rio Grande.

Hundreds of men pursued him, including several Texas Rangers. A train on the International-Great Northern Railroad route to Laredo was even used to bring in new posses and fresh horses.

Cortez made mistakes. When he sought shelter at a ranch, Gonzales County Sheriff Robert Glover and his posse cornered him.

Shots were exchanged, and Glover and Deputy Schnabel were killed while Cortez made yet another escape.

Schnabel may have been killed by friendly fire.

After three weeks on the run, someone turned him in and the law cornered Cortez at Abrán de la Garza’s sheep camp in Cotulla.

By the time they caught up with him, Cortez had walked nearly 100 miles and ridden more than 400.

He rode two horses to death.

The state of Texas tried Cortez on many different charges and some of the juries, many of which were Anglo, let him go.

And each time he was convicted, the Texas Court of Appeals overturned the verdict.

Cortez could make the fight because his supporters raised money for his legal defense, including for committed lawyer B.R. Abernathy.

But at the last trial, in 1905, Cortez was convicted of killing Sheriff Glover and sentenced to life in prison.

He was sent to Huntsville.

Romaldo Cortez died in the Karnes City jail.

In 1913, Texas Governor O.B. Colquitt gave Cortez a conditional pardon and Cortez left Texas to fight in the Mexican revolution.

When he returned, he eventually moved to Anson and died at age 41.

In the meantime, folksong writers were busy.

Because corridos evolve over time, there is no one version of El Corrido de Gregorio Cortez but here are a few typical verses.

They let loose the bloodhound

 dogs;

 They followed him from afar.

 But trying to catch Cortez

 Was like following a star.

 

..Then said Gregorio Cortez,

 And his voice was like a bell,

 You will never get my weapons

 Till you put me in a cell.

 

 Then said Gregorio Cortez,

 With a pistol in his hand,

 Ah, so many mounted Rangers

 Just to take one Mexican!

I hope he enjoyed his hero status. He earned it the hard way.

As of 1958, when Américo Paredes wrote With His Pistol in His Hand: A Border Ballad and Its Hero, people still sung Gregorio’s song, around the ranch campfires, in the cantinas.

Here’s what Paredes says about the gatherings.

People asked the storytellers what Cortez looked like, and the storytellers said, “Some say he was short and some say he was tall; some say he was Indian brown and some say he was blond..and he looked just a little bit like me.”

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Julia Robb is the author of Scalp Mountain and Saint of the Burning Heart, eBooks for sale at amazon.com. She can be reached at juliarobb.com, juliarobbmar@aol.com, venturegalleries.com, goodreads, pinterest, twitter, Facebook, iamatexan.com and amazon author pages.

 

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When Congressmen Carried Guns

by Julia Robb

In 1832, Sam Houston stood in the U.S. of Representatives, on trial for attacking Ohio Representative William Stanbery.

It was a headline trial. Sam Houston, a six-foot-two, good-looking Tennessean, was already famous.

While Houston defended himself, a woman in the balcony threw him a bouquet of flowers and cried “I would rather be Sam Houston in a dungeon than Stanbery on a throne.”

We think we know about Sam Houston; general of the Texas armies, hero of San Jacinto, president of the Republic of Texas, senator of Texas, governor of Texas.

But Sam Houston was bigger than life and most people don’t know half the story.

Let’s start with his congressional trial.

While Stanbery was attacking Andrew Jackson’s administration, during a house speech, he accused someone in the administration of fraudulently giving Houston contracts to distribute food to Indians.

At the time this supposedly happened, Houston was Indian subagent in Tennessee.

Houston found out about Stanbery’s statement.

It was then against the law to physically attack congressman for statements they made on the House floor.

Houston, a former Tennessee congressman himself, knew this.

But when the two met on a Washington street, Houston ignored the rules and beat Stanbery with his cane.

During the fight, Stanbery pulled a gun and tried to shoot Houston in the chest.

Houston’s life was saved when the gun misfired.

After listening to Houston’s ringing self-defense, members voted to reprimand him.

The vote:106 to 89.

Houston’s life was filled with danger.

He fought in the war of 1812 and was twice wounded at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, in Alabama.

In 1826, when he was a Tennessee congressman, Gen. William White challenged him to a duel. The two men squared off at 15 paces and Houston shot White in the groin.

White thought he was dying and supposedly made amends with Houston while he lying on the ground. White survived.

Houston was a romantic and eventually fell in love with Eliza Allen, daughter of a wealthy Tennessee family.

Sam was 35-years-old. Eliza was 19.

The two were married in January, 1829.

Eliza left him three months later.

Nobody ever knew what happened.

Separation and divorce were huge scandals in the nineteenth century, particularly if the husband and wife were well known.

And Houston was governor of Tennessee.

America couldn’t talk about anything else but the marriage. Houston fans and biographers are still talking about it.

Houston said he would not “take up arms” against a woman, resigned as governor, and fled to the Cherokees, whom he had lived with as a boy.

The Cherokees called him “The Raven,” but also called him “Big Drunk,” as he apparently went on a years-long binge.

Sam eventually sobered up and left for Texas.

When Santa Ana invaded and Houston was asked to lead the miniscule Texas army, Houston urged Texans to fight: “Be men, be free men, so that your children may bless their father’s name.”

Houston was badly wounded at San Jacinto, but Texas carried the day.

Houston eventually married Margaret Lea, who reformed him. He was baptized in Rocky Creek, two miles south of Independence.

A friend wrote Houston and said he supposed Houston’s sins were all washed away when he was baptized.

In his reply, Houston said, “I hope so, but if they were all washed away, the Lord help the fish down below.”

This is Houston’s greatest deed: He refused to lead Texas out of the Union and resigned as governor rather than doing so.

He warned Texans the Confederacy would lose the fight and it would be a ruinous, bloody war.

“Some of you laugh to scorn the idea of bloodshed as the result of secession, but let me tell you what is coming….Your fathers and husbands, your sons and brothers, will be herded at the point of the bayonet..”

Houston died, brokenhearted, in 1863.

His last words were “Texas, Texas, Margaret.”

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Julia Robb is the author of Scalp Mountain and Saint of the Burning Heart, eBooks for sale at amazon.com. She can be reached at juliarobb.com, juliarobbmar@aol.com, venturegalleries.com, goodreads, pinterest, twitter, Facebook, iamatexan.com and amazon author pages.

William Barrett Travis and his Critics

by Julia Robb

 

Texas has a problem.

The wimps of this world hate courage.

And because so many intellectuals are wimps, they pour contempt on Texas, on Texas heroes and our history.

Small people tear down big ones, especially when the bigger souls are dead and can’t fight back.

Faced with the Mexican army, those same wimps would run.

I’m going to tell you about our Texas heroes in coming weeks, but this blog is about William Barrett Travis, commander of the Alamo when it fell on March 6, 1836.

Travis was born in South Carolina in 1809 and his family moved to Alabama in 1818. He studied law in an attorney’s office and eventually opened an office of his own in Claiborne, Alabama.

In 1828, Travis married Rosanna Cato. The couple’s son Charles was born in 1829.

Critics accuse Travis of abandoning his family in 1831 and leaving Alabama for Texas because he owed money. These crimes supposedly lessen Travis’s status as a hero.

That’s ridiculous. Men and women leave each other all the time, children or no children. Why should anyone attack Travis’s character because he and his wife separated?

Travis believed another man fathered his unborn daughter, and some still believe Travis killed Rosanna’s alleged lover.

No one, however, has ever been able to prove Travis killed the alleged lover.

True, Travis was several hundred dollars in debt when he left Alabama, but he paid back every cent once his law practice was established in Anahuac, Texas, according to William C. Davis, author of Three Roads to the Alamo.

Anahuac is on the eastern end of Galveston Bay.

Travis later moved to San Felipe de Austin; now just Austin.

Three Roads is carefully footnoted and is the best account of Travis, James Bowie and David Crockett I have ever read.

After resisting the Mexican government with a group of men who called themselves the “war party,” Travis joined the Texas Army.

He was eventually ordered to hold the Alamo.

Some critics believe the men in the Alamo disliked Travis because the volunteers elected Bowie as their commander while the Texas Army regulars followed Travis.

“In reality, Travis was outgoing, gregarious and respected by his peers,” and volunteers just didn’t want to take orders from a regular Army officer, according to Alamo historians, writing at http://www.thealamo.org.

It’s widely believed Sam Houston wanted the Alamo destroyed and the defenders got their just deserts because they wouldn’t listen.

No. Houston did question whether it would be better for the Army to retreat, but Gov. Henry Smith did not agree and ordered the Army to hold the Alamo.

Travis was an army officer. He followed orders.

Did David Crockett (he preferred to be called David, not Davy) surrender at the Alamo.

Nobody knows.

According to a letter Houston wrote shortly after the fortress fell, seven men tried to surrender after the Mexicans overran the mission and Santa Anna had them executed.

That was based on information somebody gave Houston at the time.

A Mexican Army officer wrote (or didn’t, it depends on who you believe) that one man surrendered.

I have a soft spot for Travis. He was a good man.

I have read Travis’s diary and was charmed by him. He was trying to build a new life in Texas, he was in love, he wanted the best for himself and his country.

Travis had custody of his son and was planning to become a full-time father as soon as the war was over.

Travis wanted the best for Texas.

And he died at his post.

Francisco Antonio Ruiz, San Antonio’s alcalde, reported what he saw in San Antonio in March, 1836. His account was originally published in the Texas Almanac in 1860.

“On the 23rd of February, 1836, at 2 p.m., General Santa Anna entered the city of San Antonio with a part of his army. This he effected without any resistances, the forces under the command of Travis, Bowie and Crockett having on the same day, at 8 a.m. learned that the Mexican army was on the banks of the Medina river, and concentrated in the Alamo.

“In the evening they commenced to exchange fire with guns, and from the 23rd of February to the 6th of March (in which the storming was made by Santa Anna), the roar of artillery and volleys of musketry were constantly heard.

“On the 6th of March at 3 p.m. General Santa Anna at the head of 4000 men, advanced against the Alamo. The infantry, artillery and cavalry had formed about 1000 varas from the walls of said fortress.

“The Mexican army charged and were twice repulsed by the deadly fire of Travis’ artillery, which resembled a constant thunder. At the third charge the Toluca battalion commenced to scale the walls and suffered severely. Out of 800 men, only 130 were left alive.

“When the Mexican army had succeeded in entering the walls, I with Political Chief (Jefe Politico) Don Ramon Musquiz, and other members of the corporation, accompanied the curate Don Refugio de la Garza, who, by Santa Anna’s orders had assembled during the night, at a temporary fortification erected in Potrero street, with the object of attending the wounded.

“As soon as the storming commenced, we crossed the bridge on Commerce street with this object in view, and about 100 yards from the same a party of Mexican dragoons fired upon us and compelled us to fall back on the river to the place occupied before.

“Half an hour had elapsed when Santa Anna sent one of his aides with an order for us to come before him. He directed me to call upon some of the neighbors to come with carts to carry the dead to the cemetery, and also to accompany him, as he was desirous to have Colonels Travis, Bowie and Crockett shown to him.

“On the north battery of the fortress lay the lifeless body of Colonel Travis on the gun carriage shot only in the forehead. Toward the west in a small fort opposite the city we found the body of Colonel Crockett. Colonel Bowie was found dead in his bed in one of the rooms of the south side.”

This I know.

Humans are their best selves when they live for something other than themselves–for others, or a state, or an ideal.

And it’s when we’re willing to die that we shine.

 

 

 

Julia Robb is the author of Scalp Mountain and Saint of the Burning Heart, ebooks for sale at amazon.com. She can be reached at juliarobb.com, juliarobbmar@aol.com, venturegalleries.com, goodreads, pinterest, facebook, twitter, facebook and amazon author pages and probably places she’s never heard of.

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SCALP MOUNTAIN (an excerpt)

By Julia Robb

Chapter Thirteen

Report to Major Lou Phillips, Austin headquarters, from Texas Ranger Capt. W.E. Henry

           Sir: I have the honor to report the death of Mage Higgins, the man who shot down Sheriff Dell Rogers. After Higgins, we also trailed the gang stuck up the Round Rock bank and recovered the money.

Events preceding Sheriff Rogers’ death are as follows: Ranchers took a prisoner from Rogers’ jail in Parker, Cottonwood County, and lynched him. The prisoner was a cow thief. Higgins, the prisoner’s half brother, believed Sheriff Rogers’ responsible for his brother’s demise and swore revenge.

Higgins found Sheriff Rogers on the street in late July and shot him in the back with a breech-load shotgun. Then he poked the gun into the pool hall and killed a second man, someone he believed helped hang his brother, putting a permanent end to that man’s game.

I took three Special Force rangers on a scout. We found Higgins at his place near the Llano River, but when he saw us coming, he ran to the barn, mounted his horse and left on a dead run. He was a splendid rider. We pursued him to the river, and caught up as his horse ran out a pecan grove and into the shallows. I gave him fair warning, I told him I wanted him and if he didn’t surrender, I would kill him.

 

He turned and fired and I let him have it, fulfilling La ley de fuga (the flight law); you run, you die. We toted his body to Parker and dumped it in front of the judge, who holds court under a live oak tree on the square; no courthouse yet.

Your telegram regarding the Round Rock bank robbery caught up with me in camp.

We rode to Round Rock and found the bandits took $3,000, not much for those cutthroats. We had papers on all of them, including Pink Odum, who shot a negro in a bar for daring to come in for a drink, and Volney Bruton, who killed six vaqueros and stole their herd. I saw the place where the vaqueros are buried. The locals call it “Volney Bruton’s graveyard.”

Striking sign on the Prairie Dog Fork of the Red River, we then crossed into Indian Territory, pursuing them to the Choctaw nation. We found them sitting outside a cabin playing cards and rode toward them, pistols in hand. When the bandits saw us coming, they dashed into the barn and opened fire. I yelled out and told them they had five minutes to surrender or we would kill all of ‘em. They wouldn’t listen and shot Private John Wesley Ransom when his horse went crazy and he couldn’t hold ‘er, sending him right in front of the barn.

We charged. I am enclosing a list of the deceased and their wanted papers.

Private Ransom died. Bullet shot his jaw off and he bled to death. He was a steady man and will be missed. We also lost two good horses to enemy fire. I have appropriated the outlaws’ horses, which are the best they could steal in Texas and Indian Territory.

Am sending this report by Sgt. Plunk Hanszen, as I am off on a personal scout. I will return to duty in the next few months.

Note: Please send receipt for enclosed $3,000 , Henry

 

 

Julia Robb is the author of Scalp Mountain and Saint of the Burning Heart, both ebooks available at Amazon.com (Click here). She can be reached at juliarobbmar@aol.com, iamatexan.com, venturegalleries.com, Twitter, Facebook, www.scalpmountain.com and pinterest.

Scalp Mountain (an excerpt)

by Julia Robb

Mission San Jose

Texas Ranger Capt. W.E. Henry’s prayer, at Mission San José, in San Antonio, 1876

 

Lord, I’m a Methodist and talking to you here in a Catholic church, but I guess you don’t mind, this place has been here one hundred years and folks has offered up a lot of prayers. I might not be in this old world much longer, I’m sixty-five and headed for my long home, but I got it in mind to explain myself. I don’t expect you to overlook nuthing, but I want you to know there was reasons for ever terrible thing I done.

First thing is the fight on the San Jacinto River. A lot of the boys are proud of what we done when the Texian army whipped Sanny ana, in 1836, but I ain’t so proud. We was mad about what the mex did at the Alamo and at Goliad. That last was the worst, them mex murdered more than three hundred prisoners, just shot’em down like dogs, so when we had’em on the run at the San Jacinto, we didn’t let’em give up.

They threw up their hands yelling “Me no Alamo, me no Goliad,” but we shot’em, knifed ‘em, knocked their brains out with their own rifles and drowned ‘em. The boys wasn’t in no forgiving mood. I did my part in that slaughter and, like I say Lord, I ain’t proud, but Lord, my neighbor’s boy was at Goliad. They never found his body.

Then, there’s the Comanch. I’m a ranger and we don’t give no quarter. We slay our prisoners when we can git’em and some of the boys scalp’em for good measure. But Lord, ever thing that’s happened, what I done, none of it was for me, but for Isabelle and for my girls and for Texas.

Lord, have you forgot how I felt about Isabelle Ramseur? The first time I saw her at that Austin cotillion I didn’t just fall in love, I fell crazy in love. Belle was the most beautiful thing I ever saw, with all that black hair and her brown eyes kind of slanty. She was waltzing past me when I spotted her, her pink skirt aflying out like flushed quail. I couldn’t get no rest till she married me.

We was happy. When I come home at dark, dragging from the ranch work, she had a good supper and talk and when she put her nightgown on and took her hair down, it come clear down to her knees and shined so pretty in the candlelight. Even after the girls started coming, the marriage bed was our special repose, oh, I waked up kissing her.

It was the hell hounds started the change. Come 1850, they raided bad. One full moon, they slaughtered three families in one night and them was our neighbors, those were the same folks come to dance with us at gatherings, and bring little-bitty baby clothes when the girls was born. When I seen our neighbors’ bodies, scattered out like deer with the innards dug out, I was scared for my family.

Belle wasn’t for it, but I hired more men to work the place and I joined the Rangers, to git me a few of our feathered friends. Even when Austin wouldn’t give us a red cent, we rangers rode the wide country.

Looking back, I can see things better and I know I done wrong; Belle was all alone out there with my girls with me gone most of the time. I expect she cried, wanting me.

Then, along came the War of Northern Aggression and me and the boys joined up–none of us had enough guts to show the white feather and stay out; besides, them Yankees was invading, what was we gonna do, we’re men, we can’t put up with that kind of business.

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Christmas Day, ‘63. I won’t never forget that day, it was so bitter the ground froze and the sky was winter blue, everthing kind of sharp like. Pete Waddell, a sergeant from my Frontier Regiment, came back from a furlough and he brung me a letter from my brother Spence. Waddell gave me a kind of funny look, but I never dreamed the truth.

I tore the letter open and after a minute everthing went round and round in front of my eyes and I like to fell out of the saddle.

Lord, the Comanch done killed my family.

The hell hounds violated my girls, like they do all our women, damn them to everlasting fire. They stuck a lance in Belle’s sweet heart and tore the hair from her head, Louise, my big girl, they cut her pretty white throat, she was eighteen. Mollie was only sixteen. And my baby, Annie Laurie, Lord, I still groan when I say her name: Annie Laurie was ten. My baby was dead, my baby.

I never should have left ‘em, but they was staying with Spence out his place, so I believed they was safe. Spence played the dog. He and his hands went for supplies and couldn’t get back the same day, and that was on a full moon.

What was Spence thinking? The Comanch killed his wife too, and his kids. When I got home, I didn’t go near Spence. He wrote me many a time, but I ain’t seen him.

Anyway, Lord, I took everthing out on the Yankees. When we went into a fight, I hollered to the boys, “howl, you dogs of war,” and we would commence to cleaning up ever blue belly we got our hands on.

Bullets whistled around me like a swarm of hornets, but I had the Yankees hopping. I give mercy only one time. A little dog curled up in a wounded Yankee’s arms, just ashivering. That blue belly looked straight up at me, all the while hugging and petting that dog. I considered putting a bullet in that yank’s head, but I didn’t. You can give me a gold halo for that one Lord, even if I did spare the blue belly for the dog’s sake.

You know what I done when I got back. We ain’t gonna talk about that now, but you know I followed the ways of iniquity.

Still, I’m not a bad man. I saved plenty of folks, just being out there chasing the Kotsoteka, Quahadis, Penateka, the Nokoni, Comanche, one and all.

Awhile back I found a Mescalero Apache baby and I give it to a lady in Fort Grierson. I could’ve bashed its brains against a tree like they do our babies, and probley should have.

I seen your face plenty of times, too, and it wadn’t in church. Sometimes I’ll be riding along looking for sign when I see the sky so blue and the wind is like your breath sweeping over the prairie. The dawns and sundowns are so pretty, the whole sky changing colors.

Well, I don’t expect you to forgive me for some of the things I done, I just wanted you to hear my side. Lord, will you tell Belle and the girls something for me?

I never quit loving ‘em.

Click here to buy this AMAZING book, Scalp Mountain, by Texas author, Julia Robb.

 

How the Old West Bad Men Did or Did Not Get to Midland, Texas

by Julia Robb

I’m standing in the Midland County (Texas) public library basement staring down at six plaster of paris death masks.

Jesse James, Butch Cassidy, Bill Dalton, Robert Ford, Wild Bill Hickok and Clay Allison lay in a waist–high glass display case, with their eyes closed.

Bill Dalton’s tongue is stuck between his lips, Bob Ford is wearing a half smile, as if he’s not really happy at the company he’s keeping but wants to be polite. Butch Cassidy is sneering with swollen, cruel lips and broad, flaring nostrils, and Jesse James looks fast asleep.

In case you don’t know about these notorious men, here are the facts.

• Jesse James was a bank-robbing desperado and killer from the time he left Bloody Bill Anderson’s Southern guerillas until he was murdered in 1882. He was 34.

• Robert Ford was the shiftless young man who pretended to love Jesse, got close to him and then shot him in the back.

Jesse was killed in his own house, in St. Joseph, Missouri, while hanging a framed needlepoint on the wall.

Robert expected the public to praise and respect him because he killed the most famous outlaw in history, but people universally scorned him. A famous song referred to him as a “dirty little coward.”

In 1892, someone took a sawed off shotgun and filled Robert full of buckshot.

• Bill Dalton was a stage, train and bank robber whose career ended in 1894, at his home in Ardmore, Oklahoma, after he pulled his pistol and charged a posse.

Bill was 28 and so famous The Eagles (in the early 70s) recorded Doolin Dalton, a song about Bill and his brothers; “Easy money an’ faithless women Redeye whiskey for the pain.”

• Butch Cassidy, alias Robert Leroy Parker, began rustling cattle and robbing trains at a young age, accompanied by his good buddy Harry Longabaugh, alias “The Sundance Kid.”

Butch and Sundance were members, when they felt like it, of “The Hole in the Wall” gang.

Most of the time, Butch and Sundance confined their activities to the Utah-Wyoming area.

But when Butch was about 40, things got so hot he and Sundance relocated to Bolivia, where they were later killed.

These events are recorded in the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford.

Bodies were never recovered.

When the movie was released, Butch’s youngest sister claimed Butch faked his death and eventually returned home.

But she did not produce a body.

• James Butler (Wild Bill) Hickok was the real deal. The ex-Union soldier was a scout, a lawman and a deadly man with a gun.

Wild Bill was killed in 1876, when he was 39, while playing poker in a Deadwood (Dakota Territory) saloon.

Broken Nose Jack McCall shot Hickok in the back of the head while reportedly saying, “Take that.”

• Clay Allison, a restless rancher who lived in Texas and New Mexico, may or may not have gunned down numerous men.

The law charged Allison with murder or manslaughter, more than once, but he was always acquitted.

Something was going on. Allison bragged he never killed a man who “didn’t need killing.”

Allison died at 46 after he fell off a wagon and it ran over him. He was probably drunk.

I stared at the masks in the Midland library for four years, from the time I was fourteen (when my family moved to Midland), to 18, when we moved to Abilene, Texas.

But I could never forget those brittle, gray faces.

The masks were part of the reason I became an historical novelist. They ignited my imagination.

I don’t like thieves and murderers and have no use for men who play with guns. What a waste of spirit.

The masks ignited me because when I stared at them I was looking at time. The men who modeled the masks were once alive, they experienced the world like I do, perceived the world revolving around them like I do, like everybody does.

And now they lay frozen in a library basement.

Well, I did write Scalp Mountain, a novel set in 1876, on the Texas frontier. So maybe the desperados influenced me more than I thought.

But through the years, I learned so much about Old West bad men I began doubting the masks.

Butch Cassidy was missing in action but his death mask was on display in Midland?

Cut to 2007.

I pitched a story about the masks to The Texas Observer, was hired to do a story and drove to Midland, to see the masks again.

The six bad men were now stored at the county museum, but they were still in the glass case and I recognized them as soon as I saw them.

I was right. These can’t be the real desperados.

Not only is Butch missing in action, he never had flared nostrils or a pouty mouth as the mask does.

Wild Bill’s mask doesn’t look anything like his photograph.

The real life Hickok had an oval chin, a long oval face, and a hooked nose. The death mask has a completely different shape.

Maybe the Ford mask is the real thing. Both the mask and Ford’s photograph have rounded chins.

But…if one mask is a fake, why would any of the masks be authentic?

And if these men are not who they are purported to be, who are they?

Somebody bought the masks in a Chicago antique store in the early 1960s and gave them to the museum.

So, did men executed on the (now defunct) Illinois death row model the masks?

How about men who were shot to death during Chicago’s St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, in 1929?

Today, Monday, March 4, after I decided to write this column, I looked at the mask photographs.

So, I looked at the masks, from 1962 to 1966, at least 120 times (I went to the library almost every week), looked again in 2007 and looked again today, in 2013.

I know less about the masks than I did in 1962.

Who are these masked men?

Julia Robb is author of Saint of the Burning Heart and Scalp Mountain. Julia can be reached at juliarobbmar@aol.com, venturegalleries.com, Facebook, Twitter, IAmATexan.com and Pinterest. 

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The Little Girl Who Wrote the Waltz

The Little Girl Who Wrote the Waltz

By Julia Robb

 

 

            Certain kinds of people do not believe in coincidences: They believe everything is planned, that unseen forces coordinate life.

        I’m one of those people, although it’s not always clear who’s in charge of the non-coincidence department­­­–God, guardian angels, or whatever.

        Maybe the dead do their part.

        Here’s what happened a few months ago.

        I flew to San Angelo for a writer thing and one of the lovely people from Stephens Central Library gave me a ride to my bed and breakfast.

        I didn’t like the B&B.

        Traffic was its only lullaby, as it sat right on the highway. It was crowded with so much furniture it was hard to walk through rooms, doodads covered every surface, potpourri penetrated every crack and a soundtrack featuring harps drove me crazy.

        Nope, I thought, and turned to tell the hostess I was moving on.

        Then I saw a piano and the rack held a piece of music so old the parchment was yellow.

        I wandered over to the piano and saw

Fort Concho or Little Tot Waltz By Katie Hammons. Age 9 years. San Angelo, Tex.

        Inside, it said, “Copyright, 1888, by E.W. Hammons.”

        I played the piece. It was simple and plaintive, evoking couples whirling on hardwood floors, girls skirts flaring, candles fluttering, men and boys holding their partners oh so romantically.

        The waltz was written in b flat, and its tempo was allegro, or lively.

        Too bad I can’t reproduce the piano notes here. But if you’re musical, you can follow this little part: high A, B, F, highest D, C.

        Just discovering the music made me change my mind about the B&B. I felt like someone was telling me to stay.

        So I did, and got used to the smell of potpourri.

        I badly wanted a copy of Katie’s music, but the B&B owner did not give me permission to take the waltz to a copy shop.

But I had a feeling.

        Before I flew out I went to the West Texas Collection Archives at Angelo State University to research. And the first thing I did was ask about Katie.

        They had an original Little Tot Waltz and gave me a copy! That made my week.

        The collection also contained about six undated newspaper stories about the Hammons’ family.

        E.W. Hammons, Katie’s father, was a traveling piano salesman and owned shares in the Artesian Well Company. The newspaper reported the dates E.W. sold pianos in Abilene and Ballenger.

        E.W. must have done well. He bought a house and two lots in the “Miles Addition” for $225.

        We know Katie had a B average in fourth grade, and no wonder. School principal H.V. Moulton bragged, to the paper, the grammar school had “A fine globe, fine sets of maps and charts, and our school board has ordered a set of philosophical apparatus.”

        One more thing. The family moved to Waco.

        Drat.

        What happened to Katie? Did she die from some dread disease and was photographed in her coffin, as was often done in the 19^th Century?

        I found out, thanks to the kind folks at Waco Historical Society!

        The Hammons lived in Waco one year then moved to Tarrant County (Fort Worth), where the family was listed on the 1920 census.

        In 1930, the family lived in Dallas, on Roseland Street.

        In the 30s, Katie, her father and mother lived in the same house on Roseland, as did sisters Dora, Ray and Rilla, as did Rilla’s husband and three little boys.

        In 1930, Katie, 43-years-old, was an organ teacher.

        E.W. died on June 30, 1934, of heart disease, still living on Roseland Street.

        Katherine Nanette Hammons died Aug. 21, 1962, of colon cancer.

        She was 83.

        Both Katie and E.W. are buried at Restland Memorial Park, in Dallas.

        There you go, two quiet lives.

        We have no evidence, but I believe they were a happy family.

        E.W. was musical, Katie was musical, and they lived together all their lives.

        How he must have loved Katie. He was so proud of his nine-year-old that he published her music.

        Katie, I played your waltz today and you seemed so close, as if you stood right by the piano.

 

        Julia can be reached at juliarobbmar@aol.com, scalpmountain.com, on Facebook, on Pinterest, on Twitter, and on Venturegalleries.com.

 
Julia has written several novels which are available as ebooks on Amazon. You can find them by clicking here.