The Trek Home Gets Underway

Just a cool picture I found, I like the painted and decorated horse.

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Howdy folks, greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas!

We're in a series about the Wild West and the incredible story of an 11 year old German boy, Hermann, who was captured by an Apache war party from his family's farm in 1870 in Central Texas.

He's now 18-19 years old at this point in the story and has become a full blown warrior who hates and fears the White man. And in fact, has taken many a scalp. He's been with the Comanche for a few years now.

Yesterday's post

In the last post Hermann was persuaded by General Mackenzie and Quanah Parker to make the trip down to Central Texas where his family was.

The agreement with Quanah was that if he didn't find real family there then he could come back to live with Quanah in his village.

Today's story

Hermann did NOT want to go to Texas at all. He wasn't sure what he'd do but felt forced into it. The detachment guarding him was only four soldiers so he was confident that he could escape if he wanted to.

He had time to think though because it would take a couple of weeks to arrive. He wore full Comanche clothing and refused to dress like the hated white man.

Here's their route from Fort Sill, Oklahoma to Fort Griffin, Texas which is B, then on down to Fredericksburg:

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They were traveling in an ambulance and I have no idea why that would be, maybe they wanted protection from the weather or maybe the seating in the ambulance was better for 5 people on a long trip.

Here's what an ambulance looked like in the 1870's. lol..a far cry from what we have today:

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The ambulance they had was drawn by four mules though, not one horse.

They made about 20 miles the first day. My estimation of 30 miles each day would take them 13 days because it was a 400 mile trip so that's even slower than I thought.

They sure weren't in a hurry though, I think the soldiers were enjoying the leisurely pace and were probably milking the easy assignment. Hermann couldn't speak English and of course the soldiers couldn't speak Comanche so they communicated with signs and gestures.

The first four days was desert-like terrain but after that they got into an area with game in it. One of the soldiers handed Hermann a rifle and made signs for him to go kill an antelope. Of course Hermann was anxious to oblige them.

Central Texas country:

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It's interesting that they totally trusted him with a gun to go into the country and come back with dinner! Like he said, it would be easy for him to escape.

He did plan an escape(and murder)

On the fifth day he planned on that very thing. In fact, one of the soldiers accompanied him and when they got out of sight from the wagon he planned on killing the soldier and running off.

It would be easy for him to do but then he started thinking ahead and wondering where he could go. The plains had thousands of soldiers pouring in, rounding up the last of the Indians, and settlements and Texas Rangers were everywhere. And his people, the Comanche, were at the fort.

A better plan

So instead of killing the soldier he decided to play a trick on him and scare the life out of him. I guess the soldier was supposed to be keeping an eye out but he easily got the drop on him and the soldier froze in place. Hermann motioned for him to lay down his gun.

He sure didn't want to but Hermann made it clear that he was serious and the soldier laid it down on the ground and stood back up with his hands in the air. Hermann pointed toward the ambulance and shouted "Vamos!" The soldier understood that and took off running with Hermann behind him.

When the other soldiers saw that they all burst out laughing and gave the soldier a hard time for letting an Indian boy take his gun away from him! Apparently they thought it was just a joke and didn't know their friend almost died.

I don't know about you all but this mindset is hard for me to comprehend. Here we had Hermann who could kill the soldier in an instant with no second thoughts about it, then he turns around and jokes with him and has fun.

One thing we know is that he didn't value the life of an enemy much because he could easily kill the man with no regrets. He was so used to killing that it didn't matter to him.

He said he played pranks on them during the whole trip so he must have been in pretty high spirits and been enjoying himself. And he said they "took it all good natured, and enjoyed the fun."

Hermann's story and journey "home" continues on the next post.

Thanks for reading folks, God bless you all!
-jonboy
Texas