OUTSIDE AUSTIN - CHAPTER 1

Today begins a NEW Continued Story by Robert. 

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Two Indians were stalking me !

 

OUTSIDE AUSTIN - CHAPTER 1

Much of Texas’s history revolves around the city of Austin. There have been many books written about how the name came about, and the man from whom the name was taken.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was the act that solidified the claims the U.S.A. had on the lands belonging to Mexico and the ratification of the act for the most part settled where the border between the countries would be.

The payment of something less than 20 million dollars secured all the land above the Rio Grande including California for the United States.

While all of this stuff was taking place, we that is my family was living on a ranch raising a few cattle and farming. It was a live and let live proposition. I seldom saw anyone other than my mother and father and an occasional trader who came by selling his wares and gave us all the news.

We lived on hope; hope that the weather would be favorable and the Indians wouldn’t go on the warpath and kill us. The Coushatta’s were the ones nearest to us and for the most part, friendly but you never knew when a raiding party from some other tribe might come by and reap havoc on us.

I did most of the hunting for our family and could hit anything I could see clearly.

While away from the ranch one day (farther than I usually went) I shot a deer and it was still tracking so I lit out after it.

Because I was focused on the deer I didn’t see the two Indians stalking me.

They heard my shot and came to investigate and saw what was going on. They grabbed me and tied me to a young sapling. My deer had fallen a short distance away and one of them retrieved it for themselves while the other stood guard over me.

I could understand enough of their language to know they were arguing about whether to kill me or not. Finally they agreed to take me to their camp a half a day away and let the Chief decide. I didn’t like either of the options they put forth, one to kill me and the other to make me a slave.

They took my gun and put me on the back of a pony one of them was riding while the other took the deer with him. I could hardly stay on the horse for my hands were tied behind me.

A half day later we arrived at the Indian’s camp and my knees were so sore from trying to grip the horse’s sides I could hardly walk. As we rode into the camp all the people gathered around and looked at the deer and then at me.

The men who captured me told a couple of the women to take the deer and skin it and cut it up for the tribes evening meal. I was both hungry and thirsty but kept my mouth closed for I didn’t want to do anything that would draw any more attention to myself.

The women stripped off my clothes and kept poking at the parts of me that was not tanned and I feared for my manhood.

Since I was only ten years old I wasn’t completely developed as of yet and the women made fun of me. I guess they didn’t take age into consideration when examining me.

Without going into all the details let me say I was treated badly and humiliated while the women enjoyed themselves. The Chief came out some time later and stopped the women from whipping me and he had decided the camp needed the equivalent of a dog for the camp.

For the next four years I was considered to be the camps dog.  During the four years I learned much about Indians: How they thought and reasoned things out, how to hunt their style, and another thing, how to wrestle.

Soon I was ignored much like the dogs in camp were and was expected to be treated like the dogs. In spite of that after the first year they allowed me to mingle with kids my age and pretty much do what they did.  I learned to use their weapons and went hunting with the braves when they went.

Every so often the camp would move further up river for the game would play out and also for sanitation reasons. 

I learned much about the women anatomy for I went swimming and bathing with them all without clothes on. Since it was such a normal thing no one thought about it except I had been raised where modesty was a way of life and I on occasion found myself staring at the young ladies.

Once in a while I would see them looking at me for I was white where my loin cloth covered me. I suppose I looked strange being two colored.

They let it be known that I wasn’t to have anything with the young girls. A violation of that law would result in losing some of my vital parts. As we grew up together some of the girls my age were friendly with me and it made me uncomfortable for the Indians could misunderstand things on occasion.

As time went by I could do many things better than my captors such as hunting, wrestling fishing. I found it was very important not to best them in any way.

Oft times I would shoot a deer and would tell one of them it was their arrow that killed the animal. And when it came to wrestling I could whip almost everybody in camp but always managed to lose the match for if they lost face to the camp dog it could have resulted in my demise.

They knew I was doing those things but as long as they saved face they didn’t care. This went on for four years and I had planned to escape the next time they planned to move.

They would be so busy they wouldn’t have time to chase after me.  The time came and was a week away, I was ready.

To be continued