Life and adventures of "Billy" Dixon of Adobe Walls, Texas panhandle : $b A narrative in which is described many things relating to the early SouthwestDixon, Billy
History
Life and adventures of "Billy" Dixon of Adobe Walls, Texas panhandle : $b A narrative in which is described many things relating to the early Southwest
Dixon, Billy
Frontier and pioneer life -- Texas; Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.); Indians of North America -- Wars -- 1866-1895
The last victim of their cruelty was a mustang colt owned by Mrs.
Olds. This colt had been captured by some of the hunters among a bunch
of wild mustangs, and given as a present to Mrs. Olds who had petted
the graceful, affectionate little creature until it followed her from
place to place like a dog. Some rather romantic stories have been
written about this mustang colt and the part it played in the fight at
Adobe Walls. The truth, however, unadorned, is the colt remained near
the buildings throughout the fight, and when I saw it a feathered
arrow was sticking in its back. I never knew whether the colt died of
this wound or was afterwards shot to put the poor little thing out of
its misery.
When we found that we could move around outside the buildings without
danger of immediate attack, we blanketed the bodies of Tyler and the
Shadlers and dug a single grave near the north side of the corral.
There they lie to this day, without a stone to mark the spot. Many a
spring and many a summer have come and gone, and many a winter has
sent its blinding snows across the Panhandle since that far-off day.
The Indians and the buffaloes have vanished from the scene, and the
plow is running over the land where they ranged. After all, the boys
are sleeping as quietly and as restfully as if they had been buried in
the village churchyard back at their old homes.
Despite the utmost efforts of our savage foes to carry away their dead
and wounded, thirteen dead Indians were left on the ground near the
buildings, so closely under the muzzles of our guns that it would have
been suicide for their comrades to have attempted their recovery. By
the time we had buried our three comrades, darkness had come, and we
abandoned further outside work and returned to the protection of the
buildings, completely exhausted by the strain and excitement of the
day's fighting.
What we had experienced ate into a man's nerves. I doubt if any of us
slept soundly that June night. Somewhere out there in the darkness our
enemies were watching to see that nobody escaped from the beleaguered
adobe buildings. Inasmuch as Indians rarely, if ever, attack at night,
preferring the shadows of early morning when sleep is soundest, and
when there is less chance of their being ambushed, we felt reasonably
certain of not being attacked before daybreak. As for myself I dreamed
all night, the bloody scenes of the day passing in endless procession
through my mind--I could see the Indians charging across the valley,
hear the roar of the guns and the blood-curdling war-whoops, until
everything was a bewildering swirl of fantastic colors and movements.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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