When Dean Kittredge is taken on as a hired gun by the Rafter W, the owner's wilful granddaughter, Miss Trashy, is only the first of his worries. He soon finds himself up against the notorious El Serpiente and his gang of Comanchero gunmen. Jensen Crudace, the sinister land and cattle agent, is intent on using the Comancheros to gain control of the territory. Together, Kittredge and ranch foreman Tad Sherman are involved in a desperate quest to track El Serpiente to his hidden base in the heart of a distant mesa. Will they succeed in stopping the ruthless gunmen?
This is a history of the Comancheros, or Mexicans who traded with the Comanche Indians in the early Southwest. When Don Juan Bautista de Anza and Ecueracapa, a Comanche leader, concluded a peace treaty in 1786, mutual trade benefits resulted, and the treaty was never afterward broken by either side. New Mexican Comancheros were free to roam the plains to trade goods, and when Americans introduced, the Comanches and New Mexicans even joined in a loose, informal alliance that made the American occupation of the plains very costly. Similarly, in the 1860s the Comancheros would trade guns and ammunition to the Comanches and Kiowas, allowing them to wreck a gruesome toll on the advancing Texans.
Motorists traveling along State Highway 104 north of Tucumcari, New Mexico, may notice a sign indicating the location of Fort Bascom. The post itself is long gone, its adobe walls washed away. In 1863, the United States, fearing a second Confederate invasion of New Mexico Territory from Texas, built Fort Bascom. Until 1874, the troops stationed at this site on the Eroded Plains along the Canadian River defended Hispanic and Anglo-American settlements in eastern New Mexico and far western Texas against Comanches and other Southern Plains Indians. In Fort Bascom, James Bailey Blackshear presents the definitive history of this critical outpost in the American Southwest, along with a detailed view of army life on the late-nineteenth-century western frontier. Located in the middle of what General William T. Sherman called “an awful country,” Fort Bascom’s hardships went beyond the army’s efforts to control the Comanches and Kiowas. Blackshear shows the difficulties of maintaining a post in a harsh environment where scarce water and forage, long supply lines, poorly constructed facilities, and monotonous duty tested soldiers’ endurance. Fort Bascom also describes the social aspects of a frontier assignment and the impact of the Comanchero trade on military personnel and objectives, showing just how difficult it was for the army to subdue the Southern Plains Indians. Crucial to this enterprise were logistics, including procurement from civilian contractors of everything from beef to hay. Blackshear examines the strong links between New Mexican Comancheros and Comanches, detailing how the lure of illegal profits drew former military personnel into this black-market economy and revealing the influence of the Comanchero trade on Southwestern history. This first full account of the unique challenges soldiers faced on the Texas frontier during and after the Civil War restores Fort Bascom to its rightful place in the history of the U.S. military and of U.S.-Indian relations in the American Southwest.
Thirteen-year-old Mary Lovella Grady thrived on her grandparents’ tales of the Crossover Ranch, a modern ranch shaped by all its past inhabitants. Grampa Hank promised the ranch would be Lovie’s someday but her dream of inheriting the multigenerational Texas ranch is turning into a nightmare. First Granny died, then Grampa Hank was killed in a horseback accident and now the “death tax” is poised to take a fatal bite out of the ranch. Lovie is furious with her mother for selling Grampa Hank’s horses and cattle to pay inheritance taxes and her anger has attracted El Lobo who turns up in the middle of every ranch tragedy. Join Lovie, along with Big Foot, Brownie, Cotton, Dingo and Fireball, as they are drawn into the dream Granny never realized in life, where past inhabitants of the ranch are still determining its future—and Lovie’s survival.
A vast and desolate region, the Texas–New Mexico borderlands have long been an ideal setting for intrigue and illegal dealings—never more so than in the lawless early days of cattle trafficking and trade among the Plains tribes and Comancheros. This book takes us to the borderlands in the 1860s and 1870s for an in-depth look at Union-Confederate skullduggery amid the infamous Comanche-Comanchero trade in stolen Texas livestock. In 1862, the Confederates abandoned New Mexico Territory and Texas west of the Pecos River, fully expecting to return someday. Meanwhile, administered by Union troops under martial law, the region became a hotbed of Rebel exiles and spies, who gathered intelligence, disrupted federal supply lines, and plotted to retake the Southwest. Using a treasure trove of previously unexplored documents, authors James Bailey Blackshear and Glen Sample Ely trace the complicated network of relationships that drew both Texas cattlemen and Comancheros into these borderlands, revealing the urban elite who were heavily involved in both the legal and illegal transactions that fueled the region’s economy. Confederates and Comancheros deftly weaves a complex tale of Texan overreach and New Mexican resistance, explores cattle drives and cattle rustling, and details shady government contracts and bloody frontier justice. Peopled with Rebels and bluecoats, Comanches and Comancheros, Texas cattlemen and New Mexican merchants, opportunistic Indian agents and Anglo arms dealers, this book illustrates how central these contested borderlands were to the history of the American West.
This extensive volume presents New Mexico history from its prehistoric beginnings to the present in essays and articles by fifty prominent historians and scholars representing various disciplines including history, anthropology, Native American studies, and Chicano studies. Contributors include Rick Hendricks, John L. Kessell, Peter Iverson, Rina Swentzell, Sylvia Rodriguez, William deBuys, Robert J. Tórrez, Malcolm Ebright, Herman Agoyo, and Paula Gunn Allen, among many others.
An exciting story of a Texas Ranger, adventurer, and immigration officer who became a symbol of his age while gambling with death in the wild frontier regions of Texas, Arizona, and Old and New Mexico. Charles Goodnight knew the West of Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, Dick Wooton, St. Vrain, and Lucien Maxwell. He ranged a country as vast as Bridger ranged. He rode with the boldness of Fremont, guided by the craft of Carson. His vigorous zest for life enabled him to live intensely and amply, and in this book by J. Evetts Haley, himself no stranger to the West, provides a fully readable and important western biography, vividly told, thrilling, witty, and completely authentic.
Uncle Bob, Robert E. Lee Leavitt, was a true pioneer of the Wild West. This is his story, and that of his family, friends and fellow pioneers. The story tells of Uncle Bobs forbearers as they ventured from Germany and Ireland to Americas shores, and traveled to what is now the city of Victoria, in southeast Texas. From there, Uncle Bob leads a historic cattle drive to Montana, participated in crucial battles with the Comanche Indians, ultimately settling in a small Montana town where he ends up staying to run a red-light saloon. Uncle Bobs story is told by himself, as well as by those who knew him best. Uncle Bob, a man who knew triumph and defeat, jubilation and sorrow, displays the American Experience with all of its true grit, as well as its uncanny humor.
