The Plum Creek Fight

Dusty Richards

Dusty Richards is the author of over thirty novels, most recently The Natural and Trail to Fort Smith, a Ralph Compton Traildrive novel. Here Dusty tells his fictionalized version of the factual Battle of Plum Creek.

The hot August wind in my face, I pushed the dun horse harder. There were more bloodthirsty Comanche bucks on the warpath in South Texas than a man could count. Ever since that scared-half-to-death kid from Goliad had shown me the sea of pony tracks they’d made, my best senses told me lots of innocent folks would die in their wrathful swath through the countryside if something wasn’t done to put everyone on their guard.

Filled with purpose, I drove off the steep hillside headed for the Farnsworths’ place, grateful for the sure-footed dun between my knees. At the base of the hill, I leaped him over a split-rail fence and charged for the house.

“Ben McCulloch,” Mida Farnsworth shouted. The girl of sixteen or so came on the run holding up her dress tail. “Whatever is wrong?”

“Comanches,” I said, stripping out the latigos with hardly time for talk or explanation. “I’m taking one of your fresh horses.”

“Help yourself. How many of them are there?” she asked, paling under her suntanned face.

“Hundreds of them. I need your brothers to ride and tell everyone to get to Goliad. Maybe we can hold them off there.”

“But—but—”

“Go ring that bell and get them in here right now,” I said and gave her a not-so-gentle shove to untrack her. Wasn’t that I didn’t like Mida—but I wanted her and everyone else in Gonzales County alive when this thing was over.

She swallowed hard, rolled her lower lip in under her even white teeth, then ran for the belfry set on four tall posts. The strong afternoon breeze swept the knotted hemp back and forth. With no time to talk, I led the hard-breathing dun to the corral and turned him in. A stream of sweat ran off his lathered shoulders and trembling flank, then down his legs. I hoped he wasn’t wind-broke, but there was no time for regret.

The bell clanged and clanged as she tugged on it with both hands. The alarm was sounded. Besides the Farnsworths, others in the country would hear it and know something was wrong. Taking a reata off a post, I shook it loose to capture another mount. Two swings over my head and the loop shot out from my hand for the target. When the circle settled around a big roman-nosed blue roan’s throat, I jerked my slack. A stout horse, he might not have all the speed of my dun, but he was big and should be up to the task ahead.

My pads and saddle over on the roan’s back, I led him out of the corral and headed for Mida.

“Can I stop now?” she asked, out of breath, still pulling hard on the rope.

“Hold him.” I gave her the reins and took the bell rope in my hands. Jerking it harder, I set it to pealing with an urgency that marked the situation. Sometimes it took a while for the sound to penetrate the Texas Hill Country. People would stop working and hear the faint noise. The most important thing was they heard it and knew that things weren’t right.

“I could get you something to eat,” she offered as the nervous roan circled her.

“Not now.”

“Who’s leading them?” she asked.

“Only one I could figure that could get that many bucks on the warpath is Buffalo Hump.”

“How will they ever stop them?”

“I ain’t sure, but there ain’t no one else to stop them but us.”

“You mean the volunteers?” Her blue eyes opened wide and she gave an impatient jerk on the reins to settle the upset roan, who tried to pull her away from the noisy bell.

“Ain’t another soul here but us. Texas has no army.”

“But hundreds of Comanches against a handful of volunteers. Ben, you’ll all be slaughtered.”

“Maybe, but we’ll take lots of them red devils with us.”

“Oh my Gawd, Ben.” Tears began to run down her cheeks and she lashed out at the impatient horse as she tried to hold him. “Whoa, stupid.”

I quit ringing the bell and reached past her for the reins. In control, I set my flat boot heels in the dust and brought the roan around with my strength.

“Tell them brothers of yours that we’re meeting at Goliad. They need to get word to everyone they can. They miss anyone, they’re liable to be killed.”

“Where’re you going?”

“To scout them Comanches. Tell everyone when I figure out which way they’re coming back, I’ll send word and I’ll need every rifle and pistol in this country ready to shoot.”

“Benjamin McCulloch, you damn well be careful. I don’t want to go to no funeral of yourns.” She chewed on her lower lip.

I nodded my head that I’d heard the attractive tomboy’s concern. She’d make a good catch for a guy looking for a wife. She ran the whole Farnsworth household ever since her mother died the year before—perhaps for even longer than that. Aggie had been sick for several years. Besides, I admired Mida’s spunk.

“You figuring”—she wiped her wet eyes on her sleeve—“they’ll come here and attack us?”

“They were headed south in an all-fired hurry. But they have to come back. Their wives, families, and lodges are all up north. That’s when I worry about the safety of things around here. Tell your brothers they need to warn everyone. Have one of them load you up and take you and your little brother to Goliad.”

“I will, Ben. You take care.”

My left foot in the stirrup, I swung a leg over with an “I will.”

Any more words were cut off when the roan bogged his head into the dust. I left the ranch yard in long, ground-clearing bucks aboard the big gelding. My spurs jabbed his hide and I cross-whipped him with the long reins to break his train of thought about tossing me off.

When he reached the wagon road, I had sawed his head up and he was running sideways. Must have picked the craziest horse in their string. I whipped him southward—no time for me to go back and change now.

In the next hour, I discovered a thin stream of black smoke that streaked the azure sky in the south. Thompson’s place. The roan’s hooves pounded the dry dust and he grunted deep in his throat like a hog, but he could run and had plenty of bottom. The next thirty minutes passed like an ant crawling a mile. When I burst into the open country, I knew what I’d suspected since I first saw the streak—too damn late.

Engulfed in flames, the shake roof on the main house was caving in. Haystacks were on fire and I reached for the flap over my five-shot Colt revolver. If there were any redskins left there, I aimed to make them pay for this with their lives.

Three dead lay on the ground, their naked bodies floured in dirt. Black spots marked their faces or torso where bullets or spears had penetrated them. The family dogs with smashed-in heads or lance wounds lay about, silenced by the red invaders. A shudder went through my shoulders. I didn’t want to have to look at the remains of the women and children—two brothers and their families lived at this place above Calico Creek.

Dropping heavily from the saddle, the acrid smoke from the house fire hurting my nose, I led the hard-breathing roan by the reins with one hand and carried the .36-caliber in my other—in case.

Behind the house, I discovered the mutilated body of Ira Thompson’s wife, Bertha. The grim sight made the butterflies in my guts turn into wildcats. Not ten feet away was a scalped boy perhaps five years old. They called him Chub. The next thirty minutes were the longest in my life. I wrapped the bodies up in what cloth I could find, dragged them inside an unscathed shed for later burial, and barred the door. Neither of the brothers were among the dead—either they’d been away and had not known about the impending danger or the Comanches dragged them off to torture. Either way, it wasn’t easy. Two mutilated women, three bloody children’s bodies, and more unaccounted for. I caught the roan; since the Comanches had taken all the horses, there was no fresh mount for me at this disaster. They’d made pincushions out of the women’s milk cows and ransacked the place before setting it afire, taking only the choice items they wanted and scattering the rest.

 

At sundown, I was still hot on their main trail. At this point I began to realize—besides all the side raids that were close by their route—the main body of warriors was headed straight for Victoria. Comanches usually hit and run—making small raids on outlying ranches and farms. Never before had they taken on a town or village, but I knew that this time with such a large force, they’d strike a town. No way I could ever get there ahead of them red devils. I could only hope those poor folks had some warning. Still I needed to know the direction they had taken and when they were coming back. I felt deeply convinced that Buffalo Hump’s marauders had to return north sooner or later.

An hour later, an armed rider guarding a crossroads hailed me. “Captain Tanner insists that all men join his company to make war on them red devils,” the young man said.

“Where’s he at?” I asked, looking around.

“Camp’s up this road a couple miles. You can find it.” The youth in his late teens pointed to the east. “I’ve got to stay here on guard or I’d show you.”

I nodded and sent the roan on the wagon tracks that led east. Maybe this captain had enough men to make a good attack against them. The notion of a real force of fighting men raised my spirits as I short-loped in the twilight.

“Halt, who goes there?”

“Texas militia member,” I said, reining up the roan.

“Whose outfit?”

“Gonzales County.” Every second I sat there on my winded horse, I grew more impatient with the one in the road pointing a rifle at me. I damn sure wasn’t a Comanche or I’d already have cut his throat and scalped him.

“How the hell do I know who you are? Get down off that horse.”

“If you don’t step aside, you’ll never learn nothing but what a casket looks like from the inside.” I booted the roan on in the growing twilight.

“Where do you come off? I’m the damn guard here. I ought to gut-shoot you!”

“You better watch for the Comanches. They’ll kill you and answer your dumb questions later.”

In camp, I reined up beside the first figure I saw in the firelight. They had enough big blazes going to tell all the Comanches in Texas where they were at, but that wasn’t my affair.

“Captain Tanner. Where can I find him?”

The man rolled his head from side to side trying to focus on me and I noticed he had a crock jug in his hand. Then I smelled the fumes—whiskey.

“Down there.” He pointed with his crock and then he offered it to me.

“No, thanks, I’ve got pressing business with Tanner.”

I found the man with several others; all of them were dressed in business suits, sitting around a rough-hewn table that still smelled of pitch. They were playing cards and drinking hard liquor.

“Captain Tanner?”

A tall man with beard and mustache rose. “Sir, I am Captain Tanner. Commander of this army. What may I do for you, sir?”

“I’m in bad need of a good horse. I’ve been scouting the main band all day and my horse is about done in.”

“Who are you?”

“Ben McCulloch, Gonzales County Volunteers, sir.”

“Who is your commander?”

“Me, sir. Captain Talbot died. They made me commander.”

“And your rank?”

“Private, I guess, We don’t go much on rank. We do lots of scouting and rangering and try to keep them red devils away from here.”

“You’re a mere private and you come here expecting me to give you a valuable horse for your own usage?”

“Sir, we need to stop them when they come back.”

Tanner threw his head back and gave a great belly laugh. The others joined in. “Oh, you are mad, Private McCullum, was it?

“Why, we’ll be lucky if they don’t raid the whole state clear back to Louisiana. Wait, where are you going? Come back here. You are disobeying a military order of a superior officer!”

The cold chills ran up my face. My anger boiled at this bunch of laggards. Innocent folks were dying and all they could do was sit around, gamble, and get soused. In a flash, I bounded into the saddle and asked for one more burst of speed from the roan. Bless his heart, he gave me that surge and we left Tanner’s camp of drunks and cowards. I vowed as I rode the gelding as hard as he could manage—I’d show them how my men would give them Comanches what for.

 

At dawn, outside of Victoria, an older rancher generously traded me his fresh horse for the roan after learning my purpose. He’d heard about the trouble and was coming to check on his kinfolks. When I explained my business, we switched saddles in the road.

“I reckon from all the smoke in the sky, I’m too late anyway. Good luck, McCulloch.”

The death and destruction I discovered in Victoria was more of the same brutality I’d found earlier at the Thompsons’. Dead bodies, scalped and dismembered, littered the streets, some victims hung half out of windows of partially burned residences. If I ever imagined how hell looked, it was the way I found Victoria that morning.

Billy Jim Rawlings rode up and we recognized each other covered in road dirt and without a meal in twenty-four hours amid the corpses and shifting bitter smoke. We hugged each other and fought back tears. Words couldn’t describe the horrendous sights around us.

I quickly told him of my plans to ambush them, win or lose, and see if we couldn’t make them pay for their senseless marauding.

Billy Jim agreed. “They’ve got a couple thousand horses now, so the dust should be telltale.” Then he looked hard at me. “You really need to go back and get the militia ready. I’ll scout them and ride up there when they start that way.”

“We need a few more to scout them than one man,” I said, concerned about something happening to a single lookout. “Then if someone gets afoot or hurt, I’ll still have word in time to shift the forces around up there.”

Billy Jim agreed with a grim bob of his head. “Have you ever seen how many there are of them?”

“No, I’ve only seen the pony tracks and what they did here and in other places.”

“Let me tell you, they about ran over me. I laid in a thicket for them to go by, thinking it was my last day, and they took hours to just ride by me.”

With a quick nod, I agreed, but still if my volunteers had the element of surprise, Comanches weren’t soldiers. They fought fierce, but never stayed and battled against any show of force—in the face of which they usually choose to retreat. This could be the big advantage of a surprise attack on them.

“We need to find a few more scouts. If the Comanches ride back the same way as they came down here, then my volunteers will make them pay for all this killing.”

“That would be too good to be true.” Billy Jim gave me a grim nod.

I agreed. But their lodges were somewhere northwest, so they’d go back that way somehow.

“Ain’t that Liberty Jones?” Billy Jim shouted to a man coming up on a speckled gray horse.

“Liberty? What you doing here?” I asked the familiar man in buckskin with a rifle across his lap.

“Come to see what I could do about these heathen red niggers. They killed some folks of mine back up the way. Been tracking this bunch for a while.” He spat tobacco off to the side. “They sure must be a passel of ’em.”

We agreed. Billy Jim started in on my plan and the older man nodded. “I’ll help do anything to send them devils to hell where they belong.”

By mid-morning, the August sun beat down on us and my belly, despite the upset of all this around us, began to pain some for food.

“You ate anything, Liberty?”

“Yes.” He turned and flung his arm in the direction he came from. “There’s some women cooking a few blocks from here and feeding everyone. Come on, I’ll show you. Dick Johnson’s up there. We find him, he’d make you a good ranger too.”

Those four women maintained a lard kettle full of boiling beef stew and handed out steaming bowls and spoons to all takers. Bleary-eyed folks sat around on the ground eating. Most had tearstains on their cheeks like the cooks did, but they weren’t crying for themselves—it was the ones hurt, maimed, and dead that wrung out their tears.

Liberty found Dick and brought the short stockman over to talk with us. He agreed to join my scouts. Each man was to take a different focus on the main war party, but once they started north, the scouts were to send word of the mass direction so I could set up my defenses for an ambush.

After the meal, I shook their hands. That’s all state militia members were paid for ranger duty on the frontier, aside from the Colt revolver they had issued us. The legislature promised us horse feed and sustenance and pay, but even the horse feed never showed up, Texas was too broke. Why, the Lone Star dollar was worth only five cents American. Didn’t matter—we were Texans and we’d show them Comanches. For all them folks that needlessly died, we’d do it.

 

On the long ride home, I avoided Captain Tanner and his drunken bunch. Made it straight to Goliad, but rode two horses into the ground, a fact I’d later regret, but there was little else I could do at the time.

My militiamen and many other volunteers met me on the courthouse lawn. We broke out the lead and gunpowder and loaded everything we had in wagons, so we’d be ready.

I stood in the back of one of the rigs to tell them the plan. “There is a good chance they’ll ride right through the way they came. If they do, then my scouts will tell us and we can cut them to ribbons at the Plum Creek Crossing. I want some men to haul some logs out there and build some low walls on the rise on both sides that we can hide behind and shoot at them from. There is one thing.” I held my hand up for their silence. “You must bring that material in from the north and not disturb anything that they can see on their road or they’ll get spooked.”

“We can handle it, Captain,” someone shouted. The yell went up, “We can do her!”

When I finished, I felt satisfied the plan was going forward. Getting down off the rig, I saw Mida standing at the edge of the crowd.

“They’re calling you captain now, Ben,” Mida said, her face beaming, the littlest Farnsworth hanging on to her hand.

“They can call me whatever they want. Just so we stop them.”

“You had any sleep at all?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Ben, come sleep under our wagon for few hours. You’ll need some rest to lead those men in a battle.”

“You better do what she says,” Goliad mayor Rupport Conklin said. “We’ll get them defenses up. You go get some rest.”

Mida’s middle brother Earl took my spent horse and said he’d have a fresh one for me when I got up from my nap. Nothing else that I could do but follow her and little Jody to the wagon.

I hit the pallet like a dead man and despite the buzzing flies was soon deep asleep.

“Dick Johnson’s here to see you,” Mida said, shaking me.

If she hadn’t held me down, I’d have bolted up and struck the center pole under the wagon with my head. My heart went to pounding about how them Comanches were already on their way back.

My eyelids felt stuck together with glue, but when I got them open, I discovered it was night. “What is it?”

“Billy Jim said he thinks they’ll come back the same route.” Dick began his story when I crawled out from under the rig. “They tore up Linville on the Gulf, and the only way any folks escaped was in boats. They’ve got enough horses—you can see their dust for miles—and they’ve got them loaded down with all that stuff they’ve stolen. Besides that, you won’t know them, because they’re dressed in everything they found. I saw one drunk Injun wearing a woman’s corset for a hat.”

“Guess they’ve found plenty of liquor?” I asked, hoping their drinking party lasted this far north.

“They’ve got plenty. But they’ve also got guns and ammunition.”

I agreed.

“Liberty will be here at sunup and tell us if they’re still on course.”

“When do you think they’ll get here?”

“Tomorrow at midday, I figure.”

“You did good. Thanks.”

“I ain’t leaving. I’m fighting with you.”

“Sorry, I’d sure appreciate your help.”

“More men have been coming in all night to join you,” Mida said, handing me a cup of steaming coffee. “You’ll have lots of militia to go with you and help.”

At dawn I inspected the log buttresses; they looked good. If the Comanches rode into this trap, they would be cut down by our cross fire—provided nothing spooked them short of it.

Liberty arrived and I rode over to talk to him. In his opinion, their route looked the same.

“You got a dozen men you can spare with revolvers?” Liberty asked.

“Might have. Why?” I listened close.

“If we strike the rear guard with a small force before they reach here, we might panic them right into your gun sights.”

“That’s also taking some firepower away from my men up on the creek.” The plan worried me.

“But if they thought all of Texas was after them, they might just ride on like lightning had struck them in the butt and you’d get what you can of them charging by.”

I had to agree; his idea would be a safer bet for my small militia even with the new volunteers swelling the ranks. Panic the Comanches and then cut them down when they fled through the creek. That would leave me eighty men, forty to each side. Men both young and old who could sure enough aim and hit something when they squeezed the trigger.

“I’ll let you have eight. Any more and my men on the barricades would be too thin.”

“I’ll take eight. When I see they’re close enough to you, we’ll come whooping and screaming, shooting our guns off and try to make them bolt into your ambush.”

I agreed. In the south, already I could see the veil of dust in the sky from the thousands of horses they drove, loaded down with their spoils. My butterflies went to churning—I didn’t need an Alamo on Plum Creek. There were lots of men with families come to fight, not the same as the militia members, who were mostly single boys like myself.

Filled with concern, I rode the bay that they’d found for me wide of the Comanches’ route to get over to the west side. A youth quickly took my horse back into the woods and out of sight.

When I started up the line, the men rose and saluted. I felt awkward about it, but returned their address. Everyone knew their job. A natural leader, Dick Johnson, was commanding the forces for me on the east. Before I left over there, Liberty was getting recruits for his raiding party.

I told the men on the west side the plan and they agreed. Kegs of powder were open and ready. Pails of water to cool the gun barrels if they had time. Everyone had a fresh-looking edge—even the young boy who brought me a cup of coffee.

Taking the cup, I frowned at him. Because of the too-big cap I couldn’t tell much, but when I saw the blue eyes I knew he was no boy.

“Mida,” I hissed. “What’re you doing here?”

“Hush, the others don’t know. I came to reload your weapons. I know how, my brothers showed me.”

“You can’t—”

“I can’t go back now. See their dust. Accept me?”

I closed my eyes. Trapped, what next? “All right, but keep your head down.”

“I am not the only woman here.”

In defeat, I nodded that I’d heard her.

Flies buzzed on and time crept by. A boiling sun was at its highest point. The thousands of hooves pounding the ground were becoming audible. Men peeked over the ramparts hoping to be the first to see them.

“Get your heads down,” I ordered. Surprise was our greatest asset and I wanted them red devils to stare down the gun barrel of death when they first saw us.

I heard screaming far off, like distant crows, and then shots. Liberty had struck them in the rear. I looked to the sky for help. We’d sure need lots of God’s providence.

“Hold your fire,” I said to pass up and down the line.

The wait was not long. In minutes, Comanches began to rush from the south. I blinked my eyes in disbelief. The lead one was dressed in a red silk fancy gown. You ever seen a man-eating buck, warpaint on his dirty face, wearing an evening gown? The sight of him must have shook me.

“Fire!”

The barrage of bullets wilted the ranks of the hard-riding Comanches. A cloud of gray smoke soon engulfed both sides. My eyes teared as I watched the confused Injuns going right and left to get by us. No fight in them—only trying to save their red asses.

With her back to the log wall, Mida sat on the ground and very handily reloaded my pistol each time. While she did that, I used the cap and ball rifle and reloaded it myself. The gun smoke grew thick enough to cut with a butter knife and we both coughed on the fumes and dust churned up by the desperate Comanches. But both sides of our men were taking a heavy toll on our enemy. The field between us lay full of bodies of bucks and their fallen ponies.

Then the shooting stopped. I didn’t know how many hundred Injuns had rode by us and got away. When the shooting let up, I saw Liberty on horseback coming on the run toward me.

“It worked, McCulloch. They’ve abandoned all the horses and we have them.” He reined his horse up short.

“Good news. But if we’ve got all that, then we ain’t done with them yet.” Buffalo Hump wouldn’t ever stand for that. No way.

Liberty agreed and gave me his horse so I could go over and check on the other side.

“How are your men, Dick?” I shouted when I rode up.

“Ain’t got a scratch on us.”

“Good, but make sure that everyone stays put. Since we’ve got the horses and loot, they’ll be right back. Can’t take any chances.”

“We’ll be ready,” Dick said.

I turned the pony and rode back to my side.

“Anyone get hurt over here?” I dismounted at the log rampart and looked at the bleary-eyed bunch standing behind it, leaning on their rifles and waiting on the word. I handed Liberty back his reins.

“Anyone hurt over here?”

“No one’s hurt here, Captain.” Then a big roar went up. But I felt convinced it was too soon to count the win—the battle wasn’t over.

“No drinking yet. Everyone stay behind those walls. Liberty says we have all the stolen horses and the loot that they took, so they’ll sure come back and try us. Everyone down behind those walls!”

Buzzards circled. In late afternoon, I sent Liberty out with a small group to ranger the area north. If Buffalo Hump was coming back, I wanted the outfit to be ready.

Day slipped into night. With sweaty hands dried on our pants, we waited. Mida fed me beef jerky and the other women kept the hot coffee flowing. The skin crawled on the back of my neck at any different sound. When would they come back?

 

At dawn, a scout rode in and reported that a large party of men were riding out of the south.

“Who would they be?” Mida asked, trailing at my heels.

I looked into her dirt-floured pretty face and smiled. “I hope to hell they’re Texans.”

Colonel Jim Buckley arrived on a white horse with a couple of hundred haggard volunteers behind him. They looked caved in but determined.

“You the man in charge here?” Buckley asked.

I saluted him. “Yes, sir. Glad to see so many men with you. We routed them red heathens yesterday, but I figured they’ll come back since we have all their stolen goods and horses.”

“All of it? You mean you have all the loot back?”

“Can’t say all, but all they left us anyway.”

“This your outfit?” Buckley asked, looking at his own officers gathered around him on horseback, all shaking their heads in disbelief. He turned back to face me. His blue eyes narrowed. “You led this handful of men you have here against those hundreds of Comanches and beat them?”

“We made it rough enough they left all that stuff.”

“How many men did you lose?”

“None.” I shrugged. What did he expect?

“Captain McCulloch,” Mida said, stepping forward to stand at my side, “you might take and show the colonel all those horses you’ve captured.”

“Women are here, too?” Buckley blinked his eyes in disbelief at the sight of her.

“Oh, yes, sir, Colonel,” Mida said with a smile. “It’s a Texas tradition. We fight beside our men. Right, Ben?”

I could only nod in agreement.

 

NOTE: The Texas Rangers were first formed as local militia on the frontier with outfits like McCulloch’s. They didn’t even capitalize the word Rangers until after the Civil War. The Linville Raid/Plum Creek Fight was taken from actual historical events of August 1847. Years later, Ben McCulloch became a Civil War general. He was killed by sniper fire at the Battle of Elkhorn Tavern—or as it’s called today, the Battle of Pea Ridge. Many consider the loss of him and his leadership on that field to be what cost the Confederacy the fight that day.