Plains Indian warrior. I like the painting on this horse too:
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, Herman, who was captured by an Apache war party from his family's farm in 1870 in Central Texas.
He's now 19-20 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.
In the last post Herman was finally on his way to his family's home in Texas, escorted by a detail of four soldiers from Fort Sill in Oklahoma.
The trip was fun for Herman after he decided not to kill them. I'm sure he could have fairly easily killed all of them in their sleep but he felt he had no place to escape to if he did.
It was fun for the soldiers too but they stopped at Fort Griffin, Texas and the soldiers who were guarding him got into trouble because they went on a big drunk and got punished by being sent to the guardhouse or jail.(typical soldiers, they have one day off and get smashed!)
That meant another detail of four different soldiers were assigned to finish the trip. These guys also handed him a rifle and had him bring home dinner each day.
They watched him like a hawk though and weren't quite as much fun as the first bunch.
One of the soldiers was stepping up on the ambulance which they were using to transport Herman, I showed a photo of it yesterday but in case you missed it here's that model again:
But he slipped and fell which made the mules jump and the wagon rolled over his leg and broke it.
I guess the ambulance was finally the right vehicle for the job but that accident slowed them way down and they camped more often which gave Hermann more chances to hunt.
Herman's mom didn't know what day he would arrive so she kept asking people coming from the North. See, she either ran a hotel or owned a hotel so she saw people coming into town all the time.
Well, one day when she asked a couple of guys who were coming from up North if they'd seen any soldiers, they told her about the escort with Herman and that they'd be in town the next day.
All the people in town loved Herman's mom and they'd seen her stay faithful and trusting that her son was alive and would be returned to her safely.
When she found out that he'd be closeby that night she sent runners in every direction to tell friends far and near.
Every oven and stove in town was baking breads and cakes, beefs and mutton were prepared, smoke from BBQ's were rising all over. They were going to have a feast to end all feasts in celebration of her boy coming home!
That evening some townspeople decided to ride out until they met the party coming towards town. Well, it was only three miles from town when they came upon the soldiers who had made camp for the night.
When they asked the soldiers if they could come on into town they agreed, broke camp and came on in.
The whole town was waiting for that ambulance wagon.. over 300 people. It was dark by the time the wagon appeared. They had to hold Herman's mom back as it came to a stop.
She rushed up to the ambulance and threw her arms around his neck and hugged him close even though he was mostly in the dark. Then she pulled him into the light and my God, he was a savage!
She didn't care. After all the heart-wrenching pain, anguish, sleepless nights of calling out to God, the empty ache of not knowing where he was or what he was going through...all that suffering was replaced with unspeakable joy!
She never lost her faith and she never stopped trusting her God in those 9 long years.
His sister Mira was there, took hold of his arm and felt the scar that he'd gotten as a little boy so she knew it was Hermann. Here's what the local newspaper said about that moment:
"When the boy arrived, never before had anyone heard such shouts of praise and thanksgiving to God for His goodness and mercy. The good mother and her righteous soul became full to overflowing and she gave way.
There was no dearth of tears of joy that evening; feasting, singing hymns of praise, German and English, prayers of thanksgiving occupied most of the night."
The following day the feast continued for all who remained and for those who continued to come. The entire community rejoiced.
Herman's reaction to all this? He was emotionless. He couldn't care less. He didn't know any of those people, he didn't like any of those people, and his mom was just some crazy white squaw.
He planned on going back with the soldiers and go live with Quanah!
Herman's story continues in the next post.
Thanks for reading folks, God bless you all!
-jonboy
Texas
