The Headless Horseman of the Nueces
by C. F. Eckhardt

For the record, the only 'fiction' in this story is the involvement of the narrator, Luke Brill. All the rest is described exactly as it happened.

Some folks will try to tell you this never happened, but it did. I know it did, because I was there when it happened. This is the true story of the headless horseman down in the Nueces country. This is how come I, fifteen year old Luke Brill, in the spring of 1854, happened to be in the company of a couple of fellers who're legends themselves, and I came to witness how the legend of the headless horseman of the Nueces began.

I was with my uncle and stepfather, Ed Brill, my cousin and stepbrother Jim, and some other folks. We'd left our home in Williamson County a few days earlier, headed for the Devil's River country. We weren't a pack of fools on a wild-goose chase after the gold that's supposed to be out there. We were going after something we knew was there, that we knew we could bring back and get hard money out of. We were going on a wild-horse hunt. We wanted a fair cavvy of mustang mares we could bring back and breed to blooded studs. The stud would give the colts speed, the mustang mares would give them bottom.

We'd lined out west from Fort Mason and were on that trail the third day when a hard-looking feller overhauled us. He was alone and armed to the teeth — two Dragoon sixes, one of the old five-shooters, a couple of real genuine horse-pistols in saddle-scabbards hanging over the pommel, a double shotgun tied on his saddle with a whang string, and a short rifle with a bore I could might near stick my thumb in. He was wearing buckskin britches and high-top Injun shoes, a homespun shirt, and a little dinky hat sat plumb on top of his head. He was riding a big muckledydun-colored gelding with a roman nose and pig eyes. It looked like it'd bite a chunk out of you to see what you'd taste like. I'd heard tell of the Black Devil — a big black mustang stud folks said once ate an Injun whole, everything but his head and toenails — but I wasn't sure I believed it. Looking at this horse made me wonder.

Uncle Ed hollered and waved, and the feller kind of eased our way. He didn't hurry, but I could tell he knew Uncle Ed. In a minute they got together and palavered some, and then Uncle Ed waved me over. "Luke," he said, "I want you to meet an ol' friend of your daddy's. This is my brother Jim's boy, Creed. Luke, say howdy to Creed Taylor."

You could have knocked me off my Tennessee horse with a feather, and not an all-fired big one, neither. Creed Taylor. Cap'n Creed Taylor, first man in the Meskin lines at San Jacinto. The most dangerous man in Texas, folks called him. Some said the only man he worried about was John Glanton, but others said John Glanton was scared out of his britches of Creed Taylor. I stuck out my hand and he shook it. "Knew your pa well, Luke," he said. "Fine feller, he was. Heard tell fevers taken him. Thirty-nine or forty, it was."

"Thirty-nine, sir," I said. "Year I was born."

He turned to Uncle Ed. "Got a trail over here, Ed. I'd admire if you'd take a look at it." Uncle Ed followed him, and since nobody told me not to, I puppydogged along behind. They rode maybe a half mile and Taylor pulled his horse in. He and Uncle Ed got down and ground-hitched, but I didn't trust Tennessee not to leave me afoot, so I commenced hunting something to tie to. I was about to tie to a scrub oak when I saw something that didn't belong. I didn't know what it was. I could tell it was a piece of cornshuck, but it had been cut squared off. It wasn't very big — about twice as wide as my thumbnail and about as long as my thumb. It was squared off on three sides and the end was burnt. I picked it up and sniffed it. It smelled of strong tobacco.

"Uncle Ed," I hollered, "come looky here."

"What you got, boy?" he hollered back.

"Don't know. Might have something to do with your trail."

He came over and looked. "Any of 'em smoke shuck rolls, Creed?" he called.

Taylor came over and looked, and then he gave me a sort of funny look. "Where'd you find this, boy?" he asked.

"Right here," I said. "I was lookin' for a place to tie my horse…"

"You'll do," he said. "This here's a Meskin shuck roll — roll tobacco in 'em an' smoke it. Maybeso a day, two days since it was smoked. That's them, all right. Stole eighteen head of my horses four days back. You know 'em, Ed — Vidal Gonzaga an' them three that ride with him. Time they quit doin' that."

"I reckon," Uncle Ed said. "We're headin' out to the Devil's River country to do some mustangin'. Won't hurt us none to move south a mite. You mind comp'ny?"

"Who you got with you?" Taylor asked.

"My oldest boy Jim, Luke here, Sammy Clements, George Woods, Bill Whitney, an' Hill Fullenwilder. All good men. We got a good grub outfit, too — beats hell outa jerky an' branchwater."

"Reckon," he said. "Sure could use some coffee." So Creed Taylor joined us — or we joined him, I never did quite get the straight of that — for a while. We headed west, Taylor following his trail, us kind of hanging back where we didn't get in his way. I swore two or three times there wasn't a trail to follow, but Creed Taylor could track a white cat in a snowstorm, I reckon. We rode west until we plumb left the red rocks. On that hardpan dirt and all the white rocks I didn't see how a man could follow anything, but every now and then we'd come up on some soft ground or a sandy creekbed, and sure enough, there the trail would be, right ahead of us.

Along toward the middle of the afternoon I got bold as all get-out and rode up alongside the most dangerous man in Texas. He looked at me sort of half sideways and said "You need something, boy?"

"Nossir," I said. "Jus' tryin' to eyeball out for myself the signs you're seein'."

He just sort of grunted and didn't say anything right off. In a minute or so he pointed ahead. "See where that rock's been chipped, Luke? Mostly gray but that real white chip in the sun? Iron horseshoe done that — nothin'else." And with that, Creed Taylor commenced to learn me how to track.

"Trackin'," he said over a cup of coffee that evening, "be it trackin' man, horse, or bear, ain't as hard as folks make out. Mostly it's just noticin' — noticin' what's s'posed to be, an' what ain't like it's s'posed to be. Take that shuck roll you found. You found it 'cause it ain't s'posed to be there. You'd been walkin' down a street in San Antone, you'd a seen shuck rolls 'til they was comin' outa your ears. Ever' Meskin an' half the white men in San Antone smoke them things. Out here, though, it was outa place.

"Now, nothin' — not a man, not a horse, not a bear, nothin' — can pass over the ground an' leave it jus' like it was afore. Don't matter how hard a feller tries to hide his tracks, he's gonna change the way the ground looked 'fore he went over it." He picked up a rock and turned it in his hand. "See this rock? Feller knows what he's lookin' at, he can look an' tell which side's been up to the sun an' which side's been down in the dirt since the good Lord put it there. That's no trick. But…" he reached behind himself "...I jus' moved a rock here behind me. Didn't move it much, but I moved it. Now you tell me which rock I moved." I looked long an' hard at the rocks, but I couldn't see anything to tell me which rock had been moved. Taylor turned and touched one. "Look at it real hard, boy, then look at the others. I didn't know for sure which rock I moved 'til I looked."

I looked some more, but the only thing I could see was that the dirt around that rock wasn't quite as stuck to it as it was to the other rocks. I said so. "That's it," he said.

"Ever' now an' then, that's all you got to go on. 'Specially when you're trackin' Injuns an' they're tryin' to hide their tracks. You'll make a tracker, boy. You stick with Creed Taylor. I'll learn you trackin'. You got the eyes for it."

Next morning I saw Taylor and Uncle Ed talking real private-like, and in a little bit they came to see me. "Creed," Uncle Ed said, "this lad's killed his Injun an' took hair, but he ain't never been in a battle, an' he ain't never busted a cap on a white man or Meskin. Like as not, I let him ride off with you, his mamma'll lift my hair, anything happens to him. Still, I ain't gonna tell any boy he can't ride with Creed Taylor. He'll learn more from you in a week than he'll learn from me in a year. I'll leave it up to him — Luke, you reckon you'd like to ride a mite with Creed? Apt to be some shootin' at the end of the trail."

Here I am, fifteen years old, and I'm getting the chance to ride with Creed Taylor. I reckon if he'd said "Ride to the moon with me" I'd never have asked him how he figured on getting there. I drew me some eats, filled my horn, and checked my caps and lead. Uncle Ed saw to it I got a blanket — I forgot I'd need one, I reckon — and gave me another Navy six to go with mine, along with a spare cylinder for it. I loaded up and said my good-byes, and then Uncle Ed talked to Creed. "We goin' up to the old horse camp east of Castle Gap an' the Horsehead. Be there in 'bout a week, stay four or five. I'd admire if you'd see the boy safe to us so I can take him home to his mamma."

"I'll get him there or see somebody I trust does," he said, and we moved out. About an hour later Taylor's trail turned southwest. By noon there was just me, Creed Taylor, and more open, rugged ground than I'd ever dreamed there was.

Creed Taylor, like most of his breed, didn't say much. He just rode, and that pig-eyed dun ate up the miles. Tennessee kept up, though, and I saw Creed looking him over sort of out of the corner of his eye. We stopped maybe an hour before dark, in a little motte of elms not far from a creek. "Good horse you got," he said. Those were the first words he'd said, beyond pointing out where the trail went a time or two, or some unusual sign, since morning.

"He's Tennessee-bred," I said. "Used to belong to…."

"Ed told me," he said, and I shut up quick. Creed Taylor never wasted much breath and it didn't seem to me he'd appreciate somebody wasting breath around him.

Creed built a fire not much bigger than his dinky little hat, down in a little hollow in the elms. He took out one of his knives and cut a circle maybe two feet across in the sod, then lifted the whole sod out. Then he dug out a sort of a cup in that. Down in that cup he built his fire. You couldn't see the fire from ten feet away, but you could see the light if somebody was close to it. He went around gathering sticks for it. He never broke a stick off a tree nor a deadfall, and he never picked up a stick that had been laying there for a while. It took me a minute or two, but then I saw why. It would take another Creed Taylor to find for sure where Creed Taylor camped.

He gathered some dry grass and leaves — a little here, a little there, never enough to be noticed unless you looked hard — and put them in the pit. Then he took some dry sticks and made what he called 'Injun sticks' out of them. He used a knife to shave splinters off the sides of the sticks, just leaving the tips of the splinters attached to the stick. He stacked four of those like a teepee over the grass and leaves. Then he sprinkled a little pinch of powder on the grass.

I figured he'd pull out a lucifer and touch it off, but he came out with a thing that looked mighty like a flintlock pocket pistol, but it didn't have a barrel, just a cup-looking thing under the steel. He stuck a piece of tinder-rag in the cup, tapped a little powder atop it, eared back the cock, and pulled the trigger. I heard that big old cock snap, there was a sort of 'whoof' sound, and he upended the dingus over the firepit. The rag dropped onto the leaves, there was another 'whoof,' and we had fire. "Fire striker," he said. "Had it for years. You can do the same thing with a pistol. Put a dab of powder in it, wrap another dab in a patch an' put it in tight, snap 'er off. Makes a little pop — not much — an' it shoots the patch out afire. You got a flint gun, you can touch off outa the pan, she ain't loaded. Right handy. Don't need to pack lucifers, an' you can light a fire might near any time."

"Reckon," I said. I rummaged in my warbag and brought out my little coffeepot and a sack of roasted beans. I walked off down to the creek to get some water, dipped up a potful — and froze. About a hundred feet or so down the creek on our side a dozen birds suddenly flew up. "Creed," I said, just loud enough to be heard, "somebody comin'."

"Come back slow, like you didn't see nothin'," he said. "I'll cover you." I turned but I could see nothing of Creed Taylor. I started walking, just sort of ambling, but every bone in my body was screaming at me to run. I made the trees around our camp and dropped to my belly, rolled to one side, and spilled the water. I unlimbered my Navies and we waited. It seemed like years, but it was likely just a couple of minutes. I'd just about put paint and feathers on every stump, rock, and clump of grass when Creed whistled three short notes, high to low. An answering whistle came back-again three short notes, but low to high. "I like to shot you fer a Injun," he said, and stood up.

"Smelt your smoke," a voice about forty feet in front of me said, from a place I would have sworn there was nobody. A tall, skinny feller stood up. He was wearing a buckskin shirt, a big, sort of dirt-brown colored hat, homespun britches, and high-tops. He had a sort of simple look to his face, but I didn't let that fool me. If he'd been simple he'd never have gotten that close to Creed Taylor.

"Howdy, Bigfoot," Creed said. "Where's your horse?"

"Back yonder a ways. Smelt smoke, reckoned I'd have me a look."

"Bring him in. We got coffee."

I got up, holstered my Navies, and picked up the coffeepot. I headed back to the creek for more water. When I passed where the man stood I looked at his tracks. His feet were huge! My foot, even in my loose-fitting boots, didn't take up more than two thirds of his footprint.

The water was boiling and I had the beans mashed when he got back. "You recollect Big Jim Brill?" Creed asked.

"Heard tell of him. Don't recollect ever meetin' him face to face."

"Thishere's his boy Luke," Creed said. "Luke, this skinny bag a bones has got the biggest feet I ever seen on a white man. That's how come they call him Bigfoot. His right name's William Wallace." I stood up proper and shook hands with Bigfoot Wallace.

"Yawl chasin' them horsethieves?" he asked, and I wondered how he knew. Then I remembered what I'd been told about this man. If there was a better tracker and frontiersman than Creed Taylor in Texas, it was Bigfoot Wallace. I didn't wonder any more.

"Vidal Gonzaga," Creed said. "He helped himself to eighteen of the best saddle horses I got. I aim to read him from the Book."

"Time somebody did," Wallace said. "Use a hand?"

"Reckon. Way I read it, he's got three with him. Looks like he's headed for the black rock crossin' on the Rio."

"Might be," Wallace agreed, "but he's got him a camp up the Nueces, not far from the old mission. Up in a side canyon. Found it by accident, trackin' a bear. There's a pothole spring there. He's got pens, a shack — all the comforts of home. We cut across, ride hard, we can beat him there by a day."

We lined out next morning, Bigfoot Wallace leading, since he knew the way. He had himself a fine horse. She was a buckskin mare, a big animal, about 16 hands. She had a running walk gait just like Tennessee's, but Creed's gelding didn't have it, so he had to push the animal to keep up with us. Every couple of hours we'd stop, loosen our cinches, and let the horses rest. Every time we come to water — Bigfoot Wallace knew every spring in that country, I think, and all the creeks that would have water in them — we'd let the horses drink, but not too much. Too much, the way we were pushing them, they'd founder, sure. We'd get ourselves some water — upstream of the animals — and fill our waterbottles. I had me a gourd for water. I'd lined it with beeswax inside and painted the outside brown so it wouldn't show up at a distance.

Along about four in the afternoon by the way the sun was set, Wallace told us we'd come up on a good camp in about an hour. Sure enough, we did. It was in a draw, hidden by some trees. It was a cabin of sorts, but not like any cabin I'd ever seen. "It's a old Comanch' war house," Wallace said. "The Comanch', when they go a-raidin', they build places like this so they don't get spotted an' somebody come up on 'em in the dark. Lookin' at this thing from ten foot off, you'd swear it's just a pile a brush. Inside it's right cozy. Course, they never made fires around these things — white man'd spot the ashes. I been usin' this one a couple a years."

I got some water from the spring in the draw and commenced to make coffee. Wallace pulled out some Injun meal, mixed it with some water, spread it in a tin skillet, and put it over the fire. It was bread, sort of. It wasn't like Ma's cornbread, but you could eat it. I had a pouch with some apple leather in it, and Creed had some deer jerky, so we had a fair supper. My coffee, Creed's jerky, Bigfoot's bread, and my apple leather.

Bigfoot had stashed a lantern and a couple of candles in the war house, along with some bedding, so we could sleep good instead of on the ground. After we had supper he and Creed pulled out their pipes, but I didn't smoke yet so I didn't have one. That's when I found a big difference between Bigfoot Wallace and Creed Taylor. Creed, most of the time, was about as talkative as an oak tree, but Bigfoot was a storyteller. "I mind one time," he said, "I was up on the Leona, huntin' bear. Lotsa bears up there back in the thirties. Got 'em pretty much thinned out, now.

"Anyway, I come up on a grove of hick'ries that was just sheddin' their nuts. Now, a hick'ry nut is the hardest nut to break, but it's got the best-tastin' meat of all nuts inside. I wanted a bunch of them nuts, but I didn't have no way to pack 'em off. I shoved my shirt inside my britches an' tied up my britches legs to my ankles, an' I commenced to puttin' them hick'ry nuts inside my shirt an' britches. I rattled a mite when I walked an' I'd a had trouble settin' down, but I didn't have far to go to my camp.

"Trouble was, 'fore I got to my camp I was spotted by three Injuns. Young bucks, they was. None of 'em had a gun, but all of 'em had bows an' a quiver fulla arrers. Now, I coulda kilt one of 'em, but the other two'd be on top a me 'fore I could reload. Still, they knew I was dangerous to at least one of 'em, so they stood off an' commenced to shootin' them arrers at me. They was hittin' me, too — but all them hick'ry nuts inside my shirt an' britches stopped the arrers 'fore they got to my hide.

"Well, them bucks, they musta figgered I was some kinda medicine man or something, 'cause here I was with 'bout two dozen arrers lookin' like they was stickin' in my hide, but they wasn't seein' any blood an' I was still on my feet. They turned tail. I got back to my camp, pulled them arrers outa my clothes, an' spilled them hick'ry nuts onto the ground. Luke, I had the damndest piece a luck a feller ever had. Ever' one a them arrers split three, four hick'ry nuts for me. I eat hick'ry nuts for supper that night. Right good supper it was, too."

He was grinning when he told the story and so was Creed, so I reckoned Creed had heard the story before and knew how it ended. I didn't, but when it got to the end I knew it had to be a windy. I laughed and so did Creed and Bigfoot. Then Bigfoot got serious. "Creed, John Glanton was in San Antone about a month back," he said.

"Same thing?"

"Same thing. Li'l Meskin gal 'bout eight years old come up missin'."

"Luke," Creed said, "that John Glanton is the worst sorta feller there is. He's big an' he's mean an' folks don't want to tangle with him. Ever' time he comes to a town a li'l gal disappears. He carries her off. Nobody never finds the carcass. He always carries off a Meskin or an Injun, never a white gal an' never a slave. I reckon he knows if he carries off a white gal there'll be a posse after him. Same with a slave, 'cause they're worth money. Meskin gal, ain't likely to be a posse. Injun gal, neither."

"Somebody needs to stop him," I said.

"He's real good at coverin' his tracks. He goes in the night an' packs the gal off with him. After he's done with her he kills her an' hides the carcass."

"Why don't the Injuns go after him?" I asked.

"Town Injuns is mission Injuns. They ain't real Injuns no more. They can't track like their granpappies did." He turned to Wallace. "Bigfoot, we gotta kill that feller. I know he won't come to San Antone if I'm there, but next time he's in San Antone get word to me, quiet like. I'll sneak in, join up with you, an' we'll put John Glanton where he b'longs."

"I'd like to see John Glanton swing from a hick'ry limb," Bigfoot said.

"You know that can't happen. Law can't touch him 'cause nobody's seen him carry a gal off an' nobody's found a body. We jus' know what he's doin'. Glanton's a job for buckshot or a ball, not a hemp necktie."

"He'll be a hard man to take down," Bigfoot said.

"He'd be a hard man for me to take down," Creed agreed. "He'd be a hard man for you to take down. But if he's facin' Creed Taylor an' Bigfoot Wallace, he ain't gonna be that hard. He can't get both of us at once. Even if he gets one of us, t'other'n will get him."

The next morning we lined out due south, a direction we hadn't taken before. "We gonna make a loop," Bigfoot said. "Gonna come up on his camp from the south. He'll be comin' in from the east. He'll cross our trail, but when he sees we're headed south he won't figger we're after him. We'll get to his camp a couple of hours before dark. He'll likely come in just about sundown. We'll back off, no fires. Wait for sunup. We'll move around to the east, where they'll have the sun in their eyes. They'll drink a lot tonight. Then, maybe half past sunup, they'll come out. That's when we'll take 'em."

"Vidal always wears one a them great big Meskin hats. It's got the back brim curled up like a scorpion's tail. He's the only one as wears one," Creed said. "He's mine. There's a short, sorta stocky feller that wears two Navy sixes. He's good with 'em, an' he ain't scared of nothing. You take him, Bigfoot. Then there's a tall, skinny younker. He's maybeso twenty. He's damn' good with a rifle. He's yours, Luke. The fourth feller, he ain't no danger. He's just a mozo they keep around to do the camp work. I don't reckon he's even got a gun. Keep an eye on him an' if he goes for a gun, shoot him." That was the longest time I'd ever heard the man talk, except when he was telling me about tracking.

Sure enough, about two hours before sundown Bigfoot said "It's in a draw just about a half mile to the north. We'll stake our horses, go up afoot, stop at the edge of the draw, an' yawl can get a look at the lay of the place. Then, after they come in, we'll have another look. Then we go back, make cold camp. We'll move around to the east about half an hour 'fore daybreak, get ourselves in position. Let all four of 'em get outa that cabin. Creed, you take the first shot when you figure it's right. We'll shoot right after you do."

Sure enough, just about sundown we heard horses — lots of horses. Creed counted twenty-nine. There were three fellers driving 'em, while a feller on a mule led a pack mule to the rear. I spotted Vidal right off, on account of his hat. He was riding a big, coal-black stud. Didn't have a trace of white on the horse except right back of the stirrups. Vidal wore big Meskin spurs and he was heavy on 'em. Hate to see a horse marked like that.

They choused the cavvy into the pen while the feller that rode the mule commenced to build a fire. Wasn't long before they had some meat — looked might near like a deer haunch — hanging over the fire. It sure did smell good. I hadn't had roast meat since I left home.

We made cold camp that night, being as we were to the south of Vidal's hidey-hole and the wind was out of the south. Long about an hour or so before daybreak Creed shook me awake. "Prime the nipples on your rifle an' your sixes, Luke," he said. "We got to make sure every shot counts." I pulled the caps off the nipples and used my priming horn to run some fine powder into each one. Then I capped up with new caps. We moved out, being plumb quiet.

We took up a hide about fifty yards to the east of Vidal's cabin, in some brush. Then we waited. Sure enough, right after the sun came up — to our backs — Vidal himself came out, wearing that big hat. In a minute or so the other two that had guns came out, and the fourth feller commenced to stir up the fire to fix them some breakfast. I picked my target — the tall, skinny, younger feller. He looked to be about twenty, maybe a little more. He was wearing a Dragoon six, but he had a short rifle with him. Vidal was wearing a pair of Navy sixes with white handles. The short, stocky feller had a pair of Navies as well, but they had wood handles.

I heard Creed's rifle go and then Bigfoot and me, we shot might near together. I saw his man go down but I didn't see mine because Bigfoot's smoke blew in front of me. I knew I hit my target, though — I just didn't know if I'd killed him with the first shot.

Once the smoke blew away we could see the three dangerous ones on the ground, and they weren't moving. The other one was high-tailing up the draw. We laid low for a bit, to see if one of 'em moved, but none did. Then Creed and Bigfoot laid their rifles down and pulled their shooters, so I did the same. We moved out of our hide and come up on them cautious-like, just in case one of 'em was possumin'.

They weren't. Creed's big rifle took Vidal under his right arm and come out under his left. I'd hit mine in front, but just about where his galluses crossed. Bigfoot's had a hole square betwixt his eyes.

Creed walked up to Vidal's carcass and rolled it on its side. Then he pulled out that old five-shooter and shot the carcass right in the side of the head from about two foot off. I didn't know why he did that right then. Then he did something that might near made me lose what little I'd had for supper last night. He pulled out his Bowie and he cut Vidal's head plumb off.

"How come you done that?" Bigfoot said.

"Gonna post a warnin'," Creed said. He told me and Bigfoot to catch up Vidal's black stud. He took Vidal's reata and commenced to hobblin' that animal mighty close with pieces of it. Then he went into the shack and brought out Vidal's fancy saddle. He saddled the animal, but he didn't put a bridle on it. He went over and cut a real sturdy branch that made a Y. He rolled Vidal's carcass onto its belly and, using more pieces of that rawhide rope, tied the carcass to the stick. Then he cut another stick and stuck it through the hole he'd shot in Vidal's head.

Then the three of us, we lifted that carcass up and put it in the saddle. I'm mighty glad Creed close-hobbled that stud, because it might near managed to buck, even close-hobbled. Using more pieces of Vidal's reata, he tied the carcass in the saddle. Then he tied the stirrups together under the animal's belly. Finally he got Vidal's big hat, put it on that head and tied it down tight, then tied a whang-string to each end of the stick through Vidal's head, and hung the head from the big horn on the saddle. He said "Get back," and we did. Then he cut the hobbles.

I've seen horses pitch before, but never like that — never in my life like that! That stud wanted no part of what was on its back! It must have pitched for better than a quarter of an hour. Then it lit out at a dead run, into the brush. "Bigfoot," Creed said, "I'd appreciate it if word of this got around. Liable to discourage horse-thievin' hereabouts."

We drove those twenty-nine horses back to San Antone and Creed met up with some of his kin there. They cut out his animals and started back to DeWitt County with them. Most of the others the sheriff took, to see if he could match the brands. Bigfoot Wallace rode with me to the horse camp — Uncle Ed and them, they'd brought in a big cavvy, about thirty mares — and we all started home. That's the story. Like I say, there's them that swears the headless horseman of the Nueces is just a story, but it ain't. I was there when it started. Me. Luke Brill. Fifteen years old, riding with Creed Taylor and Bigfoot Wallace.