Essays

Moseying: History of the Southern Llano Estacado

Jim Downs' walk across the Llano Estacado
November 23, 2005

On November 15th the cold north wind howled, as you may remember. The sky was “a tad” pinkish from dust. 30-40 mile an hour winds and temperatures in the 40’s made it doubly miserable. I had awoken with a stomach bug and was feeling terrible. By 9 a.m., I finally felt ambulatory, so I dragged on in to the Sibley Nature Center, counting my blessings for not having to return to the Midland County Courthouse for jury duty. (I had been sent home on the 14th and told to call on the evening of the 15th.)

The building was cold, so I cranked up the heater, checked the email, and dealt with a request from the finance committee of the Sibley board of directors. My nausea returned, so after taking more medication I moved to the sofa in the area of the entry room that is becoming a gift shop – where we have our t-shirts and ball caps for sale, and plan to have west Texas books for public purchase. (We are in the middle of re-inventing how the Center is arranged and how it is used.)

While waiting for the medication to quell the nausea I picked up the 1991 Texas Tech Press edition of Don Bigger’s “Buffalo Guns and Barbed Wire.” As I warmed up and the medication eased my discomfort I closed my eyes. I slept, but not for long, for I was awakened by a dream about Jim Downs (about whom I just had been reading.) It was not the first time I had read Bigger’s account of Downs’ struggle for survival in the fall of 1877 – I had first read another version of the story in some reprints of 1920’s Frontier Times magazines purchased at the Cactus Book Store in San Angelo.

Jim Downs was sitting under a hackberry in the draw of the upper North Concho, about five miles above the headspring. (He was north of present day Sterling City.) Days before, he had torn up his pants and then his shirt to wrap his feet to protect them. His boots had already been mostly worn out before he had joined the drive as camp cook in Runnels County. After a day’s walking the one boot he could wear had fallen apart. His body was badly sunburned, with blisters popped and raw. Half out of his mind from the physical agony, he was staring at his gun in his hand, and thinking of ending his misery.

Over a week before the cattle drive he’d hired on with had been revealed to be a stolen herd just east of Fort Stockton. He’d driven the chuckwagon away, knowing he would be considered a thief as well, but the lawmen gave chase. When he rounded 7-mile Mesa he had leapt unnoticed from the wagon and hid himself in the rocks, but had badly sprained his ankle in doing so. The lawmen rode by, chasing the wagon pulled by runaway mules for another mile or two as the sun set.

In the morning, using a sotol stalk for a crutch, he’d hobbled east-northeast, heading for the Pecos River along the row of mesas west of present day Girvin. The second morning he’d almost walked into an Apache Indian camp of a half dozen young men roaming around looking for glory and booty. He’d slowly eased away, and later he’d seen the dust from their horses towards Horsehead Crossing.

As he limped along he kept chunking rocks at rabbits. He only had six bullets for his gun.He’d decided shooting it would bring curious Indians to investigate the sound. By the time he’d reached the Pecos River he’d finally killed two, and in an old oxbow of the river under a big old mesquite he’d cooked and eaten his first meal of the trip. Being unfamiliar with the region, he did not realize he could have walked 20 miles down the Pecos to Camp Melvin at Pontoon Crossing (just north of present day Iraan.)

Instead, he swam the Pecos, and headed for Castle Gap, hoping he would run into travelers on the old Emigrant Road. Being late in the fall, however, no one was on the road, at least during the next two days. Good fall rains had fallen on the plains along High Lonesome Draw, so he kept finding enough water to drink. He kept killing rabbits with rocks for food. (And he was not seeing any other game at all – no buffalo, no pronghorn… just jackrabbits.)

After finding more evidence of Indians recently visiting the trail, and having a full moon, he’d decided to walk at night, when he could not sleep. That turned out to be a mistake, for he left the drainage of the Middle Concho and the Emigrant Road and began heading northeast. By the seventh day he crossed Lacey Draw (near present day Garden City), but did not realize it was the western arm of the North Concho. Another day and half a night had brought him to the situation mentioned above.

Jim Downs closed his eyes and raised his pistol to his head. He couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger, not quite yet, so he lowered the gun, and opened his eyes. Fifty yards away was a Mexican on a burro. (Or so goes the tale, but it was first written in 1903, when stereotypes overruled truth in oral stories.) The fellow was headed for a buffalo hunting camp to the northwest (probably at Mustang Springs.) I figure he was actually riding a good horse – buffalo hunters were usually well mounted. Downs decided that he would kill him and take his mount and provisions.

When Downs hollered, the fellow rode up. Biggers does not say so, but I figure he rode up with a rifle generally pointed in Downs’ direction. What Biggers does say is that the fellow spoke excellent English, divided his provisions with Downs, gave him a blanket and a big hunk of buffalo meat. He also told Downs that the closest buffalo hunting camp was at the mouth of Silver Creek where it meets the Colorado River (about 20 miles west of Robert Lee, just north of the bend of the Colorado.) A day and a half afterwards Downs found the camp.

Biggers met Downs in Fisher County (near Rotan) in 1900, while Biggers was traveling the countryside for the U.S. Census. Biggers does not show any doubt of the veracity of the story, calling Downs a “perfectly reliable and unassuming man.” It makes for a good story, that is for sure, but I have my doubts… I like the idea, however; It portrays a not-too-smart person floundering along and by the grace of God surviving.

(A great niece of Jim Downs called after the publication of the story, and said she had heard the story many times from her mother.)