Bac-ke-ca-cho and His Fight

This little painting, the second of the series of small paintings, is based on a photograph I made of a beautiful Gulf Fritillary butterfly in the courtyard of the St. Francisville Inn in Louisiana last October when I was there on a paint-out with my friends in the Geriatric Art Society, commonly known as the GAS boys. I was reading at that time a book titled The Captured written by a man named Scott Zesch. It is perhaps one of the best books that I have read about the Comanche Iindians that lived on the southern high plains of the central part of the United States. Since these Iindians had a high mortality rate, due to their war culture, and a low birth rate, they were very interested in capturing children to become members of their tribe. They got these children from raiding the other Indian tribes, from Mexico and from the immigrants settling into Texas. One of the stories in the book touches briefly on a ten year boy, named Clinton Smith, who was captured along with his younger brother, Jeff , by the Comanche Indians in February, 1871, when they were herding sheep on their family ranch just north of San Antonio, Texas.

They would both live to return to their families and later in their lives they wrote the story of what happened to them during their captivity. That story caught my attention because a number of years ago, my wife and I were on the way to visit the Circle E Ranch on the East Prong of the Nueces River in the hill country of Texas. There is an old country store, well known in those parts, in the middle of nowhere, at the intersection of Texas Highway 41 and U. S. Highway 83. The store is called Garvin’s Store. We stopped there that day on the way to the Circle E, to buy a cold drink. On the counter, near the cash register in the store, were some paper-back books titled The Boy Captives written by Clinton L. Smith. I picked up one of the books, for it was right down my alley of interest, and the lady behind the counter said it was written by one of their relatives. Inside the front cover, was an autograph by Allen Smith, the grandson of the man that wrote the book.

In the book Clinton writes that after returning to his family from being captured by the Indians, he eventually lived on a ranch near Hackberry, Texas. Now not many people in this world would know where Hackberry is since the only thing there now is a very small cemetery near the intersection of a gravel county road and the Farm to Market road 335. But I know where it is since it is only about a mile up the road from the Circle E Ranch where we were going.

This story starts after Clinton and Jeff had been captured and had arrived at the main Comanche village somewhere up on the high plains of the Texas Panhandle. Soon after their arrival, one morning, the chief came to the tepee where they were staying. Clinton was then fixed up with war paint on his face and beads were put around his neck. He knew something was going to happen, but he didn’t know what since he couldn’t speak their language.

The chief took Clinton to where there was a large group of Indian men and women sitting around a circle marked on the ground. They were all dressed up for whatever was going to happen. Clinton thought that he was going to be killed in some sort of ceremony. The chief put him in the center of the circle.

Some Indian women came with an Indian boy about his size and age and they put him in the ring with Clinton. The Indian boy ran up to Clinton and knocked him down. Clinton got up and the boy knocked him down again. Clinton didn’t fight back because he had been beaten so much every time he resisted after being captured. So the boy knocked him down again and got on top of him and started beating him with his fists. The chief stopped the fight and took Clinton back to his tepee.

The chief who could speak Spanish discovered that Clinton could also speak a little Spanish. The chief told Clinton his name was Tosacowadi which means Spotted Leopard in English. The chief told Clinton he wanted him to whip that Indian boy so he could win a lot of horses betting on him. So after a few days, a rematch fight was set up. The chief, like all the other Indians in the tribe was a compulsive gambler. There was a lot of interest in the village in the rematch and a lot of betting was going on.

So on the morning of the big rematch fight, the chief with a pistol in one hand and a tomahawk in the other, took Clinton to the fight circle. Lots of Indian men and women, all painted up and dressed in their finest, were there making bets.

Clinton and the Indian boy were put in the circle and they went at each other. The Indian boy began to get the best of Clinton and soon knocked him down. When the Indian boy was getting on top of Clinton to finish him off, Clinton put his arms around him and sunk his teeth into his flesh. The Indian boy began to beat his head to dislodge him, but Clinton’s teeth just when deeper. The Indian boy began to howl and scream. The Indian women, that brought him to the fight, started to run into the ring to separate them, but the chief pointed his pistol at them and kept them at bay. All the other Indian spectators began to shout and were shooting their guns into the air. It was pandemonium while Clinton, like a pit bulldog, was latched onto the howling Indian boy. The Indian boy was now bleeding profusely and there was blood all over both of them. Clinton was declared the winner, but he still would not release his death grip. Several of the Indian men had to choke him until he was nearly unconscious before he would release his grip.

After the fight, on the way back to their tepee, the chief, leading all the horses that he had won betting on Clinton, kept patting Clinton on the back and saying, over and over “ Muy Bueno, Bravo!!!”

At the tepee, the chief told Clinton that he wanted to adopt him. So the chief bought him for four horses and named him Bac-ke-ca-cho (end of a rope). From then on, he became a favorite son of the chief and had a special status in the tribe.