The Lay of the Land
By Lyn Messersmith
Moving On
Texas, May 19, 1836.
Cynthia Ann Parker, age 9, was busy inside the fort on that morning. Likely her mother had her about some chore, or perhaps she played games with a cousin. Her father and the other men were working nearby when a Comanche group approached, waving a white flag and asking for food. When supplies were brought out, they attacked. Cynthia Ann and several relatives were taken captive and later split up. Cynthia Ann was not mistreated, instead, she grew up as a member of the tribe, married a young warrior, Peta Nocona, and had three children, Quanah, Pecos, and Topsannah. The other Parker captives were eventually ransomed and returned. Cynthia had opportunities to be rescued, but refused.
In 1860, Sul Ross and his soldiers attacked a band of Comanches and captured a woman with blue eyes who had concealed a baby girl in her robes while trying to escape. Col. Isaac Parker identified her as Cynthia Ann. Her relatives did their best to turn her into a white woman but she pined for “her people.” When, after several escape attempts, both she and her daughter died, her family of origin could only have been relieved, for they knew not what to make of her.
Meanwhile, Peta Nocona and Quanah hunted high and low for Cynthia Ann. Upon learning of her death, Quanah had his mother and sister re-buried at Ft. Sill. He became a leader of his people, and was a good friend of many ranchers, especially Charles Goodnight.
In later years, Quanah often traveled across Oklahoma and Texas, trading with other tribes and visiting ranches. One day, Charles Goodnight encountered Quanah wandering confused, on the streets of town and asked what the trouble was.
“Lost,” was the reply. “I couldn’t find my way home.”
“But why?” Goodnight asked. “You know this country by heart, how could you get lost?”
Quanah’s answer was brief. “Barbed wire.”
I’ve cussed a lot of barbed wire in my day, mostly because it broke and cattle escaped. I’m thankful not to have had to go out with the wagon to brand, as Goodnight did, to round up miles and miles of country and then sort Longhorns out from the herds of other ranches. Still, there were plenty of folks who resisted fencing laws and some went to jail over the deal.
I began checking water and Hereford cattle for my dad at age 8, riding a six section pasture. We’ve divided that pasture several times since, but when I go out checking our Red Angus cattle now I can get as lost as Quanah, even though I helped build the fences.
If you want a clear picture of how the country has changed read Cadillac Desert, which is a history of how all the dams in America came about. Many of our major rivers no longer run in their original channels, and whole towns have been relocated. It’s got to be sad for people who grew up near those rivers, knowing they can’t go home again. But I can’t really go home again either. The villages where my family bought supplies after a two day wagon trip are nearly deserted now, and we use our powerful automobiles to go shopping in bigger towns.
My dad viewed indoor plumbing, phones, and electricity as extravagant but he never chastised our neighbors for their wind chargers and piped in water. When REA came down our valley he believed one bare bulb in each room was sufficient, and always said he didn’t understand why people wanted to do indoors what belonged in an outhouse.
Early Sandhills settlers tried to farm and found out this country prefers to remain grass side-up. We went along fine then, with grazing until center pivot irrigation, and some of us think we’d be a lot finer if that was never invented.
Nowadays, on my spouse’s Sheridan County place, we’re neighbors to a feed lot, and only a few ranges of hills off the flats where farming is king. We get the stink on days with a west wind, and although we don’t use chemicals on our garden we can’t claim it’s organic because when the spray plane goes over on a summer day we get the drift. Those folks are just trying to make a living and we don’t have the right to tell them how it should happen.
In Cherry County there’s controversy over proposals for wind energy. The outcome will affect whole communities, but so do the center pivots, which are depleting the aquifer and leaching chemicals into the world’s best water, and so do the feedlots, where animals have to be medicated to survive in filthy conditions.
We don’t use four wheelers on the home ranch but most of our neighbors do. Those choices are made by individuals, for well thought out reasons, and there are trade-offs relating to finances, time, and personal values involved in each decision.
It’s often said there are only two things certain in life, death and taxes, but there’s another certainty—change.
Not so long ago, in the grand scheme of things, women, and people of color couldn’t vote. Before that, women and people of color couldn’t own property. Blacks and Native Americans were not considered human. We could claim, and we’d be correct, that there’s still too much inequality around those issues, as well as all of the ones mentioned above. Or we could celebrate how far we have come and put our energy to becoming a bridge over troubled waters.
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