I apologize to the readers if I confuse you in calling Granny Pearl Davenport my grandma. In fact she was my maternal Great Grandmother and her husband Rollie was my Great Grandfather. Granny Pearl came to live with us when I was a small boy and helped to raise me almost as much as my own mother did thus I refer to her often as just granny. Pearl and Rollie Davenport lived in an unusual time in this country. They grew up and married and began raising their only daughter Helen during the turn of the last century. Grandpa Rollie was born in 1885 and when he was a young boy he stood at the rail station at Sabinal and watched a train pull into the station. On a flat car on that train sat the old Apache war Chief Geronimo. Guarded by several cavalry troopers, He was allowed to get off the train and sit under the shade of a tree and eat a bite. They rested a bit and then boarded the train once again and were off. Not too much unlike our own generation grandpa was living in an age of transition. His own parents and grandparents had been the pioneers that had fought and won their place in the country against, Indian warriors such as the Apache and Comanche. Mexican bandits and bad hombres of every stripe had traipsed through Uvalde and San Saba counties raiding and murdering as they went. You had to be tough and you had to be determined if you were going to survive. That generation was independent asking nothing but the chance to stake a claim in the land and make the land yield for them a hard won living. They were honest and loyal, charitable if given a chance , industrious and resourceful. Most of them were God fearing folk with Christian values, but they were fierce and determined warriors if attacked or threatened.
Grandpa Rollie’s generation was watching the world change before their eyes. Trains and automobiles were becoming commonplace and airplanes were making their debut. Electricity was changing the way folks lived and worked and America was finding her place in the world as a world power. In the little railroad town of Sabinal though things were changing at a much slower pace and still the old ways were common. In those early days of the new century Grandpa was barely more than a teenage boy, but he had learned to sit a horse nearly before he could walk. He grew up learning how to break mustangs and mules and he knew all the canyons and trails of Sabinal Canyon. He loved to hunt with his father John Davenport and his six brothers. they hunted deer, wild boars, and panthers, even bear. In those days black bear was still plentiful in the canyons. “Varmint” (Raccoon and ringtail) hunting was a favorite hunt. They hunted by lantern at night with a pack of hounds. Rollie loved his dogs and trained and bred them especially for hunting, but by far Rollie’s first love was horses.
Sabinal Canyon and the surrounding counties in those days was still for the most part open range. Wild mustangs were plentiful in those days and the Davenport boys were pretty adept at capturing them and breaking them to be used on the ranch or to sell what they couldn’t use. The method for capturing the mustangs was a pretty simple plan. The boys would go out ahead of the herds and find a good canyon or “draw” as they would call it and build a “brush pen.” They would build the pen out of cedar staves and prairie brush. The pen would be built sort of like a funnel, wide in the opening so as not to spook the mustangs as they entered but narrow enough in the trap so as to be able to throw up a rope gate once the animals were cornered in the canyon. Grandpa Rollie told a story once to my father about a time when they were out capturing mustangs in this manner. The plan depended on teamwork from the boys and it all had to be done at a full gallop staying up with the mustang herd as they would try to outrun the cowboys and find a way to break loose and dodge them. Rollie had been designated point rider that day. His job was to get out ahead of the herd and turn them just at the right time to send them into the canyon and into the trap. We are not talking about wide-open level prairie like you see in the movies. Sabinal canyon is a rough, rocky treacherous landscape and running full out with mustangs in this territory was a dangerous undertaking. Rollie had to run his saddle pony full out hard trying to skirt around the lead of the herd and turn them into the canyon , when suddenly he felt his horse shutter and then in midstride that pony doubled his head down and flipped head over heals ,both horse and rider flipping and tumbling for about 25 feet. Rollie said the horse died in mid air stone cold dead. On the tumble Rollie hit his head on some rocks and was knocked out cold by the time the train wreck finally come to rest. He said he didn’t know for sure how long he had been out but when he come to he had a pretty good headache and what’s worse the rocks had scratched and torn up his saddle pretty bad. He said that’s what worried him the most, though he was fond of that saddle horse and was sorry to loose such a good animal. He figured maybe the animal had a heart attack or something. He got his saddle and tack through it over his shoulder and started walking. The brothers didn’t break stride but kept right on those mustangs , not stopping to check and see if Rollie was dead or alive. Well that was not so unusual for the Davenport bunch. This was not the first time that mustangs came between concern for a brother or concern for the horse. Yep, but that’s another story. It will have to keep.
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