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THE SPIRIT THAT WALKED TOWARD HORNSBY’S BEND by Charlie Oden  There are a number of accounts of this story. All agree with the overall story and differ in some of the details. And this story is a part of me. The 1920s came and went before air conditioning. The month of August each year was so hot that our family would sit in the yard at night seeking some relief from the heat. Usually about nine p.m., a cooling breeze would stir, and we could go to bed. Sitting outside was a time for telling stories. Dad, who was born in 1881, and Mom, who was born in 1884, would tell exciting tales, like Uncle Billy shooting his old gray mule, or about where Sam Bass and his gang hid their loot. Another favorite yarn was this Wilbarger story. It is a spooky story. It took place no more than thirty miles from our house, and I closely identified with it. It is an entertaining tale that has attracted writers for over 175 years, including J. Frank Dobie. I have searched a number of these versions to find additional information to add to the story that Dad and Mom told. Now, on to our story. The event happened in Stephen F. Austin’s second colony of about 900 families. The action was at Pecan Springs and at Hornsby’s Bend. Pecan Springs is located in Austin between East 51st Street and Rogge Lane, and is almost on Springdale Road. That would be about two good whoops and a holler east of Austin’s Robert Mueller Municipal Airport. About three miles or so southeast of there on Highway 969 (Webberville Road), there is a pullover on the highway. This is the location of the Rueben Hornsby property. Visible from the pullover is a padlocked gate to the burying ground of the Rueben Hornsby family; part of this land the Hornsby family lived on. 161 Josiah Pugh Wilbarger and his wife moved to Texas from Missouri in 1827. Well educated for his time, he taught school at Matagorda and LaGrange. He settled in a bend of the Colorado River about ten miles above Bastrop. At the time Texas was a part of Mexico, and Mexican law governed the colonists. In 1832, the Mexican government granted him a headright,1 4,428 acres of Texas terra firma.2 Naturally, there was a demand for his surveying services. In August of 1833, Wilbarger was returning home with a surveying party. That morning, they had seen a lone Indian and had chased him, but he had gotten away. They stopped for their noon meal at Pecan Springs. With Wilbarger were men named Strother and Christian, colonists prospecting for headrights, as well as Haynie and Standifer, two men down from Missouri, to see about moving to Texas, the current land of opportunity. A party of Indians had been watching them for several days. One of the things Indians had learned about the White Eyes was that, when surveyors were working, there soon would be White 162 Superstitions, Strange Stories, and Voices from the “Other Side” A map showing the general location of Hornsby’s Bend settlers who would take even more of their land, land the Indians depended on to support their families. Their land gave them wild game for their meat, their clothing, shelter, tools, and utensils. From the land they got pecans, berries, wild plums, greens, onions, honey (from bee trees), and herbs for medicines. Their reasoning was simple: the more surveyors you kill, the longer it will be before your source of support, the land, will be taken from you, forcing you to go elsewhere to find a living. Make sense? To them it did. And this particular party planned and executed a successful attack against these encroachers of European stock. When Josiah and party stopped, Christian, Strother, and Wilbarger unsaddled their horses and hobbled them so that the horses might more easily rest and graze during the stop. Haynie and Standifer, the men from Missouri, loosened the cinches on the saddles on their horses and staked them close at hand in grass and near water. The Indians attacked when the White men were settled into their meal. At the first shot, the men leaped for cover behind trees and began returning fire. The attackers mortally wounded Strother almost immediately. One shot broke Christian’s thigh; another smashed his powder horn. An arrow went through the calf of one of Wilbarger...

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