It was springtime in Texas. It had snowed two days before and it would be 90° two days from now, and nobody would be surprised. It was springtime in Texas.

Reverend Joshua Tabor had just finished cleaning his buffalo rifle. It had stood unattended in the corner for the past two days while the Reverend slept. For five days he had hunted and helped clean the six animals that would be the primary source of food for the little settlement of Kitchen, located just west of Big Spring. At 73, he didn't recuperate as quickly as he had when he first hunted with the Comanche 20 years ago. It was a blessing to still have buffalo migrating across the prairie, but their numbers were getting fewer and fewer, just like the Comanche.

He was rested now. With Virginia gone these past five years, he knew he would have to clean up his hunting clothes himself.

He heard the horse ride up and stop and heard the foot­steps on the porch. He knew that sound usually foretold of sick­ness, or the blessing of birth, or the death of a friend. These steps sounded urgent and frightened. He looked out the window. It was young Tom Walters, Millie Walters' boy. He opened the door.

"You gotta come quick, Reverend. We got a heap of trouble and Mama knows you're the only one that can help us."

He didn't ask questions. "Let me get my hat." He took the black felt off the hat rack. It was hanging next to the smelly hunting hat that had not been cleaned. He followed Tom to the buck­board and Tom, without saying a word, flicked the roan across the rump and off they went. They dismounted in front of the Walters' place as fast as they had mounted back at the Reverend's.

Millie met them at the door. "Oh Reverend, did Tom tell you anything on the way over?"

"Nothing," he said.

"Come on in Reverend. I just don't know what to do," said Millie, leading Joshua into the parlor. She motioned for him to sit in the overstuffed chair near the fireplace.

Joshua took off his hat as he sat. "Now tell me, Millie, what is so bad?"

"They've got Travis in jail up in Bastrop and they're going to hang him."

"What?" asked Joshua. "Travis?"

"I know it seems impossible but it's true," she said, "Jesse was there with him. He's in the back room right now trying to get some sleep.He's been in the saddle almost three days getting back here to tell us what happened."

Millie, through tears, proceeded to tell Joshua the following story: Travis decided to go into the west part of Texas to see what might be left in way of homestead land and in the possibility of opening a mercantile store, like the one his family owned now. He and Nancy Braun had announced their banns in church the previous Sunday and Texas still was giving 640-acre homesteads to married families. Indians were still a problem in the north, and some thought the land was not much good for anything but range. But Travis had heard that some of the area to the west was fertile and tillable. The only way to know for sure was to go and see. Jesse, Travis' brother, who was a year younger, went with him. After traveling three days to the west, they came across a camp of four men. The men invited them to join them since they were going in the same direction. Jesse said he and Travis decided it would be wise, since they were getting farther into the unknown and a larger group would be safer.

The band of men had just broken camp the following morning and were no more than a mile along the trail when Jesse realized he had left his horse blanket back at the camp. He told Travis that he was going to retrieve the blanket and he would catch up. He had almost made the round trip when he heard gunshots. He spurred his horse forward but pulled up short when he saw what was happening in the clearing ahead. One man was lying on the ground. The other four men, including Travis, sat on their horses with their hands high in the air. A group of men were coming out from the trees with their rifles pointed at the mounted men. Two of the men were wearing badges.

The man on the ground was dead. They put his body across his horse. The sheriff and his men had disarmed Travis and the others and were now leading them off to the north. The captured men had their hands tied behind their backs. Jesse was pretty sure that if he showed himself at this time he would also be arrested as one of the gang, so he followed the group closely but quietly. They went into the small settlement of Giddings, Texas. Jesse was able to talk to one of the deputies later in the evening.

"What's going on?" he asked. "Who are these guys?"

"This is the bunch that killed the Kelly family, and maybe the Robinsons too, but the Kellys for sure," answered the deputy.

"When did the killin's happen?"

The deputy thought for a minute. "It happened a week ago Sunday. I remember cause the girl said they had just got home from church when these guys showed up."

"What girl?" asked Jesse.

"Yeah. They didn't know about the girl. She was out gathering eggs when they came. She saw it all happen from the chicken coop. It must have been terrible for her. But she'll at least be able to see that we caught 'em."

"She was able to identify all those men?"

"She didn't see the men all that well, but she identified those two pintos in the bunch and she saw that two of the men were wearing army boots and spurs. This is the bunch all right. The army had told us to be on the lookout for several deserters a while back and we got a pretty good feeling these are them."

"Are you going to turn them over to the army?" Jesse asked hopefully.

"Heck no," said the deputy. "We got these guys for cold bloodied murder and we're going to take 'em down to Bastrop and hang 'em. Judge Barker is there right now holding court. With the girl's story and Sheriff Medgers telling how they resisted arrest, he'll hang 'em for sure."

Jesse knew it was true. Barker was known as the "Hanging Judge" and the men on the jury would waste no time to convict a group who killed an entire family without mercy. And Travis would never convince them that he was not one of the gang.

Jesse followed the posse and the prisoners into Bastrop the following morning. He knew he had to try to convince Sheriff J. D. Medgers of Travis' innocence. He waited until the afternoon when things had quieted down and went to the Sheriffs office. He told the deputy that he needed to see the Sheriff about the Kelly killings. Medgers came out of the back and said, "You want to talk to me?"

Jesse began hesitantly, "I was supposed to meet my brother, Travis, here in Bastrop." He told the Sheriff about coming to this part of Texas looking for land to homestead. He told him that Travis was in church down in Montgomery County announcing his engagement to Nancy Braun on the day that the killings took place, and he could get proof if he were just given enough time.

The Sheriff looked at Jesse suspiciously. "You sure you ain't part of this gang?" asked the Sheriff. "How did you hear about this so soon? You say that guy Walters is your brother?" He paused. "Son, if I was you, I'd get out of this town, cause if the people here think you might be one of them, I probably couldn't protect you. They'd take the law into their own hands. The Kellys were awfully well liked around here."

Jesse saw that he would be of little help to Travis if he were in jail too. "Can I talk to Travis?" Jesse asked.

"Yeah," said the Sheriff, "but I wouldn't take a long time doing it. People might start gettin' jittery." He led Jesse back to the cell block and let him in to the area where the cells were.

Travis was in a cell with one of the other prisoners but sprang to his feet the moment he saw Jesse come in. "My God, Jesse, what are you doing here? Have you been arrested?"

"I'm O.K., Travis." They clasped each others shoulders as well as they could through the cell bars. "What are we going to do?"

'You've got to get back home and bring some proof that I was there when these killings took place. They don't believe me and they are not going to believe you."

"How much time do we have?" asked Jesse anxiously.

"Not enough, I'm afraid," said Travis. "Today is Tuesday, right? We are going on trial tomorrow. It's not going to last long with that girl's testimony." He hesitated, afraid of what he knew was likely to happen. "Hangings always happen on Saturdays, they say. Eleven o'clock in the morning on Saturdays."

They knew there was not enough time. Jesse's eyes dropped, welling with tears.

"So there is no time to lose," said Travis. "You must try." "I have my rifle," said Jesse.

"Yeah, that would be great news for Mom, wouldn't it? Her two sons shot trying to escape from jail after killing a family in cold blood? No, you have to go home and explain everything. The truth may be late but it will be the truth."

Jesse knew it was true. And after a moment, "I'll try," he said. He turned to go.

"Jesse," Travis said. "If you don't make it, no matter. I'll understand. But Jesse, tell everyone, especially Nancy and Mom, that I love them. You understand?"

Jesse nodded his head and left.

Now here in Montgomery County, it was Friday evening, the sun already setting. Josh knew any action would be better than sitting around moping and worrying. The imagination is unforgiving when one is expecting the worse.

"Millie, you let Jesse sleep for another hour. I got things to do. But don't give up hope, you hear? It's not over until tomorrow morning at eleven o'clock." Then he turned to Tom. "Take me home. I've got to write a letter." Tom drove back to Josh's as fast as before.

Getting down from the buggy, Josh said to Tom, "Go back home and saddle up the fastest, strongest horse you got, then when Jesse gets up, you send him over here and I'll have another horse for him from the livery stable. I'll go over and get one as soon as I write a letter to the Sheriff in Bastrop."

"We ain't going to make it, are we, reverend?"

"We got to do everything we can, Tom, but we are going to need a little help. Now go do what you gotta do."

"Yes sir." And he snapped the pony across the rump.

Joshua went inside, lit two of his kerosene lanterns and sat at his big roll-top desk. He wrote a letter to the Sheriff in Bastrop. He didn't know him personally, for he was only recently elected. But he knew of him and thought he would be a fair man who would recognize the truth when it was written by the hand of the Reverend Joshua Tabor of Montgomery County,  for it was the name of a circuit-riding minister who had been covering this country for the last fifteen years after Texas had become a nation in 1837. He put the letter into a large envelope. He sealed the envelope with green wax and pressed his signet ring into it, a capital J. T. and a cross. Then he wrote another "To Whom It May Concern" letter, asking the reader to please assist the bearer any way possible, as he was on a mission of life and death. He promised the thanks of a wealthy, grateful family and the blessing of a man of God. Once again he signed and used his signet seal. He did not put it in an envelope but left it open. Then he put both of the letters into a set of saddlebags.

He walked hurriedly over to Emmett Fletcher's house which was not too far away. Emmett owned the local livery stable but he was not at home. He was delivering a couple of mules to a customer and probably wouldn't be back until sometime tomorrow morning. His wife, Lefty, told Joshua to go on over to the livery stable and pick any horse and tack he might need, after Joshua had briefly explained the urgent need for another good, fresh horse. The livery stable was only a few hundred feet from the Fletcher's house and Josh went straight way.

He did not see the horse right away. Even when he reached the corral fence no animal had struck him as being anything special. But then the animal reared. A flash of white mane, snorting nostrils, and flaying hooves in the air seemed to be saying, "Here I am, over here."

Josh could hardly believe his eyes. The other horses moved aside as the massive white stallion moved toward Joshua.

He must be nineteen hands tall, Joshua thought. Whose is he? Who in this county would have such an animal? Joshua had seen some of the magnificent Andalusians that the Spanish had brought to Mexico but he knew he had never seen a white Arabian such as this one, because such animals one doesn't forget.

The horse moved, nervously prancing forward, then with­drawing, but always inevitably in the direction of Joshua.

He reared again and his magnificent flowing tail brushed the ground. Even in the dim light of the kerosene lamp, Joshua could see the horse was shod.

Would anybody be able to ride this animal even if you could get a saddle on him? He knew he had to try, for this was by far the finest, most capable and powerful horse within a hundred miles, maybe a thousand.

Josh went into the stable and picked the largest pommeled saddle he could find. He pulled a set of reins off the peg and went back out to the corral hoping to be able to put them on the skittish Arabian. It was too easy. The horse reared once, then quietly stood while Josh put the reins over his head and moved only slightly while the saddle was tightly cinched under his massive girth. Josh hesitantly climbed into the saddle, picked up the lamp from the fence and walked the horse slowly back toward his house. When he dismounted at his gate, the Arabian reared and then reverted to his near-wild behavior. Josh could hardly believe it was the same animal. He went in the house to retrieve the saddlebags and was on his way back outside when he saw Jesse riding toward him. The Arabian reared again as Jesse came near.

"Where in the world did you get him?" asked Jesse.

"At the livery," said Josh.

"Can you ride him?" asked Jesse as the Arabian reared again and almost hit Jesse's horse with his flaying hooves.

"You won't have any problem," said Josh, not really sure it was true. But Jesse had been riding before he could walk. If any­one could ride the Arabian, Jesse would be the logical choice.

"Have you got everything you need?" asked Josh.

"I sure hope so," said Jesse, "hardtack and water. I don't know what I would do with anything else."

"Jesse, I want you to start out on the stallion. He's saddled and I've put a couple of letters in that saddlebag there. Take the saddle off of your horse and lead him, but ride the Arabian. I don't think he would lead too well anyway. So ride him first."

"Okay, if you say so Joshua. I'll take care of him. I won't ride him too hard. Does he have a name?"

"I don't know for sure," said Joshua. "But I would guess, Michael," he thought to himself. The horse snorted. "How you feeling, Jesse? You gotta be tired."

"I'll be O.K.," said Jesse. "I can sleep in the saddle some of the time."

The Arabian reared impatiently, as if to point up the importance of speed.

Jesse unsaddled Buster his horse, threw his saddlebag across the rump of the Arabian. He took the reins from Joshua and swung himself into the saddle. The Arabian swirled and would have broken if Jesse had not reined him sharply. "He's a wild one," Jesse said. "What about my rifle?"

"You won't need it," said Josh. "Wait just a second, Jesse. There's something else I want to do, now that you say you can sleep in the saddle. We want to make sure you stay there." Joshua left and came back with two rawhide straps and commenced to strap Jesse's legs to the saddle and stirrups. "Hang on, Jesse. You've got a long way to go so take care of yourself and your horses. Get Travis out of there if he's still alive, and let them know what a fine man he was... if he isn't. God speed. My prayers go with you."

Jesse saluted as the Arabian reared and turned toward the road to Bastrop. He began running. He kept running... hard!

He won't keep that up very long, thought Joshua. But the horse was running just as hard when he disappeared from view.

Jesse had to adjust to the power underneath him. He had never felt this kind of motion in his extensive riding experience. He seemed to be surging forward all the time with no repeating "slap" from the saddle. It required little or no effort on his part. Comfortable! He actually felt comfortable. Jesse realized after two miles that the Arabian was running as hard as he was at the beginning. Poor Buster. Even with no saddle on his back, he was having a difficult time keeping up. After watching the struggling horse for another minute, Jesse decided to turn him loose and go on only with the Arabian.  He knew the Arabian would tire soon and he would walk him until he was sure he could gallop him again.

Buster pulled up immediately when Jesse dropped his reins. He would get his breath and graze for a while but he would eventually find his way home. The Arabian kept running.

Fatigue was overtaking Jesse again. The last landmark Jesse remembered seeing was the Moreland Range house, about 20 miles outside town. The Arabian was still running.

Jesse resigned himself to the unbelievable power beneath him and began to succumb to the hypnotizing effect of the horse's motion. He began dozing.  Ordinarily he would not be fearful of falling, but with his legs tied to the saddle, he knew that any sudden change of course by the animal, he could find himself dangling over the side with his head vulnerable to any tree, mound, or cactus. He leaned across the pommel of the saddle and coiled both hands tightly in the long white flying mane. He entangled his fingers  so that letting loose would be difficult. He slid easily into a fretful sleep. And the Arabian kept running.

Joshua had gone back to the Mollie Walters' home, for even if all the family were with her, it would be remiss of him not to be there at that fateful hour of 11 a.m., when her son Travis was to be hanged, in a distant town, surrounded by strangers, for a crime he did not commit.

It was upsetting when Buster came back to the barn, his reins dragging on the ground. Everyone was sure that Jesse had fallen asleep, or been thrown from the back of the unknown Arabian, and might at this moment be lying injured somewhere on the prairie between Montgomery County and Bastrop. Tom rode out in that direction to see if he could find Jesse somewhere along the way. He couldn't. Another worrisome thing. But Josh felt a strange exhilaration he could not explain and all he could say to Mollie was, "Have faith." He knew how weak that sounded.

At 6 a.m. the following morning, Mollie insisted on opening the store. She told no one about her problem, yet everyone seemed to know, probably through Letty at the livery stable. It was the kind of news that everyone would want to come and tell Mollie how badly they felt and see if there was anything they could do. It didn't make it any easier for Mollie or her sons. Though somber, they just kept working, knowing there was nothing they could do. But at ten o'clock, Mollie just couldn't take it any more and she went home.

Joshua figured that ordinarily, by this time, Jesse should be just on the other side of the Brazos River. The Arabian would not have had any trouble swimming the width of the Brazos but at this time of year the river would be running swift and the horse would be well downstream when he finally made it across and more time would be needed to make up for the lost ground. Then there would still be another hundred more miles, at least twodays before they reached Bastrop.

In Bastrop, things had gone just as predicted. Every one of the jailed men pleaded innocent and had some far-out story to relate about where they were and what they had been doing at the time of the killings. Travis' story, although true, sounded as ridiculous as the others. After all, the daughter had identified enough of them and they were all together when the Sheriff found them. Judge Barker did what was expected. He sentenced all of them to be hanged.

The local minister came by to see the prisoners, as duty called him to do, but he had little sympathy for any of them, as the Kellys had been close friends and he felt that justice was being done.

The center of Bastrop held a small square built by the Spanish, where now a mounted plaque had been dedicated to the men who had died in the Texas Revolution, and it was next to this plaque that they had built the long, four-man gallows. Wagons had been placed across the street coming into town to keep out all other wagon traffic and riders on horseback had to enter single file. Several hundred people had already gathered here this Saturday morning and more were filing into the street, though there was still an hour to go before the hanging. Vendors were hawking tamales, candied apples, and other foodstuffs to the gathering crowd. There was even a man on stilts announcing a musical variety show that would be held that evening, in a tent just outside of town. A four-man hanging, even in Texas, was an unusual happening.

The first signs of a commotion came in shouts from the south, then a couple of gunshots. All eyes turned in that direction just in time to see a charging, white Arabian stallion with a rider, jump the big Conestoga wagon that was blocking the middle of the street. People were diving to get out of his way. He was running as if he had just broken from the gate. People scattered, yet some were knocked asunder. The rider seemed to have no control as the big animal charged straight to the gallows where he reared and gave a whinny that sounded almost like a snarl. The crowd moved back. He would let no one near.

"Sheriff! You better come take a look at this," the deputy said as he came bursting through the door.

Sheriff Medgers had heard the gunshots and was coming from the cellblock, buckling on his gunbelt. He followed the deputy out the door and saw from the walk the unusual scene of the huge white horse standing in a circle of people. No one was attempting to get to the horse anymore and now the animal stood nervously but unthreateningly. The rider on his back was obviously tied to the saddle, his hands entwined in the horse's mane. He seemed unconscious.

The crowd parted as the Sheriff came down from the high wooden walkway and made his way slowly toward the Arabian. The horse snorted and moved in the direction of the Sheriff. The crowd moved out of his path in a hurry and the large animal pranced up to the Sheriff and stopped. Neither moved. The Sheriff held up his hand toward the horse and it nodded its head. The Sheriff grasped at the saddle and started to untie the rawhide straps that held the legs of the rider so securely.

"Charley, get that other side," said the Sheriff, and the deputy started untying the other leg.

"Saddlebags," said Jesse as he slid groggily out of the saddle into the arms of the sheriff and two other men who had come forward to help. "In the saddlebags."

"Take him into the office," said the Sheriff to the two men. The horse stood quietly but his huge eyes were following the men as they carried the limp Jesse toward the office. The Sheriff reached for the saddlebags and untied them from the saddle. As he pulled them down, the horse reared and whinnied, his forelegs flaying the air. The crowd screeched and moved back away from the animal again. He reared again and made a move back in the direction from which he had come. The crowd parted again to let him through, for he was charging as fast as ever, straight toward the Conestoga wagon. He cleared it effortlessly.

"Charley, get that horse. Don't let him get away," yelled the Sheriff. Charley ran toward the rear of the Sheriff's office where his horse was tied, but he knew there was no way anyone was ever going to catch that Arabian, the way he was running. And they never did.
 

Because of his fondness for the white man's firewater, few of his tribe paid any attention to the Comanche warrior, Black Fox, when he told his story: that while fishing during the night of the full moon, he had seen a huge white horse with his white mane and tail flowing, gallop across the surface of the Brazos River to the other side, without making a splash or a ripple, while the river was in full spring tide.

TALES OF HEROES AND ANGELS by Robert Tabor. SIENA BOOKS. ISBN # 0-9760027-0-1. Hardcover. 8-5/8” x 11-1/4.” 174 pp. With 46 illustrations. October 2005. U.S. $21.95. Canada $26.80. Available directly from New Paradigm Books.