"When we reached the San Saba Mission we found near the entrance the corpse of Reverend Father President. Farther inside we found, burned to cinders, the bodies of Lazaro de Ayalas and a son of Juan Antonio Gutierrez. We recognized the former by his head and the latter by his leg, which flames had not totally consumed. We buried the bodies in the cemetery near the church.

"The ground was strewn with smoldering debris from its ruins. We moved onward to inspect the other buildings, only to find them all destroyed and the wreckage still burning...

"As we continued our search, we came upon the corpse of Juan Antonio Gutierrez, without eyes or scalp, for it is the custom of these barbarous Indians, when celebrating a triumph, to take the scalps of their victims, we buried this corpse also. Then we went on with our exploration and found 18 dead oxen, and even the cats were dead also."

This report cured the Spanish of wanting to fight Comanche, and put San Saba on the map, so to speak.

Fast forward from 1758 to 1829. Jim Bowie was in Bexar — San Antonio to you — chasing women when he ran into Jose Antonio Menchaca, who told him of riches of silver to the north west. Bowie spent weeks searching for the shaft to the silver mine along the San Saba River, to no avail. He left but returned in 1831, still convinced he was smart enough to locate the mother load.

Jim convinced his brother Rezin to join him and a man named Vermedi, who had been Mexico's collector of foreign revenues, to finance the expedition. Several other joined because of Bowie's ability to make them want to be wealthy too.

"A large party of Wacos, Tawakonis and Caddos are nearby," two Comanche warned Bowie their third week out. Some silver seekers wanted to back out but Bowie would have none of it. Bowie tracked old wagon trails and signs of ore while keeping one eye out for natives. At night, he posted sentries.

Just before reaching the site of the old burned out San Saba Mission, they saw 100 Tawakoni on their trail. Bowie's men dismounted, unpacked the supplies from the animals and used the goods to build a berm of protection from Indian bullets and arrows. The natives sent one man forward to try to bully the miners out their packs and animals without fighting.

"There will be no surrender of property," Rezin Bowie, who'd gone out to meet him, assured the group even though he knew the whites were greatly out numbered.

The natives started firing as the men spoke, injuring the one miner with a shot that shattered his leg bone. Natives swarmed over the packs only to meet the business end of enough rifles to keep them at bay.

The whites killed the war chief who threw his braves into chaos, causing them to retreat. Then they began sniping at the Texans, wounding two more.

Indians completely circled the small band but the whites laid down a hail of fire for two hours. Near noon, the natives torched the brush around the miners. They expected easy pickings as Jim's men would surely be flushed out like quail. But luck was with Bowie for the wind blew the flames another direction.

Just before dusk, the natives lit another fire. This time no breeze came to save them and they had to beat back the blazes with buffalo robes and blankets. The miners' frightened animals tore loose from their stakes and fled, only to be later retrieved by the attackers. The whites grubbed for rocks that they stacked as a little wall of defense.

Darkness fell and only six miners were still unwounded and able to shoot. The Texans heard wailing from the Indian camp, which told them they gave more damage than they got. They dug in, waiting for a new battle which never came. The natives fled after midnight with all the animals, leaving the silver seekers alone, on foot and alive to fight another day.

And you know how that ended for Jim Bowie.

Source: Lone Star Nation, H. W. Brands, Doubleday, 2004