On the western fringes of Tule Mountain, above where Alamo Creek winds its way down to the Rio Grande, runs a rim rock of red stone delineating the softer soil above from the exposed whitish ground underneath.

Now I am no geologist by any means, nor do I lay claim about knowing much on the subject. But I do know that while prowling along this rimrock, one is exposed to a veritable treasure of uncommon sights. Some crowd the edge to being otherworldly, as seen in the attached photograph.

Like many other spots in the lower Big Bend, the more you learn it seems the less you really know. This holds especially true for me personally, for I can remember chasing wild burros through this area on an appaloosa cow pony named ‘Pepe’ when I was eleven years old.

That was a long time ago, yet I have returned time and again since. Most times I savor a childhood memory, most times I make another discovery or two, but each time I have to stand slack-jawed at the extraordinary splendor found in this desert.

The mightiest, most awe inspiring beauty of any art form rests here, created by God’s Own Hand. Pick any point on the compass and begin to wander, and soon enough you will find what I am speaking of.

More so there is not only natural beauty but also the lingering sense of man’s presence amid the boulders, shelters, overhangs and watering holes. A thousand years ago this was still a rough, arid land; yet it was wetter and with more water available than what we can imagine in our wettest monsoon season.

The ancients lived here for generations in camps scattered about, the remnants of their way of life found in abundance for those who are able to see. Bits and pieces of trails acting as conduits to these camps are still in evidence, and an odd feeling comes over you when you realize your boots are on their timeworn paths.

This land is a big place, sweeping out in every direction for as far as the eye can perceive. You think upon all that has occurred here in the history of man alone, and of how many have come before as well as those who will do so in the future.

I said before it has been a many a year since I was eleven years old. Yet in reality those decades are but a single grain of sand on the endless beach of time. If one wants to teach another the meaning of humility, take them to this desert.

For if they cannot grasp at least a glimmer of what it truly means while in this place, they will likely remain unteachable for the rest of their days.

God bless to all,

Ben

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Banta Shut-in is a spot many of heard of but far fewer ever journey to. Several routes lead to its vicinity from all points of the compass, but each to some degree can be like threading the eye of a needle.

A topographical map and the ability to read it comes in real handy, because those elevation lines and how they are spaced are key to guiding your way through. Yet getting there is only about half the challenge, you have to know where and how to enter Tornillo Creek either from above or below.

Now I have approached this picturesque crevice from more than one direction and can tell you the same general rules apply here as traveling anywhere else in the lower Big Bend: The short way is the hard way and the easy way is usually the longest.

You can also stumble upon the occasional hard as well as long route, which is why you need to know something about this country and be able to read those maps. And remember this, do not go there when it is hot or a chance of rain is likely. Finally, don’t even think about trying to navigate the general vicinity at night.

In all cases, bad ju-ju awaits you.

On this trip we launched from the K-bar number two, angling for Estufa Spring and the old John Rice campsite. From there we would journey down to the shut in via Estufa Canyon. This is one of those longer routes but also easier, especially if you know some game trails to help shave off the distance.

Zig-zagging down creek beds in this country always brings a surprise or two, as well as multiple reminders of those who came before. Almost invariably you’ll be distracted, with a side trip or two to satisfy the curiosity. After all, you may never pass this way again.

We entered the cut from downstream after taking one of those game trail shortcuts. Again, doing so is part of the challenge as you are surrounded by tough, unforgiving ground. The elevation changes are not that significant but with plenty of ups and downs, loose rocks, washouts and go arounds. And yeah, some of those ups and downs are straight up and straight down.

Making your way through the chasm itself is an unforgettable experience. Slabs of rock teeter along the rims of the walls, and the floor provides mute testimony that they do fall down on occasion. In some spots the walls close in until the crevice is only a few yards across, and any sound made carries an echo.

Banta Shut-in is known as a reliable water source, so much so you there can be the need for a bit of wading. This was not one of those times, our weather has been somewhat dry this spring and the tinajas have been lacking.

What lies at the head of the crevice invariably calls for some photos, such as the one you see here. There is always water and often enough it flows a short distance before burrowing under the sand and gravel again.

We took our photographs and rested a bit, enjoying the sereneness and natural beauty before tackling the return trek. It was nine miles back the way we came in and it was already mid-afternoon.

But I just happen to know this shortcut…

God bless to all,

Ben

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SOMEWHERE IN THE LOWER BIG BEND:

We had started our trek on the west side of Grapevine Hills, drifting north and zig-zagging to and fro as we made our way along. Though most look out across here and see nothing but harsh, barren terrain, in reality some of the oddest, most intriguing sights around can be found in this general area.

You just need to know where to look, and how.

As usual I was on the scout for tinajas and springs, especially reliable ones. Just upstream from where we started, there are a couple of tinajas that hold water fairly well. They are also not easily negotiated, mostly tucked in crevices within other crevices in a desert floor turned inside out. Last time through they barely had any water at all, and I wouldn’t bet on either as far as quality.

Easing our way down I scouted one spot after another and found tinajas aplenty. Trouble was none contained a visible drop, the best of the lot had some moist mud and been heavily used by the local wildlife. After about two miles of such, a decent breeze began flittering up the developing canyon.

Suddenly I stopped like a bird dog on point and muttered “I smell water.”

Now I’ve been accused of being a bit driven on such matters, a trait carried over since childhood. But finding things is part of the joy, especially needful things. Or as one Ozona rancher once exclaimed; “Ben, you’re from that Big Bend Country. You people can smell a rain three days away!”

But I was smelling water now, and by the scent fairly close.

Rounding the corner, a scene from a John Ford western spread out before us. The dry wash tumbled off a wide rim to where it continued on some forty feet below. Down canyon one could see across the Tornillo Basin and all the way to Dagger Mountain. It was one of those magical moments where one feels incredibly blessed in seeing such wild, desert-encouched natural beauty.

Julie and I walked the rim searching about, it was dry as a dinosaur’s fossil. The breeze lifted up again along the edge, cool and inviting. The water was at the bottom of the pour off.

It took us a good half hour to figure a go around to get there, looping around hills and through other washes to bring us about. As you can tell from the photographs, the result was well worth the extra time and effort.
The water was seeping through solid rock in several spots, bringing verdant greenery so vivid in contrast to the grays and browns of the surrounding earth. Two stood out among the others, one where an embedded small bowl collected the precious liquid. Whether owing to natural erosion or done by the hand of some ancient, one will never know.

The other was not only a seep, but a spigot of water pouring forth. Dipping a cupped hand into it, I took a swallow or two. It was good water, cool and fresh without being brackish or tasting of gyp. Yep, you can definitely put this one down as being a reliable spring. A spring not marked on any map, or mentioned by any written word I know of.

And we looked at each other and grinned, each thinking the same thing…

God bless to all,
Ben

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Anguila Mesa is a special place for me. After all, I spent many of my growing years studying every visible nook and cranny for hours at a time, sitting on the front porch of the Lajitas Trading Post. It was the mesa that provided the most used routes for the loads of smuggled candelilla wax coming out of Mexico, and spotting them from afar gave us time to make ready.

To this day I can see that misshapen, massive, man killing mess of boulder, cacti and rock and a hundred memories come to mind, followed by another hundred and more. Gunfights, raging storms, unsolved murders, miles of nothing but heat and thirst, and those burro trains snaking across, through and around, brought in by whiplike, sunburnt, small statured men who had not an ounce of quit in them.

Smuggling has been the number one economy for this part of the river for some three hundred years now, and before then it was called ‘trading’ as no government officials were around to levy a tax or make some rule or regulation. Comanche Crossing at Lajitas carried the flow of traffic then, utilized by the ancients a long time before the first mounted kɨmantsi ever saw the lower Big Bend.

But when the customs houses and line boundaries came into existence, those who were not well disposed to either started moving their wares through Anguila Mesa. Guns, liquor, dope, jerked meat, raw ore, livestock, the wax business and more than a few humans were carried across from both directions, and for a long time the powers that be had not a clue or simply looked the other way.

Yet there was more to the story than that, as this treacherous old chunk of real estate and its fellows proved a serious, even deadly obstacle to any and all who entered their realms, government official or no. You had to know the shelters, the trails, the tinajas, the crossings, the terrain, the weather patterns and be as tough as the land itself to be accustomed to it, and too many times that was not enough.

If there was one place in this country where the ball marked ‘Darwinism’ was in full play, it was Anguila Mesa. In fact it still is, as more than one fumble butted fool has found out the hard way. Education and knowledge can be two completely different concepts out here.

The photo enclosed was taken from the higher heights of the mesa, looking down into a nameless canyon that provided one of the four main routes through, and most often used. There was no telling, no measurement, of the miseries found in this crevice, and likely still occasionally occurs. The way it sits makes for a natural oven during the summer months, especially in the early afternoon hours. Add to that is the attending humidity rising off the nearby river.

All in all it’s not even a nice place to visit for most but I still come when I can, seeking the last remnants of those fading old memories.

God bless to all,

Ben

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SOMEWHERE IN THE LOWER BIG BEND:

Evening was falling in the lonesome country, another day in the desert coming to an end. Soon we would be topping out along a short cut I knew and back to the K-Bar, and the setting sun would be full in our eyes. Even my flat-brimmed Stetson would not be much help by then, so I would have to find my mark quickly to guide us in.

It had been a long haul from there to Banta Shut-In, especially when looping from the more direct route to the old John Rice site above Estufa Spring. The crevice itself was first called Rice’s Canyon, but the name changed after he and his wife moved to the Chilicotal and left their stove there. You see, ‘estufa’ is Mexican for stove.

That was a long time before there was a national park, and a different breed as well as a different sort of life. Most who visit these days have no idea of how tough those people and their kind were, or the work ethic essential to scratching out a living here. When I wander off on my prowls, I try to swing through such spots and locales.

Just to pay my respects, if for anything else.

After following the canyon down and taking another short cut just before you hit the Tornillo, we made Banta Shut-in and took a belayed nooning. The way back would be necessarily faster and as straight a line as I could make it. But there was one other spot to spend a precious minute or two, and it is shown in the photograph.

Among the fading residues of Indian camps is a land mark I call ‘Dos Ventanas,’ or Two Windows. You can see them in the upper left frame. Like most other things in this world those windows are a transitory sight, they burrow through a narrow slice of dirt and gravel along the cliff face. One good frog strangler from the right direction and with the right force, and they won’t be there anymore.

Another prominence is directly front and center, that massive old anchor post with rusting fence wire still attached. It has a mate still standing about fifty yards away, serving as another anchor for a wire gap long since keeled over. Other smaller posts are scattered in between, making up a drift fence to keep livestock from wandering too far. This was probably done about a hundred years ago, as this was mostly open range before then.

Invariably one’s eyes shift to the unforgiving terrain beyond with the McKinney Hills, Alto Relex and the foreboding Dead Horse Mountains stacked haphazardly to the faraway horizon. There’s not an easy mile anywhere among them, and often enough not an easy yard.

It all made for quite a scene, what with the sun going down and the world around slowly morphing into shades of gold. I see such sights which warm my heart and tell myself I shall return again, Good Lord willing.

But for now the shadows were growing long and we still had miles to go. I resettled into the shoulder straps for my ALICE pack and pulled the brim of that Stetson down lower.

And we pushed on…

God bless to all,

Ben

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We were working our way along the bottom of an escarpment, north of the Buttrill and skirting an enormous flat that goes on for miles. It was another day and another prowl, making a loop through a portion of the national park where few others venture.

I had eyed this uplift for decades while wandering other nearby locales, puzzling upon what might be hidden and nigh forgotten. Shouldering our backpacks that morning, I commented then we would find Indian camps here.

But first came the remnants of the cultures from later on. Rotting fence lines with rusting wire running into nothingness, earthen dikes to capture this desert’s liquid gold and pieces of sucker rods to bring it from underground.

There were campsites too, where large canvas tents with wood framing once stood. I recognized the bits and parts immediately, my own father had lived in one for the first six years of his life, while my grandfather worked as a cow hand in the Sierra Vieja.

And so we meandered on until I spotted a nondescript slot in the rock walls and that certain feeling came over me. We began climbing the massive sheets of near bare rock, and about halfway to the top I saw the telltale evidence of grinding mortars scattered about.

Studying what still lay above, I spied the faintest of trails from long ago and followed it along the near sheer drop off. Leading to the left and over the crest, something told me to veer back to the right and keep going.

The photograph attached frames what we found.

There were large mortar holes along the rim, old beyond description and worn into solid rock by centuries of use. Some had been filled in by wind and time, giving birth to tiny springtime wildflowers, cacti and even an ocotillo.

Then there was the audad skull, cast off to one side by some predator for good measure.

Behind the rim we eased against the very edge of the stone encrusted crevice. I could already smell water and a peek down below revealed a large tinaja with hundreds of gallons in attendance.

Scooting through a narrow portion along the lip, we entered a rock shouldered amphitheater where more large tinajas waited. Circling about were natural shelters from the wind and weather, with an entrance upstream guarded by more large mortars, eroded and enlarged by thousands of years of flash floods.

It was an Indian camp alright, about as well chosen and placed as any I have seen in many a day.

From that rim you can see across the distance of the flat below, leading all the way to the Santiago and Deadhorse Mountains. Through those same mountains were the historical entryways into this part of the lower Big Bend; Dog Canyon, Persimmon Gap and Javelina Gap for those wanting to avoid the more traveled routes.

If a small group of people wanted one spot to watch the world of five hundred or five thousand years ago pass by, this was the place. Furthermore, they could do so in relative comfort and security, too.

Whoever these nameless ancients were, they chose well.

God bless to all,
Ben

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“Well, I know some day, farther down the road,
I’ll come to the edge of the Great Unknown;
There’ll stand a black horse, riderless,
And I wonder if I’m ready for this”…
–Chris LeDoux, ‘The Ride’

 

Since learning of my brother Barry’s passing, folks have contacted me wanting to know more about him.

Barry was born in Alpine in 1963, likely about a century too late. An eighth generation Texan, he got his first taste of the cowboy life alongside our dad and granddad in the lower parts of the Big Bend.

That’s he and I on those two mounts, Barry was barely five sitting atop a blazed-faced bay we called ‘Grandpa.’ But even at five, he could knock out my dad’s tracks all day long up and down Terlingua Creek, into The Cottonwood and along the eastern reaches of El Solitario; hanging on like a blue tick to a hound dog.

You see, he always wanted to be a cowboy.

In later years people would marvel at how good a cowboy he really was, as well as a stockman. Not me. If you can keep from breaking your fool neck chasing after some half-wild, crazy eyed cow across half the lower Big Bend, you can cowboy most anyplace.

Now I haven’t been on the back of a horse in decades, choosing instead to go straight into the Marines from high school and then a career as a peace officer.

Brother Lyndon went the cowboy way for a while and became known as a fair hand at breaking horses. Ultimately he went the same way as I, a Texas peace officer and a darn good one at that. Though he still does general work on a ranch, his cowboying days are over.

But with Barry, it was a way of life and he never gave much thought to wanting to be anything else.

He knew who he was, what he was and what he stood for. He did what he thought was right, was strong for his Lord, and never took in a breath that wasn’t free.

I’d call that bountiful blessings and a life well lived.

Some weeks later on a Sunday morning, I was sitting at the table with a cup of coffee listening to Red Stegall’s Cowboy Corner. The sun was rising over Hancock Hill and peeking through the pines, the warmth signaling yet another spring coming on.

It was then it finally hit me: Barry was gone.

And with him a way of life that is going much the same direction. Sometimes it’s hard to remember what this country used to be, even a few short years ago. It’s never going back to what it was. When these big ranches in West Texas get busted up, they stay that way.

One thing’s for certain, I’m sure glad Barry wanted to be a cowboy. Not only for him but for that way of life, for each was directly linked to the other in mindset, philosophy and ethics.

You know, my family and kin came to Texas during Spanish rule and helped get that way of life started. They were the ones who pushed those longhorns up the Chisholm, the Shawnee, the Western and the Goodnight-Loving.

They braved searing heat, bitter cold, flooded rivers and forty miles of hard, tough going with not a drop of water along the way, time and again.

They were the ones that books were written about, ballads were sung and legends grown upon.

They were the true believers, just like Barry and I find it fitting that he was around for the final act.

And when his time came he mounted that riderless black, tipped his hat, and rode away into that Great Unknown.

A cowboy.

 

Ben H. English

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