Date: August 5 1915

Newspaper published in: Graham

The Texas Frontier

On the following morning Luke and George mounted on two of the best horses
we had, went across the river and notified L.L. Williams, P.G. George, A.B.
Medlan, the Brogdon boys and some others. We went to the battle ground and
found where the Indians had lain and bled but had been removed. We found on
the mountain four blankets, three buffalo robes, four lariats, plaited raw
hide ropes, three bridles, and a number of other things left there by the
Indians. Afterwards the bones of four Indians were found, the bones of three
in the live oak thicket, and one where Jim had shot him, the one after the
fight was over. They had buried him in the cow trail he was walking in when
shot, and so completely did they do their work that we failed to find where
they had buried him and after the spring rains had washed out the trail his
bones were found in the trail and with his frame at least a pint of beads
that had been upon his clothes. They carried the chief, Pinachume, back to
Fort Cobb in the Indian Territory, where he died the fourth day after being
shot in the abdomen with a large rifle ball. There were eleven Indians that
waylaid them in the branch, but allowed them to get within a few feet of
them before firing upon them. Father had on a broad brim hat and he said the
arrows fell so thick and fast that it felt like some one was thrashing him
over the head with a brush; the spikes of the arrows cut the stock of his
gun so badly that he had to have it restocked; his clothes were full of
holes made by the arrows, but strange to say not one penetrated the flesh
save and except the one that struck him in the foot. It entered where the
little toe joins the foot and went out in the instep near the heel. Jim was
shot just over the left eye in the eye brow, the spike going straight into
the skull. They whipped the Indians killing five out of eleven.

Dr. Standifer, from Fort Belknap, came the third day after the fight and
made three pulls at the spike in Jim1s head and could not move it; the
doctor said the skull would burst before the spike would give way. There
were several men present when the doctor was trying to pull the spike, and
one may by the name of Kennedy fainted while watching the operation. The
spike in father1s foot was made from a piece of heavy hoop iron and was very
rough. It was 1-3/4 inches broad at the shank and a little more than 2
inches long. It remained in his foot for eight days before it was taken out,
and then came point foremost. The pain was awful and it almost made a
cripple of him for two or three years. The spike in father1s foot was
discovered by mother on the eighth day after the fight and while she was
dressing the wound she discovered the point of the spike. When it was shot
into the foot father caught hold of the shaft of the arrow, jerked it out
and threw it down without looking at it, it being during the heat of the
fight, leaving the spike in his foot and not knowing it was there until
mother discovered it. George then got a pair of bullet moulds, caught the
spike by the point and drew it out point foremost. Father said he never
witnessed such pain in all his life as the removal of that spike. I will
here say that few people of this day know what a pair of bullet moulds look
like. They were constructed of iron or steel and were so constructed that by
reaming out a hole in one side of two pieced they worked on a rivet when
pressed together by the handles the two holes coming in contact with each
other formed a round hole, which had a small hole through which the melted
lead was poured into the mould forming a round bullet with a stem or neck
which after being cut off left a round bullet.

In those days we did not depend much upon doctors, but did ourselves what
was necessary to be done. The spike in Jim1s head was made of steel from a
piece of butcher knife. It struck him just over the left eye in the eyebrow
and went straight in a little over one and one-half inches, and remained
there from the 14th day of January until the 22nd day of the following June,
when it became loose and Dr. J.P. Hill of Springtown, Tex. extracted it. He
looked at it in astonishment and remarked to my brother: 3Man, you must have
no brain.2 Father often said he believed it was only the protecting hand of
providence that saved their lives and won the unequal fight.

Written by R.E. Tackitt