The Martin Boys

Darrel and Bobby Lee Martin’s parents, brothers and sisters, along with a gob of other folks were unlucky enough not to dodge Comancheros while making their way west for a new life. Bobby Lee, Darrel and several more children old enough to work were kidnapped and taken captive.

A few weeks later, while their captors got drunk, Darrel and Bobby Lee cut and run, headed west. They stole two satchels, a dab of food, one box of sulfur matches, a Bowie knife and two canteens, one full the other well over half empty. The number one thing Darrel knew they would have to have to survive was one of those repeating rifles and a box of cartridges. Everything was easy to get, once those men got drunk. By walking and running, they should have seven or eight hours before anyone came looking.

They walked all night and found a good hiding place by sunup. They slept by day and traveled by night for the first two days then knew the outlaws and Indians had stopped looking for them. They kept walking northwest until they came upon a dead horse and a man lying face down with a bullet hole through his left shoulder. They couldn’t just walk off and leave him, they’d stay and help. Perhaps he would live, or they could comfort him until he died.


Genre: Western