Yellow Horse was born half Comanche and half Cherokee. His mother was stolen from her people by the Comanche. Like many Cherokee, she was fair skinned and had light brown hair with blue eyes. She was a great prize.
Yellow Horse has dark brown hair (now going grey) and grey eyes. He is darker than most white men, but there are some white men who, having been sun darkened, are darker than he is. He can pass for a white man.
He is not.
Because of his lighter hair, skin and eye color, he was seized by the army in a raid on a Comanche encampment. They thought he was a white boy that had been stolen by the Comanche. He was twelve at the time.
When no white family would claim him, he was sent to an orphanage run by the Roman Catholic Church. They tried to make a “decent” white “Christian” out of him. He ran away. They brought him back and gave him the name “James”. He ran away. He was captured and returned. They taught him to speak English. He ran away. This process went on for a couple of years. He learned to read and write.
There was a war being fought among the white people. One day, he ran away and this time they didn’t get him back.
He was far from his home and his people. It took him a long time, but he worked his way back toward home, passing for a white boy.
Right after the War Between the States, a couple of men in Texas decided to round up some wild cattle and drive them to New Mexico. There was no market for cattle in Texas, but they needed beef in the big cities. Those entrepreneurial men were Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving. I was young, and needed work. They put me on the crew. They still needed a scout.
James Yellow Horse was able to convince Goodnight and Loving he had traveled that way with the Comanche, spoke the language and would be a valuable scout. That’s how I first met him. We drove nearly two thousand head of cattle to New Mexico, together.
A couple of years later, we all set out to drive a herd to Wyoming. One day, when we were still somewhere in New Mexico, Yellow Horse and Loving were far ahead of the herd, intending to make trade agreements with the Comanche, for passing through that country. They were attacked by a party of Comanche hostiles. Loving was badly wounded in the fight. Yellow Horse fought beside him, being gravely wounded himself. He managed to get Loving to Ft. Sumner, but Oliver Loving sickened and died there.
When Goodnight and the rest of us brought the herd to Ft. Sumner, we found Yellow Horse had been seized by men who intended to lynch him. We didn’t let that happen. He and I have been friends ever since.
Yellow Horse and I took a few herds up the trail together, before the railroads reached Texas. My life eventually took me in other directions. We didn’t see each other for some years. Yellow Horse was back among his people. He fought beside Quanah Parker at the second battle of Adobe Walls. I heard he was instrumental in getting the great chief of the Comanche to seek peace with the white man. When the last of the Comanche were all moved to the reservation in Oklahoma, Charlie Goodnight took Yellow Horse under his wing. When I found myself in Texas again, I looked him up. Yellow Horse was scouting for the Rangers. I joined up.