The Searchers by Glenn Frankel

the best efforts of the Taulmans and Susan Parker St. John,other members of the Parker family were as prone as James DeShields to historical fantasy. When three of James Parker’s descendants reprinted Rachel Plummer’s narrative in 1926, they added a remarkable account in the foreword of Quanah’s bravery that manages to invoke the familiar trope of his white blood:
    â€œ On one occasion the Redmen declared war on the paleface; Quanah alone opposed the war and they held another council and because of the Paleface blood in his veins they declared him a traitor to the Redmen, and condemned him to be put to death. He told them, ‘the Palefaces have many braves; we have only a few braves; our braves will all be killed by the many Paleface braves …’”
    Faced with Quanah’s courage, his enemies back down and peace triumphs: “In this one act, he no doubt averted war and preserved many lives of both tribes, as well as much suffering and distress.”
    In this fable, the author of the Battle of Adobe Walls becomes the apostle of peace.
    AFTER QUANAH’S DEATH, the white and Comanche Parkers generally kept their distance from each other. The big event that brought them together was the 1936 centennial marking both Texas independence and the raid on Parker’s Fort. The state funded a replica of the fort built on the original site on the outskirts of Groesbeck, and the town sponsored memorial festivities at which representatives of both sides of the family gathered to reenact both the raid and Cynthia Ann’s subsequent recapture twenty-four years later. “Cynthia Ann Parker Is Rescued from the Indians” proclaimed the full-page ad in the
Groesbeck Journal
’s Pioneer Edition of May 15, 1936. “Come See Texas History in the Making … A Gigantic, Stupendous Spectacle! You’ll Regret It All Your Life If You Miss It!”
    The ad promised a cast of four hundred “depicting the strange life of Cynthia Ann Parker, famous Texas History Character.” Admission was twenty-five or fifty cents, with the added attraction of Jack Bothwell’s Famous Centennial Rodeo, featuring Miss Ruth Wood, “internationally known Cow Girl, riding the wildest of broncos.”
    It was a curiously American celebration—after all, this was a vast and disparate family welded together by a traumatic moment when one side had pillaged, murdered, and raped the other. It was also a quintessential commercial opportunity: the local Texaco station, Dr. Cox’s Hospital, the R. E. Cox Dry Goods Company, and Palestine Pig Salt were amongdozens of businesses that took out ads in the
Journal
welcoming visitors to town. Cayton’s Drug Store advertised “Cynthia Ann Ice Cream manufactured and sold exclusively at our fountain” in six varieties. It also offered a Cynthia Ann Frozen Malt and a Cynthia Ann Lime Cooler.
    There was no mention of Quanah. Instead, the focus was on the brave pioneers who had made their stand against Indian barbarism. The
Journal
reprinted in full “The Fall of Parker’s Fort,” DeShields’s imaginative and hyperbolic account excerpted from his
Border Wars of Texas
, first published in 1912 and dedicated to “the Sons and Daughters of Those Noble Pioneer Fathers and Mothers who … battled so bravely for supremacy and … made possible all the glorious blessings that have followed.”
    AFTER THE CENTENNIAL, the Parkers left Groesbeck and returned to their respective corners of Texas and Oklahoma. But in the early 1950s a primary school teacher in nearby Mexia , Texas, named Elsie Hamill had one of the young Parkers in her class. He told her the amazing tale of Cynthia Ann and Quanah. Hamill, who was fascinated, eventually wrote to Wanada Parker Page, another of Quanah’s daughters, to check the facts.
    Elsie’s original letter no longer exists, but Wanada’s pencil-written reply is in a file in the Baylor