Day in may. Just like this morning and the spring was in full bloom. I had taken a train and the last leg was on a smaller train which was the princeton to Princeton Junction that took the right to the campus. I happen to be reading of book by f. Scott fitzgerald called this side of paradise. About life there princeton in it is absolutely a magical book for me. I cannot even read two smell. Cannot read even two paragraphs now. But at the time it was magical i finished it just as the train pulled into the station. Princeton is as cute as a button. Finishing just as the train pulls then and i walk up to the campus and i remember thinking there is absolutely nothing in the world that i would rather do than to write like scott fitzgerald. It was all downhill from there. For the next 15 years i wrote a bunch of fiction and publish some of it, got a graduate fellowship call mom fellowship, but none of what i did was much good unfortunately. Not great stuff. I worked, i had jobs was a banker and a teacher but all the while i persisted to see myself as a writer i would go home at night and read by Gertrude Stein i did better henry james or whatever was doing. And still i was aware at some level as time went buy i was not exactly living in paris sipping champagne and i was aware of that it was not happening for me. Anyway, at some point it occurred to me that i actually couldnt make a living by writing actually couldnt make a living by writing actually codeuld make your living by writing so i became a reporter in my early 30s. If i got better and better at nonfiction that dream slowly went away everything now is black and white at my age. It is hard for me to understand myself were things were not so absolute where you could be an International Banker or a writer. The fiction dream went away then in one glorious, spectacular cataclysm which was a 701 novel. 701 novel 700 word novel. The main effect was to cause my agent in new york not to return my phone calls. Then it was gone and it was a cathartic experience. It did not happen that long ago but it had to be done and we all realize what we cannot do. And that is something that i cant do. I dont think of myself as a failed novelist. I dont care. I do not even read fiction much anymore. But here is the difference. It comes down to the legendary blank page that the writer sees. That blank page for a fiction writer is an absolutely astonishing thing. On that blank page theres no rules. It could be about iran or mars or new jersey horrible will be or a martian death the more it meritor lifer birth. What am i supposed to do . What am i going to put there . I dont know. The differences with nonfiction this applies to my journalism as well as my history it is palpable or real, something very real that you hang onto minstar onto. With the premise of the real. Owned two. With the promise of the real. That is my preamble. So i and up in austin, texas as executive editor of a magazine called Texas Monthly. Now i know what to do and if there in texas the comanche nonsense started. When i told my journalist friends a few years ago i was writing the history of the comanches i mainly got a lot like stairs. You can see the wheels turning in their tiny trauma news driven tiny, news driven brains to figure out the angle. Is there an Indian Nation health care. No, no, no just a dusty history something that happened 300 years ago and say that is great. [laughter] s. C. Gwynne we cannot wait to read it. Meaning good luck jack. I frankly do not care. I wanted to do well and we should all do things that we want to do. The fact is a lot of us write books but very few are interested in jumping back into history partly because, not to run them down but they have the Attention Span of an act. Gosh ok matt. Over and that of a gnat. Partly because the obvious lack of qualification. Having a thesis ridden in in 1871 it is at the library although what i hear you can check your thesis out in the Princeton Library so my plan is to go check it out and take it somewhere and burn it. But i have not done that yet. And anyway, so i am just not this guy. I am not a historian not sitting in Oklahoma University mulling over native American History so. So why does a reporter become interested something that happened in the faraway past . What got me interested in the first place and something i will call generational memory which i will explain in a minute. I grew up in connecticut in massachusetts part of the country were native american tribes were subdued a long time ago. We are talking about the 1600s. I was aware of the indians on cape cod and i even played the summer with some of them. The deceased they ceased to exist as the free tribe 100 years before my ancestors got off the boat and nobody really knew about the mohegans or at all a consequence because too much time had intervened. Nobody had a conceivable memory of them. But in texas where i moved as the Time Magazine bureau chief in 1994, the whole system of the frontier and native americans was radically different. I never would have written this book or have gone near its out i happens not to move to texas. One of those strange circumstances that happens when you move. In texas it was part of my job to travel the state and write the stories for Time Magazine and then Texas Monthly. I met a lot of people who told about the comanche. The lady who sat next to me at Texas Monthly had both of her great grandparents were killed and a comanche raid. I knew my great grandparents , somebodys grandfather had done business with them and theres a sense of the immediacy of the frontier. And often in my travels, and sometimes it is the weird mixing of legend and history i am doing history. I am up there doing a story about lakota who make these baseball or softball gloves and the town is struggling. I go up to do the lakota story and i was sitting at a bar with an old guy who told me about this battle that took place right there with the spanish and the comanches. I have no idea what he is talking about. What he was talking about is the end of Spanish Power in the new world. It was the battle of spanish fort where the comanches rolled the spanish back. That is a substantial event. As the aztecs may be able to tell you. So kind of it was stories and things like that and here i am traveling around the state. For many things. One of the reasons of courses reasons of course for the immediacy of the frontier is the comanches, the last of them surrendered in 1785 and then there was jostling on and off the reservation, things happening into the 20th century. The frontier was an immediate thing. And of course the tribe that was featured in most of the stories there were a lot of apaches and wichita and tribes like that but the tribes that you heard about were comanches. I dont know about you but in my upbringing comanches were something or a word that occurred in the john wayne movie s, always a code word for danger. That is the comanche arrow. Always like that. You did not know why the comanches were bad. I did not know anything else about them. There was those kind of remembering of the past going on in texas that was interesting that got me interested in story. But what got me interested heard article you get off was not justice remembering of the past, it was also forgetting interested in this article was not just the remembering of the past, it was also forgetting. Simultaneous and contradictory revelation. Although they were playing off almost everybody else had forgotten the average texan talk about the fastestgrowing state 500,000 people per year coming and coming from illinois and mexico they dont know these things. My daughter did not know these things. She grew up in texas and she is 19. So you had, and this is interesting because in 1940 i would venture to say every single schoolchild in the state of texas new the story of parker and the rescue and the fact that her son became the last and the greatest chief of the comanches. Talk to a texan above a certain age they could tell you those things. I will go you one other story and this is a good one. I will tell you another story and this is a good one. If you have read my book one of my great discoveries was a guy named Jack Hayes John coffee case. The original and greatest ranger. I was arguing he was one of the greatest indian fighter one of the greatest commanders america ever produced. The adapted comanche he adopted comanche war techniques that were for that had never existed before later used with brutal effectiveness with the war in mexico. He adopted a failed invention by a man named sam been can stand in the connecticut and it was said before jack came into the American West, came into texas, everybody came on foot lugging the rifle but after him they came on horseback carrying six guns. I am leading up to something here because i am trying to describe this process of remembering and forgetting. Jack hayes seem to be completely forgot them in texas. Just south of austin there is a county named hays county and inside of hays county there is a highschool called hayes high school, named after the greatest ranger, and by the way in a state that absolutely treasures rangers the Texas Rangers are , mythical. Would you suppose in the state that the mascot of the High School Team would be the rangers . No. They are the rebels. [laughter] s. C. Gwynne i have no problem with rebels accept that jack except that jack hayes left texas to become the first sheriff of San Francisco during the gold rush. He is not a rebel, he is a ranger. Nobody in hays county knows who he is. No one in san antonio where he invented to the six shooter knows who he is. This was going on and hear was the a great opportunity i saw as a writer because i am a relatively smart guy and even living in texas i did not know who they were. Did you ever hear of geronimo . Everybody heard of him. Yes. Hear of custer . Yes. Hear of mackenzie the actual greatest indian fighter on the frontier . Never heard of that. As you ever heard of john coffee hayes who should be a household word like Davy Crockett but he is not . And no. You can just keep going. The fact is for me as a writer i could go sell a book in new york to people not only to an editor who gives me money, which they do but i could sell to a country that had never heard of these guys. What it a cool thing. The answer to why, there were books done about these but they tended to be bottled up, prisoners of their region. Texas a m, 700 copies go to schools and libraries and the low distribution so i saw my opportunity. I took it. And as it turns out the comanche story is just one of the Great Stories and what i love about it as much as anything else is it is the best kind of a school you can get from the most beloved history professor. It teaches, it uses a vehicle the comanche tribe which is very cool in itself, but to teach you how the west was won. It was not one by the white people until it was lost by the comanches. They constituted an incredible physical barrier to everything that happened in the west the mexicans and texans and americans and spanish and everybody else. And determined what happened around them. They were, they occupied to the southern plains, 250,000 square miles. They basically in a sense held up themselves the entire foreword progress of the american empire put before that american empire. Before that they blocked the northward expansion of america. Partly the reason is the spanish empire had provided them with an astonishing piece of technology known as the horse. It was the attempt to move west. Turns out the spanish made the mistake of harming the comanche enemy. Texas exist because of comanches. What does it exist . Here is what happened. The mexicans needed to stabilize the northern border. They own texas at this point. One way to do that the israelis have discovered is you settle it and put people there. The more you settle the more it stabilized and if your purpose is to control it that is what you do. Texas did not want to do there because there were comanches but the red next lee scott irish red head people like Davy Crockett, they had no problem coming in to settle in this land. The grand plan of mexico, it backfired because the texans wanted independence after a little battle at the alamo they got it. So this is not in fact the only reason that texas happened but in part it was a misguided attempt to stop the comanche. That is a good way to tell history to somebody who does not so many things, again history to somebody who does not that is a good way to tell history to somebody who does not know the history of texas. So many other things, the rangers are a product and finally with the 40 year war just true of line from san antonio through fort worth that is where the frontiers at 40 years. Nothing even remotely similar happened with any other native american war or tribe. I call them the most powerful tribe in American History and people asked me if somehow the comanches met the western sioux in who would win . Or if they comanche fought a choctaw. There is actually a show with a computer pits a mongolia and against the Historical Union but even though they are fabulous warriors but they mean the power to influence the course of history. And the tribe, absolutely no drive have such a determinant of fact tried had such a determinant effect btribe had such a determinant effect on what happened in north america. The way the book works, only one hand you have the big picture of the rise and fall of the comanches which is interesting because of their great power. The other side of it is this rather more intimate and small story of the Parker Family, a nineyearold girl gets taken in this raid. That is the way my book is organized, alternating chapters, big pictures and then the Parker Family. And then they run together. The organizing event of the book is this raid in 1836. It is one of those small moments in history, the raid were Cynthia Parker is taken, it is one of the small moments in history that in retrospect has astonishingly large historical significance. That was the same year texas one won its independence. It was the year of the Parker Family had built a stockade 90 miles south of texas. We were still far out on the comanche frontier it was almost ridiculous. You wonder how they could bring children. They were way out beyond almost anybody else on the frontier. And in fact one thing to keep in mind if you are thinking about how the American West was settled, people sometimes think there was a sweep across that went north to south along a surge in parallel. It was not. Certain parallel. It was not. It was all south. The human frontier was in texas nothing going on up north. The great clash was down in the south. Five people were killed others were wounded five captives women and children one was cynthia anne parker. In most ways this was a routine comanche raid, they have been doing this against the spanish and anybody else many, many years. But in historical terms it was a defining moment and one of the most famous moments of the frontier. There were two reasons for this. It marked the start of the first, longest and most brutal war between americans and a single native tribe. Also because it involved the woman who was to be the most famous as a captive. It took place precisely at the point where the westward booming american empire this is the other thing that the parkers did not realize you have this enormous american empire moving west. Meeting this 250,000 square mile solve comanche empire south comanche empire. It is only in retrospect, nobody could see it at the time, but it was right there. That is where the parkers build the house. If they had any idea that is what they were doing i am sure they never would have done it. Why was that empire there . The reason that empire was there is a result of 150 years of sustained combat with one goal. The goal was the south plains. Why . The most militarily dominant tribe in america, who had mastered the horse like no other tribe, because that is where the buffalo were. Over 150 years the comanches essentially use their unbelievable mastery of the course to challenge as they went south, they nearly exterminated the apaches, to challenge as they went south, eventually gaining what they wanted which was the south plains which is where the buffalo were. Where the buffalo were. That is where the parkers plucked that little house right on the edge of that. Pretty good idea. This is where they built the frontier paradise and the chain of events, i am sorry. There is one more thing that is really interesting about where they put the house. If to look at america way back when, if you look at it before columbus basically the entire east coast was one dense grimm brothers forest. It was dense. Dense. And thats what that swept from the east coast about the 98th meridian. Right through the middle of texas right from san antonio in dallas. And essentially this bizarre thing happened. The culture of the east was the culture of the woods, based on timber, land, water. When you got past the treelined this is a terrifying moment. No trees to build houses. No water. This house is right at the edge of this moment this physical geographical moment where the lead changed and that was there, too. That is where they built the house. We havent narrated in the book, the captivity of cynthia we have it narrated in the book, the captivity of Cynthia Parker, she did not return, she was famous as the white squad that were not returned. Her oldest son was the greatest comanche warrior of his age and i will not go into details but i want to tell you a great story about quanah. I consider Quanah Parker one of the most Extraordinary People of the 14th century, one of the most formidable warriors. That is saying something. He was a brilliant field general, never defeated by whites in battle. Led the last of the comanche into the terrible dying days of 1875 and the buffalo had all been killed after all the other tribes have surrendered. After his surrender, moved to th