June 10, 2004 Turtle Bayou Texas

Galveston was a bust -spent all of an hour there and continued east to Turtle Bayou, west of Beaumont Texas, arrived the evening of June 9th. I camped on the edge of the bayou, compete with four resident gators. Thursday morning I packed up to continue west and stopped for gas at Gator Junction, just down the road and pulled in next to an old Texas truck with a cattle hauler attached with two Long Horn Bulls in it. Great photograph waiting to happen. Turned out that V.R. Hylton of The Achor Valley Ranch Trust and Barry Bay of the Bar 9 were sitting in the truck. Well, I went up and asked if they would mind hanging out for a few minutes so I could photograph the truck next to the airsream and got me an invite to their ranch to photograph their herd of Longhorns.

I spent the remainder of the day trailing behind them down long forgotten country roads searching for Long Horns among the bayous, cypress stands, lakes, and huge live oak trees. Needless to say I found some amazing cattle and saw some of South Texas only the locals see. Spent some time at Our Lady of Light Mission, built in 1756 but only lasted a few years. Saw the grave site where 4 of the Priests were buried and found old birds-eye pepper plants brought here by the Priests and still growing. Small but hot! V.R. is quite the historian and told me about the history of the area, the mission, Priests and the Karankawa Indians who roamed this area who, according to local folk lore, were cannibals.
Quite a day and as night fell I found myself back at the camp on Turtle Bayou. Six a.m. this morning V.R. came a knocking with a copy of his video for me. He was the videographer for the Texas Longhorn Quincentennial Cattle Drive. Quite a man. I was very impressed he knows of Leonard Peltier and his fight for justice and freedom and says prayers for Leonard each Sunday. When he found out I had photographed Leonard he asked for a copy of the photograph for his prayer book. I have found a great deal here and will be staying a few more days.