In the late 1830's, when the land and people were still wild, two men, John Dent and Will Marlo, became fur-trapping partners in the backwoods of Georgia. Wild game was plentiful and for a few years things went smoothly. Then, in the spring of 1843, an argument broke out over the division of their winter catch. Death and a strange tale resulted. And it was all because of a woman.
While trapping near the cabin of a mountain man, John
fell in love with the man's beautiful young daughter, Mollie Peters. Fortunately
for John, Mollie had fallen in love with him too and the two became engaged to
be married. When John and Will had become partners, they made a pact to jointly
sell the pelts they trapped and divide the money equally. But with marriage on
the horizon, John wanted to take half the pelts and sell them himself since he was sure he could get more selling them separately.
After a bitter quarrel, Will relented and did
things John's way. Soon after though, Will began telling townsfolk that he had
been cheated. This continued for a few weeks until a vicious fight occurred and
John stabbed his old partner to death. Since public opinion was against him,
there was nothing for John to do but quickly leave the country. Before leaving however,
he managed to see his young love and tell her he was going to find a place
where they could be together and that he would return to steal her away.
A whole year passed and people soon lost interest in the matter. During all this time,
every morning and every evening, Mollie stood outside her father's cabin,
silently looking off into the distance. Not once, as far as anyone knew, did
she hear from her lover. Then, a little after sundown on April 13,
1844, as she did every day, the mountain girl went to the barn to milk the cow.
After she had been gone an unusually long time, her father decided to
investigate. He found the cow unmilked and in the empty pail, a Bowie knife
with dried blood around the hilt. The peculiar stag horn handle made it
easy to identify as the knife with which John Dent had killed Will Marlo.
In the dark, Mollie's father searched and called for
her, but could find no trace. The next morning, after summoning the surrounding mountaineers and a few towns people, the search began again. They
found the tracks of a man and a woman leading to the Chickamauga River. On the
bank, under the overhang of a leaning tree, they found a freshly driven wooden stake to which a small canoe had evidently been recently tied. Mollie was gone
with no explanation and without a moment's preparation. All she took
with her were the clothes on her back.
Six months later, a letter arrived at Mr. Peters’ lonely
cabin. It was postmarked Galveston, Texas and read: "The Devil has a river
in Texas that is all his own and it is made only for those who are grown. Yours
with love, Mollie."
In those days, the people of Georgia were not familiar
with the rivers of Texas or their names. Even in Texas itself, few folks knew
anything about Devil's River, far to the west of San Antonio. Along its banks
was the small colony of Dolores, sparsely populated with mostly Spanish
speaking people. It was the last outpost of the settlements. Poor Mr. Peters
and his neighbors merely considered that somewhere in Texas, John Dent had to
himself a river on which to trap. They knew Dent was a devil all right,
but they were surprised at Mollie's admitting it.
John and his bride settled near Dolores, but like the
lone wolf he was, he built a small log cabin a few miles away from the town.
Within a year however, the colony was abandoned. Indians killed most of the
settlers; a few went back to Mexico. The remainder, fourteen adults and three
children, headed east for more civilized territory. The Comanche caught and
attacked them at an unnamed lake, near what is now Carrizo Springs. After
killing them all, the Indians threw their bodies into the waters. The Mexicans
named the lake Espantosa, which means “frightful,” and to this day people
consider the lake to be haunted.
Two days ride west of the site of Dolores, two or three
Mexican families, who, like John, had an agreement with the Indians, raised a
few goats in the Pecos Canyon. About noon one day in late August 1845, during a
thunderous rainstorm, a man on a horse rode up to one of these ranches. He told
the Mexican ranchero and his wife that he was camped where Dry Creek runs into
Devil's River. He said his wife was giving birth to a baby and they desperately
needed help. As the rancher and his wife saddled up their horses though, a bolt
of lightning struck the wooden hitching post, killing the messenger standing
impatiently beside it. This, of course, considerably delayed the helpful
Mexicans. From the description of his campsite given by the man, the ranchero
knew the location, but night came before they reached the river. They did not
find the camp until the next morning. There, under a sheltering tree, lay the
woman dead, alone. Indications pointed to the fact that she had died giving
birth to a child, but no baby could be found. Tracks around the tree made the
ranchero suspect that lobo wolves had devoured the infant.
In the pocket of the dead woman's dress, the good
Samaritans found a letter. After burying the unfortunate woman, they took the
letter with them to show the first person they might encounter who could read
English. A few months later, a white man did come along and read the letter. It
was written a few weeks before her death by Mollie Peters Dent and addressed to
her father. It served to identify her and her husband. And so, their romance
suddenly and tragically ended.
Ten years passed. A wagon road had been laid out across
the new Republic of Texas from San Antonio to El Paso. This seldom traveled
road went by San Felipe Springs, where there were a few Mexicans, and on across
Devil's River. In 1855, a young boy living at San Felipe Springs told of seeing
a pack of wolves attacking a herd of goats and with them was a creature,
long hair half covering its features, that looked like a naked girl. Some
cowboys passing through the settlement heard the story and quizzed the boy, but
they seemed more interested in getting his description of what a naked girl
looked like than in getting information about the strange creature he reported.
The boy was accused of fabricating the tale, but the story spread among the
surrounding settlers.
A little over a year later, an Indian woman outside San
Felipe declared she had seen two big wolves and a naked girl eating a freshly
killed goat. She was able to get close, but they saw her and all three ran. The
naked girl, at first, ran on all fours, but then rose up and ran on two feet,
keeping up with the wolves. Other Indians also reported seeing barefoot human
tracks mixed among wolf tracks in the sandy places along the river.
The few people in the Devil's River country began to
keep a sharp lookout for the girl. They remembered the disappearance of poor
Mollie Dent's infant amid wolf tracks. The men told of how female wolves carry
their young by the scruff of the neck without injuring them. Perhaps, they
said, some female wolf, having lost her own young, had carried the newborn to
her den and raised it.
Being confronted with unmistakable evidence of a human
being reared by and running wild with wolves, a hunt was organized to capture
the Lobo Girl, as she had now come to be called. On the third day of the hunt,
two riders found the girl in a side canyon. She was with a big, black wolf and
both of them ran at the sight of the men. The wolf and the girl became
separated when she dodged into a crevice in the rocks. Here, the men cornered
her. She cowered at first, but as the men reached for her, she spat and hissed
like a wildcat and began to fight, biting and clawing. While the men were tying
her, she began to emit pitiful, frightful, unearthly sounds described as
resembling both the scream of a woman and the howl of a wolf, but being
neither. As she was howling this awful scream, the big wolf that she had been
separated from suddenly appeared, rushing at her captors. The men's lives were
saved when one of them saw it before it could get close enough to use it's
powerful jaws and he managed to shoot it with his pistol. When she saw her animal companion lying dead in the dirt, the girl fell into a silent faint.
After she was securely tied, the men closely examined
the creature. She had a full head of long, tangled, dirty hair that had
obviously never seen scissors and very hairy arms and legs. Her hands and arms
were muscled in an extraordinary manner, but not ill proportioned. Other
features showed she was a normally formed human female.
The Lobo Girl was taken to the nearest ranch and placed,
unbound, in a sturdy room used to store potatoes. After she revived, the
rancher's wife offered her clothes, food, and water, but the girl would only
cower in the corner, hissing and howling in such a threatening manner that no
one dared come near her. Finally, the door was tightly fastened and she was
left alone for the night.
Shortly after darkness fell, the girl began howling her unearthly wail. The sounds traveled through the logs and far into
the surrounding desert. Soon they were answered by the long drawn out, deep
howls of wolves. The lobos seemed to answer from all sides, near and far. The
ranchers, who had heard wolf howls all their lives, had never heard anything
like this. It seemed to them that all the wolves in the western world were
gathering around. It was easy to tell the wolves were getting nearer and
nearer, their sullen, soul-chilling howls getting louder and closer. The wolves began to howl in unison, a chorus of ferocity and darkness and lost hopes
such as no man had ever heard. Then they would be silent as if waiting for an
answer, and the wild, captured creature would let forth with her unearthly
scream, a voice neither of woman or beast.
After a time, the great pack rushed the ranch, attacking
goats, cows, and horses. The noises brought the men out into the night, yelling
and shooting at the dark shadows. A few minutes later, the men heard the girl
emit her scream once more, and the lobos retreated into the darkness.
After gathering themselves, the shaken men went to the
little potato bin. Somehow, the Lobo Girl had managed to wrench off the cross
board which held the door closed and made her escape. It was supposed she
rejoined the wolves since no howls were heard the rest of the night. The next
day, no tracks of the girl could be found and for a long time afterwards, the
sight of a wolf in the area was very rare.
For six years, nothing more was heard of the Wolf Girl
of Devil's River. Then, in the spring of 1862, a trio of men passing through on
their way to the gold fields of California, told of seeing a long-haired naked
girl on the banks of the Rio Grande, far above the mouth of Devil's
River. She seemed to be suckling two wolf pups, but before the men could
get close enough to get a good look, the girl jumped up and with a pup under
each arm, ran into the dense brush faster than any horse could follow. Their
story was met with stares and silence, but the residents knew it could have
been none other than the wild Wolf Girl.
