Judge Judd Justice had been
either a practicing lawyer or a district judge in Texas
for over sixty years. He had graduated
from Baylor Law School in Waco, Texas, in the 1930’s and had returned to
practice law in Seymour, Texas, until enlisting in the army during World War II
serving in the Pacific theater. He was
in private practice but also served as county attorney, city attorney, and then
was elected district judge. He was in
retired status now but would still set as a visiting judge from time to time. Now in his 87th year he was still as sharp as
a tack. His father had been a Baptist
preacher who had come to Texas as
a child in the late 1800’s settling in Boyd, Texas,
with his family. He had attended Decatur
Baptist College
and then Baylor University
where he was a track star and graduated in 1910 with a Bachelor of Arts
degree. Having been called to the
ministry, he went back to the Decatur
area, then to Matador, and finally to Seymour
where he served the local church for the rest of his life. The Judge and his three brothers had grown up
there and spent many an hour on the Brazos
River. So when the big house and acreage on the hill
overlooking the river became available in the early 1950’s the Judge and Mo had
purchased it. Jim Bob grew up on this
place and spent many an hour on the river with the Judge. At night by the campfire, the Judge would
tell stories about the river and the Indians who once roamed its banks. One such story was about an old map which his
client, Annie Fee-stor, an old Indian who was a
descendant of the Comanche tribe, had given him after the Judge had won a
trespass to try title lawsuit for her over in Quanah on some acreage in
Hardeman County, Texas. Annie had told
the Judge that this old map had been handed down from generation to
generation. As the story was told to
Annie, the Comanche had captured an Apache medicine woman and her companion, a
black man who spoke a strange foreign language and was dressed like a soldier. They were taken prisoners along with two horses
by a band of Comanche warriors who had come south from the mountains in search
of the great buffalo herds. The Comanche
warriors had surprised the two in their camp and captured both them and their
horses. This was at a time before the
Comanche had horses. The Comanche
Indians would later become some of the best horsemen on the plains. But, at this time, they traveled on
foot. In the possession of their
prisoners was this map but neither would decifer the map nor could the Comanche figure out its meaning.
