Please, Señorita, don’t run away.

William Robinson Leigh The posse finally made it to the river and began to cross. They eventually all made it. When the last man was on the bank, and they were all dripping and exhausted and taking inventory of their progress, they heard a voice, way off on the Mexican side. The pretty bandit was waving her sombrero. “Yoo hoo, boys.” She turned and began to ride away. “What are you doing all the way over there?”

Some of the men drew their guns but the colonel ordered them to stop. He raised a white flag and called back. “Please, Señorita, don’t run away. We have something for you.”

With that, the youngest and fittest rider crossed back. He handed Maria a parcel and she opened it. There was a note which she read with difficulty. Handing it to the young gringo she said, “Read this for me, please.”

“To the wild creature who we never caught. God be with you. C. Gibbs, Esq.”

Maria held up a watch by the chain. She removed her sombrero once again and gave a deep bow. Kicking her horse into a run, she was gone.

Many years later, in his memoirs, Colonel Charles Gibbs wrote that if he’d managed to capture the beautiful wild Mexican who ran him through the hell of the northern Sonoran desert, he would have proposed marriage on the spot. No one was certain whether it was an attempt to make amends for all the Indians he’d slaughtered or to serve his own vanity. Perhaps he was actually expressing his true feelings. No one would ever know. Maria's Trail