Gary Humphreys and the Wolf Girl of Devil’s River
If you’ve spent much time around Del Rio, sooner or later you’ll hear somebody mention Gary Humphreys.
Most folks know Gary as the fellow behind the gun counter, but that only scratches the surface. Sit with him long enough and you’ll discover he’s carrying around a piece of Texas that ain’t written down in most history books. He’s a descendant of families tied to the earliest days of Texas, with roots reaching back to the men and women connected to the era of the Alamo and the fight for independence. History ain’t just something Gary reads about. For him, it’s family.
On a hot afternoon, when the wind comes rolling out of the Devil’s River country carrying the smell of cedar and dust, Gary can talk for hours about the old days. Not just the famous stories everybody knows, but the forgotten ones. The kind that survive because somebody cared enough to tell them one more time.
One of his favorites is the tale of the Wolf Girl of Devil’s River.
Now Gary will tell you right up front that whether every word is true or not ain’t really the point. Out in West Texas, legends have a way of carrying pieces of truth inside them. The country is old, the canyons are deep, and strange things have always happened where there are more wolves than people.
The story starts back in 1835.
A trapper named John Dent and his wife Mollie had come west from Georgia, looking to disappear into the vast wilderness of Texas. They settled near Devil’s River, far from neighbors and farther still from civilization.
Back then the country around Del Rio wasn’t Del Rio at all. It was raw frontier. Comanches rode the plains. Wolves howled from every ridge. A man could ride for days and never see another soul.
Mollie was fixing to have a baby when a terrible storm rolled across the country.
Lightning split the darkness.
When her labor turned difficult, John saddled his horse and rode into the storm searching for help. He found a goat ranch out toward the Pecos and begged the vaqueros to come save his wife.
Before they could leave, a bolt of lightning struck him dead in the saddle.
The goat herders finally reached the Dent cabin the next morning.
What they found chilled them to the bone.
Mollie lay dead beneath a brush arbor.
All around the cabin were wolf tracks.
Most folks figured the wolves had carried the child away.
That should’ve been the end of it.
Ten years later strange stories started drifting into the settlements around San Felipe Springs.
A boy claimed he’d seen a naked girl running with wolves.
Then a Mexican woman reported seeing the same thing.
Hunters found human footprints mixed among wolf tracks along the riverbanks.
Apache scouts told of seeing signs no one could explain.
Soon everybody was talking about the Wolf Girl of Devil’s River.
A group of vaqueros finally organized a hunt.
On the third day they spotted her near Espantosa Lake.
She was running alongside a wolf pack.
The riders chased her through the rough country and eventually cornered her in a canyon.
What happened next became the stuff of legend.
The girl fought like a wildcat.
When they finally managed to lasso her, she threw back her head and let out a howl that echoed off the canyon walls.
Not long after, a huge gray wolf came charging from the brush.
One of the cowboys fired his pistol.
The men carried her to a nearby ranch house where they locked her inside a room for the night.
As darkness settled across the desert, strange cries drifted from the room.
Before long the entire ranch seemed surrounded by wolves.
The horses stomped nervously.
The cowboys grabbed rifles and rushed outside.
While everyone was distracted, the Wolf Girl tore loose the boards covering a window and vanished into the darkness.
Some said they saw her again over the years.
The most famous sighting came in 1852 when surveyors near the mouth of Devil’s River claimed they found a young woman sitting on a sandbar nursing wolf cubs.
The moment she spotted them she gathered the cubs and disappeared into the canyons.
Nobody ever caught her again.
Gary Humphreys always enjoyed telling that story because it captures something about the Devil’s River country itself.
You see, Devil’s River ain’t like other places.
Even today it feels wild.
The limestone cliffs rise above emerald water.
The canyons twist away into shadows.
At night the wind makes sounds that can fool a man into thinking he’s hearing voices from another century.
Gary understands that better than most.
As a descendant of Texas pioneers and a lifelong student of the state’s history, he’s spent years preserving stories that might otherwise disappear. The Wolf Girl isn’t just a legend to him. It’s part of the living memory of the borderlands. It’s one more thread woven into the rich tapestry of Southwest Texas.
Maybe there really was a girl raised by wolves.
Maybe the truth lies somewhere in between.
But if you ever find yourself sitting around a campfire in the Devil’s River country while the coyotes sing from the ridges and the stars shine brighter than you’ve ever seen, you might understand why folks keep telling the story.
And if Gary Humphreys happens to be sitting nearby, he’ll probably grin, lean back in his chair, and tell you that in West Texas there are still a few mysteries the country ain’t ready to give up just yet.
