Lucas Charles Brite had built more than a cattle operation in the Big Bend country. Fifteen miles east of the Rio Grande and between Marfa and the border, Brite Ranch functioned as a small community with its own general store. The Mexican Revolution, which had erupted in 1910, had sent waves of chaos northward across the border. Villistas and Carrancistas fought each other in Mexico while bandits from both factions raided American territory for horses, supplies, and food. The Big Bend was remote, lightly defended, and close to the border. When Christmas 1917 dawned, most of the ranch's residents were away celebrating the holiday. Only foreman Van Neill, his family, and a few Mexican-American families remained.

The raiders opened fire on the Neill house after Sam killed their leader, but Van joined his father in the defense. Mrs. Neill tried to telephone the sheriff, but the raiders had cut the lines. The Mexican attackers soon realized they would suffer heavy losses trying to breach the fortified house. They captured two ranch hands, including Jose Sanchez, and sent him to the house with an ultimatum: surrender the keys to the general store or both captives would be shot. Van and Sam wanted to keep fighting, but Mrs. Neill convinced her husband to avoid more bloodshed. The raiders spent hours robbing the store of clothes, food, money, and horses while the Neills waited inside.

The unsuspecting postman, Mickey Welch, arrived during the raid with two Mexican passengers in his wagon. The raiders captured all three men. They shot both passengers and hanged Welch inside the store. Later, when Reverend H.M. Bandy and his family arrived from Marfa for the Neills' planned Christmas dinner party, Van sent a young Mexican boy out to tell the raiders not to shoot them. The raiders let the minister's family pass, and once inside, Bandy said a quick prayer and picked up a rifle to help defend the house. Other dinner guests who had arrived earlier managed to escape and went for help.

Rancher James L. Cobb heard the gunfire from three miles away and drove toward the sound to investigate. Seeing the Mexicans robbing the store, he drove twelve miles to the nearest telephone and called Lucas Brite in Marfa. Brite alerted the sheriff and the 8th Cavalry. A motorized posse raced to the ranch, almost catching the raiders before they mounted up and fled south across the Candelaria Rim, where vehicles could not follow. The cavalrymen caught up with the raiders in San Bernardino Canyon, near Pilares, just across the Rio Grande. The running battle that followed killed ten Mexicans. The Americans recovered some stolen property, including horses that had been ridden so hard they had to be destroyed. Only one soldier was wounded.

Outrage over the Christmas Day murders swept the Big Bend. Some citizens formed committees to disarm and watch the local Mexican population. But Captain Monroe Fox's Texas Ranger company went further. At midnight on January 27, 1918, Rangers and 8th Cavalry soldiers surrounded the village of Porvenir on the Rio Grande. While soldiers searched homes, Rangers gathered fifteen Mexican men and boys and marched them to a nearby hill, where they were executed without evidence of involvement in the raid. The Porvenir Massacre was investigated in 1919, but no one was charged. Governor William P. Hobby disbanded Company B on June 4, 1918, and dismissed five Rangers. Lucas Brite built a small fort on his ranch to house Texas Rangers, but after the violence subsided, it was never needed. The raid and its aftermath had changed the borderlands forever.