Fifty Years in 1000 Miles--Part 3

Vega—County Seat of Oldham County, Seat of Many Memories, and real places for scenes in novels

Arlen, Sherry and I swapped stories for at least two hours before I left for either Hereford or Vega (I had not decided which). 

I decided to stop in Vega first. Downtown by the Oldham County Courthouse, just off old Route 66, I stood next to a huge stone tablet of the Ten Commandments. I remember it from my youth and wish I had paid more attention to it at the time. 

I was consumed by memories as I looked around the square.  I realized I had written at least six novel scenes in at least two books that take place within two blocks of the square. I visited one of my teenage haunts, the Burger Hut. The windows were boarded up, but the building was freshly painted with blue trim and a new blue metal roof. 

Legend has it that Elvis and his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, stopped there once and ordered burgers and cokes. They ate in the car (reportedly a long limo) with the windows rolled down. Hut patrons turned on their stools away from their own food and watched Elvis eat his burger. The story has some merit because the Hut sat on Route 66 when it was the main route from Chicago to Los Angeles. Elvis and Parker might have passed that way. The Hut was central to many scenes in Rivers Ebb.  

Six counter stools and two small tables at each end allowed the joint to seat only fourteen when it was full. Gabe nursed a cup of coffee on one of the stools as Jake entered. A blonde with cat-eye glasses appeared in front of Jake. “What’s for you? He ordered a root beer.

Gabe held up an empty sugar dispenser as she turned to fill Jake’s order. She smiled. “Sorry, we ran out of sugar. My boss is due back with a new sack any minute. Coffee not sweet enough?”

Gabe’s smile was awkward. “I usually take a teaspoon of sugar with my night coffee. Take it black in the morning, though.”

The girl put an index finger in his coffee, stirred it, put the finger in her mouth and sucked off the coffee. “Sweet enough now?” 

The blonde’s name was Charlotte in the book.The Burger Hut parking lot was also the scene of a violent confrontation between Jake, his friend Nocona, and a local Indian people alternately called Chief or Yellow Eyes. Weeks later, Jake sees his nemesis again.

The stools were all screwed to the same wide board and Jake felt it move, heard it creak, as someone took the stool next to him. He cut his eyes just enough to see braided hair drooped over the man’s right shoulder and a pockmarked cheek. Charlotte’s expression when she came to take his order told him he was sitting next to Yellow Eyes. 

I do remember that night.

I walked two blocks over to the house where Charlotte lived with her dad. It is pivotal in at least two scenes from Rivers Ebb and Go Down Looking.

Jake parked the Ford and waited for her to emerge from the house. She never asked him to come inside, not even into the yard. Jimmy Charles sing “A Million to One” on the Ford’s radio and he knew those were the odds for him and Charlotte. She lived alone with her truck-driver father in a small house of native red stone. Doors and windows showed neglect. The picket fence that enclosed a dirt yard needed paint.

I was surprised that the house is still there. The red stone, (did I make that up?), is covered with stucco. The picket fence is now chain link. Or maybe I just remembered those details wrong.

In Go Down Looking, Jake returns to downtown Vega with his brother Gray Boy after being away for many years. He's on the Vega Square.

Jake felt a strong pull to walk over, to relive that night years ago when he had been chased and threatened, the night that Drager had taken a tire tool to the Rivers’s Ford, the night that Gray Boy had purposely crashed the family Ford into Drager’s Chevy. 

He pulled his baseball cap down close to his eyes, walked with his head down. Memories flooded as he walked up to the little picket fence with peeling paint in front of the tiny, red rock house. Red sand had drifted against the fence deep enough to reach his boot tops.  . . . She appeared on the screened-in porch just as Jake was about to give up. She put her hand above her eyes to shield them from the sun and looked at Jake as if he were an apparition. The cat glasses had been exchanged for bigger, rounder ones. The hollow spots below her cheekbones Jake had always admired were gone. He stared at her belly, guessed she was six months along. Wondered whose it was. 

I walked down to the church where my brother got married, then visited a museum that was being remodeled. The curators knew my brother’s children and some of the boys I knew from Vega when I was here long ago. I wondered if the rivalry between Vega and Adrian boys was as intense as it was back in my day, but didn’t ask.

A Stop In Amarillo

Many readers ask if my novels are based on real people, real events, and real places. All of them are—some more so than others. All of the major events happened; all of the characters were inspired by real people.  Not all of the events happened to me, nor did I witness them all. A few are taken from newspaper and magazine articles that I found intriguing.  But I witnessed most of the events. The people are often composites of interesting characters I have encountered. Some are readily identifiable as real people. The places are also real, though I might change the topography or combine characteristics of places to get the right setting for my characters.

I took a trip awhile back to retrace some of the places and people that inspired my writing in previous books and in my new offerings, Circle of Hurt and Believing in a Grand Thing.

Part 2 A Stop in Amarillo—Where Fiction Is Introduced to Truth

As I left Henrietta and headed back to 287, a tall cowboy skinny as a slice of bacon walked beside the road. The backpack indicated he was a cowboy afoot. He stopped, shook a cigarette from a pack, and used his huge hat to shield his lighter from the wind. Struck me as a classic pose for an artist, an opportunity to look for a novel, but traffic kept me from stopping. Bet he has a lot of stories to tell.

Outside of Estelline, I passed the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River. I had passed a big lake earlier where the water was red. They say out here that means the water is pure and free of gypsum. You can sure see where the Red River gets its name. 

Passed through Hedley, population 319. Marveled at the fact that I played many baseball and basketball games here when I attended Adrian High School.  Though it’s about a four hour drive from Adrian, Hedley was in our district. 

As I passed through Goodnight, Texas, stories of the grand old man of cattle filled my head. Goodnight was clearly the inspiration for Woodrow Call in Lonesome Dove and that made me think of Bose Ikard, the man who inspired Joshua Deets.  I have visited his gravestone in Weatherford where Goodnight had his famous “never shirked a task” epitaph inscribed to honor Ikard. Jan and I could not recall his name recently and I told her to Google “never shirked a task”. His name came up first. 

Blue Duck, who died after jumping from a prison wall, was based on Kiowa Chief Satanta, who died the same way. He is found in Home Light Burning. Hy regretted the question as soon as it left his lips. Satanta looked deeply into his eyes for several seconds before answering. "I will be free soon." Two days later, Satanta faked a heart attack and was taken to the prison hospital. Singing the Kiowa death song, he jumped through the second story window of the hospital and landed on a brick wall below. Hy is my great uncle and was in Huntsville Prison at this time.

In Claude, the temp dropped to 88 and I no longer needed air conditioning. Ugly wind turbines now cover the landscape, spoiling natural beauty, making loud noise, killing birds. These ugly machines do little good and much harm and would not exist except for corrupt taxpayer subsidies granted because their meager production of energy makes them unable to pay their own way.

In Amarillo, I was surprised to see several sixties-looking hippies traveling the highways with backpacks sporting hair that has not felt shampoo or scissors in months, and filthy clothes. Wonder what their stories are?  Enough for a novel?

I had to get on the interstate for a short time. Minutes later, I was in a traffic jam. A wreck up ahead, I found out later. Decided it would be a good time to pull over and rest for the night. Settled into room 137 at Motel Six, I called cousin John Bill Garnett, who lives in nearby Hereford. I hoped to catch him for a short visit, but he was in Wyoming. 

The next morning, I found cousins Arlen and Sherry Alexander in the Amarillo phone book and invited them for coffee. They insisted I come by their house. 

They had been kind enough to buy and read my books, so we had a conversation starter to delve into old times and family history. I knew Arlen and his parents and siblings had lived in the Panhandle when he was a boy, but they had returned to Fort Worth long before I lived there as a boy. So I was surprised that he knew some of the people I had gone to school with in the area. His sister Sha had a crush on someone he remembered only as Popcorn. I knew he was referring to Popcorn Pannell, who married Cynthia Kromer, a schoolmate of mine at Adrian. Popcorn had become a pharmacist and he and Cynthia settled in Plainview. 

Arlen also knew my old classmate Bill Gudgell and the details of his murder by a young boy he had taken in to live in his home and work as a farmhand. The boy and Bill’s wife (another schoolmate) went to prison for Bill's murder. I told them the story of Bill’s connection to Calvin Peters and the Quien Sabe Ranch and how I hoped to see Calvin on this trip. Fodder for a novel?

Fifty Years in 1000 Miles

Looking for a Novel

The Stories Behind the Stories

Fifty Years in 1000 miles

Many readers ask if my novels are based on real people, real events, and real places. All of them are—some more so than others. All of the major events happened; all of the characters were inspired by real people.  Not all of the events happened to me, nor did I witness them all. A few are taken from newspaper and magazine articles that I found intriguing.  But I witnessed most of the events. The people are often composites of interesting characters I have encountered. Some are readily identifiable as real people. The places are also real, though I might change the topography or combine characteristics of places to get the right setting for my characters.

I took a trip awhile back to retrace some of the places and people that inspired my writing in previous books and in my new offerings, Circle of Hurt and Believing in a Grand Thing. 

Part 1—A song and mortality, old towns and ranches of West Texas

This trip, like many of mine, was unplanned.  I just felt the need to get away from the office, the computer, and social media that had swallowed me whole after the publication of three books at the same time. I threw some things in a travel bag and left just after noon on a hot July Sunday. 

I left the CD player going the last time I drove my pickup, and as I rounded the curve on our driveway, Red River Valley was still playing. I have used the words to that old song in at least two books. But today, the sound of the Sons of the Pioneers brought a sudden and very strong awareness of my mortality. Tears came to my eyes. 

The song reminds me of my childhood and of my long gone parents. It’s about a girl leaving the valley, but as I drove away, I imagined my wife and children singing it to me. Lyrics like, “From this valley they say you are leaving” and “Then come sit by my side if you love me. Do not hasten to bid me adieu.” 

Sounds like I am over dramatizing and I suppose I am, but as tears filled my eyes, I had the definite feeling that I might never see them again. Why? Maybe because this would be the first night I had spent alone away from home in several years. Nothing short of death could keep me from returning—thus the feeling that mortality rode with me. I had recently lost my cousin and close friend Marion, so death was fresh. 

As I drove farther away, I tried to recall the words from Go Down Looking as I wrote about Jake’s loss of his brother, Gray Boy. I could almost recite them from memory. 

His death undeniably changed my life, almost as much as his living. Mortality slapped me in the face that day and every day for months. The slaps were sharp and stinging.  Then mortality became a distinct personage and regular traveler on my shoulders. He was heavy at first but then grew lighter with time, even lifting me up on those occasions when I wanted to bend with the weight of living. Having mortality there caused me to make better decisions, to take chances I might not have taken without his constant reminders that life is often short and always fragile.

I was headed to the Panhandle and possible other points north with the intention of coming back through Hollis, Oklahoma to see old friends. I had no real agenda, just go and hope. I had driven the Panhandle route many times over the years, but old landmarks were gone or changed, and without GPS in my old truck or on a smart phone, I decided to pull over and check my map about an hour from home. 

A car driven by a Mexican woman and a young boy pulled up beside me. The boy asked directions to the prison in Bonham. Said his daddy was a prisoner there. He translated the directions I gave them. As they drove away, I wondered at the sad story they could probably tell and whether it was deep enough for a novel. Was that what I was looking for—a new novel—or was I rediscovering an old one? 

As I passed through Nocona, I saw a for sale sign on what had been the world headquarters for Nocona Boot Company. I had visited there a couple of times back in the days when I sold boots in Chute I, my western wear and tack shop. Sad to see that old empty building, sort of a shadow of a former life.

In Henrietta, I pulled off the main highway and drove downtown to see how things had changed from the old days. Took a picture of an old hotel that had lots of western character.  Downtown, like a lot of small Texas towns, seems to be on the decline. I sat on a bench on the courthouse lawn and felt cool under the shade even though the temp was around 100. 

The sign for Waggoner Street reminded me that I was near the Waggoner Ranch (also known as the Triple D), the second largest ranch in Texas and the largest inside one fence.I tried to recall the family connection of the Waggoner to the 6666 Ranch and a little bit of the history I used to know well. 

Legend has it that the 6666 was won with a poker hand of four sixes, but that is myth. Many towns, including Henrietta, Electra, Burkburnett, and Vernon claim ownership of that legendary poker game. The Sixes and Waggoner mixed families (but not land) when one of Burk Burnett’s (founder of the 6666) descendants married a descendant of W. T. Waggoner (founder of the Waggoner Ranch). 

I understand the Waggoner family is feuding now and the ranch is up for sale for a mere $725 million. Legendary cutting horse Poco Bueno is buried there. I spent a little time with Wes O’Neal, a former horse manager there, when Glen Spradling, a farrier for the Waggoner,  suggested that I write Wes’s biography. A project still not completed.  Was that street sign telling me something? Part 2 soon.