face, he was so drunk. Out in the street they roped him tight from his shoulders to his waist with his hands bound behind him. The whole while, the crowd’s jeering the bloody Yanks, cursing them for whoresons and bastards and such. The sergeant knows they’re all drunk and getting bolder by the minute, and he’s urging his boys to move fast.
They get him up on his horse at last—but the instant they set off, he tumbles from his saddle and lets out a hell of a yell. He’s shouting his shoulder’s broke. One of the niggers jerks him up to his feet and Frank howls like a banshee and curses him for a black son of a nigger bitch. The nigger grabs him by the hair to tug him over to his horse and Frank spits full in his face. He gets a fist in the mouth for it, and he spits another bloody gob at the nigger in return.
“Enough of this shit!” the sergeant shouts. He clouts Frank on the head with his carbine and takes the fight put of him. But while they’re tying him belly-down over his horse, he pukes on one of them. Didn’t that get a big laugh from the crowd!—and even from some of the Yanks. They left town at a canter, poor Frank bouncing on his belly and letting fly another streak of puke as they went.
As for the Hardin fella, we figured he either saw the blues coming or somebody tipped him and he was able to make his getaway. Nobody was faulting him for deserting Frank, either—not with Frank so damn drunk he couldn’t even walk. A situation like that, it’s every man for himself.
Early next morning, however, when I go to the facility behind the place for my morning ease, who do I find sitting over the hole with his trousers bunched around his shins and his head against the wall, snoring like a frog in that outhouse thick with flies and smelling like a dog that’s been dead a week? Sure it was the Hardin lad. So I gently wake the boy and tell him what happened with Frank and all. And he laughs, he does. Turns out he had come to the facility before the Yanks showed up and passed out in the middle of doing his business. Said it was the first time he’d been saved by a call from Mother Nature.
Anyhow, that’s how the Hardin fella escaped capture by the Yankees in Corsicana in the summer of ’69.
Frank went to prison for a time for killing that shopkeeper, but they say he was wild as ever when he got out. It must have been true. The way I heard it, he got into a poker game down in Limestone County and killed a fella at the table for cheating. It was poor Frank’s bad luck the fella was mayor of the town. Frank made a run for it, but a posse chased him down and trapped him by the banks of the Navasota. He hollered out to them from the trees that he was willing to let bygones be bygones. “I’ll forget about the ninety dollars the son of a bitch cheated off me if you fellas’ll forget about taking me in,” he told them. “Fair’s fair.” Those were his last words before they gunned him down. They buried him there beside the river. That’s how I heard it.
J im Newman had us roaming the Richland bottoms in search of mavericks—me, Wes, Simp, Joe O, and Tim Calloway. You didn’t get much breeze through there in summer and it was hot as blazes. We’d work our mounts through the brush and scare out all the cows we could handle. Then we’d herd them up near whatever clearing we’d made our camp on that day, and the next morning two of us would drive them back to the camp at Pisga while the rest of us hunted up some more.
Early one morning, just after Joe O and Tim had left for Pisga with another bunch of longhorns, Simp went off to the creek to get water to make more coffee. A minute later he comes running back, all excited. He flings my blanket over the fire and soaks it with the pot of water he’s just dipped, snuffing the fire without raising too much smoke. But all I can think about just then is that he’s ruined my blanket and I start to give him hell for it, but he hushes me up with a finger
They get him up on his horse at last—but the instant they set off, he tumbles from his saddle and lets out a hell of a yell. He’s shouting his shoulder’s broke. One of the niggers jerks him up to his feet and Frank howls like a banshee and curses him for a black son of a nigger bitch. The nigger grabs him by the hair to tug him over to his horse and Frank spits full in his face. He gets a fist in the mouth for it, and he spits another bloody gob at the nigger in return.
“Enough of this shit!” the sergeant shouts. He clouts Frank on the head with his carbine and takes the fight put of him. But while they’re tying him belly-down over his horse, he pukes on one of them. Didn’t that get a big laugh from the crowd!—and even from some of the Yanks. They left town at a canter, poor Frank bouncing on his belly and letting fly another streak of puke as they went.
As for the Hardin fella, we figured he either saw the blues coming or somebody tipped him and he was able to make his getaway. Nobody was faulting him for deserting Frank, either—not with Frank so damn drunk he couldn’t even walk. A situation like that, it’s every man for himself.
Early next morning, however, when I go to the facility behind the place for my morning ease, who do I find sitting over the hole with his trousers bunched around his shins and his head against the wall, snoring like a frog in that outhouse thick with flies and smelling like a dog that’s been dead a week? Sure it was the Hardin lad. So I gently wake the boy and tell him what happened with Frank and all. And he laughs, he does. Turns out he had come to the facility before the Yanks showed up and passed out in the middle of doing his business. Said it was the first time he’d been saved by a call from Mother Nature.
Anyhow, that’s how the Hardin fella escaped capture by the Yankees in Corsicana in the summer of ’69.
Frank went to prison for a time for killing that shopkeeper, but they say he was wild as ever when he got out. It must have been true. The way I heard it, he got into a poker game down in Limestone County and killed a fella at the table for cheating. It was poor Frank’s bad luck the fella was mayor of the town. Frank made a run for it, but a posse chased him down and trapped him by the banks of the Navasota. He hollered out to them from the trees that he was willing to let bygones be bygones. “I’ll forget about the ninety dollars the son of a bitch cheated off me if you fellas’ll forget about taking me in,” he told them. “Fair’s fair.” Those were his last words before they gunned him down. They buried him there beside the river. That’s how I heard it.
J im Newman had us roaming the Richland bottoms in search of mavericks—me, Wes, Simp, Joe O, and Tim Calloway. You didn’t get much breeze through there in summer and it was hot as blazes. We’d work our mounts through the brush and scare out all the cows we could handle. Then we’d herd them up near whatever clearing we’d made our camp on that day, and the next morning two of us would drive them back to the camp at Pisga while the rest of us hunted up some more.
Early one morning, just after Joe O and Tim had left for Pisga with another bunch of longhorns, Simp went off to the creek to get water to make more coffee. A minute later he comes running back, all excited. He flings my blanket over the fire and soaks it with the pot of water he’s just dipped, snuffing the fire without raising too much smoke. But all I can think about just then is that he’s ruined my blanket and I start to give him hell for it, but he hushes me up with a finger
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