Bud & Me

by Alta Abernathy

  Dad caught the next train. When he got to the mansion, I ordered a cool drink for him, giving the order to a Portuguese servant with whom I’d become special friends. Dad laughed and accused us of taking over the mansion the way we were giving orders.

  He wanted to hear all about our trip, so I told him about the snake Geronimo had stepped on, and of course, Bud had to tell him the jackass story.

  “We must’ve run six miles,” Bud exaggerated, “and Temp spurred Geronimo every step of the way. You should have seen his eyes, big as saucers.”

  Everyone laughed, even me, but I remembered that it wasn’t so funny at the time. I could still feel the hot breath of that jackass as he bared his teeth and tried to bite me.

  Dad was really proud of us when he heard about the awful heat we’d ridden through, and the night the wolves surrounded us. Then we took him into the parlor and played a hymn on the piano that we’d just learned as a duet, “No, Not One.” When we came to the part that goes, “Jesus knows all about our struggles,” I pronounced it “schuggles,” much to everyone’s amusement. Maybe I couldn’t say it, but I was sure that 1 had already met with more “schuggles” than most five-year olds.

  When it came time to go home, Dad decided to ride with us over Glorieta Pass east of Santa Fe. He borrowed a horse from the Governor, promising to send it back from Las Vegas, New Mexico, and ride the train home from there. The Governor said that was fine, but we ought to have a gun as protection, not only against snakes and wolves, but also badmen. He warned us there were still many robbers in the territory. Dad told him Bud had a shotgun and knew how to use it.

  “Would you use it against a man if you had to, Bud?” Governor Curry asked.

  “Well, Dad told me if someone came at us, to draw a bead on him, and tell him to stop or else.”

  “And what if he doesn’t stop?”

  “He told me to protect Temp and myself. So I guess I’d pull the trigger if I had to.”

  “That’s good,” said the Governor. “I hope you don’t have to, but it’s best to be ready.”

  We began the long trip back to Guthrie, hoping we’d never have to pull that trigger.

  Instead of going south to Roswell, Bud, Dad, and I went due east. Riding over the pass was beautiful, but at times, a little scary. The road was seldom more than a narrow trail. For a stretch we could look hundreds of feet straight down into the valley, as we zigzagged our way down the side of the mountain. Far below we could see men breaking rock to widen the road.

  “That’s a hard labor detail,” Dad said. “They use prisoners to build the roads out here.”

  I was excited. “Dad, do you suppose Jesse James is down there?”

  Dad rode with us for a few days when we headed

  home from our visit with Governor Curry.

  “Could be, Temp,” he said with a wry smile, “except he’s been dead for 20 years.”

  I laughed with them. It was such a fine ride that I didn’t care if my ignorance amused them. When we rode closer to the convicts, I stared at them, wondering what terrible crimes they’d committed. Except for their uniforms, most of them looked like pretty normal folks.

  At the Pecos River, we stopped for lunch with some forest rangers. One of them bragged about the bear he’d killed the night before. It turned out we were eating bear meat. A huge black hide was tacked to the outside of the cabin. The rangers planned to use it for a rug. I wondered if Bud’s shotgun could stop a bear that big.

  In Las Vegas, Dad sent his borrowed horse back to Santa Fe with a revenue officer, and caught an east-bound train home. He reminded us again not to push the horses too far each day, and to be especially careful crossing rivers. Bud and I found a nice brick hotel and walked into the lounge just in time to avoid a sudden downpour.

  The next few days were slow going through rough, mountainous country. The air was so thin that Sam Bass and Geronimo breathed hard all the time and couldn’t make their usual 50 miles a day. Bud and I didn’t push them, but rode along enjoying scenery so wild and untamed, we wondered if either man or beast lived there.

  One day, along the Canadian River, we came to a camp where men were branding cattle, laughing, and joking with each other as they worked. As we rode near, they called us over and asked what we were doing out in the middle of nowhere. We told them who we were, and about the ride we were making. They were among the friendliest, most helpful people we met on the whole trip.

  Bud asked them if we could spend the night, and they said sure. They took us to a simple, two-room house, furnished only with wooden crates used for tables and chairs. One of the two rooms had nothing but saddles and blankets on the floor. It wasn’t like any house I’d ever seen, and I said to them, “Say, what business are you fellows in?”

  “The cattle business,” one man answered with a grin.

  That night they fed us the best steak I’d eaten in a long time. They joked as they ate and really seemed to enjoy our company. As the night wore on, they entertained us with tales of the range, and I kept asking for more, until it was finally time to turn in. They all just rolled up on the floor in their blankets, using their saddles as pillows, so Bud and I did the same thing.

  The next morning we had a hearty bacon and egg breakfast. One of the men warned us about quicksand along the Canadian River. Another gave Bud detailed directions about the best way to get to Tucumcari, and wished us a safe trip.

  “That’s awful rough country ahead, boys,” said one of the men.

  “Yep, there’s a lot of dangerous animals in these parts,” added another one, “and you’d do well to keep your eyes peeled for outlaws hiding in the rocks.”

  The men all chuckled, but I didn’t think it was funny. I hoped Bud wouldn’t have to use his shotgun.

  After we left our new friends, we followed the Canadian River for several miles. Once, looking back, we saw some cowboys following us, but keeping their distance. We thought it was strange, but our thoughts were on what was ahead of us, not behind.

  Just after we turned away from the river, we ran into a furious sandstorm. Fortunately, we’d brought goggles along, just in case of such an emergency. I put my goggles on and tied a scarf over my nose, but Bud discovered he’d lost his goggles. Now, barely able to breath and unable to see at all, he couldn’t lead us to shelter. The horses weren’t doing much better. They shook their heads to keep the wind and sand from their noses.

  “Here, Bud, take my goggles.” The wind blew the words from my mouth, and he didn’t hear me. I spurred Geronimo up along-side Sam Bass and held out my goggles. “Here, Bud, take them.”

  At first he refused, but I finally persuaded him. With Bud and Sam in the lead, Geronimo and I followed as closely as we could. I had to keep my head low to avoid having my eyes cut to pieces, and I’d grit my teeth to keep from breathing sand, even through my bandanna.

  Instinct or good luck brought us to a livery stable. An old man took care of our horses, and then led us to a hotel down the street. Inside, we washed the grit from our faces, enjoyed a hot meal, and slept out the storm in the comfort of a feather bed. The next day, to our surprise, we found we were in a half-deserted town with only three buildings.

  After that, we rode across the Texas Panhandle. It was desolate, but beautiful in its own way. Herds of wild antelope would graze until we got too close, then twitch their tails and take off in the opposite direction at twice the speed of our horses. Our pictures were taken at a bank in Amarillo, and we saw buffalo grazing on the Goodnight ranch where Dad had worked as a teenager. We were now back on flat ground, traveling 40 or 50 miles a day, and eager to be home.

  Fame followed us once we got back into Oklahoma. In Mangum, reporters asked us about our adventure. Bud talked to them, but I was too tired and wanted to go to bed. As a result, the papers called me the less talkative of the Abernathy brothers.

  Dad met us in El Reno, just north of Oklahoma City, and we rode into the city together. A marching band and a big procession met us at the outs
kirts of the city and escorted us all the way to the Lee Huckins Hotel. Bud and I were surprised to see people lining the streets to greet us. Flags waved in the air, and a fire truck rang its bell loudly. The Mayor asked us to speak. Naturally, being the youngest, I had to go first.

  We posed for a photographer in front of

  a bank in Amarillo.

  The podium was on a fire truck, and I always loved fire trucks, so that was what I told the people. They clapped and cheered as though I had just given a great patriotic speech.

  Bud followed, and he told them some of the things that had happened to us on the trail, and thanked them for the parade and for coming to see us.

  As we stepped down, however, we found that not everyone in the crowd thought our adventure was so wonderful. A group of women gathered around me, and one of them asked, in a mean voice, “Where is your mother? Why did she let you go on such a dangerous trip?”

  “My mother is dead,” I told her, at which point she became hysterical and started to scream. She grabbed me and held me tight in her arms. I was far more scared than I had been at any time during our long ride.

  “Where is your father?” she cried. I looked frantically around, and to my great relief, saw Dad coming through the crowd about 15 feet away. “There he is!” I said, with a happy sigh, as I broke her hold and ran to him.

  “Well, I want to tell him how crazy he is to let two boys as small as you make such a trip.” she hollered, turning on her heels and stalking away. Some folks were aghast that two boys were allowed to ride anywhere near that far alone, but our dad had confidence in us.

  Dad rode home to Guthrie with us that afternoon. When we got there, he showed us a letter written with the lead of a bullet on a brown paper sack. It was addressed simply to, “The Marshal of Oklahoma.”

  Bud read it aloud to me. “I don’t like one hair on your head, but I do like the stuff that is in these kids. We shadowed them through the worst part of New Mexico to see that they were not harmed by sheepherders, mean men, or animals.” It was signed, “A.Z.Y.”

  Our cowboy friends were rustlers! One of them, Arizona, who wrote the letter, had been in a shoot-out involving our Dad only a few months earlier.

  “It just goes to show you there’s some good in all men,” Dad said. “He’d have killed me at the drop of a hat, but he was honorable to protect my innocent boys.”

  Bud and I learned a lot from that first trip. For one thing, most folks are willing to lend a hand when they can. Also, there is a lot of help people can give each other. And, we found even though we were often tired, dirty, and discouraged, we could face tough situations and solve our own problems. Our experiences would serve us well in the years to come.

  We thought we were two tough cowboys who

  could take care of ourselves in any situation.

  2

  NEW YORK

  With the ride to Santa Fe under our belts, Bud and I had the confidence to talk Dad into letting us ride to New York. It was 1910, and Taft had succeeded Teddy as president. We were going to meet Teddy on his return from safari in Africa, and a speaking tour of Europe. Teddy had invited Dad to go along on the hunt, but Dad declined, saying he couldn’t be away from his motherless children that long.

  Dad had planned, however, to be in New York when Teddy’s ship docked. He’d also planned to ride in Teddy’s homecoming parade with the Rough Riders and other Spanish American War veterans. We talked and persuaded until Dad allowed us to start on a ride that would put us there in time to welcome Teddy home too. New York was 2,000 miles away, through country we’d never known, filled with folk who were strangers to us. It would be a wild adventure for two farm-bred Oklahoma boys.

  Bud and I rode away from Cross Roads, our ranch near Frederick, around the first of April. We were dressed to the nines in new boots and hats. Dad had ordered new leather saddles and blankets all the way from Kansas City. Strapped to the back of our saddles were bed rolls, bacon, and oats for the horses.

  We rode leisurely at first, for Dad made us promise to go easy on the horses. The family milk cow followed us for a while, the big bell around her neck almost calling us back home. But we rode on, listening to mockingbirds and enjoying a beautiful spring day.

  “Surprise! Hurry!” Our cousin, Walter interrupted our peaceful ride, motioning us toward his house, which was only down the road from our own home a little bit. We had hardly gotten away and we were already being distracted from our big trip. Bud was more than a little disgusted. He wanted to push on and insisted that we were in a hurry. But I held out for following Walter, to see what he wanted. When we got to their house, his mother, our Aunt Lou, stood on the porch with a small bundle in her arms. When she pulled back the blanket, Bud and I saw a red, turned-up nose and a rather funny, wrinkled face. This was the surprise—we had a new cousin.

  The little creature certainly didn’t fit my notion of good-looking, and 1 had a hard time understanding why Walter was so excited. It didn’t seem to me this creature was near as exciting as our trip, but I was too polite to say so. Silently though, I agreed with Bud, we should’ve just kept on riding. Walter said they’d named the baby Teddy, after President Teddy Roosevelt, and that made me look a bit more favorably on that wrinkled face.

  After a brief visit, we left our relatives and rode to the town of Tipton, some seven miles away. Even though it was early morning, a few of our friends were on the street, and they greeted us enthusiastically. By noon that day we were in Indian Territory.

  Now most boys our age, and many adults too, would have been nervous crossing Indian Territory, even though the Indians had lived peaceably on the reservation for many years. Still, the thought of Indian trouble lingered in many minds, and it was scary to think they could be hiding behind any bush or hill. Bud and I weren’t scared a bit, not a bit, because Dad had many friends among the Indians, especially the famous Quanah Parker.

  Most folks know that Quanah Parker was one of the most fierce Comanche warriors. He had led his people in their last fight at the battle of “Adobe Walls,” in the Texas Panhandle. And when the government sent the Comanche to live on the reservation near Fort Sill, Indian Territory, Quanah was their last chief. Quanah was the son of the great Comanche chief, Peta Nocona, but more importantly, of the most famous white captive of the Indians, Cynthia An n Parker. She was captured when she wasn’t much older than Bud, and she grew up to marry a great Indian chief and bear his children. Years later, she was recaptured by white folks, and so the story goes, she died of a broken heart, longing for her son, Quanah.

  When the Comanche went to the reservation, Quanah Parker took his wives and all his other people with him. He tried to help them learn to walk what he called “the white man’s road.” And the funny thing was, that the famous wolf hunt, where our Dad met Teddy Roosevelt, took place on Indian land owned by Quanah and his tribe. So, in a round about way, since Quanah and our Dad were friends, we figured we were his friends too. We didn’t think of him as a scary Indian warrior at all—he was a friend, and we hoped to visit with him.

  We soon got our wish. As we rode up to the big white house where Quanah Parker and his wives lived, he was standing on the front porch. He talked with us about our Dad and the long ride we were going on. I was mighty impressed with his big house. It was two stories tall, with a huge porch all around, and four big stars on the roof. W.T Waggoner and Burk Burnett had built it for him. I thought I saw a little bit of envy in Quanah’s eyes when we told him about our trip. I suspected he was probably tired of being on that reservation and would like the excitement that we had staring us in the face.

  We rode through the town of Cache, and on to the bigger city of Lawton. Al Jennings met us there. He was a reformed outlaw who had become a lawyer, and he too, was a good friend of Dad’s. One of the advantages of having our dad for a father was meeting all of his interesting friends.

  Next morning, I bought a Navajo blanket for Geronimo. “Thirty dollars is way to much to pay for that, “ Bud
protested. But I thought it was a wonderful blanket, and bought it in spite of his protests.

  In Arcadia, Oklahoma, we settled into the town’s only hotel for a bath and a change of clothes. Just as we were about to go in search of a good restaurant, there was a knock on our door. The sheriff of Arcadia introduced himself.

  If we thought he’d come to arrest us, it was soon clear we were mistaken. The sheriff was to be our official escort during our stay in Arcadia. He apologized for being a little late in greeting us. Seems he had to arrest a man and settle him in jail before he could come entertain us. We never did learn what the man had done, although I burned with curiosity.

  The sheriff took us to dinner, and then to the Opera House where we sat in front row seats. We watched with fascination as a magician pulled brightly colored handkerchiefs from his pocket. First, a yellow one, then a red one, then a blue, then another yellow, and on and on. I knew it was impossible for his pocket to hold all those handkerchiefs, in every color of the rainbow, but I couldn’t figure out how he did it. And then, with a twist of his wrist, the handkerchiefs all disappeared!

  When he snapped his fingers and rabbits began jumping out of a big, black hat, I excitedly jumped out of my seat and shouted out loud. Now, I’d seen cottontails in the pasture and jackrabbits running across the prairie, but pink rabbits? Never!

  “Shh! Be quiet!” Bud pulled at my shirt, making me sit down, but I knew he could barely sit still himself. The magician did a lot more tricks, each one more thrilling than the one before, and Bud and I, two boys from the country, sat spellbound. I thought, if Arcadia was this wonderful, what would New York be like?

  Disaster seemed to haunt us in the days after we left Arcadia, and the wonderful magician. It began when we were about seven miles south of the town of Hominy, Oklahoma, in Osage Indian Territory. We stopped at a tree-lined creek, and Bud and I broke in our new hats, using their brims as cups from which to drink the cool water. But first, we let Sam Bass and Geronimo drink, and I thought Geronimo would never quit.