J.D. and I got into a serious discussion about who would go into the well to light the fuse. I decided that J.D. would do it.
“You know I can’t climb a rope worth a damn,” J.D. said.
I knew that, all right, so I told him that I would pull him up with the windless. He seemed doubtful, but he agreed.
We decided it would be best to test the fuse before lighting it in the well, so we cut a four-inch length and lit it. J.D. timed it to see how long it would take to burn.
We calculated that it would take ten minutes for two feet of fuse to burn. Ten minutes would be plenty of time to climb out of the well and move a safe distance away before the charge went off. We thought it best to give ourselves an extra margin of safety, so we cut the fuse a few inches longer.
J.D. climbed into the well. “Are you ready?” he hollered.
“Yeah, I’m ready!”
He lit the fuse, and I’ve never seen a monkey climb a rope faster than J.D. climbed the rope out of that well!
We ran about fifty yards up on a hill to wait for the blast. J.D. forgot to check his watch for timing the fuse, but we decided we would know soon enough. We waited, then we waited some more, but the dynamite didn’t go off.
“I think the fuse has gone out,” J.D. said.
“Nah, let’s wait a little longer.”
Still no blast. After a while, we both decided that maybe we should check to see if the fuse had gone out.
We crawled toward the opening on our bellies, and just as we were about to stick our heads out over the hole to look at the fuse, KERWHAM! The earth shook. Dirt and rock shot out of that hole like it was a volcano. For a while, all was quiet. Then rocks began falling. Some of those rocks were so heavy that they shook the ground when they hit. We put our arms over our heads attempting to shield ourselves.
Luckily, none of the rocks hit us, but I’ve never been so scared. Then, all was quite again. We lay there wondering what might be coming next.
After a while, we decided it would be safe to look into the hole. The blast had blown an additional six feet into the bottom of the well. The ledge of rock was about two feet thick, and then there was a crack, and another layer of rock. The blast had gone through the first layer and into the second layer to the depth of about four feet, leaving the bottom round and smooth as a pot.
Between the two layers of rock, a stream of cool, clear water flowed. It was a beautiful well! We hurried to tell Dad.
Dad came, took one look and said, “Boys, that’s a damn good well.”
J.D. and I beamed. Then Dad pulled up a bucket of water and took a sip. “It’s a shame,” he said, shaking his head, “but the water is no good.”
Then J.D. and I tasted the water. It was laced with gypsum, unfit for man or beast. The only thing left to do was to fill the hole so that nothing would fall into it.
Digging the well was hard work, and we learned a lot. We learned that cutting your fuse too long can be as dangerous as cutting it too short.
***
In retrospect, I can see that it was just a brief moment in time, but events like these shape our lives. Later, both J.D. and I left the farm life. J.D. served as a soldier in World War II and returned to live a long, productive life. I became a chemist, an air traffic controller, and a landscape contractor; and now I write.
I went back to the site of the well many years later. There wasn’t the slightest trace that a well had ever been dug there. It made me wonder how heavy one’s tread must be to leave footprints that will endure.
THE TRIP TO CALIFORNIA
I completed the eleventh grade at the Eastview High School in May of 1943. World War II was raging in Europe and Asia. Everett and J.D. were still fighting in the war, and we rarely heard from either of them. Naoma was living away somewhere. I couldn’t get a job anywhere in Oklahoma, so I decided to try to get work in California again.
I stuffed a few clothes in a duffle bag and started down the road to the highway to hitch a ride. The trip to California would probably take several days, and I had no money for motels. I’d have to spend the nights wherever night overtook me. I had an extra shirt and a light jacket in my bag. I could sleep in the extra clothes if it got cold and the bag would serve as a pillow. I had the entire Great Plains to lie down in, so what else could I need? I had done it before, at the age of thirteen, and I could surely do it again at seventeen.
Once I reached the highway, I continued walking in the direction I wanted to go. I had walked for another half hour when a man in a pickup truck, pulling a trailer, stopped to offer me a ride. As I got into the truck, I noticed that the driver had a horse in the trailer with its head tied down to a lower slat on the side of the trailer.
That’s a strange way to haul a horse, I thought. The driver told me that his name was Jenkins, and that he was a retired businessman from Chicago who had bought a ranch in West Texas and was going to spend his retirement years ranching. I immediately knew that I was talking to a real greenhorn. In the first place, ranching is no retirement—it’s very hard work. No man who knows anything about horses would haul a horse in a trailer with its head tied down to the bottom rung of the trailer. A horse is naturally nervous in a trailer, and will become agitated when he can’t see where he’s going. The horse was kicking the end and sides of the trailer, and I was afraid that he was going to hurt himself.
“If you’ll let that horse get his head up, he’ll ride better,” I said.
“Do you know about horses?” The man looked at me quizzically.
“I’ve worked with horses on our farm.”
“Would you do what is necessary for the horse, if I stop the truck?” he asked.
I got into the trailer and found a closed container of water. I gave the horse a drink, gentled him a bit, loosened the rope so he could get his head up, and got back in the truck. “We can go now; the horse will ride a lot better.”
Mr. Jenkins was apparently impressed. He asked me if I would train the horse for him. I told him that I was on my way to California, but I’d work long enough to gentle the horse so that he could ride him.
The would-be rancher had bought a section of land southwest of Amarillo.
A section is one square mile of land, which isn’t enough to be considered a good farm in West Texas. It sure wasn’t enough to be called a ranch, but to this Chicago businessman, it must have seemed big.
At the ranch, Mrs. Jenkins welcomed me into their home.
I spent the next few days working with the horse. I explained that what I was doing was different from breaking the horse, and Mr. Jenkins agreed that that would be enough.
The horse had worn a halter and lead rope before, but it had never worn a bridle. My first task was to train the horse to wear a bridle. I guessed that the horse was no more than three years old, but his being young was an advantage. The horse didn’t seem to be afraid of people. I got a bridle on him after a little struggle and spent the next couple of hours just petting him and leading him around with the reins.
Then I put a saddle blanket on the horse’s back and continued to pet him. Every few minutes I offered him feed and water. After about an hour I took the blanket off, rubbed him down, and put the blanket back on. Then I got the saddle from the tack room and laid it on the ground, and let him smell it and get used to it. After an hour or so, I placed the saddle on his back. He didn’t know what to make of the saddle, but it didn’t frighten him. I led him around for the rest of the day.
Mr. Jenkins watched me. “Why don’t you just get on the horse and ride him?” he asked.
“This isn’t Hollywood! This is the real thing. I don’t want to break the horse—I want to train him. When you break a horse to ride, you subvert the will of the horse to the will of the one doing the breaking, but when you train a horse, the trainer and the horse become friends, and they work together willingly.”
The next day, I followed the same procedure of petting, feeding, and watering the horse, putting the saddle on and taking it off.
I then let the horse walk around with the saddle and bridle on.
The owner’s neighbor watched me work the horse, but he never said a word; he just watched. I could tell by his dress and manner that he was a seasoned rancher with a lot of experience with horses. I could also tell he had never seen a horse trained this way before.
On the fourth day, I asked the neighbor if I could use his plowed field to train the horse. I told him that I would re-plow it after I was through using it.
He looked puzzled and said, “That’ll be all right.”
I led the horse around in the plowed field for a while. I knew that if the horse was going to buck, the plowed field would tire him quicker, hurt his hooves less, and if I fell off, I would get hurt less by falling on soft, plowed ground. I continued petting the horse, and then very gently stepped up into the saddle. The horse turned his head around and looked at me, but he didn’t pitch. I just sat on his back petting him. After a few minutes, I got off and led him back to the barn, took everything off, fed him, and turned him out to pasture.
On the fifth day, I called the horse and he came into the corral all on his own. He walked right up to me to be petted. I put the bridle and saddle on him with no problem, led him into the plowed field, and got on him. I leaned forward in the saddle and urged the horse to walk forward. I spent the rest of the day training the horse to respond to the reins. I trained him to move forward, back up, and turn when I wanted him to.
The following day, I asked Mr. Jenkins to work with me to allow the horse to get used to him. I instructed him to pet the horse, lead him around, feed and water him—get acquainted, and make the horse his friend.
He wanted to get on the horse, but I told him, “No, not yet. Spend a lot of time with the horse first so the horse can get to know and trust you.”
On the seventh day, I told Mr. Jenkins to get up in the saddle and pet the horse. “Now,” I said, “urge the horse forward with the reins.”
Within a couple of hours, they were a pair. Mr. Jenkins rode all around his place, and both he and the horse were enjoying the experience. He came back with a big smile on his face.
The neighboring rancher, who had watched me train the horse, walked up to me with his hand extended. “That’s the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen,” he said. “Where did you learn to do that?”
“I learned to ride a horse on soft ground by falling off a horse onto hard ground too many times,” I replied.
He laughed so hard he was holding his sides.
The horse turned out to be a good saddle horse. Mr. Jenkins was pleased, and asked me to stay and work for him. I thanked him and said no. “My destination is California.”
“What’s this thing with you Okies and California?” he asked.
“California is as far west as we can hitchhike,” I replied.
We shared a good laugh. He paid me twenty dollars, gave me a ride to the highway, and I continued west.
After walking for only a short time on old Highway 66, I caught a ride with a family who lived just west of a small town in New Mexico. They were a nice family, and the man even offered to buy my dinner, but I declined. I had lots of money now. I still had the four dollars I had left home with, and the twenty dollars I had been paid for training the horse.
***
The next ride turned out to be the only ride I ever caught that made me wish I hadn’t been so lucky.
Late in the afternoon, two men in a new 1942 Chevrolet sedan stopped to give me a ride. They said they were going to California. I thought fate had smiled on me this time, so I settled back with transportation assured all the way to California. I didn’t even ask where in California they were going. I didn’t care. California was California, and that was good enough.
We drove on through the night. First, one would drive for a few hours, and then the other would drive. I thought they might ask me to drive, but they didn’t.
They had the radio tuned to the police frequency. I thought it was odd, but it didn’t concern me, so I thought no more about it until I heard the police say they were looking for two men who had stolen a new 1942 Chevrolet.
I pretended to be asleep. It was late, and we were driving through some very rough terrain on a highway with many twists and turns. We saw the headlights of a car behind us, and the man in the passenger seat told the driver to “lose them.”
The driver drove faster and faster over the winding and narrow road. The car behind us just kept coming. We were screaming around the curves on the mountain road, and I was getting concerned.
“Well, they have a faster car than we do,” the man on the passenger side said. “There’s no advantage to kill ourselves, so we may as well slow down.”
We had just begun to slow down when a blond woman in a Buick convertible went by us with her hair flying in the wind.
“I don’t know where she’s going,” I commented, “but it must be a very important destination.”
We all heaved a sigh. The rest of the night was uneventful, but I sure didn’t sleep.
The man in the passenger seat asked me if I had been listening to the radio. I told him no, that I had fallen asleep, but I could tell by the way he looked at me that he didn’t believe me.
We stopped for gasoline in a small town the following morning. Now the men suspected that I knew that they were driving a stolen car. I didn’t dare get caught out on the desert alone with these men. There was a good chance I’d never make it to California. A restaurant, right across the street from the service station, had several people inside. I thought, This is my chance to be rid of them.
When I started across the street, one of the men stuck his hand in his pocket as though he had a gun. “No, you don’t," the man said, "you’re with us.”
I didn’t say a word; I just kept walking. I was hoping that he wouldn’t shoot me with so many people watching. My back was itching with the anticipation of being shot. I was about halfway across the road now. If he shoots me, will I hear the shot? Nothing happened. I went into the restaurant and ordered a cup of coffee. For the first time in my life, I didn’t want anything to eat. The two men drove on.
***
Later, I caught a ride with a couple who were on their way to Salt Lake City. They were going through Las Vegas, which was out of my way, but I decided to ride that far with them.
They let me off on Fremont Street near the Golden Nugget Casino. I had breakfast at a restaurant and paid for it with a five-dollar bill. My breakfast cost less than a dollar. The cashier gave me four silver dollars in change.
I walked into the casino to look around. While I was watching a dice game, the stick man slid the dice to me. I knew nothing about gambling, but I had heard that seven and eleven were winning numbers, so I placed a silver dollar on number seven.
The table man nodded to the stick man. “Take the bet,” he said.
I rolled a seven, picked up my winnings, and left a silver dollar on the table. I rolled a seven again, I then picked up my winnings and left my bet of one dollar on the table. A man standing beside me started riding with me on my wager. I rolled seven four times in a row, each time pulling my winnings. The man was letting his winnings ride. I’d better not wear out the seven, I thought, so I changed my bet to number eleven.
“Take the bet,” the table man said.
I rolled eleven three times in a row, each time pulling my winnings. The man still riding with me had a huge pile of chips in front of him. I had learned a little about gambling by this time, so I moved my bet to the pass line. I rolled four straight passes and picked up my money.
“You can’t quit now,” the table man said. “You’re still rolling.”
“I don’t want to bet any more,” I told him.
“Don’t go; I’ll pay you to just keep rolling,” the man riding with me said.
I had been picking up my winnings each time, so I hadn’t won as much as I could have, but to me, what I had was a fortune.
“No,” I said, “I’m on my way to Californ
ia.”
I picked up my winnings, threw the dice on the table, and walked out. I looked back at the table as I walked away. I had rolled a seven. The players at the table were just shaking their heads.
I had so many silver dollars in my pockets that the weight of the money was about to pull my pants off. I changed the silver to paper, walked a short distance to the Greyhound bus station and bought a ticket to Los Angeles.
***
I had never seen this desert and it fascinated me. As the bus descended through El Cajon pass, and then down into the Los Angeles basin. I saw trees and plants that I’d never seen before. It was as though I was entering an unknown world; it was awesome. I wished that my parents could also see this beauty.
I got out of the buss at the Los Angeles bus station, and had no idea how to get to Bellflower, where my mother’s younger brother and his wife lived. I was going to my Uncle Don Cosby’s house hoping he could advise me about getting a job.
I asked a bus driver how to get to Bellflower, and he told me to take the P.E. (Pacific Electric commuter train). I rode the P.E. to Bellflower, but I still had to ask someone how to get to my uncle’s house.
After walking for about half an hour, I arrived at my Uncle’s house and knocked on the door. Aunt Lois and Uncle Don had no idea that I was coming, but they welcomed me with open arms. They gave me food and put me to bed. I slept for a long time …I hadn’t realized that I was so tired.
I stayed with them for a couple of weeks and worked for the Triangle Grain Company, loading dairy feed on to trucks. Aunt Lois and Uncle Don were good to me and helped me in many ways. I owe them a lot. I didn’t want to be a bother, so I moved to Long Beach and went to work at the Craig Shipyards.
Craig Shipyards repaired navy ships that had been damaged in the war. Ship repair was different from anything I had ever done before. The shipyard needed workers badly, and they let me work as many hours as I could. I worked sixteen hours a day, six days a week. I got paid eighty-seven cents an hour, and I was getting rich.
Brief Moment in Time Page 10