HAPPY VETERANS DAY!
I've discounted Tales of a Texas Boy to all time low prices. Buy a print book and get the ebook for 99 cents on Amazon (but you can get a free ebook at Smashwords using coupon code LS64Y). Or leave a comment to win a paperback to gift to your favorite vet.
It's available in
Large Print on Amazon for $7.64 and
standard trade paperback for $6.29. It's also in ebook format at
Smashwords (free using the coupon
LS64Y). The ebooks don't have the old-time photos illustrating each story. I got a few of them from the family albums, but I selected others from the archives of Texas University to illustrate the story themes.
Tales of a Texas Boy is a series of related short stories loosely based on my father's stories about his boyhood in West Texas during the Depression.
It all started with a cattle drive. Yeah, right, pop. Nobody had cattle drives in the 1930's. Well, yeah, they did. My father, Eddie in the stories, got to ride herd when he was only eleven years old. That was sure the highlight of that year.
His father, Louis (my grandfather), had been a veterinarian with Blackjack Pershing's American Expeditionary Forces. That's what they called the army during WWI. In the service, he became friends with an interesting old guy who happened to have a bear. When Dad Boles brought Sophie to the annual fair, Eddie loved to sit by the campfire listening to some dandy whoppers.
Eddie had a pretty busy life for a boy who lived miles away from the nearest neighbors. He managed to find plenty of trouble to get into, but had a big heart to soften his bad boy image. No matter that he loved to aggravate his sister, he took care of her when she and her pony were almost swept away by a flood.
The boy cared about the rattlesnakes, the jackrabbits, the jack asses, even old Cage McNatt's prize sow. He went fishing with a special borrowed float, then proceeded to lose it, find it, then give it away.
These are simple tales without any big events, unless you consider the despair of the Great Depression hanging over everybody's lives.
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| This is really my Dad. |
Yes, I made up some aspects of the stories, and I even made up a few completely, but most of the book is as true as a Texas Tall Tale can be.
If these kind of stories appeal to your father, your mother, uncle, aunt, or even yourself, I think you'll be glad to read my father's stories. Since he died last August, I'm proud and relieved to have gotten around to writing the stories, having several published separately, then putting all of them together in one book. I decided to feature Large Print since my father's eyesight was failing.
Excerpt - Pa's Story
World War I took many young men away from their
homes and sent them off to foreign shores. Eddie's Pa was one of
those young men. He has his own tale to tell.
In 1916, I was still a
young buck and not yet married, so I signed up with Black Jack
Pershing to go after Pancho Villa. Ol' Pancho and his banditos came
into US territory and killed a bunch of folks in Columbus, New
Mexico.
I was real good with
horses, so soon I was the veterinarian. This was just as well, as I
didn't take well to using a gun. I'd never studied vetting in school,
but I'd grown up on a farm in Nebraska and knew just about all there
was to know about horses and mules. We chased Pancho and his gang
just about all over Mexico, but never did catch up with him. A couple
years later, I was still in the service, so I ended up goin' to
France with Black Jack when he got to be a General. I could have
decided not to go as I'd done my time, but I knew Black Jack could
put me to good use.
We were on the troop
ship for weeks. Everybody was seasick for the first few days. The
horses seemed to fare fine in that regard, but I was worried we
couldn't exercise them enough. We brought them up from the hold, a
few at a time, and let them stretch their legs. We'd lead them in a
quick walk around the deck. With the metal decks, we didn't want them
to move very fast for fear they'd slip and fall.
I'd hate to have to put
down a horse with a broken leg, so we took it real easy. As a result,
the horses were not in good fightin' shape by the time we landed in
France.
It took some time, but
me and Joe, who got assigned to be my assistant, got them in shape
again. Mostly the horses were used to pack gear, but a few officers
still rode them. Black Jack Pershing liked to ride on occasion, as
did Captain Patton. I thought we should only have mules, since they
make better pack animals than horses, but there were never enough
mules to go around.
We weren't in too many
battles directly as we were the supply line for the army, but in 1918
it turned pretty bad when we went into the Argonne Forest. They
called this an 'offensive.' I can see why as it offended me a lot.
The fighting went on for nearly two months and only ended in November
when the big guys signed the Treaty at Versailles.
In that short two
months, it was hell on earth. Thousands of men died. One whole
division, the 77th, was cut off for near a week and held out
surrounded by the German forces. It was some battle, I can tell you.
Almost all day long, I could hear the shells bursting and the sharp
reports of rifle fire. And I heard the screams of dying men and
horses.
The worst part for me
was the horses being swept up in the middle of the battle. It broke
my heart to go out on the fields after the fighting passed by and
after the dead and wounded men were collected. Sometimes the ground
was so soaked with blood that my boots were covered before I got
back. A horse with an artery torn open bleeds gallons of blood; men
only a few pints. It angered me when I thought how much the horses gave. They
didn't even have a say in goin' to war. Men, at least, had a choice.
I carried a sidearm and had to shoot
more horses than I can count. Those we could save, we'd bring back to
the line and see if we could treat their wounds. It was a second
heartbreak when they wouldn't heal proper and we'd take them out
behind the tents to put them down. We dug a deep trench to bury them
for health reasons and we kept digging every day to hold them all.
While we treated the horses, close by
we could see the wounded men being brought back from the battlefield.
Legs and arms were already gone or had to be cut off by the doctors
right there in the field. From the history I'd read about the Civil
War, this was just about as bad. If the choice was amputate or die,
then they had to do what was necessary. We dug another trench to hold
the arms and legs the doctors cut off; the dead soldiers we wrapped
in oilcloth to be sent back behind the lines, where we hoped to send
their bodies back home to their families.
All told I spent twenty months in
France. It was the worst part of my life and I hoped and prayed we'd
never see another war like this again.
* * *
Pa's story made me sad in a way, though
I was proud of him for what he did in the war. It seemed to me people
should learn to get along. I never was sure why Pa had to go to
France. Later in my own life, I'd learn what it was to go to war. I
was lucky to not go overseas, but somethin' in me wished I had.
