Billy Jackson: A Young Man’S Journey and Passion in a Young America

1. THE FARM

(In the sparsely settled vast plains of the southwest a small two bedroom log patchwork farm, South Texas, Summer 1849.)

It was a small South Texas farm that young Billy Jackson lived on and it sat near the Chisholm Trail. The farm was often visited by passing trail hands, looking either for work or for cattle to buy. The land was too dry and harsh for most crops. Even the fragile grasses that did survive on the surrounding prairie were often ravaged by roaming stray longhorn cattle. It was often jokingly said the land was so dry that bushes used to follow dogs around. It was an austere and lonely life for those who had chosen to live there.

Between his labors, young Billy Jackson always enjoyed talking with the passing men. They were a welcome relief from his tedious and back-breaking work. With his dark auburn hair that seemed to combine the colors of the common red dirt and the brown seeping oil patches of the landscape, his deep-set eyes matched the product of the booming coal mines that were located a few miles away, Billy looked like he was part of the land. The farm he lived and worked on belonged to his father’s brother, Joad Jackson. Joad had grudgingly taken him in after Billy’s father was killed by a band of Comanche in a surprise and brutal raid on his brother’s small Texas farm. By hiding in the root cellar, Billy had survived, but there were still nights when he often would wake from his nightmares of whoops, hollers, cussing and screams.

His Choctaw mother had died of cholera when Billy was very young. All Billy had remembered of her was her sweet, almost always smiling eyes and how soft her hands always felt. When she died, he had for the first and only time in his life, seen his father cry.

Though still in his teens, Billy had grown into a tall and strong young man. His uncle who was now also his guardian, worked him hard, almost like a slave, so that his muscles had grown and hardened until he was as tough as a bull hide saddle. His hands had become as calloused and as strong as the steel-toothed coyote traps his uncle set around their chicken coop.

Once a week, when Billy and his uncle came into town for supplies, the town’s young girls would gather together to whisper and peek at Billy and giggle amongst themselves.

Some of them were even brave enough to occasionally try and flirt with him.

The farm that the two had worked was 160 acres of arid West Texas land. They had struggled to raise a few animals (mostly hogs for meat and chickens for eggs to sell), some wheat, maybe a patch of peas, some potatoes and corn, but it was very hard work on that small farm for him and his uncle and they had to survive.

The first cold spell hitting the prairie signaled that it was time to slaughter the hogs. Billy and Joad’s first chore was to get everything ready and make sure the smoke house was in good shape. Then the two would drag over a fifty-five gallon tub and carefully place it under a strong branch of one of the large oak trees on the property, then they would hoist it by chain and pulley a foot or two off the ground. The tub was then filled with water from their well and a large fire was started underneath to heat it to a boil.

Billy and his uncle would then attach a block and tackle to a big limb hanging over the vat. After the hog was shot, the two would attached the tackle to the hog’s back legs, lower the carcass into the hot water for a couple of minutes, then raise it and begin to scrape off the bristly hair. This process was repeated several times until the skin was clean, smooth and the hog could be dressed out and quartered.

Hams and the back side meat were then taken to the smokehouse, cured with a combination of sugar and salt while the remainder were usually ground later into sausage with spices. The trimmed excess fat was then usually melted and rendered into lard and cracklings. When the hard work was finally over, he was exhausted from the heat and the labor, all Billy wanted was to rest. All that his uncle was thinking about was his celebrating the end of the task with drink and perhaps a pretty young new whore in town that he had been thinking about.

Joad Jackson was a very large heavily-muscled man. He had a constant scowl on his face and could often become a very mean drunk. Once they had owned a very productive Guernsey milk cow, but on one of his frequent binges over a weekend, his uncle had traded her for a half case of whiskey and an hour with another whore. When Billy asked him what happened to their cow, he got rewarded by being backhanded across the face!

When Joad would drink, Billy knew a beating would probably be coming his way. He would always endeavor to stay out of Joad’s sight, or at the very least, to try and avoid arousing his anger.

No one ever knew what had made Joad Jackson so mean. There were rumors. When he wasn’t sitting in one of the bars with the other men bending their elbows, the men had passed their time talking idly about him. Some might get drunk enough or brave enough to speculate about Joad’s attitude. Maybe it is this damned prairie. This damn place sours a lot of people. Another man said, Maybe it was his brother dying that way and leaving him with that kid to raise up.

Or, if they got drunk enough, they would mention the most probable cause. Shit, you and I both know that it was his wife sneaking off with that traveling salesman, the one that was selling that feed and farm equipment.

She just got tired of getting’ beat up, I guess.

Yeah, but it made him meaner than ever. I wouldn’t treat a mule like he treats that kid.

Yeah, well, that kid is half Indian and you know how Joad feels about Indians!

"You know they say that he shot a couple Apaches that weren’t doing him or no one harm at all.

They were right in town.

Couldn’t a been in town, he’d be in jail.

I heard old Sheriff Dunleavy just didn’t care.

Ah, who knows . . . Think it’ll rain?

After years of hard work under the blazing Texas sun, Billy was often mistaken for an Indian or a Mexican by strangers and newcomers, those who saw only his arms and perhaps his face from a distance. The wide-brimmed straw hat that shaded his face and neck also kept his features relatively pale. With his olive complexion, deep-set brown eyes with long lashes and cheekbones set high on his face, he had grown into a very good-looking young man.

Billy’s uncle usually spent most of his days in a sour mood, especially when he was drinking. He always carried a much used horse whip in his back pocket, sometimes to beat his mule, but lately, more and more often, to use on Billy’s back when he had decided the boy wasn’t working hard or fast enough. Billy’s back bore the scars of the years of his abuse, a permanent testimony to his uncle’s brutality.

Damn you boy! I told ya them damn fucking chickens should have been fed earlier! What the fuck is the matter with you? Look at what they did to the damn pea patch again! Joad Haggard stood unsteadily out in the vegetable patch, slurring his words. He scowled at Billy, who involuntarily winced when he saw Joad reach for his whip.

He had strongly felt the fight-or-flight reflex, but he knew neither one would work. He had already tried running twice before and his reward each time was a beating even worse than the usual. The last time, his uncle had found him trying to hide down by the creek behind a large willow tree, is when he had caught him trying to conceal himself.

The subsequent beating didn’t stop until Haggard had run out of breath.

It took a week for the pain to subside and for the wounds to heal. He hadn’t cried, though. He hadn’t whimpered or even complained of any beating he had taken since he had turned into a teenager. But by age sixteen, he had had enough. And something had to give.

On an afternoon when his uncle had ridden into to town for supplies (and a couple of bottles of whiskey) and then a brief stop at the saloon, Billy was back on the ranch hoeing the vegetable patch. A stranger on a horse rode up at a trot and nodded at the boy.

Howdy son said the older trail hand, smiling. Looking kindly down at the boy, then taking off his hat and wiping his brow with a stained sleeve, the wrinkles on his face couldn’t hidden his devil may care attitude, plus the years of exposure to the dust and sun of the plains on his face.

Howdy Mister! said Billy resting on his hoe, holding it with his left hand and reaching out with his right hand for a friendly handshake and a welcoming clasp of hands. Glad for the break from his labors and after shaking the rider’s hand, he had switched his hoe to his right hand and had used his left hand to shade his eyes from the bright Texas sunlight that was now directly overhead.

Say said the cowboy, again taking off his hat he had put it back on because of the overwhelming sun and the humidity. He was again soon wiping the sweat from his brow, Son, my throats mighty dry and since you probably aint gonna be selling any whiskey today, do ya mind if a feller and his horse wet their whiskers over at your well?

No problem mister! Yes, that old Sun’s pretty hot today, but our well’s got plenty of cool water this time of year, so you’re more than welcome to drink your fill . . . and your horse too, of course!

The cowboy smiled and took his kerchief, wiped his sweating brow again and said, Well I sure thank ya! Been riding quite a spell so I mostly look forward to giving my butt a break, chuckled the cowboy, as he got down from his horse.

The man then took the reins and lead his horse over to the well and when he had stopped, Billy watched as the older man had slowly stretched his back from his long and dusty ride. Then he had let out a groan, from feeling his age and cramped back muscles that had locked up when he had eventually dismounted.

After that he then had walked stiff-legged over to the well’s wooden bucket. Billy saw that from the amount of all the trail dust that he had accumulated on his body, that this stranger had been riding for a very long time. Billy, being eager to help the man had also gone over to the well, had let the well bucket down into the cool underground spring water, then he had rolled it back up and offered the stranger a now full blue tin cup that had been hanging on a nail on the hoist. The cups for you mister, your horse can drink straight from our bucket, we don’t care. We had a trough once but it had since fallen apart but my uncle said forget about fixing it since our stock drinks mostly from the pond over yonder. Well thank ya son! After the cowboy and his horse had drunk their fill, the stranger turned to him and said,

Son, thank ya! Thank ya kindly! Nothin better than cool deep well water hitting your gullet than when a fellas thirsty! Let me introduce myself, my name is Joshua Walker, but people usually call me Boots. I guess it’s probably because they say that I have such big feet. He had chuckled and continued. Son, I work for the McCoy Cattle Company. The cowboy then stopped talking, took a long slow look around at the bleak and shoddy farm, when he had looked back at Billy, he now had looked at the boy with a much more serious look on his face.

What did you say your name was again, son?

Billy. Billy Jackson, sir!

The man once again looked around at the dry and run-down farm, then reached into his left shirt pocket and pulled out an old buffalo skin tobacco pouch. With the same hand, he reached into his opposite shirt pocket and pulled out some rolling paper. Deftly, he rolled a cigarette, lit it, then squinting as the blue smoke was hitting his eyes, said, Well Billy, it ain’t my way to butt into other people’s business, but something tells me you ain’t too happy here. Let me tell you what I do. Ya see, my job is to recruit trail hands, men who will help us move those damn white-faces up the trail to the stock yards up to Kansas. You look like this old farm keeps ya pretty busy boy, but ya know, working for the McCoy, well the pay is good, the food is free and I promise ya boy, there are a lot of accommodating towns where you can see the elephant! And there are plenty of saloons, a lot of pretty ladies, all of ‘em with big titties a jigglin’, a bouncin’ and waiting for you almost every step of the way! I know, I grew up on a farm pretty much like this one and I know how lonely it can get. He chuckled. But I guarantee them gals will make you forget about the droughts, the floods, the prairie fires and all the other damn problems of trying to make a go of this land! He stops and reflects. I would guess that’s why those women are hired and why their business is a boomer, yessiree! The man chuckled again and looked far away, as if recalling the days when he had been a younger and wilder man.

The cowboy then once again looked around at the desolate, dusty, scrubby old farm and scratched his whisker-stubbed chin. I’m a tellin ya, Billy, if I were your age, I’d for sure be thinking about joining us! What have you got to lose?

After staring at Walker for about a minute, Billy said, Where’s your camp at, mister?

Well it’s pretty easy to find it son. Just head west over the hills about three miles, then when you crest the last hill, I guarantee you’ll hear the herd long before you see it! He laughed and added, Probably smell it first also! If you go, just head over to the chuck wagon, look for a man named Cookie, he’s the main cook and bookkeeper of the outfit. He’ll take care of you. You can’t miss seeing him, he’s pretty fat, always wears an apron and sweats like a hog, but he’s a good man. Be sure and tell him I sent you!

That evening, Billy lay in bed, unable to sleep, thinking of his previous life with his dad and how different his life now was. He thought about his years of servitude, the hard labor, all the beatings he had taken and the ones that he would surely have to take again and probably more often now, since his uncle seemed to be in an constant alcoholic haze. Billy was doing most of the work, but his uncle was always looking for someone on whom to take out the frustrations of his wretched, miserable life. That someone was almost always Billy.

The moon would be setting early, but if his uncle kept his usual routine he should pass out not long after supper. When he