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| Snow Cow? |
Lucky for me Sheriff Tom found me before I froze to death.
The storm hit hard all of a sudden. Snow and ice came down so thick visibility
was nearly zero. I missed the curve and slid off the road, into the culvert. My
cell phone was out of range so all I could do was wait and hope. The rest of my
sales trip was cancelled, no question.
“I had Mike put the chains on my tires two days ago,” Tom
said. “Don’t get snow like this too much but I gotta be prepared. Mike’s on his
way, tow your car. Want some coffee?”
The Texas panhandle is wide-open country with small towns
sometimes a hundred miles apart. Weather reports here aren’t much for accuracy.
Gully washers or freak snowstorms are just as likely one day or the next no
matter what the weather service says. The news said a storm was on the way,
possible three to four inches of snow. The only part they got right was about
the storm heading my way, dead wrong about the three or four inches.
By the time we got to Jackie’s Cold Day Inn in
Panhandle the snow was coming down thicker and heavier. Tom said Amarillo had
more than a foot of snow with more coming. Jackie’s regulars were
already there, plus a few folks who lived outside the city limits and couldn’t
risk driving on icy roads. Also, Jackie’s had a huge wood stove, a
storeroom full of beer, whiskey and snacks, a pretty good way to ride out a
blizzard.
Les was at the usual corner table near the door. His
General Store and most of the other businesses closed up soon after it started
snowing. Doc Harris and Mike came in together, stomping their shoes to get the
ice off, took off their coats, hung them on hooks behind our table. Mike was
smiling, his towing service making him money. We said
our hellos and waited for Wendy to bring our drinks.
Tom took a sip of his drink, let it trickle down his
throat, and said, “Back in ’94 we had two foot of snow New Year’s Day. The
whole town shut down for three days, everybody stranded at home. Some folks got
low on food, had a coupla cases of frostbite but not serious.
“Only problem I had was old Ben Praxis. Right from the
start he was on his CB callin’ for help. I said, ‘Ben, you got food? He says,
yes. You got firewood for your stove? He says, yes. Do you need medicine? He
says, no. I say, why are you calling me? He says, the storm knocked my antenna
down and I can’t get any reception on the TV; my wife’s on my back about it.
You don’t come over help me fix it one of us is gonna get killed.
“That was Monday and Tuesday. Then Wednesday he didn’t call.
I tried raising him on the CB but he didn’t pick up. I thought maybe
something’s gone wrong so I tell Deputy Dudley go check on ‘em, call for help
if you need it. So Dudley rides over in his Jeep, nothing wrong except the
antenna’s down. He helps fix it. Old Ben says, ‘Deputy, I can’t thank you
enough. One more day missin’ Wheel of Fortune, Janie woulda brained me
with a fryin’ pan.’
“Now, Dudley isn’t known for his sense of humor. I don’t
recall ever hear him tell a joke in all the years he’s been my Deputy. When
he’s done with the antenna, he reaches into his pocket, pulls out two paper
tags on a string. He says, ‘Can you put these in the fire for me?’ Ben says, ‘What are they?’ ‘They’re toe
tags, your name on one, hers on the other.’”
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Jackie tore herself away from the bar supposedly to bring
clean ashtrays to our table. She was laughing quietly to herself, shaking her
head as she replaced the ashtrays and put the empty glasses and bottles on her
tray.
“Oh, that Harley”, she said, looking back towards the bar
where Harley Carson was trying to get Wendy’s attention. She kept moving,
pretending to hear other customers calling her away.
“He was going on about how do we know the Weather
Channel isn’t playing taped re-runs from last year, ‘specially in the
summer. TV stations have re-runs all the time, he says. The weather predictions
are mostly wrong, too. I mean, the folks there gotta take vacations, right? How
about if they all get the flu at the same time or something. And they’re on 24
hours a day. Think about it. Gotta be re-runs.
“So I said, ‘Harley, one way you can prove it to videotape
the Weather Channel on the 4th of July, then play it the 4th
of July next year’. If it’s a re-run you’ll know for sure, right?
“He looks at me like I gave him the best idea ever. He
says, ‘Jackie, can I borrow your VCR?’”
Tom pointed at Harley with his chin, “Doc, how old is
Harley? 25? 30?”
“He’s 27 according to his medical records. Why?”
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| One way to learn by doing |
“Just wondering. Seems to me there’s three ways people
learn. Some learn by reading like Doc Harris and Milo over at the craft shop.
Some learn by watching. Rollie can’t read but you only have to show him how to
do something one time, he won’t forget, guaranteed. Then you got Harley Carson.
He’ll pee on an electric fence every time. I never could figure out how he made
it this long. For Harley time is right now and only right now. ‘Bout the only
time he thinks about tomorrow is in winter when it snows, like it scares him or
something. Nearly shot him one time during a snowstorm.
“It was night, freezing cold. It snowed during the day,
turned to sleet after dark, ice everywhere. I just got back from the Lazy
Bones Motel. Some folks stuck in the snow outside a town, got ‘em to the
motel for the night. Anyway, I went to my office, told the dispatcher I was
headin’ to Jackie’s, call me if you need to. Jenna says ok, bring me
some coffee when you come back, all I got is yesterday’s.
“So, I’m sitting here with my Jack Daniels double shot
thinking about going home to my warm bed when Jenna calls. Trouble at the new
take-out place on 6th street, some kinda fight she says.
“I get to The Call Grill, there’s chairs and tables
upside down, scattered all over, the workers bunched up in a corner, scared,
and Harley, roaring drunk, next to the pizza oven, a chair leg in one hand.
“The manager says Harley came in drunk as hell, goes to
the pizza oven and opens the door. Just
stands there facing the fire with his eyes closed. The manager tells him to get
out, Harley says no, it’s cold.
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| 450 degrees F |
“So the manager, the cook, and dishwasher get together and
try to run him out. Harley’s a big sumbitch. He’s also done a lotta fighting,
wins this one easy. That’s when they called me.”
“Excuse me, Sheriff”, I said. “What’s Harley’s problem
with snow?”
“Goes back to when Harley was 17 years old. He hurt a guy
real bad and the judge looked at his record, said, ‘Harley Carson, you’re
turning 18 next week. Now I’m giving you a choice. I can send you to the County
lockup for 2 years or I can dismiss the charges if you join the Armed Forces. I
took Harley to the Navy recruiting station in Lubbock, signed him up for a four
year hitch. And just like that he was gone but not for long.
“The Navy didn’t put him out to sea. They sent him to a
Navy base in Kodiak Island, Alaska. That’s where they have cold weather
training for Navy Seals. Well, you know just from looking, Harley’s built like a walrus, not a Navy Seal. No, they had other plans. They tried
to make him a cop in the Shore Patrol but that didn’t last long. They tried
everything to make him useful but finally decided the only thing he was good
for was guard duty, meaning he had to stand watch or patrol the Navy base.
“Anybody been in the service knows if you cause
trouble, you’re gonna get the worst jobs. In Kodiak, the worst job for a guard
is patrolling from midnight to 5:00 AM. no matter the weather, clear night,
rain, snow.
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| Below Zero all night long |
“I could be wrong but Kodiak probly means something in
native Alaskan, something like ‘this weather really sucks’. I looked it up. A
hot day in Kodiak happens in July, 55 degrees at high noon. Most of the year
the temperatures near freezing or below.
“Harley’s Harley, so you can figure out for yourself, he
got in trouble with his CO and wound up pulling patrol duty night after night.
Most anybody would get the message but not Harley. The only thing he learned
was being cold was something he’d never do again.
“Look at him now. He’s about as close to Jackie’s stove as
he can without catching fire. Jackie knows about him and the Navy so she
lets him be.”
“So what happened that you almost shot him at The Call
Grill”, I asked.
He gave me a serious look, leaned in close and
half-whispered, “Just so you know, I’ve never pulled my gun long as I been
Sheriff except the one time I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.”
Doc Harris, Les, and Mike chuckled; Jackie patted me on
the shoulder. They’d heard this one before. I tried not to look embarrassed.
Warming up to his story Sheriff Tom said, “Well, it mighta
come to shooting but I’ve known Harley since he was born. I seen him at his
worst. I still can’t figure how he ain’t killed somebody yet. Just lucky, I
think. A man like him it’s like God or Nature never took the training wheels
off his brain. To make him think you gotta take it slow, wait for the pieces of
the puzzle to make a picture in his mind.
“I set a chair upright about 10 feet away from ‘im and
straddled it, relaxed. Harley’s got fire in his eyes. He thinks he can take me,
not a thought about what happens after if he does.
“I say, ‘Harley, pretty cold out, huh?’
“He nods. I say, ‘just like in Kodiak?”’
“He nods again. I say, ‘Harley, you’re not in Kodiak now.
You’re home. You got a warm bed waiting for you there. If I take you down,
you’ll be warm in my drunk tank. Pick one or the other, you won’t be cold
tonight, honest truth.
“I wait while he thinks it over, then he says, ‘Sheriff,
you ain’t taking me nowhere’, and he’s tapping the chair leg on his thigh. He’s
starting to breathe hard, winding up for what’s next.
“I stay quiet for a minute, then I say, ‘Harley, you been
to Sunday school when you were a kid, right?’
“He hesitates, thinking back I guess, then he nods yes.
“Remember the story about David and Goliath? Little kid
with a slingshot, takes down a giant, wins the day. Everybody’s happy except
Goliath’s friends. Remember that?
“He smiles, remembering. Then the smile goes away, he
takes a step towards me, swinging the chair leg slowly, time to go.
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| Sometimes you get lucky |
“I stand up, put my hand on my holster, unsnap the buckle.
I say, “Harley, that bible story is real nice but I’ll tell you what, in
real life a trained giant with a sword kills the kid every time.
That chair leg don’t stand a chance against my .45.
“He gives up, spends the night in my jail. The next day
Judge Stevens gives him three days for D and D, makes him pay for the damage.”
Sheriff Tom drained the last of his bourbon, leaned back
in his chair, looked my way and said, “Son, you buy the next round, I’ll tell
you all about the man I shot in Reno.”
Les, tipped his drink dry and said, “Yeah, it’s a hell of
a story. Johnny Cash wrote a song about it. It was all over the radio a
while back.”
