You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Shoots You

  The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet. Damon Runyon

I walked into my favorite Texas hole-in-the-wall bar, Jackie’s Cold Day Inn, just as Sheriff Tom was finishing one of his stories.

Arms spread wide, a drink in his hand, he said, “...Mister, I know I made you mad but I ain’t leaving ‘less you tell me what you got against the horse I rode in on.” Perfect ending. I made a mental note to ask Tom to tell me that one someday.

Sheriff tugged at his neck brace and winced when he tried to sip his drink. Doc Harris gave him a stern look. “You don’t stop messing with it I’ll put a cone on your head.” Tom waved him off.

Jackie brought my Jack & Coke, set it down. She handed Tom a straw, put her fingertips to her lips and said, “It looks good on you, Tom. That gray color brings out the color of your skin.”

I asked what happened to Tom’s neck and Les said a band of Apaches ambushed Tom in Carlsbad. Lucky for him, Milo was there to save him from certain death. Jackie said she heard it was at least 30, or was it 300 Apaches against the Sheriff and Milo. Battle of the Little Bighorn, Part Two.

Tom set his jaw, took a slug of bourbon and glared at Les and Jackie. Les, he just smiled while Jackie flounced back to the bar.

If there’s anything a storyteller hates is for somebody to tell his story all wrong. Especially if the story mocks him. He’d twisted his neck reaching for his handcuffs after Milo laid out a couple of rowdy cowboys. Tom’s neck still hurt and he wasn’t even in the fight. “Long story,” he said to me.

Tom sat back in his chair. Doc Harris rattled a pill bottle and pushed it towards the Sheriff.

“This is powerful stuff, take it as you need it. I’ve called my doctor friend in El Paso to look after you while you’re visiting. His phone number’s on the bottle.” Tom gave Doc a sour look but he put the pills in his shirt pocket.

Tom was going to El Paso the next day to give a speech at a Sheriff’s convention. By coincidence I had to be in El Paso for sales training on the new farm implements I’d be selling all over the Texas Plains the following Spring. Doc Harris was letting Tom travel as long as I was driving. The trip would take eight hours so we agreed to start early the next day.

The next morning I knocked on the door at Tom’s house. His dog Sunuva met me on the porch, sniffed my shoes, checked out the tires on my rental, peed on two of them.

Tom's dog, Sunuva, on duty

Tom looked terrible. As he put it, he felt like an old truck with the air leaking out of all the tires. He perked up with coffee from the go cup I bought at Mamacita’s diner.

As we reached the outskirts of town we passed some kids from the high school track team running single file up the road.

“That takes me back a buncha years. Growing up, kids, we used to race all the time, see who could run the fastest. Charlie García almost always won even when he gave us a head start.

“Eighth grade the three of us joined the track team. It was grade school so we didn’t have spikes just tennis shoes ‘cept for Charlie. His folks couldn’t afford tennis shoes so he ran barefoot. The coach wrapped his big toe and the ball of his foot with trainers tape, wide and thick. Didn’t matter to Charlie, he ran like a Whitetail deer.

 

“He wore spikes for the first time in high school. After that, nobody ever beat him. Nobody. Some folks thought he mighta gone to college on scholarship, but it was 1967, Vietnam got ‘im instead. That growed him up in ways like it did most of us. After ‘Nam he left town, traveled and worked construction everywhere in the country for years and ended up in El Paso. Charlie, he turned out all right. Good wife, good kids, home at last.”

As we headed south on the 87 I thought about the other time Tom and I had gone to El Paso and met with Charlie García. We’d gone to a bar in Juárez and drank ourselves silly. Over the years Charlie had occasionally mailed Tom postcards telling about where he was. I remembered how we’d looked at the postcards while Charlie told the stories behind them. I thought about  Charlie describing himself as a tumbleweed, drifting here and there until he found a home, a wife, and a family. Tom was right. Charlie was home at last.

We drove in relative silence for several miles. Tom talked about various landmarks on the horizon telling of old Indian campsites he’d found, the boundaries of ranches that had changed over time.

He fussed with the neck brace. “Carlsbad. Just for the record,” he said, “there were only two Indians and they were the good guys.

“Milo and I went fishin’ at Red Bluff in Reeves County two weeks ago. I had some time off and his craft shop wasn’t doin’ a dime’s worth of business so we decided to catch us some White Bass or some Stripers at the reservoir.

“Of course, Milo didn’t catch any fish. He doesn’t bait his hooks but he’s good company, reads a lotta books I never had time for. According to him, the fish and him have a deal. He won’t bother baitin’ his hooks and they won’t pull on his line and disturb his reading.

“Anyhow, our fishing trip was over, we’re heading home but we stop in Carlsbad for some chow. There’s a pair of Indians at another table, a young one and an old one. Can’t say for sure they were Apache, but some kinda Indians. For sure they weren’t white and didn’t look Mexican. The old one's probly 60, 70 years old, gray hair down to his shoulders, wore a thin necklace made of colored beads and four wolf fangs.

“I found out after that the young one was called Big Chief at work and he didn’t mind. Everybody at an oil rig has some kind of nickname. He wasn’t all that big but he worked the chains, the most dangerous job for a roughneck. Old time chain guys are easy to spot what with missing fingers, deep scars across their arms and noses. Whenever the chains go haywire it’s time to call EMS or the undertaker.

“His real name was Ted Whitefeather from the Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico. He and his uncle were passing through Carlsbad on their way back to the reservation when they stopped for a beer where me and Milo were having sandwiches from the grill.

“We’re sitting there eating corned beef sandwiches, the Indians at another table minding their own business when a pair of cowboys come in whoopin’ and hollerin’ like they’ve never been indoors in polite company. They get some beers at the bar, start looking around and they see the Indians. One of ‘em starts in on ‘em makes noises with his mouth like he’s seen Indians do in the movies. The Indians don’t pay them no mind and that don’t sit well with those yahoos and they swagger to the Indians’ table like TV cowboys.

“One cowboy stands next to Big Chief and the other one next to the old Indian. He says, ‘Say, old man, can you do a rain dance?. We sure could use it hereabouts.’ The other one laughs like that’s the funniest thing anybody’s ever said about anything since the beginnin’ of time. The bartender reached down below the bar and kept his hand there.

“The Indians ignored the gits and didn’t even look up at them. Then the cowboy points to the old Indian’s necklace and says, ‘Hey, Geronimo, you some kinda wolfman? Whooeeee, I’m scared just looking at this guy.’ By now the young Indian’s ‘bout had enough and says, ‘Show some respect, he’s a chief in my tribe. His name is Chief Nando, Warrior Wolf from the White Mountains, Protector of the Young.’

‘Boy howdy, that’s some fancy name you got there, Chief. So when the phone rings you gotta say all that?’

“Milo and me we’re watching this and I’m keeping one eye on Milo. He’s tensing up something fierce, fists clenched, eyes buggin’ out. I saw the bartender edge over to the end of the bar nearest the Indians. The cowboys glanced at us and saw me, an outa shape old man, and Milo, a smallish guy with glasses. No real threat. You don’t know Milo’s trained in martial arts unless you know him like we do.

“The cowboy grabs at the old Indian’s necklace and the young Indian jumps up but the cowboy next to him lands a roundhouse right that sends him to the floor. The cowboy was fixin’ to kick but he never had a chance. Milo was on ‘im like white on rice, put ‘im in a headlock, flipped him on his back and came down on the cowboy’s forearm with a knee. That was the first cracking sound I heard. The second crack I heard was when the bartender laid some wood on the other cowboy’s head with a half size Louisville Slugger and the fight was over, five, six seconds tops. Me, I’m just standing there with my thumb…. never mind.

“I yelled at the bartender to call the Sheriff. I stepped on a beer bottle while I was reaching for my handcuffs, slipped, went ass over elbows and landed on my neck. Now I gotta wear this brace ‘til Doc says I can take it off.”

I asked if the Indians said anything while they waited for the Sheriff and EMS.

“We talked for a bit. Big Chief thanked us getting them out of a jam and so on. Then he said something I didn’t get right away but Milo laughed as soon as he heard it. Big Chief says, “Do you know what is the most important thing about our Sacred Rain Dance?” I allowed I didn’t know. He leans over and whispers, ‘Timing’”.

When we got to El Paso I carried Tom’s bags into the hotel where his fellow lawmen greeted him enthusiastically. My hotel was across town and I spent the next three days learning about the new tractors and furrow makers that would change the lives of my customers in wondrous and miraculous ways.

Tom’s speech went well at the Sheriff’s convention. He was the man of the hour, respected and honored by old and young LEOs. I was tied up whole days at my training sessions so we didn’t have much time to visit with Charlie except for dinner at his house the night before we left for home. He looked very much at ease. I noticed he was growing a little paunchy though he could probably still outwork anybody half his age. Neither of them drank like they used to but seemed to enjoy it more.

We decided to take the same route home taking U.S. 62 heading east. Tom unsnapped the neck brace and made me swear not to tell Doc Harris.

As we drove through Whites City Tom told me about a retired Sheriff at the convention. The old guy was a legend among the Sheriffs of the southwest. During his 33 year tenure he'd single-handedly captured many of New Mexico's most notorious criminals. After one cocktail party he was surrounded by younger men, one of whom wanted to know how come his sidearm was a vintage .45 ACP instead of the Glock 19 the others favored. He gave the kid the side eye and said he had his reasons. Number one: It only has seven shots so you need to be damn sure where and why you’re shooting. Number two: It’s inaccurate at any distance over a few yards but when you do hit the target, it will go down and stay down. Number three: He carries a .45 because nobody makes a .46.

Arriving at La Mesa we took the 87 North towards Lubbock. The road signs to different cities reminded Tom about the day he’d been shot.

“Fifteen years ago I was down in Big Spring, visiting a friend at the VA hospital. I was at a bakery buying coffee across the street from the Credit Union when I saw two young fellas wearin’ dusters walk in. Overcoats in 80 degree weather, better check it out. Those two were robbing the place. One of them had a pillowcase to hold the money and the other held his coat open with his left hand, said the dynamite strapped to his chest would blow up if he pressed a switch in his other hand.”

Tom paused, took some time to pour coffee from my Thermos jug and said, “You hear all the time about criminal masterminds. Police chiefs on TV shows talk about master criminals they haven’t caught. The fact is, real masterminds are pretty easy to catch because they’re rational and logical. Get in their heads to figure out their next logical move and bingo they get caught. It’s the dumbass criminals that are hard to catch because there’s no way to figure out what they’re gonna do next. You gotta wait ‘til they do something stupid like the two I saw robbing the Credit Union. They’re wearin’ dusters. Only place you see outlaws wearing dusters is in the movies, for Pete’s sake.”

He rubbed his left shoulder and stared at nothing for a long time. I kept my eyes on the road and waited for more.

“I didn’t draw my gun that day, (maybe I shoulda). Too many folks in there, so I walked up to Mr. Dynamite and cold cocked him. His buddy panicked, pulled a snub nose .32, shot me, saw what he’d done and passed out. Folks said that was the bravest thing they ever saw until they noticed like I did, that the dynamite sticks were actually road flares. You can light a road flare but I’ll be damned, you can’t make it explode. I lost a lotta blood and had a collapsed lung.

“Well, even so, the newspapers and TV played it up pretty good, picture in the paper and everything. They made me a hero for a few days while I was laid up. That’s law enforcement for you. You’re nobody ‘til somebody shoots you.”