Photo by John Stough
Mule Train Packer, an intrepid hiker, and the Window.
FALL …TWO THOUSAND AND NINE
By Bill Stough
M
other overheard Brother
John and Brother Bill talking
one day about how it would
be good to make a trip to the Big Bend.
Brother Bill spent five or six years out
there in an earlier era, but Brother John
had never been to the Big Bend. He
wanted to see that country and the
Marfa Lights and add a notch to his
“hiking stick” which already boasted the
Appalachian Trail from bottom to top
and Eastern Canadian wilderness path-
ways. Brother Bill figured it would be
good to be on the road, wear a cowboy
hat, eat some real Tex-Mex and try to
remember…faded memories so long
out of focus they seem more like lonely
lies. Then one day in the fall of 2009:
We took off on an Old Coots’ loop
around West Texas. Heading west out of
Corsicana on Texas 22 early of a morn-
ing more like 20 year olds than like being
on the very brink of three score and 10.
We loaded a little bitty rent car with
camping and hiking things and blood
pressure pills. Sun barely up behind us.
18
Brother John is a backpacker, as lean
and tough as the last of the Mohicans,
who has the entire Appalachian Trail
and most of French-speaking Canada
heading his bona fides and is planning to
walk the West Coast from Méjico to
Canada pretty soon.
I’m a used-to-be-cowboy, mule train
packer and pencil pusher and currently
a potbellied layabout. Between us, we
have a respectable amount of been
there, done that. As has been said in a
few smoky ol’ bars, “This ain't their first
rodeo.”
About 45 minutes out from Corsi -
cana, and we are at Hillsboro where we
cross I-35 and just stay on 22. Hillsboro,
population not so very many, was where
we got lost for the first time on the first
day.
Back on 22, we ease on west.
Morning Coffee time when we get to
Hamilton, and we pull into a little con-
venience store on a corner ’cross from
the Courthouse. Place serves everything
from Danish to tacos to pizza to chili
Cenizo
Fourth Quarter 2010
cheese dogs to deer jerky. There’s a
showcase at the front of the store that
displays tacky little doo-dads, cigarette
lighters with rhinestones, martial arts
many-bladed weapons and Elvis dolls.
In a corner by the front window is the
dining section furnished with two tables
and a sign that reads “No Smoking
between 11 and 12.” The lady behind
the counter says she manages two other
stores but likes this one best because it
has no beer sales. Maybe she thinks beer
drinkers are worse than smokers. I guess
both need lots of space.
We used to live in Goldthwaite when
we were just kiddos. So we ate lunch
there and told the stories about those
times that our folks had told us about.
War time stuff as in WWII, and we
remember troops marching past our
house on the road out of town. Nearly
everything was rationed for the war
effort, i.e. shoes, tires, gasoline and such
and how folks shared and pitched in to
help when someone needed a little
more…like when Brother Bill swallowed
a penny one morning and the local Doc
said Fort Worth had the only Doc with
the tools to get it out and Brother Bill
was just a-choking and a-choking. So
neighbors gave them gas cards and a
good spare tire or two and the next-door
family took care of Brother John while
the folks drove the better part of the day
and night getting to the Cowtown hospi-
tal around 1 a.m.
We looked when we went through
San Saba but didn’t see Tommy Lee
Jones nor nary a mention of him.
Connected with U.S. 377 South at
Mason and on down to Junction...got
lost for the second time on the first day.
Junction is not much bigger than
Hillsboro. Rode around muttering about
road signage for awhile and found 377
again.
By this time, we were in the heart of
“Hey, get yore tag an’ let’s go shoot a ol’
deer” country...last time I saw so much
camouflage was in Iraq. Camou hats,
boots, britches, gun stocks, 4x4s, four-
wheelers, deer feeders, deer stands,