Forgotten Cowboy

By JK Hoffman

Marcus Allen, a wet behind the ears newspaper reporter is sent to a town in Arizona to interview an old cowboy. His uncle and editor-in-chief of an up and coming Phoenix, Arizona newspaper has offered his nephew a possible desk job if he can get a good story in a weeks time. Marcus is put to the test to see if he is worthy of Johnny's life story

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rushmore Press LLC
• Release date: Mar 17, 2021
• ISBN: 9781954345867

JK Hoffman

An Arizona native, Judy has seen her state progress from a small entity to a powerful thriving state. She is proud to call herself an Arizonan. Beautiful scenery and rich Native and Hispanic cultures have influenced her life. She has lived in small towns including Tuba City on the Navajo Reservation to the beautiful mountains and canyons of Flagstaff and Sedona. She resides in Flagstaff with her husband, Garry, a third generation Flagstaff pioneer. She is a devoted mother and grandmother: raising three children to adulthood in our mountain town.  Her two grandsons prove to be the light of her life.

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Introduction

What pushes a man to endure tremendous pain and suffering in order to survive? asks the guest lecturer at the writing conference.

Wouldn’t it be easier to succumb to death? After all, isn’t that the end for all of us? No one has escaped death, and yet, some will withstand, and suffer even the most atrocious and brutal conditions to live another day.

"I ponder this notion as I find myself nearing the end of my life. I am always comparing myself to the heroes I have met in my life. I had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have met and interviewed such a man. He endured the vastness, harshness, and intimidating Mexican Sonoran Desert with few supplies and little water to return home alive. This gentleman shared with me in an interview, lasting over several days, of an eerily, incredible story of survival.

I go to my grave, not knowing if the man I spoke with was the gentleman himself, impostor, or a fictionalized story of actual events. All that I know is that he had my fullest attention—hook, line, and sinker.

The banquet room where I was speaking became hushed. I had the audience right where I had wanted—captivated in anticipation of the story itself.

Pointing to a picture hung behind the podium of a handsome man on a horse, and he said, Ladies and gentlemen, tonight, I would like to introduce you to the two main characters in this discourse. John Hoffman is the leading man, followed by myself, Marcus Allen, a reporter, and a greenhorn.

You will follow me to the opportunity of my lifetime. John, on a trip down a sometimes dark and hopeless journey of his life. The question I have, was this another one of the man’s embezzlement’s, played using the innocence of a naive junior reporter or, was this the luckiest man alive?

I continued, Sitting beside this elderly gentleman, every day for a week awaiting his every word. Plagued with what today we would call COPD, he strained for a breath of air. I can now empathize with him today as I, too, have that condition. He sometimes labored to get the words out of his mouth.

I realized that he did not have honed life skills, such as reading and writing, but had limited skills to put pen to paper and tell his story. He did not lack in knowledge and would not be considered ignorant by any means. He came from a different time and place, a time when it was more important to have skills that would save your life and put food in your stomach than to have academic skills.

This man told me of a time when he was a young schoolboy in Kansas and could not sit still enough to learn his lessons. He walked out of school one day and never returned. If there was something he needed to know, he had three smart sisters who would tell him the answer. They were always there for him. The girls must have done a better job than he gave himself credit because if you gave that man a map, he could get himself where he needed to go.

I learned more about life in my short time with him than years on my own. Any person who can find his way home with only a wrong map, few supplies, little to no water in the sweltering heat of Baja’s desert and coast, has to be a genius.

At his funeral, I had the opportunity to speak with family members. His only living sibling was his older brother. Bert, being 5’3, whereas John was 5’ 8 or 5’9 and possibly taller in his younger days. Bert’s build was thinner than that of his brother, giving him the appearance of a lightweight, non-threatening man."

However, this was not the case as John had told me the story of Bert fighting with other boys. Fighting was a regular occurrence, and Bert knew that his father would be unhappy. Trying to avoid a whipping, he hopped a freight train headed West. He left home at fifteen to become a cowboy, joining the ‘Aztec Cattle Company.’ This is the group of cowboys that evolved as the Hashknife. Rough and rowdy, hard-living, and fighting cowboys of a bygone era.

I tell you this part of the story because it helped to shape John into the man and the cowboy he would become.

After many months of Bert leaving home, his mother received a letter from him. She insisted that his oldest brother George would travel West and bring Bert home. That backfired when George joined the Hashknife Cowboys. Neither one returned to New Mexico, leaving John, the only male left at home in New Mexico, to run the ranch with his father. His father suffered from wounds sustained during the Great War or what we now call the Civil War and was plagued with tuberculosis.

John, being the young age of 11, took his role seriously. He took on managing the ranch and one day hoped for it to become his ranch.

When his father died, George returned home and made the hard decisions regarding the ranch. In those days, it was customary for the oldest male sibling to inherit everything. He chose to sell the land and move his family to Flagstaff, a new town in the Arizona Territory. He was leaving John with no ranch. John harbored anger over George’s decision, thus causing him to rebel. He, too, became a member of the Hashknife. He lived harder and rougher than his brothers. Fighting and drinking became routine for him.

Tragedies befell the family, from his father’s death, and then his mother’s tragic casualty, pushing him into a rebellious position. Adversity led him to become one of the rowdiest, bad-ass men in the state. You needed to stay on his good side. His most valued life event was becoming a Deputy Sheriff of Greenlee County; even considered putting in a bid for the Sheriff. Taking the loss hard, even stooping to embezzling money and found guilty. Ready for a change, he returned to his roots up North. Settling in as a Government Agent to investigate bootlegging on the reservation. The horses were exchanged for automobiles.

Remember, a fact from his family passed down through stories told. As he was called in the family, Johnny said to them that he had spent a considerable amount of time in Mexico mining for gold and had spent time in a Mexican jail. When he came to visit them shortly after his return, his hair was stark white. Coincidence in name and similar events, you decide. When you hear my story of this afternoon, maybe you can figure it out for me.

Now, let’s get started.

PART I

Tell Me A Good Story

CHAPTER ONE

First Meeting

Day One

Fall, 1944. I was a young, ambitious reporter, enthusiastic for a good story. My uncle was the Editor-in-chief of an up-and-coming newspaper in the ‘Valley.’ I quickly learned the term from fellow passengers, after riding a train for three days, Phoenix, Arizona, which was called the Valley of the Sun. Then shortening that to ‘Valley.’

Unsure of myself, I did as I was instructed and moved to Phoenix for work of what my mother and her brother had cooked up for me. I was not one for questioning authority. I was a real ‘yes, man.’ I was already considered an oddity, not out in the world fighting in the war. There were not many young men around who had not been in the military. I was all ready to go until a thorough medical exam revealed that I had a heart defect from rheumatic fever as a child. Thus, making me ineligible for military service. My two older brothers were serving overseas, leaving me to take care of our mother. I earned my degree in journalism after my mother persuaded me to follow in my uncle’s footsteps.

My arrival at the Phoenix Union Train Station in late September 1944 caught me off guard as I disembarked the train from Chicago. The heat from the blacktop was as if someone or something had turned a heater on full force. That and the smell of diesel from the train gagged me. I could not breathe.

How on earth did any human being choose to live here? Immediately, the feeling of sweat running down the back of my shirt startled me. I felt my hair, and it was as if I had just gotten out of the bath. Back home, we were unpacking sweaters and wearing them already when we left the house, as fall had begun.

I planned to walk to my room that my uncle had secured for me at the YMCA; it was only about a mile and a half away from the train station—an easy walk. Immediately, I had second thoughts and decided to catch a yellow cab. My mother had given me all of her savings from the tin can, which read, ‘Cream of Wheat.’ She felt the trick of hers was ingenious, only to find out later, from me, that everyone stashed money in tin cans. The first place a petty thief would look. Unless, of course, you are my mother and saved every tin can she had ever gotten.

The cab driver was a pleasant, older local man. The cab had a water bag attached to the open windows, cooling the air as the hot wind blew through the canvas bag. I questioned him about the heat, in which he immediately snickered and said, Son, if I had a nickel for every time I was asked that question, I would be rich by now.

Yes, sir, the heat is probably all anyone talks about around here. Does it cool off at night?

Oh yeah, it will get down to around 90 degrees by ten o’clock. It helps if there is a breeze. This year has stayed hot. The wife and I have had to use the swamp cooler since April. With luck, October should be cooler.

The trip was so short, and I had arrived at the Y before we could continue our visit. I paid the cabbie and tipped him fifty cents in addition to the fare. Before he pulled away, I checked the street sign, Monroe Street. That was funny since I was from Monroe, Michigan. The Y was a Southwestern style building, three stories high. When I went inside, I was informed that I could stay, even though they prioritized beds for servicemen. He mumbled and all I could pick up was something to do with a favor for my uncle.

The desk clerk told me about the swimming pool, and I made a mad dash to jump in. I have never personally spent my nights going between sweating profusely to taking two showers during the night to freshen up. My wife would tell you that all men are babies, and menopause is way worse and longer. Needless to say, I did not sleep. I was to find out that I should not have complained about a short walk down a few blocks in 110-degree weather with a wind blowing inferno, and you are in a suit. Complete with a vest. We will come nowhere close to the conditions that Johnny went through.

With bags under my eyes and uncontrollable yawns, I reported to work. He told me that I was to do as instructed by the secretary sitting at the front desk. I was to make myself look busy around the office. After three days of complete boredom, the summons came. Uncle Ralph finally called me into his office to assign me my first project.

Have a seat, son, he said to me with his cigar tucked neatly into the side of his lip. I’ll be with you as soon as I am off this goddamn phone. Yes, darling. No, darling. I wasn’t talking to you. I hired my nephew from Michigan. Yeah, Myrna’s youngest. Okay, tonight. Son of a bitch, he said, slamming the receiver down. I can’t get no work done around here because of my fucking family."

I thought to myself, If this man is in any way related to my mother, they are as different as night and day. My mother has never uttered a profanity in her life.

The phone rang again. I noticed he was drooling, smoking, and talking on the phone simultaneously. As I witnessed this, and I realized he must be very clever to handle all three at once. Trying not to acknowledge that I could hear every word being said, I fidgeted as I sat waiting, my mind wandering. I tried to visualize myself sitting behind a big desk doing the same thing.

I was daydreaming, as I nearly jumped out of my skin when he spoke to me, Now, let’s get down to business, son. Furthermore, I am sending you up to Prescott to interview and write a feature on this old man’s crazy story. A friend of mine, whose father is up there…oh you know, the Old Miners Home in Prescott. Oh, yeah, I forgot that you are new here to the state. It’s a place where old miners go to live out their days in comfort. Anyway, my friend has told me some of this man’s stories, and I think people might be interested in reading about the past. It will be a good place for you to learn about the desert. Get a good story out of him, and we could be talking about a permanent position at a desk job. You interested?

Yes, sir. I am up for the job. Thank you, sir, for having confidence in me.

Ah, horseshit. You understand this family kiss-ass thing, don’t you, boy? Don’t go blabbing to your mother about me, either. She lectures me all the time as it is. I moved across the country to get away from her, and she still nags at me. Just get the goddamn story and make it a good one. Doctor it up if you need to. Just don’t say I told you to because I won’t have your back. He picked up the phone and began talking loudly to some poor schmuck on the other end. He motioned for me to leave his office.

A few days later, I was on a Greyhound Bus heading North from the ‘Valley’. Prescott was a bustling community located in the high desert. I got an ear full of information from Prescottonians, who was still mad that the state moved the capital from Prescott to Phoenix in the 1890s.

The bus overheated on its way up from Phoenix, and we had to let the radiator cool before the driver could add more water. The passengers were allowed out of the bus. I saw other cars and trucks stopped along the way. I spotted another use for the water bags on the side of automobiles, to fill your radiator when it overheated going up steep hills.

I also learned that the desert has mountains, lots, and lots of mountains. Many covered with forests of what I learned were the Saguaro cacti. Imagine a cacti forest. I also learned that they were not found in all deserts.

The delay had caused me time to settle in and collect my thoughts. I was calm and collected as I stepped off the bus. I asked for directions to the Pioneer Home. The man pointed up to the top of the hill. I thought to myself, that was easy to find, sitting up on top of the hill. I began the climb up the hill. My suitcase was heavy. I would have taken it to my room at the hotel had I not been running late.

Across the street from me stood an old miner leading his burro, and I shook my head as if I were inside a dream. It took me a few seconds to realize he was real and not a figment of my imagination.

I was profusely sweating, as I was dressed in a suit and tie. The elevation, 5,367 feet (1.64 km) being at a mile-high elevation must have made it harder for me to breathe. I had remembered the height of Phoenix as being 1,086 feet above sea level, a difference of 4,281 feet. Considering Phoenix was only 90 miles south of Prescott.

OLD PROSPECTOR; CIRCA 1955

PICTURE IS PROPERTY OF JKHOFFMAN

Suddenly, I found myself lying on the ground. I got up and dusted myself off after I tripped and fell over a piece of broken sidewalk. My mind had wandered, and I was not watching where I was walking. I began picking myself up when I realized I had just dumped my suitcase and typewriter into the street. A car flew past me filled with young women. They honked and waved at me as I was hurrying to collect my things off the street before they hit my suitcase. My face was turning even redder from embarrassment.

Good job, Marcus, I scolded myself. Now, I was officially late for my one o’clock appointment with …. shit, I forgot his name. Checking my pocket for my cheat sheet, I read the name, John, or Jack Hoffman. My note also reminded me to ask him which name he prefers to go by for the story.

I gazed up at the massive looking structure sitting on top of the hill. A three-story building with a veranda that went around the perimeter of the complex. On the balcony sat the patients in over-sized rocking chairs visiting with each other or napping. I wondered as I looked upward, which one of these men was Jack.

A nurse in a crisp white uniform and a neatly pressed and a starched cap came toward me as I walked inside.

May I help you, young man?

Oh, great, she called me a young man. That made my ego deflate. Composure, I told myself. Get a hold of yourself. Remember the objective; a permanent desk job: focus, Marcus.

I have an appointment with Mr. Hoffman.

Oh yes, he has been waiting for you. The nurse showed me a spot in the entryway where I could leave my things. I quickly sat them down, not wanting to delay her. She motioned for me to follow her up the stairway and out to the veranda. The immaculate wood floors shined. I glanced my eyes around, looking for a dust bunny that may have escaped the janitor’s broom. Nothing, every room was neat and orderly. Everything was pristine, nothing out of place or noticeably improper. Odd, I thought, for men whose previous life was probably the opposite. Life in a mine was dirty, challenging, and dangerous labor. I immediately felt it was a good gesture for the big mining companies to provide for the old.

We walked toward a rocker, sitting in a row with several other residents. A large, framed man was sitting in the rocking chair with a neatly pressed cowboy shirt and jeans. He appeared to be of medium height, not exceptionally tall but average height for a man. He wore a newer cowboy hat, obviously, not one that he had worn when cowboying. A handsome man, he must have been very good-looking in his youth; one the ladies would be gaga over.

Mr. Hoffman, your visitor is here to see you. The nurse had to shake him on the shoulder to awaken him from his nap.

Hello, Mr. Hoffman. My name is Marcus Allen, I then stuck my hand out to shake his hand. I called you the other day to schedule this appointment, making my voice loud enough for him to hear me.

I am not deaf, sonny boy. He said as he returned the handshake with a firm grip.

Oh no, sir, I didn’t mean to insinuate that at all. I can see you are in great shape for your age. Shit Marcus, why did you say that? I questioned myself.

"Dang right, I am in great