Bloodweed Furlough

By Marlow Reynolds

….memoir of a convict.
a man’s last ‘coon hunt…only; guess who’s the ‘coon.
So what it lacks in glamour, romance, and valor, it makes up for in honesty.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781664188617

Book preview

Bloodweed Furlough

Marlow Reynolds

Copyright © 2022 by Marlow Reynolds.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 05/27/2022

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

824208

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Bucket-Head in the Bloodweeds (of Oyster Creek)

Chapter 2 The Brazos

Chapter 3 The Plan

Chapter 4 Over the Wire

Chapter 5 Cows and Cops and Coyotes

Chapter 6 Live Oak

Chapter 7 Hackberry

Chapter 8 Ike

Chapter 9 Tallow Tree

Chapter 10 Mesquite

Chapter 11 Wild Peach

Chapter 12 The Rookie

Chapter 13 Treed

Chapter 14 To The Rails

Chapter 15 Back in the Bloodweeds

Chapter 16 The San Bernard

Chapter 17 Caught With My Britches Down

Chapter 18 Over My River

Chapter 19 Regrets?..Naw, Not Many

For Bonnie

If not for her,

There'd be no book.

Love you, Sugar

MWR

….memoir of a convict.

The story of a man’s last ‘coon hunt…only; guess who’s the ‘coon.

This is not a work of fiction. Everything herein is the truth as well as I know it. So what it lacks in glamour, romance, and valor, it makes up for in honesty.

My aim was just to maybe put a grin on your face.

Marlow Reynolds

CHAPTER 1

Bucket-Head in the Bloodweeds (of Oyster Creek)

Pic%201.jpg

If the governor of Texas was to give me a pardon and make ‘em set me free next week, I don’t believe I’d ever be able to hunt critters with hound dogs again. That’s saying something, ‘cause I grew up hunting rabbits and ‘coons behind hounds and it’s a hell of a lot of fun. But this was the first time I ever had to trade places with the ‘coon. Now I know how the poor booger feels.

There’s just no way I can describe the feeling of having those hounds bawling, squalling and bellering on your back-trail. It’s the most heart-stopping, un-nerving sound you can imagine when you’re the hunted instead of the hunter. Just pray you never have to find out. Believe me, it’s the most hopeless, helpless, frightening and desperate experience that I’ve ever been through, except for the one that got me into all this trouble in the first place, five years ago.

.....

I’d used the last of my pepper a half-hour ago, but in doing so I had evaded that first bunch of dogs. Now I lay flat on my back, exhausted, trying to get my wind back. I lay in the bottom of a side drainage that fed into Oyster Creek, yet I wasn’t touching the ground. My body was supported by ten-foot –tall bloodweeds I’d pushed over and fell on top of. They grew too thick to walk through.

Down here on the Gulf coast of southeast Texas, we have a tall weed that grows mostly in low places that have dried out or been drained. It’s a stalk as big around as your thumb that’ll cut you like two-hundred grit sandpaper. You take your knife and cut into it and it’ll bleed bright red sap, hence the name.

As kids, us boys used bloodweeds for everything you can imagine and some you couldn’t. We built tunnels, houses, hootches and forts in patches of bloodweed that would’ve been invisible from the air. You might say it was our mainstay building material. Dried out, the stalks made good weapons: spears, knives, bows and arrows. Dig the pith out of the center and you had the makin’s of a pipe stem for a cob pipe. And the red sap was used as face and body war paint, though it scared the hell out of Momma a few times before she got used to it.

But right then, though, the damn things were mightily in my way. We’d been mighty short on rain all year long and though the ground was dried out hard as a shore’s heart, that creek bed was choked with them bloodweeds, and they were about to get me in a nine-line bind.

It was no place to get caught…but catch me they did, the second bunch of hounds, that is. The bosses (guards) couldn’t get their horses down in that mess, which is exactly why I was down in there, but I could hear ‘em up on the high ground egging the dogs on. It could have been that they had those hounds on a leash; I couldn’t tell from where I was at, it being dark and so thick and all. If they did, it would gain me a little time because there was simply no way to follow a hound on a leash, down in there…them weed’s were thicker ‘n the hair on one of them hound’s backs.

But those weren’t the hounds that had me worried just then, I was worried about the ones that were already down in here with me. They had gone quiet- what I mean is, they had quit bawling, but they were getting close enough that I could hear ‘em breaking down the weeds and snuffing and slobbering the way a hound’ll do when he’s on a fresh, hot scent. Mine was about as fresh and hot as one could be.

I could see a good size live oak tree just ahead, about twenty yards up the bank, silhouetted against the lighter western sky where the sun had set thirty minutes ago. Not knowing the nature of these dogs or their number, I dearly wanted to make it up there and shin up it. But, hell, I was all out of wind and there was no more time. Those damned weeds held me like a June-bug in a spider web.

Like I said, I was laying there on my back, propped up by the weeds, looking up at the moon through the hole in the canopy I’d made by falling down, too damn tired to go any further. Suddenly, a big, slobberin’ black-and-tan with a head the size of a five gallon bucket broke through that wall of weeds just a little over an arm’s length off my left side. I figured, Well hell, it’s all over now-already, so soon-I didn’t even give ‘em a run for their money. What happened next surprised the hell out of me.

Now, if that had been my old Treeing Walker hound I’d had up until about six years ago, she would have backed up and bayed me, bawling and bellering and telling the whole, wide world about it. And she’d be there all night and the next day, if need be, till somebody was there to help out.

But these two Black-and-Tans (turned out, there was another younger pup behind this big-headed rascal) just stood there, tongues and ears dragging, slobbering like crazy, since that’s a dogs way of sweating to cool off. It was some kind of hot down in there, too, I’m telling you.

Anyhow, I just kind of clucked at him, told him what a fine dog he was, and what a good job he’d done, and how good buddies we were. Then I eased my ol’ bloody left arm over towards him and scratched the side of his head and let him slobber all over my hand. He must have decided I was cool because he remained quiet, but I was still afraid he might change his mind and tell the whole world where I was.

That’s when I thought of that seal-tite foil package of tuna fish I had, stuck down in that secret pocket I’d sewn in my boxers. I dug it out, tore the top off and fed half of it to him. Hell, I just buddied up with him and we made friends.

I’ll never really know what that big-headed old hound was thinking that night, but I was mighty proud it worked out like it did. By him and his young running mate keeping quiet, nobody could tell just where I went, much less where I was at. I have an idea the ol’ boy thought that this was just another one of them damned old training exercises in which he’d done his usual fine job. He probably figured I was the dog-boy’ they used to lay a trail for those exercises and that the game was over and that now we could head back home" where we could all get something cool to drink.

Only, I went the opposite direction, still wondering how ol’ Big Head got around that pepper and that other bunch didn’t.

I have since talked to some of TDCJ’s main canine men who came to visit me, curious about a few things pertaining to the hounds, trying, no doubt, to figure out how things went wrong. It seems there is still some mystery about how I eluded that first set of dogs.

I guess maybe I forgot to tell ‘em about them two packs of pepper I had stuffed in my socks. But if they’ll send somebody down in that bloodweed-infested creek bottom where me and the dogs went, they’ll find a couple of empty Royal Pacific instant coffee bags that probably still smell strong of cayenne and black pepper.

To get past the shakedown on the way out to the recreation yard, I put the bags under the instep of each foot with my socks ‘holding them in place. They, (the guards) very seldom make us remove our socks, although they did check our shoes…no doubt, that little oversite has been remedied, especially if ol’ Warden Hamburger is still around there. Hell, if he’s still got his job ol’ Hamburger’s probably making those guards carry flashlights and having the poor inmates bend over and spread-‘em so they can shine ‘em where the sun don’t shine.

Anyhow, when I finally got up the long slope of that creek bottom, out of those cursed bloodweeds, I found not just one oak tree, but a line of ‘em. I threw myself down by one of ‘em with a couple of low-hanging limbs and took stock of things. The moonlight was brighter, and I could see a lot better once up and out of the weeds.

I could still hear men and dogs back towards the farm; sounded like on the far side of the main creek, so I couldn’t rest for long. The way I’d had it figured, I should have been half way to the Brazos river by then, which, by my reckoning, was only about three miles due west of the prison yard. I’d under estimated the terrain badly, though, not knowing what lay beyond my line of sight from the yard. Hell, I wasn’t a good mile away yet. I had to get moving; I’d been damn lucky so far.

Not only was I tired already, from zig-zagging back and forth across that dry creek bed through those ten-foot-tall weeds, (I’d nearly come out right under their noses once, running blind through that thick weed jungle) I was also getting weak from loss of blood. I’d under estimated the stopping power of that razor wire as much as I had the terrain. It took four times the effort I thought it would to get over it, so I was already tired when I left the yard, even though I’d kept myself in pretty good physical shape, for a fifty-five year old codger. I was bleeding from some two dozen cuts from it and the ‘bob wire. Three were pretty bad. The one that tore my watch off also cut a vein or two in my wrist and have my whites turned red where I’d been holding it tight against my left side. There was a bad one in my right calf muscle I wouldn’t take note of till the next morning at my first day-camp.

Several days earlier I’d sewed me a tote bag, with a sling, made from a pants leg from a set of whites. I dug it out, put what was left of the tuna, my water bottle, and the rest of my goodies in it. My whites were ripped and cut up so bad I was about to lose a lot of ‘em, my goodies that is.

I’d lost my watch, my cap and a lot of blood, but I’d kept my glasses, only because I’d had forethought enough to tie a piece of shoestring to ‘em so I could sling ‘em ‘round my neck. I still got ‘em, hanging on my cell wall.

As soon as I got my wind back, I made a couple of false trails, doubled back, made a circle around that oak and then threw my blood and sweat-soaked uniform top up in one of those low-hanging limbs, just out of what I figured was the reach of a jumping dog. It probably wouldn’t work for long but I hoped that the hounds would stay at that tree, thinking I was up in it. If it only worked till my pursuers got there behind the dogs I figured it would gain me ten or fifteen minutes. Anyhow, I sure as hell wasn’t hangin’ around to find out.

A half moon shines a lot more light than you’d think, once you get away from any other light source, and once I got out of those weeds and away from that tree line, along the bank of that creek, I could see like it was daylight. I came up on the higher ground where the bloodweeds and Johnson grass and live oaks gave way to pasture land of bunch grass, Bermuda grass and scattered milkweed. I continued due west and had fairly easy going the rest of the way to the river.

I was hearing nothing more of the hounds or the men chasing me and was beginning to think I actually had a chance of making good my getaway. I would be in a bad way though, if they thought to come out on that open prairie with some good lights in ATV’s or tractors. I picked up my pace, not trusting the quiet, and about thirty minutes later, though it was a long thirty minutes, I saw a north-south tree-line coming up that I figured had to be the Brazos river.

CHAPTER 2

The Brazos

Thick- Lord God, it was some kind of thick and dark down in there on the bank of that river. No moonlight could reach where I was trying to go. I finally slipped, slid, stumbled, tripped and fell till I could see moonlight reflecting off water. But something didn’t look quite right. What I mean is, I was expecting something wider than this. I knew this old river: from its mouth, down to the Freeport jetties, up to Brazoria, on up to the state highway 35 bridge. Upstream, I’d camped several nights under the I-59 Bridge south of Rosenberg. Everywhere I’d ever seen it, this old river was two or three times wider than this. Hell, Peyton Creek had more water than this little thing. I was in for a little surprise.

This looked like a ‘gator hole if I ever saw one. By the light of the moon, I saw tracks and slides made by their bellies in the soft mud. But right then I was more scared of my pursuers than the ‘gators. I was willing to take my chances with them, same as I did with that tower guard.

The more I studied it, the more I began to think that I hadn’t reached the main river yet. I was thinking that maybe this was a creek that fed into it; or maybe an old river channel like you find a lot up on the Trinity, where for some reason known only to the river itself, it decided to change its course, leaving a crooked, nearly current-less lake behind.

No matter, I didn’t like the looks of it, so I climbed, slipped and stumbled my way back up out of there. With them cheap-ass tennis shoes I was wearing, it was about like trying to climb a mountain of ice in a brand new pair of leather-soled Tony Lamas.

When I got back up out of that river bottom I headed north, looking for some sign of something that looked a little more like the Brazos I knew. But time was a-wastin’ and I about halfway expected to hear them damn hounds again just any old time, so I headed off back down in the tangled mess, figuring on swimming it and putting it between me and that pack of mutts, no matter what the hell it was.

.....

If you ever find yourself, God forbid, in a situation like I was in, or predicament I think, is a better word, just don’t let the dogs or all the excitement of the moment make you lose every lick of common sense you ever had. Maybe I’d lost too much blood, hell if I know, but I just waded off in that old Brazos like I could walk all the way across. And damned if I didn’t make it a fourth of the way before I had to swim. Trouble was, I was in such a cotton-pickin’ hurry to get that river behind me that I plumb forgot to take off them cheap-ass tennis shoes.

Well, cheap they might have been, but they came up to my ankles and I had ‘em double-knotted, so there wasn’t going to be any kicking ‘em off. They were getting damn heavy.

I’ll give you one more little free tip learned the hard way. When you are down in a river bottom hole like that, with trees growing right down to the water, the moonlight will play tricks on your eyes, looking out across the expanse of the river. What I mean is, that river was a lot wider than it looked and with them water-logged shoes and the fact that I’d done no swimming in over five years, well, I just damned near drowned before I finally crawled up on that long, sloping mud bank on the west side.

And you talk about mud; you ain’t never seen the likes of. Like I said, we’d had little rain for many a month and that old river was way down. That accounts for me being able to walk a fourth of the way across it. It also left a ten foot wide mud bank, or quicksand, that I never touched bottom of, even though I sank belly deep in it trying to walk out. If not for an ancient piece of iron oak buried in there, my future would’ve been in doubt. (‘Course, I ain’t much better off right at this moment. In fact I’d gladly go back and take my chances again in that stinking mud-wallow, even if that old ironwood snag has somehow magically disappeared.)

Anyhow, I managed to crawl and drag myself up out of that stinking mess; and Lord, did it stink; it smelled of every dead thing that had died in or around that old river in the last century or two.

No sooner had I gotten up on high ground than I realized how dry my throat was and how thirsty I’d become. I hadn’t wanted to carry the extra weight so I knew my water bottle was empty. It was nothing but a twelve ounce plastic Coke bottle which I’d planned on filling once I reached the river. I was so intent on making it to safety that I forgot, so as bad as I hated it, I had to crawl back out over all that mud, or through it I should say to get some of that old nasty Brazos River water. I didn’t even try to walk; just got on all-fours and crabbed out there like a hundred-eighty pound spider. (yea, right, you say. Can you picture that?) When I got back up on dry ground I looked like I’d been dipped in a thick, black batter and was ready to be deep fried like a damn shrimp, but I got me some of that twenty-weight water.

It seemed like I was spending a lot of time lately getting my air back, but after I’d drank all I could and dipped a bottle to go that’s what I was doing. I’d crawled up the bank about thirty feet, up under them thick live oaks, and had just gotten through thanking the Good Lord for helping me make it as far as I had without drowning or getting shot when I heard that sound, which, even now, thinking back on it, sends shivers up and down my backbone. Yea, you guessed it. I could hear them ole hounds way out in that pasture, and I could tell that, sure as hell, they were dead on my back trail. Only this time there was nothing to slow ‘em down, or the men on horseback, either.

Boy, I was sick. Too tired to run, (it was too thick and dark up under all those trees to run, anyhow) I just backed a little further up the bank to a leaning live oak I figured I could climb. I might not be so lucky with this bunch as I was with ol’ Big Head and his runnin’ buddy; these dogs may try to eat me up, that is, if the bosses got ‘em to cross the river. I was betting everything I had, mostly just my freedom but possibly my life that they wouldn’t.

They came straight down that opposite bank, a little down- stream from where I sat, to the first place where I’d changed my mind, then back up just like I’d done, then back down, and now I could hear ‘em in the edge of the river, directly across from me, trying to make up their minds what to do.

Five minutes later, I could hear the riders talking to the dogs and each other. It would have been suicide for a man and horse both to try to ride down in that hell-hole, even if they could have, somehow, led their horses down to the river, any horse that tried to cross where I did…well, hell, he’d still be there, bogged forevermore in that quicksand mud that nearly got me. And I guess that’s what saved my bacon, even though all along I’d had it figured that if I got across the Brazos I was free-at least till daylight, when they might or might not bring more dogs across.

From where I sat, ready to climb my tree if need be, the bosses sat their horses only about seventy yards away and about thirty feet higher that I was. They couldn’t see me or the water for the trees and brush but they knew those dogs weren’t lying to ‘em, and I could just about read their minds. They wanted no part of that river bottom. Them old boys knew that neck of the woods like it was their own back yard, and, hell, I reckon it was. They knew what a treacherous, ‘gator –infested piece of hell I’d crawled off into. The chances were more than fair that I’d never come out – why should they risk their necks when the river or the ‘gators might well take care of their problem?

Finally, I clearly heard one of ‘em say, Hell, I ain’t goin’ down in that damn water!, and I can’t say as I blame him. I wouldn’t have been down in there either, given any other choice. I could describe it to you all night long but you’d still have only half an idea of just how rough it was down in there.

There was some low talk I couldn’t make out and then they called and whistled up the hounds and just headed on back to the farm. And I thanked the Good Lord again.

Most of the rivers, creeks and bayous of Southeast Texas, south of the piney-woods have a strip of heavy woods along each side that might be as little as a quarter-mile or as much as four or five miles wide, lots of live oak, pin oak, elm, pecan and yaupon. Where I’d crossed the Brazos there was mostly live oak and yaupon and it was thicker and darker than nine kinds of hell down in there. I had no idea how deep this strip of woods was, and those live oaks were so thick that there wasn’t much moonlight seeping through. All I could do was feel my way along and keep going uphill. Uphill had to be west and west was away from the prison and right then that was all I cared about.

If you’re ever out night hunting or otherwise navigating the deep woods and your light quits you and it’s so dark that you can’t even tell where to put your feet, try this. Look straight ahead and un-focus your eyes, sort of relax ‘em. You’ll usually find that there are patches of darkness that are not quite as dark as the rest, due to the lack of ground cover. It ain’t much but that’s what you want to aim for. It’s slow going but the way it turned out, it was another stroke of luck for me. Otherwise, had I been going faster I might have made it all the way up out of that river bottom and been caught flat-footed right out in the open.

Picking and feeling my way up through those thick yaupons and live oaks, I gradually