Blue Sky Fire (eBook)

Allen Roy (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
383 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3178-1277-5 (ISBN)

Infos

Two lifelong friends growing up in Southeast Texas during the 1960's. They were poor and worked on farms. One boy spent a summer at the Navajo Reservation in Kayenta Arizona and during that stay, he was invited to participate in the training given to all Navajo teenagers on the traditions and history of the tribe. What he learned while there, changed the way he thought about others. He witnessed a crime that he and his friend helped solve and became involved in solving another crime back home.

Born in a Sulphur Company town in Southeast Texas. Moved from the town early in life and grew up on a farm a few miles away. Went to grade school locally and finished college. Have continued to live in the same area for all of his life.

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The book looks at a time when integration was being introduced into Texas. Both boys came from a controlled environment that was segregated by race, position, and religion. It was controlled by the company, and it was all that they knew. They thought that was the norm. Every boy and girl in the town had the same history and similar backgrounds. But once the school was mandated to accept integration and brought in those kids from other schools, the boys questioned their perceived norms and began to see the bigger world. In their protected world of company life, there was no crime. In the real world, there was crime and bad people. Trust was not a given.

Textauszug

Chapter 2 Home for Good

Alvin Border sat on the top rail of the pipe fence near his pen of 4 young bull Brahman calves. It was a hot cloudless June day, and he had just finished walking his last bull calf of the morning. Alvin could feel the heat emanating from his shirt and the top of his straw hat. It was nearing lunchtime and as he sat, he watched his friend Jay Pavlas, walk his last bull back to the pens. Both boys had been hired for the summer to gentle pens of calves and get them ready for the local livestock shows in Victoria, San Antonio and Houston. Their employer was a local rancher named JD Hodgins and he had similar pens set up at most of his ranches throughout the area. His area foremen managed much of the day-to-day effort at each range and the foreman in charge of this set of pens was a man named Jason Locke. The boys were hired for this set of pens because JD knew that they lived nearby and would be able to handle the animals. Jason, for the most part, left the pair alone at their work and only checked up on them in the late afternoons. Alvin knew that he and Jay were both very lucky to land this work for the summer. With them both 16 years of age, it offered a way to start saving for college. Alvin’s mother, Bertha Border, had worked weekends for Mr. Hodgins for many years in his main cattle office and it was her influence with JD that had gotten the boys this job to begin with. JD had told Bertha that he needed some summer help and wanted to use one of her boys if available. It was his way of helping her with the financial problems that she faced. Being a single parent was difficult and JD knew that by offering this summer job to her son, the extra money could help her make ends meet. She had been a loyal part time employee and he had gotten to know her plight and had gotten to know at least one of her boys, in Alvin. Without a husband, it had been rough to pay all the bills. This job would bring in money for Alvin and for the household. But Bertha also used her influence to get Alvin’s best friend, Jay Pavlas, hired as well. Jay’s mother, Mary Pavlas, was as desperate for money as she was. Mary was also alone after her husband died and although she was the chief cook and baker at the local middle school, there was not much money to set aside for Jay’s college tuition. Mary, like Bertha, had another part time job as a seamstress but it paid very little. This job for Jay meant that Jay could help her in the day-to-day bills while saving a little for himself. And Mary Pavlas was very grateful to Alvin’s mother for getting Jay this job. Bertha was glad to help and due to the long-standing friendship between the two boys, she had gotten to know Mary very well. In her eyes, they were both in this together and she vowed to help as much as she could. Jay and Alvin needed this full-time job for the summer but in a way, they had both earned it. In the previous year’s they had helped JD again and again in situations where he needed some extra help quickly, but those were only jobs for a few days at a time when cattle needed to be either loaded into trucks or needed to be moved from one pasture to another. Then last September when Alvin got back from Arizona, JD decided that he could use both boys more as fulltime helpers and the boys spent all last September working for him after school and on weekends. That money helped both families as the boys returned to school. He would have gladly worked them more in the summer but Alvin was in Arizona for the whole summer, so he did not want to offer it only to Jay. Finally, this year, JD decided that he would hire both boys for the entire summer. It felt good not to have to hustle around each weekend for work. JD also allowed the boys to participate in some of the local rodeos to hone their skills, while exercising some of his horse stock. The horses needed to be ridden and cared for each day. The boys fulfilled those needs. The result was that both Alvin and Jay placed in the top 5 in multiple roping and riding events during the year. They had become part of JD’s rodeo family, utilizing his horses and entering multiple junior rodeo events. JD was especially fond of Alvin, mainly because he had no sons of his own and he had known Bertha for years. Instead, he had six much older daughters with each one being more infatuated with spending money than following in their dad’s footsteps in the cattle business. Since Alvin’s mother had faithfully worked in the main office, alongside Jackie Douglas, who was JD’s sister, for many years, it allowed JD to get to know Alvin. Over time he also grew fond of Jay, and knowing that the two boys were close friends, he tried to find more work for the pair. Two of JD’s oldest married daughters gradually became interested in horses and sometimes came with their dad when he attended rodeos, but the other four married daughters were seldom seen. Some of their husbands became foremen and ended up working for the business. JD proved to be kind to all his young cowboys who helped on the various ranches whether they were family or not, but it was no secret that Alvin and Jay were his favorites. He even allowed both Jay and Alvin to borrow two of his quarter horses that were trained to cut and herd cattle. These horses were raised and trained in JD’s horse division within his vast stable of ranches. They were pure breeds, well trained, and were many steps above the horses that the boys owned. Jay and Alvin were allowed to use these horses while at the ranch to move the cattle and exercise the bull calves and were allowed to take them home each night. Every morning both boys would do their chores on their own farms and then ride the horses to the Pearson range to work. Their two small farms were only a mile apart from each other, and only a few miles from one of JD’s pastures, commonly called the Pearson Range. Often the two boys would ride to a common point and then ride in together to work. They would cross the various pastures using gaps in the fences that were a gentleman’s agreement between the ranchers. Access through these gates was easy. The two Quarter horses were named Starr and Belle and throughout the summer they had become as much a part of the boy’s families as the other horses that they owned. This range of pastures was convenient to the farms and the boys found the best route was to go across the pastures and stay off the county roads. They helped each other maneuver through the fence gaps between the fenced pastures, making the ride much easier. The Pearson range was named by JD because of the small county road that ran north-south along the eastern side of the property was called Pearson Road. It was a road developed originally by the county to provide access to Mr. Pearson’s vast ranch. JD bought this range in the 1940’s to complement his holdings in the area. It was roughly 4000 acres, fenced and cross fenced with 5 strand barbed wire on cedar posts. The property was bordered on the south by another ranch and on the north by a small creek. The Pearson Range was used solely for grazing bull calf Brahmans and the grounds consisted of two main sheds with pipe rail pens and a series of small loafing sheds, scattered throughout the pastures. On the north side of the range, the pastureland gave way to several stands of pecan and oak trees as the land dipped gently toward the small creek, named Peach Creek. On this creek there was a large old house and barn complex. JD built the house in the 1950’s and used it to house cowboys during the roundup. It was once called the Spring House, but now the barn and the old wood frame house were deserted and empty. It was a two-story wood home on concrete piers with several bedrooms upstairs and a screened porch that covered 3 sides of the home, both on the first and second floor. Alvin and Jay typically used the home as a place to go and rest during lunch while working on the range. The porches were equipped with swings and the boys spent some days, eating their lunches and swinging to relax in the shade of the porches. The windows were all kept open a few inches and the screen doors were never locked. Mr. Locke had told the boys that the Spring House, as it was called, was where all the ranch hands long ago had gathered for the spring cattle drives. The animals were herded north to some of the larger ranges that JD owned in the next county. This home was used as sort of a gathering place, for those cowhands who migrated with the work across all the ranges belonging to JD. But now with trucks being used to move the herds, drives on horseback were a thing of the past. All that was left as a reminder of those days was this old empty house. On some days during lunch, Jay and Alvin would ride down to the house to eat their lunch and instead of swinging on the porch, they would swim. There was a boat dock and rowboat down on the creek directly adjacent to the old house. The creek had been widened and deepened to allow swimming next to...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 25.8.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Kinder- / Jugendbuch
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3178-1277-5 / 9798317812775