\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 There were three things you could count on after payday at Judge Roy Bean\u2019s on Friday evening: the beer would flow, a fight would start, and somebody would get shot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I\u2019d been the saloon-keeper at Judge Roy Bean\u2019s place since 1870 and it was my job to wet the whistle of the cowpokes who came to town and to keep the scalawags from fightin\u2019 and bustin\u2019 up the place when they had too much to drink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Most Fridays the shootin\u2019 part included beer bottles, prairie dogs and street signs. But the Friday after Judge Roy Bean\u2019s horse went missing, the shootin\u2019 included a man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Judge Roy was an ornery cuss and had a reputation for not putting up with any law-breakin\u2019 in the town where he was Justice of the Peace and the unofficial lawman. Most of the ranch hands who worked the cattle drives knew to steer clear of the Judge if they\u2019d been drinkin\u2019 too much. Any brouhaha that started in the saloon would be quickly moved to the street and most consisted of fistfights and an occasional beer bottle upside the head. But the day Judge Roy\u2019s horse went missing, the local cowboys got scarce. There were three guys in particular who were suspicious:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Carl Jenkins, who we called \u201cJenks,\u201d had been trying to buy that horse off Judge Roy for months. He kept uppin\u2019 his offer ever so often, but the Judge kept refusing. \u201cThat there horse took me from San Antonio to Pecos Valley and brought me home when I got snake bit and was out of my head for three days. No sir, Ole\u2019 Harry\u2019s not for sale.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Danny Longstreet, who we called \u201cDancin\u2019 Dan\u201d because he would cut a rug in the saloon whenever Jack tickled the ivories of the player piano, also had his eye on that horse, but for another reason. Judge Roy\u2019s horse was the fastest in the county and Dancin\u2019 Dan had already been nabbed and jailed for a month when he was seen leaving the bedroom window of the Judge\u2019s sister, Marlene, who was still married to Jingo at the time. Jingo left town right after that and Marlene joined the Baptist Church, so the Judge let Dan out with a promise to stay out of trouble. It was rumored Dancin\u2019 Dan was in cahoots with a gang of thieves from East Texas and the last thing Dan needed was the Judge on the fastest horse in the county on his tail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The third man was Injun Joe. Never knew his last name, if he even had one. Injun Joe was the quiet type, kept to himself, didn\u2019t have no friends to speak of. He didn\u2019t live in the ranch house with the other cowboys, but pitched a big teepee outside town. He\u2019d collect his pay on Friday and disappear until Monday morning. Injun Joe knew that he was paid less than the other ranch hands and one time when I heard him complain to Judge Roy, the judge snapped back, \u201cYou\u2019re lucky to get any pay being an Injun and not a real citizen of this country.\u201d No one had the gumption to point out that Injun Joe\u2019s people were here before the judge\u2019s people. I saw the way Injun Joe looked at that horse whenever it was tied up out front of the saloon, like he was sizing up how much it was worth and if it made up the difference in Injun Joe\u2019s pay and what the other cowpokes were paid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 So there they all were on payday when the judge came stompin\u2019 and stormin\u2019 up on the porch, yelling that his horse was missin\u2019 and that somebody had stole ole\u2019 Harry.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The cowhands were lollygagging\u2019 around on the front porch, waiting for the judge to give them their pay, but afraid to approach him while he was having such a kerfuffle, accusing everybody and shouting, \u201cDo you know what low-down varmint took my horse? I don\u2019t cotton to horse thieves and when I find out who took ole\u2019 Harry, he\u2019ll be hangin\u2019 by sundown!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Looking at the situation, I thought it best to offer a round of drinks on the house and corral everybody inside until Judge Roy could settle down a bit. That\u2019s when the damndist thing happened. A whole bunch of Injuns came ridin\u2019 up with one of them leading ole Harry and that horse kickin\u2019 up his heels like he\u2019d been eatin\u2019 crazy weed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The judge jumped off the porch and hugged that horse like he was welcoming home the prodigal son.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The Injun raised his hand to the Judge and just said two words: \u201cHorse crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The Judge was so excited that he thought the Injun was introducing himself, so he replied, \u201cThanks Crazy Horse.\u201d The name musta stuck \u2018cause every so often I\u2019d hear stories about some Injun named Crazy Horse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Oh, and the man that got shot? That was ole\u2019 Jingo who had come back to town and Marlene heard he was seeing another woman. When she caught him sneakin\u2019 out of Widow Jones\u2019 bedroom window, Marlene filled his backside with buckshot and that was the last time we ever saw Jingo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I heard that Crazy Horse died sometime around 1877, and then Judge Roy died in 1903. I figured that it was time for me to settle down and do some fishing\u2019 with the years I had left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I have a lot of good memories of the old days and Judge Roy Bean, but I\u2019ll never forget the day his horse went missing and the Injun who brought him back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am an associate editor of a local weekly community newspaper. My childhood hero was Roy Rogers and I loved wearing my cowgirl outfit and pretending my tricycle was a horse. As a grownup, I enjoy a great cup of coffee and stimulating conversation.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":365,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/bill-oxford-OXGhu60NwxU-unsplash-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1414&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":361,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions\/361"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}