October 25, 2015
Bones Hooks
Ronny Carpenter is seventy-three years old. I’m in his shop to borrow a jack. He points
to a crate. I take a seat.
Last spring, Ronny designed and built a compressor to bend oak planks into the shape of
wagon wheels. He spins spokes on a homemade lathe. His name and hobby are more congruent
than that of most retirees. Nevertheless, he reserves woodworking for winter. The rest of the
time, he and Red Stevens travel Briscoe County with metal detectors, sweeping box canyons and
flint-strewn hills for US Cavalry bullets and buckles. At night, they scour copies of faded diaries
for hints and evidence of wagon trails, skirmishes, campsites. And graves.
“We found this piece of harmonica,” he holds up a strip of metal toothed with oblong
gaps. “It laid about thirty yards from a pile of stone. Almost certain it’s Private William T.
Murphy underneath those rocks.”
Ronny’s face is long and creased, his grin as wide as the brim of his hat. He reaches for a
plastic bag on the work bench.
“We find lots of these.” He tosses me the bag.
“My buddy, Red, figures soldiers held lots of wrestling matches to pass their time,”
Ronnie continues, rubbing the stubble on his square chin. “Nothing else explains all the buttons
we find.”
Inside the bag, corroded disks, blue and green, tinkle like rain. *
Lots of stories about the old West are lost to human memory, but some are located found
just down the street. In Amarillo, for instance, a public park bears the name of Bones Hooks, a
famous horseman and son of former slaves. A Remington bronze depicts Hooks astride a bronc
in mid-pitch. His back curves skyward and, in his hand, the cap of a railroad porter, the job
Hooks worked in his later years.
One day, a crowd stopped a train near Pampa when word spread that Hooks was aboard.
Bones bucked out a horse no one else could ride. The men whooped and yelled. Years later, when
Hooks died, cowboys from across the Panhandle brought roses to the church.
History gives shape to our past and direction to our future. Despite stories lost in time
and buried in the dust, keep in mind that, in God, no story is forgotten and no life is lived in vain.