02 In the Texas backlands in 1885, twelve-year-old Joey Shipman's father dies under mysterious circumstances, and the boy is forced to live with his stepmother and Blair Meacham, a hanger-on at the farm. After the death of a black farmhand and friend, and another "accident" that almost takes Joey's life, the boy runs away and joins forces with his only kin--Beau Shipman, a drunk and a jailbird. Beau, along with an outlaw, a San Antonio prostitute, and a sheepman, become Joey's unlikely partners as he is trailed by their murderous Meacham , in league with Joey's stepmother in their scheme to inherit the Shipman farm.
In the Texas backlands in 1885, twelve-year-old Joey Shipman's father dies under mysterious circumstances, and the boy is forced to live with his stepmother and Blair Meacham, a hanger-on at the farm. After the death of a black farmhand and friend, and another "accident" that almost takes Joey's life, the boy runs away and joins forces with his only kin--Beau Shipman, a drunk and a jailbird. Beau, along with an outlaw, a San Antonio prostitute, and a sheepman, become Joey's unlikely partners as he is trailed by their murderous Meacham , in league with Joey's stepmother in their scheme to inherit the Shipman farm.
Review
"The greatest Western writer of all time."--Western Writers of America, Inc.
"One of those rare, rare books that will find fans of all ages."-- El Paso Herald-Post
"One of the best of a new breed of Western writers who have driven the genre into new territroy." --The New York Times
-- Review
From the Publisher
Praise for Elmer Kelton:
"One of the best of a new breed of Western writers who have driven the genre into new territory." -- New York Times
"The greatest Western writer of all time." -- Western Writers of America, Inc.
"One of those rare, rare books that will find fans of all ages." -- El Paso Herald-Post
"[Kelton's] characters and narrative are colorful and well defined, his plotting is taut and suspenseful--and Joey is one of his best creations yet." --Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Elmer Kelton , author of more than forty novels, grew up on a ranch near Crane, Texas, and earned a journalism degree from the University of Texas. His first novel, Hot Iron , was published in 1956. For forty-two years he had a parallel career in agricultural journalism.
Among his awards have been seven Spurs from Western Writers of America and four Western Heritage awards from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. Among his best-known works have been The Time It Never Rained and The Good Old Boys , the latter made into a television film starring Tommy Lee Jones.
He served in the infantry in World War II. He and his wife, Ann, a native of Austria, live in San Angelo, Texas. They have three children, four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
Elmer Kelton (1926-2009) was the award-winning author of more than forty novels, including The Time It Never Rained , Other Men’s Horses , Texas Standoff and Hard Trail to Follow. He grew up on a ranch near Crane, Texas, and earned a journalism degree from the University of Texas. His first novel, Hot Iron , was published in 1956. Among his awards have been seven Spurs from Western Writers of America and four Western Heritage awards from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. His novel The Good Old Boys was made into a television film starring Tommy Lee Jones. In addition to his novels, Kelton worked as an agricultural journalist for 42 years, and served in the infantry in World War II. He died in 2009.
Henderson County, East Texas, 1885
All afternoon Joey Shipman had been killing his stepmother with the hoe, chopping her to pieces an inch at a time. His small hands were raw from his angry grip on the wooden handle. A water blister was rising on his right palm. Sweat from beneath the band of his floppy felt hat burned his blue eyes and fueled the banked coals of his resentment.
Two rows away in the shin-high corn, an aging black man paused in his own labor to wipe his brow and dry a sweaty hand against stained old trousers that bore new patches on top of old. He studied Joey with a bemused gaze. “Young’un, you goin’ to blunt that hoe plumb down to the handle. You could chop them weeds without bein’ half so fiercesome.”
“I wouldn’t enjoy it half as much.”
“Don’t look like enjoyment to me.” Reuben shook his head. “It’s Miz Dulcie, ain’t it? She sharp to you again at dinnertime?”
From as far back down his twelve years as Joey could remember, Old Reuben had been able to see through him like he was store-window glass. “All I done was tell her I thought Pa was looking’ worse. She taken it to mean she wasn’t carin’ for him proper, and she flew all over me. She’s held a grudge against me ever since Pa brought her here to iive.”
Reuben tamped tobacco into the bowl of a foul old black pipe and lighted it. Joey had often wondered how it kept from poisoning him, but Reuben seemed to take pleasure in it. Life didn’t afford him many material pleasures.
“She is a grudgin’ woman, right enough. She takes hold of a grudge and nurses and coddles and feeds it like it was a baby.” That was as near criticism as Reuben was likely to get. It was his custom to tread lightly on dangerous ground. “Just the same, she’s your pa’s wife. He’d want you to show her proper respect.”
“If it wasn’t for Pa, I might just light out…”leave this place and nary once look back.”
The old man shook his head. “Boy, you’d be like a cottontail rabbit amongst a pack of wolves. The world out yonder’d eat you alive.”
“I can run pretty fast.”
“So can a rabbit. But theys mighty few wolves ever starve to death.”
A peacock began a shrill cry of alarm, as it always did when someone approached on the town road. A movement caught Joey’s eye. “Buggy yonder. Doctor again, I expect.”
Reuben made no comment, but Joey caught a grave look in his eyes before the old man covered it up. Reuben’s edge-sitting station as a hired man, and a black one at that, had made him skilled at concealing what was on his mind. He turned away from Joey and went back to his hoeing.
Joey said, “Pa did look awful bad at dinnertime. You don’t reckon he’s fixin’ to die?”
“The Lord’s got everybody’s future wrote down in the book of reckonin’, but ain’t nobody can read it except Him.”
By rights, Pa could as well already be dead, bad as the accident had been. He had been coming home from Athens by himself with a load of staple goods in the wagon when, the best anybody could tell, something had spooked the team. They had run away, flipping the wagon over on top of Pa at a fence-corner bend in the road. Doctor had said his ribs were busted bad, and one had evidently punched a hole in his lung. Now, on top of his injuries, Pa had pneumonia so bad he could barely breathe.
Joey watched the buggy pull to a stop in front of the white frame house Pa had built for Mama before Joey was born. Fear clutched at his throat. “Doctor says pneumonia’s the old folks’ friend. Takes their pain away and puts them at rest. But Pa ain’t old, not by a long ways.”
“It ain’t for us to question the Lord’s will.” Reuben pointed with the stem of his pipe. “You’d best get back to your job. Miz Dulcie steps out onto the porch and sees you not working’, she’s apt to serve you a cold supper.”
Joey felt a stirring of rebellion. “Ain’t hungry noway.” However, he put the hoe back into motion. “Looks like somebody came with the doctor. I believe it’s Dulcie’s cousin, Mr. Meacham.”
Reuben squinted, trying to see. He had lamented often that his eyesight was no longer what it used to be. But his eyes betrayed disapproval.
Joey said, “I don’t know what you got against Mr. Meacham. He’s always smiling’, always got somethin’ funny to say.”
He had sensed that Pa didn’t care much for Blair Meacham either. Pa had never been much for stories and idle gossip and such. Easy laughter was not in his makeup. But Dulcie’s cousin had always been friendly to Joey, telling him jokes and riddles, even bringing him stick candy from town occasionally. Not many folks were that thoughtful,
Joey worked his way to the end of the row and hearing an angry snort, glanced across the fence. A dark, tight-hided bull ran up to the wire, stopping inches short of the barbs. It pawed dirt and bellowed a challenge at him, its bulging brown eyes belligerent.
Joey took that as a personal insult. This bull had been trying to get at him for five or six years. He walked past the turnrow, picked up a rock, and hurled it, striking the bull just above one eye. The animal slung its head, another angry bellow rising from deep in its throat.
Reuben shouted, “You’d best not agitate that old bull. One of these days he’ll come right through the fence at you. Ain’t nothing’ on this earth meaner than a bad Jersey bull.”
“He ain’t got any horns, hardly.”
“But he could get you down and tromp on you and bust your bones with that head of his. I don’t know what it is makes a cow brute hate young’uns so.”
It was true that the bull seemed to vent its hostility most strongly against youngsters. Being smaller, they probably appeared weaker, Joey guessed. The animal would threaten men but turn away if they stood their ground. Pa or Reuben had only to raise a hand and the bull would back off, its bluster gone. But it had put Joey up and over a fence several times. Joey knew that in his case it was not a bluff, that the bull would kill him if it could. It also pawed dirt and threatened darkly whenever it saw Dulcie. He supposed it classified women and children as natural prey.
Somebody ventured out onto the front porch and waved an arm. It. Wasn’t Dulcie or the doctor, so it had to be Blair Meacham, who seemed to be shouting. Joey said, “We better go see what he’s hollerin’ about.”
The grave look returned to Reuben’s black-button eyes. “You run on. These oid knees can’t move as fast as yours, but I’ll be comin’ along behind you.”
Mindful of Pa’s ruling about taking proper care of tools, Joey held onto the hoe instead of dropping it in the dirt. He carried it down to the barn and set it just inside the door before he trotted the last fifty yards to the house.
The doctor had stepped out onto the porch with Meacham. His voice was like a minister’s at benediction. “Your daddy’s asking for you, boy. If you’ve got anything you want to tell him, you’d best be doin’ it.”
Blair Meacham placed a gentle hand on top of Joey’s head. He offered no joke this time, nor was he smiling. “Don’t look like there’s much time.”
Joey’s throat felt as if he had swallowed a knife with its blade open. He walked into the house, struggling not to cry He was too big for that, he thought. But his resolve came near falling apart as he entered the bedroom and looked through the iron bars of the bedstead. His father lay thin and drawn, his face flushed with the fever that was taking him. His breathing sounded like a rasp filing a horse’s hoof.
Dulcie Shipman stood beside the upper end of the bed, arms folded. In Joey’s mind she was already getting pretty old, somewhere in her mid-to-late thirties. He had heard men refer to her as handsome, but he supposed they hadn’t seen the severe side of her face like he had. Compared to his memories of his own mother, she was skinny and thin-lipped, and he had never heard her sing to herself.
No tears showed in her gray eyes. Instead Joey saw a pinched look he had always interpreted as resentment. He assumed he was a constant reminder that Pa had loved another woman before her and that she was jealous of the attention Pa paid to him. But Pa had always had a great capacity for love. He could give it generously to Joey without taking anything away from Dulcie. Why couldn’t she see that?
“Pa… “ Joey said.
Pa seemed to have trouble seeing. “Joey? You there, Joey? Come here to me.”
Joey moved closer, on the opposite side of the bed from Dulcie. His father had always had large, strong farmer hands. It seemed a supreme effort for him to extend one of them to Joey. Time was when Pa could have crushed Joey’s hand like an eggshell. Now waning strength barely allowed him to close his fingers around the boy’s. The hand was hot with fever.
“Son…I’m sorry.”
Joey was puzzled. He didn’t see any reason for Pa to be apologizing. It wasn’t his fault the fool mules had stampeded, that he lay here helpless, his life ebbing away. It was Joey who should be sorry. Pa had offered him a chance to ride with him to town that day, but Joey had wanted to go down to the creek and try to catch a catfish. Maybe if he had been along he could have done something. At least he would have been there when Pa got hurt. As it was, Pa had lain out on the road for hours befo...
Description:
02 In the Texas backlands in 1885, twelve-year-old Joey Shipman's father dies under mysterious circumstances, and the boy is forced to live with his stepmother and Blair Meacham, a hanger-on at the farm. After the death of a black farmhand and friend, and another "accident" that almost takes Joey's life, the boy runs away and joins forces with his only kin--Beau Shipman, a drunk and a jailbird. Beau, along with an outlaw, a San Antonio prostitute, and a sheepman, become Joey's unlikely partners as he is trailed by their murderous Meacham , in league with Joey's stepmother in their scheme to inherit the Shipman farm.
In the Texas backlands in 1885, twelve-year-old Joey Shipman's father dies under mysterious circumstances, and the boy is forced to live with his stepmother and Blair Meacham, a hanger-on at the farm. After the death of a black farmhand and friend, and another "accident" that almost takes Joey's life, the boy runs away and joins forces with his only kin--Beau Shipman, a drunk and a jailbird. Beau, along with an outlaw, a San Antonio prostitute, and a sheepman, become Joey's unlikely partners as he is trailed by their murderous Meacham , in league with Joey's stepmother in their scheme to inherit the Shipman farm.
Review
"The greatest Western writer of all time."--Western Writers of America, Inc.
"One of those rare, rare books that will find fans of all ages."-- El Paso Herald-Post
"One of the best of a new breed of Western writers who have driven the genre into new territroy." --The New York Times
-- Review
From the Publisher
Praise for Elmer Kelton:
"One of the best of a new breed of Western writers who have driven the genre into new territory." -- New York Times
"The greatest Western writer of all time." -- Western Writers of America, Inc.
"One of those rare, rare books that will find fans of all ages." -- El Paso Herald-Post
"[Kelton's] characters and narrative are colorful and well defined, his plotting is taut and suspenseful--and Joey is one of his best creations yet." -- Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Elmer Kelton , author of more than forty novels, grew up on a ranch near Crane, Texas, and earned a journalism degree from the University of Texas. His first novel, Hot Iron , was published in 1956. For forty-two years he had a parallel career in agricultural journalism.
Among his awards have been seven Spurs from Western Writers of America and four Western Heritage awards from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. Among his best-known works have been The Time It Never Rained and The Good Old Boys , the latter made into a television film starring Tommy Lee Jones.
He served in the infantry in World War II. He and his wife, Ann, a native of Austria, live in San Angelo, Texas. They have three children, four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
Elmer Kelton (1926-2009) was the award-winning author of more than forty novels, including The Time It Never Rained , Other Men’s Horses , Texas Standoff and Hard Trail to Follow. He grew up on a ranch near Crane, Texas, and earned a journalism degree from the University of Texas. His first novel, Hot Iron , was published in 1956. Among his awards have been seven Spurs from Western Writers of America and four Western Heritage awards from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. His novel The Good Old Boys was made into a television film starring Tommy Lee Jones. In addition to his novels, Kelton worked as an agricultural journalist for 42 years, and served in the infantry in World War II. He died in 2009.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER 1
Henderson County, East Texas, 1885
All afternoon Joey Shipman had been killing his stepmother with the hoe, chopping her to pieces an inch at a time. His small hands were raw from his angry grip on the wooden handle. A water blister was rising on his right palm. Sweat from beneath the band of his floppy felt hat burned his blue eyes and fueled the banked coals of his resentment.
Two rows away in the shin-high corn, an aging black man paused in his own labor to wipe his brow and dry a sweaty hand against stained old trousers that bore new patches on top of old. He studied Joey with a bemused gaze. “Young’un, you goin’ to blunt that hoe plumb down to the handle. You could chop them weeds without bein’ half so fiercesome.”
“I wouldn’t enjoy it half as much.”
“Don’t look like enjoyment to me.” Reuben shook his head. “It’s Miz Dulcie, ain’t it? She sharp to you again at dinnertime?”
From as far back down his twelve years as Joey could remember, Old Reuben had been able to see through him like he was store-window glass. “All I done was tell her I thought Pa was looking’ worse. She taken it to mean she wasn’t carin’ for him proper, and she flew all over me. She’s held a grudge against me ever since Pa brought her here to iive.”
Reuben tamped tobacco into the bowl of a foul old black pipe and lighted it. Joey had often wondered how it kept from poisoning him, but Reuben seemed to take pleasure in it. Life didn’t afford him many material pleasures.
“She is a grudgin’ woman, right enough. She takes hold of a grudge and nurses and coddles and feeds it like it was a baby.” That was as near criticism as Reuben was likely to get. It was his custom to tread lightly on dangerous ground. “Just the same, she’s your pa’s wife. He’d want you to show her proper respect.”
“If it wasn’t for Pa, I might just light out…”leave this place and nary once look back.”
The old man shook his head. “Boy, you’d be like a cottontail rabbit amongst a pack of wolves. The world out yonder’d eat you alive.”
“I can run pretty fast.”
“So can a rabbit. But theys mighty few wolves ever starve to death.”
A peacock began a shrill cry of alarm, as it always did when someone approached on the town road. A movement caught Joey’s eye. “Buggy yonder. Doctor again, I expect.”
Reuben made no comment, but Joey caught a grave look in his eyes before the old man covered it up. Reuben’s edge-sitting station as a hired man, and a black one at that, had made him skilled at concealing what was on his mind. He turned away from Joey and went back to his hoeing.
Joey said, “Pa did look awful bad at dinnertime. You don’t reckon he’s fixin’ to die?”
“The Lord’s got everybody’s future wrote down in the book of reckonin’, but ain’t nobody can read it except Him.”
By rights, Pa could as well already be dead, bad as the accident had been. He had been coming home from Athens by himself with a load of staple goods in the wagon when, the best anybody could tell, something had spooked the team. They had run away, flipping the wagon over on top of Pa at a fence-corner bend in the road. Doctor had said his ribs were busted bad, and one had evidently punched a hole in his lung. Now, on top of his injuries, Pa had pneumonia so bad he could barely breathe.
Joey watched the buggy pull to a stop in front of the white frame house Pa had built for Mama before Joey was born. Fear clutched at his throat. “Doctor says pneumonia’s the old folks’ friend. Takes their pain away and puts them at rest. But Pa ain’t old, not by a long ways.”
“It ain’t for us to question the Lord’s will.” Reuben pointed with the stem of his pipe. “You’d best get back to your job. Miz Dulcie steps out onto the porch and sees you not working’, she’s apt to serve you a cold supper.”
Joey felt a stirring of rebellion. “Ain’t hungry noway.” However, he put the hoe back into motion. “Looks like somebody came with the doctor. I believe it’s Dulcie’s cousin, Mr. Meacham.”
Reuben squinted, trying to see. He had lamented often that his eyesight was no longer what it used to be. But his eyes betrayed disapproval.
Joey said, “I don’t know what you got against Mr. Meacham. He’s always smiling’, always got somethin’ funny to say.”
He had sensed that Pa didn’t care much for Blair Meacham either. Pa had never been much for stories and idle gossip and such. Easy laughter was not in his makeup. But Dulcie’s cousin had always been friendly to Joey, telling him jokes and riddles, even bringing him stick candy from town occasionally. Not many folks were that thoughtful,
Joey worked his way to the end of the row and hearing an angry snort, glanced across the fence. A dark, tight-hided bull ran up to the wire, stopping inches short of the barbs. It pawed dirt and bellowed a challenge at him, its bulging brown eyes belligerent.
Joey took that as a personal insult. This bull had been trying to get at him for five or six years. He walked past the turnrow, picked up a rock, and hurled it, striking the bull just above one eye. The animal slung its head, another angry bellow rising from deep in its throat.
Reuben shouted, “You’d best not agitate that old bull. One of these days he’ll come right through the fence at you. Ain’t nothing’ on this earth meaner than a bad Jersey bull.”
“He ain’t got any horns, hardly.”
“But he could get you down and tromp on you and bust your bones with that head of his. I don’t know what it is makes a cow brute hate young’uns so.”
It was true that the bull seemed to vent its hostility most strongly against youngsters. Being smaller, they probably appeared weaker, Joey guessed. The animal would threaten men but turn away if they stood their ground. Pa or Reuben had only to raise a hand and the bull would back off, its bluster gone. But it had put Joey up and over a fence several times. Joey knew that in his case it was not a bluff, that the bull would kill him if it could. It also pawed dirt and threatened darkly whenever it saw Dulcie. He supposed it classified women and children as natural prey.
Somebody ventured out onto the front porch and waved an arm. It. Wasn’t Dulcie or the doctor, so it had to be Blair Meacham, who seemed to be shouting. Joey said, “We better go see what he’s hollerin’ about.”
The grave look returned to Reuben’s black-button eyes. “You run on. These oid knees can’t move as fast as yours, but I’ll be comin’ along behind you.”
Mindful of Pa’s ruling about taking proper care of tools, Joey held onto the hoe instead of dropping it in the dirt. He carried it down to the barn and set it just inside the door before he trotted the last fifty yards to the house.
The doctor had stepped out onto the porch with Meacham. His voice was like a minister’s at benediction. “Your daddy’s asking for you, boy. If you’ve got anything you want to tell him, you’d best be doin’ it.”
Blair Meacham placed a gentle hand on top of Joey’s head. He offered no joke this time, nor was he smiling. “Don’t look like there’s much time.”
Joey’s throat felt as if he had swallowed a knife with its blade open. He walked into the house, struggling not to cry He was too big for that, he thought. But his resolve came near falling apart as he entered the bedroom and looked through the iron bars of the bedstead. His father lay thin and drawn, his face flushed with the fever that was taking him. His breathing sounded like a rasp filing a horse’s hoof.
Dulcie Shipman stood beside the upper end of the bed, arms folded. In Joey’s mind she was already getting pretty old, somewhere in her mid-to-late thirties. He had heard men refer to her as handsome, but he supposed they hadn’t seen the severe side of her face like he had. Compared to his memories of his own mother, she was skinny and thin-lipped, and he had never heard her sing to herself.
No tears showed in her gray eyes. Instead Joey saw a pinched look he had always interpreted as resentment. He assumed he was a constant reminder that Pa had loved another woman before her and that she was jealous of the attention Pa paid to him. But Pa had always had a great capacity for love. He could give it generously to Joey without taking anything away from Dulcie. Why couldn’t she see that?
“Pa… “ Joey said.
Pa seemed to have trouble seeing. “Joey? You there, Joey? Come here to me.”
Joey moved closer, on the opposite side of the bed from Dulcie. His father had always had large, strong farmer hands. It seemed a supreme effort for him to extend one of them to Joey. Time was when Pa could have crushed Joey’s hand like an eggshell. Now waning strength barely allowed him to close his fingers around the boy’s. The hand was hot with fever.
“Son…I’m sorry.”
Joey was puzzled. He didn’t see any reason for Pa to be apologizing. It wasn’t his fault the fool mules had stampeded, that he lay here helpless, his life ebbing away. It was Joey who should be sorry. Pa had offered him a chance to ride with him to town that day, but Joey had wanted to go down to the creek and try to catch a catfish. Maybe if he had been along he could have done something. At least he would have been there when Pa got hurt. As it was, Pa had lain out on the road for hours befo...