TX BIOS:  Bones Hooks

   Selected and converted.American Memory, Library of Congress.
   
   Washington, 1994.
   
   Preceding element provides place and date of transcription only.
   
   This transcription intended to be 99.95% accurate.
   
   For more information about this text and this American Memory
   collection, refer to accompanying matter.
   
   U.S. Work Projects Administration, Federal Writers' Project (Folklore
   Project, Life Histories, 1936-39); Manuscript Division, Library of
   Congress.Copyright status not determined.
   
   0001
   
   Interview with Bones Hooks, pioneer Negro cowboy
   
   December 23, 1940
   
   1607 words [Folkstuff - Rangelore?]
   
   Interview with Bones Hooks
   
   Matthew (Bones) Hooks, who for years worked on Panhandle ranches as a
   horse wrangler and "bronc-buster", [know?] many tales of cowboy life
   in the early days, but he refuses to tell the most interesting ones"
   because it would rattle skeletons in the closets of prominent
   families"--old-timers who are still living or their descendants.
   
   Bones, without calling embarrassing names, recites a case in point.
   Called as a witness before a grand jury recently, he recognized in the
   judge a pioneer cattleman.
   
   "Bones, do you know anyone who has stolen cattle"--the judge caught
   the glint of memory in the piercing black eyes and hastily
   added-"now?" And Bones, whose lips had been forming the question,
   "What time are you talking about, Judge?" could honestly answer, "No".
   
   Both of them were recalling a certain day in the past when the judge,
   then a young man just starting out in the cattle business, and a young
   Negro cowboy drove a fine young male calf from the pastures of the
   Capitol Syndicate (XIT Ranch) to the white man's ranch.
   
   The embryo cattleman could not afford to buy a good bull--Bones said
   "surly"; he would not use the word "bull" before a lady
   interviewer--which he needed for breeding purposes. He went to the
   Negro cowboy, who was working an the XIT at the time, and asked him if
   he knew where he could get one. Bones looked over the range and,
   seeing no one near, selected a fine-looking calf, which they drove
   toward the home ranch of the judge-to-be. Coming upon a still better
   animal, Bones exchanged the tired calf for the other, and proceeded an
   his way.
   
   The young rancher tied up the calf until it was weaned to keep it from
   getting back with the mother cow. "It took about four days to wean a
   calf," said Bones. "After that time he would go down to the water hole
   and drink and then mosey out on the range and eating grass and forget
   all about him mamma".
   
   00022
   
   Bones, who was very young when he was working on Panhandle ranches in
   the days before law and order came, has good reason to remember the
   Vigilantes who took the place of the "law" in those days. The Negro
   cowboy, since the death of "Skillety Bill" Johnson of Canadian, is the
   last person to know the password of the Vigilantes.
   
   When Skillety Bill died, persons interested in [DEL: he :DEL] the
   history of the Panhandle went through his personal effects. Among his
   papers they found the notation that Bones was the only person left
   knowing the password. These same persons went to Bones and asked for
   the password, but he refused. "I am going to keep my word until I
   die," he said, "and then my papers will be left to the [museum?]. The
   password will be among them."
   
   According to Bones, Skillety Bill got his name because he worked on
   the Frying Pan Ranch. Cowboys from the Panhandle ranches in the early
   days went to [Mobeetie?] (early Sweetwater), adjacent to Fort Elliott,
   to "celebrate". Negro women in the families of colored troops
   stationed at the army post would see Bill Johnson coming and say
   "There comes that Skillety (their version of Prying Pan) Bill fellow".
   
   Skillety Bill figured in one of the most important episodes in Bones'
   life. The Negro boy was working at the time in old Greer County, which
   was a part of the "neutral Strip", locally called a second "No Man's
   Land". Bones, young and inexperienced, had hired out to wrangle horses
   for a certain cattleman.
   
   One day, while be was tending the horses and minding his own business,
   Vigilantes rode up and asked him, "Are you working for those cattlemen
   down the creek?" Bones admitted that he was. Before he could says
   "Jack Robinson", the Vigilantes jerked him up and started to hang him
   an the nearest tree. They had already hanged the two white men
   mentioned to other convenient trees.
   
   One of them Bones knew to be innocent. He was only a young boy who had
   come into the country looking for work two or three days before, and
   [DEL: ho :DEL] who like himself, had hired out to the first men that
   offered him a job. But the Vigilantes, catching both of the white men
   with a herd of stolen cattle, took only circumstantial evidence into
   consideration and hanged them both. 00033Bones was certain that they
   were going to add him to their victims, when Skillety Bill spoke up in
   behalf of the colored lad, saying that he was a mere boy, wrangling
   horses for the boss and only carrying out orders of the cattle thief,
   whom he had taken to be a bona fide cattleman.
   
   "A red-haired man astride a limb of the tree gave the rope around my
   neck a rough jerk," Bones vividly recalled;" and said, 'Aw, come on,
   let's got it over with'; but Skillety Bill saved my life."
   
   After this narrow escape, Bones went into Oklahoma (then the Indian
   Territory) and so successfully "lost" himself that his own family and
   others thought him dead. At last he ventured back into Greer County.
   Walking through the streets of a Panhandle town, which he refuses to
   name, he came face to face with the sheriff (Skillety Bill).
   
   The sheriff looked at him closely and finally said, "I thought you
   were dead. How long are you going to be here?"
   
   "Only a little bit--a few days", Bones replied.
   
   The sheriff started off down the street, turned back, and said, "How
   long did you say you were going to be in town? Did you say'a little
   bit'?"
   
   Bones, answered quickly, "Yes, sir, a little bit". He knew what would
   happen to him if he did not get out of town in a "little bit"--and he
   got.
   
   The pioneer Negro broncho-buster knows cowboy life as few white
   persons now living. He was an interested listener around the campfires
   of nearly every ranch in the Panhandle. He heard many a lurid tale
   around a cow-chip blaze--words that can not be repeated in the hearing
   of ladies or in polite society. "Every horse, every man, bread and
   other articles of the camp, had a nickname, often unmentionable in
   mixed groups, "he said.
   
   Bones recalls an incident that occurred during a visit of Mrs. Charles
   Goodnight to a camp one day. One of the cowboys, who did not know of
   the lady's presence, said, "Bones, bring me up a horse."
   
   "Which one?"
   
   "that old--," the cowboy stopped suddenly and clapped his hand over
   his mouth, 00044preventing the escape of the horse's unmentionable
   name when he saw Mrs. Goodnight standing there. "You know which one I
   want, "he added significantly.
   
   Bones honors and reveres the pioneer women of his beloved Panhandle,
   because they helped him as they helped so many others. When the
   cowboys tormented him--as they were always doing in some fashion--they
   took his part and made the white boys stop shooting blank cartridges
   at his feet or whatever they were doing to him at the moment.
   
   It was one of those pioneer women who taught Bones not to "cuss". His
   favorite by word was "I'God"--a corruption of "by God". This pioneer
   mother came to him one day and said, "Bones, young Bob is taking up
   your speech and I don't want him to say 'I'God'. I can't keep his from
   saying it as long as he hears you, so I'm going to have to break you
   of the habit. If you'll quit, I'll buy you a Sunday suit."
   
   Bones wanted that suit. When Bob repeated the byword, the Negro boy
   would say, "Bob, white boys can get suits any time, but this the only
   way that I can get one. You mustn't say 'I'God', or I won't get that
   suit".
   
   Bones, who attends every celebration of old-timers, at one of these
   recent gatherings met the daughter of one of the pioneer families for
   whom he used to work--he frequently associated with the children of
   the early settlers, especially the boys. He reminded her of the time
   when she was a very young lady indeed. At that time she had never seen
   a colored person.
   
   "Remember when you first saw me eating with the other cowboys? "he
   said. "You peeked aut from behind your mother's skirt and said,
   'Mamma, one of them didn't wash his face'"
   
   Bones said that he usually ate with the other cow hands. Once, when
   someone objected to the presence of the Negro boy at the same table, a
   pioneer housewife told the objector, "Everyone is treated alike at my
   table".
   
   "In the early days," Bones said in answer to a question, "when a
   cowboy died on the trail, accidentally or otherwise, he was buried in
   a hole dug in the sod without loss of time and without much ceremony.
   The name of the dead man was sent to his family 00055if anyone knew
   his real name or who his people were.
   
   "Later, coffins were made of pine boards. Those who died were buried
   as soon as possible in those days, for obvious reasons. Relatives and
   friends sat up with the dead to keep the cats and dogs away.
   
   "Services for the dead were held by a friend or someone who was
   qualified--later by traveling preachers. Towns were far apart, and
   preachers and doctors had to go miles and miles to serve these
   communities.
   
   "Meetings"--church services--" were held in the homes of pioneers
   until churches were built", he concluded.

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