On the Coat Tales of a Gambler
I will be back on the road very soon. I’ll be leaving Taos for a while at the end of July. Come August I’ll be driving through the Colorado Rockies. I love mountain towns. I traveled to them some years ago, but I only stopped at fewer places back then. This time I’m going to take it slower and see more of them. I will start with a night in Creede, then I’ll drop over the top into Lake City. I’ll be in the high county then and I will take my time driving to Denver. There are casinos outside of Denver, but not worth going out of my way. I’ll be in Denver for a couple of nights; I have an appointment at the V.A. and after that I’ll be heading up to the rodeo in Cheyene.
I am meeting an old buddy in Cheyene. He’s my best friend. This guy and I go all the way back to the first grade. We spent twelve years in school together growing up in Robstown. There are some stories there too, but for another time. Howard’s one hell of a great guy, I tell you. He is the one who got me into the navy when I was twenty-nine years old. It was 1970, that’s when I parted company from Scarpone and the other gambling guys for good.
I went into the navy with my USMC rank restored and didn’t even have to go to boot camp because of my experience in the Marines. They just sent me to a navy school for a new Navy M.O.S. Going to the navy was the best thing I ever did in my whole life. Another buddy from high school is going to meet us in Cheyene too. Howard is a class-act. He is putting us up at his dude ranch. If he says that he’s going to do something, you better know it is as good as done.
Just two days after we graduated from high school Howard drove his truck from Robstown all the way to Casper, Wyoming. Overnight he became a cowboy, living out on the range, in a line shack for $65 a month, for one year. Howard ended up in the navy and hitched up for about nine years and then joined the Naval Reserve. He retired from the reserve with over twenty-four years of total service. Now he runs a big horse ranch boarding and training horses. He also teaches folks how to ride. I never could figure out how a grits-eating southern boy ever got the gumption to be a cowboy. Howard did it like he was born on a damn horse.
Writing about my travel plans reminds me of the first time I was in Creede. I was on a fishing trip with my cousin. We were close enough in age to be brothers. Al paid me a visit in Taos, and he wanted to see where the Rio Grande came from. We took Al’s four-wheel drive pickup and stayed at Twenty-Mile camp, in a rustic cabin on the upper Rio Grande. We did some fishing on the Rio Grande and a few feeder streams along the Continental Divide. If you ever want to feel like you have journeyed to the Earth’s end, follow the Rio Grande to its headwaters. It is virtually a dead-end road at the Continental Divide, up against the San Juan Mountains in Colorado. Few people, even today, venture up that way.
After a couple of days of fishing, come Saturday, we drove back down river to Creede, for a night in the town. In its hay-day, Creede was a booming mining community of 30,000 people. There was not much for us to do in Creede except eat, drink, and play a little pool in the only saloon. There was a 3.2 beer joint, but no liquor, just the local kids drank there. Al was an ex-marine, same as me. He was not one to hold back on liquor or his opinions. Once he started drinking, it was pretty much full on with Al, until he passed out. Al was playing pool with the local boys. Of course, the more he played the more he drank. Eventually he had to hang up the pool cue and sat down with me at the bar.
About an hour before closing time, there was a disagreement between one of the locals and a loudmouth from Texas. It escalated into an argument over a shot the local made involving the eight ball. It got really tense and I could not believe what happened next.
As turned out being an out-of-towner, it’s not the smartest thing to be obnoxious in a small mining town like Creede. As you can imagine, it wasn’t long before Tex was standing toe to toe with the other guy. Spoiler alert, this next part is grossly violent, you should warn the readers to skip this part and scroll down to read about Jessie James.
*Scroll down to the next asterisk.
Tex said something about not messing with a marine and the next thing I know, the other guy, with a pool ball in his hand, smashes Tex right in the face, knocking Tex to the floor and then stood over him shouting, “Shut the f… up.” It’s still fresh in my mind. When Tex got hit it sounded like a big slab of meat being slapped down on a butcher block. Blood splattered everywhere like a tomato smashed with a mallet. But the real damage came from Tex’s broken cheek bone which caused his left eye to pop right out of his head. The eye just dangled down the side of his face. Well, you might think with this kind of injury that it would take the fight out of anybody. But not Tex! Seeing with just one eye, and holding the left eye in his hand, Tex left the bar in a cursing rage.
A woman in the bar shouted, somebody call the sherif. The bartender, replied with, “I am the sheriff, the bar is closed, y’all go home now.” Being southern boys with plenty of southern bar experience, we knew to get while the getting was good.
As Al and I were walking back to his truck, out of the darkness of an ally, came Tex cussing a blue streak, in a fit of anger, shouting how he was going to kill that bastard. In the hand that wasn’t holding an eye, I recognized a 1911 automatic pistol. He was literally like a wounded grizzly bear.
Al gave me his truck key and told me to get the truck. He said this guy is crazy, but he’s a marine and we are going to get him to a hospital. Which turned out to be in Monte Vista, an hour’s drive down the valley. I did the driving by the way.
Maybe Al was just drunk enough to be on the same page as Tex because by the time I drove back, Al had the 1911. Together, we helped Tex into the back seat of the truck. Al belted Tex in and grabbed a bottle of Jack Danial from under the seat, telling Tex to have a couple of slugs, until we found the guy who knocked out his eye. Of course, Al’s plan was for Tex to pass out on the drive to the hospital, which he did. Fortunately, the E.R. was quiet and they took Tex right in from the back seat of Al’s truck. Believe it or not, they got his eye back into his broken face and bandaged him up like a mummy. We left Tex there at the hospital and drove all the back to Twenty Mile Camp. The next morning, we went fishing. Al still has that 1911 pistol under the seat of his truck.
*This is the next asterisk.
Do you recall the outlaw, Jesse James? He was murdered in Creede, shot in the back by Bob Ford with a “44”. Back in my days watching Scarpone shooting craps, with a point of “eight” he used to say, “Jesse James was shot with a 44, come on eight, 44 hard.” The Wild West was wild. All that gun play, mano a mano, that is portrayed in the movies is BS. Revolvers were close range killing weapons and most of the killing was done behind the victim’s back. Just thought I’d toss in a bit of western history for your readers. The next time that I visit Creede, I’ll be sure to steer clear of that saloon and mind my small-town manners.
Last thing for now, I received an email letter from an old timer back in Robstown. He says that he has a scrapbook, and he thinks he has a photo of Scarpone that he wants to show me. If I get back there this fall, I’ll make a copy and I’ll send it to you in the mail. If he has a story about Scarpone, I will share that too. Until then, keep’em even. Sailor
Author’s note: A few weeks prior to this story, on July 2nd, of 2009, Sailor sent out an email which seemed to include all the people in his contact list. He provided his phone number and mailing address in El Prodo, New Mexico. He followed that with; “I have tried everything I can think of, but I get more email than I can deal with. I am done with email, please call, and stay in touch always, I value you.”
In November of 2009, Sailor sent this note before disappearing from the Internet. This was the last email I received from Sailor.
i loved your Nov news ltr i only wish scarpone could see all u have written about him who knows a lot of what u have written of him that i did not even tell u may be true he was a piece of work he was a piece of work never knew anyone near like him when he and i parted our ways i guess he was late 30 s early 40 s and had had 4 young beautiful wives oldest woman he ever married when i left him was onlym 22 yrs old he liked to find beautiful waitresses order a meal for himself and 1 or 2 others and tip her a $100.00 dollar bill in the 60 s 100 was some $$ also i do not know if he was ever alone but i never saw him alone me in taos almost 3 weeks Sunday heading for albuq for 3 or 4 weeks hope to hit all casinos on the way down and git me some of their cash no greed just a little from each one of em when u out of town let me know i may be where u r i hope to be in the west and sw for at least a yr thanks for news send more where u have the time take care sailor
On the Coat Tales of a Gambler continues in
Episode 25 – Fifteen Years Later