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When
Fred Gipson's family went to an old-settlers reunion and fair at Katemcy
to see the aging Herman
Lehmann put on a one-man exhibition, the Mason County youngster got a taste
of the old west far more realistic than anything he ever saw in a Tom Mix movie.
Captured
by the Apaches at 11, Lehmann spent more than eight years with the Indians, finally
reuniting with his family in Texas in the spring of 1878. As he grew older, Lehmann
became a Hill Country celebrity, periodically earning a little money for staging
performances that amounted to one-man Wild West shows.
By the time the
Gipsons reached Katemcy,
a good-sized crowd had gathered near the schoolhouse in an open field bounded
on one side by a barbed wire fence to see Lehmann demonstrate how he once killed
buffalo. Spectators stood under the pecan trees, leaving a narrow strip of unoccupied
space for Lehmann between them and the fence.
Gipson cut out on his own,
trying to make his way to a ringside seat. But the gangling boy with the blue
eyes, long upper lip, and hay-colored hair did not make good progress. Grownups,
he realized, were not much inclined to make way for a barefoot kid. Dropping to
his hands and knees, he began to crawl through the legs of the adults-a forest
rooted in dusty boots and high-topped shoes. |
| Finally
he could see the old German, dressed in buckskin, sitting astride his bare-backed
horse. Lehmann wore a hat made from a buffalo head, the curved black horns jutting
out just above his ample ears. Around his neck hung a breastplate fashioned of
bones; a white sash decorated with flowery designs circled his quirt-thin waist;
white fringe hung from the full shoulders of his buckskin blouse.
Photo
courtesy Bettye Beard |
Just
after Gipson reached the edge of the crowd, Lehmann cut loose with an Indian whoop
from another time-a human panther's scream that would make a grown man break out
in a midnight sweat. Hearing Lehmann's cry, a frightened steer- the substitute
buffalo-let out a bawl and charged down the fence line. Lehmann galloped close
behind, bow and arrow in his hands and his old, experienced legs wrapped tightly
around his horse. Leaning under his horse's neck, as he had done many times before
on real buffalo hunts, or when the target had been a man, Lehmann overtook the
steer.
He drew his bow, the arrow pointing at the wide-eyed crowd. A miss
might send the deadly shaft whistling in the direction of some spectator's heart.
Just as Lehmann, the steer, and Gipson lined up on an axis as straight as a war
lance, Lehmann let fly with his arrow.
Gipson heard a "thunk" and a bellow
of pain as pink foam blew from the yearling. A bloody metal arrowhead ripped through
the steer's thick hide, just inches from the boy's astonished, horrified face.
The steer made it a few more yards, running on impulses from a dying brain. The
animal's knees buckled, and it dropped in a spray of dust as Lehmann wheeled his
horse and let out another fierce yell.
Dismounting in an effortless movement,
Lehmann plunged his knife into the belly of the fallen yearling, to the horror
of the crowd, he thrust his hand inside the steaming cavity and, after some quick
knife work, yanked out the steer's glistening liver, holding it up for the audience.
Spectators gasped and gagged. Some found themselves looking at the clouds overhead
or just closing their eyes. They had come to see a steer killed by a man who once
had been an Indian captive, but they were not ready for this degree of authenticity.
Those who still watched then saw Lehmann begin to eat the raw liver. The
Indians, and Lehmann because he had learned from them, considered it a delicacy.
Gipson did not take in that part of the program. The bloody arrow had been enough
for him. As Lehmann finished the liver and wiped blood and bile from his aged
face, the barefoot boy scrambled back through the crowd to the safety of his family. |
The
realism of that day never faded from Gipson's memory. Decades later, it helped
him as a writer of children's adventure tales, including the 1956 Texas classic,
"Old Yeller."
© Mike Cox
"Texas
Tales" >
June 22, 2006 column
Portions of this column originally appeared in the author's 1980 book, "Fred
Gipson: Texas Storyteller."
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