Lone Stars: Chappell Hill, Texas

Old Town Chappell Hill today
(photo by S. Braswell of Spring, Texas)

Located roughly halfway between Austin and Houston, Chappell Hill was founded in 1847 on 100 acres owned by a woman. (Texas granted women extraordinary rights for the time.) Mary Haller and her husband Jacob built a stagecoach inn on the site -- at the junction of two major stagecoach lines -- and soon other folks from the Deep South migrated to the area and planted cotton, for which the climate and soil were perfectly suited.

By 1856, the population had risen to 3,000 people and the town included a sawmill, five churches, and a Masonic Lodge, in addition to two of the first colleges in the state -- one for men and another for women. A railroad line followed soon after.

During the War of Northern Aggression (otherwise known as the American Civil War), the men of Chappell Hill served in both Hood's Texas Brigade (infantry) and Terry's Texas Rangers (cavalry). Two years after the war ended, in 1867, many of the Chappell Hill men who survived the war perished in a yellow fever epidemic that decimated the town and the rest of the area around the Brazos River.

Longhorn relaxing in the bluebonnets near Chappell Hill

Chappell Hill never recovered, plunging from one of the largest, most vibrant communities in the state to little more than a memory.

Today, Chappell Hill is one of the best historically preserved towns in Texas. Main Street is listed as a National Register Historic District by the National Register of Historic Places; restored homes, churches, businesses and the Stagecoach Inn offer tours to tourists. If you're ever in the area, it's worth a visit.

Famous Last Words: Black Jack Ketchum

Black Jack Ketchum

(An updated and expanded version of this post may be read at Sweethearts of the West, where I blog on the 12th of each month.)

"Can't you hurry this up a bit? I hear they eat dinner in Hades at twelve sharp, and I don't aim to be late."

Whether or not he aimed to be late, Thomas Edward "Black Jack" Ketchum missed the dinner bell by more than an hour on April 26, 1901. In fact, his hanging was delayed by more than four hours while authorities tried to ensure his execution was both humane and permanent.

Black Jack, a native of San Saba County, Texas, also was known as "the handsome train robber." Between 1892 and 1899, he and his older brother Sam, along with a gang of other young men -- all of whom were described as well-mannered and well-dressed, riding good horses and flashing plenty of money -- "liberated" payrolls and other large sums of cash from trains passing through the Four Corners area of the Southwest. Their largest take, in September 1897, totalled about $60,000 in gold and silver.

Sam died in jail in July 1899 as a result of wounds he received during a shootout with a posse near Santa Fe, New Mexico. One month later, Black Jack was shot by the conductor of a train he was robbing alone. He didn't resist when either a posse or a railroad crew (there's a dispute) found him the next morning.

After he was sentenced to hang, the date of the execution was delayed several times by arguments about where final justice should take place, since several towns wanted the honor. Finally, reacting to a rumor that the old gang planned to break Black Jack out of jail, the hanging became the center of a carnival in Clayton, New Mexico. Despite an extended debate about the length and strength of the rope necessary for the deed, something went wrong. Shortly after 1 p.m., Ketchum was decapitated as his body plunged through the scaffold's trapdoor. He was 37 years old.

Black Jack Ketchum bears the dubious distinction of being the only man sentenced to die in New Mexico for "felonious assault upon a railway train." Apparently his botched execution set the residents of Union County back a mite, because Black Jack also was the only man ever hanged in Union County. Until Eva Dugan suffered the same fate at the Pinal County, Arizona, prison in 1930, Black Jack Ketchum was the only person in the U.S. who literally lost his head to a hangman's noose ordered by a court.

Call Me Bwana

“Don’t even think about it!”

Even before the words were out of my mouth, ears pasted themselves to neck and Dog was under the sofa, all staccato fur and scurrying claws. To this day, I haven’t figured out how he dragged that gnu under there with him, but I can tell you gnus shouldn’t be under sofas. They dislike confining, dark spaces almost as much as they dislike being wrestled to the ground by their throats. Not that Dog cared. He had captured the gnu fair and square, and he was determined to keep it.

“All right. I bow before the prowess of the great hunter,” I admitted as I flopped on the floor, prepared to haul out Dog, the gnu and whatever else was under the furniture, by force if necessary. “The gnu is yours. Now please bring it out from under the couch.”

Two glittering eyes peered from the dark slit between the sofa and the floor. “Wildebeest,” he said.

“Wildebeest?”

“It’s a wildebeest,” he answered. “I’m surprised you didn’t recognize it.”

“Whatever. Just bring it out from under the couch.”

Dog inched his way out of the wilderness den without any sort of ungulate mammal in tow and vigorously shook himself .

Drama on the Range

In the immortal words of Willie Nelson, "my heroes have always been cowboys." As of Thanksgiving Day 2011, though, I've bumped another group of everyday heroes to the top of the list, at least temporarily: firefighters. There's nothing quite like having a group of hunky firemen save you from your own stupidity to engender a modest amount of hero worship. Who knew hunky firemen even existed in the small Texas town where I live?

What did y'all "see" when you read "hunky firemen?" I'd tell you what I "saw" at the time, but honestly, it was just bizarre under the circumstances and probably shouldn't be allowed to escape into the wild if I wish to preserve any shreds of decorum still clinging to my reputation. This is what romance writing does to an ordinarily restrained descendant of untold generations of Baptist ministers.

Here's the condensed version of the sordid tale:

The Thanksgiving cooking marathon always seems to be hectic around here. Oddly, this year everything proceeded without a hitch...until suddenly it didn't. In an attempt to be helpful (which should have set off my calamity radar right there), my other half offered to put the dressed bird into the oven while I took a much-needed shower. Since I had laid out the bagged turkey and the roasting pan and had pre-heated the oven, I thought "How much trouble can he get into? We've done this every year for quite some time now. He knows how it's done." So I took myself off to clean up, leaving Other Half and pending disaster alone in the kitchen to become better acquainted.

An hour and a half or so later, while I was busily engaged in slicing my thu...er, putting together a Waldorf salad, I heard a faint sizzle coming from the oven. Odd. Bagged turkeys don't sizzle. Pressing a paper towel to my thumb so I didn't drip blood all the way across the kitchen floor, I opened the oven door to check on the turkey.

That's when the smoke alarm went off.

Because the turkey would have been a snug fit in the roasting pan—which we knew going in—Other Half decided to use a jelly roll pan (essentially a cookie sheet with sides) instead. The turkey's wings hung over both sides of the pan, and somehow the bag had sprung a leak. (Predictably, I might add.) I didn't realize the problem until the sizzling started because, uncharacteristically, Other Half had put away the roasting pan.

I snatched the cookie-sheet-ensconced turkey (as much as it is possible to "snatch" something that weighs more than 22 pounds) from the gas oven just as flames erupted—thankfully, only inside the oven. In the meantime, Other Half called the fire department, just in case.

To make a long story slightly less long, I dumped an entire bag of flour into the oven and smothered the flames (probably killing the oven, but I'll deal with that later). Whoever Other Half spoke with at 911 said to get out of the house—which, of course, I was having none of because although the fire was out, my house was filled with smoke. So I ran around opening every window I could get open while Dog and Underdog, locked in their condos much earlier to keep their tiny, troublemaking selves out from underfoot, howled and Other Half attempted to disarm the raucous smoke detectors (which are everywhere in our house). By the time every fire department person on duty (two engines and an ambulance) showed up, I was sitting in a chair on the porch holding both dogs in my lap. Underdog threatened to eat the strange creatures in bulky yellow suits, to which Dog responded by repeatedly biting Underdog in order to discourage a fruitless display of aggression toward odd-looking people who, for all Dog knew, had come to deliver dog treats.

The gaggle of firemen stripped off their yellow suits right there in my house (hence the thoroughly inappropriate mental images I mentioned earlier) and proceeded to ensure no fires had broken out spontaneously anywhere else. (Evidently attics are notorious hotspots for secondary fires. Again: Who knew?) They also planted big fans to blow any lingering smoke out of the house. All in all, they were very friendly guys, although a couple of them grumbled good-naturedly about having to leave the station at the exact moment some football team was about to make a touchdown. Couldn't I have timed the fire a little better? Then they hung around to chat and write up a report in case I need it for insurance. (I don't intend to file a claim. At worst, I may have to buy a new oven—which, unless I go hog wild and buy the oven I really want, will cost well below the insurance deductible.) When they left, they took a pecan pie with them, with my most heartfelt gratitude.

Other Half and the male component of the couple with whom we were to share Thanksgiving dinner ferried the half-cooked turkey, the dressing and the candied sweet potatoes over to Male Component's house a block away to finish cooking everything, while I made gravy and cooked green beans on top of the stove. (The top continues to function just fine.) Then the guests brought the food back to our house, and things proceeded as though nothing out of the ordinary had taken place. The house suffered no damage outside the oven, and even the smoke smell had disappeared by the time everyone arrived.

Dog and Underdog each gained about five pounds that day, because everyone kept slipping them bites of turkey in order to ease them over their (non-existent) trauma. Despite a blanket prohibition on feeding table food to tiny terrorists, each person evidently thought he or she was the only one unable to resist exceptionally pathetic, obviously abused and patently starving canines.

The meal was delicious, if I do say so myself. And post-almost-catastrophe I must admit: Hunky firemen make an exceptional appetizer.

A Conversation with Dog

“So how’s what’s-his-name?” my brother asked. Even through the phone he sounded distracted.

“What’s-his-name? You mean my significant other?” I asked.
“No, no. Not Crabby. The little one—you know, uh…. Oh, the Mexican hairless!”

I get a kick out of my brother's self-exasperation. It's so cute to watch Mr. Cool lash himself to the mast with his own tongue.

For some reason this time I was more amused than usual. Some of the iced tea ended up on my shirt, and some ended up across the room. “Did you just say ‘Mexican hairless?’” I couldn’t suppress a chuckle.

Dog raised his head from the couch, his ears standing at attention and displeasure in his eyes.

“You know who I mean,” Brother informed me. “That little dog thing you have. Never mind. I don’t care anyway. Gotta go. Bye.”

“‘Mexican hairless?’” Dog asked, cocking his head and raising one eyebrow. “What kind of thing is that to say?”

Naked in Church

Fiction writers face all sorts of fears: fear of rejection, fear of success, fear of failure, fear of the blank page, fear of running out of ideas, fear that this internal something that drives us to create is destructive, because all we've managed to put on paper so far sucks so bad we may as well have created a black hole.... The list goes on.

Recently, I've realized one of the biggest fears I face in fiction writing is what I call "the naked in church fear." The nightmare reportedly is a common one: There you are on Sunday morning, filing into the sanctuary along with everyone else, when suddenly you realize you aren't wearing a stitch of clothing ... and everyone is staring. "Oh my," you think, blushing scarlet from head to foot. "I know I was wearing something besides my birthday suit when I left the house. Of all the places to be caught in the nude: in church? I'll never live this down."

Most dream interpretations attribute the naked-in-church nightmare to fear of exposure: as a fraud, as wanton beneath a prim exterior, as someone who harbors dark secrets. Psychologists often say the dream is an attempt by the subconscious to inform the conscious the dreamer is being disloyal to himself or herself by hiding something.