Texan Magazine
The true, shocking, funny, legendary and raw, historical tale of a lifetime…..
By Marshall E. Kuykendall
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EDITOR’S NOTE:
The following is Part II of a series about the life of legendary rancher, historian and author, Marshall E. Kuykendall. You can read Part I in the previous issue of TEXAN MAGAZINE at texanmag.com
Part I Short Synopsis:
The Kuykendall’s were one of the very first, original settlers in the great state of Texas. Those families were known as the “Old Three Hundred.” Marshall was a young boy in the 1940’s. When you lived on an 11,000 acre ranch in the middle of Texas, driving to school was not an option. Marshall’s parents had him stay with friends, the Armbruster’s, closer to the school in town. Well, that’s the short, nice version…..
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THE STORY CONTINUES
Since I was never made privy to all the high-powered negotiations that occurred between Dad and the Armbruster’s, it came as a surprise to me that when I was taken back into Buda the following fall for the opening of the school year, they dropped me off across the railroad tracks into the line of brick buildings into Mrs. Montague’s Café. It was a wonderful change. Mr. and Mrs. Montague ran the café and lived in the back. There was no one else there but them and me, which was a nice change from the bunch across the tracks. They were lovely to me.
As I recall I was there for two years-fall of ’43, then spring and fall of ’44, then spring of ’45. I would go over to Sonny Cochran’s house or maybe Sonny Guthrie’s every afternoon after school and listen to the 15 minute segments on the radio of the Green Hornet; the Lone Ranger; The Shadow and others until the 6 PM national news came on, the I’d go back to the café for supper.
I was at Sonny Guthrie’s house the day President Roosevelt died cause the radio announcer broke into the Green Hornet to give the nation the news.
The Great War in Europe finally began to wind down in the spring of ’45 and I remember this just like it was yesterday. I came hippy-hopping into the café, threw my school stuff on the floor and started for my room in the back when Mrs. Montague rushed over and stopped me and told me not to go in the back for a while, that her son Bill had just gotten home from the war and was sound asleep in the back and that if I disturbed him in any way “he’d wake up and hit me!”
I never forgot that—Seems that not only had her son Bill just gotten home from the Great War, he had gotten home from fours years of fighting. As I recall, Bill went into North Africa at the very first and later ended up in France and Germany at the end. How a soldier could survive all those years is unbelievable.
We became friends over the years. Bill stayed in the military and after he retired, he opened a BBQ place in Buda. One of his sons, Don, became the High Sheriff of Hays County and Don and I still lunch up from time to time to reminisce about our families and the old days of Hays County.
INKY AND I GO TO WAR
I was able to come home to the ranch on the weekends which made me very happy, especially since Inky (Dog) had arrived in my life that year and had it not been for him, I think I would have wasted away. He was my constant companion until he died of pneumonia in 1946.
“I have told my family many times, my parents didn’t raise me, Inky did.”
When the Great War stated for us in 1941, Inky and I built several forts in and around our headquarters and when I came home on weekends, he and I would man one of them and shoot Germans and Japs. My Uncle Ike, dad’s brother, made me a machine gun out of an old 2X4 and I’m here to tell you, we stacked up those fellows like cordwood.
I had numbered the forts and every time I left the house, I would tell Alice, (my mother) where we were going. All of my forts were built up in live oak trees and Inky and I would climb up in the branches and I would pull my machine gun up there with us on a string. Then I would face one way and Inky would face the other, and if he saw any Germans or Japs coming, he would bark and tell me.
One spring we had some good rains and the grape vines really flourished and some would grow up into the very top of the Live Oak trees. Inky and I found a low hanging part of the vine one day and were able pull and push our way to the very top of the vines and once up there, we could crawl around all over without falling. That one became our favorite. There was one small draw-back, however.
The damn thing was covered with Poison Ivy, and I didn’t know it. About two weeks after our adventure, I came down with the stuff just about all over me.
THE GERMAN TANK
Inky and I had grown up together and he didn’t obey commands as much as he understood what I was saying and what I wanted. On many summer mornings during the Great War we would tell Alice, my mother, we were off to hunt German Tanks, which meant Armadillos. The front pasture contained 500 acres or more and it was covered with tall grass and scattered, big Live Oak trees.
I’d ask Inky to fetch my stick and he’d run off a bit and later, come running around the house dragging my “war-stick” from wherever I’d dropped it the last time. He knew exactly what we were going to do and he was always ready.
We’d strike out just like on Safari with me in front and him guarding the rear. The idea was to locate a tank in the tall grass then try and find his hole. In those years Armadillos were all over our ranch so it didn’t take long before we spotted one about 200 yards in front of us. We eased down to get closer, not making any noise until we got to within about 50 yards. At that point we stopped and I began to look for any possible area that might be his hole and I spotted an agarita bush about 75 yards off to the side and we knew right off, that would be his hideaway.
Now came the strategy. The deal was Inky was to go around on the far side of the Armadillo, I mean tank, and I would ease down and get in front of his lair and when Inky got in position, I’d just wave, and the race would be on.
I mean quick as a wink Inky would be on the sucker, with Inky barking and whining and that ole tank humming like a buzz saw, and both coming straight for the lair, which meant me. I was kneeling down war stick in the ready position, man, I was gonna knock that tank plumb out of his treads when everybody and everything was all over me in a flash, tank humming and clawing to get in his hole, Inky snarling and barking trying to get a hold of him.
Durn tank clawed the fool out me and I let a mighty swing of my War Club and whacked Inky upside the head, and kapoof, the battle was over in a cloud of dust. There was snarling and snapping, with me laying over to one side all scratched up and Inky staggering off wondering what the heck had just happened.
We sat there for a bit trying to get our collective breaths, then drug ourselves back to the house and when I entered, Alice asked, –Well, what happened to you two?
“The durn tank won and we lost”.
GETTIN’ SAVED
About 1944 or ‘45, my father and Alice thought it would be good if they moved me from living in Buda during the week and coming home on weekends, to boarding school at the San Marcos Baptist Academy and Reformatory for Wayward Children because having to pick me up on Fridays and take me back to Buda on Sundays became just too tiring for them.
So, Alice stitched my name on all my underwear so if I ran off, I could still be identified by the Baptist authorities, put everything in a WWI trunk and once again hauled my skinny little butt down to San Marcos, checked me into a dormitory, gave me a peck on the cheek, went back out and got into our 1941 Ford Woody, and drove back to the Kuykendall 101 ranch.
God, once again, I felt like I was a British under privileged child on my way to Eaton.
Part of the deal Dad and Alice made with the school was not to let the little booger come home on weekends. Me being the little booger. On top of that being a Baptist Military school, they marched us to the First Baptist Church in San Marcos about 12 times week and made us little heathens sit in the front row right under the preacher. When he got all wound up, he’d tip that damn pedestal right over the top of our heads and commence to holler about God, sin and the Devil and was we SAVED?
Hell, I was only 13. What was I supposed to be “Saved” from? Then he’d holler if we hadn’t found Jesus yet the possibility of us getting run over by a concrete truck was imminent and if, just if, that happened, our asses would be up shit creek and we’d fry in Hell forever. You know, friendly stuff like that.
Well, this harangue went on for about a month or so and finally I succumbed and went squalling down to the front and told the preacher I did not want to go to the HOT PLACE, that I wanted to find Jesus, wherever he had him hidden. He grinned from ear to ear and hollered “Hallelujah -Amen Brothers.”
Now, all of you need to understand a couple of things about being a Baptist—you can ask to be saved all you want, but until that preacher takes you up to that big horse trough behind the pulpit and gives you a good dunking, you ain’t saved YET!
Well, the dunking, which the Baptists call baptizing was scheduled for the next Sunday. So, I rushed back to my room and wrote a quick letter to Alice, my mother, to give her the good news and asked her to attend. On Friday just before the celebration, I received a reply from Alice that said she was not coming, that it was unbecoming for a young child (Me) to be coerced (what ever that meant) into believing in Jesus until they were old enough to appreciate its full impact-
Lovingly yours, Alice.
SAY WHAT?
Stay tuned for more Marshall, PART III to be published in the next issue of TEXAN MAGAZINE
