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!..aterview with Bones Hooks, pioneer Negro cowboy
December 23, 1940
1607 words
41-c_ tkitt)
Interview with Bones Rooks
Matthew (Bones) Rooks, who for years worked on PanhswAle ranches as a horse
wrangler and "brono=baster", knows many tales of cowboy life in the early days, but be
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 recognised in the judge a pioneer cattleman.
"Bones, do you know anyone who has stolen cattle" —the judge caught the glint ef
memory in the piercing black oyes and hastily added -gnaw?" And Bones, whose lips bad
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 (I'M Ranch) to the
white mants ranch..
The embryo cattleman could not afford to buy a geed 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 on the ZIT 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 estthAnged the tired calf for
the other, and proceeded on 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".
:clones Hooks. 2
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 inithe history ae 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 be refused. "I am going to keep my word until I die," be said,
"and then my papers will be left to the museum. The password will be among them."
According to Pones, Skillety Bill got his name because he worked on the Frying Pan
Ranch. Cowboys from the Panhandle ranches in the early days went to *bootie (early
Sweetwater), adjacent to Fort illiott, 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 Frying 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 !Ho Mute Land". Bones, young and inexperienced, had
hired out to wrangle horses for a certain cattleman.
One day, while he 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 be was. Before he could say, "Jack Robinson", the Vigilantes jerked him
up and started to bang him on 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 eome into
the country looking for work two or three days before, andffo like himself, had hired
out to the first men that effered him a job. But the Vigilantes, catching both of the
white men with a herd of stolen cattle, took only circumstantial evidence into consider-
ation and hanged them both.
Bones Hooks 3
Bones was certain that they were going to ade, him to their victims, when Skillet,
Bill spoke up in behalf of the colored lad, saying that he was a mere bay* wrangling
horses for the boss and only carrying out orders of the cattle thief, whom he had taken
to be elm/kills cattleman.
111 red-haired man astride a limb of the tree gave the rope around my neck a raudh
jerk," Bones vividly recalled;" and said, 'Ayr, come on, let's get 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 &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, tamed back* and said, "How long did. you
say you were going to be in town? Did you sae& 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 brondho-baster 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 araand a cow -chip blaze --words that can not be repeated in
the hearing of ladies or in polite society. "Nvery horse, every man, bread and other
articles of the camp, had. a nickname, often unmentionable in mixed groups, The said.
Bones recalls an incident that occarred 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,
Bones Hooks
11.
preventing the escape of the horse's unmentionable name when he saw Mrs. Goodnight stand-
ing 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 "IlGod"--a corruption of "by God". This pioneer mother dame to him one day
and said, "Bones, young Bob is taking up your speech and I don't want him to say II1Godl.
I can't keep him 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 woad say,
"Bob, white boys can get suits any time, but this the only way that I can get one. You
mustn't say II1Godl, or I won't get that suit".
Bones, who attends every celebration of old-timers, at one of these recent gather-
ings met the Aan&ter of one of the pioneer families for whom he used to work --he fre-
quently 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. "Yam
peeked out from behind your mother's skirt and said, 'Mamma, one of them didn't sash
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, "Weryone is treated alike at my table".
"In the early days," Bones said in answer to a question, "when a cowboy died an
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
Bones Hooks
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if 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 eat up with the
dead to keep the mats and dogs way.
"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.
"Meetingsm—charch services—" were held in the homes of pioneers until churches
were built", he concluded.