COWBOY DREAMS--THE ADVENTURES OF THE ABERNATHY BROTHERS by Cheryl Pierson

In the summer of 1909, two young brothers under the age of ten set out to make their own “cowboy dreams” come true. They rode across two states on horseback. Alone.

It’s a story that sounds too unbelievable to be true, but it is.

Oklahoma had been a state not quite two years when these young long riders undertook the adventure of a lifetime. The brothers, Bud (Louis), and Temple Abernathy rode from their Tillman County ranch in the southwest corner of the state to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Bud was nine years old, and Temple was five.

They were the sons of a U.S. Marshal, Jack Abernathy, who had the particular talent of catching wolves and coyotes alive, earning him the nickname “Catch ’Em Alive Jack.”

Odd as it seems to us today, Jack Abernathy had unwavering faith in his two young sons’ survival skills. Their mother had died the year before, and, as young boys will, they had developed a wanderlust listening to their father’s stories.

Jack agreed to let them undertake the journey, Bud riding Sam Bass (Jack’s own Arabian that he used to chase wolves down with) and Temple riding Geronimo, a half-Shetland pony. There were four rules the boys had to agree to: Never to ride more than fifty miles a day unless seeking food or shelter; never to cross a creek unless they could see the bottom of it or have a guide with them; never to carry more than five dollars at a time; and no riding on Sunday.

The jaunt into New Mexico to visit their father’s friend, governor George Curry, took them six weeks. Along the way, they were escorted by a band of outlaws for many miles to ensure their safe passage. The boys didn’t realize they were outlaws until later, when the men wrote to Abernathy telling him they didn’t respect him because he was a marshal. But, in the letter, they wrote they “liked what those boys were made of.”

One year later, they set out on the trip that made them famous. At ten and six, the boys rode from their Cross Roads Ranch in Frederick, Oklahoma, to New York City to meet their friend, former president Theodore Roosevelt, on his return from an African safari. They set out on April 5, 1910, riding for two months.

Along the way, they were greeted in every major city, being feted at dinners and amusement parks, given automobile rides, and even an aeroplane ride by Wilbur Wright in Dayton, Ohio.

Their trip to New York City went as planned, but they had to buy a new horse to replace Geronimo. While they were there, he had gotten loose in a field of clover and nearly foundered, and had to be shipped home by train.

They traveled on to Washington, D.C., and met with President Taft and other politicians.

It was on this trip that the brothers decided they needed an automobile of their own. They had fallen in love with the new mode of transportation, and they convinced their father to buy a Brush runabout. After practicing for a few hours in New York, they headed for Oklahoma—Bud drove, and Temple was the mechanic.

They arrived safe and sound back in Oklahoma in only 23 days.

But their adventures weren’t over. The next year, they were challenged to ride from New York City to San Francisco. If they could make it in 60 days, they would win $10,000. Due to some bad weather along the 3,619-mile-long trip, they missed the deadline by only two days. Still, they broke a record—and that record of 62 days still stands, nearly one hundred years later.

The boys’ last cross country trip was made in 1913 driving a custom designed, two-seat motorcycle from their Cross Roads Ranch to New York City. They returned to Oklahoma by train.

As adults, Temple became an oilman, and Bud became a lawyer. There is a statue that commemorates the youngest long riders ever in their hometown of Frederick, Oklahoma, on the lawn of the Tillman County Courthouse.

What's the most daring thing you ever did as a child? Come on, everyone--'fess up!T

Oklahoma vs. Hollywood

Dust Bowl Oklahoma

By mid-Twentieth Century most citizens living outside the borders of Oklahoma, probably thought of this state as a dusty, wind-scoured flatland populated by ruthless outlaws, brutal savages, greedy oil barons, and downtrodden, dirt-poor rubes. And let’s not forget your lean and slow-talking cowboys. 

This is pretty much the perception Hollywood has foisted on the masses about Oklahoma going all the way back to their movie-making beginnings around 1905. For sure, film-makers have seemed to like Oklahoma for its prospects, both the land and its people; but most often, it appears, not in a particularly flattering way. 

But to be fair to the movie people – which, frankly, kind of sticks in my craw – they weren’t all that far off in their portrayals. A lot of notorious outlaws roamed Oklahoma and Indian Territory at one time or another – Bill Doolin’s gang, the Dalton boys, Belle Starr, Henry Starr, the Youngers, Al Jennings, Frank and Jesse, Bonnie and Clyde, just to name a few. And it did sequester some notable battle-prone Native Americans – Geronimo, Quanah Parker, Cherokee Bill, Lone Wolf, Blue Duck (the real one, not McMurtry’s), Ned Christie, Wes Studi.

Will Rogers

As for the cowboys, off the top of my head, there were Tom Mix, Gene Autry, Ben Johnson, Jim Shoulders, James Garner. And, of course, we can’t forget our most famous son, Will Rogers (himself one-quarter Cherokee).

Could’ve been some land and money-grabbing oilmen, too, but the ones I know were hard-working entrepreneurial capitalists who lived the original American dream and came up from nothing. Frank Phillips comes to mind, as does rancher/oilman Charles Francis Colcord. Both of these “oil barons” were very philanthropic, and left a lasting legacy in the state, not the least of which was a mountain of jobs.

In the early Hollywood years Oklahoma outlaws and lawmen appeared on the silver screen; the former glamorized, the latter vilified. And the stilted view of Oklahomans peaked with John Ford’s 1940 film version of John Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath. That’s when the poverty-stricken hicks arrived, the “Okies.” But more on that in a minute.

Bill Tilghman

Lawman Bill Tilghman got into the movie business back in 1908 both as a director and actor. He did a series of one-reelers at the request of a man named John R. Abernathy, despite Tilghman’s insistence that he knew nothing about flim-making. In my imagination, I hear Abernathy saying to Tilghman, “It ain’t no big deal, Marshal. Ain’t nobody else knows much about it, neither.”

The first film, The Wolf Hunt, came about as a result of President Teddy Roosevelt coming to the I.T. to do some hunting, meet some Native Americans, and make some speeches. On one hunt, the old Lion Tamer witnessed Abernathy take down a wolf with his bare hands. The president was so impressed, he told Abernathy that if he’d re-enact the feat in a moving picture, he would show it at the White House (something quite unique at that time). So Abernathy, enlisting Tilghman as his director, and a man named Kent, who owned a Curtis motion picture camera, did just that.

Tilghman made several more films, as did the former outlaw turned lawyer, Al Jennings.

[A short aside: Al Jennings went from outlaw to lawyer to politician illustrating the natural selection of elected officials.]

All of Jennings’ films lionized outlaws - particularly himself - and denigrated lawmen. Angered by that, Marshal Tilghman made a film titled The Passing of the Oklahoma Outlaws which sought to re-create the crimes of several Oklahoma bad guys, such as Bill Doolin, Henry Starr, and Jennings, and show them being brought to justice at the competent and honorable hands of peace officers. The movie became a fair success, and inspired Henry Starr to get into film-making about his own exploits. I explored this some in my novel Red Lands Outlaw, the Ballad of Henry Starr.

In my opinion two films had the greatest impact on the world’s perception of Oklahoma and Oklahomans: The Grapes of Wrath and the musical Oklahoma! 

The movie Joads and a Hollywood goat hired as an extra

While it’s a historical fact that many farmers were devastated by the great drought conditions that led to the Dust Bowl, it’s not a historical fact that most of those migrants to California, as a result of it, came from Oklahoma. Most came from the Texas panhandle and western Kansas, the actual geographic heart of the Dust Bowl. Yet, all of those unfortunates were called Okies.

FYI for you non-Okies, Okie is one of those cultural terms which is okay (no pun intended) to call someone if you are one, but considered a derisive slur if you’re not. 

Someone referred to the movie Oklahoma! as a picture postcard of the state. Personally, I think it’s more of a cartoon. While Oklahoma did adopt the title song as its official state song, I don’t think the film displayed any other redeeming social value. There was, though, that line from one of the songs that has always stuck with me: “Oh, the farmers and the cowmen should be friends.” However, I don’t think that issue has ever been totally resolved.

Phil Truman has authored three of what he calls, “Oklahoma-centric” novels. His first, GAME, an American Novel is a sports inspirational about small town schoolboy football. Legends of Tsalagee weaves a tale of mystery and adventure in a small town. A 2013 Peacemaker Award nominee, Red Lands Outlaw, the Ballad of Henry Starr is Phil’s first foray into the western genre in this historical novel about the life and times of an Oklahoma outlaw. He has won numerous awards for his short fiction, and his western short story “Last Will for an Outlaw” will appear in LaFrontera’s anthology, Dead or Alive, due to be released June 2013.

Phil’s website is: http://philtrumanink.com/