I got Molly to run down his relatives and we finally found his dad in San Saba. I left to go up there on a Friday evenin and I remember thinkin to myself when I left that this robably another dumb thing I was fixin to do but I went anyways. Id doalked to him on the phone. He didnt sound like he was waitin to see me or he wasnt waitin but he said to e on so here I went. Checked in a motel when I got there and drove out to his house in the mornin.
His wife had died some years back. We set out on the pord drunk iced tea and I guess wed of set there from now on if I hadnt of said somethin. He was a bit oldern me.
Ten years maybe. I told him what Id e to tell him. About his boy. Told him the facts.
He just set there and nodded. He was settin in a swing and he just rocked bad forth a little ahat glass of tea in his lap. I didnt know what else to say so I just shut up a there for quite some time. And then he said, and he didnt look at me, he just looked out across the yard, and he said: He was the best rifleshot I ever saw. Bar none. I didnt know what to say. I said: Yessir.
He was a sniper inam you know.
I said I didnt know that.
He was not in n deals.
No sir. He was not.
He nodded. He wasnt raised that way, he said.
Yessir.
Was you in the war?
Yes I was. Europeare.
He nodded. Llewelyn when he e home he went to visit several families of buddies of his that had not made it back. He give it up. He didnt know what to say to em. He said he could see em settin there lookin at him and wishin he was dead. You could see it in their faces. In the place of their own loved one, you uand.
Yessir. I uand that.
I too. But aside from that theyd all dohings over there that theyd just as soo over there. We didnt have nothin like that in the war. Or very little of it. He smacked the tar out of one or two of them hippies. Spittin on him. Callin him a babykiller. A lot of them boys that e back, theyre still havin problems. I thought it was because they didnt have the try behind em. But I think it might be worse than that even. The try they did have was in pieces. It still is. It wasnt the hippies fault. It wasnt the fault of them boys that got sent over there her. Eighteen, een year old.
He turned and looked at me. And then I thought he looked a lot older. His eyes looked old. He said: People will tell you it was Vietnam brought this try to its knees. But I never believed that. It was already in bad shape. Vietnam was just the i on the cake.
We didnt have nothin to give to em to take over there. If wed sent em without rifles I dont know as theyd of been all that much worse off. You t go to war like that. You t go to war without God. I dont know what is goin to happehe one es. I surely dont.
And that retty much all that was said. I thanked him for his time. The day was goin to be my last day in the offid I had a good deal to think about. I drove back to I-10 along the back roads. Drove down to Cherokee and took 501. I tried to put things in perspective but sometimes youre just too close to it. Its a lifes work to see yourself for what you really are and even then you might be wrong. And that is somethin I dont want to be wrong about. Ive thought about why it was I wao be a lawman. There was always some part of me that wao be in charge. Pretty musisted on it.
Wanted people to listen to what I had to say. But there art of