The Texians 2 Page 15
Sands pushed himself from the ground and stood. His legs were far too steady for a man who had spent half the day drinking one silent toast after another. And his mind was too clear—too full of painful memories.
He lifted the bottle to his lips one last time and sucked down the last drop of the bourbon before stuffing the cork into the bottle’s neck. Turning from the Gulf, he walked toward the man sitting cross-legged on the ground: Beau Dupree.
Dupree had chosen to ride back to San Antonio with him. Sands smiled: it seemed Dupree’s fancy had been captured by a lovely, young daughter of one of the town’s merchants during his earlier short stay. He now intended to make that woman his wife and San Antonio his permanent home.
Dupree glanced up from the paper in his lap as Sands approached. For the first time, the ranger noticed the quill in his hand and the bottle of ink beside him.
“Can you write?” Sands asked.
“And read,” Dupree said. “Even had two years of college, Mr. Sands. I’m a schoolteacher. Hope to ply my trade when we return to San Antonio.”
Sands stared at the man, realizing that he knew absolutely nothing about Beau Dupree, hadn’t bothered to find out when he and Dub had first taken him to Louisiana. Sands smiled and nodded his approval. Texas had an abundance of children—and parents—who needed the knowledge of a man like Beau Dupree.
Sands glanced at the paper in his hand. “A letter?”
Dupree shook his head. “Just a bad habit of mine—a verse.”
“May I?” Sands asked, and accepted the poem Dupree handed him. There were only eight lines, and the rhythm of the verse seemed off somehow, but the ranger could feel what Dupree was trying to capture on paper: the beauty, the wildness, the freedom of this new and untamed republic called Texas. “May I have this?”
Dupree arched an eyebrow and stared at Sands with uncertainty for several long seconds before nodding.
Sands then squatted on his heels, borrowed Dupree’s quill, and dipped its point into the ink. While the man watched, Sands scrawled three words at the top of the page: For Dub Ferris. “This is a present for a man who always wanted to go to sea.”
Carefully blowing on the ink until it was dry, Sands rolled the paper into a tight tube, pulled the cork from the empty bourbon bottle, slid the poem inside, and recorked the bottle. The ranger then walked to the edge of the bluff, grasped the bottle by its neck, and threw it out into the Gulf with all his might. He watched as the current dragged the bobbing glass vessel out toward deep water where it would be carried to ... Where it traveled, didn’t matter, just as long as it did. Dub now had the sea. Sands tipped his hat toward the bottle and once more turned back to Dupree.
“Thank you. Dub would have appreciated the poem,” he said. “He understood your words, even though he couldn’t read them.”
“Thank you,” Dupree replied. “You’re the first person who ever read my poetry and didn’t laugh.”
“Think you could write one about an angel with hair like spun gold who lives in a swamp?” Sands asked as they walked toward their horses.
“An angel in a swamp? Unusual image, Mr. Sands. I guess I could do it. Can you tell me more about this golden-tressed angel?”
“Maybe—later.” Sands wasn’t ready to reopen the wounds he had just staunched with a bottle of bourbon. One day he might be able to tell others of the beautiful angel he had found in the swamps, but not now, not for a long time to come. He wasn’t ready to share those intimate memories with anyone.
Sands swung into his saddle and glanced at the sun. Summer had come to Texas and there were hours of daylight left. “Time to head southwest, Mr. Dupree; we can make about twenty miles before sundown.”
With the schoolteacher riding at his side, Sands reined toward San Antonio. It was time to go home.
About the Author
A native Texan born in 1946 and the oldest of five children, George Proctor spent his preschool years traveling the thoroughbred horse racing circuit across the United States with his parents (his father, W.L. Proctor was a 9-time nominee for the Racing Hall of Fame before he died in 1998). His family bought a horse training and breeding farm near the East Texas town of Gilmer in the early 1950s. He attended public school in Gilmer, Texas, where he was weaned on TV, comics, paperbacks, and Homer.
“I guess it was in the third grade that I first picked up the Iliad and Odyssey. I must have read them twice every year for five years after that,” George said in an early newspaper interview done in 1978.
The seeds were planted early for becoming a published writer and artist. George saw countless films and read anything he could find growing up and became hooked on the lore of the Old West’s action and adventure and history. His Uncle Jack (a roping and riding rodeo winner) took George along on the rodeo circuit during many seasons when George absorbed more history and lore of the West.
Besides the usual farm duties and teen-age employment, Proctor worked on the racetrack with his father through the summers. At age fifteen, he earned an assistant trainer license while working at Detroit Race Course in Detroit, Michigan. He held either an assistant’s or stable foreman license until age twenty-two when he graduated from Texas Technological College majoring in journalism and political science with a minor in government.
After college, George worked briefly at KLBK-TV station, a CBS affiliate out of Lubbock, Texas. He served as floor man, soundman, lighting technician, cameraman, commercial talent, advertising copywriter. George began to mentally re-visit “story” ideas that he had in mind since his early years. He loved to read/see a good story and began to think he could write stories based on ideas he’d had starting from his earliest school years.
The writing and art “plant” continued to grow as George spent five years as a newspaper reporter for the Dallas Morning News, Dallas, Texas, and started to submit short works and ideas to publishers. He worked two+ years on the newspaper’s general assignment desk, and three+ years as the Dallas County Courthouse reporter.
Then he began a career as a fulltime freelance writer, editor, artist in 1974. But although George pursued psychological motivations and probed power structures in more serious works, he refused to characterize himself as a “serious” writer and admitted a weakness for the old shoot-em-up-at-the-mountain-and-galactic-pass idea.
“I’m still pretty much an adventure writer,” George told a large convention audience in 1985. “I like action in my stuff.”
George enjoyed action and adventure throughout his life as he delved into numerous avenues in developing ideas, storylines, and characters. He was on-call as a guest lecturer and discussion leader at several colleges and community groups as well as Science Fiction and Western Writers’ conventions. The five books in THE TEXIANS (early Texas settlers characterized themselves with this name) western series were published between May 1984 and early 1985 under the penname Zach Wyatt. The CHANCE books (a western series featuring a riverboat gambler) appeared between November 1986 and July 1988 with the penname Clay Tanner.
George’s varied pursuits included leading astronomical star parties conducted by public schools and universities; serving as a Trustee for Fort Worth Astronomical Society, Nebula Award Editor for Science Fiction Writers of America (1980-1985); President for Dallas Science Fiction Society (1973-1974); participating in astrophotography with Fort Worth Astronomical Society; attending yearly meetings of local (Comanche) Indian tribal councils; conducting writing workshops and serving as a guest lecturer at local universities and colleges where he also taught classes at Tarrant County Junior College Northwest Campus (Fall 1979-Spring 1985) and University of Texas at Arlington (Spring 1995-Fall 2008).
In November 1993 BEFORE HONOR earned George a spot as one of three finalists for the Spur Award as Best Novel of the Year awarded by the Western Writers of America.
In July 1996 BLOOD OF MY BLOOD was a finalist for the Spur Award as Best Novel of the Year from the Western Writers of America.
George enjoyed his sp
eaking engagements and teaching classes in writing and journalism. He discovered he liked being a teacher and a writer with over 90 books published.
“It stops me from being a hermit,” George revealed in a 1999 Fort Worth Star-Telegram interview. “I found out I like working with young writers, seeing the whole aspect of writing click in their brains when it dawns on them what I’m talking about and that they can do it, too!” Over the years several of George’s students have become writers, editors, lecturers and maintain contact up to the present day.
In Fall 2008 George was awarded his Master’s Degree in Journalism Communication from the University of Texas at Arlington.
George frequently explained that his ideas for stories came from his personal experiences, dreams, and private reflections on what others had produced. He always had a story he wanted to tell, or a point he wanted to make, and he used his writing/editing/art to share these with everyone.
But George always hesitated to judge his own work: “I can’t tell you when I’ve written ‘good’ stuff. What I can do, is tell you when I’ve written something I like.”
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