Notes From Texas: On Writing in the Lone Star State

Introduction

I N T R O D U C T I O N W. C. JAMESO N G R O W I N G U P in West Texas yielded one adventure after another. I still remember standing on the north bank of the Rio Grande and staring southward into Mexico. I wondered what lay beyond my vision, what sort of people and landscapes could be found. Tentatively, I forded the shallow river and visited small pueblos on the other side where burros were more common than automobiles and the residents friendly and welcoming. In my own neighborhood, Tejano and ranchera music rang loud and clear, live and recorded, and the air was often filled with the aromas of cooking meat and fresh corn tortillas. My young life was filled with such interesting people as working cowboys, horse thieves, songwriters and musicians, and storytellers. In my teens, my first encounter with the Guadalupe Mountains of West Texas yielded many glorious hours discovering Indian artifacts, remote caves, and abandoned cabins and mines. I’ll never forget listening to area old timers relating tales of lost mines and buried treasures, ghosts, and the final days of the Mescalero Apaches. My encounters with the special people, places, and things along that Texas–Mexico border generated night after night of vivid dreams. Years later, some of those young-boy dreams 1 led to published stories, then to books, many with a decidedly Texas flavor. Even at that young age, I realized there was an epic quality to that landscape of rugged mountains rising out of the creosote-dotted lowlands, broad, challenging deserts, deep canyons, wild rivers, and compelling, diverse people. Those who have traveled and grown intimate with this unique place would never deny that it ranks among the finest works of nature. The West Texas where I grew up was a place that facilitated big dreams. One of my dreams was to become a writer. That unique segment of the Chihuahuan Desert geographers refer to as the Trans-Pecos comprised my backyard. Here could be found the aforementioned Guadalupe Mountains , the Davis Mountains, the Chisos Mountains of the Big Bend, and lesser known but no less challenging and mysterious ranges in which Apache Indians once lived and that served as hiding places for outlaws. Endless miles of sand dunes waited to be explored. The Rio Grande cutting through the deep canyons of the Big Bend called to me. Many times I rafted rapids and cascades, adrenaline-pumping journeys that are as fresh for me today as they were decades ago. The river begged to be crossed. More times than I can count I waded to the Mexican side to search and discover. As a nine-year-old, I entered the amazing physical and cultural world of border West Texas, reveling in its beauty, challenges, and inspirations. At the same time I was encountering the land and people firsthand, I also discovered adventure in my mother’s sparse collection of tomes. As I thumbed through works by Churchill, Tolstoy, Costain, and others, I marveled at descriptions of the countryside, of the characterizations of people, the lives they led, the obstacles they faced. Though too young to understand much of the content, I knew there was a special magic on those pages. I vividly recall a day in the fifth grade. The teacher led the NO T E S F R O M TE X A S 2 students out of the classroom and into the parking lot. She introduced us to a new and most wonderful concept—the bookmobile. I stepped into the sanctum of that big, boxy vehicle and the smell of the books shelved within assailed me, an intoxicating aroma that enchanted, a bewitching from which I have never recovered. I cannot enter a library, a used bookstore, or someone’s book-lined study without reliving that moment. Timidly, I walked up and down the interior of that clunky van peering at titles. As if guided by some spirit, I pulled down a copy of A Vaquero of the Brush Country by J. Frank Dobie. Following instructions from my teacher, I received a library card and checked out the book. That evening I lay on my bed completely lost in the tales. After a few pages I realized I was reading about another part of Texas, its history and lore related by a Texan. I read the book twice before returning...