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129 pages

English

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Marcus Allen, a wet behind the ear newspaper reporter, is sent by his uncle and editor-in-chief of an up-and-coming Phoenix newspaper, to a town north of the valley. Marcus is told that if he can get a good story out of the old geezer, he would offer him a desk job on the paper. His uncle only gave him a week to get the story.
Marcus reluctantly takes on the challenge offered him and travels by Greyhound bus to the town of Prescott. The old cowboy, Johnny Hoffman, agrees to speak with him only if he finds Marcus a captive audience. He introduces Marcus to a life unfamiliar to the young reporter.
Marcus becomes frustrated as Johnny tells him everything about his life except the real story that he came to write.
Morenci, Arizona, June 1st, 1905, a tough to the core cowboy and former Hashknife cowboy, Johnny takes on a job as a cook and packer for an expedition in search of gold deep into the Sonoran Desert. Four disasterous mistakes were made on this treacherous journey. Greed and bad decisions dictated poor planning.
The trip takes them to the cannibalistic island, Tiburon, in the Sea of Cortez. Tiburon in Spanish means sharks. Planning on walking to the island during the time when the sea retreats enabled them to go without boats. However, a dangerous mistake was made. When they arrived, thirsty and hungry, it was the wrong time of the year.
Finding evidence of the Seri, they pondered their fate while waiting for an attack. They would, however, find that lack of water was their worst enemy.
Would the men themselves prove to be the biggest threat? Would Marcus gain Johnny’s respect to become the sole author of this incredible story based on fact? The answers lie within the pages of the book.

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Fiction

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Publié par	Xlibris US
Date de parution	16 octobre 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781669850311
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

A fictitious book loosely based on fact and family stories.

FORGOTTEN COWBOY

The Journals of Lizzie Hoffman

JUDY HOFFMAN

Copyright © 2022 by Judy Hoffman.
ISBN:
Softcover
978-1-6698-5030-4
eBook
978-1-6698-5031-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 10/03/2022

Xlibris
844-714-8691
www.Xlibris.com

787096

BOOKS BY JK HOFFMAN

THE HOFFMAN SERIES TRILOGY:
FORGOTTEN COWGIRL
CALL ME LIZZIE
FORGOTTEN COWBOY

In Loving Memory of Michael Fredrick

Hoffman

1949-2017

DEDICATION
To The Memory of The Tiburon Prospecting

Party:

Professor Thomas
Grindell Olan Ralles-
Doc Dave Ingrams

Jack Hoffman

MAY YOU REST IN PEACE

SOUTHWEST DESERT-SAGUARO CACTUS
CIRCA: 1955 PICTURE IS PROPERTY OF JK HOFFMAN

CONTENTS
Dedication
Introduction
PART I
Tell Me A Good Story
Chapter 1 First Meeting
Chapter 2 The Test
Chapter 3 What Am I Made Of?
Chapter 4 No Cheap Lunch For Me
Chapter 5 You’re Cheating
Chapter 6 Shot Down By A Pack Of Gum
Chapter 7 I Take My Coffee Black
Chapter 8 Trains, Stagecoaches, And Mules
Chapter 9 Left Behind
Chapter 10 Medicine For The Soul
Chapter 11 Coyote Springs
Chapter 12 No Water To Drink, Only An Sea
Chapter 13 Drunk On Saltwater
Chapter 14 Bad Day At Black Hat Ranch~September 1911
Chapter 15 Failed Attempt For Gold
Chapter 16 Dire Straits
Chapter 17 Hallelujah! Fresh Fruit
PART II
The Endless Journey Through Purgatory
Chapter 18 The Burial
Chapter 19 Take A Good Map
Chapter 20 Moving On
Chapter 21 Now I’m Talking To Frogs
Chapter 22 Bobcats
Chapter 23 Missing Doggies
Chapter 24 Windstorm
Chapter 25 Sharpshooter
Chapter 26 Ruby Emerald Diamond
Chapter 27 Siren On The Beach
Chapter 28 Seashells And Sand Dunes
Chapter 29 Orchard Of Deceit
Chapter 30 I Can’t Believe My Eyes
Chapter 31 Reliving The Nightmare
Chapter 32 Who’s The Guy Following Me?
Chapter 33 Confronting The Truth
Epilogue
Authors Insights
Glossary Of Terms Used
References

JOHN BERNARD HOFFMAN
PICTURE IS PROPERTY OF JK HOFFMAN

INTRODUCTION
“What pushes a man to endure tremendous pain and suffering in order to survive?” asks the guest lecturer at the writing conference. “Wouldn’t it be easier to succumb to death? After all, isn’t that the end for all of us? No one has escaped death, and yet, some will withstand, and suffer even the most atrocious and brutal conditions to live another day.”
“I ponder this notion as I find myself nearing the end of my life. I am always comparing myself to the heroes I have met in my life. I had a once -in-a-lifetime opportunity to have met and interviewed such a man. He endured the vastness, harshness, and intimidating Mexican Sonoran Desert with few supplies and little water to return home alive. This gentleman shared with me in an interview, lasting over several days, of an eerily, incredible story of survival.
“I go to my grave, not knowing if the man I spoke with was the gentleman himself, an impostor, or a fictionalized story of actual events. All that I know is that he had my fullest attention—hook, line, and sinker.”
The banquet room where I was speaking became hushed. I had the audience right where I had wanted—captivated in anticipation of the story itself.
Pointing to a picture hung behind the podium of a handsome man on a horse, and he said, “Ladies and gentlemen, tonight, I would like to introduce you to the two main characters in this discourse. John Hoffman is the leading man, followed by myself, Marcus Allen, a reporter, and a greenhorn.”
“You will follow me to the opportunity of my lifetime. John, on a trip down a sometimes dark and hopeless journey of his life. The question I have, was this another one of the man’s embezzlement’s, played using the innocence of a naive junior reporter or, was this the luckiest man alive?”
I continued, “Sitting beside this elderly gentleman, every day for a week, awaiting his every word. Plagued with what today we would call COPD, he strained for a breath of air. I can now empathize with him today as I, too, have that condition. He sometimes labored to get the words out of his mouth.”
“I realized that he did not have honed life skills, such as reading and writing, but had limited skills to put pen to paper and tell his story. He did not lack in knowledge and would not be considered ignorant by any means. He came from a different time and place, a time when it was more important to have skills that would save your life and put food in your stomach than to have academic skills.”
“This man told me of a time when he was a young schoolboy in Kansas and could not sit still enough to learn his lessons. He walked out of school one day and never returned. If there was something he needed to know, he had three smart sisters who would tell him the answer. They were always there for him. The girls must have done a better job than he gave himself credit because if you gave that man a map, he could get himself where he needed to go.”
“I learned more about life in my brief time with him than years on my own. Any person who can find his way home with only a wrong map, few supplies, little to no water in the sweltering heat of Baja’s desert and coast, has to be a genius.”
“At his funeral, I had the opportunity to speak with family members. His only living sibling was his older brother. Bert, being 5’3”, whereas John was 5’ 8” or 5’9” and possibly taller in his younger days. Bert’s build was thinner than that of his brother, giving him the appearance of a lightweight, non-threatening man.”
“However, this was not the case, as John had told me the story of Bert fighting with other boys. Fighting was a regular occurrence, and Bert knew that his father would be unhappy. Trying to avoid a whipping, he hopped a freight train headed West. He left home at fifteen to become a cowboy, joining the ‘Aztec Cattle Company.’ This is the group of cowboys that evolved as the Hashknife. Rough and rowdy, hard-living, and fighting cowboys of a bygone era.”
“I tell you this part of the story because it helped to shape John into the man and the cowboy he would become.”
“After many months of Bert leaving home, his mother received a letter from him. She insisted that his oldest brother George would travel West and bring Bert home. That backfired when George joined the Hashknife Cowboys. Neither one returned to New Mexico, leaving John, the only male left at home in New Mexico, to run the ranch with his father. His father suffered from wounds sustained during the Great War or what we now call the Civil War and was plagued with tuberculosis.”
“John, being the young age of 11, took his role seriously. He took on managing the ranch and one day hoped for it to become his ranch.”
“When his father died, George returned home and made the hard decisions regarding the ranch. In those days, it was customary for the oldest male sibling to inherit everything. He chose to sell the land and move his family to Flagstaff, a new town in the Arizona Territory. He was leaving John with no ranch. John harbored anger over George’s decision, thus causing him to rebel. He, too, became a member of the Hashknife. He lived harder and rougher than his brothers. Fighting and drinking became routine for him.”
“Tragedies befell the family, from his father’s death, and then his mother’s tragic casualty, pushing him into a rebellious position. Adversity led him to become one of the rowdiest, badass men in the state. You needed to stay on his good side. His most valued life event was becoming a Deputy Sheriff of Greenlee County; even considered putting in a bid for the Sheriff. Taking the loss hard, even stooping to embezzling money and found guilty. Ready for a change, he returned to his roots up North. Settling in as a Government Agent to investigate bootlegging on the reservation. The horses were exchanged for automobiles.”
“Remember, a fact from his family passed down through stories told. As he was called in the family, Johnny said to them that he had spent a considerable amount of time in Mexico mining for gold and had spent time in a Mexican jail. When he came to visit them shortly after his return, his hair was stark white. Coincidence in name and similar events, you decide. When you hear my story of this afternoon, maybe you can figure it out for me.”
Now, let’s get started.