Story

Bayou Texan
A Memoir of Known Facts
By Robert Alan

Devil Mountain
(Instrumental)

Kenny Ray
“It’s kinda hard to uh . . . find a starting point. But I’ve heard about John A. Murrell since I was five years old . . . big enough to understand what was goin’ on.
“And uh . . . there’s no doubt in my mind that John A. Murrell was one of the biggest crooks and scoundrels and murderers that I’ve ever heard of . . . I think he was worse than Jesse James and the Younger Boys all rolled in together.”

FORWARD

Nashville, Tennessee
1968

Never seen anything like it. Southern Red Oak, Maple, and Ash. Yellowwood and Buckeye. Thirty to forty feet tall they line to form a canopy of forest green above the road. After dark they transform. Under glow of mercury-vapor, streets become a network of tunnels that wind the hills. West End to Hillsboro Village and Music Row . . . the Hermitage, Natchez Trace, and Belle Meade. Music City is a whole new world. My personal haunt to come of age. Least till now, life has pretty much stayed on course. Timewise, that is.

1950 journey kicks off in a world of flatland dust. The High Plains. Hub City, Texas, where streets are squared in a checkerboard under vast open sky. Here and there tree bent from the wind. That’s what I’m used to. Start out a sawhorse cowboy, then Davy Crocket. World is black and white. Lone Ranger, the Stooges and Twilight Zone on TV. Me and my buddies chase tumbleweeds in vacant lots.

But you know . . . not as though I’ve never seen a forest. Early days . . . most of the ‘50s I go back and forth from flat land cottonfields to piney woods northwest Louisiana. Two-lane blacktop all the way. I ride with Mom and Cousin Shuletta. And we go visit Granny, Grandad, and my southern kin. Country folk.

I’m thinking about them right now. Music City, Nashville is full of down-home, good-natured folks with southern drawl. Same as my aunts, uncles, and cousins round Shreveport. Especially the Norsworthys . . . Paw Paw, Aunt Florence, cousins Tood and Kenny Ray down in Kisatchie.
Uncle Sib comes to mind, too.

He’s the family musician. Got them big ears. Plays fiddle and mandolin. Can even pull a tune out of a handsaw. By mid ‘60s . . . ’65 to be exact I’m playing guitar myself. Rock-and-Roll. Got a natural feel for psychedelic haze. That’s how I come to Music Town. And to be honest why tonight all this has changed.
Timewise that is.

Nashville, Tennessee
1834

I’m used to what Shuletta calls . . . visitations. Long as I can remember we’ve seen apparitions . . . phantoms that come and go. Though, tonight I’m confused when the asphalt corner of Acklen Avenue and Natchez Trace transforms.

What has been heart of Music Row is now a dusty lane where the shimmer of a young man bout my age is tied to a post. Long hair, fierce look in his eye . . . under torchlight a posse of ghosts . . . shadow men dressed frontier hold him down and take a hot iron to his thumb.

Music City
1972

It’s over in blink of an eye.
The illusion . . . if that’s what it is. Spooky scene fades in a time warp. All out of sorts, feelin’ sick . . . find myself at this moment in the alley behind Red Dog Saloon off Music Row.

Got a bloody nose, holding my broke-neck guitar. Psychedelic world of Rock-and-Roll ain’t workin’ out. Far as that goes, I’m done . . . through with music. Leavin’ home for West Texas tonight.

Funny thing though. Haven’t noticed till now the historic marker by the street where I come of age. Been there all along. Just never paid no mind where now under glow of mercury-vapor it reads,

“John A. Murrell
6 mi. S lived the Notorious Bandit and Outlaw
1804 – 1844”

Clip clop of houseshoes brings a sudden chill. Tap on my shoulder . . . air turns foul. Now I’m choking’ on stench of a cold-eyed shadow . . . rears on hind legs to gallop away through tunnels of forest green.

Dr. Simon told me I should write this down. Said it might help. Just might do me good.

Southland

I’ve been away now for a long time
Southland do you remember me?
Comin’ home is really all I have in mind
I miss your company

Take me Southland I wanta go
Right over yonder
Where that Cane River flows
Not too far from here
Just a ways up the road

Fish are jumpin’
I do declare
A scent of honeysuckle
Lingers in the air