I was born on March 22nd, 1869 to Cecil Adderly, a Presbyterian missionary to the Creek tribe in Oklahoma Territory, and his wife, Ellen. My father did the missionary work relative to converting the Creek Indians to Christianity. He also supplied the Creek with things the US government had promised but never delivered.
My mother served as a nurse to the sick and to the Creek women in childbirth, and taught English and mathematics in the missionary school. She also made sure I was well versed in English, mathematics, geography, and history. She said she would not have her son grow up ignorant and unable to express himself in proper English like most of the people living in Oklahoma Territory at the time.
I do not remember much about my earliest years. They were the years most children experience, I would suppose, years of carefree play at anything and everything. Most children would have played with their siblings or with other children who lived in the same town. I played with the boys of the Creek tribe as there were no other white children on the reservation.
Our "play" was more learning the ways of the Creek than anything else. While my mother attempted to civilize the Creek boys, their fathers were teaching them the old Creek ways. As a result, I learned many of those ways, and some, like tracking, hunting, and the butchering of animals were to prove very useful in my future life.
By the time I was fourteen, I could track most animals and people even through thick brush or over hard ground and rock, could catch a rabbit in a snare or stalk and kill a deer with only a knife, and could bring that meat back for the family table. I was happy with my new knowledge. My mother and father were not. My father's intent was for me to follow in his footsteps and pursue a career in theology. My mother's wish was that I would become a schoolteacher and teach on the Creek reservation.
All those goals ended the winter of my fifteenth year when my father was stricken with the grippe and died. Since he was the actual missionary and my mother was not, all assistance from the missionary group ended. The Creek were happy to have my father preach to them and for my mother to teach them, but were not willing to be the sole support for a mother and her son. My mother would be forced to move back to Illinois to live with her family.
It was to both our dismay that we learned Father's generosity toward the Creek had been accomplished to some extent by the borrowing of funds from a bank. After his death, Mother was responsible for repaying those funds, but she had no way to do so. After some negotiations with the bank, it was agreed I would work on a cattle ranch in Texas owned by the President of the bank. My servitude would last until the loan was repaid. So began the second part of my education.
Life on a cattle ranch was both exciting hard work and endless hours of boredom. Spring was the time calves were born, and the time the cattle were rounded up for branding and castrating the bull calves. Those were days of rising at dawn, working with struggling cattle until dusk, and then falling into bed nearly too tired to fall asleep. As I had not yet gained my full height and weight, my job that first spring was to maintain the fire for the branding irons and to collect the severed testicles of the bull calves. Most of those were sold to the hotel restaurant in the town ten miles from the ranch, and it was my responsibility to ride a horse those ten miles with a bucket of testicles hanging from the horn of the saddle. The cook there would bread them with flour and serve them to people who ate at the restaurant.
I would start after the mid-day meal and arrive back at the ranch late at night. The reward for my trouble was a plate of "calf fries" and fried potatoes saved for me by the cook. While calf fries were not my favorite food, being of a somewhat unusual texture, they did make a filling meal after nearly eight hours in the saddle.
Summer was cutting out the fattened steers from the prior year's calves and then driving them to market. That trip usually took around four months because cattle were sold based upon their weight, and cattle will lose weight if forced to walk long distances every day. By fall, the cattle would be safely in a pen near a railroad, and we cowboys would be on our way back to the ranch.
Winter was a time for repairs to harness, gates, and any of the many things that break on a ranch. While the work was not difficult, it did require strength in some cases. In most cases, like re-stitching the traces on a draft harness, it was just boring, tedious work.
Three years later, that difficult work and varied tasks had changed me. I'd grown to a full six feet tall and weighed nearly two hundred pounds. I'd also learned how to run a ranch, how to break and handle horses, and how to repair my own clothing. Due to a bad sprain caused by wrestling with a stubborn bull calf, I was assigned to assist the cook for two weeks and learned how to cook. That three years also served to square things with the bank. I was free to choose my path in life.
My intention was to remain a cowhand, at least until I could save enough money to buy some cattle of my own. I did begin working toward that goal, but some new expenses were forced upon me. During the term required to repay my father's debt, the ranch owner had furnished me a horse, saddle, and bridle. Once the debt was paid, I drew wages and had to purchase my own mount and equipment.
On the drives to take cattle to market, I had witnessed other cowhands shooting a wolf following the herd, and the cook shot a deer now and then as a welcome change from our normal food. Toward that end, I purchased a Winchester 1873 rifle and a scabbard to carry it on my saddle. Once I'd made those purchases, I began saving my money.
That plan changed as well one spring a year later when I delivered the bucket of calf testicles to the diner in town. There on the wall of the diner was an advertisement from the US Cavalry for experienced trackers to track down Apache Indians who wouldn't go to the reservation.
They promised more money than I could have made on a ranch, and it seemed like tracking wild Indians would be more of a challenge than wrestling muddy calves. I sent my application on the next train, and three weeks later, I received notice of my hiring and where I should report.
I am not particularly proud of my time as an Army Scout. Tracking Indians was a rewarding challenge because they were very skilled a hiding the tracks they left behind. Seeing their fate once I led the Army troops to their location was not. I had been led to believe that once found, the Indians would be transported to the designated reservation in Oklahoma. That was the case part of the time, but other times, what I had done was arrange for their deaths in a volley of rifle fire. In my way of thinking, the Apache Indians were not all that different from the Creek boys I'd grown up with. They only wanted to live as they had for untold years. That they fought back was as much the fault of government not keeping their promises as the desire of the Indians to remain free to roam their old territory.
Had I not given my word to support the US Cavalry, I would have left after the first such instance where the Indians were killed. I could not go back on my word though, and so kept tracking Apaches for two years. After that, I was free to do as I pleased, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I left the fort as a civilian again.
What I was to do next had been the subject of my thoughts for about six months. I had considered going back to the life of cowhand, but I remembered the back breaking work and the boredom. The military life had been easier and more exciting, but was too confining for my liking. I had been told where to go and what to do and not do since the age of fifteen and I was tired of it. I wanted the freedom to do as I wanted, when I wanted, and where I wanted.
As well as the changes that had happened in my life over the last five years, the West I had loved as a boy had changed as well. While there were still some areas where one could truly be free, they were rapidly disappearing as more settlers moved in. More settlers meant towns and towns meant laws that had to be obeyed, no matter how confining those laws were.
The answer came to me a week before I left the US Cavalry. During a conversation with a sergeant, I learned of a man named Albert Jordan. According to the sergeant, who had known him when they both worked as cowhands, Albert had decided to leave Texas because of some trouble he'd gotten himself into. That trouble was he'd shot the son of the local mayor in a fair fight, but the mayor didn't see it the same way. He was looking for a way to put Albert in jail.
The sergeant said Albert had, "Up and gone to Africa". When I asked why he would go to Africa, the sergeant smiled.
"Well, Albert heared about these English hunters that shoots these big cats they gots over there so's they don't eat the cows them black fellers over there raise. He figured he'd go git a job doin' that. He heared they's rich fellers from England what goes to Africa to shoot elephants and lions and all sorts of other stuff, an' they pay real good for somebody to take 'em where them animals are. He figured if'n the lion shootin' don't work out, he can guide them rich fellers to where they can shoot whatever they want. Don't know if'n he did ner not, but that mayor cain't git to him way over there, now can he?"
