Can’t Hobble the Elephant

Josh’s given name was Patrick D. O’Donnell. He and his brother, Patrick C., arrived at the New Jerusalem Ranch three years back, to the month, June 1866. Strange as it seems, the O’Donnell brother’s loving but eccentric daddy named each of his five sons Patrick with only their middle initials, in alphabetical order, to distinguish one from the other. The patriarch O’Donnell, himself a Patrick F., F. for Francis, personally insisted on calling the boys by their full given names, a tradition the brothers tried to respectfully carry throughout their lives.

The name Patrick A. sounded sufficiently different not to cause any misunderstanding. Despite that, the designations, Patricks B., C., D., and E., did usually make for a great deal of confusion in the O’Donnell household especially when the shouting was a few decibels above a scream, which it was often. O’Donnell senior insisted his pronunciation was somehow unique for each brother so there was absolutely never any misunderstanding of just which one was being addressed. He just ignored the four “Yes, Dads" he usually received and would never admit to pointing the required clarifying finger that identified the wanted party.

Wayne Dunphy found the new ranch hand’s father’s naming system interesting, even if somewhat bizarre. Nevertheless, he came to the conclusion that it was a mite too likely to cause uncertainty around the New Jerusalem. “I ain’t always got time to point fingers around here. Most times, things got to be done fast on this ranch.”

Dunphy tugged nonchalantly at his curly white sideburns. “You ever use any other handles, boys?"

Patrick C. eagerly searched his brother's eyes for guidance and stammered, “Well in the armmmm, the armmmm, we." He faltered and again silently probed his brother for direction. Patrick D. confidently came to the rescue of his flagging sibling. “In the ... past, once in a while he was called Justus and I went by Joshua." Dunphy stared in obvious confusion at the two men standing before him, mentally digesting the names, Justus and Joshua. The two tall riders, with the map of Ireland plastered on their faces, definitely didn’t look like a Justus or a Joshua. But the imposing ranch boss wasn’t much for insisting on explanations, especially not about names. In fact, in the last couple of years he had three unlikely Jacksons working on the ranch. But at least they all had different first names, all of which however were suffixed with “Stonewall.”

Dunphy’s huge, rough hands clasped both brothers on their surprisingly tightly muscled shoulders then squeezed them firmly in what would turn out to be a Texas baptismal ritual. He smiled his finest picket tooth smile. “Patrick is a right nice name boys, but from now on, at the New Jerusalem, Justus and Josh will do just fine."

Dunphy’s deep laughter completed the ceremony as the lanky brothers turned and faced each other and shook hands as if meeting for the first time. The ranch boss recognized the astonishing bond between the young men. These Irish-Twin brothers were born just eleven months apart and were as close as any two men could be. Dunphy was confident he had just hired two genuinely agreeable riders.

Isaac, the missing wrangler, and Josh had partnered up the previous year after Justus, the older of the two brothers, had a fatal accident. While Justus was chasing a steer, his horse tripped sending both he and the beast crashing violently to the rock strewn ground. The anguished beast lay on the earth fiercely trashing its legs, lifting its head again and again trying to raise itself and whinnying in a most pathetic, piercing squeal of pain. Justus wasn’t moving.

The cowboy had crashed to the earth like a chunk of pillaged spoils that had been swooped up and then haphazardly expelled by a fierce southwest whirlwind. There was a horrid, nauseating collision with the unyielding surface. The momentum of the fall slammed Justus forcefully against a massive, unyielding rock. His head snapped back, a trickle of blood flowed down his ashen face. The fallen cowboy uttered a barely audible groan and after that a great gush of breath exhaled from his mouth. Then he was silent. The jarring impact had snapped the young man’s slender neck killing him almost immediately.

Josh arrived at the scene before anyone else. For a few minutes he knelt silently before the motionless body of his brother. Then he stood abruptly, drew his Dragoon and shot the horse.

Justus O’Donnell, the unpretentious, young cowboy, died, far from his home, covered with tawny prairie dust and shaded in secrecy. The unlikely cowboy with the unlikely name remained a mystery to all his New Jerusalem companions, except, of course, his brother, Josh.

Isaac Price, or no one else at the ranch, had ever asked why the O’Donnells happen to come to Texas or where and how the Irish boys from a big eastern city like Philadelphia had learned to ride and shoot so well. They also never inquired how the affable young brothers could be so genuinely kind and mannerly yet so disposed to swiftly turn into brutally ferocious human beings.

That incredible character alteration could ignite with a marked instinctive ferocity that always meant injury and often meant death for their unwary antagonist.

The dollar-squeezing Isaac would instruct all new ranch hands when queried about the O’Donnells. “Damn good wranglers and loyal friends but don’t ever cross them."

No one at the ranch ever did.

Like many of the New Jerusalem riders the brothers had participated in the horror of mortal combat in the past war. As battle-hardened soldiers, in both armies, would say, “They had seen the elephant.”

The O’Donnells had indeed witnessed how the monstrous beast of war shattered, mutilated and slaughtered during its destructive, thundering rampages across the gory fields of combat. Moreover, the brothers had also personally guided the ferocious creature in travels far from the bloody grounds of major conflicts and into less significant but no less lethal arenas.

Once seen that horrible monster of war could never be totally forgotten. Yet, for most soldiers the passage of time helped to diminish the ghastly memory. But for the O’Donnells, time did not ease their distress; the vile, mammoth creature had remained more than some faint, buried memory. What had the O’Donnells done to be so haunted by the ogre of war? Death, at last, had finally released Justus but would Josh ever be free of the elephant’s grasp?