When you cowboy all over the country for a number of years, you will come in contact with all kind of things. A lot of them will be bad, a lot of them will be good, and some you will just never figure out.

You will meet all kind of cowboys in your travels of the trail. Some you will shake their hand, some will make you shake your head. Some might not even be cowboys at all, but they will sure give you a helping hand.

When I was a kid growing up on the old New Mexico ranch that we tried to make a living off of. The ranch bordered the Southern Pacific railroad out of El Paso headed for Deming, New Mexico. We leased a well from the railroad, that was called Afton. When the railroad was still running steam locomotives, Afton was a water stop. There used to be a little railroad town there, but with progress it turned into a ghost town with just a well. The water was so bad that a human critter could not drink it, had a bit of arsenic in it so the smart lab boys told us. But the cattle love it, so hell that was all that we cared about.

One morning in the early 1960s my Dad and I went up to Afton to service a pump jack and motor to pump water with. It was in early September, fall had not yet hit us hard as it was hotter than hell early on. Hobos were still riding freight trains, they were a pretty common sight around Afton. It was still in the days when you did not have to be afraid of a stranger when you walked up to him.

We pulled up to Afton that morning in our old Jeep, a couple of hobos were sitting in the shade of an old water tower. We got gasoline and oil out of the back of the Jeep, started to the well that was inside of the right a way fence. The motor was out of gasoline, so it was pretty quite when we walked up on the two. One was a white man, the other was a black man, the white man did all the talking for the two. He was one of the the most polite men a feller would ever expect to meet up with. My Dad and him shock hands and said their hellos.

You did not have to be to close to them to tell that they were hungry, their ribs told that story. He told us that they had walked for three days from El Paso to Afton, they were tired, hungry and thirsty. Dad told him not to drink the water there, we would bring them back something to eat and drink. He told us he had already tried the water, he did not have to say anymore.

When we serviced the engine, we returned to the ranch for them something to eat. Mom fixed them a lunch and a big jug of iced tea, she was always cooking something for cowboys. Then we returned to Afton, like hungry buzzards the two hobos were waiting for their meal. We let the eat and drink, did not bother their feast. When they finished they thanked us, Dad took the talking one aside. He told him, " You know feller, your best bet is to hop the next west bound freight that stops here. But if you are still here in the morning, I will give you a job." That seem to please the old hobo, we said good-byes as we headed back to the ranch.

We returned about the same time the next morning, during the night the other hobo caught a freight train. The old hobo was right there to help us with the things that we needed to service the engine. When we were done to went back to the Jeep and loaded out things, the old hobo as well.

On the old rough dirt road back to the ranch Dad told the old hobo, " You know mister, I don't know your name. But yesterday, you were the thirstiest man I have ever run across. So tell you what if it is all right with you, I am just going to call you Thirsty from now on." The old hobo just smiled and the new handle stuck. We got old Thirsty back to the ranch, Mom fixed breakfast for all of us. Thirsty did not fight off a meal, he was starting to get lean on us again.

We took him down to where he would be staying, it was an old tin tool shack. It had a dirt floor, wood burning stove, you could see the sky through the old nail hole is in the roof. Within a couple of hours Thirsty had the old place almost fit for a king as it was his new castle.

My Dad and old Thirsty never did talk about wages, all he wanted was, smokes, three squares a day and a lot of coffee. He was just an old hobo looking for a home, one that did not have wheels under it for a while. He found one with us, we were glad to make him a member of the family.

Old Thirsty, during his boxcar travels was always low on cash. So when he would hit a new city, he would sell a pint or two of blood at the blood bank. When we got him, he was pretty low on antifreeze, if the mercury fell below seventy degrees for very long. Old Thirsty would go to freezing up on us. It took a lot of black hobo coffee brewed in an old coffee can, many good home cooked meal from Mom before Thirsty was fit again.

Thirsty and I became instant amigos, as I was the only child he was great company. Every night after supper, you could find me at Thirty's house. That old wood burning stove was burning hot, hobo coffee being brewed by the master. For hours on end, I would drink the old hobo's coffee in a tin cup. His hobo tails would have my attention from start to finish. They to me were just amazing, Thirsty was my new found hero. There was not a lazy bone in the man's body, he was a hobo with pride, a bum he was not. He would work hard all day long, so he could play football with me when I came home from school. Maybe I was the son that he never had, maybe he was the older bother I never had.

The nights that I spent listening to all of the old boxcar tails for Professor Thirsty. I did not know what he was really doing, he was putting me through his hobo school. He was teaching me all the tricks of the rail that he knew, he knew them all. How to survive in a hobo jungle, hide from a railroad bull when checking a train. How to jump into a moving boxcar, so that you did not fall under it and into the path of the wheels. If I ever fell on really hard times in my life, I would know how to jump a freight to get to my next meal. So through thousands of gallons of the old hobo's coffee, I got my hobo's Ph.D. from Thirsty. We never made a cowboy out of Thirsty, he was into trains not horses. We followed a cow trail, he followed an iron rail, but he made a helluva hand.

Thirsty stayed with us through that winter until spring time. I guess he was like a cowboy as he knew when it was time to move on. That old boxcar fever was something that he could never cure, maybe he did not want to cure it. Like an old tumbleweed in a southwest dust storm, it was time for old Thirsty to roll.

One morning he told my Dad that he wanted to go to town for a few days. That was understandable and deep down inside we understood the real why. I cried big tears the day that old Thirsty left us, they boiled up in my eyes like the dust on the dirt road he left on. When Dad went back to pick Thirsty up, well he was in a boxcar headed to somewhere. The next winter we got a Christmas card from him, he was in Bucks Pocket, Tennessee. He had taken up house keeping with a widow woman with nine kids. I guess that they got to know Thirsty until he got the fever one more time. The card was signed, Ben Jeramia, but we knew it was Thirsty.

It has been many years, reckon by now Thirsty has made his way to Heaven, I know that he made the trip in a boxcar, Thirsty, the best cowboy hobo I ever knew.

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