Ol’ Bart Skelton. I sure do miss him!
One thing I learned from being a cop for 27 plus years is that fact is often stranger than fiction. Years of witnessing incidents such as the man-eating sofa bed, intoxicated miscreants being launched through their windshields and surviving after hitting trees going more than 50 mph, or lastly, an escapee jumping out a fifth-story window and getting away unscathed have jaded me from all natural principles and laws of physics of what should happen, to what actually happens.
Every time these incidents occurred, all I could do was pause, scratch my head while mumbling, “If I didn’t see it, I wouldn’t believe it.”
Deming, New Mexico
This next story is along the same lines. A few years back, I flew into Albuquerque, New Mexico, for my yearly pilgrimage to the Whittington Center, just outside the city limits of Raton.
After picking up the rental, I headed south to visit with mi amigo Bart Skelton, who was three-plus hours from ABQ airport. Normally, Doc Barranti would rendezvous with me, but he couldn’t make this trip due to his son’s high school graduation. I wish he could have made it, so he could have witnessed what I did.
Driving south on I-25 toward Deming, 30 miles shy of the Mexican border, time passes quickly as you take in the desert terrain. I took the scenic route through the Gila National Forest. This bypass consists of serpentine turns and switchbacks, taking you up and over some of the most beautiful country in the southwest. Ben Lilly, the famous bear and mountain lion hunter, roamed these parts years ago.
When Cookes Peake appears, I know I’m close. Turning off the hard road, onto a dirt lane, I made a few turns until coming to the iron gate. I know Bart’s hacienda lies just beyond it. Grabbing the hidden key, I unlocked the padlock and headed on up.
Being golden hour, the last hour of daylight, my eyes were peeled for any desert critters on the move. I saw a few antelope, followed by a chunky mule deer buck in velvet.
Next to the old windmill, I saw a javelina with her “reds” getting a cool drink from the stock tank. Yep, desert life comes alive when the critters leave the sanctity of their hidey holes, shielding them from the burning sun. In the far-off distance, a wary coyote trotted the perimeter looking for an easy meal.
The makings for the famous margarita and hunk of smoke beef for fajitas.
Chile infused pistachio’s, a margarita, and a book Bart gave me.
Sunset in the Southwest is always beautiful.
Happy Hour
As I pulled up the steep driveway, I saw Bart sitting on the side veranda, sipping a cool margarita, winding down from the hot day. Aromatic smoke billowed from the smoker.
“Hey Tank! Help yourself to a drink! There’s a fresh batch of margaritas on the counter. Please excuse the heat inside. Those damn March winds blew my swamp cooler off the house, and I can’t find anyone to fix it.”
That was Bart, always polite, always hospitable. He’d mixed a batch of high-octane margaritas in an old, battered silver pitcher. His recipe was simple: tequila, Grand Marnier, and fresh-squeezed lime juice, shaken in a pitcher over ice.
Quickly filling my glass, I joined him on the Veranda. Sipping our drinks, we got caught up, casually talking about cabbages and kings and guns, while pausing occasionally to watch the sun set. The moment was perfect — relaxed, as are life’s simple pleasures — and one I retrieve frequently when thinking of Bart.
As the last sliver of sun disappeared, we headed over to the smoker, retrieving a large hunk of beef that had been smoking for 12 hours. Dinner consisted of steak fajitas, beans and rice — a five-star high desert meal for sure.
Afterwards, it was time for show-and-tell. Bart excused himself to his gun room, bringing back a different gun on each trip. He told the gun’s history, any stories and why he had it. The highlight of the evening was when he brought out S.S. #2.
Horse stalls in back of Bart’s home.
Bart’s smoker. Notice the Bar-T welded on the lid?
S.S. Series of Guns
When Bart’s dad, Skeeter, was sick and in the hospital, John Wooters would visit him regularly. Wooters concocted the idea of having a special gun made for his good buddy, Skeeter. Wooters stated in a letter to John Taffin:
“Your recent Sixgunner piece about the ‘little Rugers’ inspires me to tell you a tale. The so-called ‘little Ruger’ in .44 Special was the favorite type of sporting pistol cartridge of my late buddy, Skeeter Skelton, who spent much of his terminal illness in a hospital here in Houston.
Together with another friend and single-action expert, Bob Baer, we passed a lot of time plotting the creation of just such a pistol, of which he’d done several only to sell or trade them all away. We even acquired the 3-screw, .357 Mag Blackhawk for raw material. Sadly, Skeeter had to fold his hand before the last race, and the project never went further until recently.”
A total of seven guns were made for various writers and gunsmiths. Bart received #2, while Wooters hung onto #1, before giving it to Bob Baer, who also had a gun made.
Bart used a three-screw Blackhawk with protective ears on the frame by the rear sight. He had the barrel and ERH cut flush with each other at 3.5 inches, making a snazzy “shorty” concealed carry piece. Stocks are smooth bone, or antler, I can’t remember which. One medallion has the Bar-T brand, while the other has SS 2. It’s a very special gun, and I’m appreciative I had the opportunity to see it.
Bart’s #2 gun.
Who’s There?
As Bart was showing me #2, there was a knock on the door. When the door swung open, a medium-sized man in a beat-up cowboy hat, with a slight overbite and a small, undersized jawbone, stood in the doorway, holding a brown paper grocery bag. When he took his hat off, we noticed a large divot between the man’s eyes, which were permanently crossed.
“Mr. Skelton? Pardon me for intruding, but I’ve been looking for you for some time.”
I thought to myself, with those crossed eyes, I’m sure you have.
“Your daddy knew my uncle, Clyde Johnson, and I’m his nephew, Calvin. He called him by his nickname, Jug. Maybe you remember him?”
Bart and I looked at each other in shock!
Holy hell! If I didn’t see it, I wouldn’t have believed it. Jug Johnson’s nephew was standing right there in Bart’s doorway. I always thought “Jug” was a figment of Skeeter’s imagination, and from the looks on Bart’s face, so did he.
“Come on in, Calvin. Do you want a drink?” Bart politely asked.
Lug Nut?
“Don’t mind my eyes,” Calvin said, “You’ll get used to them.”
He then went on to explain how Uncle Jug took him to Horse Thief, New Mexico, for the famous Horse Thief 50 — a combination NASCAR/demolition derby where 50 cars attempt to make 50 laps at the abandoned horse track, using any tactics possible to finish. The first person to make 50 laps wins.
“It was towards the middle of the race, the two leaders were neck-in-neck, side swiping each other, when one hit the retaining wall and spun out. His rear tire flew off, and one of the lug nuts caught me right between my peepers. I was knocked out cold and woke up in the hospital. The Doctors said I was lucky to be alive, but the nerve damage made me cross-eyed ever since the accident. Uncle Clyde started calling me Lug Nut since the event.”
A total of seven guns were made for various writers and gunsmiths. Bart received #2.
Duck, Duck, Goose
Bart and I joined “Lug” as he laughed, saying, “Now when everyone sees us, they shout out here comes Jug and Lug,” and duck down when saying it, like they’re dodging a tire.
He went on to tell us Jug was comfortably retired from his natural-gas strike on the land he bought to mine for gold. While gold never panned out, it was rich in natural gas. Lug then handed the paper bag to Bart and said,” Uncle Jug wanted you to have this.”
Inside was the largest single-action sixgun I’ve ever seen. It had .44-50 BMG roll marked on the side plate.
“Your daddy and Uncle Jug worked on this project together, and he wanted you to have it!” he said.
Since it was late, Lug stayed the night, but was gone before we woke up. The margaritas made me wonder if it had been a dream. But when I went to the kitchen to make coffee, there was the paper bag with the .44-50 BMG inside. Strange things happen in the high desert. Fact is indeed, stranger than fiction.