Hank Valon
Hank Valon is old.
He can’t ride and he can’t shoot.
His
claim to fame is he bamboozled Aunt Minnie into marryin’ him.
He joined the Union Army at Lincoln’s
first call for volunteers. He reported to camp
and proceeded to stampede twenty horses through the Quartermaster’s tent and ruined
three hundred brand new uniforms. When he was
brought before the colonel he managed to stumble into a sergeant who was standing at
attention with his sword drawn. The sergeant
tripped over his spurs and stabbed the Colonel right in his …posterior. Hank decided it was a good time to run for it. The Union army put out a wanted poster on him.
Some of the Confederate boys saw the poster
and went looking for him. They figured if the
Federals wanted him shot he would be their man. They
found him and took him to their Colonel. Hank
figured with the Union Army after him he ought to have a lot of friends around. There weren’t no bigger bunch of friends that
weren’t already looking for him so he joined the Confederates. They put him on the lead mule pulling a caisson. That’s one of those little carts that carried
the powder and shot for a cannon that was tied on the back.
At the first big battle he swung his caisson in line with five cannons in
the battery. He jumped down and commenced to
help loading the cannon. The boys got her all
loaded up and was waiting for the command to fire at those Federals across the way. They waited and they waited and they waited some
more. Old Hank got a little tired of waiting
so he leaned against the cannon barrel to rest himself.
The cannon swiveled around under his weight just as the Sergeant got word to
fire. That cannon went off right down the
line. That ball ripped through the spokes of
all five cannons in the line. The wheels
collapsed and dropped the whole she-bang right in the mud.
Right then the Confederates were attacked on the flank and the order came to
retreat. They had to leave all five cannons to
the Federals. Needless to say Hank no longer
had a bunch of friends willing to protect him from his former friends, the Federals. He ran for it with the Confederates shooting at
him.
He hid out for years dodging both the
Federals and the Confederates. He managed to
talk Quantrill into taking him to Kentucky, but Quantrill got shot and blamed Hank for
that, so the Bushwhackers didn’t like him anymore.
He took up with Jim Lane. Worked
his way up to being Lane’s aid. Lane was
writing some letters one day and Hank was cleaning the General’s pistol. The pistol went off and hit Lane right in the head. Hank was smart enough to report that one as a
suicide. But there was some of those Redlegs
suspicious of Hank so he had to run again.
Down in Tombstone he talked the McLaury
brothers into leaving their guns at home when they went against the Earps. And up in Deadwood he asked Bill Hickok to trade
seats with him in a poker game cause the light was bad.
Hank just didn’t have any good luck at all.
Not until he met Aunt Minnie and convinced
her he was partners with John D. Rokerfeller. They
married up and he joined the Osage Valley Vigilantes and there hasn’t been anybody
wanting to shoot at him since. Well, not very
much.
Hank
Valon is the pseudonym of Bob
Stein,
who was born and reared in Illinois
and has been a Missourian for 29 years. While
he has a B.S. in Education, he never had a real teaching job, just substituted some. He worked for the Department of Defense for about
nine years. He is retired from fifteen years
as a barber. So far he has one Western Novel
published, “Two Pair Beat Three Deuces.” He
is a member of Western Writers of America and EPIC (Electronically Published Internet
Connection). He is a member of the Missouri
State Historical Society and the Cass County Historical Society. As a Vigilante he has been a writer of plays, and
an actor. He is versatile enough to play many
different roles (usually on short notice) and was a member of the National Championship
Team of the Old West Living History Foundations National Reenactors Competition in 2000. He has played a preacher, a hangman, different
cowboys, the Sheriff of Tombstone,
and Horrible McNasty. He has been happily
married to Aunt Minnie for many many years.
Click on hyperlink www.wordsnstitches.com
to go to Hank Valon the auther's site for books like
"Two Pair Beat Three Deuces"
"The $1100 Treasure"
"Sand and Glass"
"The Shooting Sodbuster"
Click here to contact
Hank Valon
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