by Frank Felton
Moments later, it would return, and began the dance again. Not wanting to further alarm the fish, we spoke in a muted whisper. We could barely hear one another, and must have looked like a couple of idiots.
“Hey. Hey! You seen it?” Hank asked.
“Yeah. I see it.”
“Sumbitch is the size of a hog. I reckon that’s ol’ Pencil Dick himself.”
“What?”
“Dammit. Pencil Dick.”
“Who?”
“No, it’s. Never mind. I’m reeling back in to re-bait.”
“Don’t, what?”
“I said I’m reeling back in.”
“I can’t hear a word you say.”
“Stop moving. What the hell….shut the hell up you’re gonna scare him off.”
Hank reeled his line in, slowly. He almost had his hook re-baited, when Pencil Dick dispensed with the pleasantries. I felt a tug on my fishing rod, and then the line went limp. It snapped taught a split second later. I might as well have had a bowling ball on the other end.
Pencil Dick was hooked.
He pulled so hard on the line, I lost my balance. The boat lunged back and forth as I tried to regain it. Hank braced himself against the sides of the boat, trying in vain to offset me. Without a firm grip, he dropped his pole into the water. I tried to keep my stance spread far enough to keep from toppling overboard, but Pencil Dick kept on pulling, first left, then right, fighting feverishly to get free.
We didn’t have much of a chance. Trying to gain some leverage over the mighty fish, I leaned out a bit too far to the starboard side. He changed direction. Into the drink I went. Hank was too far against the port side, and once my weight lifted from the boat, he careened into a backwards cartwheel. As he hit the water, the little schooner flipped over on top of him. Our beer and tackle boxes were now on the way down to the bottom.
When Hank managed to get his head back above water, there were no more subtle whispers.
“Hot dammit, don’t lose him! Pull that slack in.” Hank shouted.
It was at first a gargling gibberish coming out of his mouth as he tried to get the water out of his lungs.
“Hold on to it! Shit! Don’t let it go!”
I had the reel in one hand, and treaded water with my legs. I used my free hand to doggy paddle to the shore as Pencil Dick gave me a reprieve. Hank made it over to the bank first. He tried to grab the reel from me as I got near the bank. I refused to give it up. This was my fight.
Hank fished his net from the water and took position alongside me, ready to strike. He tried to pull the rod from my hand several times.
“Mac! Here, let me have it! Come on, you’re gonna lose him! Don’t lose him! Here, let me have it!”
I wanted this one for myself.
After 15 minutes, my palms were bloody from the constant twisting of the rod with that bowling ball of a fish on the other end. I eventually got the line reeled within striking distance of Hank and his net. He waded in and manhandled that fish into the net. He had the biggest smile I’d ever seen.
Pencil Dick gave a mighty fight right up until the end. Its bony appendages caused the both of us to bleed. As it wailed in desperation for its freedom, the fins sliced our forearms as we hustled the beast to the shore. It took both of us to hold it down, in a net, on the bank, and then Hank drove a lock blade pocketknife into its head.
The flailing stopped.
We slumped over onto the bank exhausted, and dehydrated. Fishing is hours of boredom broken by minutes of downright pleasure. By that measure, this had been the best fishing trip I’d ever been on together.
The mighty Pencil Dick had been slain.
~~~
That night, we fried the big fish up at the cabin. Hank invited all the men over. We always ate what we killed, or served it up for the crews. This was the best tasting fish I ever had. It was the taste of victory; hours spent saddling the river in a rickety old boat, followed by half an hour of mano y mano warfare.
The aroma of fish still stained my hands, and dried blood stained my clothes; all part of God’s wonderful creation. It was a great night; the smell, the taste, the blood, and the warm glow of a campfire on a brisk, cloudless night with the sound of crickets chirping in the distance.
We placed the head of old Pencil Dick on a fencepost for good luck, next to a water moccasin hide. When flipped upside down, this custom was said to make it rain. We weighed the fish at 67.5 pounds, and rounded to 75. By now, the legend of Pencil Dick’s size has probably grown to well over a hundred pounds in some dusty bar in Milam County. No doubt it took half a dozen men to reel him in.
16. Hank’s History
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3: 16-17
The first time I met Hank, I noticed the ring on his finger, noting he was a Freemason. This tradition went all the way back to his family’s emigration from northern England in the 1800’s. Scotland was the birthplace of Scottish Rite Freemasonry. A large percentage of early Texas settlers were Masons. The Brazos River Valley became home to many of the brethren in the period leading up to the Texas Revolution.
The Craft would continue to grow into the 1900’s, but towards the end of that century the ranks of membership waned. The American economy shifted to a more technical landscape during that time. Ultimately, the decline of blue collar craftsmen and a dearth of American manufacturing would turn a once exigent body into more of a fraternal organization.
Masonry was the original construct for the labor union, a band of men who worked with their hands. Lodges were self-organized with their own elective leaders to pay the craft their wages and see that none go away dissatisfied, peace and harmony being the strength and support of all institutions. Modern-day unions once stood as the bedrock of working rights for the common man.
As Masonry shifted from being the bedrock of American society, some unions devolved to smell of corruption and cronyism. Such a statement would be branded blasphemy in Milam County once ALCOA came to town. The steelworkers union provided protection for former farm hands who now found themselves in the employ of such a large corporation.
Despite its changing landscape, the Masonic Lodge never parted ways with its deep and guiding principles. It is not a secret society per se, but it does uphold many ancient and secretive traditions. It is also not a union, nor is it political or religious.
Hank took Masonry more seriously as he matured. He took the helm as Master of Lodge #978 around the time of his 30th birthday. I became his Senior Warden.
~~~
Not long after Hank and I met, my curiosity got the best of me. Something had bothered me about our first meeting, and I finally got up the nerve to ask Hank about it.
“That first day we met at Steve’s Place, when Elmo called you Hiram,” I began to ask.
“Yeah. What about it?” Hank replied.
“Well, it just seemed, it got my attention because I had just gone through the rites of initiation. I assume they call you that because you that as a reference to Hiram Abiff.”
“Nope.”
“So, is it related to the Lodge?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Nope. That’s my name.”
“I don’t get it. Your name is Hank.”
“No, my name is Hiram. I was born Hiram King Benson. That’s what the H.K. stands for. But no one calls me Hiram, except some of the older guys who were around when I was born.”
I guess stranger things have happened. After all, his family was full of Masons. The importance of that name could not have been unknown to them. Perhaps it was just another in a line of coincidences.
Another man with the same name was beginning to grow in popularity, though I doubt more than a handful of people knew it. His music was heard far and wide, especially around this part of the world. His name was Hiram King Williams,
but his friends also called him Hank.
~~~
The night following our victory over Pencil Dick, we still nursed our wounds and basked in the afterglow. Hank and I finished up the two-day fishing bender and entered into a debate over Masonic history. He was once again under the influence, this time it was Jim Beam, which made him even more talkative and recalcitrant than usual.
He entered an almost manic state when drinking and fired up about something. Since he became Master of the local lodge, he had taken to deep study of its history. Naturally, he would regurgitate his learnings out loud, as he did everything. He wanted me to follow in his footsteps and become Master the following year. It entails a sizable amount of education in the esoteric symbolism and unwritten word of Masonry. The secrets and traditions cannot be passed on in inscribed form, only in the spoken word.
It was an honor I would ultimately turn down. It would lead to a fraying of our relationship. It would not sever us entirely, but it would mark the beginning of the end of the closest relationship I’ve ever had, and I am positive the same was true for him. We would not part ways until 1958, and it would be to something completely unrelated.
Hank sold the business in 1960. He went on to start a family. I went back to teaching schoolchildren, and he went back doing whatever it was that kept him happy. Fishing, drinking beer, running cattle, and traveling across the country in his airplane. Unlike Hank, I would never marry nor have a family. It wasn’t in the cards for a traveling man like me.
While Mason’s must profess a belief in the divine, the specifics are left up to the individual. A man who does not profess a belief in a higher power cannot be made a Mason. Even so, I had no issues taking the oath of a Mason. I had always believed in a higher power. There was nothing about Masonry that violated my own personal beliefs. However, Hank wanted me to take a larger role in the Craft, and it was just something I wasn’t prepared to do. I thought deeply over it, but my obligations lie elsewhere.
Despite being diverted many times on my road less traveled, I had not given up on the reason I first pursued Masonry in the first place. As the conversation that celebratory night veered off course, I asked Hank if he’d ever heard of the legend of a magical Jewel in any of the Masonic history he had read. My own search had turned up nothing but wildly varying stories from locals about floating lanterns and fire-breathing ghost bulls. I’m sure Hank had heard the same.
While it felt I may be chasing a phantom, the Almighty was about to correct my course and put me back on the right path.
“I’ve never heard of a jewel like that in any Masonic tradition.” Hank answered.
“I didn’t figure. It’s just, when I was in Europe I came across something that has befuddled me now for many years. It is what led me to Masonry. It was an old chest with Masonic markings, and I…”
Hank interrupted me.
“But that is not to say, that I may or may not know of a jewel that exists.”
My first thought at his reply was that given his inebriated state, he was just messing with me. I had come to know that when he began speaking in this matter, with “I may or may not know”, you could be certain he did know something. As I mentioned earlier, when he got excited about something, his poker face left the building.
“Beg pardon?”
“The Jewel. I know of it.”
“You do?”
“It’s a jewel that has supernatural powers. I know all about it. I call it Hiram’s Jewel.”
I was intrigued. Maybe he did know something.
“You are the only person I’ve ever discussed this with. Tell you the truth, you’re the only one in the world who has ever even mentioned such a thing. It was brought to this land in the 1850’s by the great Sam Houston.”
“This land, you mean Texas?”
“No. I mean the land you are standing on.”
~~~
Hank had a story to tell.
First, he demanded to know what I knew about this supposed jewel. He was basically telling me “you go first.” So I did. I told him of the chest I’d found back in Germany, and how I fought my way across Europe and ended up in Hitler’s bunker. I told him of the Monuments Men. I regaled him of the trip across the Alps. And finally, I told him of the Jewel itself, the glowing splendor, and the raw beauty of its mangled form.
I told him of the many documents, and how I folded those pieces to hide them in the cargo pockets of my fatigues to sneak it all out of the country. I took it upon myself to translate and re-write most of those documents so the history would never be lost again. The papers yielded a trove of information. They provided first-hand experience from the holder of the Jewel in time periods dating back thousands of years.
The Jewel turned one’s thoughts inward. Each holder of the Jewel, it seems, had become compelled to write down its history. It is the same urging I feel now, and is part of the reason I write this book. The Latin and French came alive, and I reminded myself of the beauty of different languages, and why I was drawn to learn them all early in my existence.
Hank listened to my story, never saying a word. His look became more serene. His gaze went from unsuspecting, to intense. When I finished, Hank remained silent for a while. Eventually, a smile came across his face, and he shook his head for a moment, as if in disbelief.
“All this time, most of my life, I thought I was crazy. That my grandfather was crazy. That I was suckered in to some grand myth. That all the bizarre shit that has happened to me was, I don’t know, demons possessing me, or something like that. I’ve been waiting for that other shoe to drop for a decade. I’ve mostly just tried to forget about it.”
Hank took a sip of the whiskey, winced his eyes and grimaced, turning his head to the side as the 80-proof liquor cascaded down his throat.
“I guess it just did.”
Hank then told me his own story. It was of a very similar Jewel. He had found it while looking for Indian arrowheads on the banks of the San Gabriel River when he was a boy.
“I was right down there, where the Gabriel turns back east.”
He pointed northward.
“There’s a low water crossing that was pretty well dry. Me and Suzie were down there looking for arrowheads. I must have been about 14 or 15. I had seen a glowing the night before. Everybody around here sees that glow from time to time. Back then I thought it might be Old Snively. I was too scared to go after it at night, being a kid and all, but the next day I went down there to look around.”
“I’ve heard of Snively. They say he was a treasure hunter and haunts the area,” I replied.
“Yes, that is what they say,” Hank retorted.
“I figured it was, but how can anyone know for sure? I mean, surely you believe in ghosts, and spirits, in angels and demons.”
“Yes, I do. I believe in them. I haven’t always, but after that day, I sure as hell did. But I don’t believe in the ghost of Snively. That is just a myth.”
“Why do you think that?”
“People around here, they’ve always wanted to believe that legend. Who doesn’t want to believe in the idea that there is gold scattered around here?”
Perhaps Hank was right. It is no surprise that this land of dreamers would yield a salvo of tall tales. The area was populated in the mid-1800’s by Stephen F. Austin’s charter. He brought 300 families to the edge of Indian Territory in the ever-expanding United States.
Perhaps the tallest tale of them all is the legend of Snively. These stories were passed down through the generations and permeated the local culture to become urban legend. Yet now, Hank and I were realizing the truth is far deeper and has far more meaning than a hundred wagonloads of buried Mexican gold.
“I found out what was causing that glow. Down in the river bottom, as I rooted around for arrowheads, I spotted something shiny in the roots of an old pecan tree. I had to wade into three feet of water to get at it. As I drew near, I felt, I don’t know how to explain it. Closest thing is to say I felt drunk. Dizzy. It jus
t felt strange.”
I was hanging on every word. I recalled the same feeling in 1943, as I approached that chest at Eagle’s Nest. He continued.
“I snatched up the object. The feeling intensified for a moment. I felt I was floating on air. The Jewel was muddy, and beat to hell, but I could tell it was rich. It looked old. I held it out of the water as I waded back to the crossing, and the feeling suddenly went away. That’s when things got weird.”
“How so?”
“I felt a cold chill. My stomach seemed to drop out of my body. Suzie started barking ferociously. Up on the opposite bank, staring down at me, were a pack of coyotes. There must have been at least six of them. They were staring at me, with these evil eyes. I figured them for rabid. Those things don’t usually come out in the daytime.”
“What happened?”
“They made their move. They attacked. Suzie ran out to meet them head on. She peeled off three of them, and they fought. The other three circled me. I could have kicked myself for not bringing a shotgun. I thought I was done for. The first one leapt into the air, his mouth headed straight for my throat.”
Hank stopped to take a drink. There was a growing intensity in his voice, which caused it to crack. A tear appeared in the corner of his eye.
“But then, at that moment, the feeling came back—a sensation I can’t describe. An overwhelming surge of adrenaline is the best way I can describe it. It was like I was on autopilot, and watching this unfold as an observer. I grabbed the animal in mid-flight. My arms wrapped around its torso. It twisted, and I got a grip on its hind legs. I slammed it into the ground with a force that shattered its skull.”
“You serious?”
“I swear to God I’m telling the truth, Mac. Then the other two attacked. It happened quickly. I caught the first under my arm. I had so much strength, I can’t explain it. I ripped its head from the body. The second had a hold of my lower leg and sank its teeth in deep. I grabbed him in the same manner as the first, ripping apart my own leg as I pried its teeth free. He was wounded. I kicked him so hard it must have shattered his internal organs.”
