The Book and I

[Philip Hudson]

I relate personally to this book, not because I am related to the author, but because I grew up at a place where the trail passed, and I began reading the book when I was seven. I have read it several times. My place on the cattle drive is in chapter 4, "The Atescosa". I grew up along the banks of the Nueces, the Frio and Atescosa. When I was young I wished I could be a cowboy. When I grew up I decided that it was too hard a life for me. Nueces and Frio are Spanish words I have always known. Atescosa has always puzzled me. Recently I have been told it means "mud hole". That is appropriate since it has very little water in it most of the time. The Atescosa and a hurricane provided enough water to flood the entire town of Three Rivers, Texas in the 1960s. I was on the cleanup crew and saw the devastation.

I welcome comments. I especially want the meaning of Atescosa confirmed and want to hear from other people who live or lived on the trail described in The Log of a Cowboy. The book is fiction but it represents reality very closely.

Philip Hudson