He said it serious, which is the way Norris generally says everything. I quit wrestling with the steak Buttercup, our cook, had turned into rawhide and said, “What are you talking about? How could we have trouble on land lying idle?” He said, “I got word from town this afternoon that a telegram had come in from a friend of ours down there. He says we got some kind of squatters taking up residence on the place.” My youngest brother, Ben, put his fork down and said, incredulously, “That five thousand acres? Hell, it ain’t nothing but rocks and cactus and sand. Why in hell would anyone want to squat on that worthless piece of nothing?” Norris just shook his head. “I don’t know. But that’s what the telegram said. Came from Jack Cole. And if anyone ought to know what’s going on down there it would be him.” I thought about it and it didn’t make a bit of sense. I was Justa Williams, and my family, my two brothers and myself and our father, Howard, occupied a considerable ranch called the Half-Moon down along the Gulf of Mexico in Matagorda County, Texas.
