Bluebonnet Hotel

Copyright 2024 © by Florence M. Keaton

 

Chapter 1 - “Chaos”

 

           A piercing scream echoed through the air, and I realized it was my own. Earlier, my husband vanished into black smoke and may be dead. As I attempted to flee from the heinous scene, bombs detonated nearby.

           “Help,” someone said with urgency.

           I couldn’t ignore the plea. “Where are you? The smoke’s thick.”

           “Here.”

           Another bomb exploded, and rapid gunfire pummeled the ground when I fell and tore my skirt, but I immediately got up. The young man who called for help was lying under a tree close to the pier and choking on his own blood, so I knelt beside him and held his bloody hand. 

           “Tell Margaret I love her,” he uttered and gasped for air.

           “I’ll tell her. What’s your name?”

           He couldn’t answer as his death blended in with other lifeless bodies scattered close by.

           “Ma’am!” a man shouted from behind me. “You need to run for the hills!” The officer forcibly grasped my arms and yanked me up to a standing position. “Hurry!”

           “I can’t find my husband!” I exclaimed.

           “It’s not safe to stay here. You need to leave now.” He stepped towards the pier.

           “Wait,” I pleaded and gestured to the dead man under the tree. “Do you know his name?”

           “That’s Walsh, Seaman First Class.” As the distraught officer dashed away to help injured men in the water, he urged me again to leave the area. “There’s no time to waste! Run for the hills!”

           The smoke briefly parted near the pier, and when I glanced across the water, a tremendous explosion almost knocked me on my back. My ears began to ring which muffled the sounds around me.

           For a moment, I became delirious and temporarily forgot about the danger. My mind drifted back to happier times as memories of my wedding comforted me. The pearls I wore that day glistened from the morning sun coming through the window, and my handsome groom stood waiting for me while my family and friends watched me walk down the aisle.

           My mind shifted scenes and stopped on the day our son came into the world. As the love of my life cradled our newborn in his arms, he said, “Let’s name him, Louis, after my father.” The memory soothed me, and I didn’t want to leave it, but suddenly, the ground rocked again as aerial torpedoes fell from the sky and hit their targets. If I wanted to live, I had to run for the hills.

           I stared off into the distance and realized the previous explosion destroyed my son’s ship, the USS Arizona, and its fiery, mangled metal was sinking. “Louis!” I screamed in terror. “Louis!” Tears streamed down my face when I imagined my son’s fate within the ship’s towering blaze. Leaving without knowing what happened to him was unthinkable, but the enemy advanced, and the officer was right. I had to get away from Pearl Harbor to save myself.

           One final look at Louis’ destroyed ship crushed my soul and ripped out my heart. His survival seemed impossible, and as I turned to run away, I heard his voice in my head. “You’ll be all right, Mother. You’re a strong woman, and you’ll survive. Always remember I love you.”

           I took a deep breath, thought about Louis in happier times, and a newfound strength flowed through me. Time was of the essence, and dying wasn’t an option. 

           "Get in!" a young woman shouted from the back seat of a Ford sedan that stopped a few feet in front of me. "Hurry! We must get out of here!"

           She opened the car door, and I got into the back where a second woman cowered in her seat. After I closed the car door, the female driver sped off on the grassy terrain as all of us jostled about in the vehicle.

           "We're going to the hospital!" the driver yelled in fear. "Mrs. Joyce is hurt!" She gestured to the woman in the front passenger seat with a nasty leg wound.

           "Hi, I'm Emily," the young woman said who sat next to me in the middle of the back seat.

           "I'm Joan," the older woman remarked who sat by the opposite car window.

           "My name's Betty," I replied and wiped the tears from my cheeks.

           On our way to the naval hospital, the Japanese planes maintained their relentless assault on Pearl Harbor and dropped more bombs and aerial torpedoes. The smell of death saturated the air along with the stench of charred flesh. Navy men were being burned alive on the battleships. The ringing in my ears subsided a bit, and I heard frantic calls for help and screams of agony from the dying men.   

           Suddenly, a low-flying Japanese Zero headed right towards our car with its rapid gunfire blazing a trail on the ground before us, and I winced for fear of getting hit. As I held my breath, bullets penetrated the convertible top of the Ford, and at that instance, large amounts of blood sprayed on my face.

           Joan shrieked in horror. "She's dead! Oh, my God!"

           Emily slumped towards me in the seat, and blood spatter from her head wound covered the back half of the car's interior.  

           "Who's hurt?" the driver asked in a frenzied tone and floored the accelerator.  

          "She's dead!" Joan yelled. "They shot her!"

           Emily's blood dripped down my cheeks, and knowing a dead woman was leaning on me could have destroyed my sanity, but I wouldn't succumb to it. I refused to become hysterical, so to cope with the situation, I looked out the car window to possibly locate my husband or my son among the living or the dead while emotionally numbing myself to the horror I witnessed. However, I saw no trace of them.

            I entered a dreamlike state as my mind blocked out the terror around me. I couldn't think, speak, or move. Maybe my psyche tried to block out what happened to Emily, or perhaps I went into shock. Although the attack on Pearl Harbor continued, the reality of war disappeared like I floated above the scene and stayed in a safe place. The next thing I remembered was arriving at the naval hospital with a sharp pain in my left arm.

           The staggering number of wounded men outside the infirmary took my breath away. An uninjured man opened the car door and saw me covered in blood, then he gasped.

           "I'm okay," I assured and got out of the car. "The woman who sat next to me is dead." Emily's lifeless body fell onto the bloody back seat.

           The female driver of the car whose name I didn't know pointed to the woman in the front passenger seat. "Please help Mrs. Joyce! She's hurt!"

           The man quickly offered his assistance to the injured woman while a young nurse standing in front of the hospital scribbled notes on a clipboard regarding the injuries of the wounded men around her. She seemed exhausted as mountains of blood on her clothing oozed down her blouse and skirt. I made my way towards the hospital doors, and when I looked back, I didn't see the women who gave me a ride or the car. In fact, I never saw them again.

           After rushing into the hospital doors, the chaotic scene shocked me. A sea of red seemed unending as injured men stumbled inside the infirmary and cried out in pain. The smell of copper and burnt flesh drenched the air along with rancid odors from open wounds and missing limbs. I felt overwhelmed and didn't know what to do, so I closed my eyes for a moment and reopened them, hoping to view the scene in a different light. When I looked at the men again, I saw husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers. My heart ached for their families.     

           I ran over to a small sink in a short corridor and quickly washed my hands and face. My upper left arm still hurt, so I cupped some water in my right hand and poured it on the area. As Emily's blood washed away, more blood oozed onto my skin. It was my own. My arm had been grazed by a bullet from the Japanese Zero. To bandage the injury, I reached under my skirt and pulled off my cotton half-slip, quickly tearing it into strips.

           "Great idea," a frazzled nurse remarked, took a strip from my hand, and hastily bandaged my left arm.

           "Thanks," I said after she finished, then she hurried away to assist a doctor.

           On a gurney near the sink, a young, injured sailor had wounds involving his legs. Gashes along with small pieces of metal were embedded in his calves and upper thighs. He seemed to need comfort, so I walked up to him. "Hi, I'm Betty," I said in a soothing tone.

           "Jim Murphy, Gunners Mate, ma'am," he replied softly and seemed remarkably calm considering the frenzied scene. "You remind me of Angela. She's my girl back home in Nebraska. She has brown hair and hazel eyes, too."

           I smiled at him. "I'm sure she's a lot younger than me."

           "Yeah, she's twenty. I wanna propose to her on Christmas Day. I hope I can still do it."

           Another explosion outside rocked the ground, but it didn't deter me because it was commonplace to hear the horrifying noise.

           The sailor noticed my bandaged arm. "You're bleeding through the field dressing."

           "It's okay. A bullet grazed me. In fact, it's almost in the same spot where I was shot before."

           "Shot before?"

           "When I was sixteen, one of my dearest friends taught me how to shoot. I was aimin' for a target on the fence, but I missed, and the bullet hit a tree and ricocheted into my arm. It was just a flesh wound, and I wasn't gonna let that stop me from learnin' how to shoot. After practicing for a long time, I became a good shot." I paused. "What happened to you, Jim?"

           His lip quivered, and I immediately regretted asking the question. "I can't talk about it," he almost whispered.

           "I understand. Just rest and save your strength."

           The sailor closed his eyes, but resting while the men cried out in agony seemed impossible.

           I left him in the corridor and went into the central area of the hospital to see if I could help. In the left corner near a door, a familiar young officer on a stretcher caught my eye, and my spirits lifted. "Louis!" I screamed happily. "Louis, I'm over here!" I hurried toward the officer while weaving in and out of the wounded men, doctors, and nurses. When I got closer to the officer, a nurse draped the man’s face with a sheet. I stopped and stood motionless. With tears streaming down my cheeks, I couldn’t face the shocking terror going on around me, so I crumbled to the floor and covered my head in grief. I felt completely defeated as my hope of ending the trauma disappeared. At present, I can’t discuss what happened next, so I’ll move forward in time.

            Today in 1942, the horrors I witnessed that day are still fresh in my mind, and nightmares rule my sleep. To cope with this event, I need to immerse myself in the distant past, and perhaps doing so will ease my emotional pain and help me resolve my insecurities and losses. 1912 is a good year to start my memories when I was only twenty-three and a newlywed. The coldest winter on record took place that year when I was a teacher at a schoolhouse in a small Texas town. During this time, my younger sister, Mavis, was ill.

 

Chapter 2 – “Madhouse”

 

           In the middle of January in 1912, the frigid temperatures outside clashed with the musty, stagnant air inside the building where Mama and I stood.

           “Not so fast,” I whispered to her as we tiptoed down the shadowy hall. “What if we get caught?”

           “They don’t know we here,” Mama replied softly and abruptly stopped walking in the semi-darkness. “Wait a minute. Where's that strange light comin’ from?”

           A young man about twenty feet in front of us seemed in distress. “No!” he yelled as two men yanked him into a tiny room. “Please! Not again!”

           A single beam of light shone on a withered, old man with no teeth who sat in a dilapidated wheelchair ahead of us. “My umbrella,” he muttered. “I want my umbrella.”

           Suddenly, a scream filtered through a closed door as the smell of urine and feces engulfed the gloomy corridor.

           “He’s comin’,” the withered, old man stated calmly.

           I walked up to him. “Who’s comin’?”

           “Goliath. He’ll kill you. I’ll watch.” He glanced down the hallway as heavy footsteps approached us.  

           “I hate you!” a deep, booming voice shrieked from behind Mama.

           She hastily turned around and noticed a towering man with large, hairy arms. His bulky shape and terrifying presence personified a living nightmare with his dirty, stringy hair, scruffy beard, and black, lifeless eyes. On his left foot, a broken shackle and chain caused him to limp, and every time he took a step, the chain scraped the floor with a dreadful screech.

            “What are you doin’ here?” the maniac asked Mama. His fanatical stare was homicidal as he grabbed her arms and shoved her up against the wall.

             No one could hurt Mama while I was around. “Leave her alone!” I yelled. I didn't have the physical strength to break his grasp on her, so without delay, I dashed towards the lunatic and jumped on his back with my arms around his neck, pressing on his throat with all my might as he tried to shake me off.

             However, his grip on Mama’s arms remained rigid, and she couldn’t break free. “Help!” she screamed hysterically and tried to kick him in the shin. “Help!”

           I wrapped my legs around the maniac’s torso and squeezed in all directions hoping it would restrict his movements, but his grasp on Mama’s arms didn’t waver. “Get off of her!” I shouted angrily.

           “Help!” Mama cried out in desperation and struggled to get away from him.

            Finally, two hospital orderlies rushed towards us, and the bald orderly hit the madman’s wrists with a wooden club, then the lunatic broke his grasp on Mama’s arms, and she moved out of the way.

           “Get off his back, ma’am!” the pudgy orderly said to me firmly, but I didn’t comply because the madman began to advance towards Mama again. “Ma’am, please!” he insisted but didn’t wait for me to react.

           “Ahhh!” the maniac shrieked after the bald orderly hit him on the side of his knee with a wooden club.

           I remained on his back and hung on for dear life, but the lunatic’s sharp movements caused me to lose my grip, and I ultimately tumbled to the floor and fell on my right side as the pudgy orderly hit the madman on his back with a club.

           “I hate you!” Goliath screamed while staring at Mama and struggling to move closer to her. “I’ll get you for this!”

          Two additional men came to assist, and they all wrestled the madman to the floor using their clubs to subdue him.

          “Grab his right hand!” the bald orderly exclaimed while the others slipped on restraints. “How did Goliath get loose?”

          “I don’t know,” the pudgy orderly replied. “But I’m gonna find out.”

          I stood up and hurried over to Mama.

          The old geezer in the wheelchair let out a sinister laugh. “You got lucky! You got lucky!”

           After restraining the lunatic, the four men disappeared with him down the darkened hallway, and with each step they took, the madman moved further away from us.

           Mama’s face was pale and ghostlike. Visibly shaken and trembling with fear, a tear fell on her cheek.

           I hugged her gently. “It’s over. They took him away.”

           For a moment, she hardly moved, and I worried she might faint.

           “We need a doctor!” I announced.

           “No, I’m all right,” Mama said quietly. “I, I thought he was gonna kill me.” She took a deep breath and composed herself while gently smoothing the front of her blouse. “My goodness. That's my excitement for the month. Betty, are you okay?”

         “Yes, I’m fine,” I answered and rubbed my right hip. “I’m just a little sore from fallin’.” I, too, needed to calm down and collect myself. Because of my ordeal, my hair pins fell out and caused my waist-length, brown hair to cascade down my back, but other than a scraped knee and a torn stocking, I was all right.

           The hospital’s overbearing administrator approached us and frowned at Mama. “You’re not allowed in the men’s wing of the hospital! Your daughter will be in the women’s wing. You said you would stay in the waitin’ room, Mrs. Nobles.”

           Mama straightened up and looked the obnoxious man directly in the eyes as her usual tenacity returned. “I know what I said! Betty and I wanted to check things out while you and my husband finished the paperwork. Then I got attacked!”

           “Come with me,” the administrator said sternly. “You’re a foolish woman, and don’t be so stupid next time.”

           Papa stormed up behind him with resentment in his eyes, and for a moment, I thought he might punch the administrator in the face. “Don’t you call my wife, 'stupid'!”

           The administrator awkwardly changed his tone, but it lacked sincerity. “Mr. Nobles,” he replied with a hint of sarcasm, “I didn’t mean . . . ”

           “I know what you mean, and I don’t like it!” Papa kept his anger just below the surface. “How can you be so stupid? What kinda joint are you runnin’ here?” Papa waited for the administrator to reply, but his silence answered the question, so Papa motioned to Mama and me. “Let’s go, Lily, Betty. This place isn't for Mavis!”

            We left the administrator standing in the hall, gathered our coats and hats from the waiting room, and hurried out the door. The Bosworth Asylum located a few miles outside of Ruston, Texas, wasn’t the place for my younger sister, and the encounter marked the end of our search to find psychiatric help for Mavis.

            After boarding the train for home, we stayed quiet for the journey. Mama was still upset from her attack, and I was sore from my fall off the madman’s back. Papa was just plain mad. By the time we reached our train depot in Lyle, Texas, we were hungry, dirty, tired, and cold.

            Located just south of Waco in central Texas, the small town of Lyle had charm and beauty. Its landscape transformed over the past ten years, but older establishments prevailed like Myra’s Café, Kirkpatrick’s Mercantile, and Simmons’ General Store. Missing from town was the cotton mill, or the “woolen monster” as I called it. The mill burned down in 1907 probably due to arson, but the culprit got away. Once the mill disappeared, I celebrated its demise because it ruined many lives and caused numerous deaths due to the horrible working conditions inside its walls. Ironically, saving lives would be the focus of the new hospital being built in the mill’s place which was due to open in the spring. Indoor construction and final touches were all that remained for its completion, so workers weren't exposed to the frigid weather outside.

           While strolling from the train depot towards the hotel Mama and Papa owned, I thought about my younger days. “I remember when this used to be the bad part of town,” I said. “Now, it’s completely changed. I smile every time I pass this new hospital. The day that cotton mill burned down was one of the happiest days of my life.”

            Mama straightened her hat and seemed more relaxed. “I remember when we moved here ten years ago, and your papa and I got jobs at the mill.” She glanced to our left near the blacksmith’s shop and Darby’s Tavern. “Our row house was right over there.”

           Suddenly, the freezing wind picked up. A strange noise coming from around the corner sounded like metal cans clattering together, and the ground rumbled under my feet. The noise was amplified with each passing second, and when I looked up, a wagon with runaway horses charged towards us.

           “Look out!” Papa shouted and pushed Mama and me towards the unfinished hospital and away from danger.

           “Help!” the driver exclaimed fearfully and yanked on the reins. “I can’t stop them!”

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