Pristina, Texas
October 10, 1914
Dear Father,
Today I received notice that my petition has been dismissed. I suppose if they allowed me to leave, they’d have to do the same for every one in the troop, for though our reasons are different, no one wants to be here. There nothing for us to do. The war is elsewhere. Here is only listlessness and bickering. The boys pass around flasks at midday, and half of them no longer shave their faces. Every now and then one of them is roused to create a drama just to pass the time. Last week, Daniels and his followers conducted rifle practice on a herd of goats. The animals were in a canyon and the rock walls echoed with the sound of bullets. Those of us not there imagined a true battle had commenced—how we scrambled over each other trying to get there first, only to find three soldiers shouting at a bunch of dead animals, and the goatherd hiding behind a rock. Just a child, maybe ten years old, with his hat all shot up. The Good Lord must have been with him, though, for he wasn’t hurt, not even grazed. The next day, the father came, asked for money for his goats and a new hat for his son. The captain laughed him out. And so it goes.
My consolation is the landscape. I take long hikes through the mountains and investigate the desert, more prickly with life than I had imagined. I enclose sketches of the Montezuma Quail, who I have had the fortune to find nesting! I would greatly appreciate your sending me Green’s Guide to Ornithology & Oology and also Becket’s Geology, both of which you will find in the trunk under my bed. How is cousin Anne? Give her my best, and tell her that coyotes really do laugh.
Until Christmas,
Will