Midnight Ride Of Tom Tripe

To be a Mohican, candidates had to read Huckleberry Finn, get wounded in a fight during recess at school, kiss a girl, and survive a life-threatening feat.

The five fiercest Mohicans were aged sages of fifteen to eighteen years. Once they certified the candidate had met the requirements, they accepted him as a true warrior, and only then was he allowed to quote the club motto: “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield,” from Tennyson’s poem, Ulysses. During the rite of passage to warrior status, Chief Chingachgook, named after the famed savage in James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last Of The Mohicans, unsheathed a genuine obsidian dagger bought at the Five & Dime, slashed his and the candidate’s arm and pressed the wounds together, signifying blood acceptance into the warrior fraternity. We Mohicans usually mustered for war councils once or twice a month, depending on when our parents allowed us to camp out. While roasting marshmallows in a bonfire, we discussed future raids on the innocent residents sparsely sprinkled across the rustic outback of upper northeast Washington County, Mississippi.

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I had completed all but one requirement, including (ugh!) kissing a girl. One summer night, as we squatted around a campfire, Chief Chingachgook spoke. “Candidate Reed, we deem you worthy to cast off your puerile trappings and become a warrior. Are you ready?” “Yes, O Mighty Chief,” I said, although I had no idea what puerile trappings were. “What life-threatening feat will prove you worthy to join our ranks?” “I will ride Tom Tripe.” The chief raised his eyebrows in disbelief. Tom was a bellicose Brahman bull that belonged to Beulah and Bernice Bailey, spinster sisters who owned nearby B & B Ranch. I didn’t think my feat would be too dangerous. Because of his tremendous bulk, Tom was slow to rise to his feet after resting. I planned to sneak up on him at night, hop on his back, remain astraddle while he struggled to get his legs under him, hop off, and escape unhurt. As the band gathered around the fire on the fateful night, the chief told the uninitiated “littluns” to tend camp, and, shortly before midnight, the rest of us departed for Tom Tripe’s pasture. Slipping through the fence, we saw Tom slumbering peacefully beneath an oak tree. With heart pounding, I made a sudden dash and leaped on his back. Oak wood is extremely hard — much harder than a boy’s head. When I came to back at the campsite, I was told that Tom didn’t take much time getting to his feet. In fact, the roaring, snorting monster was afoot in nanoseconds, and catapulted Warrior Wannabe Reed into a thick oak limb. At least I was now a full-fledged Mohican, notwithstanding blackened eyes beneath a purplish bulging Frankenstein forehead. And the clever way I explained my disfigurement to Mama would have made any prevaricating political poltroon proud. Shoot! I wasn’t about to tell her the true story of the midnight ride of Tom Tripe.