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A car backfired at the OK Corral. The mules were startled and became restless.

The woman on the wagon seat took the reins. Tex exited the corral where he had gotten lucky and found a place for his wagon train to bed down.

The Oklahoma waggoneers were headed to West Virginia via Clio, Alabama.

OK had assured Tex of friendly overnight “pasture” accommodations.

Upon arrival, the wife was obliging but unsure. Her husband let his dogs out to  run every afternoon. That could be a problem.

Evidently, when the husband  got home around dusk, the dogs jumped in the cab of his good ol’ boys’ truck  with him, which was an indication that he was okay with overnight outdoor guests. Evidently, his wife thought,  he had made arrangements for a place where the dogs could be sheltered until daybreak.

But, in no time, the trio was and headed back toward home. The next sounds were of dogs barking and then, a shotgun being fired followed by howling dogs that were headed straight toward the squatters’ campsite.

Now, the squatters were resting their untied animals from  the day’s long, hard trek. The barking dogs alerted them that trouble was fast on the way.

The mules took off  across the pasture only hooves ahead of the stampeding cows.  The chickens had quickly gone to roost, but were clucking and flapping their feathers. The cats climbed trees and dogs were running in circles with their tongues hanging out. The two goats were hooking  horns and the cow was giving milk as it ran.

The scared squatters were flattened face down in the pasture and shaking in fear of the buzzards that were circling overhead.

It was a long time before the madness stopped and all was quiet on the Clio road.

The reluctant hosts had planned to have the squatters to a breakfast of bacon, grits, homemade biscuits, crabapple jelly and buttermilk. But, long before sunrise, the wagon was already far beyond Clio and forever distant from the shots at the OK Corral that started the nightmare of Clio road.