OK, so there used to be this old Nephite everybody liked ~

Josiah was his Christian name, but the local garrison of Marines near his village all refer to him as “Hatchbanger” ~

They liked him and would let him hang around their base ~

He was kind of like their mascot ~

They called him “Hatchbanger” because he died after hitting his head real hard on the edge of a chariot hatch one day ~

Well, the natives call them “chariots" ~

The Navy calls them “Light-Armored-Tracked-Amphibious-Reconnaissance-Vehicles”, but the locals call them “chariots” so the Marines started calling them that too ~

Now ordinarily, banging your dome on a chariot hatch is going to leave a nice beauty mark, but it’s not going to kill a guy, you know? Like what Marine hasn’t done it, right? ~

But the reason it killed old Hatchbanger is a major part of this story ~

You see, Hatchbanger had been scalped by the Lamanites back in his younger days and the skin on top of his head had never grown back ~

All you could see was head-bone where his scalp should have been ~

One day the Marines were giving him a ride somewhere and as he was heading out the aft hatch of the chariot; he tripped and caught the edge of the hatch on the top of his head ~

Because Hatchbanger didn’t have any hair, hide or meat to cushion the blow, it cracked his skull like an egg and he died ~

Now one of the reasons the Marines liked Hatchbanger was because of the stories he used to tell and one of those stories was about how he got scalped and lived to tell about it ~

It seems that when Hatchbanger was a young man, he had quite the reputation for being a Nephite scout, trail guide and frontiersman-type and he made a good living at it ~

He was also sweet on a woman who lived down in the Nephite village ~

So he spent quite a lot of time in the vicinity when he wasn’t out guiding traders or missionaries or whoever through the wilderness ~

The Nephite village was kind of his unofficial headquarters and it was from there that he set out one spring morning to guide a party of Nephites making a pilgrimage to one of their holy places down in Lamanite-held territory ~

Their route was predictably along the banks of a riverbed that headed south ~

It was a path that Hatchbanger had often used ~ and that was his mistake ~

It was still early in the morning ~

Hatchbanger and his group were out for no more than three hours from the Nephite village when a war party of Lamanites waylaid the trail ~

A hail of spears, tomahawks and arrows from the riverbank emptied the curelom and the cumom saddles of their riders and the band of Lamanite warriors swarmed upon the fallen travelers ~

Hatchbanger was hit in the neck with an arrow ~

It passed though his neck but somehow missed both his carotid artery and jugular vein ~

His spinal cord was badly bruised but not broken ~

Hatchbanger fell from his curelom as a dead man but only apparently so ~

In fact, he was fully conscious but unable to move anything below his eyebrows, being temporarily but completely paralyzed ~

The Lamanites began to strip and scalp the Nephites ~

When Hatchbanger’s turn came, he said he was looking the Lamanite directly in the eyes during most of the procedure but was unable to even blink ~

Hatchbanger used to say that he heard a sound “like many waters” as his scalp was torn from his head ~

Then he lost consciousness ~

When he awoke, he was lying on his back in the shallow water next to the bank ~

He was naked except for his temple garments around one of his ankles ~

About him were the dead bodies of his customers but he was otherwise alone ~

It was late in the evening and already the sun was beginning to set behind the thick foliage ~

Hatchbanger struggled to his feet and began to move, half crawling and half stumbling, in the direction back toward the Nephite village ~

He hadn’t gone very far before nightfall overtook him and he took shelter among the roots of a huge tree on the riverbank ~

As the darkness and sounds of the wilderness night enveloped him, he composed himself as comfortably as he could and waited on Death ~

Hatchbanger said that as he sat there in the dark with his back against the tree, he looked up to see his sister, who lived far away in Zarahemla, standing there before him ~

She said, “Have no fear, Brother Josiah. Help is on the way.” ~

She turned and walked away in the direction of the Nephite village and disappeared into the darkness ~

He wanted to cry out to her, but the fear that the Lamanites may still be close prevented him ~

Meanwhile, down at the Nephite village, it’s dark and these people have got no technology, right? ~

No wheels or machinery ~

They got no lights ~

Nothing ~

They all go to bed with the birds ~

So, everybody has already been asleep for hours when all this screaming and yelling starts up, and soon the entire Nephite village is in an uproar ~

The Marines start hitting the Nephite village with the searchlights and calling in illumination ~

Everybody is getting out of their bunks and watching the show ~

The Top Sergeant finally sends a squad down there to find out what the heck is going on ~

It turns out that Hatchbanger’s woman was having nightmares ~

She was the one doing the screaming, while the yelling was being done by the other villagers telling her to shut up and go back to bed ~

Hatchbanger’s woman had already been made to go back to bed several times but she kept having these horrible dreams ~

She was hysterical, crying and carrying on that Hatchbanger was naked, wounded and alone in the forest ~

She described a particular tree on the riverbank ~

She said that Hatchbanger was sitting under it, bloody but still alive ~

Top Sergeant must have figured nobody was going to get any sleep that night if he didn’t do something ~

Besides, everybody liked Hatchbanger ~

So a team of Marines saddled up in a chariot and went out to look under that tree and that is exactly where they found him ~

The Marines bandaged him up, shot him full of medicine, brought him back in and put him in sick bay ~

Soon he was all healed up except for the skin on top of his head that never grew back ~

Well, anyway, about six months later Hatchbanger gets this package from his family back in Zarahemla ~

Now, the Nephite postal service at that time was absolutely terrible ~

But they did have their own problems, right? ~

The Nephite army had requisitioned their elephants to move mountains of their gold plates northward, Lamanite attacks on the mail were commonplace, and corruption was rampant ~

So, it was a minor miracle that Hatchbanger got this package at all ~

In the package was a letter inscribed on the usual metal plates which told of his sister taking ill of fever and dying ~

She had passed away the day before Hatchbanger was ambushed ~

As he lay unconscious on the banks of the river, his family was laying her to rest in Zarahemla ~

The night she appeared to him in under that tree was her first night in the grave ~

Now it takes approximately two and a half hours to walk from the tree where Hatchbanger was found to the Nephite village ~

According to Hatchbanger’s story, it is about the same amount of time that passed between his sister appearing to him and the village woman having her nightmares ~

But this is probably a coincidence ~

You got to take these old Nephite stories with the proverbial pinch of salt, right? ~


ziller

Poor Hatchie.

You slay me, Ziller. Brilliant. Loved it.

If you would re-write the whole Book of Mormon you would have the Seminary kids eating it up and save the whole church. So, uh, like--don't do that.

in b 4 ~



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/31/2018 08:18PM by ziller.

People. You must not miss this.

the pronouns 'him' & 'his' are used, but are you sure of gender?


Regardless, I'd like to know if 'his' ghost is communing with the ghosts of Briggy, Joey, & a few other MORMON leaders...

in b 4 ~ Josiah Hatchbanger's woman can confirm this thred ~



Josiah Hatchbanger hab dat dere weenor ~