Chasing a Dream: A Horseman's Memoir Page 4

  For food during the ride, I shot sage grouse and cottontail rabbits, and cooked them over fires. With my bare hands I caught fish from the creeks. Repeating a method I had perfected as a child, I would hang over the edge of the creek bank and slowly let my arm drift downstream as my hand explored the cut bank where fish were hiding. If I moved slowly enough a fish would allow me to ease my hand around its body unaware of the danger until it was too late and I had it in my grasp. Often I’d pull several fish from the same hole. I would pack them in mud and bake them in the coals of the fire. When the mud was dry I would break it open and expose delicious trout meat with the skin still attached to the dried mud. This is the life, I thought. I wondered, Was this the kind of freedom the mountain men felt? Was this what made their hardships tolerable?

  While crossing South Pass we stumbled upon an unoccupied cow camp. An old log cabin stood in an aspen grove near a green meadow encircled by a weathered buck-and-rail fence. What a perfect place to camp, I thought. The place reminded me of the cabin from my childhood dreams.

  I dismounted from Kate to see if the door was locked. It creaked open. The inside of the cabin was clean and neat. It had a bed, wood stove, and pots and pans. Canned food lined the lumber shelves. I built a fire in the stove, helped myself to a can of beef stew, and heated it on the stove.

  I stayed a couple of days to let Jack and Kate rest and graze in the pasture without my having to worry about them running away. I lazed around for hours watching a red-tailed hawk soaring above the meadow. Something about the place was spiritual. God felt close and real.

  We rode on to Atlantic City, a historical mining town, where I tied my mules to the hitching rail in front of the Atlantic City Mercantile Bar and Store. I had always wanted to stroll into a bar like the cowboys in the movies. Pistol on my hip, I sauntered up to the old hand-carved bar and looked at myself in the massive mirrors behind the bar. I was unshaven. Dust coated my clothes. I stepped on the brass rail at the foot of the bar and stared across at the bartender, a tall, square-jawed man in his fifties with gray hair and a handlebar mustache. He returned my gaze with curiosity.

  “Whiskey,” I said.

  After a couple of shots of Jack Daniels, the bartender, Bob Rice, who was also the owner of the bar, and I had become fast friends. Bob told me about a good place to camp on the creek about a half-mile below the town, and he invited me to come back in the evening to hear a live bluegrass band. I downed my drink, slapped the empty glass on the counter, and then strode out and rode downhill to the creek, where I set camp in an aspen grove. After picketing my mules, I lay down for a nap.

  When evening came, I was hungry for social interaction and walked back uphill to the bar. I drank plenty of whisky to the beat of bluegrass music and danced with every girl who would. They closed the bar at two a.m. and I staggered downhill to camp. My camp was gone. What happened to my camp? Having no flashlight, I stumbled around in the dark trying to figure out how a camp could just disappear, and then I gave up, lay down in the grass, and drifted to sleep. A couple hours later I awoke shivering. I scratched around in the dark for some dry wood and leaves and then, my hands shaking, struggled to get a fire going. Finally warm, I fell asleep again and didn’t awaken until the sun streamed through the aspen grove. My head pounded like someone had whacked me with a hammer.

  When I finally found my camp, the mules were gone. Bridle in hand and head throbbing I walked back up to the Merc and found Bob. He volunteered to help me look for Jack and Kate. We drove around the dusty gravel streets of Atlantic City, until we found the mules grazing near some horses in someone’s yard. “Thank God,” I said, “I was beginning to think they might have headed back to Colorado.”

  8

  ATLANTIC CITY, WYOMING, 1977

  Bob and his wife expressed their concern about me traveling with fall in the air and winter around the corner. I said, “I’ll find a job along the way and wait out the winter. I don’t have a lot of money.”

  Bob called a big game outfitter near Pinedale, and got me a job packing horses at a hunting camp in the Wind River Mountains. For three days I headed north along the western flank of the Winds. Torrential rains fell, and the thick timber and steep rocky terrain made for slow going. Water worked its way under my slicker. The wind blew into my bones. We rode on for what seemed like weeks.

  Hungry and shivering, I worked my way up to the top of a ridge and almost gasped at what I saw stretched out in the distance before us—a beautiful emerald valley that looked too magical to be real. The massive snowcapped peaks of the Wind River formed a stunning backdrop to what looked like a painting. A cluster of old log buildings and corrals dotted the valley where cattle and horses grazed. Jack, Kate, and I dropped off the ridge down to a dirt road and eventually passed through a log archway that read, “Big Sandy Ranch.” I hoped the owners would be friendly and sell me some oats for my mules. A tall, blond cowboy came out to greet me. Renny Burke, owner of the Big Sandy, invited me to stay for supper and sleep in the barn. I stayed for several days to help him gather cattle and brand calves. Ours was the work of real cowboys, and I enjoyed it immensely. The layover at the Big Sandy allowed me to dry out my clothes and camping gear and rest and feed the mules, but eager to start my new job, I told Renny good-bye and set off toward Pinedale, fifty miles north.

  In Pinedale, I connected with the hunting outfitter. He loaded up my mules and trailered us thirty miles up a washboard dirt road to work at Boulder Lake Ranch near the wilderness at the western foot of the Wind Rivers. I was to work there until hunting season began and was soon settled into comfortable housing with other hands. A bed had never felt so good.

  A low-budget western movie, Sweet Creek County War, starring Nita Talbot, Albert Salmi, and Slim Pickens, was being filmed at Boulder Lake Ranch. The film was based on a true story about the range war between sheep men and cattlemen that had taken place in that area in the early 1900s. I was drafted to ride in the mounted posse that raced toward an old cabin where outlaws were holed up. With pistols loaded with blanks, we galloped up, sprang off our horses, and began blazing away at the cabin.

  During breaks in filming, I played horseshoes with Albert and Slim. A lot went into the movie, but it never made the big screen. It didn’t matter to me, though, because I, a country boy from Colorado, had played a cowboy in a movie. My trip had been more exciting than I had imagined, and it forecast more good times to come.

  Grant put in many miles and long days working for Wolf Lake Outfitters packing elk and supplies for hunters with the above mules Jack and Target and several others.

  That fall I worked for Mike Nystrom’s Wolf Lake Outfitters packing in supplies on horses and mules for a bighorn sheep hunt near Green River Lakes. Jack and Kate joined my pack string as we headed to the first base camp in the high country. In the evenings we watched elk graze on the high mountain slopes. Bighorn sheep frolicked with their lambs on the cliffs like a bunch of moms frolicking with their kids on a playground. I loved my new job. It provided me with the kind of life I had always wanted. Finally, I was making my own way living my dreams.

  Once we packed in sheep camp, it was time to set up the elk-hunting camp. My pack string consisted of four horses and five mules, including Kate and Jack, all strung together. By daylight I had all my pack animals saddled. We rode ten miles down steep switchbacks to the Jensen Ranch, where I loaded horse feed and camping supplies along with food and cases of beer and bottled alcohol to haul back to the high mountain camp. I never worried about the five mules at the back of the string; they always stayed in line and did their job. The four horses in front, however, were always causing problems on the steep, narrow trail. Inattentive, the horses would walk around the wrong side of a tree and break ropes and tack causing the entire string to wreck. One problem horse in particular kept pulling back and breaking loose. One time the entire string followed him stampeding down the mountain, packs crashing into trees, splintering the box panniers and scattering canned food and jars along
the trail. The poor mules had no choice but to get dragged down the mountain at a run trying to keep their footing. When I caught up to them in an aspen grove the whole string was tangled around several trees. That one maddening horse cost me several hours of gathering up equipment and supplies, repacking, and reloading. These experiences gave me a new appreciation for mules, and I learned to prefer them over horses when packing in rough country.

  It took two weeks to pack in everything we needed for the season. The work was hard and the hours in the saddle long, but I enjoyed most of the experience. On a big aspen tree next to the trail, I carved a slash with my knife every time we completed a round trip. At the end of the season that tree sported thirty-two marks, and I had packed out over fifty elk carcasses.

  One evening after riding back to the trailhead with a load of elk, I left Kate in the corral with the other horses. I dropped the elk meat at the Pinedale Locker and restocked groceries for the trip back to camp, then headed out for a night in town. Early the following morning I returned to the corral to pack up. Kate was gone. Doc Jensen was working nearby.

  “Have you seen my mule?” I asked.

  “I found the gray one dead in the corral. She was covered in mud where she’d been rolling. Colic, I guess.” Tractor tire tracks and drag marks from a large body led from the corral to the precipice of a ravine not far away. Doc pointed at the ravine. “She’s over there.” That moment when my friend told me Skeeter had been killed by a train came back. The exact feelings flooded through me. I felt like I would vomit, and turned away so Doc wouldn’t see the tears that streamed down my face. But he knew. Every stockman who has lost a good horse or mule knows. But at times like that no one can do anything to ease the pain but simply let the person deal with their loss.

  I gathered myself as best I could. Over my shoulder I said, “Thanks for your help, Doc.” My body felt five times its true weight as I packed up my string and, absent my Kate, rode off toward camp accompanied by grief.

  When hunting season was over, I had a bit of money in my pocket but no transportation other than the four-legged kind. My boss offered to cosign a loan at the bank, and I bought a used 1972 green-and-white Chevrolet pickup. My payment was two hundred and fifty dollars a month, not much less than I made doing cowboy work. About that time I made the acquaintance of a friendly stray husky dog that had been wandering around the Pinedale area. Lots of people knew him but he had no owner that anyone knew about. I thought he looked cool, big and strong like a wolf with thick gray fur and a confident, independent demeanor. I was about to spend the winter caretaking the Kitchen Ranch at seven thousand feet near Cora, Wyoming, one of the coldest places in the Lower 48. Cora routinely reached temperatures of thirty degrees below zero. Thinking the dog would be good company, I adopted him, named him Zack, and took him to the Kitchen Ranch along with Brian’s mule, Jack, and One Eye, an unbroken two-year-old colt I had purchased for next to nothing from a horse trader.

  I was not prepared for a Wyoming winter. The winters in Palisade had been relatively mild. The snow didn’t last long, followed quickly by peach blossoms in April. At the Kitchen Ranch the snow deepened to two to four feet on level ground, and drifted with the winds making it impossible to keep open the three-mile driveway. The wind howled. An employee of the owner would occasionally ride his snowmobile out to check on me and deliver my mail. His coming and going packed the trail and enabled me to walk down the driveway without sinking to my waist.

  Although the ranch had several houses, all had been closed for the season and winterized. I was left with a small camper trailer that had a propane heater and no running water. Because I had to carry water through the deep snow from a well about four hundred yards away, and since the water had to be heated little by little on a tiny propane stove, I seldom bathed. By January, cabin fever had set in and I wondered if I could last. Zack was good company while he was home, but he would wander off for a week or more at a time, leaving me alone, cooped up, and stir crazy. Sooner or later he would show up again, and I, trying to get him to stay home, would tie him. But like me, Zack didn’t like to be tied. He whined, pulled at the rope, and paced like a prisoner in solitary confinement. I couldn’t stand to see him like this, so I’d let him go and then immediately he’d head off somewhere and be gone for another week. One day someone called and said he had seen him in front of the bar in Pinedale twelve miles away. Who knows, maybe he had met a cute cowgirl, or wanted to dance a few songs or drink a whiskey or two; but he sure didn’t want to be home. When I got to Pinedale, he wasn’t there.

  The next day someone said he saw him sixty miles away in Big Piney, and when I got there, sure enough, there he was, footloose, free, and happy. He saw me get out of the truck and wagged his tail and got in as if he knew we were going home, but in no time he took off again.

  Sooner or later he’d come back looking as healthy and well-fed as ever, and sometimes brought a gift. Once he left a jackrabbit for me on the camper step. Another time he came home carrying a huge trout he’d caught in the warm, spring-fed creek that ran through the ranch. He hadn’t eaten a bite of it, but left it lying in the snow for me.

  He seemed to love me and enjoy my company, but we were more like friends than dog and master. The Kitchen was more a home base than a home. He never seemed like my dog; in fact he never seemed like anyone’s dog. Zack belonged to no one but the wilderness, though I kept trying to make him mine.

  My job at the Kitchen included feeding the livestock and shoveling out a big two-story log barn that over the years had built up a deep layer of horse and cow manure. The work had to be done by hand, and with nothing else to do, I threw myself at this otherwise unenjoyable task with great enthusiasm.

  Within a month the barn was cleaned out and the livestock had been shipped off to a lower elevation. I had nothing else to do but keep watch, and boredom and loneliness set in. In the dead of winter, during subzero temperatures and with the snow piled deep, I came up with the brilliant and boneheaded idea of breaking my new colt, which I had named One Eye.

  ONE EYE

  Whether he knew or not, the horse trader I bought One Eye from had said nothing about him having a bad eye. Not until I got him home did I notice the cloudy film over his right eye. The sorrel colt with a white blaze and three white socks was very defensive on his right side and would whirl around toward me and instantly kick when I tried to touch him on that side. I realized he was mostly blind in his right eye. After a couple of narrow escapes, I wasn’t sure how to proceed. My only experience had come from breaking mules with my Dad.

  Because he would not stand still and allow me to get on, I came up with the ingenious idea to tie him to a stout post inside the barn. I tied him fast and then eased up on his back. As soon as my right foot touched the stirrup on his blind side, he shot straight into the air jumping and bucking. He came to the end of the lead rope, pulled hard, and then sprang forward bawling in terror slammed into the post. I managed to stay on but knew I had better find a way to dismount fast. In between jumps, I swung to the ground. Before I could get away he kicked me three times in the knee and knocked me to the frozen ground. To avoid his kicks, I rolled away and then grabbed my knee with my hands, groaning and praying that my leg wasn’t broken.

  The reality of my predicament was clear. I was stuck on a remote ranch with no way to get help except by walking out on an injured leg. I was in excruciating pain. What if it is broken? I thought. It could be days before someone finds me. After several minutes I managed to get my leg moving and concluded that it wasn’t broken. The shock of the situation really got my attention, though. What am I doing? I wondered.

  After several days of lying around the trailer while the swelling in my knee subsided, I managed to hobble out to my truck and drive to Pinedale to the library, where I searched for books about horse training. I found one with lots of pictures and step-by-step instructions. Perfect. I would read a chapter and then apply the lesson to One Eye.

  The first chapter ex
plained how to restrain a horse and make it stand still. The tool was called a Scotch hobble, a long cotton rope tied in a loop around the horse’s neck. By taking the end of the rope and walking behind the horse you could safely get him to step over the rope with his hind leg and then you would bring the rope back up to his neck hoisting his leg in the air and leaving him standing on three legs unable to move without falling down.

  One Eye kicked out viciously at the unfamiliar feel of the rope. I finally got his leg tied up in the air; however, he continued to kick--badly chafing his hind leg on the rope. Gasping for air and covered with sweat, he finally gave in to the restraint and stood quietly, shaking with fear.

  Chapter two of the book showed how to saddle and mount a horse that was restrained with a Scotch hobble. Chapter three suggested leading the saddled colt from a trained horse, so I saddled up Jack and proceeded to lead One Eye out of the barn and down the snow-packed road. When One Eye got outside he saw his chance. He broke and made a run for open country. I took two dallies of the rope around Jack’s saddle horn, but when One Eye hit the end of the rope, the impact jerked Jack sideways and he scrambled to keep his feet under him on the snow. One Eye took another run and hit the end of the rope again, and Jack went down, smashing my injured leg under his ribs. One Eye’s rope had me pinned, and he kept it taut as he struggled at the other end.