|
|
|||
|
|||
|
|
Cowboy Soul Diane Alden I learned long ago that being a real cowboy is not a matter of wearing a silver belt buckle and a big hat. It isn't even bullriding, rodeos, or having cattle or horses. Nor does being a cowboy have to do with whether or not you were born in Texas, Colorado or Montana. Some of the greatest cowboys who ever lived have come from places like Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee, New York, Illinois, Iowa and Missouri. Some have even come from as far away as Ireland, Scotland, England and France. Many were metis, half-breed French-Cree-Canadians living on the Red River of the North. The Red River of cowboy song fame is in fact the Red River between Minnesota and Canada, and not the one that runs in Texas. Cowboys also roamed the mountains and meadows of Alberta. Quite a few women were cowboys. Some of the gals dressed up like men to pass. Others, however, didn't let a dress define them or prevent them from learning the cowboy way. More than one ran their own ranches; many still do. Thousands of cowboys were born in slavery in the South or lived in indentured servitude in the North. Of the 35,000 men who lived the cowboy life in the era of the open range, 5,000 to 9,000 were African-Americans. Hundreds were American Indians. A few of the better-known cowboys were from homes of privilege and refinement; Teddy Roosevelt and Charlie Russell were two such men. Most were looking for a better way of life: the chance to use their own abilities and instincts for adventure and freedom. Many were romantics and some simply opportunists. Some came to the West because of poor health, others to hunt or build, mine or run cattle. Somewhere over a rainbow and west of heaven these searchers discovered what they were looking for or they died trying. Their particular somewhere is a state of being and a sense of place that many moderns do not understand. The era of the open range and cattle drives lasted about 25 years – from the Civil War to the big cattle die-off of 1886. Until that time, neither barbed wire nor lines of demarcation prevented the free movement of men and cattle in the big country of the American West. Cowboy and ranch life, nevertheless, have continued one way or another until this very day. The ultimate imperative for any good cowboy is to "ride for the brand." As it was called in the early days – the outfit. Riding for the brand is part of cowboy soul – the cowboy way. Cowboy soul in our day is the recognition that conditions, reasons and the foundation of American society that once gave us purpose and reason for hope may no longer exist or even be valid. In that regard, I know I am not the only American who feels like a displaced person in my own country. I also know the numbers of dispossessed are growing. Our sense of place, belonging, community and of ourselves is being run over, overcome. At times it has the force of an alien presence that gives no thought to our identity as a nation or as individuals. It lives because of the thoughtless actions and policies of our various elite. In the American West of yesterday, those with cowboy soul kept records. The cowboys were storytellers, readers, songwriters, diarists, writers and poets. A few were artists who told their stories in oil paint and pen and ink. When I bumped up against my own cowboy soul, I found I was no different. Nov. 18, 1997 – Great Falls, Montana Charlie M. Russell Museum in Great Falls is a wonder. Although some people don't seem able to put Western and art in the same sentence, nonetheless Charlie Russell's work is more than art – it is storytelling at its best. A nice lady at the museum gave me a little Russell history. Unlike most other men who went West in those days, Charlie Russell was the son of a well-to-do St. Louis family. Skipping school at every opportunity, Charlie sat around horse barns and places where people returning from the Upper Missouri would congregate to tell tale tales about their Western adventures. When he was 16, Charlie's parents decided he was going to have his way and allowed him put in his lot with close friends on their way to Colorado. Along the route, Charlie left the friends and decided he was going to be a cowboy. Wandering into Montana, Charlie got a job as a night wrangler in the Judith Basin of Central Montana, near Lewistown. That job and all the jobs that followed allowed Charlie time to observe. Observation is a skill and a talent that all great artists and writers have. As an observer Russell was among the best. It shows in his art, his sculpture and even his writing. He worked 11 years as a cowboy, and his observations in writing and painting chronicle the end of a way of life in the era of the open range. Like his speech, his writing is down home. It paints a picture of a man who was unassuming, real and honest. As Russell admitted on more than one occasion, he had been neither a good roper nor wrangler. Even so, he did the job of cowboy for 11 years, from Lewistown to Great Falls. In the summer of 1888 he spent much time observing the Blood Indians in Alberta, Canada. One of his most important contributions to American history and culture was his chronicle of the Plains Indians that he did on canvas with a brush. Fame came to Charlie when he worked as a cowboy for an outfit named Kaufman and Stadler. Kaufman asked young Charlie how the cattle were faring in the killing winter of 1886. Russell replied with a sketch of a starving cow in the snow. He called it "Waiting for the Chinook." According to reports, Kaufman displayed the sketch in his office, which led to its popularity. Dozens of requests came in for more copies. That particular bit of luck moved him closer to his destiny as a storyteller and an artist of international repute. The first news stories about Charlie Russell and his talent turned up in the Montana papers in 1887. "A Diamond in the Rough" appeared in the Helena Weekly Herald on May 26, 1887. Of the 4,000 paintings at the museum, I notice that more of them depict the subject of the American Indian than cowboys, ranching or cattle drives. Russell's sadness at the passing of the Old West may be seen in one canvas titled "Red Man's Wireless." It portrays the American Indian just after the intrusion of the white man on the Northern Plains. My favorite is his painting of Faye Hathaway riding her horse breakneck down hill. Other favorites include Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, the Elk, the Missouri Breaks, Wolf, Cowboy Santa Claus and countless depictions of the Plains Indians. Charlie liked women. After years of appreciating them, he married his wife, Nancy, when he was 32. He adored her, and through clever promotion and business management, Nancy was primarily responsible for making Russell famous around the world. The best part of the museum is the Russell cabin, which stands apart from the museum and the main Russell home. Nancy had it built for Charlie so he could paint in peace. It is full of memorabilia of the Indians, many pairs of Justin boots, Nancy's riding jacket, side saddle, hats, the famous red metis sashes he always wore, and Charlie's paints and oils, still in the tubes just as he left them the day he died. His whimsical nature is exhibited in small drawings on the margins of letters, envelopes and postcards. What that whimsy covered was sadness for an end to a way of life. Russell had the spirit of acceptance and humility of a good man. Not long before he died he wrote: "I am old-fashioned and peculiar in my dress. I am eccentric (that is a polite way of saying you're crazy). I believe in luck and have lots of it. ... Any man that can make a living doing what he likes is lucky, and I'm that. Any time I cash in now, I win.” He died in 1926 of heart failure at age 62. I had breakfast at Dobie's the next morning. Dobie's used to be the Maverick Bar. That is where Russell hung out for a few hours each day keeping in touch with the cowboys and ranchers he felt comfortable with. It still has the old tin ceilings, big windows, wood floors but left its wild and woolly days behind. Dobie's is a coffee shop and bookstore, and I picked up a couple of diaries and personal journals of men and women who lived in that time. Charlie, a good writer himself, once wrote: The West is dead, my friend Goodnight and Loving
Come gather 'round me boys, In the history of the West gunfighters and ne'er-do-wells got most of the glory and most of the ink. The History Channel does four efforts on outlaws and lawmen for every one they do on the parade of people who were not so notorious. The fact is the outlaws and lawmen were not THE story of America or the West. Ordinary and not-so-ordinary men and women are the real story. There have been all kinds of cowboys and cattlemen over the years. They included Teddy Blue Abbott, Bose Ikard, Britt Johnson, John Chisholm, WJ Wilson, John Chisum, Bill Pickett, Jim Foley, Grant Kohrs, Granville Stewart, and the King family of Texas. If you ever read Larry McMurtry's “Lonesome Dove” or saw the made-for-TV movie of the same name, you have the gist of the story of Charlie Goodnight and Oliver Loving. Goodnight kept meticulous records, correspondence and diaries. If ever there was a true man and spirit of the West, it was Charles Goodnight. His exploits have been made the basis of most Western movies of the last 100 years. Goodnight was born on March 5, 1836, in Macoupin County, Ill. He moved his family to Milam County, Texas, in 1845 with his stepbrother John Sheek, taking a herd of cattle from the Brazos River to the Keechi Valley, Palo Pinto, Texas. Goodnight also served as a guide to the Texas Rangers. He participated in the 1860 raid that retrieved Indian chief Quanah Parker's mother from the Comanches. The John Ford-John Wayne epic "The Searchers" was based on the Elm Creek Raid and subsequent events, wherein Goodnight played a major role. In 1867, Charles Goodnight met the famous cattle drover Oliver Loving. Loving had been driving cattle for years before he met Goodnight. A former Confederate soldier, he was a religious family man with nine children. At the time the two met, Loving was 24 years older than Charles Goodnight, but the two men hit it off instantly and became partners in the cattle business. In J. Marvin Hunter's "The Trail Drivers of Texas," Goodnight wrote about his friend: "Oliver Loving, senior, is undoubtedly the first man who ever trailed cattle from Texas. His earliest effort was in 1858 when he took a herd across the frontier of the Indian Nation or "No Man's Land," through eastern Kansas and northwestern Missouri into Illinois. His second attempt was in 1859; he left the frontier on the upper Brazos and took a northwest course until he struck the Arkansas River, somewhere about the mouth of the Walnut, and followed it to just about Pueblo where he wintered." He continued: "In 1867 we started another herd west over the same trail and struck the Pecos the latter part of June. After we had gone up this river about one hundred miles it was decided that Mr. Loving should go ahead on horseback in order to reach New Mexico and Colorado in time to bid on the contracts which were to be let in July, to use the cattle we then had on trail, for we knew that there were no other cattle in the west to take their place." Their first cattle drive was organized from Fort Belknap, Texas, to the Pecos River and up to Fort Sumner, N.M. This route became known as the "Goodnight-Loving Trail." At Fort Sumner 8,000 starving Indians were gathered together. The cattle that Goodnight and Loving had been taking to Colorado were bought by the Army to feed the Indians instead. If you remember "Lonesome Dove," you will remember the scene where Gus McRae and the old man are caught in an Indian attack. Well, that attack happened pretty much the way the movie depicts. WJ Wilson (one-armed Wilson) was the person who accompanied Loving to scout out the territory before the cattle were to be driven to Ft. Sumner on a contract they had with the Army to feed the Indians. They left Goodnight and the rest of the men with the cattle. Goodnight had made Wilson and Loving promise to travel only by night lest the Comanches attack. But Loving was in a hurry and did not listen to Wilson or Goodnight. The Indians attacked and the two men took shelter in a river redoubt, where they held off warriors for hours. Finally, the Indians wanted to parley and Loving stood up to see where they were. A brave shot him and the arrow went through his arm and into his side. Wilson's descriptions of the events that follow are in the historical records kept in Texas' Cushman Library and other Texas Historical Society documents: "When I went down the river about a hundred yards, and saw an Indian sitting on his horse out in the river, with the water almost over the horse's back. He was sitting there splashing the water with his foot, just playing. I got under some smart-weeds and drifted by until I got far enough below the Indian where I could get out. Then I made a three days' march barefooted. Everything in that country had stickers in it. On my way I picked up the small end of a teepee pole which I used for a walking stick. The last night of this painful journey the wolves followed me all night. I would give out, just like a horse, and lay down in the road and drop off to sleep and when 1 would awaken the wolves would be all around me, snapping and snarling. I would take up that stick, knock the wolves away, got started again and the wolves would follow behind. I kept that up until daylight, when the wolves quit me. About 12 o'clock on that last day I crossed a little mountain and knew the boys ought to be right in there somewhere with the cattle. I found a little place, a sort of cave, that afforded protection from the sun, and I could go no further. After a short time the boys came along with the cattle and found me." Loving had been picked up by some Mexican vaqueros and taken to Ft. Sumner. By the time Goodnight arrived, Loving was in a bad way. The wound in his side had healed, but the doctor refused to amputate the arm, in which gangrene had set in. Goodnight and Wilson had to coerce the doctor to amputate the arm, but it was too late to save Loving. Oliver Loving asked Goodnight to provide for his family and to return his body to Weatherford, Texas, where he wanted to be buried. Goodnight kept his promise. The 600-mile trip was probably the longest funeral procession of all time. It was made famous in "Lonesome Dove" when Captain Call takes Gus McRae's body back to Texas from Montana. The African-American character of Deets in "Lonesome Dove" is based on a real black cowboy, one of many who worked for Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving over the years. Bose Ikard was born a slave and went West to work for Oliver Loving in 1866. He worked for Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving when they were partners. When Loving died, he remained a steadfast friend and employee to Charles Goodnight. Following his work in the cattle drives, Ikard settled in Weatherford, Texas. He and his wife, Angeline, were the parents of six children. He died in 1929 at age 85. Goodnight had a granite marker erected at his grave. Goodnight wrote about Ikard: "Bose surpassed any man I had in endurance and stamina. There was a dignity, a cleanliness and reliability about him that was wonderful. His behavior was very good in a fight and he was probably the most devoted man to me that I ever knew. I have trusted him farther than any man. He was my banker, my detective, and everything else in Colorado, New Mexico and the other wild country. The nearest and only bank was in Denver, and when we carried money, I gave it to Bose, for a thief would never think of robbing him: Bose Ikard served with me four years on the Goodnight-Loving Trail, never shirked a duty or disobeyed an order, rode with me in many stampedes, participated in three engagements with Comanches, splendid behavior. ... Bose could be trusted farther than any living man I know." Goodnight was responsible for saving one of the few remaining buffalo herds. He and his wife developed a passion for the animals. One of the loves of his life was cross-breeding cattle and buffalo and getting "cataloes." Charlie also created a wildlife sanctuary that replaced his passion for cattle drives in his later years. The definitive work about Charles Goodnight was written by J. E. Haley: "Charles Goodnight, Cowman and Plainsman," 1942. The tales in that book were later the basis for such Western classics as "The Searchers," "Red River," "Sons of Katie Elder" and, of course, "Lonesome Dove." Actor Barry Corbin lives in Texas. A fan of Western history, particularly Texas history, Corbin put together a one-man show a few years ago. It depicts Charles Goodnight on the last day of his life. Corbin described Charles Goodnight: "In any part that you do, there is an honesty to your character and you have to get in touch with that. In the case of Goodnight, it's easy because his core of honesty extended all the way out to surface." "Charlie Goodnight's Last Night" is a microcosm of an era marked by loyalty and devotion to personal codes. "What is important today about Charles Goodnight is the man's unshakable belief in right and wrong," says Corbin. "He lived by a code, which most people on the frontier did. And that's almost unheard [of] today." "It's a story about a man who is a symbol of what we need to be reminded about where we came from. This is a man of absolute loyalty and a man of absolute conviction about right and wrong, north and south." "People today are hungry for heroes. They're hungry for people who know what direction they're going in, what needs to be done, what their mission in life is. That's because we don't know anyone like that. We're all just drifting with the wind. But now people can come to a play about Charlie Goodnight and they see a fella who's been buffeted by bankruptcy, the loss of his ranch, the death of his wife and all his friends." Corbin concludes, "But he's standing up at age 93 and he's still defying the entire world to do anything to him. It's a real refreshing thing." Jay Zane Walley I have known many modern-era cowboys. They weren't bull riders or rodeo stars or rhinestone cowboys. They weren't the turquoise-wearing, silver-buckle, big-hat variety either. Most were working ranchers and cowboys and their wives. Nearly all sacrificed for a way of life that is disappearing. When I think of cowboy and independent soul, Teddy Blue Abbott, Goodnight and Loving, John Chisholm, Grant Kohrs, Granville Stewart, Bose Ikard, WJ Wilson, Daniel Boone and Teddy Roosevelt come to mind. In the modern era I can think of no one who represents that cowboy soul better than Jay Walley. I first discovered Jay's work when he was writing investigative pieces on land issues for the excellent Range Magazine. Born in dirt-poor conditions in Alabama, Jay, a former U.S. Marine sergeant, lives in Lincoln, N.M., with his wife, Sara. After years of struggle, Jay received a public education grant from the New Mexico-based Paragon Foundation. The grant allowed him to take his heart's desire to preserve the Western way of life and allowed it to go national. Appearing regularly on many national talk shows, Jay worked with Fox News on the "Vanishing Freedoms" series. His pieces have appeared on NewsMax as well. Jay was instrumental in organizing freedom rallies in several states to aid the dispossessed rural people in the West and across the nation. He did so tirelessly, from Elko and Jarbridge, Nev., to the Darby in Ohio and the Sawgrass Rebellion of the Everglades. Jay had a stroke on Nov. 14. He is in good spirits but is completely paralyzed on his right side. Since he and his wife have no life or health insurance, the Paragon Foundation is acting as go-between for contributions for Jay and his family. Apparently, they will be moving him to a veterans facility in Albuquerque when a bed becomes available. They will have to insert a feeding tube in Jay because he can't swallow very well. I am asking all those who benefited from Jay's work during the Klamath crisis, the Sawgrass Rebellion and the Jarbridge events of 2000 to please consider Jay and Sara as worthy of concern, prayers and contributions. Jay has always has been a fighter for the West, for freedom, for what is best about this country. He rides for the brand, the outfit, this America. It is sad that all his work and effort have not made it possible for him have the ability to pay the high cost of health insurance and private hospitals. This is the reality for those who write for the love of it, or because they love freedom, this land and its people. Jay is one who sacrificed just about everything in order to tell as many people possible, as well as the powers that be, that freedom was on the ropes and, along with it, the rural people of America. In Jay's case, his efforts have moved the distracted and the unconcerned to pay attention to rural problems and the difficulty created for rural America by the environmental movement and the federal leviathan. As far as I am concerned, he is one of the last true cowboys possessed of a noble and generous spirit wherein doing right means more than getting rich. It is a sad fact that folks like Jay are often only repaid for their efforts at the Pearly Gates. Nonetheless, I hope there are a few angels left in America who will help Jay and Sara Walley cope with this recent crisis. Jay is in the hospital in Alamogordo. Cards are always welcome. For those who live in the area, a call, a visit, a little something for the effort, would be appreciated. Contact Jay's friends through:
Paragon Foundation, Inc. Call 877-847-3443 or fax 505-434-8992 Please make a note that your input is for Jay Walley. If you would like to send cards or more, you can send them to the address above and he will get them. Help a cowboy soul this Thanksgiving season. I can think of no better way to honor the good and receive God's blessing than to aid one of His own. Regards to all this Thanksgiving.
Diane Alden Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours. – Ayn Rand Contact Diane at alden@newsmax.com.
Editor's note: |
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||
|
| All Rights Reserved © 2008 NewsMax.Com |