STORIES BY LARRY HUGHES (1.6.2.1)
Growing up in Montana can be different. The following collection of little stories were handwritten by Larry and sent to me in the late 1990s. (R R (Bob) Hughes, May, 2000)
A FISHING TRIP WITH GRANDPA
Grandpa pulls up in his Model A Ford coupe with a broken muffler underneath and smoke billowing around. Says, "Let's go fishing up to the Beaver Dam." I climbed in and away we chugged. We didn't talk much; Grampa wasn't into frivolous talk or foolish questions.
Eventually we arrived at the Beaver Dam buildings and walked over to Leonard Creek. "See the fish", he says. Sure 'nuff, in plain sight we could see a lot of fish in the creek. (It was late summer and the brook trout were spawning.) Grandpa had a gunny sack, but no fishing pole. I wondered how we were supposed to get the fish.
Grandpa reached in his back pocket and pulls out his .45 pistol. Kerblam, he shoots into the creek. Water flew, but when it settled, two fish were flopping frantically, and swimming on top of the water.
Catch those fish," he says. I quickly realized my job was to catch the fish for Grandpa and put into the gunny sack. Grandpa explained that the shock of the bullet broke their air bladder and they couldn't stay under water.
Grandpa shot, and I ran down fish until he had what he wanted. He let me shoot the pistol once. He said to shoot under the fish, not at them.
So we headed home. When we got to Virginia Creek, Grandpa stopped, and pulled out a tin cup, and we both had a cool drink. When we got to the corner, and the turn off to Tom Vincent's old ranch, Grandpa shut off the motor of the Model A, and we coasted all the way to the Tudor house, "Saves gas," he said. It was a neat day for a little kid, and the only time I shot fish, and coasted two miles down the South Meadow Creek road.
JIM WILSON
He was 5 feet, 3 or 4 inches tall and couldn't have weighed more than 125 pounds. He wore the old style Montana black hat, a wool Pendleton shirt, wool California pants with suspenders, and high heeled Hyers (?) boots with the big spurs of course. Underneath he had long underwear. I always wondered why he didn't melt in the summer.
"If you wanna ride these guys, you better know how!"
It must have been 1948. It was time to move the cattle into the higher country on the North and South Meadow Creek permits. Must have been desperate times with everyone haying - if all they could find to help Jim was me. I was 8 years old.
Dad had bought a pinto mare for me when I was 5, and I got so I could ride her fair; but the spring of "48 I rode her down to Edwin's where she ate something that killed her. I was feeling low but Dad had bought another pinto from the Garretts, a huge 17 hand horse he called "Light'ning". Dad won some cowboy races on this horse. The rider and saddle had to weigh 200 pounds in these races.
So Dad hauled Lightning and me up to Jim to learn the cowbiznes. I expect Jim wasn't too pleased the next morning to have to saddle up for me as I was too short, the saddle too heavy and the horse too tall. But I could shinny up using saddle strings and stirrup, and after he saw I could ride he lightened up and we headed for Warm Springs for cattle. We gathered Warm Springs and headed out thru the timber on the cattle and game trails.
He says, "You stay back here and keep 'em coming. Don't push too hard. Let them stay mothered up. Ride mostly on the downhill side." He left with the dogs to head them where he wanted.
I used this technique trailing cattle to the Gravely Range for 20 years or so and it still worked. There were times though when the cattle were tired, the dogs wore out, your arm was sore from throwing rocks, and you had laryngitis from hollering. Rather than beat your wife in frustration, you might as well go find some shade and take a nap. After the old cows had spent some time dreaming about all the hay they were going to eat next winter, they would get up and amble on.
I eventually caught Jim on lower Chero Mountain as we left the timber. I had all the cattle and hadn't got knocked off by tree limb or anything. He was pleased I guess becuz the stories began. He called me the "The Deacon" becuz I'd borrowed a couple Luke Short paper back books from Grandpa to read.
"Deacon", he says, "before you I had Tom Miller and Billy Stiles up here to help me. All they'd do was wrassle. So I got them up at 4 O'clock. They still wrassled, so I got them up at 3 O'clock. Still wrasslin', so I got them up at 2 O'clock. That was the end of the wrasslin'.
"By God", he continued, "One boy's a boy, two boys is half a boy, and three boys is no boy at all. You could tell Jim just loved Tom Miller - I must have heard that story dozens of times.
Tom Miller says Billy Stiles would slouch in his saddle riding along and Jim would ride up behind him and pop his bull whip behind the cantle of Billy's saddle. Sometimes Billy would get jumped.
Jim probably had ridden so many boogery horses in his younger days, that would mess you up if you slouched or fell asleep, that he couldn't stand watching Billy ride.
So we pushed the cattle from around the cow camp and Warm Springs and lower Table into the high country - Twin Lakes and Kid Lake and Sureshot and upper Chero Mt. About every 3rd days we rode South Meadow, pushing cattle to Fletcher Creek and the Missouri Mill and the B and L Basin.
The ride to Fletcher Creek and back to Cow Camp was a ripper. We used Lightening and a big bay horse for our South Meadow Creek mounts. When we rode close to camp we used other horses provided by the permittees.
Some days we hauled salt around. "Deacon", he says, "all this riding will make your butt tough. Last winter I was in the hospital and the nurse broke a needle trying to give me a shot of penicillan." You could tell he was proud of his leathery rear end.
I spent the time with open ears and closed mouth. Didn't want to become half a boy.
Jim said he was 78 years old and had ridden for the Meadow Creek Stock Association for 30 years. (Tom W. will probably have the true details but this is my version.)
He said, "I was born and raised in Nebraska and at 14 I was pretty husky. We were standing on the steps of school and the teacher whacked me with a hickory stick, so I landed one on his jaw. When he got up he was going to whack me again so I gave him another shot. That was the end of my schooling. I ran away to Texas and came to Montana with a trail herd."
So he was born about 1870 and at l4 or so might have arrived in Montana with the last of the Texas herds in 1884 or 1885. Legend says Texas herds were still arriving in 1886 when the range was overstocked and the winter killed the whole shebang in Montana and the Dakotas. (110 years later, in 1997, there is supposed to be 300,000 head of cattle winter killed in the Dakotas. Eastern Montana was hit hard too.)
Jim must have used the poker tables. Tom Miller said Jim had a ranch and a wife once but lost them both playing cards.
Jim talked all day long. "I won money in a poker game and decided to go east to the World's Fair". (Maybe in Chicago around 1900 or so.) "So I sold my saddle and left. Eventually I was broke and headed back. Got off the train in Miles City and asked the cow boss for a job. The boss looked at me in my pointed shoes and little hat with a feather, snickered and said, "Sure, son, if can ride those two horses we'll take you on. It was a set-up of course and the cowboys were all smiles. So I borrowed boots and spurs and a saddle and rode the horse. It was a rippin' bad horse and I could hardly walk for two weeks."
"The boss gave me the job, "he continued, "and later on I rode the second horse - he was easy."
Jim says, "I repped for a rancher at the round-ups one year. Started at Great Falls and ended up in Miles City where I shipped his cattle on the train. Headed back, swam across the Missouri River Christmas eve and gave the boss his money."
I can remember saying I wished we had some fancy walking horses on a trip to South Meadow.
Jim says, "In the Remuda on this outfit I was with for a while was a white pacing horse no one would ride. This newcomer fancied him and saddled him up one day. We moved cattle that day and the newcomer was riding around on the pacing horse with a big smile, bragging about the ride. The cowboys was mum and poker faced. Eventually the herd was moved and time to head home. The time had come that the cowboys had waited all day for. They took off at a gallop! The pacing horse only had one gait. Couldn't keep up and was frantic crossfiring and falling down several times. Eventually the pacer arrived after supper and the newcomer never mentioned the pretty white horse again.
"After a couple weeks the job was done and I went home. When you are 8 years old, you get homesick. Jim was able to keep the cattle pushed by himself and when the cattle came off in October I was in school.
I can remember Grandpa coming to visit us at cow camp. The dog, Stub, would jump up to be petted by Grampa with his back turned. I remarked to Jim about that.
Jim says, "Your Granpa don't like Stub to jump on him with his feet, so he steps on his back feet, and now Stub gets up backwards." Stub must have been Grampa's dog lent to Jim.
A new cabin was built in 1955 out of canyon plank. My time in 1948 we lived in an old log cabin 20 or 30 yards north of the new one and closer to the creek. It was full of mice, warped floor and leaky roof. The ranger burned it down after the new one was built.
Jim had gotten something in his eyes; I can't remember what he said it was, strycnine, arsenic, or lye, or something. One eye was gone and he had a glass eye to replace it. Tom Miller remembers having to put Jim's glass eye back in sometimes. I'm not sure that I didn't do that once at 8 years. The other eye had a thick lens in his spectacles, but he evidently could see fairly good. Not good enough to drive but could still cowboy.
The end of this story is a little sad. The next year the association fired Jim and of course both Jim and I were heartbroken. Lewis and Tom W. tried to find Jim a riding job, but of course he was too old and I was too young. We were reduced to wrangling Dudes for Ben Brinton. It wasn't the same, "If you aint a cowboy, you aint s____."
Jim still showed up for a few more years, staying with Tom W. or Millard Easter at branding time or maybe to move cattle, etc. Eventually he came no more. Lewis went to see him in a rest home but Jim's mind was gone and he didn't recognize Lewis - just took off in his wheelchair.
THE CHUCK WAGON
About l945 times were desperate, Herb and "Shug" and Mom's parents were in desperate straights. Mom was teaching school, grades l through 8 at the McAllister school. Lewis had been mining and building log structures with the Garrets. In summer of l947 mom landed the first teaching job at Ennis, which she kept until retirement.
Lewis had a set of house logs ready to go. He planned to build Midge a house, just west of what would become T. S's pool hall, on 6 acres he'd bought from Ed. Mom could see no profit in it at the time, and "took his logs", Lewis claimed.
Lewis was a talented and "wild" young man then and a 9.5 on a one to l0 scale for toughness. Mom was a definite l0 and smarter to boot. The disagreement came to a head, Lewis fetched Midge a clout alongside the head, and promptly received a bowl full of mush on his nose.
Fifty years ago I watched in wide eyed wonder, but today it kinda tickles me. Midge got the logs and they built a restaurant on the lake. Summertime's were good, but 9 months of idleness. Eventually they moved the structure to Ennis and made 4 apartments. I know Mom was relieved, years later, to pay it off and sell it.
THE T.V. RIFLE
A couple of weeks ago Claudette (1.6.2.1) runs breathlessly into the house for the 30-30 rifle. "There's a coyote just over the fence." "Well, take the 270," I says. Although she has never shot the 270, she has decided with true feminine logic that it kicks too hard. "It kicks too hard," she says, and leaves with the 30-30. After a while she returns. "I had a broadside, standstill, shot with a rest on a post at 75 yards and never touched the coyote." The T. V. rifle had struck again.
A few days later the dogs were barking south of the house so Creyt (1.6.2.1.1) takes the 30-30 and walks out. Soon he returns. "I had a good shot at a fox under 100 yards. Complete miss.” I didn't feel sorry for him, since he bought the 30-30 shells. I hadn't bought a shell for the 30-30 in almost 40 years.
Lewis (1.6.2) was the odd man out when it came to hunting. I never saw him shoot anything except a gopher now and then; and maybe he'd 410 a Sans Phoebe if he caught some stealing his raspberries. About 1945 his family must have convinced him to go on a hunting trip. Lewis didn't own a big game rifle and must have asked Tom Vincent to borrow his 30-30. Tom gave Lewis the rifle for keeps and to this day I am unsure whether it was an act of good faith or if Tom is still giggling about it somewhere. I doubt Lewis ever fired it.
Lewis gave me his 22 when I was seven and I shot at gophers, magpies, and crows. Sometimes I hit one. At nine Lewis decided that I was responsible enough for bigger game and handed me the T.V. rifle. The T.V. rifle is a lever action Winchester, patented in 1894. It stands 44 1/2 inches from the steel butt plate to the tip of its six sided barrel. Underneath the barrel is a tube that holds 8 shells, and if you put one in the barrel and half cock the hammer, it will swallow one more. The action is smooth and in times of stress and buck fever, I have put all nine through in under 20 seconds.
So last week I was coffeeing up on the patio and thought about firing the 30-30. After 3 random shots at bushes on the hillside south of the house, it was apparent the rifle shoots neither right nor left - up and down must be the culprit. Claudette spotted for me with the fieldglasses and after 3 more shots the mystery was solved.
If you put the front sight in the V so that it's barely possible to see it, the rifle is sighted in for 200 yards. If you use the sights, like you might shoot at an elk in a hurry, the rifle shoots high at 200 yards. After checking the trajectories in my handloading book, I had to grin at all the flack I took from the Hughes clan when I was a kid. The rifle orbits rather than trajecs. It shoots 8 to 10 inches high at 100 yards with a 170 grain bullet, and if Lewis bought 150 grain bullets for me, the orbit gets higher.
Lewis took me hunting the first few times and after I'd shot the rifle some he let me hunt in Fletcher Creek canyon alone. During those years the Fletcher deer herd grew in number and would serenely graze along the hillside while I was shooting, with only a tail twitch or a nervous glance up to check to see if I was doing the shooting. If the Sackett clan would a had this rifle, they would have starved in the Tennessee hills and Louis Lamour would have had to get a government job.
When cousin Dave (1.6.1.2) was about 14 and I about 10, we got a buck deer in the Jones place area. After a half a box flurry, I hit the buck in the antlers and while he was shaking his head, Dave shot him. The deer rolled 1/4 mile down the steep Madison Canyon hillside. Edwin had to bring his horse, Casey, up to drag out the buck. Edwin made several remarks about not shooting your animal in the ass because that's where the best meat is. Dave and I were too pleased to pay much attention. Later, Casey decided to eat supper on the highway at night and was killed by a car.
Grandpa (1.6) took me hunting to the Jones place also. The model A coupe was broke down for good out in the swamp southeast of the pool hall and he had a little Willys Jeep that he had got from Edwin. My job, I expect, was to open the gates, but I was "packin" the T.V. rifle. We came to some deer and grandpa was frantically maneuvering his 30-06 to shoot out the window. He was far too slow, I was out the off side and had four high ones on their way before the deer were gone. Grandpa laughed and laughed, and for years told everyone. The next time we hunted though, he made it clear that he was to get the first shot. He respected my speed.
Lewis and Grandpa and Uncles Ed and Tom and cousin Dave all took me hunting those early years and razzed me about my shooting. I was low on skill, but high on enthusiasm. Only my "extra" Grandpa, Walter Vincent, was polite - he was from the maternal side of the clan.
About 1950, the brothers Ed., Lewis, and Tom had sheep. One day Dad, Uncle Tom and I were standing where my house is today, and 2 stray dogs showed on the hill to the south. Dad handed me the T.V. rifle. Tom got it and missed the first shot, but saw dust and with the 2nd shot, drilled the running dog at 225 yards. Best shot I ever saw. Tom hands back the rifle and says that I should be able to shoot that rifle. Well, I wish he'd a had to shoot that dog at 100 yards. Twenty five years later I made that exact same shot at a running coyote, except I had a 270 with a scope.
About 1957, when I was 17, I got a set of spectacles and scraped up the cash to buy a 270 rifle and scope from Sears and Roebuck. The trouble with the new rifle was that the shooting was over too quick. Whenever I dusted a particularly smelly old mule deer buck, I made sure Grandpa got a few steaks.
This year I'm planning to shoot my land owner's cow elk with the T. V. rifle. Runnin' cows makes ya long on stubborn and I intend to show that old rifle exactly who is boss.
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View or Download video of Larry praticing calf roping and some shots of a cattle drive he lead.