A Beautiful, Cruel Country.pdf

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Contents
Prologue, vii
Grandfather Wilbur and His
Friends,
I
The Man with the Bible,
Indian Country, 18
Intruder in the Chicken
Coop,
30
My Earliest Recollections,
42
10
The Desert Harvest, 148
When the Rains Came, 163
Don't Be a Zonza,
173
The Cochis Ranch, 181
Mister McTavish,
195
Start of the Fall Corrida,
207
The Last Day of Corrida,
2 I
6
A Surprise! A Surprise!,
230
A Trip to the Mountain,
49
Life Along the Creek, 64
Guarding the Gap, 74
The Bronco Busters, 88
The Spring Corrida, 96
Visitors in the Milpita,
At the Indian Villages,
109
120
We Visit the Punta de
Agua,
245
Up at the Cima Alone,
Ole,
256
I Saw Plenty!, 274
The Farewell Dinner,
278
Yours Is the Land,
298
Epilogue,
309
Feast of the Holy Cross, 132
Prologue
rather idle now, compared to
the life of turmoil it lived at the tum of the century.
It
is still
the home of a herd of horses that enjoys the creek with us. The strain
of the Spanish horse-our "rock horses" that I have praised so highly
in this book-still predominates.
In
1984, I decided to find better homes for these horses, a colorful
remnant of the past, so that I could dedicate my time to other things.
My parents, my brother William, and my sister Mary, have all passed
away. I now have my husband Marshall, my brother Henry, my sister
Ruby, and a large number of nieces and nephews. Relatives visit us
often when we stay at the ranch, but the greater part of the time the
house sits empty.
I still spend some time there alone, though. When a cloud passes
overhead, the tin roof contracts, groans, and pops, and a shower beat-
ing on the tin is a melody for me. The wind blows and groans and
cries. But it also whistles and hums and sings, and I welcome it, too,
as a friend of the old days. When I build a wood fire, the smell of the
smoke is another of myoid friends.
In
my eighties now, I enjoy my aloneness as much as ever, for my
isolation has always been only physical, not spiritual. I have never felt
depressed or lonely when alone with the land. Something always hap-
pens that dazzles me and overwhelms me with amazement and wonder.
Nevertheless, I would welcome an occasional chat with some old-timer.
It would bring fresh memories of my parents' struggles and laughter,
and of happier days.
UR RANCHITO BASKS IN THE SUN,
O
viii
Prologue
I constantly thank God for the privilege I have had of having seen
and ridden the open range, back in the days when the national forest
was open country and not crisscrossed with barbed-wire fences and
riders everywhere.
The hinterlands of the border were rugged-a turbulent sea of iso-
lation. There were mole hills, jagged ridges, toothed mountains, buttes,
mesas, washes, and gulches. There were cholla and mesquite thickets
where some trees were enormous, old and gnarled. Some sported large,
black fagot nests (cords of wood in their crowns) and huge clumps of
mistletoe, bending down the branches of their mother trees.
Dusty burro trails wound down and across the arroyos, and not a
living soul for miles. The purity of the atmosphere, the blue canopy
above, the solitude, spiritual and beautiful, always made me feel the
need for prayer. I threaded my way in and out of thickets, lost in
thoughts only solitude of this kind can evoke. In this magnificent set-
ting, thoughts came like dreams. Some are simple and fleeting, others
worthy of holding and pondering in some more objective way. I was
never in a hurry to leave that enchanted, eloquent solitude, and it
plays itself out yet, as a vivid scenario in the back of my mind.
One reason I have finally written this book was to evoke that beauti-
ful, cruel land of solitude for others in a form more accessible and per-
manent than it can take in my own memory. The first stimulus came
several years ago when I decided to write formally what I had started
so many years earlier.
My good friends, Linda Newell and Kathryn Murphy, whom I had
not seen for many years, had arrived in Tucson to visit on their way
to San Francisco.
Linda was the mother of two girls, Christine, who was then fourteen,
and Nadine, twelve. When they found out that I still had the ranch,
Linda suggested that a day there would be a wonderful outing for the
girls. So, with an ice chest full of cold drinks and sandwiches, I headed
south with my two young charges.
At the ranch I took them down to the creek, pointing out everything
I thought of interest and telling them stories of ranch life, some amus-
ing and some that were not so funny.
Back at the house we sat outside and I showed them old pictures
that I thought would be interesting. I remember that one was of my
brother William, thirteen years old, roping a bighorn. They were not
Prologue
ix
at all impressed. A young boy astride a horse, with a bighorn at the end
of his rope-so what? I told them of the Papago Indian tribe. They
were not interested.
"Doesn't seem," said Christine, with barely concealed boredom,
"that you'd have much work to do in a dead place like this."
"Back in the old days we did, though, Christine," I said. "Our little
spread went clear to the Mexican border, fifteen miles south of here."
I told her about bringing the horses up from the border ranch, and
how the leaders would arrive here around ten in the morning, but
those bringing up the rear would get here by sundown.
"Well, yes," said Nadine, "I suppose, one horse walking behind the
other, it'd take them forever to get here."
"In the days of the open range, our horses ranged from New Mexico
to the Mexican border," I told her grandly.
"You should have tied them, don't you think?" she asked.
"I guess we should have thought of that, Nadine." These girls were
impossible!
I decided to fix lunch, eat, and start back to town early. The girls
wanted jerky stew-"Indian stew," they called it-and nothing else
would do.
I left them in the ramada and went to the kitchen to roast the
jerky. Soon after, Nadine called me to see the beautiful "mini" bird.
It was the same drab brown hummingbird that had lived in the yard
so long, but I admired it for the children and told them of the beautiful
multi-colored hummingbirds that used to come to our
milpita.
"We've
seen them in books," said Nadine. They came back to the kitchen to
watch me make the stew. Just as it was ready, there came a soft
"it,
it, quit, quit,
"
and then the loud call of
"los papagos.
"
I was so accustomed
to hearing the call of quail coming to water, I had not paid attention,
but both girls rushed to my side and whispered, "There is a man out
there, Bonnie!"
"Don't worry," I said, "it must be one of the neighbors. Is he walking
or riding?"
"We didn't see him, Bonnie, but he yelled,
'los papagos!
'"
I laughed. "Oh, Nadine, that's only quail coming to water." I put
my finger to my lips and tiptoed with them to the door to see the
birds at the edge of the fountain. The yard teemed with quail of all
sizes, and more were coming, followed by large groups of chicks. The

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