“They Tell Me I Was an Easterner”

Every now and again some tourist or native of the range will say to me, “I know you have lived in Arizona a long time—but you originally came in from the East, didn't you?” The question always gives me something of a start, because I have to think hard to realize that I have not always been a Southwesterner. I get annual notices of class reunions from my university in New Jersey, news paper clippings from a friend or two in the East, and in frequent visits from old-time acquaintances “passin' through” on vacation trips—but, apart from these, I have pretty well burned my contacts in the East behind me.

I have always classed myself as a writer. Over thirty years ago I got my first professional job as a dramatic critic on a New York daily. But I have always disliked city life and eventually acquired a farm in the New Jersey suburbs. I worked it for almost ten years between writing chores, but the long winters grew longer and bleaker and I began to hanker for a less isolated routine. You see, I am a bachelor. So one winter after the holidays, I scooped up a stack of railroad and guest ranch folders and hopped a train On a blind date with the Southwest. That was almost twenty years ago and I never went back East except on a couple of business visits. It was as simple as that.

My first port in Arizona was the Y-Lightning Ranch at Hereford, a small settlement in the heart of the cattle country with ranch activities in full swing at the time. The management accommodated a few winter guests in those days, and it has since grown into one of the ranking year-round resorts in Southern Arizona. But ranching is the dominating interest at the Y-Lightning and the guests get a whale of a kick in "making a hand" at the daily chores of ranch work. The strongest urge in my strange setting was to find a pardner. And my mission was completed almost before it began. On my first morning in the corral, a dun colt came shuffling towards me out of the remuda with a look that unmistakably said: "This is one helluva world to be understood in, pardner, and I've got you sized up as a kindly young outlaw like myself. I sure would admire to team up with you and to take the breaks and the knocks along the camino of life with you as we hit the trail together."

When Frank Moson, owner of the outfit, came along. I asked him if he would sell me the colt, as he had a large herd of trained horses for his cowboys and a more than adequate number of gentle horses for his guests.

"He's just a wild mustang I ran in out of the brush," Moson told me. "But I never refuse to sell or trade anything but my missus."

So I gave Moson a check and tossed down a shot of bourbon with him to make it legal and Buckaroo, the dun colt, and I have been pardners along the trail ever since.

In those early days of guest ranches most of the "dudes" made the trip to participate in the traditions and the color of Western life. The lures of sunshine, climate and health had not yet been generally emphasized. Almost all dudes aspired to stomp a bronc, rope a steer or shoot the corks out of bottles at thirty paces before returning to effete civilization. Impromptu private rodeos and informal local pitching shows were held on the smallest provocation. The spectators would park their cars in a large circle around the chutes and watch the working cowhands and the tyros compete for small change, marbles or chalk. There was a spontaneity and drive at those homespun ranch ruckuses that has become almost extinct at the modern commercialized rodeo spectacles.

One of my most-quoted stories is about the lady dude who was witnessing her first bulldogging event and, after watching the contestant make a masterful leap from his horse, stop the steer and twist him down in winning time, turned to her wrangler escort and snorted, "That's the most awkward cowboy I have ever seen. First he falls off his horse and then he gets in the way and trips up the steer and nearly wrecks the both of them."

When I hit the Southwest, many of the pioneers and fabulous oldtimers were highlighting the scene. Some of them are still in robust good health and very articulate on the saga of the frontier. An "augerin' pow-wow" with one of these empire builders of the West is a most informative and stimulating function. Among those you would go a long way to meet on a trek to the Southwest are Frank M. King, authentic historian of the range country; Bruce Kiskaddon, "Cowboy Poet Lariat;" Judge John Larrieu, troubadour of Tombstone's heyday; Mike Cunningham, pioneer mining camp banker; Bill Hattich, Columbus Giragi and Bill Kelly, successive publishers of the "Tombstone Epitaph"; and Jack Kinney, tophand cattleman and organizer of the Fiesta de los Vaqueros.

Jack Kinney, a gentleman of amazing energy and charm, built up this outstanding midwinter celebration of the Southwest from scratchand I was honored to be on his permanent Events Committee during several seasons of his administration of the grand exhibition of cowboy sports. I even attained the eminence at the 1935 pitching show of stomping a Brahma bull outa the chutes in an exhibition listed on the program as: "Stan Adler, the New Jersey stomper, will attempt to ride a wild Brahma bull." My attempt lasted about six jumps-but it gave the spectators from the East a whacking vicarious lift.

Many amusing sidelights transpire at a guest ranch and I will draw on them at random as they occur to me: One fellow trekked out from the Pittsburgh section and became so absorbed in the yarns about gunfighters that he aspired to master the "fast draw" with a sixgun. He would stand for hours before a mirror and practice drawing a gun from its holster and aiming it at his own image. One day the hammer got caught in the procedure and, when he pulled the trigger, the .45 went off and the bullet shattered the mirror and blasted a sizable hole in the dobe wall of his cabin. The apprentice gunfighter tore out of the cabin bawling in terror and would never go within shooting distance of a sixgun again.

One guest ranch ran a line in its folder that dudes could participate in the branding. One group of guests took it at its word but arrived at the ranch at a time of year the branding had already been done. To get himself out of the quandary, the ranch owner herded an already branded bunch of calves into the corral for the guests to rebrand. While they were in the process of stamping on the irons, the chore boy looked on with a somewhat doleful expression and remarked to no one in particular, "Seems like they had orter make a picture gallery outa just one critter instead of slappin' a double brand on the whole danged herd."

One night I was reading a magazine in my cabin, waiting for a friend from the East to take a shower in the process of cleaning up for a cowboy dance. I had a pipe rack on the window ledge and I reached for a pipe. But one object on the rack did not resemble a pipe. It was a sidewinder rattler taking an evening siesta. I jerked my hand out of reach before it could get into a position to strike. Then I called in to the Easterner in the shower and asked him if he had ever seen a rattler at large. He called back that he had never seen a rattler at large or in any other capacity.

When he came into the room fully clothed, the sidewinder gave a demonstration of rattling in its most sinister key and sent the Easterner scurrying back to the shower instinctively as the last point of safety he had left. That night I observed him shaking out the blankets and rugs before turning in. And when I awoke the next morning, I found him sleeping out on the cement porch. He probably had made camp out there most of the night.

One young fellow from Kentucky with bronc riding aspirations kept urging the ranch boss to let him "stomp one out." The ranch boss finally let him get astride a yearling dairy calf in the chutes. The ride lasted only a few yards before the rider was again on terra firma. But the young Kentuckian considered the exhibition a triumph in fortitude.

The next day the ranch boss trekked to a saddle shop that was the local rendezvous for seasoned cattlemen and cow waddies. The young fellow went along. He bragged a lot about the ride he had made on the bucking bovine. By way of courteous interest, one of the cattlemen asked him what type of critter he had stomped out.

"I think it was a heifer steer," the young Kentuckian informed him as the ranch boss ducked out of the saddle shop with a very red face indeed.

The horse might be called the theme song of a guest ranch. While the more pretentious resorts may have a tennis court, a swimming pool and even a small golf course, the guests who are ranchophiles will judge a guest ranch by the quality of its horses. Naturally, the aptitude in horsemanship among the clientele of a guest ranch varies from experts in equitation to the terrified dude swinging into his first saddle. Therefore the outstanding western resort must have a wide range of types and temperaments in its remuda-from spirited quarter horses to gentle animals who direct the riders rather than having the riders direct them. A guest ranch that does not measure up with mounts suitable to every guest, falls short of the fundamental purpose for its existence.

Irrespective of the measure of their talents in horsemanship, most guests get a secondary wallop out of their riding garbiture. When they start out from the corral along the trail for the morning's workout, they feel much more a part of the range setting when they are rigged out in broad brimmed Stetsons, vibrant gabardine or satin shirts, bluejeans, cowboy boots and even chaps. They are also distinctly conscious of the appearance of the stock saddles and saddle blankets with which the ranch provides them. It all helps to bring their conception of the West to life.

No guest ranch is a success until every guest feels that he or she is a shorenuff cowboy or cowgal.

A lot of highpowered publicity has been written to lure tourists to Arizona. And yet, a lot of the things that sink deep into your senses and leave an unfading memory of splendor in your soul have been stupidly ignored. There are the still dark nights on the limitless desert with countless gleaming stars that seem to hang so low that you feel you can pick them out of the sky. There are the spreading cactus flats, blooming in yellows, reds and purples in a vista that reaches the distant aquamarine hills. There are the startling magenta sunsets casting fantastic shadows on the mountain ridges across the valley. There are the calm, imposing canyons with lofty trees as your only companions. There are the gleaming colored reefs that seem to have been painted by some prehistoric giant. There is the sunbaked open range that gives you the sense of hawklike freedom. That is Arizona!

I came to Arizona almost twenty years ago on a blind date and I am still here. I have my own ranch nowa horse ranch, with Buckaroo, the grown-up dun colt, as the tophoss. So watch yourselves if you trek out thisaway -you may never get back to where you started from if you once tread the ground of Arizona.