HUNTING WITH BRUSH AND PALETTE IN ARIZONA

Hunting with Brush and

To “capture” wild life and possess them in the most enjoyable way, you must leave the comforts of the cozy life and thread your way through the leafy and sometimes thorny land of Arizona's backyard. These precious, “certain” moments in the fast moving pageant of nature are the quarry we are after . . . the first leap of surprised elk . . . the setting of wings of wildfowl . . . the keen look of a Kaibab buck looking you over . . . or just a sparrow on a nail on an old board fence.

A roaring sound filled the canyon. It came from above, rapidly growing louder. It wasn't until I saw the tops of the mesquite bend toward me that I realized it was the wind. Seconds later it washed over me, sweeping away a suffocating heat and turning my perspiration-soaked clothes into a blessed cooler.

A hundred yards ahead, bounding from boulder to boulder, John Russo led us up toward the natural water tanks that gave this mountain range its name-Tinajas Altas. Chuck Mayberry, close on his heels, had introduced me to John several hours ago in Yuma. Our reason for being here in this sun-blasted, sunglaring, sun-cracked outcrop of shimmering granite mountain in the fury of mid-August was to get some information on desert bighorn sheep.

Up to a few months ago I didn't even know such an animal existed.

Fresh from Wisconsin's verdant hills, this my first real encounter with Arizona - came as a stunning blow. It just didn't seem possible that life of any known description could choose, purposedly or accidently, to make this appalling piece of furnace lining a home.

But in a few hours I was to learn things about this section of our planet that would have a momentum of appreciation that is still 20 years later rolling on unchecked.

One piece of advice which has remained with me for most of my years was to “never lose your childlike awe of the things of nature.” Here in the southwestern Arizona desert, a few miles from “El Camino del Muerto” (the highway of death) on the fringes of the formidable Sierra Piñacate, I was being guided to the outermost fringes of that philosophy.

In an unbelievably short time, Russo had unfolded to me the first of the secrets of this harsh but rich land that had become an area of his work as a research biologist for the Arizona Game and Fish Department. It also was the beginning of an awareness of the immense contribution the dedicated men of this department have given, not only to Arizona, but even to remote areas such as Kenya, where Dr. Wendell Swank, wildlife biologist and former director of the department, is now heading a United Nations wildlife research effort on the game plains of central Africa.

Until I became acquainted with the department, my only concept of a game ranger was a man who prowled the wilds

Palette in Arizona

looking for game law violators. This was a naive belief. Only a portion of today's Wildlife Manager's time is spent in law enforcement. The main work of his dawn-to-dark day is occupied in gathering data to successfully manage the wild game species in his section, and a wondrous by-product of his efforts is the preservation and improvement of habitat for all creatures. This bonus of the many non-game birds and non-game animals is beginning to be recognized by a broad spectrum of wildlife organizations.

But back to my new venture. If it was possible to unlock my jaw further in amazement, it became totally unhung when John and I made a mutual discovery. While sitting in the meager cool of a sheep cave overlooking the most savage piece of real estate imaginable, our conversation drifted from desert bighorn to our own personal backgrounds. We found that our childhood paths had criss-crossed, overlapped, and interwoven for many years, but fate would have it that the only time we would actually meet was on a remote pinnacle of super-heated rock, thousands of miles from our Milwaukee foaling grounds. This meeting formally introduced me to the wildlife treasure of Arizona and the host of remarkable subjects for my paintings and drawings that make up my life's work. To write all about the fauna of this land would require great time and many volumes. So, to fit the story to this medium, the ARIZONA HIGHWAYS magazine, let me tell it to you in vignettes. Take the brush and palette of your mind's eye and follow me: Except for the distant scream of a circling hawk, and for the murmuring winds sighing as the primeval surf did against these now arid outcroppings, the Yuma desert is mostly a silent land.

A rock and its escort of fragments tumbling down a cliffside is startlingly loud. The sound says "Sheep." Desert bighorns seem quite unconcerned about knocking around as they pass along their way.

To see a mature ram skyline himself is to engrave upon your tablet of life an unforgettable experience. This remarkable accomplishment of nature is a classic example of self-sufficiency. The summertime ground temperatures of some of the sheep's front room carpet reaches 150° and that same piece of ground may be freezing on the other side of the equinox. Mix this well with a thorny diet and questionable drinking water and you begin to regard this rare beast as a kind of treasure.

In the Kofa Mountains, some years after I had met John, I watched a ewe suddenly appear on a high ledge. Her entrance was theatrical. Seconds later a lamb stepped alongside. The mother stood statue-still for many minutes. Her next movement was a slight turn and cocking of her head. Although I was more than 200 yards away, and well-hidden, she took to staring me down. Through the telephoto lens on my camera it became an eye-to-eye duel. It was torture not to grin. Somehow I won out. Abruptly she flicked her body and, like quicksilver, she and the lamb dropped down the perpendicular face of the cliff, eased along the steep face of an escarpment, and made their way to a spring in a shallow, pouch-shaped cave in the cliff wall. “Tunnel Spring” is the name given to this oasis. The back wall is dark green with algae where the seep starts flowing to a pool in the floor. I was on a hillside overlooking a deep arroyo and had a direct view into the cave interior. Mourning doves in the mesquite surrounding the blind, built by the Fish and Wildlife Service for observation of the spring, were cooing continuously. Their calls were amplified many-fold from the sounding board of the cliff face across the way. This particular part of the desert was far from silent.

Great processions of Gambel quail, making Gregorian chant choirs out of quail calls, traced their lovely way upward toward the spring. One covey numbering close to 70 had single-filed into the cool darkness of the cave. Their lilting, shameless gossip was broadcast far and loud from out of this natural megaphone. Suddenly, I just knew that I was in for a rare treat. It occurred to me that they might not walk back out, but that once having sipped their morning “tea” they just might leave all at one time.

When they did, it was thunderous. Looking head-on into an exploding skyrocket of quail, bursting out of the dark pocket into brilliant sunlight, was a surge of joy. Straight toward me they came, tilting their compact bodies one way, then another, and shooting by the blind on hissing wings. What a grand moment!

Now I was watching the sheep. I wondered if they would return the same way they came, and just how would they get back up the sheer wall of the cliff. I shouldn't have doubted. Just like a motion picture in reverse, except they were pointed the right way, they flowed up the precipice and were gone.

I have an indestructible respect for desert bighorn sheep.

Great forested vistas, descending through climate transition zones, changing from pine to piñon, oak, juniper and sage, to the splendid Sonoran Desert. This desert is bejeweled with living emeralds where the mountain ranges push their island forests into the clouds.

Would you believe that grizzly bear once haunted the primitive Mogollon countryside and harassed the first explorers to invade this treasured land? Or that Merriam elk (now extinct) bugled their challenges by the thousands through October highland meadows? Well, elk still do. Brought in many years ago to replace the original denizens of the high timber, the Roosevelt elk, along with mule deer, white-tail deer, turkey, black bear (the grizzly is gone also), and mountain lion drift through the splendid forests.

The exposed face of the Mogollon Rim cliffs tell a paleontologist's story of primitive seas. The fossil shells and coral lumps eroded out of limestone and sandstone formations are a part of the soil structure both above and below the Rim. Deer tiptoe across this ancient sea bed and wild creatures browse upon the plants and grasses that are nurtured by the minerals slowly unlocking from the petrified remains of a forgotten age.

In the dim past, immense forces pulled at the foundations of the land of Arizona and, in a torment of wresting, shoved up a massive escarpment of land that divides the state in the middle from nearly west to full east and across into New Mexico. As luck would have it, men gave it the adventure-sounding name of “Mogollon Rim.” Here nature lavished blessings. Vast forests of ponderosa pine fur the highlands. Mixed with aspen, spruce, fir and the understory plant life, it harbors a wide variety of wildlife.

It is a tipped land. Above the rim, the terrain drains northward, fractured by ruggedly beautiful canyons, and dropping to the stark beauty of the Painted Desert of the Navajo and Hopi peoples. Below the rim, it rolls and convulses southward in Dawn could not fully break through the low blowing fog which the south winds pushed up against the battlements of the great Mogollon escarpment and spilled the cool mists up over the forest. Aspens gleamed whitely with a seeming light of their own against the grand sweep of dark firs. Mosses were rich on rocks and on stumps and in the furrowed bark of an ancient spruce. Ferns in softly bright October colors were touched just enough by frost to change their summer green for autumn's golden rust. Clumps of vermillion ash brought fire from the same frost.

Bob Hernbrode guided the car gently over the narrow trails. This ranger from the Arizona Game and Fish Department knew this land and its forest inhabitants. We came to photograph elk and to survey, to the extent which we would be able, the other game animals of this region. He was reinforcing his research for his departmental functions and I was gathering material to serve as research to authenticate my work as a wildlife artist for Hall-mark Calendars.

Throughout the day we experienced the extremes of weather. Occasional groups of elk drifted into the forest at our approach, some with guarded dignity and others at full throttle. While we waited, Bob recounted the years of effort the Department put into the management of Arizona's elk herd. Now when autumn embraces the highlands, you can hear the forested canyons ring with the challenges of bull elk. If you're fortunate, you can watch the herds in the alpine meadows sharing their domain with mule or white-tail deer. Chances are a flock or two of turkey will cross your path, too. The painting, "Crashing Toward Cover," (pg. 16) is set in typical Arizona elk country.

All morning my two young sons, Tom and Mark, and I followed the desert washes looking for the coveys of Gambel quail which call this area home. Brushing through dense tangles of mesquite and catclaw we searched in vain for these fine, dashing birds.

The sky was lowering. Fast flying scud skimmed the toothy mountain peaks and soon the sun was blotted out. Winds tore at the palo verdes and greasewood. On the ridges, the grasses were bent, bowing to the whim of the winds. We took shelter from the full force of the swirling rivers of air snaking through the arroyos and had our lunch. The sky became very dark, and knowing the power of an angry desert, I decided to return to our parked car. I guided the boys up to the top of the long sloping ridges, which buttress the McDowell Mountains, instead of through the washes. Here we found the quail.

They taught me a possible survival lesson when I discovered that it was actually warmer and less drafty just below the leeward crest of a windblown ridge than it was among the brush thickets below. The birds were not in coveys but in singles or pairs which often flushed with drumming roars when we passed too close.

Our trekking through the desert, however, actually pushed many out ahead of us, and they formed coveys as they gathered at the point of a ridge, flushing with wild abandon and rocketing away. Overhead, red-tailed hawks swung in symphonies of motion, seemingly enjoying the power of the wind.

This land has a certain beauty found nowhere else. Because of the deep grey-blue of the storm-filled sky, the warm light ochre of the granite soil took on a soft glow. The muted greens of the plants were a lovely tapestry woven across the hills. Mountain ranges, stacked in ramparts against the sky, were black in the distance.

As we topped out on the high ground near the car, I looked back to see how the boys were doing. At this moment, the clouds parted and a shaft of late sunlight pierced the dark scene, bathing the ridge in a golden flood. A covey of quail that had sat tight in the brush as I had passed now flushed when the boys came by, and the sun glared off their underwing coverts. Wheeling on the wind, they were gone. So went the sunlight as the rent in the clouds mended.

Gifts of brief moments like this become the vintage wine of life. Compress them, bottle them, age them well, and a sip of them now and then makes living a little richer. The out-ofdoors has many such vineyards and Arizona, especially so studded with contrasts, has given me a good harvest.

John Prescott, author of western stories and several juvenile novels, and I had driven to the end of the forest trail on McClintock Ridge. The abandoned cabins of an old ranch looked like a good place to camp for the night. We drove on into the hollow of the little valley and stopped alongside the silver-aged logs of the tumbled-down main ranch house.

Even though it was still early in the afternoon, and the October sun was bright, a kind of chill permeated the air and penetrated deep into our skin. With scant hesitation, we agreed to go back up into the forest to find a camp site. A little more than a mile away we passed through an ancient grove of Ponderosa. A virgin forest such as this has a character hard to express. Does the life force of a great tree extend its power to living things nearby? How can a grove of venerable monarchs create a cathedral presence? Does the current of life communicate in intangible ways to the pulse of life in the creatures that pass by? We were caught by the spell. This was our camp site. We drove on to find a clear spot. Giant deadfalls ridged the forest floor like ancient sculptures. Beautiful in their carved grace and rich color, they embellished the land with the look of untouched wilderness. Dense ferns, bronzed from frost, hedged up against the broken flanks of the gallen giants. Where great sections of encircling wood had sloughed off, the punky heartwood caught the filtered sunlight and glowed with rich umbers and muted oranges. Roaming through the punk were the busy insects charged with the responsibility of reducing the log to the ingredients of soil to nurture the seedlings reaching for sunlight.

Aspens and gambel oak, ablaze with the joy of October, stood in proud association with their immense, sienna barked, Ponderosa guardians. Through a sun-splashed clearing ahead, a flock of wild turkeys suddenly appeared and trotted with liquid grace across the trail. Their plated flanks were burnished with bronzes and metallic greens. In an instant they dissolved into the thick undergrowth.

We stopped the car in the clearing and dashed to follow them into the forest. We found the flock in a small canyon several hundred yards away. A spring bubbled up through moss-bound boulders, and the great birds were feeding in the surrounding tall grasses and drinking the cool water.

Hidden well, we watched them for nearly an hour. All gobblers, all adults, all excitement for us. Upon returning to the car to make camp, we came out onto the trail below the clearing where we had parked. Making our hearts leap was a freshly made, clearly unmistakable paw print of a mountain lion on top of our tire tracks. So we knew that for at least a brief moment we were not alone in stalking that flock of gobblers.

We awoke at frosty dawn to the shocking, bugling whistle of a bull elk. The clarion call came from the same turkey spring. Having never heard this sound of sounds in the wild before, I can't begin to describe the thrill of the moment, but every square centimeter of my body's skin was as frosted with goose bumps as the sugar coating on my mother's Christmas cookies.

The sound of the names of the wild places is an overlooked phenomenon. No word, no name, could replace “Canada.” Its three syllables slip off the tongue and through the teeth, dragging in tow visions of caribou herds, wolves at timberline, northern lights and waving lines of geese.

As “Canada” is to the North American continent, “Kaibab” is to Northern Arizona. Here dense stands of aspen, pristine white on black soil, filter out of their autumn hair a constant shower of golden doubloons. This fabulous plateau is the habitat of the most famous mule deer of all creation.

The Kaibab forest island, backing up against the Grand Canyon to the south, shoulder to shoulder with House Rock Valley to the east, the Grand Canyon of Kanab Creek to the west, and gazing northward to the rich, sculptured sandstone cliffs of Utah, lives in a splendor all its own.

Think of the names which encircle it like gems on a crown: Vermillion Cliffs, Pariah Plateau, House Rock Valley, Marble Canyon, Phantom Ranch, Bright Angel Point, Havasupai, Mount Trumbull, Antelope Valley, Moccasin Indians, Muggins Flat... all picture words in a picture country.

There is an invaluable healing tonic to the overstressed human psyche in the secret forest glades, and the North Kaibab is blessedly encrusted with these pockets of beauty. The simple knowledge that they are there, even if a person can't always get to them, is rewarding comfort enough.

John Russo, his boys Kip and Terry, my sons Tom, Mark and Bob, and I wrapped our hungry bodies around the steaks that John just broiled over aromatic coals. This ironwood, which John had brought up from the Yuma deserts to Ryan on the Kaibab, burns with a clear brilliance. Looking up into the blazing star-filled sky, I recalled the legend that the stars were the campfires of Indians in their heaven. Fortified with these steaks, we tumbled into our sleeping gear to gather strength for the next day's foray into the depths of the forest.

John knows the Kaibab as few men do. With his family he spent five years doing intensive research for the technical study now published as The Kaibab North Deer Herd. From his findings and recommendations, the Kaibab herd is managed to insure as far as is humanly possible the continued prosperity of this remarkable deer.

Dawn found us working our way toward one of the many points of land which project off the plateau. From each of these points is a throat-catching view of wilderness reaches that fairly sings of the old west.

This is the land scouted, explored and hunted by Theodore Roosevelt and set aside by him in 1906 as part of the Grand Canyon National Game Preserve. We were discovering anew the great treasures of this land.

Although we saw numerous deer, it was not until many years had passed that I was to see the true Kaibab buck. Until you come face-to-face with this splendid animal, you haven't really seen a deer. My moment came late in the afternoon following a remarkable day of exploring.

It was excitement enough when two fine does leaped off a cut bank and cleared 15 feet of road, landing many feet downhill, then bounded off into the forest. Next two yearling bucks paused to drink from a rain pool in the logging trail. Their reflections doubled the beauty. Farther down the way, a prime, four-point buck stepped into the open, stood statue still for a respectable moment, then moved off into the timber. Another buck joined him and there was no comparison - the second deer looked immense. Then all deer standards were broken. Out of a stand of old, leaning aspen, a buck stepped into a patch of late day sunlight, looked back over his shoulder and, with one single fluid movement, disappeared into the forest. For the second or two that I saw him, I knew what brought men thousands of miles, bearing hardships and putting full stress on all their resources, to acquire him. This Kaibab buck is hands-down the most splendid of all the deer family. And I finally got to meet him.

The painting, "Working Down to Sowats Point" (Page 15) is a capture of that moment, but placed in another North Kaibab setting from a different angle In the area just west of Phoenix, the confluence of many rivers forms a vast, fertile basin. This land, now extensively farmed, is the historic flood plain of the Salt, Gila, Agua Fria and Hassayampa rivers and the Centennial Wash. Hydroelectric dams have now stilled the Salt and Gila, and except for runoffs from unusually heavy rains, these stream beds are dry. The only reasonably "permanent" waters now are the irrigation tail-water ponds and channels which provide habitat for much of the local wildlife.

When the frost gets the upperhand on the sun in late December, these bottomlands become bronzed with lovely colors. Overhead, wavering skeins of migrating waterfowl charge the air with an ancient excitement. To see this land right, you should time your arrival with that marvelous moment when the great ball of the earth rolls over eastward enough to let the sun peak over the rugged crags of the Sierra Estrellas. Things happen fast. The wild world awakens around you. The frosty stillness is punctuated by the first bird calls. Soon torpedo-shaped silhouettes of mourning doves leaving their roosts streak across the glowing sky. Cottontail rabbits scamper to hidden places ahead of you. With the richening of golden light, song birds call out their morning prayers from the mesquite thickets banked against the stream beds. Quail fluff their feathers against the chill and send plaintive messages on the dawn winds.

To bring your blood to a tingling race throughout your chill-hunkered body, a flight of mallards wedging past violet mountain backdrops will do the trick.

Early explorers wrote of great migrations of waterfowl filling the sky. Today those flights are just a trickle. But wildlife organizations, especially Ducks Unlimited, are doing heroic work to save what we have and to rescue what we can of this wild bounty.

While the dawn changes from luminescent pink to glorious gold, the tempo of life gains momentum. My sons and I can recall many mornings when the sun-sculptured slopes of the White Tank Mountains became the most beautiful sight in the world.

Farther west and to the south, we once saw what appeared to be a mile-long blanket of black smoke drifting close to the ground over the autumn-rich salt cedars. We drove in haste to see what was the matter. When we were closer, we found that the “smoke” was an incredibly vast flight of birds. Millions of redwing blackbirds, escorted by a variety of hawks, poured out

of the tamarisk jungles along the Gila River bed. We watched enthralled by this pageant of life and the shrieking din of their cries on the still, dawn air.

Today, much of that salt cedar has been removed, and so has most of the wildlife that pulses through the bottomlands. Giant machines in the hands of a government agency are stripping the land to its dusty, bare bones, letting the life-killing salts leach up to the surface. In place of wild beauty is a growing scene of desolation. The mesquite and splendid old cotton-woods come down along with the tamarisk. It is a terrible price we are paying for "flood control" or "water saving" or, in some cases, opening land for farming.

There are still places, though, where a flight of pintails with wind whistling through their pinions and necks stretching and feet splayed to balance for landing, can drop into a secluded waterhole. Or you can, with cameras grinding, film the wild flight of teal and redheads and mallards or Canada geese.

A sunrise with killdeer crying and ducks whistling over is a treasure house for a wildlife artist. I hope that not all the habitat is destroyed in the name of progress.

Arizona has been good to me. It seems that after 20 years, I am still discovering her. Time simply does not permit the recording on canvas all the pages of pictures she unfolds. From the native creatures of her varied terrain, to the seasonal winged visitors from as far as arctic tundra, this land is a picture book land. When I take my brush in hand and begin the fascinating phenomenon of painting, I owe a deep gratitude to all those who preserve Arizona for you and me.

BRONCS from page 9

They were an enormous reservoir for the sort of bucking horses that put on a good show and were always available in some herd or other.

After the Taylor Grazing Act in 1934, the government swept the western ranges of the worthless wild horses.

With that unrelenting sweep it took a good decade to finally dwindle the numbers of wild horses went the last of the old mustang blood left in the wild herds. And if Bob Robertson is correct in attributing bucking to the mustang blood, even a modicum of it, then so went also the old bronc with his bucking tricks rarely seen since the passing of the mustang: "the humped back, bogged head, stiff legs and bunched feet."

In its place came the "poop-riggin'" (flank strap) which made kickers from horses that were starting to become runaways. (Actually, a flank strap was used on some of the early-day rodeo horses, too, in order to get all the action out of them. But this was bucking action and not a kicking foray.) Now the flanked horses come out of the chutes with a high head, swayed back, spread legged and kicking.

Gib Kepner, from Warm River, Idaho, who rode for the CVC in Montana when that outfit ran "the worst bunch of maneaters and outlaws in the country," also said "hell, ridin' a kickin' horse is about like forkin' a hammock."

This line of old-day partisanship also says that the early-day rider was a superior horseman on a bronc. This is a time-less debate among rodeo buffs, and takes on the bantering of comparisons with the oldtime horses.

Granted, there aren't as many top-notch horses in rodeos today as there once were. But as we will see there are some current performers just as wicked in their gymnastics as some of the oldtime horses.

It might be, however, that the oldtime rider was a better horseman. Certainly he had more opportunities to develop as a first-class rider. Even forty years ago a man whose life was centered around stock and ranching spent a greater part of his life on horseback and, whether breaking horses for ranches or topping remounts for the army, he had a lot of horses to practice on, the tough range horses. Also, to ride a bucking horse in good style was to set up yourself high among the cowboys as a good hand. Cowboys worked hard at developing prowess as a bronc rider.

Hippy Beimeister was one of them, and is now president of the rodeo division of the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City. Hippy started riding broncs in 1912 he rode Steamboat once in the Irwin Brothers Wild West Show. "Well, I got on him. But I didn't ride him very very long."

Hippy is now 75, has a few championships to his credit and has been an active and perceptive follower of the rodeo sport. He won't go so far as to say the older bronc riders were better men on a bronc.

"No matter where or at what period of time you start comparing you'll find exceptions. That Dakota cowboy Casey Tibbs is of the later period, but when you start talking bronc riders he has to be included. He was champion bronc rider and all around cowboy eight times. He had balance and style and quick reflexes on a horse. Like the saying goes, Casey could 'keep one leg on one side, the other leg on the other side, and the mind in the middle.'"

But Hippy does note a difference in styles of riding between the old days and current times.

"Then," he says, "you bucked with a horse until he threw his head up. You might stay aboard twenty or twenty-five seconds. But spectators today would not tolerate every horse being ridden until he was bucked out. That could be brutal.

"And in the beginning we had no chutes and you might have a bad get-away on a horse because a horse could do a lot while being snubbed. Now you ride for ten seconds you can hold your breath, we had to rate ourselves or we'd run out of wind and you have the opportunity of settling yourself on your horse in a chute.

"But mostly we rode differently by taking a shorter hold on the horse's head and could spur back to the cantleboards. Now the rider gives more rein and sets back more on the saddle and don't spur as far back. They can't, of course, sitting back as they do on a horse that kicks away from the flank strap."

Hippy rode with some of the legendary names in rodeo history: Bob Askins, now ranching in Montana, Hippy con-siders was one of the best. "You could tie the toughest broncs to a fence and you'd have to put your money on Bob. He'd ride them all."

Then there was Paddy Ryan.

"Paddy was hitting his lick about 1925. He was always knocking at the door in the stiffest competition. He was a hit with the grandstand, too; a little red-headed freckle-faced Irishman. And with a name like Paddy Ryan he sure had the Irish pulling for him."

Paddy is sixty-seven and now living in Tucson, Arizona, where he trains Quarter Horses. He started riding broncs up in Montana when he was sixteen. He drew Midnight once for a show but didn't sit him out. But he did stick to an equally tough horse called U-Tell-Em. Paddy rode the bronc to a championship at Pendleton that clinched for him the coveted Roosevelt Trophy. There were other championships, too: at Calgary, Cheyenne, Topeka, Tulsa and other top prizes to make his name permanently embossed in rodeo his-tory. Ask him today what he thinks about the bucking horses and he declares: "You couldn't get me on a pitching bronc today for love or money."

Another riding buddy was Yakima Canutt, a tall, versatile rodeo performer. Yak was the type ype who figured he could ride just about any horse. He got thrown a few times, as he did on

MAX KEGLEY MAX KEGLEY

No Name, but always came back to ride the horse next time. Yak later went to Hollywood and devised stunts for westerns and action pictures that are now stock happenings in movies. Later, when age began to slow his reflexes for the exacting stunt horse work, he turned to directing and is today the best known action director. He did the fight scenes in Spartacus, Khartoum and the chariot race scene in Ben Hur. I asked Hippy what was it that made these riders great? "You had to measure carefully what sort of horse you were riding. Each had their bag of tricks. Some riders could ride certain types better than others. A straight-away bucker might be easy for one rider while a spinner would be rough for him. My friend Perry Ivory rode 'most all the top horses on the rodeo circuit in the 20's and 30's, but he had a way with head-throwing horses which are tough to ride. He says you ride them on a looser rein and that you've got to handle it like you were fishing for trout with a fly rod. Otherwise the horse will pull you right over its head. But a good man felt this right away. You hear some fellas after a ride say, 'Gee that was a rough bucking horse; he'd like to break me in two.' "Another fella rides the same horse and he does it smooth and easy. You just get your stride with them, get your lick on him as we used to say. Pete Knight could get his lick on just about any horse. And you know where he rates . . ."

Doff Aber on Brown Jug. Doff was World's Champion Bronc Rider in 1941 and 1942, and received the second Bronc Rider in 1941 and 1942, receiving the second highest number of points for the title of World's Cowboy Champion in 1941.

Pete Knight might be one of the truly best riders ever. He rode many of the best broncs of the time: Midnight, Five Minutes to Midnight, Tumbleweed, Cannonball and Duster, who tragically ended Pete's luminous rodeo career when he was thirty-three. Pete's career spans both Canada and the United States. He was born in Philadelphia in 1903, but came west to Oklahoma with his family while still a child. There his world became one of horses. In 1914, the family moved to a homestead north of Calgary and soon Pete turned to bronc riding. Almost from the outset of his career he had the special confidence that makes a champion. In the 1920's he won a number of championships on both sides of the border and the Canadian Championship in 1927 that put his name on the Prince of Wales Trophy. He qualified twice more over the years and retired the esteemed trophy. He was also champion bronc rider in 1932, 1933, 1935 and 1936. This was a record for the time. Another big win for Pete was the Jack Dempsey Trophy, which the famed boxer offered in 1932. Competitors were limited to the winners of the four big rodeos of 1932: Earl Thode, representing Cheyenne Frontier Days; Gene Ross, Calgary; Frank Studnick, Pendleton; and Pete Knight for Madison Square Garden. They were to be matched against two other champs who proved their way by having not been previously ridden: Steamboat, not the old Steamboat, but another black that had tremendous bucking ability, and Cannonball, who might have been the devil reincarnated. Cannonball was a flamboyant white; a vicious horse who wouldn't hesitate to take a backward fall on his rider. The contest took place in Reno, Nevada. On the first day Frank Studnick drew Steamboat. He hit the dirt before he finished the ride. Pete drew Cannonball and took a win. The next day Steamboat tossed Gene Ross, and Earl Thode was disqualified on Cannonball. On the third day, Pete had only to ride Steamboat. He did and won the Dempsey Trophy. In 1937 Pete drew a horse named Duster at the Harry Rowell's Ranch Rodeo near Hayward, California. Pete had ridden Duster four times previously. He was the toughest and meanest of Rowell's entire string of bucking horses.

Pete stayed with the horse for the required ten seconds, and Duster, true to form, bucked in his crazed way that never seemed to diminish. It was a great ride. A pick-up man galloped up to Duster and Pete. Pete grabbed the rider's outstretched hand and flipped off the bronc. At the same second Duster lashed out with his hind legs, hitting Pete just as he was landing on his feet. Pete sprawled out on the ground, and nearly 5,000 spectators hushed their voices. Pete worked himself to a sitting position, got up and gallantly walked back to the corrals. There he collapsed, and died shortly after at the hospital. A broken rib had punctured his spleen.

Some people today still feel Pete was the best ever. He was elected to the Canadian Horseman's Hall of Fame at Calgary and is one of the select in the Honoree division in the Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame. In Canada two songs honor Pete's career: Pete Knight, King of the Cowboys, and Pete Knight's Last Ride.

Like old Steamboat, Pete Knight is one of the big legends in rodeo history.

Since the late 1920's horses and riders have changed. They are another accent in the rodeo sport. Some of the present crop of riders are a bit touchy, too, if they aren't considered as good as early-day riders because the horses were different then.

One youngster, who wants to remain anonymous, but who has had enough horses under him to qualify for an opinion, told me, "Okay so maybe the horses have changed, but don't think it's any easier to stay on these horses today. They're a helluva lot stronger today and have pounding strength, whereas the oldtime horse was lighter and probably more agile. But you get on a strong bronc that slams hard into the ground and kicks just as hard behind, and by two leaps you can find yourself sitting on the cantle instead of the saddle. And over you go.

"Sure, they rode in the saddle for a longer time then, but it was almost an endurance test as well as skill. And, because of the rough going they got, those riders developed their own style of saddles to help them stay aboard. This was before the RCA (Rodeo Cowboys Association) standardized saddles and got rid of those freaky things with giant sized swells. Shoot, bet you could have fallen asleep in one of those things, even on top of a bronc."

But to get back to the horses today. Not all of them have the bucking power to be first-class performers, just as not all the broncs before 1930 were first-class buckers. It is tougher today to find a good horse than it once was, but enough are around with ferocious bucking power to keep the sport alive in its traditional entree. Silver King is a current favorite. He is owned by Harry Knight (no relation to Pete Knight), a bronc rider himself in the yesteryears who also got his name on the Prince of Wales Trophy. He turned to stock contracting after his rodeo days and contracts out of Fowler, Colorado. Silver King sounds like the name an early movie cowboy might have used to give equal billing to his horse. But the horse is hardly of the beauty for a movie performer. He weighs 1650 pounds and stands 161/2 hands high. He's a giant of a horse, chestnut in color, with flaxen mane and tail. He is quite spectacular to look at and doubly so because he is powerpacked for all his gross weight and size. Some of the current best among the riding clan have tasted dirt instead of victory on Silver King. Ralph Maynard, Guy Weeks, Marty Wood and others, good riders all, haven't stayed with the horse. Shawn Davis has, however, twice; at Signal Butte, South Dakota, and at Little Rock, Arkansas.

Shawn, twenty-seven years old and from Montana, is World Champion saddle bronc rider for 1968 and has pocketed prize money for the year totaling $22,697. He has a feel for the horse even though Silver King often switches tactics. Shawn, as Hippy would say, knows how to get his lick on him.

Silver King is a dedicated bucker. But his tremendous efforts in the arena frequently cause him to be stiff for a day or two afterwards. Nonetheless, even in limited appearances his sagacity at tossing cowboys more than compensates. That's what audiences want to see, Silver King keeps his promise.

When Midnight died in 1936, the riders he had conquered bought him a monument befitting a champion and placed it over his grave, on the Elliot ranch in Platteville, Colorado. Colorado's Senator Otis Cusack composed the following epitaph for the cowboys' hero horse: Under the sod lies a great bucking horse. There was nary a cowboy he couldn't toss. His name was Midnight, his coat black as coal. If there is a horse's heaven, please God, rest his soul.

Later Five Minutes To Midnight was buried next to Midnight.

Another good horse is Descent, the "big bad bronc," who has been voted bucking horse of the year by the top fifteen money winners in saddle bronc riding. Descent holds a record with another horse called Warpaint. Both have had the vote three times running. Descent is title holder for 1966, 1967 and 1968.

Even a tyro to the rodeo game would recognize any horse holding title to bucking horse of the year. The citation allows them to wear a handsome silver mounted halter which is presented to the winner by the Rodeo Sports News.

As previously mentioned, one never knows where a good bucking horse is going to come from. Descent, a palomino gelding, is a mixture of Thoroughbred and Morgan breeding and was foaled on a Montana ranch. None of the other foals of Descent's dam ever showed the inclination to "jump out of their hides" as does this top headliner. He began his horse work at Glacier National Park as a packhorse but was always rambunctious whenever a pack was loaded on his back. He would come undone and scatter back-country provisions all over the Park. Someone finally suggested he belonged in a rodeo, and nobody agreed more than the Beuther Brothers and Vold and Cervi, a rodeo stock combine. Descent is one of the most remarkable bucking horses and rodeo attractions since Midnight. He has no special style other than his enormous strength and power.

Still, a good flow of raw broncs is becoming scarce. They would even be on the endangered list of species if they were wild game like the golden eagle or the polar bear.

The growing scarcity of broncs that are more than carousel horses comes at a time when rodeos are probably the largest audience attendance sport. In 1968 521 RCA-approved rodeos were held in forty-one states and four Canadian provinces. Prize money offered was at an all-time high-$3,685,629 -and ticket sales indicate that more than ten million fans came to see cowboys, bucking horses, steer and calf roping, clowns, trick riders, fancy ropers, whip crackers and special acts featuring trick and liberty horses.

Bucking horses are the major attraction. That's what people really come to see, and they are the big part of the business in producing a rodeo. Competition in stock contracting is keen, and the contractor who can supply the toughest horses makes a contract with the rodeo officials.

During 1965-1966 Dean Krakel, managing director of the Cowboy Hall of Fame arranged with Mr. and Mrs. Albert D. Kurtz of Platteville, Colorado, then owners of the Elliot ranch, to permit the removal of the two famous horses' remains from their original graves, to be reinterred in the Arlington of horsedom, a place for heroes.

On April 30, 1966, during the National Rodeo finals in Oklahoma City, two of the greatest bucking horses of all time were paid an unprecedented honor and reburied on a gentle hillside and enshrined forever in the Cowboy Hall of Fame as the nation's leading rodeo performers doffed their Stetsons in respect.

There are now about fifty professional rodeo stock contractors who provided twenty to eighty horses to RCA-approved rodeos in 1968. There is no set cost for a string of bucking horses, but an average price is now far above what Mike Henry, an early-day contractor, told his hands on the EightyEight Outfit at Douglas, Wyoming: "A good gentle saddle horse is worth about seventy-five dollars. A good bucking horse is worth two hundred and fifty. Let's have nothing but bucking horses."

A stock contractor will furnish stock for a lump sum or for a percentage of the gate. A good established contractor can expect to gross around $50,000 a season. Some contractors make more than $50,000; a lot more make less. About half of the gross will be profit because overhead is high. Hauling charges, (if he doesn't own his own trucks) wages, feed costs, insurance fees, cost of replacement stock are enormous contracting expenses. In many cases, contractors provide only bucking horses and bulls, and rent roping calves and dogging steers for the duration of a show. For the major shows, contractors bring their first-class string of horses, the orneryest they have. For smaller shows, a second string of less ferocious buckers and young tyros.

That these horses are muscle-packed and powerful cannot be denied. They see action once or twice a week during the rodeo season, whereas the oldtime rodeo horse might be bucked six to a dozen times in a whole year. The latter were, admittedly, more spectacular with their greater array of bucking styles and provided far more horse spills for the pleasure of the crowds. But the present-day horses, bigger and stronger, who can stand on their heads and kick at the moon, are very, very tough to ride!

Ray Hicks, who runs about one hundred and twenty head of buckers in the Auburn, California area is convinced that bucking is in the genes. The star of his outfit is Sierra Sue, a twenty-nine-year-old mare still capable of enough bucking tenacity to throw good riders. Cowboys call her the granny horse and only because of her age, not her prowess. She has a broken rhythm to her bucking which riders claim is hard to follow because she is always switching tactics on them. She also has the habit of turning back in front of the chutes and bucking for all her might. This is a bit unnerving.

What is really astonishing about Sierra Sue is that she is producing offspring that can buck.

Up in Ekalaka, Montana, Ernest Tooke is providing young buckers each season all bred for the purpose of bucking. Tooke does not contract to rodeos any longer. At the ranch he concentrates on the practice and development of breeding buckers while Rodeos Incorporated promotes the horses to the rodeos. Currently, Major Reno is their biggest billing attraction. He was named the best saddle bronc at the National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City in 1968. He shed Larry Mahan, the AllAround Champion for 1968 with $49,129 in winnings. Larry participates in all events and this twenty-five year old rider from Oregon will easily be remembered as one of the greats of rodeo. As for Major Reno? Larry shouldn't feel too bad. Some observers feel that Major Reno may be unrideable.

Other contractors are experimenting with breeding bucking horses. From the time-honored breeding principle of breeding the best to the best, these new breeders have changed the slant of the thought and now breed the worst to the worst buckers that is!

No matter where the bucking horses go to perform - Tucson's La Fiesta de Los Vaqueros, Cheyenne Frontier Days ("the daddy of them all") the Grand National at San Francisco, to dozens of shows in the east and to many bush-league counterparts, one factor is curiously evident about bucking horses and bucking horse riders: the best of both have traditionally come out of the northwestern parts of the United States. This holds true even today.

It is also curiously evident, although it has nothing to do with bucking horses and their riders, that the best ropers and the best rope horses have come from the Southwest.

Wherever bucking horses go, however, there is something special about them and the men who ride them. Just as the Arab astride his favorite war mare is the image of Arabia's desert legends, or an armored knight mounted on his giant charger typifies the knightly era, the image of a bucking horse with a cowboy perched on top is America's western symbol. It's an exciting part of the pastoral saga of the range country and, rightly so, the headlining feature in today's rodeos.

BIRD-SANCTUARY

An owl's staccato chant at dawn, The solemn tune in monotone, Preludes a melody That greets the eastward-turning Earth. The pipings of a waking bird Crescendo; and the wood awakes To carols, rondos, trilled refrains A matin by the winged throng . . . Earth revolves to light Accompanied with song.

DAWN KINDLING

The well and wall, Webs not a few, Trees, houses, all Swim into view.

Push back the night And let us watch Worlds taking light From this huge match.

SANDMAN

The sandman lives in the desert. He rises out of his own bed to carry a message to sleepy heads.

I wonder if he minds that I fall asleep waiting for him to arrive, and never wake long enough to remember his story.

SPRING

The sun was in the sky And in my eyes, And when it went, The sky was still a rosebud; The hills, deep purple leaves Upon it, bent Into the mud.

SKY STITCH

Nature Threads rain needles With ravelings of lightning And mends torn gray clouds with fiery Stitches.

CANYON QUARTETTE

Live oak sings in a dark-green bass; sycamore is a tenor; willow purrs in an alto voice, cottonwood's yellow splendor trills soprano . . .

YOURS SINCERELY TALE OF THE SAN PEDRO:

Want to tell you how much I enjoyed the feature on the San Pedro Valley by Eulalia (Sister) Bourne in the February, 1970, issue. My mother's sister was married to Charles Crocker the younger, making him my uncle. Therefore, his father, Charles Crocker Sr., one of the founders and former president of the Southern Pacific Railroad, was my great uncle. I'm sure it's a typographical error on the magazine's part and not the fault of the author of the article, but on page 15 my illustrious relative is referred to as Charles "Crooker." I had to smile, as I know he would have.

Yours sincerely, Charles Bennett Crocker Cobb Scottsdale, Arizona

SAN XAVIER MISSION:

For many years as a borrower, and now as a subscriber of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS, I have been greatly impressed with every issue. The reading matter is always informative, and the color photography well, it is simply indescribable! It seems almost impossible that such surpassing beauty could be found so abundantly in your sleeping mountains and far-flung deserts. And what is really phenomenal to me is that in all the issues over the years I have never seen an obvious duplication. Let's give a nice hand to the photographers, too!

Comes now the March, 1970, issue: The story of the Flags is interesting and I enjoyed it. But both histories and the pictures of San Xavier Del Bac are truly beautiful. As Mr. Brophy says, there is an enchanting yet solemn mystery associated with that Mission. It is enveloped in such a venerable atmosphere of sanctity as to make one feel, with the poet, that he might "reach out and touch the Hand of God!"

In that holy Mission Tucson, and indeed, Arizona itself, can rightfully claim a Masterpiece for the Ages.

J. J. Elder, Louisville, Ky.

BIG SURF:

How come in your April issue you indicated Big Surf was in Scottsdale. We are proud to claim it as a tremendous recreational addition to Tempe.

J. J. Northrop, Tempe, Arizona

EL CID:

Dear sir: Your April issue (Flags Over Arizona) mentioned the Spanish hero, El Cid. The name quickly rang a bell and I referred to my records which I have compiled through the years which contains the names of nearly 5,000 ancestors. This El Cid is my 22nd great grandfather whose real name was Rodrigo Diaz. His official title was Senor de Bibar; Conte de Valencia; Muy Cid; El Campeador.

Frederick M. Cawley, Mesa, Arizona

THE VIOLENT MOUNTAINS:

Dear Sir: Your Mr. David W. Toll's, "The Violent Mountains of Arizona," January issue, is a real masterpiece of observation, research, talent and writing. It is collossal and informative. Your great state can boast of something none of the others can ever touch. Anyone daring to dispute or take issue with the author should be compared to the man who, when asked how many stars light the Firmament, Mr. Toll speaks with sufficient authority to answer, "4,847,246,999 if you doubt the count, go out and do your own inventory."

A. C. Jolly Cartersville, Ga. 30120

OPPOSITE PAGE

"DAY OF THE REDTAIL HAWK A SCENE IN THE SONORAN DESERT" BY LARRY TOSCHIK. Of this painting the artist says: "This is just one of the cloud blossoms in Arizona's sky pastures. Near Carefree, I stopped to sketch this enormous sculpture. Dominating the entire horizon, this many-toned God of moisture dragged his veil of life across the mountains. Returning to the studio I hurried to catch the mood. Later the hawk was added to play in the thermals of such a great day." Oil, 36" x 50".

BACK COVER

"BIG EARS - MULE DEER, DOE" BY LARRY TOSCHIK. The artist says: "This was an absolute delight to paint." As viewers of this reproduction we feel it is an absolute delight to see. The artist continues: "Like the quail on the front cover, this too is a stepping-stone painting. Some day it will evolve into a greater thing. The right moment, the right combination of light and forest things and 'Big Ears' will serve to open the way to a deeper study." In the meantime, we cherish "Big Ears" as the charming creature she is. Acryllic, 20" x 24".