This happened on Paiute Mountain when Joanne was about five years old. Call it 1939. At the time Sid was up on the mountain and working at or had some connection with the sawmill. Possibly Norwin, Esther's brother, was there as well along with his daughter Beverly. Audrey and Bev were probably thirteen at the time.
At the time the cook at the sawmill was a girl in her middle to late teens. Audrey and Bev used to go up to the sawmill because it was another girl, some company. After breakfast was served the cook persuaded Audrey and Bev to go for a walk with her. So off they went for a walk. The girls didn't know that their friend the cook was running away.
In due course the three of them were missed and somehow Esther got word of it. She grabbed Joanne and Fritz, loaded them into the family flivver and went to Nick Williams. Nick asked Esther to wait for a little bit. They had some lunch. Then they drove to where a canyon emptied into Walker Basin. “Now, call to them,” asked Nick.
Audrey adds a few things to this account since she was an actual participant in the adventure. “I was the most timid and didn't want to leave (the sawmill) in the first place, but Beverly wanted to go and they chided me for being a coward, which I was. …
“Beverly always felt that no one wanted her and I think that was why she was so adventurous. She told me later that she was just showing off when she climbed one hundred feet up a big pine tree and swung the top of the tree back and forth... . She needed someone to take notice of her. The other girl was simply bored. I just wanted to go home and be safe.
“The canyon was shaped like a funnel. About halfway down the canyon it was so narrow it was hard to find a place to put our feet...At one spot there were a lot of rocks with the water running down and between them. We had to slide twenty feet down these rocks, which were very steep, once down we could not go back up. Fortunately there were leaves all over the rocks so we slid, not scraped, our way down, but the men following us were not so lucky and they had torn clothes and scratched bottoms from the slide.
“They were very angry and threatened us with having an axe handle broken over our butts.
“When it was nearly dark and we were coming to the desert, I wanted to build a bed by the river so we could sleep near water. We built a little shelter and then the mountain lion started screaming. Then they (Bev and the other girl) finally became scared too, and so we ran down to the desert floor where we met the biggest rattlesnake I have ever seen. By that time the men were close behind us and killed the snake just before Mother called us to the truck, which was parked on a dirt road nearby.”
Joanne adds that Esther called to the girls and they answered. Soon, they materialized out of the brush. Williams knew from the trail they had taken where they would have to come out in Walker Basin, and he didn't even need a global positioning device. Ranching all of your life and seeing the land from the back of a horse gives you a pretty good sense of the lay of the land.
Sid. And possibly Norwin, came out soon after the girls. He had found the tracks of a mountain lion following them. Probably the cat was curious about who was trespassing on his range.
Audrey adds, “I got to see Nick's place and one thing I remember was a huge service area with a long table and on it were large metal bowls with cream and butter in them.They looked so rich to me.
“Driving back to the mountain it was dark and cold. The headlights of the pickup brightened the bottoms of the trees and rocks, the wind blew our hair and faces, and it was silent except for the sound of the car, and the stars were bright and the feeling was eerie to be safe in the dark as the car struggled up the hill. We did not speak.”
Showing posts with label Nick Williams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nick Williams. Show all posts
Friday, December 11, 2009
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Art Griswold
Art Griswold owned or worked two mines on the mountain. I don’t know how old he was because he was always old when I knew him, but that was from the point of view of a little kid. He was over six feet tall and very thin, almost cadaverous, and kind of slumped. He had a big handlebar mustache and a little head of hair.
Nick didn’t like Art. He thought Art was a coward. During the late thirties someone came up on the mountain asking for Art. When Art heard about it he took off and didn’t come back for several years.
Interestingly enough, during the Second World War, Art – let’s start again. Art was entitled to a Spanish-American War pension but he never collected it because he wasn’t going to be one of those guys on welfare. During the Second World War he went down to N.O.T.S., the Naval Ordnance Test Station, in Inyo Kern where he worked as a guard. After the war the FBI got to going through old records and came across Art’s fingerprints, which matched those of a guy wanted for murdering a U.S. marshal in Arizona or New Mexico. My father had some legal experience since he had read the law with my grandfather, Robert Emmet Austin, for a few years while they were still speaking. Art came to Daddy and said he was in trouble, and so Daddy handled it for him. Who knows what really happened. Anyway, it seemed that all the witnesses were dead. All the FBI wanted to do was close the case, which they did. Guess who immediately applied for his Spanish American War pension? He hadn’t filed all those years because he was a fugitive, and that time he took off across the hill, when Nick thought he was a coward, probably somebody from that old adventure was looking for him.
Mother called Art one of “nature’s gentlemen.” He never made an off-color remark. He never did anything off-color and certainly when there was just mother and us kids, he was always a perfect gentleman. If you had liquor in the house, he’d come down and visit. I suppose he did moonshine, too. Most of the stuff that I saw had labels on it, but I’m sure that he did some for himself.
Copyright Joanne Heyser Harris 2009
Nick didn’t like Art. He thought Art was a coward. During the late thirties someone came up on the mountain asking for Art. When Art heard about it he took off and didn’t come back for several years.
Interestingly enough, during the Second World War, Art – let’s start again. Art was entitled to a Spanish-American War pension but he never collected it because he wasn’t going to be one of those guys on welfare. During the Second World War he went down to N.O.T.S., the Naval Ordnance Test Station, in Inyo Kern where he worked as a guard. After the war the FBI got to going through old records and came across Art’s fingerprints, which matched those of a guy wanted for murdering a U.S. marshal in Arizona or New Mexico. My father had some legal experience since he had read the law with my grandfather, Robert Emmet Austin, for a few years while they were still speaking. Art came to Daddy and said he was in trouble, and so Daddy handled it for him. Who knows what really happened. Anyway, it seemed that all the witnesses were dead. All the FBI wanted to do was close the case, which they did. Guess who immediately applied for his Spanish American War pension? He hadn’t filed all those years because he was a fugitive, and that time he took off across the hill, when Nick thought he was a coward, probably somebody from that old adventure was looking for him.
Mother called Art one of “nature’s gentlemen.” He never made an off-color remark. He never did anything off-color and certainly when there was just mother and us kids, he was always a perfect gentleman. If you had liquor in the house, he’d come down and visit. I suppose he did moonshine, too. Most of the stuff that I saw had labels on it, but I’m sure that he did some for himself.
Copyright Joanne Heyser Harris 2009
Friday, February 27, 2009
Paiute People
Paiute People
Copyright Joanne Heyser Harris 2009
I only knew some of the people who were on the mountain from a child’s point of view. I’ve mentioned Louie the Indian. Frank and Jenny King were an old couple. At least, they seemed ancient to me. They lived over on what we called King Creek. Frank did placer mining to keep his claim. And he had about a half acre garden. Once he thought he was going to save time and plough his garden with his horse, Pasco. He got Pasco hitched up and the horse took off over the barbed wire fence, plough and all. I don’t know if Frank ever found all the harness.
Frank was tall, old and thin. He drank a lot. He hunted to keep them in food. The Kings did whatever was necessary to live up there comfortably. There may have been a little bootlegging, but I don’t know. I don’t know if they call it bootlegging if you just do it for your own use, rather than selling it. Jenny was a Swede and had been a nurse during the First World War. She was short and rotund and really, really, really nice. She was always very good to us kids. I never particularly knew Frank one way or another.
Their cabin was very close to Tommy’s cabin, about an eighth of a mile. We were on the same flat. We used to walk back and forth all the time.
Old Nick, as I understand it, was the first white child born in Havilah County, which later became Kern County. In Bakersfield there is either a museum for him or he is in a museum. We used to call him “Ten Daughters Nick,” because he had ten daughters and one son. He called the son “Boy.” There was a lot of talk about who fathered whom and who was really whom. When we knew Nick, Nita Williams was the daughter who was around all the time. She and Mother used to work cattle with Nick. There was another daughter they used to call “Little Bits.”
Nick’s wife had been dead for some years. He had a large ranch in Walker Basin where Mother and I stayed that one year, and he also had a very long meadow, French Meadow, probably about five or six miles long, up on Paiute Mountain. He had a log cabin in that Meadow that he didn’t use any more. We kids used to play in it. Every time we would wander by we would go in it. It kept getting lower and lower to the ground, but it was there for a long time. The cabin had this wonderful spring beside it, maybe a hundred gallons a minute coming right out of the ground. Nick ran his cattle up on Paiute during the summers, and wintered down in Walker Basin.
Nita Williams was my ideal, a genuine cowgirl. They tolerated me. I remember the summer I was seventeen. I and some other people helped brand and castrate some calves. I helped give shots and hold legs. They would rope a calf with a horse and dragged it near the fire. Then, after somebody would throw the calf, I sat on the ground with one foot against and just above the hock of the bottom leg and held the top leg with both hands and leaned back to really keep the legs apart. Then people would knew what they were doing would castrate, brand and earmark the calf, and then let it go. They had a lot of help from people who had never done anything like it before. It was an interesting time.
Copyright Joanne Heyser Harris 2009
I only knew some of the people who were on the mountain from a child’s point of view. I’ve mentioned Louie the Indian. Frank and Jenny King were an old couple. At least, they seemed ancient to me. They lived over on what we called King Creek. Frank did placer mining to keep his claim. And he had about a half acre garden. Once he thought he was going to save time and plough his garden with his horse, Pasco. He got Pasco hitched up and the horse took off over the barbed wire fence, plough and all. I don’t know if Frank ever found all the harness.
Frank was tall, old and thin. He drank a lot. He hunted to keep them in food. The Kings did whatever was necessary to live up there comfortably. There may have been a little bootlegging, but I don’t know. I don’t know if they call it bootlegging if you just do it for your own use, rather than selling it. Jenny was a Swede and had been a nurse during the First World War. She was short and rotund and really, really, really nice. She was always very good to us kids. I never particularly knew Frank one way or another.
Their cabin was very close to Tommy’s cabin, about an eighth of a mile. We were on the same flat. We used to walk back and forth all the time.
Old Nick, as I understand it, was the first white child born in Havilah County, which later became Kern County. In Bakersfield there is either a museum for him or he is in a museum. We used to call him “Ten Daughters Nick,” because he had ten daughters and one son. He called the son “Boy.” There was a lot of talk about who fathered whom and who was really whom. When we knew Nick, Nita Williams was the daughter who was around all the time. She and Mother used to work cattle with Nick. There was another daughter they used to call “Little Bits.”
Nick’s wife had been dead for some years. He had a large ranch in Walker Basin where Mother and I stayed that one year, and he also had a very long meadow, French Meadow, probably about five or six miles long, up on Paiute Mountain. He had a log cabin in that Meadow that he didn’t use any more. We kids used to play in it. Every time we would wander by we would go in it. It kept getting lower and lower to the ground, but it was there for a long time. The cabin had this wonderful spring beside it, maybe a hundred gallons a minute coming right out of the ground. Nick ran his cattle up on Paiute during the summers, and wintered down in Walker Basin.
Nita Williams was my ideal, a genuine cowgirl. They tolerated me. I remember the summer I was seventeen. I and some other people helped brand and castrate some calves. I helped give shots and hold legs. They would rope a calf with a horse and dragged it near the fire. Then, after somebody would throw the calf, I sat on the ground with one foot against and just above the hock of the bottom leg and held the top leg with both hands and leaned back to really keep the legs apart. Then people would knew what they were doing would castrate, brand and earmark the calf, and then let it go. They had a lot of help from people who had never done anything like it before. It was an interesting time.
Monday, January 26, 2009
More Memories at Tommy's Cabin
More Memories at Tommy's Cabin
Copyright Joanne H. Harris, 2008
We lived at Tommy’s cabin for at least a year, as best I remember. Daddy went into partners with Rollie and Oakley Horne at a sawmill on top of the mountain. He’d stay up there for a few days, and then he’d come down and be at the cabin for a few days, and then he’d go back up. That’s right – the sawmill and the girl who ran away! That was around 1939.
I remember very little of this story. We were at that sawmill. My cousin Beverly Austin, was there, too. There was a girl there cooking for the men. She couldn’t have been much older than Audrey and Beverly, and they were eleven or twelve. She decided to run away and took Audrey and Beverly with her. They went down off the side of the mountain, down and down, and nobody could find them. There was a great hue and cry, but they couldn’t be found.
Mother went to Nick’s ranch in Walker Basin because the mountain went down there. My mother told Nick that the girls were lost. She didn’t know at the time that one of them was running away, but she knew when they had left the sawmill. Nick took a look and said, “O.K., we need to leave about 1:00 o’clock.” Mother threw a fit but Nick said, “No, we don’t leave before 1:00 o’clock.”
About 1:00 o’clock they got into his car and he drove up into a canyon at the bottom of the mountain. He got out and said, “Now, you call.” My mother yelled for Audrey and Beverly and they answered. Nick really knew the mountain. Apparently, canyons being what they are and uphill being very steep, people funneled into this area. So that’s how Nick found them. The girl had been running away and took Audrey and Beverly with her. It was a very primitive place, a very primitive place.
Beverly had to have been with us when we were living at Tommy’s cabin. I remember Audrey and Beverly made me a dollhouse out of a box a foot-and-a-half square and about ten inches high. They took the box lids, the parts that folded down, and slotted them into the box to make rooms. Then they took sticks and made a closet. (I’ve never forgotten this because I always figured I was going to make something like this for a kid.) They cut out clothes and stuck them to the coat hangers and cut out paper dolls and put them in the doll house. It was an amazing little thing.
We thought we were having fun. We didn’t know we were poor. I never in my life thought we were poor folks.
Copyright Joanne H. Harris, 2008
We lived at Tommy’s cabin for at least a year, as best I remember. Daddy went into partners with Rollie and Oakley Horne at a sawmill on top of the mountain. He’d stay up there for a few days, and then he’d come down and be at the cabin for a few days, and then he’d go back up. That’s right – the sawmill and the girl who ran away! That was around 1939.
I remember very little of this story. We were at that sawmill. My cousin Beverly Austin, was there, too. There was a girl there cooking for the men. She couldn’t have been much older than Audrey and Beverly, and they were eleven or twelve. She decided to run away and took Audrey and Beverly with her. They went down off the side of the mountain, down and down, and nobody could find them. There was a great hue and cry, but they couldn’t be found.
Mother went to Nick’s ranch in Walker Basin because the mountain went down there. My mother told Nick that the girls were lost. She didn’t know at the time that one of them was running away, but she knew when they had left the sawmill. Nick took a look and said, “O.K., we need to leave about 1:00 o’clock.” Mother threw a fit but Nick said, “No, we don’t leave before 1:00 o’clock.”
About 1:00 o’clock they got into his car and he drove up into a canyon at the bottom of the mountain. He got out and said, “Now, you call.” My mother yelled for Audrey and Beverly and they answered. Nick really knew the mountain. Apparently, canyons being what they are and uphill being very steep, people funneled into this area. So that’s how Nick found them. The girl had been running away and took Audrey and Beverly with her. It was a very primitive place, a very primitive place.
Beverly had to have been with us when we were living at Tommy’s cabin. I remember Audrey and Beverly made me a dollhouse out of a box a foot-and-a-half square and about ten inches high. They took the box lids, the parts that folded down, and slotted them into the box to make rooms. Then they took sticks and made a closet. (I’ve never forgotten this because I always figured I was going to make something like this for a kid.) They cut out clothes and stuck them to the coat hangers and cut out paper dolls and put them in the doll house. It was an amazing little thing.
We thought we were having fun. We didn’t know we were poor. I never in my life thought we were poor folks.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
A good cowman never eats his own beef
Being as the Paiutes had no electricity we did not have any refrigeration so if you wanted meat you had to go out and kill it unless you brought a meat animal with you.
One such animal was Archy, a pig. Archy was an intelligent animal and he liked nothing better than sitting on the couch in front of the fire eating a pie or two. He was strong and difficult to control. Mother fed him in a dish pan which he would finish in ten seconds or less while easily spitting out the onions from one side of his mouth at the same time spitting out the seeds from the other side. Not one seed or onion landed in the dish pan. It was a thing of wonder to watch.
Wherever we went Archy would follow, it was impossible to sneak out or outrun him, Archy was always with us. Once someone saw us fooling around at the Bella Union flats and told the ranger. The ranger replied "Oh that's just the Heyser kids with the pig and hound." We were well known on the mountain.
One day we went to the sawmill and I was talking to someone when Joanne came running up to me while at the same time I heard some piercing screaming. She said that Archy was surrounded. I ran towards the screams and there was Archy in a corner surrounded by five of the biggest, meanest cats you ever saw. These cats said they were going to beat up Archy and they looked as though they could do it. Of course we saved him for the umpteenth time.
We usually walked over five miles and Archy was good for only about three. He had tiny little feet and after a while they would hurt upon which he would lie down in the middle of the road and start screaming, telling every lion in the area there was to be food tonight. We always had to carry Archy home and it was hard as he was heavy. We would take turns carrying him and were usually exhausted by the time we got home. If we had left him on the road mother would have been very unhappy and I think Archy knew it and so just waited to be carried.
Fritz, my bother, wanted to be a provider and he went out early every morning to find a deer to shoot. He had a good spot on a rock pile right above a deer trail and saw many deer, but each time he set his sights on the animal he would get buck fever just looking at those big brown eyes.
One day he came home frightened. While sitting on his rock he heard a fawn calling in fear and saw it running with a wolf right behind it. The wolf however was not having a good time as it was kayaying and looking behind, and there, slashing and leaping, was a doe, a very angry doe, striking out at the wolf with her cookie cutter hooves.
He said he was afraid the doe would return to take him on next. But not long after that, early in the morning we heard a rifle shot and later home comes Fritz, covered with blood, not his own and on his back was a deer. At last we had meat, if wrapped with the pink coverlet during the day, and hung at night it would have lasted us more than a month.
Alas, the law of the hills destroyed our dreams of steak for supper. In the Paiutes meat is very hard to come by, and every one needs meat up there. People depend on one another, except for the cowboys, and people share everything, even their meat, not out of love for others but because one cannot escape from sharing.
You see, when some one butchers an animal the coyotes come out of nowhere and all night long they howl near the site. Since the cabins are miles apart it does not take a genius to figure out who has meat. The next day the guests start arriving, one by one and two by two, "just to see how we are," they say. It does not take long for the conversation to turn to meat and one must share. To not share could be dangerous. Most of the people we shared with did not give us any meat, but still the law of the hills applies. By the end of the day all we had left was a front quarter, enough for stew for a few days.
Now the cowboys had much the same problem, except they tend to rustle one another's cows. When ever Nick butchered a steer he hung out a thirty year old hide with one leg missing to show the other cowmen he had butchered one of his own. But the hide did have his brand on it, a muleshoe L, so no body said anything, out loud at least.
My mother helped out Nick at times so Nick would give her a little meat from time to time, but mother said it always had worms on it. I asked Nick one time why he killed beef that were not his when he had so many of his own and he said "Youngun, a good cowman never eats his own beef."
With all these little problems people on the mountain still had to associate with one another during the day, but by night with stealth, problems were solved or perhaps exacerbated. No one could live on the mountain without neighbors who would help in an emergency and that included some one who might even be trying to kill you from time to time. Up on the mountain you could not choose your friends, you took what was available.
I recall Jerry, a little weasel like man, who lived in a tiny cabin with one room. It was black from smoke and smelled of urine. One day he showed me a coffee can full of gold. Now Jerry did not have a mine. Mother told me the gold was from our place which he took during the winter when we were gone, from surface ore we had here and there. He used his two dogs to pull the sled of ore until he got hungry and ate them. I guess he had to carry the ore himself after that.
One time I asked Jerry what he ate in the winter and he said he made bread from the cambium layer of pine trees. He would dry it and grind it up and make little cakes with it in a coffee can. I don't know how he lived so long, he got cold and hungry and he said some one tried to kill him by putting something white into his coffee can. I notice however that everyone up on the mountain lives a very long time. It's a place of life, no denying it.
Some idiot gave Jerry another dog but the last time I saw Jerry he told me that Glen had shot it. Jerry had killed Glen's dog accidentally he said. Jerry talked like they were going to kill one another. Both men were dangerous and in a place where they could get away with it. There were a number of feuds on the mountain you must be tired of reading about them. So I won't mention them any more.
One such animal was Archy, a pig. Archy was an intelligent animal and he liked nothing better than sitting on the couch in front of the fire eating a pie or two. He was strong and difficult to control. Mother fed him in a dish pan which he would finish in ten seconds or less while easily spitting out the onions from one side of his mouth at the same time spitting out the seeds from the other side. Not one seed or onion landed in the dish pan. It was a thing of wonder to watch.
Wherever we went Archy would follow, it was impossible to sneak out or outrun him, Archy was always with us. Once someone saw us fooling around at the Bella Union flats and told the ranger. The ranger replied "Oh that's just the Heyser kids with the pig and hound." We were well known on the mountain.
One day we went to the sawmill and I was talking to someone when Joanne came running up to me while at the same time I heard some piercing screaming. She said that Archy was surrounded. I ran towards the screams and there was Archy in a corner surrounded by five of the biggest, meanest cats you ever saw. These cats said they were going to beat up Archy and they looked as though they could do it. Of course we saved him for the umpteenth time.
We usually walked over five miles and Archy was good for only about three. He had tiny little feet and after a while they would hurt upon which he would lie down in the middle of the road and start screaming, telling every lion in the area there was to be food tonight. We always had to carry Archy home and it was hard as he was heavy. We would take turns carrying him and were usually exhausted by the time we got home. If we had left him on the road mother would have been very unhappy and I think Archy knew it and so just waited to be carried.
Fritz, my bother, wanted to be a provider and he went out early every morning to find a deer to shoot. He had a good spot on a rock pile right above a deer trail and saw many deer, but each time he set his sights on the animal he would get buck fever just looking at those big brown eyes.
One day he came home frightened. While sitting on his rock he heard a fawn calling in fear and saw it running with a wolf right behind it. The wolf however was not having a good time as it was kayaying and looking behind, and there, slashing and leaping, was a doe, a very angry doe, striking out at the wolf with her cookie cutter hooves.
He said he was afraid the doe would return to take him on next. But not long after that, early in the morning we heard a rifle shot and later home comes Fritz, covered with blood, not his own and on his back was a deer. At last we had meat, if wrapped with the pink coverlet during the day, and hung at night it would have lasted us more than a month.
Alas, the law of the hills destroyed our dreams of steak for supper. In the Paiutes meat is very hard to come by, and every one needs meat up there. People depend on one another, except for the cowboys, and people share everything, even their meat, not out of love for others but because one cannot escape from sharing.
You see, when some one butchers an animal the coyotes come out of nowhere and all night long they howl near the site. Since the cabins are miles apart it does not take a genius to figure out who has meat. The next day the guests start arriving, one by one and two by two, "just to see how we are," they say. It does not take long for the conversation to turn to meat and one must share. To not share could be dangerous. Most of the people we shared with did not give us any meat, but still the law of the hills applies. By the end of the day all we had left was a front quarter, enough for stew for a few days.
Now the cowboys had much the same problem, except they tend to rustle one another's cows. When ever Nick butchered a steer he hung out a thirty year old hide with one leg missing to show the other cowmen he had butchered one of his own. But the hide did have his brand on it, a muleshoe L, so no body said anything, out loud at least.
My mother helped out Nick at times so Nick would give her a little meat from time to time, but mother said it always had worms on it. I asked Nick one time why he killed beef that were not his when he had so many of his own and he said "Youngun, a good cowman never eats his own beef."
With all these little problems people on the mountain still had to associate with one another during the day, but by night with stealth, problems were solved or perhaps exacerbated. No one could live on the mountain without neighbors who would help in an emergency and that included some one who might even be trying to kill you from time to time. Up on the mountain you could not choose your friends, you took what was available.
I recall Jerry, a little weasel like man, who lived in a tiny cabin with one room. It was black from smoke and smelled of urine. One day he showed me a coffee can full of gold. Now Jerry did not have a mine. Mother told me the gold was from our place which he took during the winter when we were gone, from surface ore we had here and there. He used his two dogs to pull the sled of ore until he got hungry and ate them. I guess he had to carry the ore himself after that.
One time I asked Jerry what he ate in the winter and he said he made bread from the cambium layer of pine trees. He would dry it and grind it up and make little cakes with it in a coffee can. I don't know how he lived so long, he got cold and hungry and he said some one tried to kill him by putting something white into his coffee can. I notice however that everyone up on the mountain lives a very long time. It's a place of life, no denying it.
Some idiot gave Jerry another dog but the last time I saw Jerry he told me that Glen had shot it. Jerry had killed Glen's dog accidentally he said. Jerry talked like they were going to kill one another. Both men were dangerous and in a place where they could get away with it. There were a number of feuds on the mountain you must be tired of reading about them. So I won't mention them any more.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Range war on the mountain
Range War on the Mountain
Copyright Andrea Heyser 2009
Though I have never met a cow boy who was not a perfect gentleman, they seemed at times to have a dark and ugly side concerning grass. There was no crime a cowman would not commit to get more grazing for his cows.
The Paiutes used to have a public meadow near Tip's place. It was about a thousand feet on each side, was fenced and had grass that was thick and lush. Folks on the mountain could bring their horses or cows to live during the summer, the deer and wild life in the meadow were plentiful.
Nick, a cowman, wanted his cattle to graze in this little meadow when his cows were moved off his pasture so the grass could go to seed. Nick's meadow was French Meadow which was about eight miles long, had a river in it and it cost only one hundred dollars a year for the lease.
Nick complained that the gate to the public meadow was kept closed and his cows could not get in. The gate was kept closed so that the horses and milk cows would not leave, get lost in the forest and die when winter came.
The county ruled that the gate and fencing were to be removed.
Now Frank King had a horse in the meadow he used to plow his garden and Tip had a milk cow there. The cow wandered off and Frank's horse Pasco joined two wild horses, a mare and her colt, a little pinto stallion.
The wild horses taught Pasco to jump the cattle guard to Nick's meadow and the three of them would eat Nick's grass and drink form his river. Nick and his cowboys warned Frank to keep his horse out of his meadow and of course they quarreled a number of times.
Once when Frank was driving his old pickup down the county road he met a cowboy on horse back. They both stopped and had a few words. The cowboy tried to open the truck door to pull Frank out of his truck when Frank picked up his sawed off shot gun, pointed it at the cowboy and said, "Did you calculate on this?" Every one on the mountain knew that Frank always carried a sawed off shot gun on the front seat of his truck but the cowboys kept pretty much to themselves and so did not know.
A few weeks later Pasco, the mare and little stallion were found dead, shot. A month later Joanne and my mother found two dead bulls, cost thirty thousand each, dead at the onion patch. They had been shot in the eye so that after the buzzards took out the eyes you could not tell how they died.
The little meadow is now dead and no animals live there. The grass was eaten down to the dirt too many times by a cowboy who ran too many cattle for the mountain to support.
Years before this happened several cowmen got together to get rid of the wild life that eats seed which grows into grass. They rented an airplane, loaded it up with poison grain, flew all over the mountain and spread their deadly grain. The pigeons all disappeared, the quail survived and the grouse disappeared.
When I was just a little kid I used to sit on a rock looking over the meadow and once I heard the tom tom sound of a grouse in the distance. I didn't know then that it was a grouse, but I found out laterand after that I never heard one again.
I don't eat beef anymore, it is too expensive, in my opinion it's time has past for a kinder and more gentle time.
Copyright Andrea Heyser 2009
Though I have never met a cow boy who was not a perfect gentleman, they seemed at times to have a dark and ugly side concerning grass. There was no crime a cowman would not commit to get more grazing for his cows.
The Paiutes used to have a public meadow near Tip's place. It was about a thousand feet on each side, was fenced and had grass that was thick and lush. Folks on the mountain could bring their horses or cows to live during the summer, the deer and wild life in the meadow were plentiful.
Nick, a cowman, wanted his cattle to graze in this little meadow when his cows were moved off his pasture so the grass could go to seed. Nick's meadow was French Meadow which was about eight miles long, had a river in it and it cost only one hundred dollars a year for the lease.
Nick complained that the gate to the public meadow was kept closed and his cows could not get in. The gate was kept closed so that the horses and milk cows would not leave, get lost in the forest and die when winter came.
The county ruled that the gate and fencing were to be removed.
Now Frank King had a horse in the meadow he used to plow his garden and Tip had a milk cow there. The cow wandered off and Frank's horse Pasco joined two wild horses, a mare and her colt, a little pinto stallion.
The wild horses taught Pasco to jump the cattle guard to Nick's meadow and the three of them would eat Nick's grass and drink form his river. Nick and his cowboys warned Frank to keep his horse out of his meadow and of course they quarreled a number of times.
Once when Frank was driving his old pickup down the county road he met a cowboy on horse back. They both stopped and had a few words. The cowboy tried to open the truck door to pull Frank out of his truck when Frank picked up his sawed off shot gun, pointed it at the cowboy and said, "Did you calculate on this?" Every one on the mountain knew that Frank always carried a sawed off shot gun on the front seat of his truck but the cowboys kept pretty much to themselves and so did not know.
A few weeks later Pasco, the mare and little stallion were found dead, shot. A month later Joanne and my mother found two dead bulls, cost thirty thousand each, dead at the onion patch. They had been shot in the eye so that after the buzzards took out the eyes you could not tell how they died.
The little meadow is now dead and no animals live there. The grass was eaten down to the dirt too many times by a cowboy who ran too many cattle for the mountain to support.
Years before this happened several cowmen got together to get rid of the wild life that eats seed which grows into grass. They rented an airplane, loaded it up with poison grain, flew all over the mountain and spread their deadly grain. The pigeons all disappeared, the quail survived and the grouse disappeared.
When I was just a little kid I used to sit on a rock looking over the meadow and once I heard the tom tom sound of a grouse in the distance. I didn't know then that it was a grouse, but I found out laterand after that I never heard one again.
I don't eat beef anymore, it is too expensive, in my opinion it's time has past for a kinder and more gentle time.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
More About Walker Basin
More About Walker Basis
©Joanne H. Harris, 2008
The first memories I have of horses are when we lived in Walker Basin. We lived on a piece of land that was part of Nick Williams' ranch. It was just a log cabin in a meadow. The only other creature in that section was Bubbles, Nick’s Hereford bull.
Nick’s place had a corral, and I remember a corral full of horses. I remember walking into the corral and all of the horses rushed to the far side except for one, a horse named Shine that my mother rode when she helped Nick and his daughter, Nita, move cattle.
The next memory I have is about the same horse, Shine. Mama was peeling apples and she gave me some apple cores or apple skins to give to Shine. Unfortunately, she didn’t give me any lessons on how to feed a horse, so of course I presented the peels with my fingers bent. The poor thing proceeded to grab my fingers and bite me, but not on purpose. He really didn’t do me any harm, but I shrieked and mother came out and gave me a tardy lesson on how to feed horses. Even this didn’t make me shy of horses.
Our cabin had no running water or indoor plumbing. What was that stuff called electricity? I don’t think the main ranch had electricity. I don’t remember any thing about the inside of the cabin except mom making a down blanket for me out of a down blanket she'd had as a child. That blanket was around for at least 30 years.
Mom has told me that Nick was supposed to provide us with milk, which didn’t happen. Mom had had some experience with guns and had a 22. She could hunt and shoot rabbits. Fritz and I were fond in later years of saying we ate rabbit for breakfast, rabbit for lunch, and rabbit for supper. We also picked wild unions like the Indians did. Daddy came up now and then and brought staples like beans and flour.
Mom used to complain that Nick mixed his sourdough in the flour sack. This included eggs. When he was finished he left a little in the sack for the next starter. Mom said it got pretty strong. Nick didn't throw away coffee grounds daily, but just added more for several days.
The outside of the cabin is what I remember. There was a stream close by with willows to play in. In the spring there were wild violets that I picked by the huge hands full. In the winter Fritz rolled up snow balls and made a fort that lasted long after the snow was gone. One day Daddy shot an owl and stuffed it. Mom complained it looked like an hawk.
We stayed at the ranch in Walker Basin for almost a year. Who knows what was going on with my parents, I do not.
Strangely, I don’t have memories for the next two years. I have pictures of me and my sibling at various houses on Paiute mountain and I know the stories that go with them. For the next couple of years we lived at the Bowman mine, the ranger station, Tommy Thomas’ cabin near Frank and Jenny King's place. Nick Williams had summer range on Paiute at a place called French Meadow. So mom moved with all of us kids, five in all (Audrey, Fritz, cousins Beverly and Dana, and myself) up to the ranger station, which was empty at the time and on French Meadow.
Mom had a couple of goats to provide milk for us kids. The goats ran wherever they wanted to and one time Nick come over to complain that they had “eaten the ass out of one of his saddles”.
He, being a cattleman, would put his cows wherever he could get grass. Since the ranger station in French Meadow was vacant, he ran some cows in the “ranger meadow.” All of the gates were poor man’s gates. These go by many names but they are all barbed wire with a poll that one slips into a wire loop at the bottom and slips a wire loop over the top, I use the term slip loosely because they are very difficult to close, some times impossible. Sometimes a gate on the Ranger meadow got poorly closed or left open. Nick came over one time and told mother if she didn’t keep the gates closed he would wire them shut. She said that that was fine with her because then she would cut one where she wanted it.
Mom still helped out with the cattle from time to time. She had sort of a love/hate relationship with Nick and some of his family, but they never killed each other.
©Joanne H. Harris, 2008
The first memories I have of horses are when we lived in Walker Basin. We lived on a piece of land that was part of Nick Williams' ranch. It was just a log cabin in a meadow. The only other creature in that section was Bubbles, Nick’s Hereford bull.
Nick’s place had a corral, and I remember a corral full of horses. I remember walking into the corral and all of the horses rushed to the far side except for one, a horse named Shine that my mother rode when she helped Nick and his daughter, Nita, move cattle.
The next memory I have is about the same horse, Shine. Mama was peeling apples and she gave me some apple cores or apple skins to give to Shine. Unfortunately, she didn’t give me any lessons on how to feed a horse, so of course I presented the peels with my fingers bent. The poor thing proceeded to grab my fingers and bite me, but not on purpose. He really didn’t do me any harm, but I shrieked and mother came out and gave me a tardy lesson on how to feed horses. Even this didn’t make me shy of horses.
Our cabin had no running water or indoor plumbing. What was that stuff called electricity? I don’t think the main ranch had electricity. I don’t remember any thing about the inside of the cabin except mom making a down blanket for me out of a down blanket she'd had as a child. That blanket was around for at least 30 years.
Mom has told me that Nick was supposed to provide us with milk, which didn’t happen. Mom had had some experience with guns and had a 22. She could hunt and shoot rabbits. Fritz and I were fond in later years of saying we ate rabbit for breakfast, rabbit for lunch, and rabbit for supper. We also picked wild unions like the Indians did. Daddy came up now and then and brought staples like beans and flour.
Mom used to complain that Nick mixed his sourdough in the flour sack. This included eggs. When he was finished he left a little in the sack for the next starter. Mom said it got pretty strong. Nick didn't throw away coffee grounds daily, but just added more for several days.
The outside of the cabin is what I remember. There was a stream close by with willows to play in. In the spring there were wild violets that I picked by the huge hands full. In the winter Fritz rolled up snow balls and made a fort that lasted long after the snow was gone. One day Daddy shot an owl and stuffed it. Mom complained it looked like an hawk.
We stayed at the ranch in Walker Basin for almost a year. Who knows what was going on with my parents, I do not.
Strangely, I don’t have memories for the next two years. I have pictures of me and my sibling at various houses on Paiute mountain and I know the stories that go with them. For the next couple of years we lived at the Bowman mine, the ranger station, Tommy Thomas’ cabin near Frank and Jenny King's place. Nick Williams had summer range on Paiute at a place called French Meadow. So mom moved with all of us kids, five in all (Audrey, Fritz, cousins Beverly and Dana, and myself) up to the ranger station, which was empty at the time and on French Meadow.
Mom had a couple of goats to provide milk for us kids. The goats ran wherever they wanted to and one time Nick come over to complain that they had “eaten the ass out of one of his saddles”.
He, being a cattleman, would put his cows wherever he could get grass. Since the ranger station in French Meadow was vacant, he ran some cows in the “ranger meadow.” All of the gates were poor man’s gates. These go by many names but they are all barbed wire with a poll that one slips into a wire loop at the bottom and slips a wire loop over the top, I use the term slip loosely because they are very difficult to close, some times impossible. Sometimes a gate on the Ranger meadow got poorly closed or left open. Nick came over one time and told mother if she didn’t keep the gates closed he would wire them shut. She said that that was fine with her because then she would cut one where she wanted it.
Mom still helped out with the cattle from time to time. She had sort of a love/hate relationship with Nick and some of his family, but they never killed each other.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
My First Days on Paiute
When I was little, two or three years old, around 1937, my mother Esther took my brother Fritz and me and went to live on a ranch that belonged to an old rancher named Nick Williams. I believe my mom did this for reasons of health or sanity. My sister Audrey stayed with friends in the Los Angeles area. Fritz was five years older than me and my sister was a year older than Fritz.
My mother, a capable rider, was supposed to help with Nick's cattle from time to time and we all lived in a small log cabin on a separate section of the main ranch. Our only domestic company in that section was Bubbles, a Hereford bull, and Muffin, our cat. We stayed there for a year. Memories of a child as young as I was are at best vague and sometimes it is difficult to separate what one actually remembers from what one was told. My memories are mostly like post cards, pictures in my mind.
Fritz and I walked to the main ranch most days. Nick had a bone yard there that had several old wagons and a few automobiles, a great place for kids to play. Fritz was responsible for me and I was his only company. I only remember Mom and home and Nick at the ranch. I understood that a man worked at the ranch, and Nick had ten daughters and a son.
Fritz and I wandered all over the place, having our little adventures. One day we came upon a nest of rattlesnakes and Fritz guarded them and made me run home to get Mom to do something about them. She didn't want to come as she was busy sewing on her treadle sewing machine. But I would not stop yelling, so she finally came. I don't remember what happened after that. What was important was that my "message to Garcia" got through.
Nick used to tease me by poking his finger at my face and daring me to bite it. Mom warned me not to bite, but one day when we were at the ranch for dinner (beans) I did bite him. For punishment Mom made me chew and eat three chili tepinas. that was a lesson I can never forget.
I remember once a hog was going to be killed. I guess Mom was going to help scrape it. Fritz and I sat on the top rail of the fence as they dragged the pig -- it looked huge -- into the corral with a rope tied to one hind leg. Have you heard the term "screamed like a stuck pig?" The screaming starts before the pig is killed. They ran a rope through a pulley and suspended the pig in the air. Then they cut its throat and the pig bled out and thus was dead. A large cauldron sat on a fire and they scalded the pig to make the hair come off easier. I guess we all ate pork for a while.
We ate marrow gut when some animal was slaughtered. The animal is left to stand without food for 24 hours. After it is killed, the small intestine is removed and the liquid in it left to sort of coagulate. Then it is cut into pieces and fried. I can remember how good it tasted.
Joanne Heyser Harris
Introduction to Project
Long ago, well, not all that long ago, say seventy years ago, the Heyser family met Paiute Mountain, in the southern part of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. It lies south of the Kern River Valley. They also met an early rancher, Nick Williams.
After a few years they filed on the old Gehringer Claim, which had an old cabin, and renamed it High, Wide and Handsome. The Cabin began to take shape on that claim. Today all that remains of The Cabin is a stone chimney. People who camp at Camp Nick Williams (known as French Meadows in the good old days) call it the Stone House.
Throughout the years many people came to visit, friends of the Heysers, business associates, friends of their children, and The Cabin seemed to exert an almost mythic effect on the people who remembered it in later years.
The purpose of this blog is to invite people still living who have memories of The Cabin to set them down on paper, well, electronically for now, before there are none to remember and it will be just an old chimney, the Stone House.
Ken Harris (husband to Joanne Heyser)
(My wife made me write this!)
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