OLDEN TIMES

The Arizona Strip drew to it a type of man who liked plenty of elbow room and thought one or two people was plenty of company. There the grass grew tall and strong when the rains came and cows and horses got fat and a good cow horse could scarce stay on the ground, so great was the nourishment of that native feed. The elevation is about 5,000 feet where summer breezes blow cool and the hawks sail across the sky most of the day. The coyotes and bobcats balance the jackrabbit population and furnish furs for the trappers. The golden eagle is king of the sky and is a formidable creature to release from a #3 trap. Plenty of mustangs roamed the range, and the good ones could be owned by those who could catch them. Big mule deer browsed the high rough ridges, the spread of their antlers often surpassed the 40 inch mark. The wandering cowboy from all over the west drifted in an out of this good land. A lonesome land to some, but home for others.

Water was the determining element, the vital ingredient of life in this high desert country. There was a fine balance of quantity between barely-enough and adequate to entice and support a few hardy souls, a land that exists because of water's scarcity as well as its sufficiency. The old rancher speaks of the droughty years that got progressively worse. Through the years necessity taught that holding tanks could be made to store drinking water for long periods of time. The homesteader-rancher hauled the water to his camp or cabin in fifty gallon barrels. Both man and animals drank from the same reservoir. The rancher's iron tired wagon was backed down into the water pond to a depth that made dipping with a bucket easy, then several barrels were filled with this good rain water that ran upon the clean earth imparting a light tan color.

This was the best of water, sweet to the taste of those who adopted this land. The city dweller who chanced to wander into the hospitality of a far flung ranch would look askance at such to quench his thirst, but the old timers who have drifted elsewhere relish the memories of that earthy colored water. A 3 gallon bucket, with dipper, hung by the door to give drink to the thirsty who entered and filled a small pan to wash dust from the face and hands. A simple, easy way to provide a necessity of life.

A team of horses hitched to an iron tired wagon hauled the winter's wood, moved the outlying camps of the stockman, and provided family transportation to church and social functions. Next to the saddle horse, a good team was most needful. All the early ponds were made with a fresno pulled by a 4 to 6 horse hitch. Cedar wood provided the fuel for the cook stove and heat in the wintertime, but discomfort in the summer when food was prepared during the daytime. This wood was plentiful, burned hot and was free from soot. The odor of it still provides pleasant memories of past times.

The vital articles in a man's possessions were hat, boots, saddle and horse with other items in between to compliment these. A stranger was always welcome to food and bed or assistance if in need. He was gladly received for the news and friendship that he brought. He was generally urged to stay longer and come by again. If no one was home, the door was always open for those who might chance by. The cowpuncher or sheepherder's camp provided a good place for the visitor or drifter to get a free meal and stay as long as he wanted. If no extra help was needed there were other things a good hand could do to keep his welcome open. A skillful story teller was a popular center of attraction. Nobody pried into another's business and if conveyed it was a matter of confidence. The funny and interesting occurrences of the days work were told with relish and many are the comical things that happen in a man's life as he works with livestock on the range.

A sky full of heavy water-laden clouds brings about universal gladness to all creatures that live in this dry region. The cattle raise their heads to sniff the air, then buck and play with joy at the prospects of wet ground and running water. There were occasionally those who held deep-seated grudges and enmity to others. Most of the problems began over water. When a man and his livestock were choking and another had some water, but wanted to save it for his own use, sometimes the animosity created ended in a shootout with a dead man laying on the ground. But there were also those who were a friend to all. My dad was one of these. He was a peacemaker and found fault in no man. Even though some used him badly he did not retaliate in word or deed. I wish I had followed in his footsteps.

Bish Iverson, Uncle Martin's eldest son, and his wife were teaching school in Bundyville one winter. The church house and another one room lumber building that stood to the north a couple hundred feet served as classrooms. Several families such as the Van Leuvans, Bundys, Aldridges, Snyders, Joneses and Iversons sent kids to the school.

The Van Leuvans and Aldridges were related to Jim Bundy who married Cleo Van Leuvan so he was tied to them. Aunt Retty Iverson married Roy Bundy and Uncle Martin married Lilly Bundy, Roy and Jim's sister. My mother and Artie Snyder were sisters so most of the families in Bundyville area had some relationship tie. These were the Mormon families that had settled in the country. The gentile families such as: Alcorns, Hallmarks, Shelley, Sweezy, Christman, Rosenberry, Welches, Western, Beaches and others were scattered far and wide but did not send kids to the Bundyville School.

One day a 12 or 13 year old Van Leuvan girl refused to obey the teacher so Bish Iverson paddled her behind, not harshly but enough to let her know she should obey. Next Sunday as the Saints gathered for church the Van Leuvans were there, mad. They threatened to thrash the ground with Bish's body. Bish was a big strong young man so invited one and all to proceed to try. The Van Leuvan people were not as big and husky as the Iverson and Bundy bunch. No one really knew who was on whose side anyway, but church services didn't amount to much that day and they called a meeting for Monday afternoon to settle the problem. I can still remember Dad talking to Mom about it, saying they were making a big issue out of nothing. The next day when we got to the church house, teams of horses were tied to the wagons while the Van Leuvans and their supporters were gathered together, a tight lipped grim looking bunch. Some carried quirts or other objects that could be used as weapons. No guns were visible. I was just a kid in the first grade. After the men talked for an hour or two they all hitched up and went home.

The solution was that Bish and his wife resigned and the school board hired two other teachers. Bish went with his wife to Texas where she was from and a young woman by the name of Dorothy came to teach us younger kids. The next spring Dorothy married Ervin Aldredge, a nice young local fellow. Most of the young women who came out there as school marms were wooed and wed before the school year was out. That country was long on cowpunchers and sheepherders but short on eligible young women. Fifteen or twenty years later the changes of fortune were such that all the families with girls had to move to town so their daughters could find husbands. I think Bish Iverson's wife was wooed and wed at the Bundyville schoolhouse.

Four or five times each year everybody for miles around, (including the gentiles) would get together and have a big feed and hoe-down. Some of those old cowboys were good musicians, talented on the banjo, guitar, fiddle and harmonica. One of the ladies could play the piano and usually somebody could sing. Those Tennessee hillbillies didn't have anything on the Arizona Strip Stompers. That old school house would rattle and shake when those lively tunes stirred the blood of the old timers as they stomped out the Virginia reel, polkas, fox trot and two steps. Most always some gentile had a bottle of Red Eye stashed in a saddle bag or other place and they resorted thither as the evenings merry making progressed. They had it in their heads, or maybe it was their up bringing that a REAL man's measure was in a pint of moonshine: (so nasty that no other animal on earth would ingest it). Young stags itching for a fight to prove their mettle then could ride back to camp with a black eye, skinned knuckles and a busting head. Such was the pattern and folly of some of those young men. For Mark Hopkins, Pearly Morse, Bill Shanly, Ray Esplin, Jack Butler and a hundred others that liquid evil enslaved their appetite and left only a husk of what once was a virile young man. The Shelley boys didn't drink, but they loved to fight and stirred up many a fracas.

The Snyder boys were the clod-buster type, hard workers, post choppers and fence builders and walked many a mile behind a 4 or 6 horse hitch pulling a fresno. Slowly a water basin or pond would deepen with each yard of dirt moved over the bank. Eldon migrated to Montana where he could earn his pay from the back of a horse and Afton still raises a few beef at Penns Valley and down by Molly's Nipple, a hard country that wore him out. The changes of time makes a big difference in the life style of people and so it was with the horse trader and cowpuncher of the West. For many years the range land was open, not fettered with barb wire fences and a feller could ride his horse where ever he had a mind to go. In fact, it was the need and desire to fence the big areas of land in the West for which barb wire was developed.

I can remember when St. George was a small town, nestled in the northwest corner of the valley against the Black Ridge on the west and the Red Hill on the north. The Tabernacle was the church house and all the kids went to school in the old Woodward Building. The land east and south to the irrigation ditch line was open land with brush and salt grass growing on it. In places the greasewood and mesquite brush grew thick and heavy providing a place where the Indians camped when they came to town. Here is where they left an old blind couple that had become too great a burden for the tribe to care for, so members of the church provided food and shelter for them until they crossed over to the Happy Hunting Grounds.

Horse traders with fifty to a couple hundred head of horses would camp in this area for several days, selling and swapping horses with the local folk. They'd have a couple wagons for camp gear and horse handling supplies. Sometimes there'd be a woman with kids and sometimes 3 or 4 wagons. They'd stay a few days then move out to better grass where their livestock could get enough feed as they slowly moved to the next town to trade. North was the direction of travel in the springtime and south in the fall, always looking for grass and people who needed horses. This was their lifestyle. Joe and Jack Beech were this kind of feller, just living out their lives as easy and pleasantly as possible. To some it might appear to be a hard way to live, to others it means the freedom of wide open country, not restricted by fences, houses and rules of town living out where a feller's eyes can feast on the good things of nature the way they looked before the white man came. Joe took up a homestead on some of the better grazing along the Hurricane Valley on the Arizona Strip. Here he built a cabin for his wife and 3 or 4 kids. He worked punching cows for the bigger outfits while the family looked after a few head of cows and horses at home.

Jack didn't want to be tied down to one spot. He could see no need for that, hadn't the range been open and free all his life? He liked to move to fresh grass whenever the need required or he had an urge for a different view from the front door. His home was built on wheels, similar to the sheepherder wagons of the time with a commissary wagon to carry other supplies like water barrels or a few sacks of grain and other paraphernalia that a feller needs when he's out on his own like that. His wife and kids helped care for a little herd of sheep and goats (fresh meat on the hoof) and the draft stock and riding horses. He took a cow-punching or sheep herding job when he needed money for grub or supplies such as flour, beans, bacon or a sack of taters now and then. Of course they needed money for clothes and footgear, or coffee and Bull Durham, which required silver on the counter top so a feller had to work for wages some, but life in general was a lot less stressful than it is in town now days where a man must pay the rent and monthly payments on the car, fridge, dishwasher, electric stove, TV, couches, chairs, etc. to say nothing about all the government tax collectors. The government bureaucrats had no hold on Jack. They provided no services for him and he wanted none. He took care of his own needs out of what Mother Nature provided. He was one of the truly free men that lived in that time and age.

"Thumb" was a simple, harmless feller, the oldest son of Joe Beech. He wasn't very smart but he didn't have to be to live his kind of life which was centered in a little bunch of mares and colts. He didn't hanker for anything in life except enough grass for his horses to eat, some grub for himself, a place to get out of the weather and the clothes on his back. Joe died, so the family didn't have a source of money and Mrs. Beech wasn't equipped to do anything except tell her kids what to do. An ol 'sheep-herder came along and married the daughter. The BLM took over control of the rangeland and the crafty stockmen bought up the grazing rights. Barbed wire fences hedged up the way every few miles and without the permission of a bureaucrat to pass, a feller was considered a trespasser, and a violator of the law. So Mrs. Beech finally sold the homestead and went to town where she could collect some welfare money, enough to buy her and "Thumb" a little grub.

"Thumb" and his horses didn't do too well in town, as there wasn't much horse feed along those old dry streets and people kept complaining about them, It had been a long time since the last horse trader had trailed his herd into the St. George basin to bargain with local farmers. Cars and tractors had about replaced real live horse power and the life style of Jack and Joe Beech was part of history. Mrs. Beech and "Thumb" moved out in the sagebrush and cedar tree hills of Nevada on a little ranch owned by her daughter and sheepherder son-in-law. They too have long since gone to "range" on the other side of the "Great Divide".

Things keep changing, sometimes for the good, but mostly not so good. The control of the bureaucrat over the range land has become such that even the greedy man who used the government to force his neighbor off the range is hard pressed to make his ranching operation a paying business. Only the range is still there, desecrated by the fences, roads and the sins of men. Not even blessed by the Lord very often with life-giving rainfall.