This recounts a legendary event that took place in 1987, the year before I was working out of the cabin full time. Jim Kohman was Piute ranger that season and I was over in Robinson Creek. We’d started out together in 1983 as a two-person contract trailcrew. The drift fences near the cabin (barbwire fences that keep stock from “drifting” away) were in a sad state and our entire wilderness crew—eight of us—rendezvoused at the cabin to erect a new fence across Upper Piute Meadow. It was to be built by-the-book to Forest Service Standards using pressure-treated wooden posts rather than a hodge-podge of steel posts and untreated wooden ones (harvested from the surrounding forest) like the current flimsy enclosure that was falling down in dozens of places. Building materials had already been flown in by helicopter.◦◦◦◦◦The person at the center of this story was a Forest Service employee from the Bridgeport station—a “range con” (job title, short for “range conservationist”) who was new on the district. Jane was powerfully built, self-assured…a “western” sorta gal who knew her way around livestock. In those days, range cons were mostly seasonal workers whose duties included monitoring grazing allotments. Jane was among the last generation of people working in the range division who routinely rode horses and worked outside…even alone. I personally witnessed this noble occupation turn into a desk-bound, computer-centered step on a career ladder.
11 Sep (Sun) …packed the horses and headed downcanyon at noon. ◦◦◦◦◦ Along the way, ran into Jane S. and Gary Nelson. Jane used to work here on the district and was a range con back in the 80s and is now, I believe, Range Officer on the Carson District. Gary is a farrier who used to shoe our mules (because no one else would mess with these uncouth ruffians). It looked like Jane and Gary were “friends” but of course I didn’t ask. Good to see them both. Invited them to come for breakfast tomorrow….
12 Sep (Mon) Jane and Gary didn’t show. Not surprised—it’s a bit too far to walk from their camp and a hassle to saddle up and ride so early. But I would’ve enjoyed spending some time with them. ◦◦◦◦◦ A story: Jane worked here on the district for a couple of years. (1987 and ’88 I believe.) When our whole crew came up to Piute to build the new back fence, August ’87, I was elected to be cook. Jane rode up by herself the day we started work—just for a visit or to help out or do her own thing, I don’t recall. The next morning she went out to catch her horse. Since there was no back fence in place (we’d already taken the old one down), all the horses and mules had wandered and were way up at the head of the meadow. Jane went off to wrangle her pony with a halter and—I noticed—no grain. How and why this whole mess transpired will forever remain a mystery. ◦◦◦◦◦ This is surmise: the stock all saw her coming with a rope but no goodies. Some horses catch easy and don’t require a bribe like ours do. They were having a big party of their own in the lush green grass of Piute Meadows and weren’t interested in being caught if they weren’t at least going to get some candy so they all, including Jane’s ride, started walking away from her. And Jane just strolled along behind; I suppose she thought patience was her best plan and that they’d finally stop and let her capture their visiting friend. Jane kept following and the horses and mules all kept walking. The whole parade got on the Kirkwood trail and stayed on it all the way to the pass (almost two miles). I have little doubt that knavish Bruno the mule was in the lead. What Jane should’ve done, what any seasoned stock user would’ve done in this situation, would be to high-tail it up into the woods at a dead run and try to get in front of the train—at which point they usually surrender. But Jane just kept walking behind them until she’d pushed the lot all the way to Kirkwood Pass. And once at the pass they of course all started running downhill, using gravity to get away from the pesky two-legger. Just before noon, Jane showed up back at the cabin with her halter but otherwise empty-handed. I was in the process of getting lunch ready. Jim and Lorenzo were at the cabin with me when she returned. Jane calmly and matter-of-factly informed us that the horses were gone. All of them, hers and ours. And I will never forget the scene that ensued. ◦◦◦◦◦ Lorenzo blew his stack. I already knew from personal experience that he had a temper but had never before seen him lose it with another human—only with livestock. (Lord knows, if one has a temper, they’ll find a way to unleash it.) The three of us could hardly believe what she’d done, or how blasé she was about it. Lorenzo heated up to his boiling point rapidly—a place from which people with real tempers seem unable to turn back. Both of them started yelling at each other. It quickly became apparent that Jane had a temper of her own. As they got into it, Jim and I retreated into the cabin and stood there listening. And cringing. (I imagined seeing Lorenzo’s eyes bugged out, neck veins bulging, finger pointing, spit flying.) And he spat out these memorable words that will forever be seared into my memory banks: “Why you DIZZY BITCH! You shoulda hustled yer FAT ASS up into the trees and RUN and gotten in front of ‘em!” Oooh. Ow. Jane (sounding red-in-the-face, bulging neck veins, et cetera): “YOU CAN’T TALK TO ME LIKE THAT!” “OH YEAH?!!” And so on, back and forth. Full-on “why-you-oh-yeah” stuff. I wish I could recall more of their, um, exchange. But vividly remember that opening salvo. It went on for awhile…but probably not as long as it seemed. Jim and I were wincing at the verbal blows, looking at each other, grinning nervously. It was pretty ugly. Jane stalked off and didn’t come back. Turns out she went back over Kirkwood Pass down into Buckeye Canyon and bivvied, without food or gear, in the old snow survey cabin before walking out all the way to the Buckeye trailhead the next day—about nine more miles. All she took was her saddle and a bridle, I believe. (Try lugging a saddle eleven or twelve miles sometime and you’ll know what real misery is.) ◦◦◦◦◦ Of course, there was talk over the radio which I guessed would quickly turn into the hottest kind of gossip. Our horses and mule never returned so, once the job was finished—I’m just now recalling that we were about done—half of the crew walked over to Buckeye canyon to round up the stock while the rest of us walked to Leavitt, drove the rigs over to Buckeye, and retrieved the fugitives. (They were in the temporary corral being used by the NPS trailcrew when we arrived to pick them up.) It was a real debacle all the way ‘round and an embarrassment for everybody concerned. I’d been looking forward to talking about this now-possibly-humorous event with Jane when she came to breakfast. Maybe, some day…. ◦◦◦◦◦ One more anecdote about Ms. S. She was a range con in, I believe, Austin, Nevada (part of Toiyabe Forest) before transferring to Bridgeport. One day a local rancher came into the office in Austin and said he had something to show them. Jane and some other range folks, maybe with an archaeologist, rode out into the hills with this fella. He took them to a small cave he’d found. They all crawled inside and Jane looked in wonder at the skeleton of a saber-toothed tiger laying, fully articulated, in the dust on the floor of this small cavern where it had rested, undisturbed, for thousands of years. I have nothing but naked envy for this experience-of-a-lifetime, as she once described it to me.
I met Jane again years later, in 2013, when she came to Crooked Creek to take part in a botany workshop we were hosting. She still worked for the Forest Service, getting close to retirement. We got to talk a few times and had lovely chats. We made brief reference to the event in question but it seemed inappropriate to bring it up in the company of others. (If we’d been alone, it probably would’ve been okay.) I would dearly love to hear her side of the story and what she recalled of it. One thing, though—she was able to clean up the last part of this entry, which, not surprisingly, I had completely wrong. (I tell people, half joking-half serious, that “my veracity coefficient is hovering in the low 70 percentile.”) This is more like what happened, maybe only fifteen percent off rather than forty percent: The skeleton was not a saber-toothed tiger but a CAVE BEAR—almost as good if not better. It was not discovered by the rancher but some professional cavers who had asked for, and gotten, permission from the rancher to explore the cave. They were the one’s who alerted the Forest Service, and I’m assuming that this was on Forest Service land. Still—I can imagine few things more thrilling than to witness something like this. It makes my skin tingle just thinking about it. I suppose I could find out more about it if I tried. I think I’ll let it be…leave it as a thrilling image in my mind, unsullied by those troublesome facts.
©2019 Tim Forsell
13 Apr 2019
