26 Sep (Sun) Riding out of Piute today, ending my last full tour of the millennium. ◦◦◦◦◦ A de-e-e-lightful trip: earthy autumnal smells, radiant aspens; a deep blue inverted bowl of sky over all. Is it sheer coincidence that the colors of the quakers’ leaves and trunks goes so well with sky-blue? And that indescribable light! Pretty much the perfect, high Indian summer-type Fall day: solitaires singing…gentle breeze in the face (thus no dust in the nose)…aspen groves up on the high slopes in their full blazing golden glory…deep-maroon dogwood lining the river in the Roughs…gooseberrys turning yellow. Speaking of gooseberries, I saw a couple of thickets recently visited by Ursa—stems stripped of both leaf and berry, slurped off with little regard for those needlelike spines. And somewhere along the way it hit me that I’ve not heard a single rifle report on this opening week of hunting season—definitely a first. Fine by me! ◦◦◦◦◦ About half-way out, I heard a horse approaching and looked over my shoulder to spy a pale grey horse and rider coming up on us fast. I pulled over to let them pass and, sure enough, it turned out to be old Abe Nance, out on another one of his long training rides. (He does those grueling hundred-mile endurance events.) Today he was on a gorgeous dapple-grey Arab mare with those lustrous, long-lashed eyes that unicorns would have if there were unicorns. This is the third or fourth time we’ve crossed paths. Usually he’s in a big rush and doesn’t seem all that keen on stopping to make small talk with the ranger. But today he pulled up and I got to check him out a bit. What a character! Looks to be in his late sixties or early seventies…kinda hard to tell. He lives outside Hazen NV, a little one-gas-station-no-stoplight town north of Fallon. Full western regalia: wrangler jeans; plaid, long-sleeved, button-up shirt; beat-up, sweat-stained Stetson hat; standard-issue cowboy boots that once upon a time were shiny and new. He’s soft-spoken and has a mischievous, boyish grin (sort of a cross between a grin and a smirk, actually) that he wears pretty much the whole time whenever we meet up. Sinewy body, gnarled hands; likely bald under that hat. Surprisingly unlined face, given his rough outdoor life and advanced age. Could be a pious Christian or a hard-drinking, short-fused bar brawler. Maybe both! He’s hard to make out, actually; not an easy read. Doesn’t come across as particularly intelligent and I doubt he has more than a high school education, if that. Gotta say, I’m really curious about this guy. ◦◦◦◦◦ Asked where he was coming from. “Huckleberry,” sez Abe (meaning Huckleberry Lake, over in the Emigrant [Wilderness]—maybe fifteen miles away as the eagle flies; twenty-some by trail). “Just today?!” I asked, knowing he routinely does these forty-plus mile day-rides. “No…spent the night there. Been out four days now.” Didn’t ask where else he’d been but I’m thinking to myself, Jeez! Maybe he went all the way to Tuolumne! ◦◦◦◦◦ “Really?! Four days?!” Pointing by way of an upward tip of the chin in the general direction of his saddlebags: “That’s your whole kit?” (At a glance: Some sort of oblong leather case slung over his shoulder. The mandatory pistola in leather hip holster. Cloth bags hanging off his saddle horn, both sides. Jumbo-sized leather saddlebags. And, tied behind cantle, something rolled-up and wrapped in a faded denim jacket. Didn’t get a good look at whatever this was—definitely not a sleeping bag; probably just a slicker. Gotta say, Abe Nance knows how to travel light! He did his little Stan Laurel grin with silent chuckle, looking quite pleased with himself. (I imagine that he gets a kick out of seeing the shocked expressions on the faces of people he meets on the trail, deep in the backcountry, when they ask where he’s coming from.) In response to my inquiring if that was his “whole kit,” Abe replied, “Yeah,” but didn’t elaborate further. Of course, I had to ask: “What do you do for food?” Grinning, he patted his near saddlebag. “Oh, I take mostly canned goods. You can get those big ol’ cans o’ chili at the Buy-Rite in Fallon for a dollar-thirty-nine. The dented cans. And beef stew.” Abe Nance—red-blooded Nevada alfalfa cultivator, endurance rider, and certified western-style character. ◦◦◦◦◦ ….
My last encounter with Abe was near end of my final season at Piute (2003). It turned out to be a memorable meeting. ◦◦◦◦◦ For years, my brother Steve would come up to Piute for a few days, always in the fall. One September day, almost exactly four years after the Piute Log entry above, the two of us rode up to the West Fork with tools and left the horses at the PCT bridge. We were cleaning waterbreaks when two backpackers walked up—a couple, out on a stroll. It turns out these two were camped nearby with a group of fellow medical students. Emily and Nathan were really happy to see us. More to the point, glad to see a guy in uniform. They had a little problem. It seems that the previous afternoon their group ran across an old man on horseback. He was alone and seemed confused; didn’t appear to know where he was headed, for one thing. The old codger put up a lot of resistance but finally got talked into spending the night in their camp. He was there now. All these undergrad med students had no idea what to do with their new friend so, naturally, Emily and Nathan were thrilled to have run into an official. Now their problem was somebody else’s problem! We followed them back to their camp. And there’s Abe Nance, sitting on a rock wearing his customary Stan Laurel grin. His horse—another Arab—was tied to a tree a few yards away. I greeted him by name and we started talking. It was never clear whether or not Abe even recognized me. He definitely knew where he was but confessed, somewhat sheepishly, to not being certain where he’d left his rig. Maybe Kennedy Meadows? [Many miles away, on the other side of Sonora Pass.] “What’s that other pack station?” The name Bart Cranny didn’t seem to register. It took some convincing—he was ready to just press on—but I persuaded him to follow Steve and me back to Piute and we’d all ride out together in the morning. Abe saddled up his horse, got his gear together (such as it was), and followed us back to our parked horses. We headed for the cabin. My brother’s vacation was going to be cut short. ◦◦◦◦◦ The taciturn Mr. Nance turned out to be a real chatterbox. (I’d always figured him for the quiet type but, in retrospect, it may have been that he just wasn’t comfortable talking to a Fed. Or maybe the nonstop chatter was the dementia talking.) The whole way back, he regaled us with one story after another. Along with what Abe shared that evening and the following day there was enough biographical material to piece together a good part of his life story. ◦◦◦◦◦ Abe’s surname was actually Carter. His father changed it to Nance after killing a man in a fight. One of seven children, he was born in Mississippi in 1930 but raised in Texas. The father, a railroad-blacksmith by trade, lost his job during the depression. The family came west shortly after Pearl Harbor, when Southern Pacific offered Abe’s father work in California. They pulled up stakes and settled in Stockton, where the whole family lived in a converted boxcar that came with the railroad job. Abe grew up in a hurry: his folks gave him permission to go to barber school and at fourteen he was cutting hair in Sacramento. One day, an army recruiter showed up at the barber shop and convinced him to enlist. Lying about his age, Abe signed up and joined the Army Rangers. At the ripe old age of fifteen he was jumping out of airplanes, mastering the art of killing people quickly and efficiently, and learning how to blow things up. But the war in the Pacific was almost over before Abe’s first deployment. He ended up in Japan just a few weeks after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed. Then came Korea. He signed on again, garnering three purple hearts. The last one got him discharged after a bunker he was in was hit by artillery. Abe was buried in the wreckage for three days before being rescued by British troops who, he said, “talked funny.” ◦◦◦◦◦ We never heard how Abe became a farmer but, from the sound of it, he was still cutting hair long after he started cutting alfalfa. His passion was long-distance horse riding. He claimed to hold the world record for the hundred-and-fifty mile endurance ride (an event that is apparently no longer staged; probably a result of killing too many horses). ◦◦◦◦◦ Once home, we got our guest and his horse, Sammy, settled in. I asked Steve to fix dinner, thus sparing him the burden of having to be our guest’s primary audience, for which he was grateful. We got to hear more of Abe’s stories, all couched in “colorful” language—some of them several times. Along with being exceptionally foul-mouthed, he proved to be a certified racist. While politically conservative, his views were a bit fuzzy: “Ronald Reagan. Now there was a great president. Not like Slick Willie…. That new governor’s pretty good—the fat Scandanavian…what’s his name? Something ‘nigger.’ Yeah, ‘nigger,’ that’s his name.” [He was referring to Arnold Schwarzenegger.] His railings against various ideologies and institutions were peppered with similar highly proscribed epithets. Steve and I were shocked—not so much by Abe’s overt racism as his assuming that my brother and I were of like mind. Again, it might have been dementia’s dis-inhibition talking. ◦◦◦◦◦ Fortunately, all three of us turned in early. In the morning, Abe appeared all set to resume his journey. I still couldn’t tell whether or not he was aware that we were long-time acquaintances. (He certainly enjoyed my buttermilk pancakes.) After breakfast, when I asked where he was bound Abe replied, “Oh, guess I’ll head back to Huckleberry.” At that, I had to gently insist that he follow us out and, while Abe was out saddling up, called Minden Dispatch on my radio and briefly explained the situation. ◦◦◦◦◦ For much of the ride out, Abe once again chattered almost nonstop. Toward the end, we were barely listening. At the pack station, the three of us were much relieved to see Abe’s rig parked in its usual spot right across the road from Bart’s house. Under one of the windshield wipers was a note from the Mono County sheriff: “Sir: you have been reported as a missing person. Please contact….” I asked Craig, one of Bart’s long-time packers, to drive us a mile down the highway to the lone “sweet spot” where you can get a signal and borrowed Craig’s mobile to call the sheriff’s office. Then Abe called his wife, assuring her he was fine and would be home soon. Handing the phone back to Craig, Abe looked pretty hangdog. She’d been crying the whole time, he said. ◦◦◦◦◦ Back at his rig, it was time for goodbyes. “Now if you boys are ever in Hazen, be sure to look me up. My place is easy to find. And if you’re ever in any kind of trouble, you just call me.” And that was the last I saw of Mr. Nance—a man who knew how to travel light. Long term memory presumably got him home safe and sound. But I imagine his marathon riding days were over. Driving days, too—hopefully. Steve and I may well have been along for Abe’s Last Ride. He’s been dead for many years now. For all I know, the man may still be a legendary figure in certain horsey circles. Talk about tough! The ones who come in first on those hundred-mile races are in the saddle for something like thirteen or fourteen hours, I believe. That’s the winners. The non-winners, what? Fifteen, eighteen, twenty hours? I can’t even begin to imagine how your body would feel after a hundred miles in the saddle, much less a hundred and fifty. (And let’s not forget the horse….) Hat’s off to Abe.
©2026 Tim Forsell 3 Jun 2026
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