The Pastures of Beyond (16 page)

I had hoped that when the story broke it would make me a household name in America. A few days later, I began to wonder if
Life
had sent me the only copy of the magazine with my pictures in it.

“Kid,” Slim Pickens teased not long after the event, “I

reckon you just don't have what it takes to be famous.”

In the spring of 1949, I was hired by a rodeo promoter who was trying out several carloads of Brahma bulls for rodeo potential. The very first bull jerked the cape out of my hands, and when I started to retrieve it off the ground where the bull was raking it with his horns, the animal charged from twenty feet away. I ended up with my right side in a heavy cast. For some months I had plenty of time to study, but had to learn how to take notes left-handed.

That November, Slim wanted me to work the Cow Palace with him again, but I was still wearing a cast. By then, Slim was well on his way to becoming a movie actor, and had lost track of the bulls and how they bucked and fought. I knew the animals well and agreed to be in the arena with him and spot the bulls.

I was a few feet from Slim in the arena when Twenty Nine came out of the chute. “Slim,” I called. “This is Twenty Nine, the bull that hurt Homer. Let him go. It's not worth taking a chance.”

That wasn't the thing to say to Slim. His big jaw tightened. “This one's for Homer,” Slim said. As the rider bucked off, Slim stepped in to take Twenty Nine's charge.

The bull jerked the cape from Slim's hands and stopped, eyes snapping with anger. And then Twenty Nine started that deadly tiptoe. Slim tried in vain to get the bull to charge so he could sidestep the animal, but the beast kept creeping forward. Suddenly Slim was down under the bull's horns, and the bull was working a horn into his groin.

I forgot about my body cast and threw myself on the bull's stubby horns. Twenty Nine spun off Slim to meet me coming. I took a horn hard to my stomach that almost knocked the wind out of me but set me on my feet. Backing away, I slapped the bull in the face as I retreated. I ran just ahead of the bull's horns until he caught up and sailed me clear up into the stands. There was a look of surprise, then terror, on a woman's face as I dropped into her lap.

I was walking back to the dressing room after the performance with Slim and Margaret, when Slim put his arm on my shoulders and said, “Ya know, kid. I'm going to take you out tonight an' buy you the biggest steak that ever came off a steer.”

“You sonova gun,” Margaret muttered. “We had Slim insured for a quarter of a million dollars!” She was kidding me, I hope.

 

 

* The time needed to make a qualified ride was shortened to eight seconds in the mid-seventies.

Chapter Fifteen

T
HERE WERE, OF COURSE, SOME REAL RANCH COWBOYS
who did well in rodeos. Ross Dollarhide was one. He was raised on the P Ranch near Burns, Oregon. A natural athlete, he became a great saddle bronc rider and bulldogger, and a world champion. Ross and I were friends. We both came from Oregon, and when we would meet at some distant rodeo, we would exchange news from home. He died young, some say as a result of injuries from stunt work in Hollywood.

There were some fine ropers on the Klamath Reservation. Lawrence Hill, Friedman Kirk, Sandy Miller, and Dally Givons could win prize money at any rodeo in the country. There were saddle bronc riders like Buck Scott, Lee Hutchison, Jerry Choctoot, Dell Smith, Harold Hatcher, Phil Tupper, and Irvin Weiser, who could, on a good day, ride anybody's tough horse. But Monday morning would find them back at their ranches. With them, rodeo was a sport they loved to play but not a demanding career.

Sometimes I saw good friends die, like Kenny Madland, whose happy-go-lucky ways and infectious grin were snuffed out instantly by a Brahma bull. I had my own share of bruises and hungry times, but for me there were other considerations. When I rodeoed, it didn't matter a damn how many cattle and ranches my uncle owned. I was out there by myself, and if I succeeded or failed, it was all my own doing. Even as a rodeo photographer and bullfighting clown, I was living a life many a man would have envied, and I could count some great rodeo stars as friends, men like Jerry Ambler, Jack Sherman, trick roper Montie Montana, clown Homer Holcomb, Mel Lambert the announcer, Slim Pickens, and Ross Dollarhide. I hated to miss a rodeo for fear I'd be somewhere else when the excitement happened.

I got to meet interesting people with diverse talents, like Rex Allen, a western actor and singer who invited me to his home when he was throwing a twenty-fifth wedding anniversary party for Slim Pickens and his wife, Margaret. There was a story making the rounds that night about the time when Rex was waiting for a plane in the Los Angeles airport, and a fan rushed up and cornered him. “Mr. Autry,” the man said, “would you please give me your autograph?”

Rex signed the autograph, “Gene Autry, who will never be half the cowboy Rex Allen is.”

For a time, as a photographer, I knew all the great bucking horses — Badger Mountain, Snake, Five Minutes Till Midnight, Sceneshifter, Sontag, Miss Klamath, and Major Lou — and could tell you how most of the current crop of Brahma bulls on the circuit would handle with a cape. I wasn't good at many things, but there were cowboys walking around whose necks I'd saved from Brahma bulls.

Not a week passed when I didn't store up memories. Slim, Mel Lambert, rodeo clown Mac Berry, and I were at Red Bluff, California, and were visiting with Rex Allen, who was the featured entertainer at the famous rodeo. Some Chiloquin Indians I knew came up and invited us up to Oregon after the show to fish the Williamson River. “We got a place on the Williamson,” one man said, “an' if you guys got a few days off, we'll take you fishin' on our property. Hell, we got trout on our place weigh fifteen pounds.”

In those days the best fishing places on the river were Indian-owned, and unless a feller had an invitation from one of those Indian ranchers, he could maybe get gut-shot trying to slip into the river.

I had a sinking feeling, however, that the fishing trip might not turn out as well as we hoped. Once we had gathered any money coming to us from the rodeo committee, we headed north to Oregon, leaving Rex Allen to load his horses and music equipment and follow on his own.

If there was anything those rodeoing Indians knew better than team roping and bronc riding, it was how to throw a good party. As soon as they got back from Red Bluff, they got on the phone line and started calling relatives and friends.

“Hey,” one of them said. “You better get your ass over here to our place. You know who's comin' here? Mr. Rex Allen himself. He's goin' to play his guitar and sing for us. You come an' don't forget to bring your old lady an' kids, an' say, bring plenty of whiskey an' beer.”

By the time we arrived, the hay meadow along the ramshackle old ranch house along the river was already packed with cars. Kids a-horseback were galloping their mounts, playing games, and raising clouds of dust around the pickups and horse trailers.

I knew most of the folks, but Slim, Mel, and Mac, being celebrities, were introduced around, although they were impatient to slip away and fish.

“Where the hell is Rex Allen?” one of the hosts said, looking down the road. The man had worked for my uncle, and I knew him as someone not to be fooled with.

“He'll be here directly,” Mel Lambert said, helping himself to a big venison steak off the barbecue grill. “He had to load up all his music stuff in his truck, but he promised to come right along.”

Somebody hollered, “Chow!” and there was a general stampede of hungry kids to get to the head of the line. There were washtubs of beer and pop on ice, and some of the men had whiskey bottles stashed out in their pickups.

“That Rex Allen had better show up soon,” one of the hosts growled angrily. “If he don't hurry, he'll have to go to town to a restaurant. Where the hell is he, anyway?”

“He'll be here,” Slim promised, glancing nervously down the dirt road, which was already beginning to disappear in the gathering darkness. Someone popped a beer can near Slim's ear and dropped the can on the floor in a gushet of foam. Things were already starting to get out of control.

A woman started playing Indian drums and chants on a tape deck, and folks started dancing in a circle, while a few ladies corralled their children and left, as though they had seen wild parties like this start before. The Indian tape broke and was replaced by some forties swing. Mac Berry took a big lady by the arm and started jitterbugging, and pretty soon, she wound up kicking her legs up over her head as she danced. “I see you lookin' at my panties,” she called out to Mel. “I made them myself out of flour sacks. See, they got Pillsbury's Best on one cheek an' Occidental on the other.”

“Hell, lady,” Mel muttered. “I thought I was lookin' at the Grand Canyon of the Colorado!”

One Indian was not mixing with anyone. He was sitting over in the corner shadows, drinking from a pint flask and chasing it down with beer. He got up and lurched unsteadily over to where Mel was standing, watching the dancers.

“Damn that Rex Allen! When's he comin'?” he snarled. “You know what I think? He ain't comin' at all! You white guys come here an' eat up all our food, you drink our whiskey, you dance with our old ladies, an' you tell us Rex Allen is going to come here an' make nice music for the kids. You lie to us. Hell, you just want to catch fish in our river!”

The man moved closer to Mel, breathed heavily on his face, slipped a long hunting knife from a sheath on his belt, and held the point to Mel's twitching Adam's apple. “You lie to this Indian, I'm goin' to take this knife an' let yer hot blood run out on the cold linoleum.”

Slim Pickens rushed to rescue his friend. “He'll be here,” Slim promised. “Rex gave me his word. He told me he'd be here, an' he will!”

A big old barn cat with markings like a raccoon came in through a broken window and began chewing on a venison steak off someone's plate. Mac Berry grabbed the cat from behind, and held it spitting and hissing in his arms.

“What you doin' with my cat?” the man growled.

Mac had been having a good time and hadn't the slightest idea of the danger they were in. “I'm goin' to take him home and have him made into a coonskin hat,” he joked.

“Damn you guys!” the man thundered, brandishing his knife. “You come here to catch our fish, you eat our food, you drink our whiskey, you dance with our old ladies, you want to kill our cats. An' you lie to us about Mr. Rex Allen comin' here to sing!”

“I think I hear him comin' now,” Slim said, herding Mel and Mac toward the door. If they had intended to slip out the door and leave, though, the thought evaporated when a man motioned them back indoors with the muzzle of his rifle.

But there was no Rex Allen. The party got wilder and uglier. Women sat around the edge of the room with babies in their arms. Clouds of cigarette smoke hung in the air, then drifted out a hole where a falling tree had caved in part of the roof. A fistfight broke out between two men, and the mood went from ugly to perilous. The Indians who had invited us up fishing were nowhere to be seen.

“Well, I guess if we're goin' to get up early and go fishin',” Mel Lambert said, “we better go find a motel an' get some sleep. We'll try to find Rex in the morning an' bring him over for breakfast.”

The man with the knife blocked the door with a chair and sagged down on it. “You guys ain't about to go nowhere until Rex Allen shows up,” he said. “You think you can lie to us? Hell, he's probably halfway to Hollywood right now. You come here to catch our fish, you kill our cats, you drink our whiskey, you dance with our old ladies, you eat our food, you tell us lies. I'm goin' to take this knife and cut out the fronts of your pants.”

“He's comin'!” someone shouted. “For chrissakes! Here comes Rex Allen!”

Indeed, out over the two-rut dirt road across the pastures, a vehicle was coming, shaking from side to side like a go-go dancer with the heaves.

Unaware of the havoc he had caused and weary from a long drive, Rex stuck his head in the door and located Mel and Slim. “Hey, you guys, I got lost. I'm glad I finally found this place. We gotta get up early to go fishing. Let's go find a motel and crash.”

Someone grabbed Rex by his bola tie and set him down in a chair. Someone else raided his pickup for a guitar and thrust it into his hands. The big Indian stropped the edge of his hunting knife on his thigh. “Mister Rex Allen,” he hissed. “We've been here all night waitin' for you to play music, an' damned if you ain't goin' to play!”

Rex glanced around the house, at the gaping windows, the holes in the ceiling, the falling plaster, and the door hanging from one hinge. The big man moved behind him with the knife. The old actor paused a moment as though he was thinking of his movies, where he had survived situations far worse than this. Taking up his guitar, he cleared his throat and started to sing “This Old House.”

He got past “This old house ain't got no windows, this old house ain't got no doors,” when the man with the knife shouted in his ear, “Hey, you goddammit. You come here to catch our fish, you drink our whiskey, you kill our cats, you eat our food, you dance with our old ladies. Now you make fun of our house! Maybe I should just cut your throat!”

Rex suddenly got it. He took up the guitar and began to play again. “I've got a little bitty baby in my arms. A little bitty baby, my, what charms.”

All at once, the women got to their feet, took their babies in their arms, and began dancing around, singing along with Rex. The great Rex Allen had come all the way up from Hollywood to sing to them, and he was singing their song!

Chapter Sixteen

M
Y UNCLE WAS HAVING TROUBLE FINDING MEN
to help at Yamsi that year, and I gravitated back to the ranch from photographing rodeos. “Just temporarily, mind you,” I told him. There were things with my life I wanted to do, and that didn't include building fence or opening gates for him. I had just gone to a ranch barbecue near Sprague River to look for someone to hire, when I saw a crowd gathered over near the barbecue pit. My old friend Al Shadley was lying on the ground, choking, with a piece of steak lodged in his windpipe. His dark face was purple, and no one seemed to know what to do.