A Break in the Fence

Life on a ranch is seldom smooth. No matter what plans might be laid by man, livestock and weather ultimately determine what must be done and when. Adaptability is a fundamental trait for living in harmony in the rough and rugged country where cattle roam. The regularities of urban life and nine to five are unheard of in the land where cowboys still ride for short pay. It is the stuff of romance and myth that attracts so many, but where so few last unless they were born and bred to the life.

New Mexico’s big game hunting season lasts from September through the end of January. It is a time of economic infusion for the small rural communities scattered across the seven thousand square miles that encompass Catron County. With a permanent population of only some thirty-five hundred souls, it is still classified as a frontier county.

The hunting season is also a time of tension as conflicting and competing interests often give rise to confrontations in remote country where everybody is armed. The hunters from the large urban areas descend upon this usually quiet land to commit mayhem and murder upon the elk herds known for their trophy bulls. Many local inhabitants serve as outfitters and guides to the hunters. Some ranchers and landowners, along with the animal rights activists, do not welcome the camouflage clad interlopers albeit for differing reasons.

Winter elk on Ghost Rose range

The quiet ill will between the opposing groups is primarily the result of conflicting standards of respect for private property and the provincial and suspicious nature of a long and isolated rural tradition. Roadside trash, open gates, cut fences, wounded wildlife, the occasional wounded or killed domestic livestock, bullet ridden water tanks, windmills and road signs, two-tracks torn up and rutted, campsites trashed and fire rings littered with beer cans are the visible physical legacies left by the hunters. The trespass on private land and the territorial disputes between outfitters and guides that sometimes finds expression in violence further aggravates the situation.

The policies of state and federal game and land management agencies, often at odds with one another and with private land owners, also contributes to the unease that is present during hunting season. Vigilance and patrols by landowners are required to protect livestock and private infrastructure from trespass and criminal damage during the season of slaughter.

The early October afternoon sun probed the mesas and canyons of the crumpled and remote western New Mexico country that sits at the southern end of the brutal and inhospitable Malpais lava flows that roared off of Mount Taylor ninety miles north in a time long before man left his footprints in this place.
. The meadow grasses had turned a flaxen brown after the first hard freezes of mid-September and the dark green of the cedars stood in sharp relief under an achingly blue sky spattered with bits of torn clouds.

Stryker and Far Rider

Far Rider was conducting a security patrol heading up towards Hatfire Canyon when his big red horse, Stryker, suddenly threw up his head and stopped dead in his tracks. With ears pricked forward he stared with his full attention at a line of cedars two hundred yards past Crossman Well. Stryker’s pre-flight instinct was aroused and Far Rider could feel the muscles bunch and tense as the animal prepared to explode into defensive action. He spoke softly to the beast and gently squeezed the huge barrel of the horse’s ribs with his legs to assure and calm him. The six-foot fan atop the well creaked as it turned lazily in the intermittent southwest breeze. The cedars were downwind of the rider and it was doubtful Stryker had smelled anything. The visual acuity of horses is exceptional and is excited by the slightest motion even at considerable distance. Some old-timers say a horse can recognize another horse at a distance of a full mile. Stryker had seen something that the aging eyes of the rider had missed.

Crossman Well and Franklin Mesa

Men that ride wild country learn early on to implicitly trust and rely on the superior sensory faculties of their horses. In country where mountain lions, gray wolves and the occasional bear make their home, it is prudent to pay attention to the warnings given by animal companions. Horse and rider sat quietly, watching and waiting. After a few moments Far Rider’s brown eyes detected what had attracted Stryker’s attention. The fuzzy ears and wet snouts of a Black Angus cow and her calf peeked out of the trees. At the subtle shift of the rider’s weight, Stryker moved forward and they soon found seventeen head of the neighbor’s stock feeding amongst the trees at the northern end of Franklin Mesa.

Franklin Mesa anchors the southeast corner of the Ghost Rose Ranch. Its steep and rocky face begins just east of the fence separating the Ghost Rose from the Low Chamisa Ranch. Between the western foot of the mesa and the fence is a natural alley some one hundred yards wide leading to a Texas wire gate that opened into one of the Low Chamisa Ranch pastures.

Recon, Caesar and Far Rider

Putting the dogs, Recon and Caesar, on a “get behind” command Far Rider slowly eased up on the cattle. The eight pairs of mother cows and calves and one dry cow needed little urging to head back south towards their home grass. The presence of the dogs and the horseman made them nervous. They were more familiar with the modern methods of gather used by the neighbor that relied on ATVs. The calves were rambunctious and creating additional concerns for the nervous mothers making it important not to push them too fast.

Two problems confronted the rider as he trailed along fifty yards or so behind the jittery cattle. First, he had to get around the cattle, open the gate and then get back behind them in the narrow defile filled with closely spaced cedars, pinon pine and downed timber. He knew full well that if the cattle spooked and sold out for the north, he would be chasing them all the way to Sonoreno Draw.

Reminding the dogs to stay behind, Far Rider legged Stryker up into a ground eating extended trot that had him standing in the stirrups to avoid the jackhammer pounding of the loose-gaited motion of the big sorrel. Working their way around the cattle using the cedars as a blind, he pulled up, dismounted and threw back the wire gate. The cattle had halted and were milling about in the trees suspiciously eyeing the rider, horse and dogs. Remounting, the rider and his four footed crew moved quickly back behind the small herd and they trotted through the gate with the mamas bawling anxiously for their calves. The dust of their passing reflected the slanting rays of the sun now low in the west and the pungent odor of cattle hung in the clean, clear air.

After closing the gate Far Rider began to consider the second problem created by the presence of the cattle on Ghost Rose range. The break in the fence where the cattle were slipping through needed to be located and repaired or the scenario would be repeated. The fence went straight up the slope to the east of the gate. It was too steep to take a horse up and there were no cattle tracks in the hard packed soil. The fence looked like it could stand a bit of tightening but did not appear broken. He rode back north along the fence and checked for trampled or broken wire where the brutes might have come through. The fence was intact. An obvious break would have been a relief to find. The absence of a break meant that the fence up on top of Franklin Mesa would have to be checked.

The afternoon was getting on making it too late to make the thirty-minute ride around the mesa and up Franklin Canyon to reach the fence. Far Rider turned Stryker’s nose for home and released the dogs. They promptly tore off exploring and marking every bush, tree and rock in sight.

Far Rider placed a phone call that evening and informed his neighbor of the afternoon’s events. The neighbor was appreciative of the help saying he was getting ready to ship and had noted that he was short on his head count and was wondering where the missing cattle had gotten off to. The neighbor asked if Far Rider would take a ride up on top and look around for broken fence. One of the attributes of ranch country all over the west is that there is not a lot of socializing, but whenever a neighbor needs help, whether it is equipment or labor, no questions are asked or payment expected. Help is immediately given. Far Rider replied that he would head up there the next day.

Gunsmoke Mesa on the left, Franklin Mesa on the right.

After he hung up the phone, he reflected upon how fortunate he was to have Norm as his neighbor. Norm was, as Far Rider would often say, “a neighbor to die for.” Not everyone was nearly as lucky in whom they shared their fence lines with.

The following afternoon Far Rider saddled up Lancer, buckled on his chaps and forty-four, called up the dogs and headed east up Crossman Draw to the fork in the canyon near the ruins of an old settler’s cabin. Turning south along an elk trail they began the climb up Franklin Canyon to a bench near the top of the mesa where the air was turning chilly at the eight thousand feet of elevation. Reaching the fence line on the bench he reined up letting Lancer catch his breath after the hard climb. While the horse recovered, he surveyed the fence and the ground looking for tracks that might help point him in the right direction. He wanted to locate and repair the break before the onset of winter snows that could come at any time. No tracks pointed east toward Franklin gate and the dim trail down into Dewey Canyon. Turning west up the lava strewn slope towards the top of the mesa where the ground was covered with volcanic rock and no place to set a foot or a hoof down on even ground, he rode carefully mindful of how tough it was on his horse.

After travelling some distance he turned around and looked back the way they had come. It looked awful and he knew the ground ahead was going to get worse. “Smart thing to do would be to just turn around and head home” he muttered to his trail companions who were all patiently watching him with an “I hope to hell we are not going up there” look. But, it had to be done. It was time to tighten cinches and press on.

He stepped off Lancer and for the next hour and a half, leading his horse, they struggled and stumbled up and over the mesa looking for a break in the fence. In several places broken wires were present on the old rusted fence that had been built by Dineh laborers in the 1930s but there were no holes big enough for seventeen head of cattle to get through. Finally, as the shadows were beginning to lengthen foretelling that sundown was not far off they came across a majestic old silver snag that had finally succumbed to the trials of wind and weather. The huge trunk and broken limbs lay across the fence crushing the four strands of wire beneath its final act of defiance. Broken posts on either side of the fatally wounded giant defined the avenues through which passed the tracks of elk, cows and calves, and a myriad of the lesser critters of the high desert. That cattle would clamber all the way up there, bypassing perfectly good graze in the process was a testament to the curiosity and lure of travel to see new country that humans and animals seem to share.

The damaged fence would require chain saws and serious work to repair. There was nothing to be done about it just then and it was unlikely there would be any further cattle incursions until the following spring. He noted the location and then continued on following the elk and cattle tracks as they meandered northwards. Somewhere in the rocks he lost the tracks but it no longer mattered as he needed to think about getting down off the mesa.

The man and animals emerged from the trees on the western edge of the mesa. Unfolded before them was nearly a hundred miles of valleys and mountain ranges spreading into the setting sun. The only structures visible in the broad panorama were the Ghost Rose headquarters two miles as an eagle flies to the northwest and the Low Chamisa Ranch a mile or more down on the valley floor to the southwest.

With no safe way down the west side of the mesa where the steep slope and uneven footing would spell disaster for horse and rider if there were a fall, Far Rider turned north paralleling the rim of the mesa. The arduous hike leading his horse through the rocks over the mesa had blistered his feet and he could feel the bloody dampness of raw skin chafing against the leather inside his boots. He knew he was going to have sore feet for a few days.

The party continued its traverse of the rocky western slope for a mile until they arrived at a spot where it was now or never if they were going to get off the plateau before dark. Grasping the mecate in a gloved hand, Far Rider carefully began angling down the slope ever mindful that a misstep could result in a blown knee, twisted ankle or broken bones. The china-like clink unique to flagstone and the crunch of lava rock beneath boots and steel shod hooves marked their erratic, slip-slide passage. Small plumes of dust arose as the horse and man skidded down the slope. After many switchbacks and turn backs due to fallen trees and impassable piles of rock and lava that included several bone jarring falls as rocks rolled out from under him on the rough slope they finally arrived on the valley floor.

Meadow at the western foot of Franklin Mesa

He was thankful for the well-trained and gentle horse that had not stepped on or run over him when he had fallen in the rocks. His shirt was sweat soaked and the cooling evening air made him shiver as he snapped his oilskin vest closed, checked his horse for welfare, tightened his cinch, and gratefully swung back into the saddle. His damaged knees protested, a bruised hip throbbed, and his feet felt like they were on fire but there was no place else he would have rather been.

Two miles at an easy jog quickly brought then back to headquarters. In the windows of the old historic ranch house, lamplight glowed a soft welcome in the deepening twilight and smoke drifted from the chimney as they rode in. The rest of the horses were at the corral gates waiting to come in for the night and nickered a greeting to Lancer.

Far Rider unsaddled and curried Lancer’s damp back and chest. Giving Lancer a handful of sweet feed as reward for his loyal service, he enjoyed the feel of the velvet lips as they gently scooped the grain out of his hand. He turned all the horses into the corrals where their evening grain and sweet smelling alfalfa hay waited for them in their feed bunks. As he watched the horses contentedly eating, he thought that it had been a great ride even with the hike over stony ground to save his horse’s feet.

After feeding the dogs, he pulled off his boots and fixed himself a good stiff drink before settling into his favorite battered old chair. He sipped his drink enjoying the warmth of the blended Canadian whiskey. Soaking his bloodied feet in Epsom salts and listening to the fire as it crackled on the grate, sleep quietly stole upon him. The dogs tiredly ate their supper and were already unconscious on their beds as he roused himself and headed for his own bedroll.

A chill autumn wind crept softly through the eaves beneath the old tin roof of the ranch house. Memories of other winds, the brilliant reflection of sun on high country grass, the serenity of wild, open places, the smell of horses and leather, and the soft sound of hoof beats on dim trails passing beneath heaven in the beauty of God’s creation filled the canopy of sleep in the twilight of dreams.

Far Rider

See to your weapons and stand to your horses