Heard About Jackson Hole?

by KATHARINE BOYD

1

THEY called him “the Virginian,” for no particular reason that I could see unless it was to annoy him — because he hated with such bitter hatred the show-off cowboys and fake bronc riders with sideburns and Navajo rings who hung around so many small Western towns talking big to the dudes. “The Hi-O Silver boys,” he called them. Perhaps that is why they called him after the most romantic cowboy of them all: the way, in the West, they call a slim man “Fats” and a great giant of a man “Peewee.”

The Virginian was like his namesake in that he was tall and lanky and had a devastating sense of humor, but there the resemblance ceased. Certainly there was nothing romantic about him now as he leaned back in his chair propped against a corner of the bar, sampling his drink, “studying in his mind,” as he called it, what we had been discussing. His battered black hat was curled up at the sides, tilted forward over his red-brown face; his wind breaker was black, too, of leather, rubbed and scuffed at the elbows and wrists and collar; the Levis on his long, thin legs were soft and pale from long wear. He balanced his drink in a dark, horny hand, the long fingers curling around the glass.

“Well,” he said, “you may say the Old West is gone, if you want to. And I’ll allow you that some of it’s gone. Stagecoaches is gone, and Indians on the warpath. The U. S. Cavalry is gone, praise to God. And we ain’t had a lynchin’ for as long as I can recall. But most of the rest is still here: cattle and cowhands and horses; coyote and elk and antelope; sheep for them that likes them.”

“But rustlers and horse thieves and all that,” I protested, “That’s all gone; and shooting—”

“No, we ain’t had a real shooting for a good while. But rustling, now, that’s a different matter.”

I gazed at him astonished. “You mean there are cattle rustlers? Here in Jackson Hole?”

“Well, maybe not exactly rustlers,” he said. He rolled his glass and looked down at the swirling amber. “But pretty close to it. Only we don’t call them rustlers any more.”

“What do you call them?”

“Millionaires.” His blue eyes stared at me.

For years now the Virginian had guided us on pack trips up Pacific and Pilgrim Creeks and along the Buffalo Forks. And back up into the Tetons. Magnificent country. It is all included in the tract which was last year proclaimed a national monument— the Jackson Hole National Monument. There are 221,000 acres of land in all, of which 77 per cent is already government-owned, 15 per cent is owned by John D. Rockefeller, and 8 per cent by small ranchers. I had heard a great deal about the Monument since coming to Wyoming. You couldn’t join up with a crowd at any café in Jackson without hearing about it. Mostly you heard only one side, and the people that did the talking were the big folks and the lady and gentleman ranchers.

Up the valley they didn’t talk so much, and if you brought it up they answered evasively. “There’s lots to be said for both sides,” they’d say. One man who took out fishing parties was franker. “What do I think?” he said. “I don’t think.” He looked at me hard. “My living comes from taking folks fishing. I can’t afford to think.”

But in and around town there was plenty of talk. They had had it back and forth all year; and after the President’s pocket veto of the Barrett bill abolishing the Monument, the feeling seemed higher than ever. But still it was the same ones doing the talking.

“Cattle kings.” The Virginian’s voice, echoing my thoughts, made me jump. “Reckon you’d call them that.”

“You mean the ranchers around here?” I said.

“That’s right,” he said. “They’s eight or ten of them come in here during the last few years. And over to Wind River they tell me they’re doing the same. They come in with lots of dough and fling a little here and a little there; they pick up a small ranch here and another beyond it —and before you know it, all the little ranchers has been bought out.”

“Why do they sell if they don’t want to?” I asked.

“Some of them want to, or they get offered so much they can’t pass it up. And some don’t want to but have to.”

“Why ‘have to’?”

He rolled an eye at me. “There’s ways,” he said. “They get the bank to foreclose maybe or — other ways.”

“Virginian,” I said, “was that what you meant when you talked about rustlers?”

“Did I talk about rustlers?” he said. “Well, now, I thought it was you talked about ‘em.”

“Well, then, millionaires.”

He grinned at me over his glass. “Millionaires,” he said. “Millionaires and politicians. I’ll tell you, when you get them two kinds of folks boiling up together you’re in for trouble. Boil up into one of these pressure groups, like they talk about, I guess. Anyway, you’re liable to have some mighty queer doings.”

“Such as rustling? Not really rustling.”

“Well, no, not really. Not at all, I guess. They don’t take a man’s cattle away and brand ‘em. But here’s what they do. Supposing there’s a small ranch near to theirs and the owner won’t sell and they can’t buy up the mortgage or there ain’t one, and they can’t get him out nohow. Here’s what they do: they range their cattle along with his and then, when they start drifting to the winter range, their hands get the orders: ‘Drift all the cattle.’ So they drift the little feller’s hundred head along with their thousand — drift ‘em all.”

He saw the protest in my eyes and raised a hand.

“Sure,” he said, “the little feller raises a howl. He goes to the big rancher and says, ‘You’re taking my bunch along with yours,’ and the big feller says, ’Oh, are we? Now ain’t that too bad. Well, you just come on down and cut ‘em out. You’ll get ‘em back again.’ Well, the little feller spends three to four days getting his stock back; most likely has to hire a hand or two to help him. Next year the same thing happens, and each time, maybe, he’ll lose a few head coming or going. After three or four times, the little feller’s ready to quit.”

“Can’t he do anything about it? I should think he’d sick the sheriff on them.”

“The sheriff won’t mess with stuff like that; too hard to prove anything, too touchy. And then there’s always the question who pays the most taxes, the big feller or the little one.”

“It sounds like the old days, all right,” I said. “Do the people know what’s going on?”

“Most of them know. They know the valley is getting into the control of a little crowd that are running things with a high hand, or trying to. They don’t like it, but what can they do?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Write to the papers maybe.”

“They ain’t but one paper here,” he said disgustedly. “And it don’t ever print anything but one side. You take this Monument row now—”

He paused. His blue eyes, looking across at me held a measure of doubt.

“All right,” I said, “I’ll take it. Do the rustling millionaires and politicians tie in with the Monument row?”

Carefully he set his glass down. He sat staring at it. “They do,” he said. “Everything ties in with it. It’s a lot bigger thing than the folks around here think.”

2

I KNEW he was right. Those opposed to the Monument had played it up as a land-grabbing scheme. They compared it to TVA and other projects in which they accused the government of abrogating the rights of the individual. The Monument issue, that of all national parks, is closely integrated with the whole land policy of the country. Conservation of forests and game, flood control, prevention of erosion, irrigation — all these great projects are branches of the same tree, and they can all be attacked from the same angle: Should the government be allowed to own land or to exercise jurisdiction over it?

Or, if you were on the other side, you said: Should the individual, for his private interests, be allowed to despoil the land of America, or prevent its use for the good of all the people? Because in essence it is the land of America. As long as a man’s land is subject to taxation, there is no such thing as private ownership. It is a carefully nurtured tree, I thought, this of our land policy, but it is a new growth and delicate, and once you start lopping off a branch here and there — the national park policy, game conservation, forest reserve — you may have the whole thing coming down.

The Virginian was speaking again. “One thing that ties in with it is conservation,” he said. “That’s been a big thing in this country ever since Teddy Roosevelt started hollering about it.” He paused. “My uncle guided Teddy Roosevelt when he was out here in 1906.”

“No wonder you’re interested in the Monument.”

“Sure thing,” he said. “They packed all through this country from the headwaters of the Yellowstone on down. Teddy Roosevelt said it was the finest camping country in the United States, and that it ought to be kept like it was forever. And he got to work on making a park out of it. And now here’s another Roosevelt putting the thing across — or trying to.”

“And being fought by the same ‘interests’ that used to fight T.R.,” I said.

“That’s right,” he said. “And they’re using the same old arguments.”

“How far did T.R. go with it?” I asked.

“Not far. Only talked and shouted, and got some Congressmen interested one way or the other. It went along, with different ones taking it up, and finally the conservationists began to push it hard. They wanted it made a kind of park — not like Yellowstone, all fixed up, but kept just like it is, for people that wanted to see what the West was like or that might want to stay or to camp and fish. The man who pushed it hardest was Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. He’d bought up a lot of land with just that plan in mind: to turn it over to the government. He started in 1926, and he kept trying to get the government to take it over but they dilly-dallied along, the way they do. Finally, what with taxes and all, Mr. Rockefeller got fed up and last year he suddenly sent a take-it-or-leave-it letter to Secretary Ickes. Well, it was either take it then or lose it altogether, and Ickes and the President went ahead and took it.”

“They got more than they bargained for,” I said.

“Maybe,” he said. “They got a lot, all right. But I guess they must have expected it. The Republicans wouldn’t let a chance like that go by in an election year. And every one of these cattlemen are Republicans. They must have expected an almighty row.”

“I don’t suppose they thought Congress would turn it down, though.”

“Congress!” the Virginian snorted. “It wasn’t Congress. It was just a small crowd that pressured the rest of ‘em into it. Congress don’t know anything about it. Why, do you reckon that if Congress had known about it, if they’d ever seen this place here, they’d have done such a fool thing?” He shook his head. “Congress,” he said, “has got some fools in it, and it’s got some heels, like any other bunch of people, but it ain’t got that many of either one.”

He snorted again and sat back. “I’ll tell you, every argument used about this question is phony. They say this is cattle country and the government is taking it away from the cattlemen. Well, there’s some good ranches to the south, and not one of them is going to be interfered with; those people and their ‘heirs and assigns,’ it says, keep their rights as long as they have a mind. But to the north, the country I’ve taken you in, that’s not cattle country and never has been. They’s a few small ranches along the edge of it and they won’t have to quit either, but the big ranchers that’s been putting their stock up there these last two years, where they had no right to be, they’ll have to quit.”

“Are they the ones you were talking about?”

He nodded. “They’ve been running their cattle up there and they’ve been doing it for just two reasons: they want to have it so that when folks say, ‘That ain’t cattle country up there,’ they can come right back at ‘em. ‘It sure is,’ they’ll say. ‘Look at all the cattle that’s up there right now.’ And the other reason is on account of the game. Their cattle is using the elk and moose grazing ground and the game is being moved out. What’s more, they work on the game commission and get them to have an open season on elk; right here on this land where the elk is accustomed to gather on their way to the winter feeding grounds. You see, they’ve got to prove their point: that this is cattle country and not game country. So, then, if the elk is shot off last year and this, the case is proved — no game. No game! Why three years ago I could take you up any draw on Pacific Creek and show you elk. But did we see any this year? Nary a one. Heard ‘em bugle a few times and heard shots, but that was all. They’re killing the bear, too; I haven’t seen a bear track in weeks.

“The country that’s the greatest wildlife country we’ve got is going to be turned over to cattle. And then somebody’s going to be sorry. Back up there are the headwaters of three river systems: the Yellowstone that flows into the Missouri and the Mississippi, the Snake that flows north into the Columbia, and the Green that flows into the Colorado. Set cattle to grazing on the headwaters of a stream and what happens? Within a few years they’ve grazed off the underbrush and trampled the meadows and you begin to get erosion and runoffs in the spring.” He straightened up. “That ain’t cattle country now and it never ought to be.”

3

CATTLE being the biggest industry in Wyoming, I suppose cattlemen are pretty powerful.”

“You’re right there,” he said. “But the politicians are making a big mistake in kowtowing to them like they do. A lot of the big money that’s come into the state lately has come through dudes, the kind that comes out for a summer and then buys land and stays, and the tourists, millions of ‘em, that come just to see the country. Talk about tax revenues — you ask some of these old-timers how much money Teton County had before the dude ranchers settled around here, and the boys’ and girls’ summer camps, and before Mr. Rockefeller moved in. It wasn’t cattle that brought those folks here or that keeps them a-comin’.”

He raised his hand as if I had spoken. “Oh, I know what they say,” he said. “They say the government already controls 72 per cent of Wyoming and it oughtn’t to have any more. But what is that 72 per cent? A part of it is mountain ranges like the Wind Rivers and the Absarokas and the Big Horns and the Tetons; glacier country, forest country; mountain sheep and elk and grizzly country. In the parts where cattle can live, why there is cattle, and sheep and horses, grazing; and they lease the mining rights, too, like any company would do, only they control it so it don’t get grazed off or mined out. That’s only sense, as I see it.”

“Virginian,” I said, “there have been a lot of people opposed to the Monument. Some of them are bound to be sincere. In fact, some that I’ve talked to are sincere, I’m sure of it.”

“A lot are,” he said. “I’m sure of it, too.”

“All right, then, what about them?” I said. “What about their arguments? You know them.”

“I know them. Sure. And there’s hardly a one of them that isn’t cockeyed in some way. They don’t mean to talk cockeyed. They’re sincere, like you said. But they’ve been taken in. Just like Congress. They believe the talk that’s going round. They believe, for instance, the talk that the Monument was put over on them. Well, it wasn’t. This Monument was established just like dozens of others, by Presidential proclamation.”

“But maybe it’s true that nobody knew this park was being planned.”

“Eyewash,” said the Virginian. “That was first brought up seriously out here in 1923 when a crowd got together at Menor’s Ferry to talk about it. But the real thing got going when Mr. Rockefeller came in and got the idea. That was in 1926. He talked it over with various ones in and out of the government, and then he started to buy up the land. Well, as soon as he’d been in here a year folks knew about it. Look here,” the Virginian said again, shaking a long finger at me, “you ask folks outside the valley — over to Wind River or Grovont. They’ll tell you they all knew about it. You mean to tell me if they knew about it the ones living right here didn’t?”

“If the Rockefeller holdings and the other ranches went into a park, that d make a lot of difference to the tax revenue of the county, wouldn’t it?” I said. “I’ve heard them say so, and I don’t see how you can get around that.”

“You can’t get around the argument,” he said, “because it’s right. But you can get around the fact. That’s what I mean about this cockeyed talking. Here they’ve been pulling this argument on you and a lot of other people, and all the time there was three bills up before Congress to fix things. Why, one reason the Monument was held up first at Washington was because they hadn’t got it fixed to reimburse the county for the taxes lost. One of the bills proposed is bound to pass, and it will affect not only this county but all counties near to national parks. They’d all get a cut in the revenue from the park.”

“Well,” I said, “that ought to do. They told me up in Yellowstone that they averaged over two million dollars a year from tourist expenditures.”

“That’s right, I guess,” he said. “Teton Park, which was a part of this, pulls in around a hundred and fifty thousand. A cut on that’d go quite some distance in Teton County.” He sat back. “Do you know,” he said, “that only 8 per cent of this land we’re talking about is privately owned? That, and the Rockefeller holdings, which may be thrown on the open market, for all we know, if this plan is killed. All the rest of it is government land already, part park, part forest reserve. For 8 per cent of land, the whole project is to be given up.”

He grunted. “It’s a mighty queer business,” he said. “They talk about ‘land-grabbing’ and the ‘rights of the individual.’ Holy Ike! In the first place the rights of the people that own land won’t be bothered at all, and what about the rights of all the rest of the country! Don’t that make any difference?”

“A lot of people were back of them, though,” I said. “And then Congress came out on their side.”

“That’s right,” he said. “This feller Barrett, backed by the cattlemen and the states’ rights boys and the Roosevelt haters, — don’t forget them, — got his bill passed to abolish the Monument.” He pointed a finger at me, “You listen!” he said. “If they abolish this park, what’s to prevent them from going on and abolishing others? What’s to stop another crowd from starting to muscle in on Glacier or Yosemite or even old Yellowstone?”

“Some of the millions of people that love the parks would want to stop them,” I said.

“And you can bet that’s just what the President figured when he vetoed the bill,” he said.

4

BUT, Virginian,” I said, “I can’t believe these people here want to abolish the parks. Why, one man told me the idea of a park here in Jackson Hole would have been fine. ‘It’s a beautiful dream,’ he said, ‘only it’s fifty years too late and now it’s going to hurt too many people.’ ”

“Sure, and the man who told you that will go on and tell you that they’ve already got one park here and that’s enough. He won’t tell you that he called that ‘a beautiful dream,’ too, and that he and his friends fought it just like they fought this.” The Virginian looked at me quizzically. “I bet he told you how parks interfered with life out here and how the man tried to take his bull through Yellowstone in a truck and wasn’t allowed. Eh?”

“Why, yes, he did,” I said. “And that didn’t seem quite right, I must say.”

“It wasn’t quite right,” he grinned. “It was hardly right at all. They wasn’t one bull and one truck, but two-three hundred head of cattle on the hoof. It’s against the rules of Yellowstone to drive cattle through. There was no rules to prevent cattle being driven in this Jackson Hole Monument.”

The Virginian picked up his glass and shook it. “You know,” he said, “if you listen to these folks long enough you’ll go plumb loco. Here they are talking this stuff, like you told me, about parks spoiling things and them wanting to keep this country like it is. And the rock-bottom reason for parks is to keep the country like it is.” He set his glass down with a thump. “How’re they going to keep it like it is, d’you ever ask them? How can they stop real-estate fellers coming in here and building hotels and developments and cutting up the lake shores into lots with camps and such? How’re they going to stop roads being run through with signs and hot-dog stands up and down ‘em? There’d be a good deal of money in all that for somebody.”

He banged his fist on the table. “You’d be surprised what great Americans these folks are. They’ll tell you how this country was built out of a wilderness by free men and no government to interfere with ‘em. ‘We want to keep this country free,’ they’ll shout. And they’ll bang on the table — like I’m doing.” He laughed. “And then, before you know it, they’ll start throwing communism at you.”

“I know,” I said. “They did.”

He groaned. “If we get communism in this country,” he said, “it’ll be because of those folks yelling about it. Sometimes, you know, I get to wondering what’s happened to democracy. You don’t ever hear about it any more. Here you have a government trying to do something that will benefit the people of the whole country. If that ain’t democracy, I don’t know what is. But no — according to these folks, that’s communism. Communism my — hat!” he said.

His face was grim. He sat back in his chair and his gaze traveled down the long, narrow room to the bright space at the end where the light shone down on the green tables, winking on the whirling wheel and cutting black shadows on the faces under the big hats. Slowly his eyes came back to me.

“You was talking about the Old West,” he said, “and I told you there was still some of it left. Well, ma’am, here it is, in this valley. And it always can be here if we’ll just keep a-holt of it. I read something a while back — it was poetry.” His eyes dropped to the table for a moment, then looked straight at me. “I got it by memory,” he said.

He set his glass down. ‘“Where snowpeaks reach the running light of morning.’ That’s it,” he said. “When you wake up just before sunup and look out at it, and you hear the horse-bells and the splashing in the creek, and maybe a coyote yowling before he hides away. And then you roll out and boil your coffee and fry your bacon and pack up. And start on. That’s it,” he said.

The game at the back of the room was beginning to break up. The men were lounging up to the bar for a last drink before starting home. But the Virginian sat on.

“Well,” I said.

“Well,” he said. He smiled across at me. “I want to keep it,” he said. “In this valley we’ve got the finest scenery, the finest camping country, in the West. If the government will help us to keep it, O.K. After all, ain’t the government us, when you come down to it? You and me and all the rest of the people in the U.S.? Ain’t we got a right to keep what’s ours? Look,” he said, “we got this place, this — good place.” His face flushed. “We want to keep it,” he said.