Montana Memories
By
Thomas Bullock
* * * * *
Published by Smashwords. Inc.
Copyright 2011 by Thomas Bullock
ISBN: ISBN: 978-1-4658-4398-2
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
Cover photo, The Dearborn River, courtesy wunderground.com
* * * * *
Chapter 1 –
Across The Wide Missouri
Our clumsy craft bucked the waves as it struggled against the brawny current of the mighty Missouri River as we attempted to "sail" across to Three-Mile Island.
It was summer time in Great Falls, Montana, over a half a century ago during World War II. We, my brother and two friends and I, were embarking on a new adventure.
In order to find fun and adventure, considering tight family budgets and rationing of ordinary goods because of the war, we had to rely on our wits, imagination and reckless daring.
A vacant lot became a battlefield where we were knights of the roundtable hacking away at imaginary foes with wooden swords; a stand of trees became a dark, dangerous forest where we tracked down and vanquished wild Indians with silver plated, pearl handled, cap guns; a grassy expanse in the park became the Polo Grounds where we played for the national football championship; Gibson Pond in the winter became the Boston Garden where we vied for the “Stanley Cup”.
We fashioned our swords from wooden laths and fashioned rubber-guns from pieces of wood, clothe pins and strips of synthetic rubber (real rubber was a scarce, critical, war material). The ammunition was made from narrow bands cut from the inner tubes and knotted to add stability and clout. Slingshots were whittled from tree limbs. Nice round pebbles or marbles used for ammunition. We made kitchen match shooters out of spring-loaded clothespins and rubber bands, and it’s a wonder we didn't burn the whole town down. We built forts out of tree branches and scrap lumber. We dug trenches and caves along the railroad embankment where we fought off imaginary enemies, until the railroad police found and demolished the strongholds.
We climbed trees, buildings and water towers. We hooked freight trains and rode them to the railroad yards where we scavenged leftover fruit from partially empty boxcars. Watermelons were a favorite.
Sometimes our talents got us into a pile of trouble as it did one summer day on our voyage across the mighty Missouri River.
Great Falls is located near the edge of the western limit of the Great Plains. The Rocky Mountains, straddling the continental divide, are about 80 miles to the west. To the southwest and south are the Little Belt and Big Belt Mountains. The Missouri River rushes out of a rocky canyon in the Big Belts on its 2500-mile journey to a point near St. Louis, Missouri, where it merges with the Mississippi River. As the river flows past the city it plunges over a series of cascades; Black Eagle Falls, Rainbow Falls, Horseshoe Falls and finally the Great Falls of the Missouri, the first in the series of cascades that confronted Lewis and Clark on their historic voyage up the Missouri.
Some fifteen miles east of the city are the Highwood Mountains, and to the north the rolling plains stretching way, way up into Canada. The only barrier against the northern artic blizzards blowing out of the Canadian prairies is a three stranded, barbed wire fence along the Hi-Line marking the border between U.S. and Canada.
The city is surrounded by huge wheat ranches, measured in the thousand of acres, where wheat and barley now flourish on the land where huge herds of buffalo once grazed on lush prairie grass.
Back then it was a great place to grow up. The nearby mountains, rivers, waterfalls, creeks, caves and canyons offered unlimited places for exploration and adventure for spirited youngsters. The lakes and streams abounded in native trout. Within easy reach of Great Falls were outstanding fishing and hunting venues. The mountains and prairies were alive with deer, elk, pronghorn antelope, Canada geese, mallard ducks, grouse, prairie chickens, and ring-neck pheasants.
It was the river that offered the greatest venue for our escapades. Like a magnet, it attracted adventure-seeking pre-teenage boys, who peed in alleys, carried matches and drank water from garden hoses, to its shores. We swam in it, waded in its shallows, rafted on its backwaters and sloughs, fished from its shores, trapped crawfish, scavenged along its banks for driftwood and other treasures, and scaled the rocky cliffs overlooking its roaring waterfalls.
There we were, four gutsy, young squirts challenging the turbulent, treacherous river in a makeshift boat pretending to be U.S. Marines assaulting a Japanese stronghold on the island. Our crew consisted of my eleven-year-old big brother Jim, our two ten-year-old buddies, Elmer and Jock, and I, just nine years old and barely able to swim. Our assault weapons consisted of a Daisy Red Rider BB gun, two hand made-made wooden rifles and three holstered toy six shooters.
Our clumsy craft was a contrivance used by bricklayers and plasterers for mixing sand, cement and water called a mortar boat. It had a flat, rusty, sheet metal bottom with a slight upward curve in bow. Its back and sides were fashioned from weather worn two-by-eight-inch wood boards with traces of dried cement. Across the bow, just above the upper edge of the sheet metal bottom was a one-by-two-inch wood brace that we used as a handhold for hauling the craft from an abandoned construction site scrap pile to the edge of the river.
The clumsy craft was just large enough to hold the four of us as we crouched on our knees in our designated stations; Captain Jim in the bow acting as pilot and looking for snags or submerged rocks that could cause us to capsize and flounder, Elmer and Jock were on the port and starboard sides manning the oars shaped from pieces of driftwood. I was in the stern with a rusty tin can bailing out the silt-laden water that splashed through the space between the upper edge of the curved bottom and the brace in the bow, and over the low gunnels.
It was late morning when we had pushed off from a point just below the First Street bridge and well upstream of the island across the river to allow for the drift of the current to carry us to our destination. The four of us knelt down in order to avoid capsizing. We soon realized capsizing wasn't our biggest problem; swamping in the cold, turbid, river water, or worse, being carried down stream by the powerful current to Black Eagle Dam and the waterfalls was the more threatening peril.
We weren't more than a twenty or so yards from shore when we were caught and held us in the rivers current. Wind driven spray and waves broke over the bow and soaked us to the skin.
The little flat-bottomed skiff only had a few inches of draft. We were in constant peril of swamping or hitting a snag that would sink us.
"Maybe we should turn around, this is more dangerous than we bargained for," Elmer shouted above the wind and spray.
"No way, it will be just as hard getting back to the launch site as it is to get to the island," our undaunted captain decreed.
We pressed onward, the waves continued breaking over the bow. The surging current and gusty wind continued to rock our clumsy craft. We had little control of the rudderless, flat-bottomed boat.
Three-Mile Island was still several hundred yards away as we struggled against the wind and current, unaware that a passing driver along the river road recognized the four of us and had witnessed our departure. He called Jock's mother telling her that we were in grave danger; drifting down the river on a raft towards Black Eagle Dam.
She in turn called the fire department!
"Keep bailing," Captain Jim ordered as the muddy river water kept pouring in.
I was the smallest, with dubious swimming capabilities, of the crew so I had plenty of incentive to keep the water from flooding the boat. I tried flattening the can in order to better scoop up the water, but it seemed a losing proposition. My knuckles were scratched and bleeding, but the thought of sinking in the fast current hastened my attempt to keep us from being swamped.
"I'm going as fast as I can, but the waters coming in faster than I can bail it out and my hands are cut," I cried.
"Quit whining and keep bailing," the captain ordered.
As we continued across the river, I looked up I saw the Cottonwood trees and underbrush of Three-Mile Island slipping past on the port side. We headed downstream much faster than our self-appointed captain/navigator had calculated.
Jim ordered Jock and Elmer to paddle faster.
“We're going past the island”. Jim said.
"We're doing the best we can, but the current is too strong," they replied in unison.
They kept paddling and I kept bailing and Jim kept barking orders as we passed the lower end of the island and into the channel between the island and the opposite shore. Once we were on the leeward side of the island the wind and current slacked off and the waves stopped lapping over the sides of the boat. We were safe—for the moment.
"Let's head for the shore," Jim reluctantly called out. "I guess we won't get to the island today.” He was disappointed that his first sailing command had missed its mark and it appeared we were not going to rid the island of the imaginary Japanese invaders.
Elmer, Jock and I weren't disappointed, we were just glad we hadn't swamped or had been carried down river to the dam, and drowned in the maelstrom below the dam.
As we approached the high cut-bank along the far shore, four city firemen greeted us.
"What the hell do you kids think your doing," they shouted down at us. "Get out of that boat and get up here right now. Your parents are worried sick."
"Don't you know you can drown in that river?" One of them needlessly informed us.
We beached the boat, scampered out and climbed up the steep, muddy bank. One of firemen climbed down and tied a rope to the brace on the front of our boat. Then the four of them hauled it up to the top of embankment.
"What are you going to do with our boat?" Jim asked.
"Boat! This is no boat. You dumb kids. Where did you find this contraption? Or did you steal it?" One of the firemen barked at us.
"We didn't steal it. We found it," Jim answered.
"Don't get smart with me, you little brat," the fireman retorted. "You're lucky we came by when we did."
Then our gallant rescuers proceeded to chop the boat up with their fire axes.
We were now on an isolated stretch of shore across the river from town and home between the First Street Bridge, about 3 miles up steam, and the Sixth Street Bridge about the same distance down stream. Our shoes and clothes were wet and muddy, and we had nothing to eat or drink.
Our gallant captain had forgot to lie in supplies before we cast off.
"Can we have a ride back to town?" We asked in unison as the firemen climbed into the fire truck.
"No, it against the law for civilians to ride on city fire trucks. Besides, it will teach you kids a lesson to walk home. Think of how much you worried your parents while you're walking." Came the answer as they roared away leaving us marooned, on foot and without our intrepid craft.
So the four us, wet, muddy, tired and hungry trudged on home arriving just before dinner. When we got in the house, Mom asked Jim and me, "Where have you been?"
By this time our clothes had dried and we had brushed off the most of the mud. It was obvious she hadn't yet heard about our adventure on the river, or our confrontation with the fire department, so we gave her the standard answer.
"Out."
The next day in the local paper there was a front-page article headlined, "Firemen Save Children From Watery Grave." It then went on about how the courageous firemen pulled the four of us (naming names) from the raging Missouri River.
It didn't say anything about abandoning us across the river and several miles from home afoot, with no food or water.
This was one of our many adventures, or misadventures, growing up in Great Falls, Montana a half a century ago.
My older brother Jim, our friends and I, endeavored to take full advantage of the opportunities offered by the nearby fishing and hunting locales, even if it meant a little hardship. Many of our adventures, or, misadventures involved our friend Bob.
Bob was one of our best friends when we were growing up in Great Falls. His passions were fishing and hunting. He knew all the best spots for catching native trout and bagging big game. We were glad to go with him even though many of his “secret” spots entailed a fair amount trudging along steep mountain trails or through prickly underbrush and across raging torrents. We nicknamed him “just around the next bend Bob” because as we tramped along a narrow winding trail with heavy packs we would shout, “how much further?” His answer was always the same, “just around the next bend.” Thinking back, I guess Bob enjoyed the challenge as much or more than the trophies. He had the stamina of mountain goat and led us on some fantastic fishing ventures where we experienced plenty of challenges in the backwoods of Montana.
Chapter 2 –
Lesson in Punctuality Along the Dearborn River
One of our earliest fishing adventures or rather misadventure with Bob was on the South Fork of the Dearborn River with our dad, and his friend Harry Rickter. It was supposed to be an easy day trip, leaving early in the morning and returning in the late afternoon. Bob thought it may too tame but agreed to go anyhow.
It turned out to be a hard learned lesson in punctuality.
In those days the delineation between parents and kids was unmistakable. The parents were the authority, they made the rules, and we kids obeyed them. There was no such thing as a buddy system between parents and kids, dads worked during the day, kids played. We didn't have to wait until after dad got home from work during week to play baseball, football or ice hockey in some adult organized, controlled and regimented kids sport like today’s Little League Baseball or Pop Warner Football. We organized our own teams and set up games with kids from other neighborhoods and played after school and in the summer from early in the morning until late afternoon as sunlight permitted. Parents were seldom involved, except maybe on the weekends to watch, offer a few tips on how to play the game.
There was no such thing as "Team Mothers" or trophies.
Moms were busy taking care of the home; they were housewives not taxi drivers. They didn't show up at every came with treats for all the players and organize team parties to hand out trophies to everyone no matter how good or bad the played in the games.
The only trophies we won were skinned knees, bruised shins, black eyes, frost bit fingers and toes, torn clothes and scuffed shoes, or dulled skates depending on the time of year.
We all knew who the best and worst players were by the way we organized teams; the biggest and best usually pitched and batted clean up, the smallest and the least talented were shoved off into right field and batted last. I played a heck of lot of right field until I was able to scoop up ground balls and make the throw from second to first base. When we played ice hockey, the best two players picked the teams, the poorest skaters had to defend the goal, usually defined by two mounds of snow or a couple of rocks placed on the ice. The length of a hockey stick measured the space between the markers.
If we wanted to go somewhere it was walk, bicycle, bus, and if we were really lucky our big brother would drive us in the family sedan.
Surviving the challenges of the depression had been difficult for our parents. So challenging that when I was born, they had to change the name on my birth certificate from Frederick, my dad’s brother’s name, to Thomas because my Granddad, Michael “Mickey” McMahon, a cantankerous old Irishman and retired Great Northern railroad engineer, demanded the name change to Thomas since he was the one who paid the hospital bill. Needless to say he and my dad did not get along very well, but I was his favorite grandson.
When I was no bigger than a tall dog, Granddad Mickey would take me by the hand and we would walk down to the Mint Tavern where he drank beer and swapped tales with his cronies.
The old Mint Tavern at one time was Charles M. Russell's hangout before his wife put him on the wagon, or so legend has it. Glass fronted cases displayed his carvings and other memorabilia from his days as a cowboy, above the cases hung many of his original paintings, stained over the years from cigar and cigarette smoke and greasy fumes from the kitchen.
Now many of his carvings and other memorabilia are on display in the Charlie Russell Museum in Great Falls safe from the saloons smoke filled environment.
Sid Willis who was a friend of both Russell, and my granddad Mickey, owned the Mint. Mickey, as tough as he was ornery, once worked for Willis as bouncer at the Mint. When asked if he had any trouble with the drunks and other contrary cowboys who frequented the bar, his response was. “If I can’t lick um with me fists, I put the boots to um.”
I can still remember the time when one of granddad's pals stopped by for him. When my mother answered the door, his old pal asked, "Can Mickey come out and play?" and off they went to The Mint with me in tow.
Handling the shortages brought on by World War II was relatively easy after having survived the Depression of the early ‘30s. We got used to gasoline rationing, and limits on anything made of rubber, steel, aluminum, copper, wool, cotton and other essential materials necessary for the war effort. We got along without butter and white bread, meatless Tuesdays were common and, since we were Catholics so eating fish on Fridays was another way to save on rationed meat products. When our shoes wore out they were repaired rather than buying new ones. Resoles were usually a piece of cardboard inserted over the hole. Anything new was a rarity; most, if not all, of our toys, bicycles, ice skates, guns and fishing gear were hand-me-downs.
I remember getting a used pair of ice skates that were too big so I stuffed toilet paper in the toes to make them fit. After the war, we depended on the war surplus store for hunting clothes and camping equipment.
When dad took us to a ball game or hockey game it was just that, he took us to the ballpark or rink. From that point on we were on our own to gain admission. Paying was, of course, the last resort.
At baseball games we shagged foul balls in the parking lot and traded them for tickets. We crawled under or over the fence, or waited until the end of the fifth inning, when the ticket booth closed, to get in free for the last few innings. At hockey games we carried in the bags or sticks for the visiting team players or if we were lucky enough to be rink rats cleaning the ice between periods in return for free admission. In any case, when the game was over we had to be at the car when our dad was ready to go home or we walked home. We found out the same held true for fishing trips.
The fishing trip to the Dearborn River gave us a lesson in punctuality that I never forgot. For over thirty years business travel took me all over the United States, Europe and the mid-east and in all that time I can't remember ever missing a flight or being late for an appointment.
The Dearborn River springs from the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains in the Bob Marshall Wilderness and flows into the Missouri just north of Wolf Creek Canyon. As it rushes down from the high mountain peaks it twists and turns through meadows and narrow draws, rushing past rocky outcrops and over huge granite boulders. Its mood changes as it heads for the Missouri alternating from quiet runs of smooth water empting into deep, crystal clear pools then rushing over rock-strewn rapids.
The place where we embarked on our fishing venture was on a country road at a bridge near an old homestead about 40 miles from Great Falls. Dad parked the car at a turnout near the bridge.
Dad and Harry went down stream. The three of us went up stream so as not to bother them with our predictable distracting behavior. Dad was patently aware that if the fish failed to bite on the first few casts, we would resort to more bold methods of fishing. Like trying to stab them with our poles or trying to stun them by dropping large boulders into the clear pools of water.
"Be here at 5 o'clock if you want to go home with us," Dad declared as he and his friend started down river.
We gave him a wave and an "OK, we'll be here," and took off up the winding canyon carved by the river’s cascading current.
It was our poor luck that the fish were not biting that day, so we started looking for more exciting activities. We plinked away with our .22s, probably scaring the hell out of any nearby game and any other fishermen in the vicinity. When tiring of this, we decided to go swimming. Stripping off our clothes we leapt into a likely looking swimming hole.
That didn't last long due to the frigid temperature of the water. Then we decided to go exploring and ventured far from the river and the bridge into the near by pine forest.
Time flew by as we lollygagged around in the cool mountain air until we noticed that the sun was reaching the crest of the nearby mountains to the west. When we finely checked the time, it was nearing four-thirty and we were several miles from the car. We scampered down the slope towards the river, stumbling over rocks and through bramble bushes.
When we reached the bridge and the parking place, the car was gone!
It was just five-fifteen.
"Dad must be teaching us a lesson by scaring us, he will be back in a few minutes," Jim said. "I'm sure he wouldn't leave us here all night."
So we waited, and waited, and waited. When the sun finally disappeared below the mountain summit to the west, we were sure he was not coming back.
We had been abandoned—left on our own in the backwoods.
It was too far to walk home, and we didn't know how far it was to the nearest ranch. Besides it was getting too dark to go wandering along a narrow country road, and we didn't want to leave, just in case dad did come back.
Summer nights in Montana can be cold as the dickens and we didn't have any heavy coats with us. But we did have matches. Any kid living in Montana in those days who didn't carry matches on fishing trip was harebrained. We may have been negligent and tardy, but we weren't that dumb not to have some matches with us.
So we gathered some driftwood and built a small fire near the barbed-wire fence and made the best of it.
The night was cold and dark as we huddled together near the fire and managed to get some sleep without freezing to death.
Early the next morning, as we stretched to get the kinks out of our bodies from sleeping on the hard ground, we were pleasantly surprised to see dad's green 1938 Chevrolet tooling up the road. Big brother Jerry had been sent to rescue us. It wasn't the first, nor would it be last.
When we got home, there were no reprimands and no apologies. Dad simply asked if we had learned our lesson and we ensured him that we did.
Chapter 3 –
Pilgrim Creek and The Lost Keys
"C'mon," Bob shouted, as Jim and I rushed out of the house and tossed our camping and fishing gear into the back of his dad's International Harvester pickup truck.
It was still dark out. We had to get an early start to one of Bob's favorite, secret fishing spots on Pilgrim Creek in the Little Belt Mountains southeast of Great Falls.
"Why do we have to leave so darn early?" Jim grumbled settling into the cab of the truck.
"Because we need plenty of daylight to hike in and set up camp," Bob answered.
Bob didn't like just driving up to a stream and wetting a line. It was manlier to hike into a wilderness with 40 or 50 pounds on your back, sleep on the lumpy, hard ground in a smelly bag, cook over a campfire and bathe in ice cold creek water.
We drove out through the small village of Belt, and then up through Belt Creek canyon to Monarch where we turned off the paved road onto a dirt road up and over a small pass near Tiger Butte. On the down side of the pass, Bob pulled off onto a turnout where he parked the pickup.
"Are you sure we can't drive down to the creek, why do we have to hike in?" I asked.
"No. There’s a horse trail to the upper reaches of the creek further up the road, but we don’t have horses and this way is a lot closer to the campsite," Bob replied. “Besides, we will have the lower part of the creek to ourselves.”
"A little hike will be good for you. It'll make a man out of you," he continued. Bob had a passion for physical fitness and manly endeavors to keep in shape such as boxing and long, grueling hikes.
We hoisted the knapsacks on our backs and made ready for the trek to Bob’s favorite campsite on Pilgrim Creek. In those days backpacks were referred to as knapsacks and by today's standards were torture packs with frames fashioned from steel rods supporting the thick canvas bag secured with heavy leather straps. The empty packs must have weighted at least five pounds.
This was a long, long time before freeze-dried anything. We lugged canned foods with meat and butter wrapped in tinfoil (this was long before aluminum foil) packed with ice, adding more weight to the packs. Eggs where stowed in a hollowed out loaf of bread or in a small sack of flour.
Sleeping gear added more weight to the packs. The sleeping bags were insulated with, horse hair, wool, or goose down with heavy, waterproof cloth covers, not like the modern ones made from super-lite synthetics. Two canvas tarps, one for ground cover and the other for erecting a lean-to, added more weight.
More bulk and weight was added by the cookware that was right out of the kitchen and the war surplus store. The cookware included a coffee pot, saucepan for boiling water, a heavy frying pan, a metal grill, and surplus army mess kits.
In addition to the sleeping bags, jackets, food, canteens, and cooking utensils we brought along hatchets, hunting knives, rope, fishing poles and creels, a trench shovel and our trusty .22s and plenty of ammunition.
The packs were not light!
The trail to Pilgrim Creek started down a steep incline from the turnoff where we parked the pickup, then up Belt Creek to an old broken down footbridge, across this bridge then up Pilgrim Creek along a forest trail to the campsite. It was about a five-mile hike.
We were not big teenage kids by any means. The three of us were small for our age, or as Bob liked to say, “depression babies.” The loaded knapsacks probably weighed 50 pounds each while none of us topped 130 pounds.
I looked over the edge of the steep incline with an uneasy foreboding; I could just see myself sliding down the hill with my pack and gear spewing out all over the place.
"You guys ready?" I asked, as I was about to step off over the edge.
"Just a minute." Bob called out, "I need to hide the keys to the truck."
"What the hell are you doing?" Jim asked.
"I don't want to lose them on the trail, they will be OK." Bob replied as he placed the keys under a rock.
"Are you sure?"
"Sure, I always do this, it the safest way."
His words would come back to haunt him, and Jim and especially me.
We stepped over the edge of the embankment and started down the steep slope, slipping and sliding in the loose dirt and rocks. My heavy pack caused me to stumble and nearly fall head first down the steep slope so the only way down was to sit on my butt and half walk, half slide down using the pack as a break.
By the time we reached the bottom of the hill we were covered with dust and dirt. I kept worrying how in the hell was I ever going to be able to climb back up.
When we got to the bottom we were on the edge of Belt Creek. We had to walk about a mile up this stream to where Pilgrim Creek flowed into Belt Creek on the opposite side. Bob was in the lead scampering along the narrow trail like a nimble footed mountain goat, brother Jim was close behind while I was struggling to keep up gasping for breath as the steel frame of the pack gouged into my lower back and the heavy straps practically strangling me.
Belt Creek at one time, years earlier, had been a luxuriant trout stream, but over the years runoff from lead and silver mines up steam in Monarch and Neihart had killed all the fish. The contaminated stream provided a natural barrier that held the native trout in Pilgrim Creek. Therefore, we reasoned, or rather Bob reasoned, easy quarry for us intrepid fishermen. This was the logic for the grueling hike into the pristine wilderness. Bob assured us that because of its remoteness, it was unlikely we would encounter any other fishermen, but there was a good chance that we may run into a bear or two.
We would have the creek to ourselves, or so we thought.
When we reached the point where two creeks merged there was the old footbridge, or rather the remnants of one. It had long since fell to rake and ruin. High water and old age had destroyed the wooden floor planks leaving only a few rusty wire strands stretching across the deep, swift current of water.
"I thought you told us there was a bridge here, you call this a bridge?" Jim and I cried out.
"Sure it’s a bridge and much better this way. It keeps the tenderfoots out." Bob cautioned, "Anything on the other side that moves will be a bear or some other kind of wild animal.”
Bob went first, hand over hand on the upper strand and sliding his feet along the lower stand, swinging and swaying above the rushing torrent.
Jim was next and he nearly fell but managed to reach the far shore without getting wet or falling in and carried away in the rushing stream.
Since I was the smallest I was the last to go. Bob and Jim had showed me how to do it, but after seeing Jim come close to falling, I was too scared to try.
Besides, what if there was a ferocious brown bear lurking on the other side?
"I can't do it," I called across the rushing rapids that were much too deep and swift to wade across.
"Come on, you little sissy, or we will leave you here," came the reply from my faithful and caring companions.
"Yeah, but I know where the keys are so I might just leave you two," I called back.
"You do and you'll regret it," Jim hollered. "I'll beat the crap out of you and never let you come with us again."
After much coaxing and name-calling, I ventured onto the wire strands. Barely inches above the water, I slowly edged forward, sliding my hands along the upper strand and trying to keep my feet on the lower strand and struggling against the weight of the pack causing me to swing precariously back and forth. I froze in mid-stream.
"Don't look down dummy, keep coming," Jim and Bob called.
"I can't make it," I cried.
"Come on you little baby. If you don't hurry up we are going to leave you." Jim threatened.
"I'm stuck, I can't go forward and can't go back."
The other alternative was dropping into the rushing stream and knowing that the pack would probably drag me under to certain death by drowning. My arms and legs were getting tired and the wire was cutting into my hands. If I didn't move one way or the other soon I would be in the water.
I gritted my teeth and continued on, finally reaching the other side tired and sore. My hands were bleeding from the death grip I had on the rusty wire and my knees still shaking from the ordeal, but if I thought I was going to get any comfort, I was seriously mistaken.
"There that wasn't so bad, was it? It will be much easier going back now that you know how. Hurry up, it's getting late," Bob said with a wry grin as he hefted his pack and started up the trail.
Brother Jim wasn't much more sympathetic. "You little twerp. What took you so long?"
Once across Belt Creek we pushed on about two miles up Pilgrim Creek to Bob's favorite spot where we set up camp and prepared our evening meal. Each of us went about the chores of making camp. While Jim was setting up the lean-to, Bob and I unloaded the knapsacks and gathered firewood.
One of the tarps was used for ground cover and the other as a rain-cover. Boughs, cut from the nearby fir trees, formed a rough mattress under the sleeping bags. A fire ring of rocks was set in front of the lean-to for cooking and to ward off the night chill. Tinfoil wrapped perishables from the knapsacks such as butter; meat and eggs were weighted down with rocks and placed in nature's refrigerator, the cold creek water. The knapsacks were hung from nearby tree branches to keep them from any varmints such as squirrels or porcupines.
The evening meal consisted of steaks, fried potatoes and beans. One of the best things about camping with Bob was that we ate well. After stuffing ourselves, we washed the pans and mess kits with sand and water from the stream.
By the time we finished eating and cleaning up the sun was below the horizon, dusk was settling in and darkness soon enveloped our campsite. We threw another log on the fire, and crawled into our sleeping bags. The soft, gentle breeze in the near by pine trees and the rippling murmur of the stream put us right to sleep.
The morning chill and the chirping birds awoke us before the rising sun lit the canyon. We crawled out of the bags, pulled on pants, sweaters and shoes, stirred the embers in the fire ring, filled the coffee pot (sauce pan) with fresh water from the creek, splashed cold water on our faces and began the day.
Within minutes, Bob landed a few pan size rainbow trout. Jim had started breakfast, cool strips of bacon from the coldwater cache and pieces of sliced potatoes sizzling in the frying pan along with three fresh eggs. We cleaned the fish and laid them out on the grill over the fire. The heady aroma of pine and the smell of frying bacon and boiling coffee tweaked our taste buds so much that we burned fingers and tongues in our rush to eat the mouth-watering food.
After breakfast and cleanup we headed up stream to some deep pools that promised potential native cutthroat trout that had never seen the shadow of a fisherman, or so we thought.
I was further up stream and had picked out a nice spot along the bank where the current eddied around a rock ledge on the opposite shore. I was sure a big trout was lurking in the dark water swirling past the outcrop. As I was trying to cast a fly near the overhang I heard a noise behind me.
Something was crashing through the underbrush!
It must be a bear or some other large animal, since Bob had told us no other fishermen would be in the area. I undid the strap on my holstered Colt Woodsman .22 thinking that at best I could at least scare the bear, or what ever it was away.
The stirring in the underbrush grew louder; something was coming right toward me. I eased the gun out of the holster, pulled back the slide chambering a round.
"Hi kid, having any luck," shouted one of the two "bears."
It was two men with fishing gear.
I was momentarily tongue tied and then stammered, "Ya. . .Ya. . Yes, I stammered, we got a mess of fish. Where did you come from?" I asked. "We thought we were the only ones fishing this stream."
"We came over the divide along the horse trail," one of them answered. “Our camp is a few miles up stream.”
When I caught up with Bob and Jim, I said, "Bob, I thought we were probably the only humans on this creek? I had the crap scared out of me and I almost shot two guys. You made us hike all the way down here and cross that treacherous wire bridge when we could have hiked in on the horse trail."
“Yes, but it is a heck of lot longer that way,” was Bob’s deadpanned reply.
We caught a few more fish, ate a lunch of Spam sandwiches, swam, plinked with our .22s and returned to camp late in the afternoon sunburned and tired just in time to fix dinner and crawl into our sleeping bags.
In the morning we cooked all the remaining perishables and cached the leftover can goods, just in case we ever came back to this spot. We had fried Spam, fresh trout and sliced potatoes swimming in butter, and the last of the coffee. So far it had been a successful trip.
Now all we had to do was to clean up the campsite, lug the creels full of fish wrapped in moistened grass, and ourselves back to the pickup, drive into Monarch for late lunch and then head for home.
I didn't want to cross the bridge again since I only barely made it across on the way in.
"Can't we walk upstream and to the horse trail instead of having to cross Belt Creek again?" I asked.
"No, it's much, much longer that way. It will take us all day. Don't be a baby, you made it over so you can make back," Jim said.
We left the camp around nine-o'clock in morning and after another harrowing creek crossing, arrived at the bottom of the hill.
The sun was high in the sky beating down on us. It was hot, the packs felt like a thousand pounds. We were already tired and sweating.
The hill looked like mountain.
I didn't think I could climb it with the heavy pack.
"Why don't you two big guys up climb first and then throw me a rope and drag me up, or at least the pack?" I asked.
"Are you nuts? If you don't come now we will leave you," Jim said, repeating the standard threat.
So we started climbing. The loose dirt and rocks made it almost impossible to make any headway. Two steps up and one step back as we struggled to gain the top. There was little to grab hold of, just tufts of slippery, dry, cheat grass.
By the time we reached the top we were exhausted. Jim and I threw the knapsacks in the back of pickup and waited for Bob to find the keys.
"They are not here," he shouted.
"What? You must be kidding," Jim moaned.
"They were right under this rock," Bob replied as he scurried about turning over more rocks.
"Are you sure its the right one?" I asked.
For the next hour we turned over every damn rock in the turnout, but to no avail. The keys were gone. Someone must have kicked the rock over the side of the hill along with the keys, or found them and was playing an awful trick on us. We climbed half way down the steep, torturous hill but still couldn't find them. We couldn't even get into the cab and sit down.
We were about 60 miles from Great Falls and 15 miles from Monarch and no idea how far it was to the nearest ranch house, if any. To make matters worse, we had nothing to eat except for the fish we had caught. We ate all the leftover food for breakfast since we planned on a nice meal at the Cub's Den in Monarch on our way home.
We were marooned on a seldom-traveled dirt road in the middle of nowhere. We considered the options: 1) all of us hike to Monarch with our packs, 2) leave the packs and hike to Monarch, 3) two of us go while the third stays behind and guard the packs, or 4) one of us go while the other two stay and guard the packs.
"You should go Tom," Jim ordered. "You're the smallest. They will feel more sorry for you."
"Yeah, Tom, you go," Bob chimed in. "We'll stay and search some more for the keys.”
"Bull, why does it always have to me?" I complained.
In one voice Jim and Bob said. "Because you're the smallest."
"No, No, it ain't fair. Let's vote on it."
"Ok, you want to be fair, we'll vote."
We voted and I lost by a vote of 2 to 1. Bob and Jim voted for number 4 while I opted for number 3. I always lost the vote 2 to 1. So up the dusty, rutted road I went. My two fishing partners swearing they would keep searching for the keys.
I later found out that by the time I turned the first bend in the road, they laid down for a noon snooze.
Fortunately I hadn't gone more than couple of miles when I spotted a small cabin well back in the trees. We had missed it on the drive in. I crawled through the fence and headed for the cabin. As I neared the cabin the owner's mangy dogs raised a ruckus and alerted him to my presence.
"What are you looking for? How did you get in here? Where did you come from?" The man asked in an angry outburst.
"I'm from Great Falls, we were fishing up on Pilgrim Creek and lost the keys to our truck. Do you have telephone I can use?" I answered.
"You dim-witted city kids always coming up here and getting lost, scaring the cattle and tearing up the roads. No! I don't have a telephone. The closest one is in Monarch," he growled.
"How far is it to Monarch?” I asked.
"Far enough that it will take you the rest of the afternoon to walk there," he informed me.
"Well I guess I better be on my way then," I replied.
"Wait just a minute, I about ready to go there anyway, hop in the back," he ordered, all the while muttering about fools from the big city and helping them would only encourage more fools from the city to wreck havoc in his countryside.
I jumped into the back of a stake bed truck loaded with bales of hay and two gnarly, smelly dogs. I was hardly on-board when he put it in gear and roared off down the rutted road towards Monarch.
When we got to town, I jumped off the truck, waved a thank you, getting a harrumph in return, and headed for a gas station and a phone.
I called big brother Jerry and told him of our plight. He said he would come as soon as he could. It took over two hours to get to Monarch. The drive from Great Falls was only hour, but before he could leave he had to get the spare keys and a lecture from Bob's dad.
By the time we got to the turnout Bob and Jim were in near panic, wondering if they would have to spend another night sleeping along the side of a seldom-traveled road.
Saved once again by our big brother, we arrived home late that evening. I rode home with Jerry, not wanting to be around when Bob had to face his dad. I am sure that all way home, he and brother Jim attempted to make up some excuse for losing the keys to the truck, but knowing Bob's dad it would be a long, long time before we would be using the pickup truck for another fishing trip.
Chapter 4 –
Lesson in Supply and Demand
We had another good fishing and hunting companion, and hockey teammate. His name was Bob Tabor. Tabor, unlike Bob, Jim and I, was a big, burly guy with a droll, dry, sense of humor. He was several inches taller than we were with large muscular forearms and a barrel chest. He excelled in baseball, football and hockey and he too was an avid fisherman, and hunter.
One of Tabor's most endearing attributes, when we were all in high school and the years following, was that he owned his own car purchased with money he earned working for his dad who ran a trucking business. It was a green 1938 Dodge 4-door sedan with huge front bulb shaped front fenders, running boards, a voluminous trunk and could go like the dickens.
Tabor was not immune to the dark cloud of disaster that seemed to follow our adventures with Bob. Strange things happened when they went fishing together, too. Like the time they hiked into Two Medicine Lake.
After hiking into the campsite, building a lean to, and eating dinner, they made ready for a nice nights sleep. There was minor problem however; Tabor had forgotten his sleeping bag so they had to share Bob’s.
Sometime during the night, Bob felt something on his chest. When he opened his eyes to see what the heck was on him he looked directly into the beady eyes of a porcupine.
Bob dug his elbow into Tabor's side trying to wake him up.
"What the heck is going on," Tabor said as he stirred awake.
"There's an animal on my chest, get him off," Bob groaned.
Tabor grunted and turned over causing the porcupine to jump off and scurry away.
In the morning, Tabor asked in a mocking tone. "Where's your wild animal now? You must have been having a nightmare."
"He is right over there," Bob said pointing to their knapsacks hanging from a tree branch. Clinging to the knapsacks was a burly porcupine gnawing away at the sweat soaked leather straps.
The day Tabor, Bob and I went fishing up on the familiar Dearborn River we had a lesson in economics about supply and demand.
We found out how fast the price of gas could increase when there was a limited, controlled supply and a dire demand.
We had parked Tabor's car in the same place as the time we spent the night under the barbed wire fence near the bridge across the Dearborn and started fishing.
Tabor had a unique way of fishing. He was a bait fisherman, eschewing flies for live worms or grasshoppers. However, whenever anyone approached and saw the mess of fresh caught trout on the bank and asked what he was using, he normally replied, in a somewhat wry manner, with, "Gray Hackle or Royal Coachman fly."
His other peculiarity when fishing was his wading approach. He didn't believe in waders or hip boots, but he didn't like to get his clothes wet. So when he wanted to get near a deep hole to drop a worm by a sunken log or submerged rock, he would strip off all his clothes and wade out up to his chest in the clear cold water clutching a large black cigar in his teeth to keep the mosquitoes at bay by the acrid smoke. It wasn't a pretty sight, but it worked.
I was always amazed at how Tabor could withstand cold and pain. Even when we played ice hockey on a frozen pond in the middle of a Montana winter, he would be dressed in a pair of Levis, a white tee shirt and a pair of leather, work gloves while all rest of us were bundled up in layers of clothes with fur lined gloves and woolen hats.
He was oblivious to pain. When we began playing serious hockey, Tabor would play without shoulder pads, elbow pads or a cup, and he would remove the thigh pads from his hockey pants.
"Cutting down for speed," he would intone with a sly grin on his face.
One year he broke his leg playing football but when hockey season started his leg was still in a cast. He sliced the cast with a penknife so he could remove it during a game and then slip it back after the game. Another year he broke his wrist and before the cast had fully set, he was shooting a tennis ball with his hockey stick to shape the cast to fit the stick.
When we finished fishing, and Tabor got dressed, we loaded our gear and fresh caught trout into the trunk of the car. Tabor, turned the key, and pushed the starter. The engine gave a short cough, caught and started up and immediately died. He tried again with the same results. The car wouldn't start.
"Look at the gas gauge, it's on empty," Bob cried out.
"The gas gauge doesn't always work", Tabor replied.
"Get a stick and check the tank," he told me.
I picked up a slim, dry stick, removed the gas cap and poked the stick down into the tank. It sounded empty and hollow, but when I pulled the stick out, about an inch of it was wet with gas.
"Looks like we have enough of gas to get to Bowman’s corner, but I don't think there's enough for the fuel pump to work properly," Tabor surmised.
With that he opened the trunk and pulled out a five-gallon gas can and wiggled it around.
"Sounds like just about a half-a-gallon." Tabor ordered, "Tom, you'll have to feed the carburetor by hand."
"Why me?"
"Because you're the smallest," came the standard reply from Bob.
It seemed every time somebody had to do a dodgy deed, I was selected either because I was the smallest or the youngest or both.
Tabor opened the hood to the engine, folding one side over the other, and removed the air cleaner from the top of the carburetor.
Then he told me to sit on the fender, and pour gas directly into the carburetor as he cranked the engine.
Tabor jumped in the car and cranked the starter while I poured the gas into the carburetor, the engine sputtered, coughed, back-fired, blasting me in the face with a cloud of gassy exhaust fumes, and then roared to life and we were on our way with me sitting on the fender straddling a headlight and pouring gas into the carburetor.
We continued for about three miles until a huge honeybee flew into my face causing me to flinch and I stopped feeding gas to the engine. The car stalled, stopped, and as I tumbled off the fender dropped the can spilling the last dribble of the gas.
"What's the matter, why did you drop the can?" Tabor bellowed as he picked up the can and shook it. "Now you've done it, we're all out of gas."
"A great big bee flew into my face," I groaned.
Now we were in real trouble! Out of gas and the nearest gas station at Bowman’s Corner about 6 miles away. So we started off carrying the empty five-gallon can.
At least this time they didn't send me off alone.
We had only gone about 2 miles up the dusty, gravel road when we spotted a ranch house about a half-mile off the road. Since most ranchers had their own gas supply for their vehicles we were sure we could get some gas at the ranch.
We were in for big surprise.
As we approached the house, a kindly looking, gray haired lady came out of the house.
"You boys lost, or something?" she asked.
"Our car ran out of gas, we were wondering if we could buy some from you?" we asked.
"Oh, you poor boys. Sure, I can sell you some gas. Bring your can over here," she said, leading us to the storage tank.
We started to fill the can when she said. "You know the price of gas had gone up?"
Gas prices had just recently went from 28¢ to 32¢ a gallon.
"Sure we know gas is now more," we answered as we continued filling the can.
"It’s now $2 a gallon," she said without a trace of a smile. She was serious.
"What?" we all three said in unison.
"Yep, take it or leave it," she said.