In May they ran the cattle up to summer grazing. It was always a big event, with people from town and a couple of German tourists paying to participate. It was a two day drive. No need to camp out. Most of the hands went home at night, but the tourists liked to camp, eat beans and drink coffee and dream they either were, or were in the arms of Rowdy Yates. One woman's secret dreams were for the more taciturn Gil Favor.
The bawling cattle and the yowling coyotes laced the high desert night with magic. Throw in the cry of a night bird and people's skin began to prickle.
When they returned to the ranch house there was a barbecue and a Mariachi band. Good will all round. Or so it seemed.
Since he'd taken over the ranch he thought he'd achieved a miracle. He'd cut down the number of cattle, changed grazing practices and become the poster boy of the BLM who trotted him out dutifully to illustrate the benefits of intelligent range management. Hell, there were more sage grouse and mountain sheep on his land and the land he leased than there ever were.
When he opened the letter it was a bolt from the blue. His ranch was to be returned to the Tula people. The Tula people! So far as he knew the last Tulas had died in 1906 when they attacked a posse that was after them for slaughtering cattle. You couldn't tell women and children in their big winter clothes - that's how it happened they all went down that bitter day. Froze solid as they fell, his grandfather said.
And now they were claiming his precious land!
A deputation of Tulas came to look at the land.
They talked of putting in dams. He tried to tell them why they couldn't.
They talked of cutting down the alders along the three creeks. He tried to explain why they shouldn't.
They talked of a cyanide leach mine. He explained the regulations.
They told him to shut up.
He noticed that they looked as white as he was.
``We are a legal tribe,'' they said.
He spent a fortune on lawyers but he lost. After a divorce and a year of drunken desolation he worked as a grazing consultant, mostly in Mexico. Years passed.
It was his son who returned to the ranch one spring. A man in a Stetson greeted him.
``Come for the cattle drive?'' he asked, ``Registration is there in the kitchen.''
They were driving the cattle to summer grazing. A few town people and tourists paid to participate. It was just a two day drive...