Monthly Archives: August 2020

Jack wrote this in June, 2006:

I don’t usually open spam emails, but something about that subject line’s a winner.

All over America, I imagine, men glanced at that heading, did a double take, just as I did, and clicked it open.

Reached for their cell-phones.

Squinted.

Jack

I found this poem in Jack’s papers. It was typed, so probably a final draft, but wasn’t included in Poems of the New Old West. –Jeanne

In chilling heat of steel-gray afternoons
I footprint mud beside metallic waters;
Thoughtless prayers of gratitude
For primrose blemishes
That pock the face of dying winter.

Gunmetal night explodes
In chalkboard hieroglyphs
Of ballistic trajectories.
Drowning cold kaleidoscope;
My shield…defend!  Repel
Just once again
This splinter of
Eternal chaos.

Jack wrote this in July, 2006, in New Mexico:

Whew.

There are signs, and there are signs.

Neighbor Wes tells me those rains brought us up to our yearly average (5 inches) moisture in three nights.  Looks as though more’s on the way.

I spent a lot of yesterday out digging silt out around the house, ditching, berming, putting up obstructions to help keep the water on the property and allow it to soak in.  Trying to keep it from widening and deepening the arroyos it cut in the driveway and through the carport.

Trying to slow it down, get it to drop some of that silt-loading here, instead of carrying it off onto Wes, down into the Rio Grande, over to Texas where they don’t need it.

Meanwhile, while I was working, a bald eagle landed in the tree behind Wes’s house.

Yeah, a sure enough bald eagle, right there in the treetop, me with four cats running around the yard.

I gave it a word of metaphysical advice:

“You,” says I, “There ain’t no America no more.  To me you’re no better than a buzzard.  You dip down here trying to snag one of these felines, I’m going to whack you with this shovel.”

Jack

Old Jules, what’s something unique and strange that makes you, you?

I’m a hermit getting along towards 70 years old living in the middle of nowhere in Texas. I talk to my large flock of free ranging chickens and my four cats. I don’t listen to the radio, don’t have a television, and I once almost went an entire presidential term without knowing who was prez. I became a private pilot by buying an airplane, hiring an instructor, firing him when I got sick of his antics and soloing myself. I had more than 500 hours logged before I ever applied to take an FAA test ride and get a license.

Old Jules are you a loner? If so, why did you decide to live this way? Are you ever mistreated and/or rejected by your family and neighbors who think loners are odd people?

I’m a hermit. I might be considered by others to be a loner, though I’m not. I’m a sociable person when I’m around sufficiently few people.

I’ve been out of touch with my family, some members for a decade, others for several decades. I heard recently my 90 year old mother died, but felt nothing when I heard it. I don’t know whether my dad’s alive or not. I called him up on the phone 15 years ago [first contact in 20 years] to wish him a happy Father’s Day and he hung up on me, which was okay by me.

I doubt people think I’m odd, though I do think they are. I need to go at least several days, sometimes a month, between seeing other people just to keep my head on straight.

Old Jules do you believe in animal rights?

I think I might believe in animal rights, but I’m not familiar enough with what’s going on in the world to know.

I’ve never bothered to think it through, but as a practical matter, I kill anything of any species that threatens my cats and my chickens, including the occasional feral domestic cat, and pretty much leave everything else alone. When I have to kill a coyote, coon, or something else I always chop it up and feed it to the chickens. I’ve never yet had occasion to put a human being into the mix to test my resolve.

I do occasionally eat meat when I can afford to buy it, and if I went a longish while not being able to afford it I’d probably kill one of these deer I’m forever running off with a slingshot to keep them out of my chicken feed.

Without trying to nail all this down into a philosophy it seems to me it represents a behavioral code.  I’m not sure if it’s accurate to call myself a supporter of the current animal rights philosophy.

Old Jules, has your life been what you expected? If not, in the end does it really matter?

I don’t believe I could have ever imagined much of it ahead of time, but it’s a smile and it’s been a constant adventure. When people talk about being bored I file it away as something to look into next lifetime to see if it’s as interesting as not being bored.

I don’t believe anything about this lifetime is going to end unless I manage to figure out how to do it right so’s I don’t get into the same set of challenges next time around. The prospect gives me a strong motive.

continued from yesterday’s post:

Part 2:  To Protect and Defend – “Freeze scumball!”

Okay, here’s a similar case, only backward:

A man living in the woods.  Might have poached a deer, or a bobcat. 

Two protectors and defenders with time on their hands visit him and one makes a fatal mistake.  Officer pulls a gun on a man who’s not in the mood for it:

When the dust settled the man without a badge served 22 years in the slammer.  No talk of reducing this one.

Claude Dallas

(Ian Tyson, Tom Russell, 1986.)

In a land the Spanish once had
Called the Northern Mystery,
Where rivers run and disappear
And the Mustang still lives free,
By the Devil’s wash and the coyote hole
In the wild Owyee Range,
Somewhere in the sage tonight
The wind calls out his name.
Aye, aye, aye.

Come gather round me, buckaroos,
And the story I will tell:
The fugitive Claude Dallas
Who just broke out jail.
You might think this tale is history
From before the West was won,
But the events that I’ll describe took place
In nineteen-eighty-one.

He was born out in Virginia,
Left home when school was through.
In the deserts of Nevada,
He became a buckaroo.
He learned the ways of cattle.
He learned to sit a horse.
He always packed a pistol
And he practiced deadly force.

Then Claude he became a trapper.
He dreamed of the bygone days.
He studied bobcat logic
In the wild and silent ways,
In the bloody runs near paradise,
In the monitors down south,
Trapping cats and coyotes,
Living hand and mouth.
Aye, aye, aye.

Then Claude took to living all alone
Out many miles from town.
A friend, Jim Stevens, brought supplies
And he stayed to hang around.
That day two wardens, Pogue and Elms,
Drove in to check Claude out.
They were seeking violations
And to see what Claude’s about.

Now Claude had hung some venison,
Had a bobcat pelt or two.
Pogue claimed they were out of season.
He says, “Dallas, you’re all through.”
But Dallas would not leave his camp.
He refused to go to town.
As the wind howled through the bull camp,
They stared each other down.

It’s hard to say what happened next.
Perhaps we’ll never know.
They were going to take Claude in to jail,
And he’d vowed he’d never go.
Jim Stevens heard the gunfire,
And when he turned around,
Bill Pogue was fallin’ backwards.
Conley Elms, he fell face-down.
Aye, aye, aye.

Jim Stevens walked on over.
There was a gun near Bill Pogue’s hand.
It’s hard to say who’d drawn his first,
But Claude had made his stand.
Claude said, “I’m justified, Jim.
They were going to cut me down.
A man’s got a right to hang some meat
When he’s livin’ this far from town.”

It took eighteen men and fifteen months
To finally run Claude down.
In the sage outside of paradise,
They drove him to the ground.
Convicted up in Idaho,
Manslaughter by decree,
Thirty years at maximum,
But soon Claude would break free.

There’s two sides to this story.
There may be no right or wrong.
The lawman and the renegade
Have graced a thousand songs.
So the story is an old one.
Conclusion’s hard to draw.
But Claude’s out in the sage tonight.
He may be the last outlaw.
Aye, aye, aye.

Idaho outlaw Claude Dallas freed from jail

BOISE (AP) — Idaho’s most infamous outlaw, Claude Dallas, was released from prison Sunday morning after serving 22 years for the slayings of two state officers in 1981.

Dallas, 54, gained notoriety as both a callous criminal and a modern-day mountain man at odds with the government. He was released Sunday after his 30-year term was cut by eight years for good behavior.

Dallas wore a light blue shirt, prison-issue jeans and a denim jacket as he walked out of the Idaho Correctional Institution in Orofino at 4:55 a.m., said Teresa Jones, an Idaho Department of Correction spokeswoman.

“He doesn’t want to talk to the media or make a big deal out of his release,” said Kevin Kempf, the prison warden. “He just wants to go live his life.”

Dallas was picked up by a family member. He was convicted of manslaughter in 1982 for the shooting deaths of Conley Elms and Bill Pogue, officers for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game who were investigating reports of bobcat poaching by Dallas in remote southeast Idaho.

Pogue, who had drawn his own weapon, was hit first with a shot from Dallas’ handgun. Dallas then shot Elms two times in the chest before using a rifle to fire one round into each man’s head.

The case made national headlines and turned Dallas into an anti-government folk hero for some — a reputation only heightened by a 1986 jailbreak. Dallas hid for nearly a year before he was caught and sent back to prison. He was charged in the escape, but acquitted by a jury after he testified he had to break out because prison guards threatened his life.

If a police officer stops you for a minor violation and points a gun at you, do you:

Think he’s a highly trained professional and he’s only protecting you and defending you?

0

Wonder if he’s ever killed anyone else in the line of duty and liked the feeling?

1

Think he might shoot you because you sassed him? (See Woods, above)

1

Joke and clown around to lower the tension? (Not recommended)

0

Think he might shoot you because he’s having a bad day and knows he can get by with it?

2

Think he might shoot you by accident? (Happens too frequently to make the front page)

1

Wonder whether the piece is ‘on safety’? ( It ain’t.)

0

Wonder why they don’t drug-test these guys now and then? (They don’t)

1

Wonder whether he’ll plant evidence in your vehicle? (If you sassed him and he doesn’t shoot you)

0

Breathe deeply and be grateful you live in America and you’re protected from criminals?

1

Jack

Jack wrote this in March, 2006:

Two different sides of a similar story here.

Part 1 – To Protect and Defend – “Freeze scumball!”

The first is about a Park Ranger who had an argument with a 58 year old unarmed man wearing sandals, shorts and no shirt.  The crime was an unpaid  $14 park fee.  The criminal tried to run away from him, though his vehicle remained parked right where the Ranger was standing. 

No problemo?  Put a citation on the car and go on to other things?

Nope. 

The only solution’s to shoot the running man. He’d smarted off and sassed a badge.  Plugged him twice in the back.  Kilt him spang daid with the first shot.  Second one was to make sure.

Here’s how the Criminal Justice system’s dealing with this protector and defender: 

• Begins as Second Degree Homicide. 
• Reduced to Voluntary Man-Slaughter. 
• Reduced to Involuntary Man-Slaughter.

Hang on a bit and they’ll give him a pay raise and a Police Association Man of the Year Award.

Family: Ranger shot man in the back at Elephant Butte

ELEPHANT BUTTE STATE PARK, N.M. (AP) – The family of a man who was fatally shot by a State Parks officer at Elephant Butte State Park allege the shots were fired into the man’s back.

That according to a copyright story in today’s Albuquerque Journal. (March, 2006)

Fifty-eight-year-old Bruce Teschner was killed August 23^rd during a confrontation with State Parks Officer Clyde Woods.  Authorities say Woods shot Teschner after he refused to pay a 14-dollar-a-night camping fee and refused to leave the park.  Authorities say Woods apparently was unarmed.

An affidavit says Woods told the belligerent Teschner that he would be arrested and got Teschner prone on the ground.  But Teschner did not comply, got up and moved away with his  hands apparently in his pockets.

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, N.M. (AP) – A State Parks officer who fatally shot a man following a dispute over a camping fee at Elephant Butte State Park is facing a second-degree murder charge.

State police say Clyde Woods turned himself in Monday after an arrest warrant was issued. He’s being held at the Sierra County jail on a $100,000 bond.

Woods shot 58-year-old Bruce Teschner on August 23rd during a confrontation in which Teschner had refused to pay a  $14-a-night camping fee and refused to leave the park.

State Parks director Dave Simon says criminal charges constitute an extremely serious situation and the division is following the matter closely.

Simon says Woods’ law enforcement powers have been suspended and he remains on paid leave until the division can review the findings of a state police investigation and conduct its own review.

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, N.M. (AP) – The case of a state parks ranger who fatally shot a man in a dispute over a camping fee at Elephant Butte State Park will be heard in state district court.

A Sierra County magistrate bound the case over to district court during a preliminary hearing Wednesday.

The judge also reduced the charge against Clyde Woods to involuntary manslaughter. Woods was initially charged with second-degree murder.

Woods shot Bruce Teschner on August 23rd during a confrontation in which Teschner refused to pay a $14-a-night camping fee and refused to leave the park.

According to an affidavit, Woods told the belligerent Teschner that he would be arrested and got Teschner prone on the ground. But the man did not comply, got up and moved away with his hands apparently in his pockets.

Woods was placed on paid leave following the shooting.

Summary: 

1. If you’re going to deliberately kill someone you need to be wearing a badge. 
2. If someone with a badge points a gun at you you’d best let him shoot you or you’ll go to jail.
3. You can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs.

(Part Two in tomorrow’s post).