All Entries in the "Hard News" Category
HUNTERS SHOOT HORSE
A Dream Shot of Some Consequence
a true story with Uncle Pahgre
(Delta) It all seemed to make sense, at first. A friend of ours, who shall remain very nameless, was awakened from his early winter hibernation by a loud pounding on his back door. He threw on a robe and stumbled in the direction of the interruption. When he opened the door he saw two men in blaze orange, heads hung down, shuffling their feet, serious about gaining his immediate attention.
“We done shot your horse, mister,” said the first, “and we come to make reparations.
The second man held out a wad of cash that turned out to be one hundred dollars in the company of four more bills of like currency.
“Well, come in,” yawned my friend. “I guess that was the shot we heard earlier. This time of the year one gets used to guns going off all around. What the hell time is it anyway?”
“Bout eleven,” whispered the first looking around the kitchen in the direction of assorted snores from the hallway.
“You people hit the hay early round these parts, heh?” winked the second man who turned out to be from just outside Dallas.
“We’re up here from Texas hunting and despite what you may have heard we’re responsible, respectable and accountable.”
“Then what’s all this about a horse?” asked my friend.
“Well, you remember the part about responsibility?” offered the first hunter. “That only goes so far, I guess. We’ve been prowling these hills for two weeks and ain’t seen nothing of an elk, unless you count the scat. We were frustrated. We were tired and hungry and headed back to a motel down the road when, just as dusk pulled up her skivvies, we saw movement in the hay field just north of here.”
The first hunter went on.
Jim here decided that it might be our last chance at glory so he took a chance. He sighted in and pulled the trigger. Blam! Then blam again. What a shot! Dropped that elk like a ton of greasy enchiladas on a Saturday night! Cow elk too, you know. No horns. And we each had a million-dollar tag right here in our pocket. Some shootin, Jim.”
The second man just smiled, still embarrassed but yet a little bit proud of his expertise with a rifle.
“We climbed your fence and snuck out to the kill which was dead as an armadillo after arm wrestling a semi on Highway 287. Then the problem emerged. It wasn’t a bull elk. No. It wasn’t a buck or doe, but neither was it a cow elk. It was your horse, mister.”
My friend just stared at the kitchen table.
“The old swayback. She was getting to be an old lady, too slow to ride much less dodge a bullet. Where is she now?”
The two men laid the five hundred dollars on the table and told him the mare was still laying in the spot where she dropped. He sighed.
“How am I going to get around reporting this to the authorities?” he asked.
“We hoped the five hundred would help you make that decision. It ain’t a bribe but it’s a far sight more than that old girl was worth alive. We realize that local cops would put our buts in a sling over this episode but I think you can see that out hearts, if not our brains, are in the right place.”
My friend yawned. He though to himself of a new tractor he needed. He thought of Christmas and his kids. He thought of the good it would do to turn these poor hayseeds into the pencil-pushing cops.
“You boys want a cup of coffee? I gotta think this out. Tell me again, what made you shoot what you thought was game on private property at dusk. Don’t you ever read the back of your hunting license. Cripe, at the cost of the thing I’d think you’d memorize every word just in case you lost it.”
The hunters went through their thinking process one more time dwelling on their fatigue and frustration. They apologized again saying that they wouldn’t blame my friend if he turned them in and pressed charges for trespassing and the whole cheroot.
“OK, but if I ever see you on my land again you’ll be the horsemeat,” he said “Now can you find your way back to your motel or should I drive you?”
They both laughed the laugh of men much relieved. They thanked him again and departed. He watched them as he pulled on his coveralls.
“I hope that backhoe starts. I didn’t plug her in and the weather’s turned cold.”
He stuffed the bills into his desk drawer, told his wife he had to check the cows and wandered into the night. He’d bury the mare before the rest of the family got savvy to what had occurred. He drove through the dark expecting a messy ordeal, then he saw the mound of flesh hugging the ground and approached.
“What the hell?” he barked standing over the kill. “It’s an elk. Those morons shot a cow elk and from the looks of things it was a perfect lung shot. I’ll be dipped!”
Thinking that the meat was still good he proceeded to dress out the elk there on the spot. The cold weather had kept it from going bad right away and the lung shot had insured that the meat wasn’t spoiled by adrenaline and trauma.
“Hell of a shot,” he smiled. “Hell of a shot.”
At dawn he woke up his oldest son who helped him cut up the elk and package it for the freezer. It would feed a lot of people a lot of nights this winter.
“Does this mean we won’t be going hunting, dad?” asked the son on the way to school later that morning.
“What makes you ask a question like that, son,” smiled our friend. “In fact I think we oughta stop by and look at that rifle down at the hardware store. It’s been fired a bit but they might let it go cheap if we flash them some cash, heh?”
“Whatever you day, dad.”
(Editor’s note: The San Juan Horseshoe in no way endorses withholding evidence from the law however until we can safely determine who the responsible parties might be we can tolerate temporary storage of such data. In closing this paper likewise does not ignore good karma, frontier justice, divine intervention or just dumb luck. In short: We suggest that one never look a gift horse (or elk) in the mouth, a part of the anatomy that should remain shut on a host of occasions.)
FISH GET NEEDED BREATHER
(Ridgway) Local trout, who have enjoyed the time off over the past month due to bow and black powder hunting seasons as well as the gov’ment shutdown, are ready to get back to work Monday.
“The reservoir is starting to freeze and we expect the ice fishermen to start arriving any day now,” said Ken Kokanee of Colona. “We look this season much like a hockey game. The only difference is that there’s a hole in the ice and half of the participants use fishing poles instead of hockey sticks. Also,” Kokanee spouted, “there’s no puck! Think of the fish as the puck.”
MATH CORONER
If Governor Polis would have spent his campaign funds on beer instead of all that annoying television advertising this year, how many of the beverages would have been bought for each American over 21 years of age? Would he have gained a larger percentage of the popular vote this way? How would this have affected the electoral college in terms of square roots and all that? Is a gubernatorial candidate expected to provide snacks too?
Write your answers on a bar napkin and send to Math Coroner, Potter Gazette, Pea Green, Colorado. The first person to answer these biting questions correctly will be, in turn, bitten by a member of our kitchen staff. In case of tie, all winners will be encouraged to run for President in 2028.
Should Organic Farmers Pay for Grazing on Public Land?
(Uncompahgre Plateau) Farmers grazing onions and potatoes on public lands here have petitioned for a general variance that excuses them from seasonal grazing fees. Saying that their vegetables don’t eat anything, are quiet and immobile, the growers, most of them organic tribesmen who migrated to this area from New Mexico in the 19th Century, catch water, add nutrients to the soil and clean up after themselves.
“It’s not like onions trample existing flora or that potatoes give off methane gas,” said Betty Sweetcorne from her sun-dried tomato camp near the Transfer Road. “And when the harvest comes we don’t haul our produce to lower elevations in cattle trucks leaving cow pies in their wake.”
Sweetcorne adds that most of the vegetables grown on the Plateau end up at local farmer’s markets and not sold to giant food conglomerates where they are dyed, wrapped in plastic and marked up to be sold hermetically.
Currently the Department of Inferior is considering a plan that would borrow funds from the newly enacted Horse Flesh Tax legislation to cover these grazing fees.
-Sterling Bidet
Colorow’s Ghost
Part I Act 2
(READER SYNOPSIS: In our last episode we met Salli Radar, a former nuclear physicist who walked off her job at a Nevada Test Site, dropped out of high society and moved back to Western Colorado to find herself. Spending an idyllic summer cultivating hybrid snapdragons and tending the family’s burgeoning marmot flock on her grandfather’s Dallas Divide ranchette, Salli knew bigger and better things were in store for her just down the next dirt road. The first act crash landed as Salli bursts forth with a Western rendition of “The Sound of Music”, waking the majority of marmots from a lengthy siesta and setting local heifers on a collision course with E minor. We pick up the action as Salli prepares to bed down for the night.)
Although a comfortable house beckoned, a rough and ready herdsman often took to sleeping on the ground. It was no less than a show of solidarity with the livestock. Salli was no different. As she tried to fall asleep gazing at Jupiter and the headlights from the tourists down on Highway 62 she thought long and hard about her recent work in the nuclear industry and back in Los Alamos, New Mexico where she had designed and assembled weapons capable of destroying Las Vegas or Grand Junction.
The wind kicked up sending an eerie message that winter would be making a house call in about October.
“This is already July,” whispered Salli to herself amid cricket chirps and coyote calls, “I’d better get my nuts in.”
As Salli lay in her goose down sleeping bag, purchased from from a designer outdoor boutique while she still had a fat check coming in, she thought of her fly boy, Mango, who had only last month run off with a bowl of wax fruit leaving her with little roughage and a broken heart.
“That bastard,” she thought, remembering feverish nights in the moonlight on Paiute Mesa and sizzling days with her security clearance and the man she loved in the radiant yet hazy Nevada sunshine. “I miss him so.”
As Salli drifted off to sleep to the rhythm of the vigilant whistle pigs and the swayback skunk cabbage she felt the strange sensation that her camp was being observed from above. Each time she popped her eyes open she saw nothing, but a heavy odor filled the air. It was then that she heard the chanting and the sound of distant tom-toms. The drums got louder as the moon came up for another rousing Charleston with a lingering wallflower star.
“What can this be?” she thought, now frightened by all the recalcitrant racket and the rancorous, pervasive musty smell in the air. “I must be losing my marbles. I shouldn’t be surprised. It happens to a lot of us retired atom splitters.”
Rolling over in an attempt to find a soft spot on the planet, Salli fell back to sleep. The random snoring that had driven poor Mango away now attracted something more wild than Paiute Mesa, something more intoxicating than league night at the Pahrump Bowl. What was out there hovering over the marmot herd anyway?
It was then that Salli awoke, sitting straight up in her sleeping bag. A dark, misty figure meandered its way toward her expired campfire. His glorious war bonnet and taut hunting bow seemed in conflict with his preposterous tie-dyed headband and a badly faded synthetic “Indian” blanket, the kind sold in every border town showroom from Tijuana to Ushuaia. He spoke in quiet, drifting tones as if not to needlessly alarm the snoozing snapdragons.
“I am the great chief Colorow, leader of the proud Utes!” said the spooky warrior. “I have returned to the land of my ancestors!”
“Whoa!” gulped Salli. “How did this guy get in here!”
“I am the great Chief Colorow!” the specter now bellowed. “I come for horses with which to hunt the buffalo!”
Salli sat anxiously as the warrior searched the horizon for the spoils of his intended coup. She had digested all the data on UFOs while working for the government but even the classified variety had never alluded to anything like this Colorow character. This was a completely new ball game.
Had this Pale Horse chief returned to his previous haunt to communicate an eternal message to humanity? Would she share the agonizing particulars of the demise of his people? Why did he choose Salli when there were millions of other more suitable humans crammed onto the planet? Would the Dodgers win the pennant?
George Radar, Salli’s grandfather had mentioned a sacred Indian burial ground somewhere to the west of the family dump on Cottonwood Creek. Had someone left the gate open or had this chubby apparition wrapped in a blanket returned from the ages set on some callous revenge? Had he really chosen her as his medium to communicate sacred and primitive thought to the 21st Century? This was almost Biblical!
“I’ve always had a warm place in my heart for the Utes even though my ancestors stole their land, drove them out of the country and used them for target practice,” mewled Salli. “I just love Hopi pottery and trips to Mesa Verde.”
Salli quickly determined that if this Colorow had intended her harm he would have already drawn his tomahawk and taken her hair. She further surmised that he was here on a holy mission and would communicate his feelings to her when the time was right. In the interim, she would just sit tight and wait for his astounding revelation. What an impact this would have on the humanity! Would humankind rethink his calamitous rendezvous with ultimate destruction? What new philosophies would emerge? Could this elusive chief snatch 21st Century Homo Sapiens from the jaws of ecological extinction?
Of course, her newfound celebrity status would not emerge without some sacrifices. There would be the loss of privacy, as government heads all over the world would place incredible demands on her time. There would be the endless interviews by reporters and of course the abrasive talk show circuit. She would need a new wardrobe. Would Mango see her on TV? Salli whirled out of her trance as Colorow cleared his throat as if to speak.
“Here it is,” ducked Salli expecting the infinite truth from the happy hunting ground to fill the nearby canyons. “I am all ears, oh great warrior!”
“What’s for dinner, toots?” asked Colorow.
TO BE CONTINUED
Pax Tourista declared by Polis
(Denver) Pledging continuity in positive tourist growth in Colorado, today Governor Jared Polis declared 2005 as Pax Tourista. This tribute only comes along once every 50 years and the recognition goes far beyond state borders. Exhorting all Coloradans to embrace the esteemed honor, he was overtly candid when speaking to merchants and service groups employed in the hospitality industry.
“Merchants in Colorado must be prepared to juggle the silly questions without looking down their noses at flatlanders and other visitors to our state,” he began. “Sure they seem like people from outer space sometimes but deep down they are just like we are and need a little reassurance, especially when out of their element. Be nice,” he stressed.
“A smile can disarm even the most demanding visitor,” he continued. “These people are our guests and not walking dollar bills.”
Polis suggested that merchants keep windows clean and shower regularly so as not to offend. He reminded business people that sticky doors, mean dogs and naked children running around did not send the right message to tourists looking for the high country experience.
“Third World charm should stay there. Our visitors want a little creature comfort after they come back from hiking, eating and fishing. It’s up to us to provide it. A little sincerity goes a long way,” he reminded. “And try to limit the number of restrictions on the entry way. Nobody likes to read No this and No that on the way in to buy a rock or a postcard to send back home. Keep the rap music down and avoid cooking high-intensity ethnic delicacies in the halls too,” he said.
Adhering to some of these simple considerations should result in a healthy, prosperous year for most Coloradans.
“We just want to make sure you pay your sales tax,” the governor joked.
– Uncle Pahgre
