As a teenager in 1958, I worked as a cook on the large ranch in our Idaho valley. While it was no picnic, the money would assure that I wouldn’t have to spend my life as a ranch cook!
We cooked for around 35 men. In spite of the work, the job also provided entertainment due to the exploits of the hired help — young men who still had way too much energy and imagination after working all day. They gleefully shared the following story over a series of weeks as we ate dinner. It may have been a little mean, but there was an innocence about living and working at that time.
The ranch had grazing rights to the Payette National Forest that surrounded the valley. The daily job of the cowboys was to check on cattle that were scattered over thousands of acres. Overlooking the valley was Granite Mountain with its hike-in Forest Service lookout.
According to the cowboys, an adventurous but naive young man from the East Coast worked at the lookout that summer. He had never been west and had no understanding of the area or the people. The innocent was also completely by himself, with the exception of the communication radio, for weeks at a time. Supplies were brought in periodically, but that was the only source of contact with anyone — except the cowboys.
The cowboys naturally stopped to chat with the boy from the East. Discussions involved fires, lightning, falling rocks, bears and other outdoor dangers. The talk would generally get around to descriptions of animals. The novice would excitedly recount a few that he had seen. The cowboys, on the first visit, asked if he had seen the Speckled Knocker. The Eastern Dude asked for a description.
“Well, he kind of looks like a huge woodpecker, is speckled and goes around knocking holes in trees with his beak.” One of the riders pointed to a hole in a nearby tree. The gullible young man asked if the Knocker was dangerous. The answer was probably not, but the wood supports on the lookout were rather small and could be an issue. The cowboys left the Eastern innocent to ruminate on this information.
A couple of weeks went by and the cowhands had occasion to go up to the mountain again with, of course, a stop at the lookout. Dude was a little uneasy, having heard thumping noises on trees several times, though he had not seen anything. The cowpokes admitted that the Knocker was quite shy, so he might only hear him.
Then one of the boys asked if the Dude had seen evidence of rocks dragged along the ground (not an uncommon sight where small avalanches occur). The Eastern Dude had. The cowboys nodded wisely and solemnly announced that they had probably been left by the Magno-Cat, a large creature that had the ability to attract rocks. He probably wasn’t dangerous unless you were standing near his path, in which case you could be knocked silly by the rocks tumbling behind him.
By now the innocent was frightened. He called the local forest ranger on the radio for advice. The ranger was a nice guy but he also had a little of the devil in him. He assured Dude that he was probably safe, that he had not heard of those specific creatures — but there were some strange things out there.
On their third visit, the ruthless wranglers considered stepping back a bit, since the naive newbie seemed terrified. But they couldn’t pass up the chance to introduce another, gentler creature: the Mountain Goadder.
This creature was large, rather like a brainless cow, and would fill the small trails that wended their way around the mountains. The animal came in two varieties that determined how they traveled: short legs on the right went right, short legs on the left went left. Thus they could stay level on steep slopes. How they reproduce has long been a mystery of science.
The only danger Mountain Goadders presented was that they covered the whole trail and could not turn around, so if you met them going the wrong way you might be forced off the trail.
The buckaroos’ stage was set. They figured the coup de grace would be to stop at the edge of the clearing, then race their horses past the lookout yelling “They’re after us!”
They got set for their run when they noticed everything was quiet. They checked the area and found the lookout deserted. Nothing was left — no food stocks, no firewood. Empty.
Once they got back to the ranch they called the forest ranger. He told them that the Dude was totally terrified, and since the season was ending, he decided to pull him out.
These summer events proved one thing to me: Cowboys were probably the most dangerous thing in the forest.
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