Another factor that contributed to the peacock inventory at Owl Farm was, quite naturally, the birth rate. This would depend upon the number of mature females in residence any given spring, and on how many eggs each of the girls felt like laying. Of course there was more to the egg issue than just the laying. There were two perfectly good peacock pens, one attached to each of the cabins on the property. Sometimes the birds would see the logic in laying their eggs in the relative safety of the pens, sometimes not. When one of the ladies would choose to lay someplace totally unacceptable, like the backseat of the car someone was about to drive off in, the eggs had to be moved. This happened more often than you’d expect. When it did happen, it fell to Hunter to transport the eggs.
Peacocks are pretty friendly birds. They recognize you and actually seem capable of forming a bond with people they’re used to. Hunter was truly fond of them, and it seemed that the affection was reciprocated to some degree. The peahens’ warm feelings for Hunter, however, did not suffice for them to tolerate egg snatching.
One warm spring afternoon I pulled into Owl Farm to find Hunter lurking. To find a man who’s master of his domain lurking in his own yard gave me a moment’s pause. Hunter explained that one of the birds had laid two eggs on the tractor. Since the tractor was used on a regular basis, this was a fairly stupid place to set up a nursery. Hunter was waiting for the bird to decamp so he could grab the eggs and move them to the safety of one of the cages. Once the eggs were moved, the mother would usually accept the new spot and proceed with her nesting duties there. Hunter and I waited and watched. The bird came strutting out of the garage where the tractor was parked. When it was a safe distance from the garage, and occupied with its pecking and scratching, Hunter made his way inside. He came out with an egg in each hand and casually made for the cage on the deck of his cabin, feigning exaggerated nonchalance. The peacock spotted him. Then she spotted the eggs. With an ear-splitting screech, she gave chase. Hunter jumped, then fled. The peacock stayed on the ground, flapping as she ran, closing the distance between them. At the last possible moment she took flight, landing directly on Hunter’s head. They both screeched, equally terrified, equally surprised. A peacock’s talons are about the size of your hand, with large, sharp claws, Hunter’s hands were full of peacock eggs. He had no way to dislodge her. He was not happy.
I don’t know how good peacocks are, in general, at takeoffs and landings; when I see them, they’re usually just walking around pecking and squawking. This one seemed mighty surprised to be sitting on Hunter’s head. I got the sense that she wanted off just as much as Hunter wanted her off. She flapped again and was back on the ground. Hunter lurched up the stairs and across the deck to the cage. He deposited the eggs, and the bird came flapping after. Hunter shut the door on bird and eggs. He stepped back, shaken and sweating.
Years later I moved into Hunter’s neighborhood. My cabin was less than a mile from Owl Farm. One morning I looked out into the backyard and saw one of Hunter’s birds strutting around. As a rule, the peacocks stuck close to Hunter’s, the food source. Once in a while, though, one would wander off a bit, never too far, and get disoriented. I don’t think their homing instincts are really great. To make it all the way to my place seemed unusual, but that was what happened. I called Owl Farm, and Deborah told me that Hunter was out of town. I explained the bird situation. Since neither of us considered ourselves peacock wranglers, we decided that Deborah would provide me with peacock chow and I’d feed the bird at my place until Hunter got back. Then he could figure it out.
When Hunter returned I described to him what pleasant company the bird had been. When I got up, it would be waiting outside the back door for a breakfast feeding. When I returned in the afternoon, at first it would be nowhere to be seen, but then it would appear when it realized I was home, and start looking for a little dinner. If I spent the remainder of the afternoon on the deck, it would hang out with me until I retired. I think that Hunter was charmed by the fact that one of his friends actually understood his feelings for these birds. So he offered to give the bird to me. Now, behavior that is regarded as eccentric in the talented and famous can actually be “probable cause” in a commitment hearing for the rest of us. I had to decline. I also didn’t think that the uneasy truce between the peacock and my murderous cats would last forever. I appreciated that the huge bird was teaching the evil bird-killing cats a little humility, but I was afraid of what might happen if someone got brave.
Hunter suggested that I start feeding the bird a little closer to the back door every day. He figured I could eventually get it to eat in my back room, and then I could trap it in there, at which time Hunter would come over, bag the thing, and transport it back to Owl Farm. It took a little over a week, but in the end the bird was eating comfortably in the back room, and I could close the door behind it without upsetting it.
It took another week to get Hunter over to my house. I’d call Doc at seven or eight in the morning, when the bird was feeding. If Hunter picked up the telephone at seven in the morning, it’s important to remember that it was the end of his day, not the beginning. Heck, no one’s at his best at the end of a hard day. Same with Hunter. So it took a few tries for me to catch him in the mood to chase a peacock around my back room. Then one morning he said, “Anita and I will be right over.”
They arrived a little later. Hunter was fully equipped. He had a very large tumbler of scotch, a hash pipe, a cocaine grinder, and, oh yes, an old blanket with which to bag the bird. Hunter prepared himself to do battle. A little of this; some of that; a bit of this, that, and something else; and, yes, the blanket. We peeked into the back room to observe the bird. It was completely calm and at home. Anita and I backed off. Hunter slipped into the room and closed the door behind him. Soon the screaming started: the peacock’s high-pitched shrieks and Hunter’s lower pitched sputtering. Both in a rapid staccato. No actual words discernible from either one. Anita and I sat on my couch looking at each other, waiting. The melee went on and on. No one expected this to be pretty, but we were becoming concerned. Suddenly, silence.
Hunter emerged with the bird wrapped in the blanket. A peacock will become totally docile when enveloped in this kind of darkness. I walked Hunter and Anita and the bird to their car. Back in the cabin I inspected my back room. There was peacock shit everywhere. Not just the horizontal surfaces—the walls and even the ceiling were well smeared. While I was pondering how even such a large bird could emit so much dung, the phone rang. It was Hunter reporting that the peacock seemed fine, totally unscathed. He and Anita were going to turn in and he’d call in the evening. I promised to visit my friend, the peacock, very soon.
Liz Treadwell was one of the great beauties in a town full of beautiful women. She was beautiful in the old days, and she’s still beautiful now. Lucky us. Back in the day, she was linked romantically with a number of people in the entertainment industry whose names you’d recognize. She is currently hitched to a very good man, a real cowboy.
Liz loved animals, all of them, so when she suggested to Hunter that she cook peacock for the gang for Thanksgiving dinner, Hunter was the only one who even pretended to take her seriously. She said it to bait him, to get his goat. Hunter’s goat deserved to be got, as he was usually on the giving end of the goat-getting.
Liz was six months pregnant. She was always known as a terrific cook, so “the boys” decided that dinner with her was a truly inspired idea. Liz started cooking at first light. Being knocked up, she’d been leading the pure life and didn’t have anything better to do. By late afternoon the guys started to straggle in. It was opening day of ski season, and that’s what most of them had been doing. What Hunter had been doing until then is up for speculation. With the first arrival, the booze was broken out, along with everything else it takes to have a happy holiday, and no one seemed interested in holding back. Liz was preparing a full-blown, all-the-fixings dinner, and had been at it for about ten hours; her guests seemed bent on getting fucked up as quic
kly as possible.
By the time the feast was ready, the group was far, far gone. The huge dining room table was covered by a meal out of Norman Rockwell, and no one was hungry. Liz was a little bit cranky. No, it was worse than that: her back hurt, she’d been on her feet for hours. She was homicidal. Liz’s classic beauty concealed an iron will and a nicely evolved temper; she was not one to fuck with. She watched the lads “not eating” for as long as she could stand it, cartoon steam coming out of her ears. She finally turned aside to feed her two Australian shepherds, Josh and Jilly, essentially to put off the wringing of necks that was next on her agenda. When she returned from the kitchen, the boys were still lounging around the living room, sprawled on sofas and easy chairs, having a good old giggle, and still ignoring the food. There were no other women at the gathering. Liz decided to take the passive approach, expelled some steam, and started clearing the untouched food from the table. Halfway through the clearing process, the guys decided they were hungry. Liz was about to blow. Hunter was sitting on the sofa smoking, which added to the exhausted, sober, pregnant Liz’s rage. Suddenly, the pooches came flying in from the kitchen; Liz turned around and saw Hunter with a can of lighter fluid in his hand.
Photograph of Hunter taken by Liz Treadwell at an occasion involving less tension than the ill-fated Thanksgiving dinner.
Hunter used to do this trick in which he would put some lighter fluid in his mouth and squirt it out between his teeth while igniting it. It created an impressive stream of flame. This was the trick he was performing just as one of the dogs came charging up to him seeking a little affection. The result was a line of fire straight down the dog’s back from the base of its neck to its tail. The dog screamed, Liz screamed, Hunter screamed, everyone else either jumped straight into the air or froze in place. The flaming dog bolted for the door that Liz opened just in time for the animal to charge through and roll crazily in the snow.
Fortunately the dog was uninjured. The lighter fluid burned so fast it never got down to the hide. After the initial shock, the boys regained their composure and, in the spirit of true professionalism, acted as if nothing at all had happened and went back to whatever joke they were telling or conversation they were having before the conflagration. No one commented on the event at all. Hunter never apologized. The nauseating stench of burned dog hair that permeated the room was never acknowledged as the happy group finally sat down to the traditional Thanksgiving dinner Liz had spent so much time preparing.
Liz tells the story about her good friend Fiona who returned to Aspen after an extended stay in Australia and rented a house across the road from Hunter. Soon after taking up residence, Fiona called Liz and told her that there were mice everywhere. Liz told her to get a cat. Fiona knew that Liz had an inventory of cats and asked if she could borrow one. Liz explained that you don’t loan out your cats and that Fiona should go to the animal shelter and adopt one. For some reason Fiona was determined to borrow a cat instead of adopting, and actually managed to find someone to loan her one. It was huge, fifteen pounds of black and tan stripes, white chest, and a black mask just like a raccoon’s, a real mouse terminator. The cat did fine work, and before long Fiona’s mouse issues were a thing of the past.
While there were plenty of mice to hunt, the cat was happy to stay close to home, but when it finally ran out of prey it started to explore the neighborhood. One night it found its way on to Hunter’s deck. The peacocks pitched a fit; they had no idea what to make of a cat the size of a Volkswagen.
The next morning Fiona opened her door, and in staggered the cat, beaten and bloody. She rushed the poor beast to the vet to find that it was riddled with birdshot. The cat survived but sustained some permanent brain damage, and the vet’s bill was well into four figures. HUNTER, WHY THE FUCK DID YOU SHOOT MY CAT? was the phrase heard echoing through Woody Creek…more than once. The thing was, it wasn’t Fiona’s cat; it was a loaner. She had been given this huge, beautiful mouse-killing machine and now had thousands of dollars in vet bills and a cat who wasn’t quite the same as when she’d borrowed it. As usual Hunter admitted nothing. He had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. Cats that looked like raccoons? Sounded pretty far-fetched to him.
Fiona paid the vet nonetheless, the cat’s owners were displeased, and the poor addled cat led a very pampered life to the end of its days.
Braudis Describes Hunter’s “Hey, Rube” Moment
It was mid-afternoon, about three thirty; I was in my office. The phone rang, and it was Hunter. He and his assistant, Deborah, were at the bar at the Jerome.
Through the eighties and nineties, Deborah Fuller was Hunter’s director of operations, hostess, executive secretary, bouncer, and mother. She lived in the cabin next to his house. As part-time assistants and lovers came and went, Deborah remained the constant, a woman beyond price and without whom nothing could happen at Owl Farm. On his own, Hunter was helpless. Deborah knew all and did all; she was loyal, fierce, and loving. She was the gatekeeper and the game warden. She knew Hunter better than anyone, and made it all work.
That afternoon Hunter asked me if I would care to join them. Of course I would. The Jerome had been Hunter’s campaign headquarters in 1970 and the hundred-year-old bar with high ceilings, a cracked tile floor, and great views through huge windows was a favorite of us all. The bar is a block away from the courthouse where I had my office, so I said I would meet them in five minutes. I walked in, pulled up a stool between them, and bummed a Dunhill from Hunter. The J-Bar was the last establishment in Aspen that still allowed smoking, a prerequisite for Hunter’s business. It also boasted a Tom Benton THOMPSON FOR SHERIFF poster on the wall.
Tom Benton had been one of Hunter’s best friends for forty years. His art was political and strong. Mostly silk-screen prints, in limited editions, his posters supported candidates or causes, or were against war. Hand-carved letters spelling out quotes like “Eat the rich” or “First we kill all the lawyers” mixed with beautiful graphics and color.
The THOMPSON FOR SHERIFF posters featured a double-thumbed fist clenching a peyote button, and decades after the election they were still in demand. Hunter had a deal with Benton. Hunter believed that he owned the art. He had been right there when the poster was conceived and probably had as much to do with the look of the thing as anyone. Hunter had his own very specific notions about graphics and design and wasn’t shy about scribbling away on anyone’s work, whether it was Tom Benton’s or Ralph Steadman’s. He would give Benton 50 percent of any revenues generated by the sale of the posters that Benton screened in his studio. The posters were available in some galleries and on the Internet. If the art was signed by Hunter, the price per poster went from one hundred dollars to three hundred dollars.
Hunter with Tom Benton and an HST FOR SHERIFF signed for outgoing police chief Tom Stephenson.
Kitchen camaraderie with Doc, Ed Hoban, and artist Paul Pascarella, codesigner of the fist logo.
Tom Benton’s wife, Marcy, handled the money end of their poster business. She would deliver product and get the dough, more or less treating the whole thing like a drug deal. Benton stayed in the studio or worked for me as an officer in the Pitkin County jail.
One night, years before, while Benton was on duty in the jail, Hunter called him to ask if the jail had cable. Yes, the jail had cable TV; Owl Farm didn’t. There was a title fight available only on cable and at nine thirty that night the inmates were locked down. Hunter came to the jail with his Dunhills and Chivas, and he and Benton watched the fight. It was a good measure of their friendship.
Anyway, Hunter, Deborah, and I were sitting at the bar when Joey DiSalvo, my chief detective and a friend of Hunter’s, walked in. He was carrying a signed poster, recently purchased from Marcy Benton. It was signed not by HST, but by Marcy Benton. In gold Magic Marker. It was an obviously butchered attempt to replicate Doc’s signature. When Joey unrolled the forgery, Deborah sighed. “That bitch.” I grinned, and Hunter started fuming.
Throughout his career Hunter felt that he had been ripped off by agents, publishers, and business managers. His paranoia and perception made him a wolverine if he had anything in his hands resembling evidence. He now had some serious evidence.
I said that Tom probably didn’t know that Marcy might be signing art with Hunter’s “HST.” Hunter’s only focus was on the two hundred dollars he was losing and the fraud that had been perpetrated upon the buyer. We ordered another round of drinks, and Hunter promised Joey an authentic version. I happened to glance at the rear entrance to the bar, and there was Marcy walking with a man in a suit and tie. She was carrying a heavy roll of papers under her arm. It had to be business. She and the client sat at a table directly behind us, oblivious to our presence. She was making a deal.
I leaned forward, elbows on the bar, and whispered to Hunter and Deb, “Don’t look now, but you won’t believe who just sat down behind us.” Of course Deb and Hunter immediately craned their necks and looked over their shoulders toward the table. Marci caught the glance and waved daintily. Who could believe this? Well, Hunter could. With creaky motions, he slid off the stool and stood. I said, “Hunter, don’t do anything you’ll regret.” Hunter sauntered over to Marcy and the mark. His voice rose, and Marcy blushed. She quickly gathered her art and exited through the door that she had come in, with the “suit” in tow.
Hunter had been involved in more than a few brawls in this very bar, and a simple yelling match instead of a donnybrook suited me fine. Hunter ordered more drinks, asked the bartender for a pen, and started writing something on a napkin. I walked out the rear door and into the lobby. Out there, I spotted Marci, handing the man in the suit four “signed” posters and taking twelve hundred dollars in cash. I approached them and said to the man, “I’m sure Hunter told you that this isn’t his signature.”
The Kitchen Readings Page 7