Badluck Way: A Year on the Ragged Edge of the West

by Andrews, Bryce

  The previous owner had made his fortune as the leading man in a series of early-nineties shoot-’em-up movies. The way Steve heard it, this action hero liked to fly his buddies in and turn them loose on the ranch. One of the regulars was especially fond of hot-rodding across the Sun in a lifted, tinted black Suburban—a monster truck. The guy rumbled across the North End, bouncing in and out of the old ditches and over the cairns built by Depression-era shepherds. He packed a handgun big enough to match the truck and blazed away at whatever caught his eye.

  The legal targets would have been bunchgrass, cow pies, cans rusted and new, occasional shed antlers, rabbits, old homesteads, and coyotes. He preferred coyotes. With the radio blasting, the window wide open, and the AC blowing, he spent the long evenings of summer chasing them across the Flats. His favorite method of dispatch was to pull up alongside and shoot from the driver’s seat.

  At least once he missed his mark and found the pistol empty. The exhausted coyote edged ahead. The driver looked across the heaving line of his quarry’s backbone and mashed the gas pedal until the V-8 screamed.

  Steve stopped there, paused, and then shrugged.

  “Could be a bunch of bullshit, but that’s what I heard.”

  He paid his tab and shook my hand. Pulling on a dirty oilcloth coat, Steve nodded to the other guys drinking at the bar and took his leave.

  As I waited to settle up with the bartender, I listened to more talk from the regulars. Down at the far end of the bar, the man in the black Stetson was still going strong about his days as a deputy sheriff. When I stood to go he was midway through a story about some notorious Virginia City woman who ended up handcuffed to the side-view mirror of his cruiser.

  “I put it in gear and drove right down the street,” he said. “She jumped on the hood and broke off both windshield wipers.

  “Goddamn.” He chuckled. “She had a sense of humor.”

  Walking down Main Street in the dark, I thought about two notable artifacts on the ranch left over from the action hero’s tenure: a pair of log cabins from a movie shoot below the beginning of Bad Luck Canyon and a stone hot tub in the absolute middle of nowhere.

  Made of stacked logs and set on stone foundations, the cabins are meant to look scenic and old, and they do. By now they have outlasted any interest in the film for which they were built.

  I spent one night in the bigger of the two cabins when we had a herd of cow-calf pairs bedded down nearby and the wolves were prowling through. Mice kept me awake, but other than that, the cabins were unused. They’d sat through storms and turned gray, settling on their foundations until no trace of Hollywood remained. Given a few more decades of freeze, thaw, and wind, they would be indistinguishable from half a dozen other homestead shacks on the place.

  The action hero’s other legacy was a bit more useful. Before selling the ranch, he’d engaged the services of a renowned mason from Ennis. The contractor had hauled load after load of cobbles from a nearby creek and cemented them into a massive tub. Pink, green, and black, the stones were smooth to the touch and as big around as beach balls. The tub was a low cylinder, fourteen feet across and four deep—beautiful craftsmanship.

  The water came out of the ground fifty feet away and collected in a crystal-clear scalding pool, the kind for which Yellowstone Park is famous. Strange, thick algae grew in the pond, and a steel pipe ran downhill from it to curl over the tub’s east wall like a kitchen faucet. The pipe gushed hot water day and night.

  At night, the stars above the tub were so beautiful that I wore out my neck looking up. I spent hours soaking, swimming circles, and listening to the faraway drone of airliners. I traced dark skylines with my eyes: first the slump-shouldered hills of the Gravelly Range, then the toothy peaks of the Madisons. A tiny pinprick glow from a talc mine fifteen miles away was the only man-made light.

  When I used the tub I thought of its builder rolling and hefting the stones, and then concentrating on the meticulous task of cementing them together. He must have worked for weeks, maybe months, to set the boulders as precisely as jewels. I compared those labors to my own job of fencing, herding, doctoring cows, and setting out salt, and came away impressed.

  The clerk at the Ennis grocery store asked me where I worked. When I told her, she said she knew a lot about Roger. They hadn’t ever talked, she admitted, but she held forth on how much he loved the wolves and his future plans for the Sun Ranch. She called him a “greenie” and lowered her voice to tell me about the time he refused to let a couple of local guys hunt moose on the ranch.

  Her story had the ring of gossip to it, and I soon learned that Roger was a favorite and frequent subject of conversation in the Madison Valley. The particulars of his daily life constituted minor news, and some of his antics at the various picnics, auctions, and gatherings that punctuate the rural calendar were front-page material.

  In the eyes of the valley’s old-guard ranching community, Roger was a consummate outsider. A Stanford grad and Bay Area native, Roger had made his hundreds of millions in the original Silicon Valley software boom, ending up filthy rich at a fairly young age.

  Roger was a well-intentioned conservationist and an avid fly fisherman. Like so many who embrace that avocation, he loved Montana passionately. In this way, his story and mine are similar: We came to Montana first as fishermen, caught big rainbows and hook-jawed browns in the late afternoons of August and watched them break the surface of the Madison. As they slung drops of clear, cold water into the low sunlight, we promised to return. We huddled through winters in dense, coastal cities and laid plans to find our way back to the mountains, the river, and the endless Big Sky.

  There our paths diverged. I had come to the Madison in a little truck, with just enough for gas and groceries in my checking account. Roger had bought the best eighteen thousand acres of the valley for twenty-seven million dollars. With the deed in hand, he announced his commitment to conservation ranching and his intention to open a high-end lodge catering to “eco-tourists” on an adjoining property.

  In a place where ranching was a way of life and California a dirty word, this made waves. At fire department meetings and around kitchen tables, people began to talk. Locals wondered if they would be able to hunt elk on the Sun Ranch and speculated about whether Roger might kick the cattle off for good. They suspected that he might be too busy hugging trees and French-kissing grizzly bears to be neighborly.

  Roger did his best to nip the worst rumors in the bud and assuage the more reasonable fears. He stuck with the cows, even embraced them as a tool for fertilizing soil, controlling weeds, and reinvigorating bunchgrass communities that thrived on periodic disturbance. He gave generously to local charities—the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, the Madison Valley Ranchlands Group, and others. He sponsored events.

  I watched a video of Roger speaking at an annual summer party for the Ranchlands Group’s Weed Committee, which was held under a huge, open-sided white plastic tent along the river. Men on horseback flagged down the arriving cars and pickup trucks and parked them in equal rows in the high grass. After some brief remarks by the weed coordinator about the importance of continuing the valley-wide extermination of hound’s-tongue, spotted knapweed, Canada thistle, toadflax, and other noxious plants, Roger took the stage.

  No real explanation was given for his presence up there, but it seemed like everyone in the audience knew who he was and that he had in all likelihood paid for the party. Roger greeted the crowd. Then, to break the ice, he said the following:

  “I told my friends in California I was coming to a weed party in Montana. ‘Whoa!’ they said. ‘What kind of people are you hanging out with up there?’ ”

  He paused, and a good chunk of the audience laughed.

  “One thing at a time, I told them. One thing at a time.”

  The few chuckles that followed seemed nervous, forced. Roger paused and then launched into a lengthy description of the strides that had been made to control weeds on the Sun Ranch, the importance
of working together, and his commitment to the health and future of the Madison Valley.

  Yet, in spite of himself, Roger was controversial. When he put half of the ranch in a conservation easement with the Nature Conservancy, neighbors took notice. When he leased irrigation water to Trout Unlimited, drying up a hundred acres of hay, it caused a stir. Roger was an emissary from a largely foreign world that promised nothing certain except for sweeping change. As such, he created curiosity and friction in equal measure.

  Even on the ranch, we hired hands talked about Roger more than we talked with him. In addition to the Sun, Roger owned a telecommunications company up in Bozeman and Papoose Creek Lodge, a five-star cluster of log buildings just off Highway 287. Though the lodge was immediately adjacent to the southwest corner of the ranch, it functioned in a separate world.

  Papoose Creek had its own herd of horses for trail rides, a chef, a wrangler, an outfitter, several managerial and administrative levels, and an ever-changing rabble of domestics, groundskeepers, and kitchen staff. It employed a handful of fishing guides in summer and an equal number of hunting guides in fall. Most of them lived in a cluster of cabins between the highway and the river—a cramped, noisy spot called the Madison Bend. You could get a beer down there at a place called the Grizzly Bar. The Griz catered mostly to fishermen, which meant that the food was good, if a little expensive.

  The lodge staff earned their wages by making life easy for wealthy dudes, and I had a hard time forgiving them for it. They worked a good deal less than the ranch crew, and probably made more money when you counted all the tips.

  I seldom went to Papoose Creek, and the lodge staff rarely made it up onto the high, sere benches of the ranch. We lived apart with one major exception: each Wednesday, the lodge held a barbecue on the bank of lower Squaw Creek. All the guests piled into a wagon drawn by two matched Percherons, and the whole ensemble made the arduous journey of a half mile across a lush pasture where the lodge grazed their horses. Arriving at their destination, the guests were treated to a dinner of mammoth proportions.

  Every week, work permitting, one or two members of the ranch crew were allowed to join the festivities. The idea, as I understood it, was to lend a bit of authenticity to the proceedings, mingle with the guests and answer any questions about the ranch that might arise. In other words: show up covered in dirt, with blistered hands and worn-out jeans, and act like a cowboy. In exchange for this, we got to eat slow-cooked ribs; barbecued chicken; roasted vegetables; multiple pasta, potato, and green salads; fresh bread; and the finest baked beans I’ve had before or since. Those beans held a special power over me. I fantasized about them at dinnertime on days other than Wednesday, comparing them in my mind to whatever leftover pasta or lonesome steak I was eating.

  Roger didn’t get his money’s worth from me at those dinners. I spent most of my time with my mouth full, and the balance of it drinking beer with the pretty girls hired to help the chef, serve the food, hold the horses, and do the other hundred chores necessary to live ostentatiously in the wilderness. Still, I usually got to tell a few stories and take a couple of questions before the guests were ready to head home. After helping see them off, I walked to the spot where I had hidden my ranch truck, waited until I was sure they couldn’t hear the engine fire, and then headed down the bumpy road toward home.

  Beyond the ranch and lodge, Roger had property in a handful of states and seemed to make a fairly regular circuit of his homes and holdings, with far-flung vacation trips thrown in to break the monotony. We kept the Big House warm for him, but he didn’t visit much in early spring.

  From Jeremy and others I heard that Roger spent huge sums of money every year at the auctions run by local conservation groups. Relics from his spending sprees were scattered across the ranch. One weekend afternoon I set out from the bunkhouse, walked through a culvert that goes under Highway 287, and poked my head into the old calving barn that sat next to the creek. Inside I found a dry-docked flotilla: inflatables for running rough water, a ski boat with a massive outboard, and a pair of aluminum drift boats that looked brand-new except for a coating of dust and bird shit. While poking through another old shed, this one behind Jeremy’s house, I found a wooden crate that held an unused birch canoe.

  After seeing that pristine collection, I didn’t expect Roger to pull up to the bunkhouse in a muddy Subaru. I didn’t picture him small of stature with a boyish grin, dressed in faded jeans and a pair of black over-the-glasses shades that hid his face from nose to forehead. But that was Roger.

  He stepped out of the car, walked over to me, and stuck out his hand.

  “You must be Bryce.”

  I was a little disappointed. I thought the owner of a twenty-seven-million-dollar ranch would at least wear a gold watch or fancy shoes. Instead, Roger looked like a fisherman, like my father on vacation, right down to the quick-dry shirt with a fly shop’s name stitched across the breast pocket.

  Roger asked about the accommodations and how I liked my work so far. We talked for a couple of minutes before he excused himself and drove off to his house for a conference call. “Stop by anytime I’m up there,” he said.

  Roger was courteous, kind to his employees, and curious about the workings of the ranch, but he was always pressed for time. He skipped from one commitment to the next like a stone across water—there and gone in an instant, leaving ripples behind.

  Two wolves wandered separately through the foothills of the Madison Range. The land was sliding into winter, and deep snow had driven hundreds of elk down from the peaks. At night the elk drifted out of the hills to graze on the flat, lush pastures of the ranch. They squealed and chirped to each other in the dark. Though both wolves began to haunt the edges of big, milling herds, the two of them did not get together right away—such things are usually complicated. They orbited each other, sniffing at tracks and keeping a safe distance. They courted across half a dozen drainages and bounced howls off the bottom of the moon.

  Even as he made sense of the new presence, the wolf continued to learn his country. Down on the South End, he found his way into and out of the Squaw Creek bog, a trail-less rat’s nest of broken timber, moss, and deep sinkholes. He discovered the overgrown logging road that cuts partway through the bog and used it thereafter as a shortcut. On Moose Creek, he patterned elk, learning which trails they used to cross through the foothills and where they chose to graze at night. Up Bad Luck Creek he found a perfect little defile, almost a box canyon, with live water and a well-worn game trail running through the bottom. He returned to it often until the elk grew wary and the canyon floor was littered with bones.

  As he traveled, the wolf grew bolder. He learned the contours of the lower ranch and left a line of palm-sized tracks across the road when fresh snow covered the gravel of Badluck Way. From a lofty remove, he watched a bewildering variety of machines growl across the landscape. He saw men come and go from the shop and barn, and watched as they rode horseback to gather cattle. He kept a wary distance.

  In time, he found ways to become invisible, honing this skill to a razor’s edge on the North End, where every misstep sent deer and antelope scattering to the far horizon. That broad plain was a wild ungulate’s dream, a place where the deck was stacked in favor of the prey and solidly against the predator. Nearly every spot out there had a commanding view, and the ground was perfect for running. When large, vigilant herds grazed the Flats, it took a stroke of luck for wolves to get anywhere near them.

  The wolf still managed to eat. He followed the gentle, almost indistinguishable swales that wind across the Flats. He covered open ground at night and ambushed deer when they came down to the creek for water. When those tactics failed, he hunted smaller game—voles, rabbits, and anything else he could get his teeth around. From time to time, as he walked a creek or paused on his way through one of many high parks in his territory, he caught whiffs of the female’s scent.

  Near dusk and on the hunt, the wolf climbed to the top of a steep ridge, peere
d into the basin below, and caught sight of her standing at an old kill. She looked up from the bones and scattered tufts of belly hair, saw him standing near the tree line, and froze. She did not run. They drew together in the sage, sniffing at each other with tails held high. They came to an understanding and became something more than isolate wanderers out of Yellowstone.

  Things moved quickly after that. They traveled together, hunted in tandem, and grew better at bringing down elk. In a little grove of timber on the south side of Stock Creek—a spot with a commanding view of the North End Flats and the strange, jumbled group of hills called the Mounds—they found an old den dug in beneath a massive pine.

  A handful of wolfless years had left the den in ruins. Freeze and thaw, coupled with the creeping progress of roots, had conspired to bring the roof down in a heap of loose clods. The wolves dug in turns, pitching the dirt backward through their hind legs and into the light of day. In time, they excavated a gently sloping tunnel extending five or six feet into the hill. Though big enough for a thin man to wriggle into, the tunnel was tight, and its halfway point was marked by a sharp turn made to negotiate the pine’s main taproot. A few feet beyond, the tunnel opened up into the den proper—a low, roundish chamber studded all over with roots.

  When the tunnel was sufficiently clear and the den tidied to their satisfaction, the wolves turned their attention back to the everyday work of survival. They struck south to prowl the steep, wild terrain of Bad Luck Canyon. They returned often, however, to tinker with their hole. After each new bout of labor, sprays of fresh dirt marked the base of the pine.

  The Line

  The Sun Ranch didn’t winter any cattle. From October through May the range belonged to wildlife, especially elk that trailed across Expedition Pass each fall from Yellowstone Park, walking nose to rump across scree slopes and down the little trails that filigree the high country. When it started to snow the elk came en masse, numbering two or three thousand. Huge herds gathered on the windswept flats of the ranch’s North End. Smaller bunches cruised the steeper, forested drainages to the south.