It wasn't their genetics
or some fabled cowboy deed.
Their rock-hard ranch existence
had spawned a different breed-
a different breed....a different creed....
a different style of life....
a different way of coping
and overcoming strife.

Much, much different men emerged
distinct from all the rest;
more sage and cactus in their guts,
the men from way out west.
It wasn't how they walked or talked
or how the cowboys dressed:
They'd be one in a business suit
while on some Wall street quest.
And it was more than how they roped,
or how the men could ride.
Their rock-hard ranch existence
had branded them inside.

So deep inside the brand was burnt,
it set the men apart…
more inner strength, more stamina,
more steely grit and heart;
just like Montana cattle,
livestock that  survived
when lesser stock all languished
or dropped somewhere and died.
It wasn't their genetics
or some fabled cowboy deed.
Their rock-hard ranch existence
had spawned a different breed.

Bette Wolf Duncan
Copyright © 2000

 Picture on background is
N. C. Wyeth - "Cutting Out"
 

         This poem is dedicated to the man who inspired it, Bill Duncan. (I was married to him for 48 years.) He was the grandson of one of the earliest settlers in the southeast corner of the Montana Territory, Caleb Duncan.  Bill was born and raised on the family ranch. As a small boy, he and his brother Pete rode bareback on bucking  calves with Bud Linderman, pretending to be rodeo stars.  Bud Linderman later became a World Champion bareback rider.  Bill was active on the family ranch.  In Spring, he helped drive cattle about 50 miles from the home base, to higher leased ranges on the Crow Indian reservation. In fall, he helped drive them  back. He figured he had been on over 20 such cattle drives.

           Bill was in the Army in WWII , serving in the Pacific theater  in Finchhaven, New Guinea; and he made the beachheads at Laiti and  Mendora in the Philippines.  Later, as a student at Montana State College, he was part of a six man committee that helped establish  rodeo as an intercollegiate sport at MSC.  Bill  performed as a bareback rider in local rodeos for several years. 

               After College, Bill worked for the Bureau of Reclamation as boss of an eight man crew that surveyed the Big Horn Mountains, prior to construction of the Yellowtail Dam.  They were deep in the Little Big Horn Canyon for over 5 months. This job, among other things,  required them to establish elevations of mountain cliffs down through the canyon. As a consequence,  the crew traveled through and over country that very few people had ever seen. They lived chiefly off of the abundant game to be found in the Bighorns at that time.

        In a very remote section of the Big Horns, the crew came across a narrow pass into the canyon. It had a  heavy chain attached to a hook in the granite wall. It was stretched across the pass, and across the adjacent river.  Ahead were boulders.  The river was  boiling with rapids and water falls. Past the boulders, there was a pathway to a fertile plateau.   It had long been rumored that there was a band of rustlers that operated out of the Big Horn Mountains. They had often been chased...but never caught. They always disappeared to the consternation of the nearby Cattlemen's Associations. (The cowboy poem, The Rustler's Roost, a fictional account based on Bill's recollections,  is scheduled to appear on Casey's Corral.)  
  
            This entire area is now under water; and is part of the Yellowtail Dam reservoir. Bill counted himself  fortunate to have seen this bit of Montana history and to have experienced the wild west in a way that  few people living today have known. And I count myself lucky to have known him.  
                                           Wacobelle