Cowboy poem,"The Mountain Man" with biographical account of Earl Durand

<body> <embed SRC="desperado.mid" loop="0" autostart="true" hidden="true" align="left" width="1" height="1"> <div align="center">  <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p><img border="0" src="mountainmanbronze.jpg" width="384" height="432"><br> <b><i><u>Mountain Man</u> -  </i>bronze by Frederick Remington</b></p> <table border="8" width="65%" bordercolorlight="#FF0000" bordercolordark="#FF0000" bordercolor="#FF0000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"> <tr> <td bordercolorlight="#FF0000" bordercolordark="#FF0000"> <p align="center"><font size="6">The Mountain Man</font></td> </tr> </table> </div> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><font size="3" face="Arial">The mountain moon's a ridin'<br> on the stallion of the night;<br> with snowflakes softly glidin'<br> down its flowing mane of light.<br> The midnight winds are siftin'<br> through the driftin' flakes of snow;<br> and you can hear 'em whistlin'<br> through the pine trees as they blow<br> <br> Some think my trail's a lonely one...<br> without a soul in sight;<br> with no one there t' talk to<br> save the wailin' winds of night.<br> But what I am's a mountain man.<br> I do jus' fine out here.<br> I've mostly slept beneath the sky.<br> I feed on elk and deer.<br> <br> Good friends, these mountains are t' me.....<br> the kindest ones I've known;<br> and when I'm in these mountains,<br> I 'm never quite alone.<br> I like t' hear the whisperin’<br> of a gentle mornin' breeze;<br> and listen t' the birdsong<br> that's pourin' from the trees </font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><font face="Arial"><font size="3"><br> A posse's out there after me<br> with bullets by the score.<br> But they won't take this mountain man<br> the way  they did before.<br> I've gotta keep on ridin' now,<br> and hidin' from the law....<br> avoidin' men, evading them-<br> holed up in some dark draw.<br> I killed game outta season,<br> but the reason for my flight<br> is, when they jailed me for it,<br> I killed a guard one night.<br>  </font> </font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><font face="Arial" size="3">I couldn't breath...I couldn't think.....<br> went crazy in that cell.<br> It stripped me of my reason;<br> and delivered me t' hell.<br> No longer was I human,<br> but an animal confined;<br> without the human faculties<br> that bless the human mind.<br> <br> A mountain man is what I am....<br> unfettered, wild and free.-<br> and nevermore will prison bars<br> mock the man in me.<br> Nor will they hang this mountain man.<br> Of this I'm sure for I've<br> resolved that they will never take<br> this mountain man alive. </font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><font size="3" face="Arial">And when their bullets find me-<br> as their bullets surely will-<br> a free, unfettered mountain man</font><font size="3" color="#FFFFFF" face="Arial"><br> is </font><font size="3" face="Arial">what they're gonna kill.<br> The mountain moon's a ridin'<br> on the stallion of the night;<br> with snowflakes softly slidin' down<br> its silvery tail of light.<br> When I am dead and buried<br> and this flight from terror ends,<br> I'll mount that coal-black stallion<br> and rejoin my mountain friends.<br> <br>              Bette Wolf  Duncan <br>                  copyright 2000 </font></p> <p>                  </p> <center> <div align="center"> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><font color="#FFFFFF" face="Arial"> You have your choice folks-   <a href="crstagecoach.htm">Go back to home page</a>,   <a href="shaneyridge.html">next poem..</a>..or what I recommend.. just continue reading about the man who inspired this poem, Earl Durand.</font></div> <div align="center"> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"> </div> </center> <div align="center"> <table border="1" width="95%" bordercolorlight="#FF0000" bordercolordark="#FF0000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" bordercolor="#FF0000"> <tr> <td bordercolorlight="#FF0000" bordercolordark="#FF0000"> <font face="Arial">                                                                        <b><font size="4">          </font></b></font> <div align="center"> <table border="8" width="50%" bordercolorlight="#FF0000" bordercolordark="#FF0000" background="starfiel.gif"> <tr> <td> <p align="center"><font size="4"> </font><font size="5" color="#FFFFFF" face="Arial">MOUNTAIN MAN</font></td> </tr> </table> </div> <p><font face="Arial">   As a child during the 30s I walked home from school for noon lunch. Nearly all my classmates did the same.  All of the family was home for a hot meal; and we ate at the table together.  The radio, however, was sometimes the focus of our attention.  One bulletin that we waited for anxiously was the latest news about Earl Durand. Some folks called him the Tarzan of the Tetons; and others, the Robin Hood of the Rockies.  He was a true woodsman and mountain man, on that everyone agreed. To most of these people ( and that included nearly every one in the neighborhood and those folk that I personally knew) he was somewhat of a folk hero whom  they had compassion and sympathy for, if not admiration.  To other folk, he was something of a joke and a criminal. Who was Earl Durand?</font></p> <p><font face="Arial">     He was a remarkable athlete  about 6 foot 2 inches, weighing close to 250 pounds (none of which was fat). He ran miles every day;  and it was said that he could cover 40 miles at night at a lope.  He lived in a wall tent behind  his parent's home, when he was not in the mountains. In March of 1939, Durand and three companions killed four elk out of season, west of  Cody, Wyoming. A resident of the area reportedly notified the authorities. Two game wardens began an investigation that ended with their waiting at the Shoshone Forest boundary for the hunters to return with the evidence.</font></p> <p><font face="Arial">         To quote the <i>Cody Enterprise</i>: "Finally in pitch darkness, a car came roaring down the highway. The two wardens tried to halt it by standing in its way. Slowing down only slightly, it barely missed one of the wardens. The other warden sprang onto the running board, whereupon the occupants tried to throw him off until he poked his pistol into the driver's ribs, saying, 'Stop, or I'll stop you!'"  Durand, carrying his rifle, jumped from the car on the passenger side and disappeared into the darkness.</font></p> <p class="bodyStyle"><font face="Arial">      The game wardens brought Durand's companions to Cody to the jail. The next morning a  rancher found two of his cattle shot. One was dead and missing a single hunk of meat from its flank. He telephoned the Under Sheriff  who, supposing Durand to be responsible, joined the two game wardens in their search. Another rancher and a former game warden added themselves to the party as they tracked Durand eastward down the North Fork highway in the snow. They came into the Shoshone River Canyon just west of Cody where about a half-mile above Hayden Arch they found Durand. The party was able to get the drop on him, disarming him and bringing him into Cody.</font></p> <p class="bodyStyle"><font face="Arial">        Durand and his three companions were brought before a judge who sentenced one of the older companions to two months in jail and a $100 fine for having two elk in his possession. The other two were paroled after what was described as a blistering lecture by the judge. Durand pleaded guilty to killing two elk and was sentenced to six months in jail and a $100 fine. <br>  <br>           Late in the afternoon on that Thursday, March 16, about 5:30 pm, the under sheriff brought the prisoners their evening meal. When he opened Durand's cell, Durand grabbed the milk bottle, hit a   guard over the head, took his revolver and an additional rifle, and prepared to escape. With the guard as a hostage, Durand forced the under sheriff to drive him to his parents' home near Powell, a distance of approximately 25 miles, presumably to get provisions and gear. By now word of his escape complete with the description of the commandeered car had reached Powell. A car fitting that description was reported to have been seen approaching the Durand home. A deputy sheriff  and a town marshall (who was reportedly Durand's friend) went to the Durand farmhouse to take him into custody. Durand shot them both.  They both died.</font></p> <p class="bodyStyle"><font face="Arial">    A conference of sheriffs, deputy sheriffs and under sheriffs took place; and eventually four groups totaling about 100 men were deployed to patrol the nearby hills and the area around the Durand home. Durand was able to elude the posse - he was actually in hiding along Bitter Creek not far from his parents' home. Because the canyon extended across the Montana border, the Montana governor  directed his adjutant general to give all necessary assistance; and an  eight-man heavily armed detachment from the Montana National Guard were dispatched. </font></p> <p class="bodyStyle"><font face="Arial">        Durand was sighted in an inaccessible rocky fortress up the side of a cliff between Little Rocky Creek and the mouth of the canyon. To reach him from above was virtually impossible. To storm his location was suicide. Despite warnings not to try it,  a Meeteetse, Wyoming resident and an expert in blasting powders and dynamite, and  a former Montana cowboy and rodeo rider (then of Cody), started up the hill. Refusing to listen to warnings from Durand himself, they were both killed. At this point, afraid even to retrieve the bodies, the posse withdrew  from the canyon. In reply to an inquiry by a newspaperman as to whether they had Durand cornered, a spokesman for the posse stated: "We haven't got him cornered by any means. He's got us cornered."</font></p> <p class="bodyStyle"><font face="Arial">          Knowing the survival skills of this man of the mountains, the posse never dreamed he would head in any direction other than deeper into the mountains. That was their mistake. On  about the seventh day of their search, vehicle occupants noticed a man sitting on a boulder by the road. He had a rifle and wore a deputy's badge. He flagged down the car. Identifying himself as a posse member, he requested a ride to the base camp, asking that they stop down the road where he had left his bedroll. After placing his bedroll in the trunk of the car, Durand identified himself  and requested that the car be turned around and headed toward Powell. This was done.<br> <br>    The car skirted the business district of Powell, driving through the south outskirts on to Deaver, 16 miles away, to the railroad depot where Durand reportedly picked up 300 rounds of ammunition he had previously ordered. At Deaver, Durand noticed the car was low on gas and filled it up - paid $2.70 which he  was only right under the circumstances. They then returned to Powell where Durand stopped at his parents' home, to pick up some belongings from the tent behind their house in which he lived. He told his parents good-bye.</font></p> <p class="bodyStyle"><font face="Arial">     Durand next directed the driver to drive north of Powell toward the Pine Bluffs coal mine. When they arrived, Durand told the three vehicle occupants he was taking the car and that they could walk the three miles to the nearest ranch. He asked  if the car was insured and seemed pleased to find that it was covered by theft insurance. As Durand drove away with the car, he called out, "Come to my funeral, boys," and honked the horn as he disappeared over the hill. The three men men walked to the nearest ranch. From there they were driven to the closest telephone. By the time they called Powell, Durand was dead.<br>   <br>      Just what Durand did during the hour after he left, no one knows; but about an hour later he parked the car about just  east of the First National Bank in Powell, and with a pack on his back and carrying a .30-.30 rifle, he made his way hurriedly to the bank. He approached the bank president and announced he was robbing the bank. There were nine people in the bank at the time - five of them were customers. Armed with the Winchester and with a revolver in a holster on his belt, Durand ordered the employees and customers to line up facing the wall. Convinced by a cashier  that the safe could not be opened because of a time lock, Durand emptied out the cash drawers, taking between $2000 and $3000.        </font></p> <p class="bodyStyle"><font face="Arial">      Then the unexplainable happened. Durand had ample funds to finance his getaway, a car waiting outside the bank, nearly all the law enforcement officers were still convinced he was deep in the mountains; no one aware that he was even in town. For some reason, Durand suddenly opened fire inside the bank. An estimated 40-60 rounds hit walls, windows, ceiling  for ten minutes or so. Then all of a sudden, four men stepped into the doorway with  their hands tied together with a leather thong. Durand was behind this human shield. Directly in front of the bank was a gas station. Among the men inside was a 17-year-old Powell high school junior who was skipping school that warm, sunny, Friday afternoon. He had wandered into the gas station as the robbery was in progress and hit the floor along with the others when the shooting began. For some reason, the gas station owner gave him a rifle.  Guns were fired at the men from all directions in the panic that ensued. Unfortunately, one of the hostages was  mortally wounded.  The high school student fired on Duran from the doorway of the gas station. The bullet felled Durand but did not kill him. He crawled back into the bank where he took his own life.</font></p> <p class="bodyStyle"><font face="Arial">        Opinions vary as to the character of Durand - folk hero or villain. (I wonder...could the tragedy have been averted had the courts and enforcement officials been less gung ho; and a lot more judicious and patient?)  The foregoing poem does not purport to set out all of actual facts but only to try to capture the character of Earl Durand as I perceived it to be,at the time. (I was then about nine years old.)<br> <br>                 </font></p> <div align="center"> <table border="1" width="50%" bordercolorlight="#FF0000" bordercolordark="#FFFF00" background="starfiel.gif"> <tr> <td>   <font color="#FFFFFF">  <a href="crstagecoach.htm"> HOME </a>          <a href="shaneyridgeframe.htm">NEXT PAGE </a>     </font></td> </tr> </table> </div> <p class="bodyStyle"><font face="Arial">     </font></td> </tr> </table> </div> <p class="bodyStyle"> </p> <p><font face="Arial">          </font></p> <p> </p> </body>