Saddle Sore: Cowboys and coffee cups

It’s about an old cabin, but maybe more, sitting high on a northern mesa of the Vagneur Ranch Company spread. A simple structure like the early white settlers built in the valley: small, made of logs brought down from the mountain behind the ranch.

This one in particular was a little smaller than the others, one room down and one upstairs. Good enough for a great bunkhouse, housing a couple three men or so of the work force. It sat on a fairly steep hill, with large corrals off to the eastern side, a spring-fed water trough at the bottom of the enclosure. When I got to know it, there was a small porch added on to the left as one went up the stairs and a nice, large deck out front where one could relax and enjoy the many beautiful sunsets.

It served as the ranch-based headquarters of the summer range rider, hired by the Red Canyon Cattlemen’s Association. The cowboy, as he was sometimes called, assumed that as his main home unless he had somewhere else to go during the rest of the year. Spare weekends off from his duties on the cattle range high in the mountains could be spent there, if not with friends in town, and supplies were stored that could not all be kept at the on-mountain cow camp. 

In the course of a summer, my age numbering 10 or 11, a week or two would be spent at cow camp with the range rider. Sometimes my school mate, Max Vaughn, would be there also. Those days were a dream come true for Max and me, probably even Al, the cowboy, who likely enjoyed the company.

Today, with our modern houses, hot water, flush toilets, showers, soft bed linens, refrigeration, and comfortable furniture, it is sometimes difficult for the uninitiated to imagine how Al (and other range riders who preceded him) lived. Days were not all pretty — but damn, even at that, they were all special.

On one of my annual trips, we had to come down to the cabin on the ranch for resupply of some sort and, arriving about lunch time, found to Al’s (and my) dismay, there was nothing to eat. Well, I take that back — there was some old bread and an onion sitting in a cupboard. Al sent me down to the water trough with a couple of ceramic coffee cups, the stain of the last use readily apparent, to wash them, so we could use them again. Not gonna build a fire that time of day just to make coffee — too damned hot out, said Al.

When I got back up to the cabin, Al had prepared lunch — an onion sandwich for each of us, accompanied by the two cups of water yours truly brought up from the water trough. It wasn’t our best day, but it was memorable. Then it was back up to cow camp. Alfred Franklin Joseph Senna, III: For 50 years, he worked for my family. Hitchhiked from Vermont, wanting to be a cowboy. His dream. He made it.

The years rolled forward; the ranch was sold, eventually split up, and my friend Richard bought the range rider cabin, moved it to his property a couple of mesas to the west and fixed it up into what one would call a marvel of modernity, without losing its exterior log cabin charm, including a refurbished, first-class deck.

And as it goes, my daughter and her intended, Ty Burtard (ranch manager), were living in that very historic cabin when wedding bells pealed from the mountainsides. A beautiful, sun-drenched day in June, and Lauren emerged from the bungalow dressed in a satiny, wonderful white wedding gown, topped with a veil, flowers lining the stairs of the cabin and a cool bouquet held in her arms. Down the stairs with her attendants trailing the gown and helped into a charming, antique carriage, fit for a queen, pulled by two gorgeous steeds and driven by Ty’s cousin, Joe Burtard. 

About a mile to the wedding site on the edge of a large, glass-smooth pond, where the wedding guests (and Ty) waited under tents in anticipation.

And now, Ty and my daughter are raising their two children on one of the original Vagneur ranches, making my grandchildren the sixth generation to tread that property. That’s history making history. 

And as much as I love them, and as important as the history is, when I’m occasionally visiting for the evening meal, my daughter is very careful never to offer me anything to drink in a ceramic coffee cup. 

That’s consideration, eh?

Tony Vagneur writes here on Saturdays and welcomes your comments at ajv@sopris.net.

Tony Vagneur writes here on Saturdays and welcomes your comments at ajv@sopris.net.