Authenticity plays a key role in the judging

Put on your cowboy hat and working pair of boots to celebrate the Old West’s restaurant on the range — the chuckwagon. Betcha there will be no microwave ovens in the infield of the Ruidoso Downs Race Track on New Mexico Highway 70 where 40 cowboy cookin’ teams will compete over open fires for a large purse for their beef, beans, potatoes, biscuit and dessert creations. Judges points are swayed by authenticity. This competition is the hottest in the West.

While others are held in convention centers and parking lots, this Chuckwagon Cookoff is located outdoors in a natural high desert racetrack infield. It’s part of the Lincoln County Cowboy Symposium, held the second weekend in October.

Conditions are rugged — no electricity, no running water, no amenities, period. Overhead there is plenty of clear blue sky, the sun beats down all day, and the stars and moon create another one of New Mexico’s enchanted evening.

Slow food may be a recent trend in cuisine — but it has been around for a long time. Exemplified by turn-of-the century methods, using cast iron implements over wood fires and coals, chuckwagon cuisine is one of today’s most difficult methods. This is more than the thrill of the grill.

This is not an upscale foodie event with exotic, trendy ingredients, long descriptive names, and high points for plate appeal. This is real stuff, where the integrity and honesty of the old west is preserved, revered and celebrated. You get smoke in your eyes, sit under the beating sun, and listen to cowboys reciting poetry and singing with their guitars.

There is no mystery in the food basket supplied to each team. It is good old dried pinto beans, a sack of potatoes, and 20 pounds of beef. The supplies should feed forty.

The judging is based on the authenticity of the wagon and culinary equipment as well as the food quality. Every piece of equipment must have been available before this century began, but reproductions are permitted. The Lodge brand of Dutch ovens and skillets are the Mercedes of this competition. These are the 12", 14" and 16" ovens that guarantee a good upper body workout to lift the lid. Well-seasoned black ones are the best – the ones that are never washed, just wiped out with a paper towel.

You should not care if the beef is tough and the biscuits are burned, but usually it is not. Any smart cook knows how to cut the burn off a biscuit and promote blackened beef. Out on the trail you ate what was served and loved it. Many of these crafty old cooks convinced the hands that if the biscuits had a bit of black on them, that was the way it was supposed to be and that they could eat them or go hungry.

Any questions?

The Hubbard Museum of the American West
P.O. Box 40
Ruidoso Downs, New Mexico 88346
(505) 378-4142
Fax (505) 378-4166
www.hubbardmuseum.org
info@hubbardmuseum.org

The Food Network also has some great coverage of this event.  For more information on viewing times, visit their web site: http://www.foodnetwork.com.

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Ski Run Road. Photo by Frederick Mora

Snow Country magazine called Ruidoso, New Mexico’s Ski Run Road “a 15-mile corkscrew with precious few guardrails.” Well, it’s actually only a little more than 12 miles up to Ski Apache (sometimes it just feels like more) and hey – there are more guardrails than there used to be.

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My House of Old Things Photo by Phyllis Eileen Banks

If you think I’m talking about my own home, it does contain a lot of old things. However, this "My House of Old things" is a Museum in Ancho, New Mexico.

Located two miles off U. S. Highway 54 to the east, this large eight-room railroad depot displays the history of a thriving town’s brief life and economic demise. It was built in 1902, the same year Ancho was established.

Ancho’s history is brief. A plaster mill was constructed to make plaster and fertilizer after a gypsum deposit was discovered. Later fire clay was discovered and a brick plant was built. After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, trainloads of Ancho brick were sent 1,460 miles to reconstruct that city.

But when U. S. Highway 54 was paved and rerouted two miles to the west, bypassing Ancho, it spelled disaster to the town. The school closed, as did the brick plant, and the railroad canceled its stops there in 1959.

However, because of one woman’s dream that future generations might understand and study the frugal and pioneer beginnings of the West, the Museum known as "My House of Old Things" still brings tourists to Ancho from May until October.

Jackie Straley Silvers was a descendent of the Straley family who homesteaded there the early part of the century. She was an avid collector and could not throw anything away nor refuse anything that was given to her. People even willed things to her:  a collection of rocks, dolls, bottles, dishes, cigar bands. Friends, instead of taking things to the dump, gave her old washing machines, rusty stoves and farm implements. Her collection became immense.

To house her growing collection she bought the old abandoned railroad station and moved it next to her home. The grand opening of her "House of Old Things" was held in June of 1963. People came from all over New Mexico. Newspapers reported the event, and the Secretary of State came. For the nine years until her death in 1972, Jackie thoroughly enjoyed giving tours.

Now her daughter Sara and her husband, L. Y. Jackson, continue the legacy. Even though antique lovers would be ecstatic to be able to purchase some of the items in this Museum, none of it is for sale.

There are rugged hand-wrought iron nails, early kitchen utensils and appliances, delicate silver, china and glassware. Furniture styles of the past are displayed in many of the eight rooms. Part of the old post office wall is appropriately there, as Jackie was postmaster of the Ancho post office, a position that someone in her family held for fifty-six years.

For railroad buffs there is a complete station with its relics from Ancho’s past. An operating telegraph key, switch controls and hundreds of mementos attest to its authenticity.

For those of us who are older, there are many things to remind us of items our grandparents owned. For the younger generation it gives them a glimpse into pioneer life. Perhaps it will make everyone appreciate the inventions and ways in which our lives are soft compared to the hardships of our ancestors.

A trip through this charming and authentic display is a nostalgic trip into the past.

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Archaeologists working at the dig

In the fall of 1990, Marlo Sharpe, a local miner and geologist, and his wife Barbara chanced upon what appeared to be a tusk eroding out of the wall of Dry Gulch, just outside of Nogal, New Mexico.

Archaeologists from the Forest Service, on whose land Mr. Sharpe had spotted the tusk, undertook archaeological investigations of the remains of what was believed to be an extinct mammoth or mastodon. Unfortunately, the excavation was plagued by a constant battle with rain and erosion, and so the Forest Service archaeologists decided that "three steps forward, two steps back" was accomplishing little. They decided to turn their efforts toward stabilizing the site and preserving it for future research. This effort was not in vain; Forest Service archaeologists did learn two very important things:
1) the bone was unusually well preserved for not being mineralized, and
2) a good portion, if not all, of the skeleton was present.

In September 1997, researchers from the Center for Indigenous Research (CIR) resumed the investigations of the extinct elephant with the excavation of six one-meter-square units placed around the original Forest Service excavation, and reopened a previously excavated unit in which part of the tusk and vertebral column had been exposed.

Small samples of fragmented bone and tusk were taken for possible species identification and radiocarbon dating as well as soil samples from above and adjacent to the elephant before it was reburied. Radiocarbon dating of the bone had proved unsuccessful during the initial investigations, so a sample of organic rich soil from just above the skeletal remains was dated. This soil sample produced a calibrated radiocarbon date range of 9445 to 9545 BP (years before present). Given the moderate rates of deposition at the site, and that the date was taken from sediments above the remains, the elephant could have died as much as a few thousand years earlier. Researchers at CIR are very excited about this date because it puts the death of the elephant within the possible time range for interaction with humans (<13,000 BP).

Vertebrate paleontologist and CIR Scientific Advisory Board member, Dr. Art Harris (University of Texas, El Paso), identified the bone and tusk fragments as probably belonging to a Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi). Columbian mammoths ranged over much of what is now the southern United States and Mexico during the late Pleistocene, from about 100,000 years ago until about 12,000 to 10,000 years ago, when they became extinct. Columbian mammoths most closely resembled Asian elephants, with very little hair, unlike their famous cousin in more northern climates, the Woolly mammoth.

A Columbian mammoth would have stood nearly 14 feet tall at the shoulder and weighed 10 tons, a most formidable prey for any predator, even experienced Paleoindian hunters. Were humans responsible for the mammoth’s death, or did it become mired in the prehistoric cienaga and starve to death? These are some of the questions researchers from CIR will address during a four week excavation at the Dry Gulch Mammoth Site in late April and early May. During this excavation researchers will recover all the remaining skeleton and bring it back to a lab in El Paso for preservation and reconstruction. Full-size replicas of the mammoth bones will be made for display, and the original bones will most likely be curated at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science in Albuquerque.

CIR is a non-profit organization whose mission is to conduct archaeological research through multi-disciplinary studies into prehistoric and historic cultures of the Greater Southwest, and to provide equal opportunities for youth and the general public to participate in these scientific studies. Students from several at-risk youth organizations in El Paso and Southern New Mexico will participate in the excavation. CIR is also working in conjunction with the Ruidoso schools to design a mammoth curriculum that will be available online in early April. This curriculum will be used prior to a visit to the site by students from Ruidoso, Capitan, and other area schools during guided tours while the excavation is underway.

Everyone will be able to follow the daily progress of the excavation through the CIR web site. Photographs and descriptions of the excavation will be uploaded onto the web site every evening, and people who view the dig will be able to e-mail questions to researchers in the field. We see the Internet as the perfect method to reach as many people as possible about our research. Premier Internet Consultants, our web site designer, has designed the site to make it accessible to everyone, regardless of what software or hardware they are using.

We’ve already received many compliments about the design of our web site, which is meant to keep students involved and interested without obscuring the scientific impact of the research we are doing. We’re excited about using the web as a medium to allow people to view our ongoing activity, and to interact with us via e-mail. There simply isn’t any other medium that gives us this kind of exposure worldwide.

If you are interested in learning more about CIR or the mammoth please visit our web site or e-mail us.

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Location of an early day Lincoln County post office – in Lincoln. Photo by Phyllis Eileen Banks

Lincoln County at one time encompassed almost one-fourth of New Mexico and was the largest county in the United States. It was created January 16, 1869, by an act of the Territorial Legislature, and subsequently other counties were wrested from it. They were Chaves, Eddy, and Roosevelt, and portions of Curry, Guadalupe, Otero and Torrance. With a current population of 14,184 and covering 4,859 square miles, Carrizozo is the county seat, changed from Lincoln in 1909. Since its origin, the county has had a total of 70 post offices.

Some are still viable, others long gone, but the folklore around these pivotal places in the early days are a part of our history, whether true or apocryphal.

General John J. Pershing began his career at Ft. Stanton after graduating from West Point. The postal records indicate he sent a $2.50 money order to a G. L. Scott at Ft. Stanton. A Mr. S. Gray received a money order for $10.44 from someone in White Oaks. The recipient was Seaborn Gray, who homesteaded the town of Capitan.

The Ft. Stanton post office was the center of much socializing. A stage came daily from White Oaks bringing the mail and carrying passengers. Another stage brought mail twice a week from Mesilla, then Capital of Arizona and New Mexico territories.

Many Civil War veterans settled in New Mexico, farming small areas and trapping for their livelihood. Some could read and write but many could not. It was the Postmasters’ duty to write their letters and read to them any mail they received. Some, however, didn’t want that much public knowledge of their business. One A. A. McSween, of Lincoln fame, requested his mail be placed in a special bag at the Roswell post office (a part of Lincoln County at that time) so it wouldn’t have to pass through the Lincoln post office. The postmaster charged McSween $1.50 per week for the service. Someone has suggested he was the first to inaugurate "curb service mail." McSween, however, didn’t pay his bills and Marshall A. Upton, postmaster at the "hamlet of Roswell" filed a claim against McSween’s estate for "$68.89 to be paid to the post office for private mail sack service August 20, 1877 to August 27, 1878 @ $1.50 a week and for 400 postage stamps, etc." The outcome of the suit is unknown.

Many celebrities chose San Patricio in the beautiful Hondo Valley as residences, and received their mail there. Among them were Helen Hayes and her husband, Charles MacArthur, Paul Horgan, Linda Darnell, Teresa Wright, Nevin Bush, Henriette Wyeth and Peter Hurd. Currently, actor Richard Farnsworth is a Lincoln County resident. 

The story is told that when Peter Hurd called at the post office for an insured package, the postmaster said "Here, Pete, draw your picture and I’ll give you your package." Hurd promptly sketched a likeness of himself in the space provided for signature. This treasure was later lost in a fire.

The White Oaks gold rush in 1880 was happenstance. A traveler to California stopped to visit with two prospectors who were camped at White Oaks. He walked away from camp to a high ridge. On his return he picked up some rocks he thought were pretty and showed them to his camp friends. They recognized them as gold ore and asked where he found them. The visitor went on his way and the two prospectors staked their claims. Thus began the White Oaks gold rush, and on June 4, 1880, the post office was established.

The Old Dowlin Mill in Ruidoso was once the home of its post office. Other post offices were often in a home or in a dry goods and grocery store. One story concerns a woman postmaster whose post office was in her parlor. A stranger came in and said he was the postal inspector. She replied she was busy with the mail and would he please help her. Evidently, authority didn’t faze her.

Former residents often drop into the Alto post office to reminisce. One husband and wife from Oklahoma stopped so he could show where he mailed his love letters to her.

Mail carriers traveled on horseback and led a pack horse if the mail was heavy. When automobiles were first used for postal service, it was still a slow process because the roads hadn’t caught up with the times. Roads and automobiles have improved and now planes, trucks, buses and trains are used to carry the load; but it is still the post offices, with their dedicated postmasters and carriers, that really deliver the mail.

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Bonito Lake. Picture by Greg Holt.

"Think of blue water and a fish, strong and silver, swimming freely in the water. Breath deep into your belly and picture the fish who has given his body for you to eat. Feel grateful and respectful for the earth’s gifts, the fish and the ocean, and remember that the fish and the ocean are made of the same things that you are made of and that you are one with the fish and the ocean. Show your appreciation with your good manners and know that you are connected to everything you see. One more slow breath. Now, look up and smile."

This is how we sometimes meditate before dinner. I want my daughters to know that all things are connected and defined by every other thing. Killing and eating of plants and animals has been approached with a sense of sanctity since the beginning of civilization. Primitive planting civilizations believed that death is a natural phase of life, comparable to the moment of planting of the seed for rebirth. The cycle of sacrificial life and rebirth has been a theme throughout all mythology, easily understood on some level, and yet so profound that it can be a metaphor for enlightenment. It is a way to teach my daughters respect for life and nature and a way to enhance their spiritual development.

Bonito Lake outside Ruidoso in the Sacramento Mountains of Southern New Mexico is a small man-made body of clear water reflecting the blue of the sky behind a dam at the end of a road that follows the Rio Bonito through forested canyons. It lies peacefully in a high country basin north of the sacred Apache peak of Sierra Blanca. It is a fine place for teaching my girls to fish.

My daughters know intellectually that our food comes from once living animals and plants. But that realization is not grasped when food is displayed wetly under neon bulbs in the grocery or taken from the freezer wrapped in plastic. They, like most of us, live suburban lives. They rock climb in a gym and ride horses in corrals. I try to give them experiences in the outdoors by backpacking and camping trips, and, on this trip to Southern New Mexico, they are learning to fish for trout.

We descended a steep slope, holding on to the trees and rocks, to a small sandy spot on the bank and began to rig up the rods and reels. A full moon appeared rising over the tall pines across the lake to the east, yellow and full of mystery, just topping the trees. A hawk glided in from the slopes to the north and sailed across the face of the moon. It was silhouetted there in the cooling clear air and it screeched in a raptorial voice that reverberated across the lake, sounding triumph or defiance or sheer exuberance of life. I couldn’t know. The hawk turned towards us with a "screak," then banked and circled over the small lake and sailed away from us, deftly disappearing into the tall darkening forest.

As the sun sank, the water turned from sky blue to a metallic gray, reflecting the coming dusk. And the trout began to rise, creating silvery concentric rings on the surface.

"They will start to bite now," I told my daughters Jessica, thirteen, and Kelly, nine. I baited their hooks with worms since they were squeamish about that, and they cast the lines themselves into the lake with some skill, having practiced without catching a fish that morning.

The number of trout rising to the surface increased, and within minutes, Jessica felt a pull on her line and shouted, "I got one, oh my gosh, I got one."

"Reel him in," I said as the fish broke the surface in a silver splash, pulling against the line in mortal struggle.

As Jessica got the fish near the bank, I caught the line and pulled the trout up close to remove the hook. Kelly had dropped her rod and come to see the fish.

"He’s pretty isn’t he," I said admiring the palely iridescent colored spots on the shining body as he flashed in the clear shallows. Then I pulled him up a bit and saw that he had totally swallowed the hook.

"Oh my gosh, he’s so pretty. Let him go now, Daddy, he’s hurt. He’s bleeding, let him go!" said Kelly as I struggled to free the hook without success. I felt the life in the fish was fading away in my hands and its blood ran in thin wet tendrils down my wrist from his gills.

"Let him go!"

I cut the line and hoped for the best, holding the fish in my palm, moving it slowly in the water. It flicked his tail to go, but after a few feet, it turned whitely, belly up. I caught him again. "He’s done for," I said as I pulled him from the water.

Kelly’s face was troubled and accusatory. "Daddy, you said we wouldn’t keep them. You said that we’d just catch them and let them go. You said. Now he’s going to die. You said we wouldn’t hurt them."

"I know, baby," I said, "but this one swallowed the hook and he won’t make it. Here, you hold him. He won’t go to waste. Take him over there around those rocks where those boys are fishing. They’ll take him and he can be their supper."

She was almost in tears. "I didn’t want him to die. You said they wouldn’t die, we’d just catch and release. That’s what you said." She stood angry and sad with the fish wet in her grip spasmodically twitching its silver tail fin. Then it slipped from her hand and flopped on the ground. Jessica picked it up. Together they walked hurriedly away to where the boys were fishing.

I tied another (this time larger hook) to Jessica’s line. They returned a bit later and told me that the boys were fishing with their family and were glad to have the fish since they had caught nothing yet.

I continued to cast with no luck. Jessica went back to bait fishing. The youngest sat on a rock and looked at the water and fish breaking the calm surface in the failing light. "Don’t you want to try and catch one?" I asked.

"I don’t want to kill it."

"Oh oh oh! I got another one, Dad!" Jessica shouted.

"Oh no, don’t hurt it," cried Kelly, "Please, please."

The fish was smaller than before and splashed on the surface as Jessica reeled fast. As it came close, I again caught the line, and, as I did, the fish came off and blurred away into the clear water’s darkness. "Did you see it, Kelly?" I asked.

"Oh, he was pretty too. But smaller and he, oh I’m glad, he got away."

"Why don’t you try again?" I asked.

"Yeah, Kelly, its fun," said Jessica.

"I don’t want to hurt the fish," said Kelly, but she was already standing and walking to her rod and reel, dragging her feet a bit.

"It’s almost dark and we’ll have to leave soon," I said. "I’d like for you to catch one."

"Yeah, I’m already two ahead of you," said Jessica.

Kelly gave her a dirty look and walked up beside me. I baited her hook and threw it out for her. She held the rod reluctantly, expectantly, and stood watching the water under the rising moon. The moon had lost most of its atmospheric yellow color and was brightening white and cold in the darkening skies as it rose higher above the trees. I thought of the hawk, sitting perhaps nearby, in the black shadows of the scented pines in predatory stillness.

I sat still myself for a moment, watching the two people I love the most as they stood by the water, poised in anticipation of a strike, studying the surface of the water in the failing light. The darkness settled around us and the temperature dropped in the thin high altitude atmosphere. Then I gathered up the tackle and prepared to climb the steep bank to the road. "OK guys, reel them in. Time to go."

"Let’s stay just a little longer," said Jessica.

"Yeah," said Kelly as she turned around to me, " I . . ."

Kelly’s line bobbed and the rod tip dipped. "Kelly, I think you got a bite!"

She yanked up the rod and began to reel in saying, "Daddy, oh my gosh, what do I do?"

"I think you’re doing it."

Soon the end of the line was at the bank but there was no fish on it. "Must have got away," I said. She seemed to be both relieved and disappointed.

"Wow, I can’t believe I caught two fish," said Jessica as we loaded the tackle into the truck and prepared to drive into Ruidoso for dinner.

"I almost caught one too, didn’t I?" Kelly asked.

"Looked that way," I said.

"I’m glad I didn’t catch him though. I don’t want to kill one. They are so pretty – so alive, you know. How could anyone kill one?"

"What if you were real hungry?" I asked.

"Well, if I was real hungry, like right now, you know, you’d take me to Farley’s for pizza," she said smiling slyly."

"Pizza it is," I said.

Back at home, we ate fish for dinner the other night.

"Close your eyes and be still. Think of mountain lakes and fish swimming in the cold water. Think of hawks and the rising moon. Be grateful and reverent. Breath in . . . and out. This food came from the water and the land. You stay alive with this food. You are made from the same things as the land and the fish and the hawk. Open your eyes now. Look up and smile."

"This fish looks good," Kelly said. "I like mine with ketchup."

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Interior of Wildland Firefighter Museum

In the summer of 1999, a family of forest service firefighters with an interest in old firefighting tools put together a unique museum in the tiny town of Capitan, New Mexico. Capitan lies at the foot of the Capitan Mountains and rests on rolling wooded hills. It is surrounded by the juniper, pinon, and aspen-studded 1.1 million acre Lincoln National Forest. Capitan’s claim to fame is singular: Its forest is the birthplace and burial site of the world-renowned Smokey Bear.

The museum and gift shop are housed in the same building and located across the street from the State Smokey Bear Historical Park. Both are "must see" tourist stops on a tour of the town. The gift shop, as its name implies, carries an assortment of Smokey Bear items. It has been in business since the mid 1970s.

In the museum visitors will find antique firefighting tools and equipment, pictures and videos of fires, old Smokey Bear memorabilia, and a display of crew and fire shirts from across the nation.

Descriptive plaques of the equipment and tools educate the public about wildland firefighting. Educational materials are on hand for wildland fire prevention education.

The founders have done their best to represent all agencies, and the museum carries a M.O.U. (memorandum of understanding) which is a working partnership with the U.S. Forest Service.

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Bob Orlinger. Photo from author’s collection

Hero-worshiping gunslingers of the 1880s were on both sides of the law. John Wesley Hardin was the undisputed killer of the West, but most towns had their own monarchs; Wild Bill Hickok ruled over Deadwood, Wyatt Earp controlled Tombstone, Dallas Stoudenmire tamed El Paso, Long-haired Jim Courtright dominated Fort Worth, and in California Joaquin Murietta killed anybody that looked at him crossways.

Bob Olinger’s place in New Mexico history roughly parallels Billy the Kid’s, as overblown as that statement may seem. His own mother remembered him with the following unique phraseology, "Bob was a murderer from the cradle, and if there is a hell hereafter then he is there."

The only difference between the Kid and Olinger is that Billy was an authentic badman while Olinger was a role-playing badman; the sort of imitation desperado who actually looked and acted the part of a real villain while hiding behind a badge. He killed with deliberation and premeditation, and death was a natural consequence to any man who crossed him.

A giant of a man, he was broad-shouldered and swivel-hipped – a rodent on a Jackal frame. His long hair hung to his shoulders, and when he strutted the plankwalks of Las Vegas or Santa Fe, his brilliant haberdashery turned heads. His mammoth sombrero was elegantly tasseled, and his cow-country boots were ornately stitched. He attracted attention when he parted the bat wings and entered gambling halls or saloons that supported poker, his favorite sport.

Bob was a cold-blooded killer with several notches credited to his blood lust. He was fast on the draw, and any man foolish enough to test his mettle was promised an uninterrupted slumber in hell. And testimony in abundance conclusively proves he was not beyond shooting an unarmed man, or a man walking away.

The late Marion Speer of Huntington Beach, Calif., wrote in his memoirs that he saw Olinger picking his teeth with a sharp Bowie-knife during a poker game one night in Santa Fe. Speer recalled that Olinger tried to impress people with his toughness. To excerpt Speer: "Olinger was an expert knife-thrower and was forever tossing his knife end-over-end into trees or hitching rails along the street. ‘Wow!’ the impressed children would squeal, and Bob would smirk and swagger."

Bob was tough all right. But he made one fatal mistake. He made an enemy of William Bonny, aka Billy the Kid.

Charles Robert Olinger was born around 1841. He does not surface in the 1870 and 1880 federal census reports so his birthplace and birthdate are a mystery. History lost track of him until he became town marshal of the notorious Seven Rivers district in southeastern Lincoln County in the early 1860s. His fondness for gambling and intoxicating liquors threw him into bad company, and he repeatedly displayed a certain friendship to desperados until his disparaging demise in 1881.

William Bonny (Billy the Kid). Photo courtesy Carl Breihan colection

Olinger’s first recorded killings began in Seven Rivers, although his trigger-finger probably itched long before then. His first encounter happened in the Royal Saloon, while he was playing poker with a group of friends, including his closest saddle-pard, a Mexican named Juan Chavez. Never an ill word had been spoken between them until for the purpose of obtaining a "flush," Olinger filched a card.

Chavez accused him of cheating, on which Bob jumped up, drew his pistol, and leveled at Chavez’s head, who was unarmed. A man sitting next to Chavez tossed him a six-shooter, and, quick as a hiccup, Chavez and Olinger exchanged shots. When the smoke cleared, Chavez lay dead on the sawdust floor with a bullet in his throat. "All’s well that end’s well," Olinger said as he walked out the door.

The second notch on Olinger’s gun truly underscored the truism that he was lower than the filthiest strumpet. It concerned the death of a gambler named John Hill. Details of Hill’s death are fuzzy, but according to legend, Olinger won all Hill’s poker money in Diamond Lil’s casino and dance hall, and afterwards, Hill caused a stir. He told everyone within earshot to avoid playing cards with Bob Olinger because he would rope you in by allowing you to win a few small bets. Then he would pull aces and kings from thin air in such a convincing way that his opponent was easily taken in, never suspecting he had just been hornswoggled.

That night, in the pitch of darkness, as Hill emerged from Diamond Lil’s after his nightly poker game, Olinger shot him dead with a blunderbuss from a dark alley in much the same way John Wayne drygulched Liberty Valance.

At a local "pleasure" parlor Bob Jones had the misfortune of sitting in on a poker game with Olinger and losing all his money, which caused a weighty argument and put the two gamblers at odds. Jones remembered the fate of Juan Chavez and John Hill, so he wisely gave Olinger a wide berth. Olinger’s opportunity came when Deputy Pierce Jones had a misdemeanor warrant to serve on Bob Jones. A misdemeanor warrant was not really a criminal offense and consisted of nothing more than Jones paying a fine, but Olinger decided to tag along, "just in case."

When the two lawmen drew bridle they found Bob Jones chopping wood near the porch of his cabin, on the outskirts of town. Three small children were playing nearby, his wife was in the kitchen, baking bread. "Good morning," was the salutation of the landowner. He made no display of resistance when he was taken into custody. He was unarmed, and a rifle he used for hunting food for his family was on the porch – no threat to the lawdogs.

Bob Jones quietly asked Deputy Jones if he could explain to his wife that he would be right back after he paid his fine, and the deputy said yes. As Jones passed his rifle on the porch, Olinger saw his chance to claim self defense. He drew his pistol and fired three fleeting shots into Bob’s back as his wife and children stood by screaming.

Appalled by what he had witnessed, Deputy Jones brought murder charges against Olinger, and Lincoln County authorities issued warrant number 282 for his arrest. Sheriff George Kimball arrested him and brought him to Lincoln for trial.

The warrant read, "To arrest and take body of Robert Olinger to Lincoln the 1st Monday of October 1879 to answer charge of murder." This warrant is still in the file at the Lincoln County Courthouse. The case was dismissed without going to court.

In February of 1878 a double-barreled war erupted in Lincoln County, and the Lawrence Murphy-James Dolan group hired Olinger’s gun. Bad Bob was among the riders who caught John Tunstall in a lonely ravine near Pajarito Spring and murdered him in cold blood. Although several riders participated in the murder, only James Dolan and Jacob B. "Billy" Matthews were charged with being accessories to murder. Both men took a change of venue to Socorro County where, in October of 1879, they were acquitted of any wrong doing. Olinger was never punished for his well-known part in the death of the unarmed John Tunstall.

In October 1879 Patrick Floyd Garrett, who spent as much time in gambling dens as he did upholding the law, was elected to the office of Sheriff of Lincoln County. To his chagrin, Bob Olinger was appointed his deputy. In his autobiography, Garrett said Olinger was a good deputy in some ways, but he had a bloodthirsty urge for violence.

Olinger’s lust for blood was evident to Garrett the day he and Olinger rode out to arrest an armed Mexican who had taken refuge in a ditch. Garrett promised the Mexican that if he would surrender peaceably, no harm would come to him. As the Mexican emerged from the ditch with his hands in the air, Olinger drew his pistol with homicidal intent. Only when Garrett pulled his own pistol and stood in front of the Mexican did Olinger holster his. "Put it away, Bob," said Garrett. "Unless you want to try me."

Detailed on a memo pad in Olinger’s own handwriting is his account of the only time he went to jail. He scribbled: "The first time I was in jail March the 11th, 1881. Arrested by the order of L. Bradford, Prince Chief Justice of the First Judicial District. Court charged with being a Deputy U.S. Marshal and carrying deadly weapons. Disarmed and sent to jail. After was discharged from custody and allowed to carry arms."

Lincoln County Courthouse where Billy the Kid was held prisoner. Photo courtesy the Museum of New Mexico.

Bob Olinger developed a morbid need to kill Billy the Kid, and that personal peccadillo was his undoing. When the Kid was captured by Pat Garrett in December 1880, Garrett instructed Olinger to meet the party when it arrived in Santa Fe where the Kid, Dave Rudabaugh, Tom Pickett, and Bill Wilson were to be incarcerated in the city jail on Water Street. Olinger was detained in Santa Fe until January 22 due to the fact that Wilson’s legal incarceration was in doubt because Judge Samuel Ellyson had neglected to return at the appointed time.

Bob lingered away his time playing poker and trying to oblige Garrett’s order to "stay out of trouble," while Judge Warren Bristol held the preliminary examination for Wilson. Wilson waived examination and was committed for trial by the Third District Court in Mesilla. The Santa Fe New Mexican dated January 23, 1881, ran an article saying Olinger was happy now that his long delay was consummated. Oddly, 8-year-old Billy Wilson never stood trial. Not only was he wanted in Mesilla, but Las Vegas had a warrant out for him for stealing horses with Billy the Kid, Sam Cook, and Tom Pickett in October 1879.

It was the duty of Olinger and Santa Fe deputy Tony Neis to put Billy the Kid on the southbound train for trial in Mesilla. Billy sat next to the window anchored with heavier weights than the Titanic. Olinger sat beside him with a shotgun across his lap, a pistol dangling from each hip, and a Bowie-knife thrust in his belt. All the way to Mesilla, Bob taunted the Kid:  "Your days are short, Kid. I can see that rope around your neck now." "Oh, I don’t know, Bob," the Kid replied coolly. "There’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip."

The chance of the Kid being found not guilty was certainly a nullity, and Olinger bid for the job of transporting Billy back to Lincoln for the hanging. Judge Joseph C. Lea of Roswell paid Olinger $300 for his services. On April 15 Dona Ana County Sheriff James W. Southwick turned Billy over to Olinger, who chained Billy to a hack for his trip back to Lincoln. The party that proceeded across the wastelands to Lincoln included Dave Woods, Tom Williams, D.M. Reade, W.A. Lockhart, Jake Mathews and John Kinny. Olinger rode in the hack with Billy, constantly tormenting him and jabbing him with the muzzle of his shotgun, daring him to make a break for it. "Be careful, Bob," Billy quietly retorted. "I’m not hung yet. " And Olinger jabbed him in the stomach again with his shotgun. A majority of the guards sympathized with Billy, in spite of evidences of his villainy.

Room where Billy the Kid was held in Lincoln, NM. Photo courtesy Nelson A. Renick & Associates.

In Lincoln, Olinger turned The Kid over to Garrett along with an expense account for a whopping $1,319. The cost of Billy’s two trials in Mesilla was only $80. Billy was secreted in the upper northeast section of the old courthouse. Olinger never stopped taunting Billy, and Garrett was forced to tell him to "lay off the Kid," while cautioning him and Deputy J.W. Bell to be careful around the prisoner because he was shiftier than an armful of coat hangers.

Once Olinger placed a pistol on a table within Billy’s reach, hoping he would go for it. But Billy was too smart for that. Garrett was in White Oaks on business when Olinger took 12 prisoners to the Worthy Hotel a block away for their daily meal. When he left, Deputy Bell and the Kid were playing poker through the bars.

Olinger had a mouthful of food when he heard two shots coming from the direction of the jail. He ran outside, cut along the east wall and bumped into Godfrey Gauss who told him Billy had killed Bell and . . . Before he could finish, Olinger was rushing to the courthouse mumbling, "He’ll never get away from me!" When he was directly under the window of the courthouse, he heard his quondam prisoner say, "Hello, Bob." Olinger looked up and saw the Kid gun in hand. It was the last thing he ever saw on this earth, for at the moment the Kid blasted him to a sorely-deserved slumber with his own shotgun.

He died instantly in front of the post office occupied by Ben Ellis. Old pioneers this writer interviewed wondered why Billy didn’t gallop the several hundred miles of sparsely settled country that separated Lincoln from Mexico, where he would have been safe from pursuit. He had a good start on his pursuers. The bodies of deputies Olinger and Bell were placed in a room in the corral behind the courthouse and remained there until Garrett’s return. Garrett swore to make Billy pay, and he did.

Constable Ylario Bais summoned six men in Precinct No. 1 to sit in on a coroner’s jury. Their verdict:

"We, the undersigned, Justice of the Peace and jury who sat upon the inquest held at the courthouse in Lincoln in said county of Lincoln and Territory of New Mexico on the bodies of Robert Olinger and J.W. Bell found in Precinct No. 1 of the county of Lincoln, find that the deceased Robt. Olinger and J.W. Bell both came to their death by reason of gunshot wounds inflicted on them by William Bonney, alias Billy the Kid, while said Bonney was held in custody for the murder of William Brady and was awaiting his execution upon conviction of that crime and that Olinger and Bell were guarding him they were murdered by said Bonny, alias Kid, in making his escape from custody."

Honor, truth, and the sacrifice of self to the considerations of justice and the good of mankind, had nothing to do with New Mexico’s gambling deputy’s will to exterminate Billy the Kid.

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Land near the author’s Ruidoso property Photo by Greg Holt

The little ponderosa pine was still standing straight even after half an hour of continuous digging around the roots. Sweat ran down my neck and dripped into my eyes. The shovel bounced and skidded on the circular trench I’d excavated around the tree and I noticed that I had begun to grunt comically with each stab of the blade into the compacted brown dirt and rock. I wasn’t used to the altitude and I was breathing hard. Some roots were severed and I scooped dirt from around the trench hoping to maintain a root ball with some of the dry soil in it before digging under the tree’s tap root at the center.

The lady at the Forest Service office in Ruidoso said I could take a tree up to ten feet tall, so that’s what I was determined to do. Although tempted, I wasn’t going to give up on removing this tree and taking it to the land I’d bought a couple of years ago. The land where I’ll live someday.

After another fifteen minutes, the tree was laid on its side, and I dug underneath in slightly softer soil until I had about 18 inches of tap root. Finally, the tree was pulled from the hard spare ground. I carefully wrapped and tied the rootball in a cloth, packing clots of the dirt that had fallen away from the springy roots. Shouldering the tree, I carried it to the truck and laid it carefully inside with stiff arms and shaky hands. It was a good tiredness I felt, and I smiled while sipping a cold drink from the cooler and watching deep blue clouds crowd up over the high Sierra Blanca.

The air was cooling as indigo clouds rose in the West, crowding against and pushing over the mountain peaks 12,000 feet high. The massive thunderheads had crossed the burning desert of the Tularosa Basin with their promise of relief to meet the mountains and change to electric blue. I knew from the smell of the ground it was going to rain here high above the lava flows and white sands to the west and the scrub desert of the Pecos River valley to the east.

My future home is on land that is defined by its stark contrast from the surrounding deserts. It is a high altitude sanctuary for bear, elk, wild turkey, and mountain lions isolated in these mountains among stands of pine, aspen and juniper. It is a place where trout swim in shallow pools of clear running streams deepened by snowmelt in the spring. And a place where weary travelers like me might look towards their future in the thin air of this massive oasis, clean and quiet above empty flatlands.

Arriving on my land 20 minutes later, I carried the tree to a meadow near the road where there were juniper and piñon trees. I hoped someday to see a large ponderosa pine standing by a corral there. The rain came as expected as I dug away the yellow grass and excavated the place for the tree, which now lay living still near my feet. The upper two inches of the soil broke slowly to the shovel as I jumped with both feet onto the back of the blade. As the surface broke away to the softer soil beneath, I could see the hard brown ground streaked with white where the shovel cleaved it cleanly. I dug in a wide circle, struggling to get deeper. Large drops, hard and cool, smacked the back of my neck and my hat and, after a time, softened the ground slightly. It was a good time to plant.

I think a tree is like an investment in the future. In growth and permanence. This five acres is where I choose to live in my future. Where strong trees sink stiff roots into the hard ground at 7,000 feet. And the smell of juniper, piñon, and ponderosa pine scent the freshening air.

I thought my life had been like this. I’d been digging in hardscrabble dirt in ever widening circles, just like now. But I’d never invested much in one place. Never planted much. I’d just left much behind. Sometimes regretfully, and sometimes gladly. I grew up without a geographic connection to a place called home. My father traveled to find work. And I followed in his footsteps. A young life spent out on the road. Working in the Middle East, Asia, and South America. Traveling further still when I had the money to go. At 44, now I tell people I live in Houston, but I mostly live in hotels, running to catch the next plane to spend the weekend with my family there.

The circular hole was widening to accept my small, hard-gained tree, but it was not yet deep enough to hold the roots. I once equated the hard widening of my experiences with the purpose of my life. I believed wisdom is only gained by experience. But a wide excavation is not always a deep one. Not the kind where, given time, roots weave intricately into the earth, mining it for nourishment and growth. Finding illumination by standing still in the delicate certainty of being in the right place. I moved the shovel to the center and began to dig down.

There was a jagged double flash of lightning on the mountains above, electric white bolts against the dark blue of the storm. It was followed in a few seconds by a crack of thunder, then the spattering of the rain intensified. My wet shirt stuck to my back, the hole soaked up the water, and the moistened soil gave slightly, reluctantly to the shovel.

I paused for breath as the thunder rushed away down the valleys to the east where rolling hills lay expectantly. Behind the thunder there was stillness and a sense of waiting for the next wave of the storm to come down from the mountains above. But nothing came, just a lull in the air where I paused in my planting, a quiet spot under the sky on my land, and . . . expectation. A shaft of clear mountain light broke from the high clouds and illuminated the land where I stood in my tiny endeavor. I listened to the rain hitting the grass and the trees, and heard nothing else under the vast turbulent sky.

I looked uphill to where I will build my house someday, among large pines on a rocky outcropping. I hoped to see an elk or deer sheltering in the shadows, perhaps. But there was only the rain, quietly spattering the grass. I turned again to my digging.

Finally, I stood the tree in its new place, cut the wraps, and pushed the taproot into the ground of its new home. It will be fine to see the day when this ponderosa pine is tall enough to shelter me from the rain. I watched clear rain water beading and dripping from the light green needles on the branches, and silently wished my tree to grow well in its new place. I ran my hand softly along a stem of pine needles and felt their pliant response in my palm.

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Nogal area. Photo by Phyllis Eileen Banks

Some towns in Southern New Mexico are so small they are scarcely noticed. Nevertheless they exist and have histories. Nogal, four miles off U. S. 370 on NM 37 and eight miles southeast of Carrizozo, is one.

Known as Dry Gulch in 1879 when gold was discovered, then Galena, then Parsons, for a miner in 1892 and finally to Nogal. As often happened in the mining areas, when the ore played out the town dwindled or died. Nogal didn’t die, although the large hotel that once lodged miners and others is no longer there. Many homes dot the hills, and there are churches and a few businesses – a tiny community content in its peaceful existence.

So-called progress isn’t always progress, and when U. S. 54 was paved and rerouted in 1955, Ancho, 22 miles north of Carrizozo, was left two miles off the highway, spelling its demise.

The railroad and gold were often the beginnings of these towns. 1899 was Ancho’s year of birth due to railroad and gold in the Jicarilla Mountains. But Ancho developed another product. A brick factory made cream-colored bricks and were used on homes throughout central New Mexico. After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, trainloads of Ancho bricks traveled almost 1,500 miles to the city by the bay to help in its reconstruction. This business closed too and Ancho’s population diminished considerably. Some of the old bricks can be seen at the private museum "My House of Old Things." There are a few homes and ranches left as the world passes Ancho by.

Twenty-eight miles north of the Ancho turn-off on U. S. 54 is Corona, meaning summit, established in 1902. The Southern Pacific Railroad indicated Corona was the highest point, 6,724 feet, on its line and rail link between Chicago and Los Angeles.

Between the arrival of the railroad and the beginning of World War II there were dozens of communities in this area prospering on raising corn and pinto beans, cattle and sheep. Corona annually shipped hundreds of cattle, sheep, carloads of wool, and thousands of gallons of cream.

Farming has almost been abandoned due to two and three year droughts, and the exit of people seeking war-related jobs in the 1940s. Corona settlers also blame logging of the Ponderosa pines, dry farming and overgrazing, causing land erosion and the inability of large trees and the prairie grass to become re-established.

Fire destroyed much of Corona’s downtown district in 1928, and now the town depends on trade and its school district which covers an area as large as a small state and contains dozens of ranches, some several sections in size.

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