The last horse thief hanged inIn Billings swung from a limb of a cottonwood tree on the south side of the railroad tracks and the north side of Montana Avenue. The cowhands who eventually cut him downb carried his flat-brimmed, embroidered sombrero and nickle-plated, roweled spurs to the Yukon Bar, where a bartender nailed them up on the wall. The hat and spurs were still up there in the 1950s when I started boozing there, Looking for Happiness.
The Yukon Bar was typical of those old Montana saloons--5 yards wide and 30 yards long. The bar itself began near the front door, on the left. If it ever had a brass rail, it was replaced by a linoleumed step for the high-heeled boots of the patrons. Nor was there a mirrored wall behind the bottles on the back bar. I don't remember what was there--I never drank at the bar. My place was at the Round Table, a wide, oak dining-room table at the farthest reach of the smoke-stained room. There reigned the winoes, for the most part Indian women waiting for the next loose-changed chump to buy them another Mad Dog--Mogan David muscatel. They always found a chair for Bobby Lane and his jingling pockets.
At the Round Table, my name always was Bobby Lane--never just Lane, as in the uptown bars, or Bob, as to my newsroom colleagues. Later, I was honored with the Crow Indian moniker of Tow-Kanish-Eepay. This, I was told solemnly, was the same title bestowed upon General George Armstrong Custer, which, according to Crow humor, he accepted with pride--until overhearing one of his scouts warning another, "Don't step in the Kanish-Eepay."
I was introduced to the Round Table by Ed Beck, a hulking mountain man born too late for his era. Ed was partnered to Josephine Crow, of the Crow's Hardin reservation. Josephine, no small person herself, was a nurse's aide at the Billings hospital. Her husband, two teenage daughters and a son still lived on the reservation. Her father was keeper of the tribe's buffalo herd, and her uncle keeper of the elk herd. Ed was valued for his shooting skill and called upon to bring his .30-'06 rifle to the semi-annual slaughters.
In his earlier years, Ed has also been valued in some quarters for his willingness to smuggle beer onto the Crow Reservation, where it was forbidden to Indians by tribal and federal law. Ed said he gave up the trade when his old Dodge was overtaken one night by two carloads of young Indian men bent on honoring their tribal code. He said he lost his car and a trunk-load of beer but escaped by crawling through weeds in water-soaked ditches, until he was off the res and could hitch a ride back to Billings.
Other topics I'm about to include:
Taking old Joe out to freeze
The trapper's cabin
custer's gun
the school superintendent
Benny Auk
The artist--the electgrical plugs, and we reserve the right to serve refuse.
sheepherders
kenny the bartender
repainted in 1960
silver dollars
folsom point
once into the hospital, they never leave alive
doctor says they have no money, so he doesn't treat them.
sideslipped in his big van, nearly rolled it.
cowpoke, scarred knuckles.
kicked a guy over insulting a whore.
couger cosgrove
the archeologists and the mayor
my $3 hat. indian bronc rider came back for it, i kept mouth shut. I left the hat hanging on a floor lamp when I tiptoed out the door after hearing her tell a friend on the phone, "It won't be a big wedding, I think. Maybe only a few dozen people." I miss the $3 hat.
the cheyenne woman and the bus.
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