Corral Dust From Across the Big Divide

An Introduction by the Late Sid Willis Did you ever behold a naked cowboy scampering out of a cook’s tent one jump ahead of a cussing, cow-camp cook flailing a butcher knife? That was my first impression of that ornery Kid Russell. But Charlie already scratched that yarn down in this book, so I won’t waste my ink on it. Just allow me to say this: when a cowhand makes such an uncanny first impression, it takes longer to size him up and make a mental roundup of his character. What would you say if someone asked you, “Who was the most famous barkeep ever to make a moccasin track in Montana?” I’m a humble man who seldom brags, but I’d bet a hatful of blue chips to whites most folks would answer, “Sid Willis.” And it ain’t because I was anybody important. In fact, I didn’t amount to a pinch of snuff. It’s because, to my honor, when folks talk about Charlie Russell, my name still bobs up. My Mint Saloon in Great Falls had more of Charlie’s paintings on its walls than any other watering hole in the country, especially after Bill Rance closed the Silver Dollar and sold me all of Charlie’s barter hanging behind his bar. That Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth still brands them paintings, “The Mint Collection.” The luckiest day of my life was that day I beheld Charlie flying from that cook’s tent naked as a worm. That was the day I became a rider for the Montana Cattle Company. From then on, Charlie was my horse wrangler for as long as I worked cattle in the Judith. I never met another man who could read horses like Charlie. I think he spoke their language. That mysterious knack he had with horses was a gift from God, the same as his gift of art. Once I got over that bad first impression of Kid Russell, he grew to be my best friend. How good of friends were we? Why, those Biblical sports David and Jonathon weren’t on speaking terms compared to me and Charlie. But I’ll shoot you this point blank: no discriminating gent would have mistaken him for a saint. Like the rest of us, he sometimes drank more than his share, and he often unloaded more than his share of young-cowboy devilry. I heard yarns about his past stunts every day in the Mint. One of my favorites fetched loose in Chinook when Charlie was wintering with a den of out-of-work cowboys called the Hungry Seven. There was a self-righteous woman—a Temperance Union leader—in town who professed all cowboys are disciples of the devil. Whenever she saw cowboys on the street, she’d raise her nose and pass us by like we were dead steers. Once Charlie caught wind that she was planning to have the preacher and three church deacons over for dinner the coming Sunday. She’d been fattening up three hens for the occasion, three thoroughbred Rhode Island Reds. Charlie and Bob Stuart injuned up to her coop that night and rustled all three chickens. They put on a royal feast for the Hungry Seven and threw the feathers, heads, and feet in the preacher’s front yard, hoping a deputy would amble by and see them before the preacher did and saddle him with the blame. One summer when we had a few free weeks between roundups, Charlie and I rode all the way to Calgary. After two days in town, we meandered into a watering hole unlike any we’d ever seen. All the cowhands inside were sitting around quiet as shadows and whispering to each other instead of whooping it up like you’d expect. Some of them had even sunk into sleep. We asked the barkeep, “Are all these men pallbearers who are spreading such joy throughout the saloon?” “This brand of whiskey they’re downing is called ‘whispering booze,’” he tells us. “There ain’t one cross word in a barrel of it. Instead of yelling and arguing, men just grow more pleasant and whisper themselves to sleep.” We surrounded a quart of that whispering booze and lit out for our hotel, but before we found it, we both fell asleep in the saddle. The Mounted Police found Charlie asleep in a judge’s front yard, and I was arrested snoring in a gutter. The kettle tender in that Calgary jail was a young deputy named Ted James. He was born in Wales and started working on ships as a lad. By the time he was seventeen, he’d been around the world twice. He’d done every kind of work in his checkered life except sing in a choir and work as a cowboy. Now here’s another genius side of Charlie. When he spoke, he was the easiest fellow to believe I ever met. He could talk a dog down off a meat wagon. He could have made a good living selling dead horses. And when you read his yarns, you might find yourself drinking in his words like Holy Writ, even though they’re spiked with corral dust. So Charlie handily convinced the deputy that the life of a cowboy is nothing but fun, adventure, joy, dance-hall gals, whiskey, and freedom. Then I promised Ted if he’d come back to the Judith with us and work the fall roundup, he’d never have to pay for his drinks. Charlie could round up all the fluids we wanted by trading his paintings to barkeeps. Danged if we didn’t auger Deputy James into cutting us loose from that jail and trailing us back to the Judith. Ted James didn’t pan out as a cowboy. He tried farming, but that wasn’t his calling either. The coal mines of Sand Coulee became his life, but he’d often take a train to Great Falls and drop into the Mint. I kept my word. After I bought that watering hole, Ted James never again had to pay for his drinks. Hundreds of yarns about Charlie’s eccentric ways trailed through the Mint. One of my favorites was the time his wife—we called her Nancy the Robber—herded Charlie to a party in Santa Barbara, figgerin’ she could corral some high-society art buyers. But Charlie found he didn’t cotton to the society of rich Californians, no more than he could cotton to the society of corpses and skeletons. Charlie whispered, “Let’s leave, Mame,” to his wife, but she wouldn’t abide. Finally, he excused himself to go to the bathroom, closed the door behind him, climbed out the window, and bowlegged off looking for the company of some wise old cowboys. Did you ever wonder how the little town of Two Dot, Montana got that odd name hung on it? Nary a man is still alive who knew the answer to that conundrum. I’d be proud to enlighten you. It was named after a big cattle raiser named Two Dot Wilson. That nickname was hung on him because he branded his calves with two dots, one on a shoulder and one on a thigh. He chose that odd brand because it was such a tough one for rustlers to alter. Two Dot Wilson was never one for dressing up. In fact, he oft times looked downright unkempt. His wife used to tell him, “You’re one of the most successful cattle bosses in central Montana. Why don’t you take more pride in your appearance?” “It don’t matter,” he always told her. “Everybody around here knows me.” But when they’d go somewhere nobody knew them, like Billings or Great Falls, Two Dot still wouldn’t shave, comb his hair, bathe, or put on clean clothes. When his wife criticized his appearance, he’d tell her, “It don’t matter. Nobody here knows me.” Once Two Dot Wilson hired Charlie and me and two other punchers to ride with him on a cattle train to Chicago. Our job was to keep Wilson’s cattle fed, watered, and on their feet during that long train ride. While in Chicago, Charlie hatched up a real good prank to pull on Two Dot. From half a block away, we pointed him out to two policemen and told them, “That vagabond keeps trying to panhandle money from us.” Two Dot looked unkempt and ragged as a sheepherder, so the policemen took the bait like two bass. When they arrested Two Dot for vagrancy, the cattle boss persuaded them to follow him into a bank where the banker testified that Wilson had just deposited ten thousand dollars in cattle money. The policemen saw at once they’d been jobbed, so they cut Two Dot loose and went combing the town for us cowhands. We hid in the stockyards until dark, and then we found our way into a few watering holes where we spent most of th