We lost an old Badlands cowboy this week. Bill Dixon was ninety-something and lived an interesting life. Bill ran the ranch just across the road from the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. One of the things he did to support his ranching habit was run a little canoe outfitting service on the Little Missouri. Not a real lucrative business, given the infrequency of canoeable water on the Little Missouri, but I think he probably did it partly for the opportunity to meet people.
Bill was crusty, and funny, and didn't get to see a lot of people out there in the Badlands, so he loved the company of an occasional canoer who needed a lift. My canoe trip gang and I hired Bill a couple of times to ferry us to a put-in or take-out spot on the river. The last time was quite a few years ago, and we had paddled from somewhere south of the North Unit into his ranch, and he was giving us a ride back to where we had left the cars. Two memorable pieces of the conversation with Bill on that drive come to mind.
Bill was thoughtful, and he was a man of few words. He chose them carefully. We were talking about fishing on that drive, for some reason, someone asked Bill what his favorite fish was. Bill didn't hesitate. "Well, once you've eaten orange roughy, it's pretty hard to eat anything else."
We exploded in laughter over that response from a grizzled old Badlands rancher.
And then as we're driving down this terrible Badlands gravel road, on a hot day, with this big cloud of dust billowing behind his pickup, all of a sudden we were driving on pavement. The road was paved for about a quarter of a mile before we approached a ranch alongside the road, and then for another quarter of a mile after we passed it.
"Bill, what's up with this paved road?" someone asked.
"Oil," Bill responded, "makes things possible."
So long, Bill. Hope they're serving orange roughy up there.
No comments:
Post a Comment