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OCTOBER 2017 FEATURES

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Along with bold blanket prints and bright colors, we’ve got all the Native-made and -inspired jewelry you need to go from fall to winter in Southwest style.

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BONNER BOLTON A broken neck halted the 30-yearold bull rider’s rodeo career but brought about mainstream media success, including an impressive run on Dancing With the Stars.

by Lindsay Whelchel

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PAUL MICHAEL COMPANY Good taste, a skilled eye, and hard work has turned a family business into a highlight of Antiques Week in Round Top, Texas — and made the company a design legacy.

by Dana Joseph

Australian actor Robert Taylor has played Wyoming sheriff Walt Longmire for six seasons, first on A&E and then on Netflix. Photography: James Minchin/Courtesy Warner Bros. Worldwide.

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COVER STORY: THE END OF A LONGMIRE JOURNEY The sixth season of the western crime drama based on Craig Johnson’s novels can’t come soon enough — even though it brings an end to the beloved Netflix series.

by Joe Leydon

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WILD WEST ALASKA On the sesquicentennial of the territory’s October 18, 1867, transfer from Russia to the United States, we look at the characters who made the Last Frontier the Old West’s last hurrah.

by Mike Coppock

ABOVE 1. Lantern Dancer 2. Rachelle M. Rustic House of Fashion 3. The Bohlin Company 4. Maverick Fine Western Wear 5. Blue Flax Studio 6. Orisons 7. Cowboys & Indians Shop 8. Dynabelle Designs 9. The Mercantile 10. Maverick Fine Western Wear 11–12. The Sparkling Spur 13. Amy Kaplan Jewelry Design For company resources, see page 90.

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PHOTOGRAPHY: BRADLY TOMBERLIN

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TASTE OF THE WEST Texas or Kansas City barbecue?

Whiskey, beer, cider, or wine? Tortilla or sourdough bread? And is there such a thing as too much fry bread? Find these conundrums and much more in our special culinary tour of the American West.

ART GALLERY Cowboy Artists of America member Martin Grelle paints the people and places that inspire him, Tracy Millerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s acrylics bring animals to bright, bold life, and Wyoming painter T. Allen Lawson finds inspiration in struggle.

MEDIA ROUNDUP David Grann talks to C&I about his new book, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, which documents the culture of murder, swindling, and cover-ups that stole millions of dollars and countless lives from the tribe.

30 Contributors 32 Editorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Note 34 Letters 36 Open Range 44 Western Storefront 46 On the Horizon 50 Society 54 Happy Trails 138 Cowboy Corner 140 Showtime 144 Live From

PHOTOGRAPHY: NICK JURICH

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Music Profiles And Exclusives Stay up-to-date on new tunes and old favorites at cowboysindians.com. Lukas Nelson talks about his new album with Promise of the Real, Brandon Rhyder shares what brought him back to songwriting after four years off, and Brett Young reveals how antagonizing his sister with her leastfavorite genre led him to country music success.

@CI_Magazine

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More To Taste We’ve got recipes galore from our featured “Taste of the West” chefs, plus a look at The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen by Sean Sherman with Beth Dooley (University of Minnesota Press, 2017).

pinterest.com/ cowboysindians

Read more from our visit with the Longmire star and burgeoning cook as he prepared a meal for his castmates and crew members.

Weekly E-Newsletter Sign up at cowboysindians.com/newsletter to receive the best of the West in your inbox every Wednesday.

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PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY CONVEYOR MANAGEMENT/CAMERON GOTT

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EDITORIAL COORDINATOR Emily C. Laskowski A RT DIRECTOR Lauren Crispin Kerrigan PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Jonathan Fehr PRODUCTION DESIGNER Nancy Franzen COPY CHIEF Jesse Hughey COPY & R ESEARCH EDITORS Michele Powers Glaze Michelle Mathews Ramona Flume DIGITAL M EDIA/IT M ANAGER Song Yang

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Contributors

“I remember the moment I fell in love with food,” says C&I food editor José R. Ralat, who took the lead on this issue’s “Taste of the West” feature (page 104). “It took place when I was 8 years old and in my maternal grandmother’s backyard. The space was separated from the rear neighbor’s property by a chain-link fence, and it was through that fence that I saw the neighbor’s skinned goat hung up by its hind legs so the carcass could bleed out. I had never seen anything like that before. It was incredible.”

That might sound gruesome, but that moment gave the young Ralat insight into where food comes from, what it was, and what it will be. “We should be aware of food sources,” Ralat says. “I don’t necessarily mean the pasture in which it was raised or the field in which it was coaxed to harvest, although that is useful. I mean we should know a little about its history and how it developed. For example, what are the differences in regional Texas barbecue, and how do they compare to Kansas City barbecue? How did the California Gold Rush change the way the West eats?

This deepens our understanding and enjoyment of the foods we eat, and these are the kinds of stories that we set out to explore in “Taste of the West.” Besides, who doesn’t get a kick out of surprising dining mates with nuggets of food trivia?”

PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY LINDSAY WHELCHEL, ROBERT STRICKLAND/COURTESY JOSÉ R. RALAT

“It was an honor to tell the story of Bonner Bolton, the rodeo cowboy who bounced back from adversity after he broke his neck in a bull riding accident,” says rodeo writer and veteran C&I contributor Lindsay Whelchel (page 66). “While I was working on the profile, it was especially inspiring to see Bolton not just walking again, but dancing and representing the Western way of life in mainstream media like he did on Dancing With the Stars.”

As Whelchel learned, the bull rider came chillingly close to never walking again. She also provides insight into what was going through Bolton’s mind following his accident and through the recovery process. “I’ve interviewed a lot of wonderful rodeo athletes who have a healthy fan base, but it was surprising to see the level of fan excitement and support for Bonner when he was making appearances at the Country Music Association Music Festival in Nashville this past summer.

There were so many fans who may have not even been rodeo fans but who related and rallied behind Bonner for Dancing With the Stars. They were eager to meet him in person, with autograph and picture lines seemingly unending at each event he did.”

Whelchel has written extensively about rodeo with an emphasis on bull riding and the Western lifestyle. For C&I, she’s written artist profiles and covered the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas, ranch sorting, Cheyenne Frontier Days, and more. She is also a regular contributor to C&I’s sister magazine, Western & English Today.

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night of cooking school, I did.

For an embarrassingly large chunk of my life, I’d subsisted on “bachelor basics” when I couldn’t eat out — spaghetti, scrambled eggs, sandwiches of every stripe. My toaster oven and rice cooker worked overtime. Thank goodness for family, or I might have never encountered a vegetable.

So it was with slight trepidation that I showed up with a travel group last summer to the Santa Fe School of Cooking, an institution in the City Different stretching back more than two decades. We’d already experienced the richness and influence of both red and green chiles at a few different local eateries, but this night was to provide a demonstration and an education. Not only would we be roasting and prepping the chiles ourselves, we’d be using them in a full meal’s worth of recipes.

Honestly, I was prepared to sip away on a beer and let the foodies in the group get their hands dirty. They surely didn’t want me mucking up their chile and pork tamales with a messy roll or an oversize portion of filling. Yep, I’d be better off keeping my hands on the bottle and my mouth shut until it was time to sample.

As it turned out, there was no reason to worry. As soon as we all met our instructor and chef, Mica Chavez, the anxiety melted away. A food historian, an expert cook, and a gifted teacher, she personified the cooking school’s mission: to leave its students with new skills 32

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while educating them about why Santa Fe is such an important food destination.

In her own natural storyteller’s style, Mica talked through the fascinating history of the intersecting cultures of New Mexico, explaining (while prepping ingredients as if it were second nature) how the food and the arts were shaped by Native American and Spanish traditions.

The compelling stories and welcoming vibes encouraged me to happily join in on the cooking fun. I longed to char more than one chile. My tamales were rolled to the group’s and my own satisfaction. I was working with ingredients that didn’t come from a packet!

Of course, as the cooking became more focused, Mica took the reins, regaling us with stories as she did. Before we knew it, we’d followed up the tamales with spicy corn soup, green-chile cheese enchiladas, the old squash standby calabacitas, and a warm berry crisp.

Even though the mighty Mica sent us home with newfound confidence and non-intimidating recipes tucked under our arms, I’d still rather go back to Santa Fe than make the stuff in my own kitchen. As C&I’s food editor, José R. Ralat, demonstrates with this issue’s big, beautiful “Taste of the West” special feature, travel and history are as important to a foodie’s experience as the actual eating.

On your next itinerary, replace one restaurant with a cooking school or demo — you’ll thank me later.

And, in case you were wondering, I tossed the rice cooker.

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Choked Up Over A Chuck Wagon King Sitting here in front of my computer with very teary eyes.

I just picked up a copy of the July issue. The story about Kelly Sutherland (“Chuck Wagon Royalty”) has really choked me up. Kelly is who and why we are proud to be Albertans. He is the essence of the character of our province, more so than anyone else that I know. I have had the pleasure of meeting him a couple of times, and he is a “gentleman’s cowboy.” Honest, compassionate, a family man, and a true competitor. It is so sad that they have these rules that drivers must retire at age 65.

I have not missed a Calgary Stampede since 1962; it is part of who I am and who we are as Albertans. My congratulations to John Ostdick for a fine and accurate article; please thank him for me.

— Stuart R. Watkins, president, the Trail Riders of the Canadian Rockies C&I’s Friends On Instagram

Our readers shared their thoughts on our July cover man, Willie Nelson. Join us on Instagram at @cowboysindiansmagazine.

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That man! Saw him in concert last year. Gained a whole new respect for him. The talent he oozes is unbelievable. And the physical condition he is in for being in his 80s is incredible.

Have the chance to see him in concert? Go do it! A legacy!

— @shewhoisclassic I’ve listened to him for years, starting with vinyl records.

— Kaye Gibson Thrilled to see Willie Nelson Amazing front cover! as the cover and feature of this — Karolina Zuraw month’s issue! My heroes have always been cowboys.

This is my fave cover ever.

— Camille Frame — Aaron Kampfer

We’d love to hear from you! Write us at letters@ cowboysindians.com.

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DUZAN DESTINY It wasn’t long after Jill Duzan Willey decided to try her hand at jewelry making that she was browsing an art gallery in Naples, Florida, and fell in love with a small piece of art leaning against one of the walls. It turned out to be a Picasso lithograph, with beautiful lines and sienna tones bordered in a gilded frame. It wasn’t until several months after buying the piece that Willey came across the art certificate and, for the first time, read the title: Female Head With Necklace. She took it as a sign that her new venture was more than just a passion; it was a calling. And she has been at it ever since, creating a high-end collection of nature-inspired designs like these silver and diamond feather earrings ($625). jillduzan.com

MEXICAN NATIVA Nativa founder and store owner Tressa Castro brings traditional Mexican textiles and clothing — like this embroidered tunic ($235) — to San Antonio, serving as a broker for the talented yet unknown artisans and weavers of her homeland’s remote villages, whom she grew up admiring.

“When purchasing a hand-woven cotton blouse made in Chiapas or a colorful beaded necklace from Hidalgo, you are not only buying a unique piece that can never be replaced, you are also empowering those who painstakingly make them in order to provide a modest income for their families.” nativashop.com

PHOTO © BOB WADE.COM

COWGIRL PEARLS Amy Kaplan has spent most of her career in New York, working as a designer for the acclaimed Erickson Beamon jewelry label. But with more than 25 years experience in fashion and jewelry under her belt — and having had her designs featured in upscale boutiques and department stores across the country, including Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Bergdorf Goodman — she’s traded in the Big Apple for the Lone Star State and created a label of her own, Amy Kaplan Jewelry Design, featuring Texas-size statement accessories like this multistrand necklace that pairs long strands of pearls with genuine leather and a spur-strap clasp ($260). amykaplanjewelrydesign@aol.com

KANAINE CLOTHING Sydelle Harrison (Cayuse/ WallaWalla/Yakama) wears many hats. She is a mother, a student, a business owner, and, in her spare time, a fashion designer.

Working with the graphic blanket-print fabrics produced by the historic Pendleton Woolen Mills in her native Oregon, Harrison designs and constructs contemporary fashions and handbags for women and children. Our favorite of the latest releases from her Kanaine collection is the posh wool mini skirt ($195). etsy.com/shop/kanaine

WORLDLY LEATHER César Ugarte Jensen is an artist truly known worldwide. Having lived and studied in Peru, New York, the United Kingdom, and Spain, he opened a boutique in Switzerland in 1976 that attracted the likes of Princess Diana, Elizabeth Taylor, and Peter Sellers, and produced guitar straps for Johnny Cash. But the American Southwest is where Ugarte eventually made his home, and found his inspiration for Leather 42, a new line of elegant designs handmade by the master leatherworker and silversmith. Among them, this suede-fringe bag features metallic python pckets, 24kt gold hardware, and soft pigskin lining ($1,300). leather42.com

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Crushed velvet button-down with concho buttons ($207.50), silveradohome.com. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Look Beyond the Horizonâ&#x20AC;? tee ($44), shopatoc.com. Serena necklace ($99), yayagurlz.com. Free Spirit buckle ($42), gypsyville.com. Roxy booties ($449), oldgringoboots.com.

Custom handmade felt hat with feather, catescustomhatcompany.com. The Violet Rose Tahitian pearl necklace ($2,000), wendymignot.com. Night Raven poncho

by Double D Ranchwear ($234), cummingscarousel.net.

Hand-beaded cuff ($550), desertsagebeadart.com.

Malachite pendant necklace by Zuni artist Roger Tsabetsaye ($2,450), wrightsgallery.com.

Handmade leather fringe cape with fur trim, britwest.net. Overthe-knee python boots ($1,495, contact to order), lucchese.com.

Dimestore Cowgirl hat ($160), charlie1horsehats.com.

Embroidered velvet duster ($222.50), silveradohome.com.

One-of-a-kind Koroit boulder opal pendant necklace ($3,565), lynnharrisberger.com. Grande boulder opal cuff ($495), lauraingallsdesigns.com. Juan Antonio tooled tote ($498), savannahsevens.com.

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Vaquera hand-beaded button-down blouse from the Huitziki Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Cooperative of Mexico ($325), maloufontheplaza. com. Emerald Dreams set of four multigemstone necklaces ($1,100), sylviamedinajewelry.com. Red overlay boots with studs ($308), corralboots.com.

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DESIGNER DUDS AND ARTISAN ACCESSORIES CAN BE JUST AS VERSATILE AS BOOTS AND BLUE JEANS, TAKING YOU FROM THE OFFICE DESK TO A DATE NIGHT OUT.

New fall fashions are arriving now at The Museum Store.

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LEFT TO RIGHT FROM TOP: American Hat Company 40X Primero Ranchero chocolate felt with a three-piece silver buckle hatband ($499), besthatstore.com. Overlaid Model 1930 custom watch featuring a hand-engraved sterling silver case with a 14kt gold overlay and blue Breguetstyle hands paired with a tooled saddle leather strap ($14,670), montanawatch.com.

Jungle Suede lambskin twobutton blazer by Jose Luis ($875), maverickwesternwear. com. Custom handcrafted feather buckle featuring an engraved rose gold overlay with The Bohlin Companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s signature tri-color chief ($4,995), bohlinmade.com. Ruddock Brothers Khaki Ranch twill button-down ($79.95), 3dbelt.com.

Leather briefcase with removable shoulder strap, scullyleather.com.

STAY WARM WHILE LOOKING COOL IN EXOTIC BOOTS, PATTERNED PEARLSNAPS, AND A PUFFY COAT MADE IN GENUINE LEATHER. LEFT TO RIGHT FROM TOP: Threepocket leather puffer jacket, scullyleather.com. Greeley Hat Worksâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Ranch Ready distressed felt hat with leather band ($350), greeleyhatworks. com. Aspen Geo Indigo printed shirt by Ryan Michael ($209), orisons.com. Cowboy cut jeans ($48), wranglerwestern.com.

Horseman hornback caiman boots with contrast stitching by Lucchese ($725), orisons.com.

Rural Haze

H

ow did the gypsy-boho boutique Rural Haze get its name? Even store owner Jane Cochrane Kasper isn’t sure.

There were a few drinks involved.

“My girlfriend and I went wine tasting and then ordered business cards,” she says with a laugh. “We couldn’t remember what we named the shop until the cards came the next week.”

While Kasper just opened shop in April of last year, Rural Haze was a well-known name long before the sign went up outside her brick-and-mortar. She first introduced her collection online and then took it on the road, frequenting the concert, festival, and rodeo circuits in California. When moving to Idaho after getting married, Kasper quickly realized there were not as many regional events to keep her busy. So she decided to put down roots and establish a physical location in the town of Meridian.

“It’s already doing great,” she says. “We had some girls who were customers of ours come out from California for the grand opening, which was pretty humbling. We’ve been really lucky.”

Rural Haze initially launched on Etsy in 2013 as a line of custom rhinestone-studded bandannas. Lace boot cuffs were added a year later, and their success led Kasper to expand into apparel with a fashion collection inspired by her days growing up on a rural California ranch. You’ll find her original designs throughout the new storefront, along with boots and bags by brands such as Double J Saddlery, Jackson and Hyde, Old Gringo, and Corral Boots. The store also features an eclectic selection of funky accessories, from turquoise jewelry to trucker caps and socks emblazoned with “Bring Me a Cold One.” As Kasper sees it, it’s the variety that sets her store apart.

“We are in that middle ground between boho and Western ... .

People from any walk of life can come in and find something they’ll like.”

Rural Haze, 3693 E. Longwing Lane, Meridian, Idaho, 877.356.5468, ruralhaze.com.

Samsville Plaza

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hen friends asked Sam Abweh to help out with a Native American art booth, he never imagined it would be what jump-started his career. “I was going to college in Arizona, and these two guys owned a shop in Scottsdale,” he says. “After working with them I found that I really enjoyed it. So I moved to Gallup, New Mexico, and spent the next two years working in a small trading post, just to learn everything I could about Native American art and jewelry.”

From there, his growing knowledge and appreciation for Native arts inspired Abweh to open a trading post of his own, and today Samsville Gallery is one of the most popular and trusted Santa Fe destinations for authentic Native American jewelry, crafts, and collectibles.

It’s also a storefront that is closed for six months of the year, while the owners — Sam and brother Alex — take to the road, traveling to Cheyenne Frontier Days, the National Finals Rodeo, and other events across the West.

But customers no longer need to worry about when to visit now that the brothers have established a second Santa Fe location, Samsville Plaza. “We decided we should have one place that was open year-round,” Abweh says. They also needed more space to spotlight the one-of-a-kind works of the many Native American artisans that they’ve built relationships with throughout the years.

These include some of the best silversmiths in the West, such as Leon Martinez, Sunshine Reeves, and Matthew Charlie.

It’s not just the inventory at the new gallery that will impress. The showroom design is inspired by its location in the Plaza Galeria at Santa Fe Plaza, a notable shopping center and a historic landmark that dates back to the 1600s. “Walking into the store is like being in the middle of a plaza, with trees, benches, streetlights,” Abweh says.

“We’ve brought the outdoor atmosphere inside.”

Samsville Plaza, Plaza Galeria, 66 E. San Francisco St., Santa Fe, 505.216.7777, samsvillegallery.com.

— David Hofstede

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David and Edita Ladd, Patrick Wayne

Barbara Van Cleve, Susan Hallsten McGarry

Mike Ingram, Ben Hudson, Johnny Trotter

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ince 1961, the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum’s Western Heritage Awards have honored the legacies of the men and women that represent the American West with their work in music, film, and television. This year’s winners, inducted April 21 – 22, included artist Harold T. Holden, actor Patrick Wayne, and American Quarter Horse Association past president Johnny Trotter, and posthumous awards for rancher Raymond E. Adams and actor Alan Ladd. Official cowboy poet of Texas Red Steagall also won, taking home the Western Lifestyle Programming Award for his show Red Steagall Is Somewhere West of Wall Street. nationalcowboymuseum.org

PHOTOGRAPHY: JERRY HYMER/HYMER PHOTOGRAPHY

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he Cowgirl Up! Art From the Other Half of the West Exhibition and Sale, an event featuring Western art created exclusively from a woman’s point of view, enjoyed its 12th anniversary March 24 – May 7. More than 50 of the nation’s top female Western artists traveled to the Desert Caballeros Western Museum in the historic town of Wickenburg, Arizona, for a weekend of art sales, live auctions, and quick draws, not to mention a cowgirl street dance.

About 200 new works of art were on display and up for sale. Total weekend sales topped $300,000, with a portion of the proceeds benefiting the museum. westernmuseum.org — Mark Bedor

PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY DESERT CABALLEROS WESTERN MUSEUM

Barb Meikle, Vicki Rosenthal

Jose Munne, Kevin Walsh, Stuart Young

Mark Campbell, Michael Chumo, Michael Mooradian, Brad Lohr

Joe Stevens, Tammy and Ike Hankins

Desert Caballeros Trail Ride

PHOTOGRAPHY: MARK BEDOR

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pril 3 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 7, seasoned desert caballeros from throughout the world came together in Wickenburg, Arizona, for the 71st annual Desert Caballeros Trail Ride. The horseback adventure kicked off at noon the first day for around 150 riders, as they paraded through the historic downtown of Wickenburg into the beautiful Sonoran Desert.

Preceding the five-day trek, spouses and significant others joined in on the fun for a weekend celebration that included the now-annual downtown Friday night outdoor Bridge Party put on by the Desert Caballeros for the entire town to enjoy. desertcaballerosride.com â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Mark Bedor COWB OYS & I ND I A NS

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by generations of television viewers as the heroic Caped Crusader in Batman, the popular 1966 – 68 TV series that continues to attract new fans through syndicated reruns. But before landing his career-defining role as the Gotham City crime fighter, West earned his spurs in several TV westerns. In 1959, he played the legendary Doc Holliday no fewer than three times, in episodes of Lawman, Sugarfoot, and Colt .45. He also appeared as Wild Bill Hickok in a 1960 episode of Overland Trail, and he had other guest-starring roles on Cheyenne, Maverick, Bronco, Bonanza, The Rifleman, Laramie, Gunsmoke, and Tales of Wells Fargo. On the big screen, he served well as a straight man to the Three Stooges in The Outlaws Is Coming! (1965), playing a buttoneddown Boston editor who becomes an unlikely hero while investigating (with a little help from Moe, Larry, and Curly Joe) a land-grab scheme in the Wyoming Territory. In a slightly more serious vein, he starred as a Texas Ranger on the trail of bandits in the 1965 spaghetti western The Relentless Four. West was 88 when he died June 9 in Los Angeles.

GLENNE HEADLY received a well-

deserved Emmy Award nomination for her colorful performance as Elmira Boot Johnson in the epic miniseries Lonesome Dove. A member of Chicago’s acclaimed Steppenwolf Theatre Company, she made her movie breakthrough opposite Michael Caine and Steve Martin in the 1988 con artist comedy Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Headly also played the supportive significant other of Warren Beatty’s title character

in Dick Tracy (1990) and the wife of Richard Dreyfuss’ dedicated high school music teacher in Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995).

Her other movie credits included Breakfast of Champions (1999), Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004), and, most recently, The Circle (2017). Headly died June 8 in Santa Monica, California, at age 62.

SKIP HOMEIER made a memorable

impression as a reckless young gunslinger who tries to build his reputation by killing Gregory Peck’s title character in The Gunfighter (1950). He also costarred in the westerns Ten Wanted Men (1955), The Road to Denver (1955), Stranger at My Door (1956), Dakota Incident (1956), The Tall T (1957), Day of the Badman (1958), Comanche Station (1960), and Showdown (1963), and he made guest appearances on such TV dramas as Wanted: Dead or Alive, The Rifleman, Wagon Train, Branded, Bonanza, and The Virginian.

Homeier died June 25 at age 86 in Indian Wells, California.

JARED MARTIN appeared periodically

in the original Dallas TV series as rodeo cowboy Dusty Farlow. At various points over several seasons, his character seriously flirted with Sue Ellen Ewing (Linda Gray), was presumed killed in a plane crash, returned wheelchair-bound and paralyzed from the waist down, and, miraculously, was nursed back to health. Martin also had continuing roles on The Fantastic Journey (1977), How the West Was Won (1978 – 79), and War of the Worlds (1988 – 90), and he played supporting parts in Westworld (1973), The Lonely Lady (1983), and other feature films and TV movies. He was 75 when he died May 24 in Philadelphia.

PHOTOGRAPHY: © ABC/PHOTOFEST, © LIONSGATE FILMS/PHOTOFEST, © 20TH CENTURY FOX FILM CORPORATION/PHOTOFEST, © CBS/PHOTOFEST

ADAM WEST will be best remembered

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Martin Grelle

I PHOTOGRAPHY: (ALL IMAGES) COURTESY MARTIN GRELLE

T’S HIS FIRST DAY BACK HOME ON HIS SMALL RANCH OUTSIDE CLIFTON, TEXAS, IN THE PICTURESQUE

C O W B

Meridian Creek Valley after almost three weeks on the road, and Martin Grelle is back to work. Between the last time he was at the easel and now, he’s attended the Prix de West invitational in Oklahoma City, gone on the Cowboy Artists of America Trail Ride in Montana, and vacationed with his wife, Joyce, in some of the beautiful Western country. All along the way, he gathered reference photos for future paintings, some of which are bound for the annual Cowboy Artists of America show in October and a long-awaited one-man show at the Legacy Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona, in November. At the moment, he’s having fun trying to capture the atmosphere and feelings of a warrior as he paints the face of his wife inside their lodge. With many more canvases to go, Grelle took time to talk with C&I about his career and why the West is such a compelling subject.

Cowboys & Indians: A dream came true for you in 1995 when you were invited to become a member of the Cowboy Artists of America. Since then, you’ve served on the board three times and gone on the annual trail ride many times. Tell us about the ride.

Martin Grelle: Depending on where we’re invited to have it, the ride can be held anywhere from April until late June.

When we’re on a working ranch in Texas, we’re usually there in April or early May. We have been invited to some of the most beautiful ranches you can imagine, and this year’s ride was no exception. We were in southwest Montana, nestled up against snow-covered peaks and overlooking the Madison River Valley. All the great folks who have hosted the CAA for our annual rides treat us so very well, and we are so thankful for the opportunities to spend time with them

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in the places they are willing to share with us. During our trail ride, we have a set schedule, which includes a day for setting up camp with our individual cowboy tepees or tents and getting settled in, at least one day of riding, and also a day dedicated to a business meeting with all the attending members. Each night of the ride is spent around a campfire visiting with each other, telling jokes, and listening to those of us who play guitar and sing. It is a time filled with laughter, heartfelt personal statements, and music. It provides the time for all of us individual artists to bond together as one, and is the glue that holds the organization together.

C&I: What got you pointed down the artist road?

Grelle: In junior high and early high school, I did several pencil drawings and a few oil paintings. I entered a couple of things in the fair here in Clifton and won a ribbon or two, but later on a girl I was dating picked up several pieces from my mom and took them to the Heart Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Texas Fair in Waco. Out of the blue I received a call that I was needed in Waco so the newspaper could take a photo of me with my winning works. I had no idea what they were talking about! I had won several blue and red ribbons, and the tricolor ribbon for the best work. I still have those ribbons and the newspaper clipping!

C&I: What else early on helped you pursue art?

Grelle: While I was still in high school, two professional artists who [were] members of the Cowboy Artists of America moved to the Clifton area: James Boren and Melvin Warren. I first met Jim by happenstance, and then

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later at a National Honor Society meeting at which he was the guest speaker. I approached him and told him I liked to draw and paint and he asked me to bring something out to show him sometime. It took me a while to get up the courage, but I eventually did. He became my mentor and helped me tremendously; he and his wonderful wife, Mary Ellen, also became my dear friends. His association with the CAA also planted my dream of becoming a member of that organization someday.

Another thing that had a direct influence on my becoming a professional artist was a successful one-man show, my first, held for me by a local gallery and frameshop owner, Joan Spieler. She had framed a few pieces for me, and then sold a couple of drawings for me, and was very frank with me about what she saw in my work.

She asked me to commit to a one-man show, and it came about around a year after I graduated from high school. It was the first of many one-man shows that I have painted over the course of my career and one I will never forget.

C&I: Western Art Collector described your works as â&#x20AC;&#x153;some of the most sought-after pieces by living Western artists.â&#x20AC;? What about the West keeps you engaged as a painter?

Grelle: For me, the history and the beauty of the American West are hard to beat. I have traveled for years through the landscapes of the western United States, and it never gets old seeing the many and varied terrains that part of the country holds. I love painting it. Whether I am portraying the working cowboy in a dusty Texas environment, or

Native peoples passing through the grand mountain ranges of the Northwest or hunting out on the plains, or trappers wading into cold waters hoping to catch beaver to trade, it all holds a romance and beauty for me. I have focused primarily on portraying Native Americans of the nineteenth century for the past twenty-five-plus years, and I hope that I do them honor in the process. I am drawn to the colorful aspects of that time period, and, although I am fully aware of the brutal parts of that historical era and the incredible difficulties life held for them on a daily basis, and the conflicts with both the “whites” coming into their lands and with each other, I try to focus on capturing more peaceful moments. However, I do include in certain works subtle statements that reveal hardships and conflicts that have occurred, which I often leave to the viewer to discover.

C&I: Any particularly favorite location to paint?

Grelle: My favorite place is probably Grand Teton National Park, which will come as a surprise to no one!

I have done a number of paintings from that area, many of which don’t even show the mountain range. There is something simply magical about that area, and I never get tired of trying to capture it. Of course, I have painted many other areas of the West, and they all hold their own

special beauty. It’s my challenge to try to portray that beauty effectively.

C&I: What’s your advice to young painters of the Western genre?

Grelle: The same good advice I was given: Learn to draw, try to paint outdoors or from life as often as possible, and paint what excites you the most so that you can paint it your best. On top of that, seek the best references you can get and educate yourself about your subjects.

C&I: What do you consider the source of your creativity?

Grelle: I believe that God placed the creativity within me.

I believe that the creativity I witnessed in my family as I grew up furthered it. I believe that the creativity I have seen in other artists has furthered it even more, and I hope that I can use the creativity I have to inspire and bring beauty to those who see what I put on canvas and paper.

— Dana Joseph Martin Grelle’s work will be on view October 5 – November 26 at the 52nd Annual CAA Sale & Exhibition during Cowboy Crossings at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City (nationalcowboymuseum.org) and at his one-man show November 11 at the Legacy Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona (legacygallery.com). cowboyartistsofamerica.com

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Tracy Miller

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would become the creative focus of her bold and colorful expressionistic paintings. The artist was very close to her father, a hunter and outdoorsman, and vividly recalls one day when she was just a young teen that he hunted a buffalo and brought the fallen animal home to feed their family. Cooking the buffalo meat in their kitchen, he asked his daughter if she wanted to taste the heart.

This was a special day for the young girl. She started to reflect on how important the bison was in the settling of the West, providing food and clothing for centuries of indigenous peoples and settlers across the country. Her father gave her the skull and the hide, and she began to consider the bison her spiritual guide.

Her young life revolved around a love of animals, art, and wide-open spaces. With ongoing encouragement from her parents — especially her mom — to pursue a career as an artist, Miller earned her bachelor’s degree in art from Denver’s Metropolitan State University.

Today, animals, especially bison, play a big role in her work. She renders the remarkable creatures in acrylic and in a multitude of colors. “I imbue the bison with the most of myself,” she says. “Painting this symbol on canvas with bright and bold acrylic brushstrokes keeps the West alive for me.” Last February one of her bison paintings was chosen as the signature piece and poster for the One Nation Film Festival; another of her paintings will grace next year’s poster.

Several other signature bison pieces are displayed around the Children’s Hospital in Denver.

Seeing animals in nature is her passion, as is translating that passion into art as part of the continuing legacy of

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PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY TRACY MILLER

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the West. “The animal reveals itself to me in the process of applying paint,” Miller says. “My work starts as pure abstract expressionism, integrating emotion and movement through color and shape. I then refine the details that make the animal immediately recognizable, capturing its essence and spirit.”

While she lives in Colorado Springs, Miller has a studio in the historic art community of Manitou Springs, Colorado. In 2011, she rented a small backroom studio in a decades-old building in town; within two years, she had expanded into a multi-room space and opened the Tracy Miller Gallery with a goal of selling “art of the New West,” continuing with Western themes — of cowboys, cowgirls, Native Americans, landscape, and wildlife — “but with new materials and brighter colors.”

This fall, Miller and other Manitou Springs galleries will celebrate October Arts Month, when the Pikes Peak region showcases the arts and culture of Colorado. Her gallery will host an exhibition called The Great American Bison, featuring almost two dozen artists who will paint and sculpt the national mammal.

When she’s not putting her reverence for our Western heritage on canvas, you might find Miller driving the back roads of Colorado and exploring the West’s national parks seeking inspiration.

— Wendy Wilkinson Find more on the artist at tracymillerfineart.com. Visit her gallery at 16 Ruxton Ave., Manitou Springs, Colorado, 719.650.0827.

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T R A D I T I O N A L

T. Allen Lawson

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T. Allen Lawson experiences every time he picks up his brush. “Little about my life — and consequently my work — is convenient or easy,” says the Sheridan, Wyoming-born artist. “There’s something about me that’s drawn to difficulty. I think that all good things come from a certain amount of struggle instead of ease.”

That could be the hardworking Westerner in him. But like a ballet dancer whose apparent ease and obvious grace belie excruciating training and exertion, Tim (as he is called) leaves the struggle to his psyche and lays the transcendent down on canvas.

The Zen-like quality of simplicity and calm that he achieves in paint is a disciplined canvas-by-canvas achievement that takes determination and perseverance — traits his Wyoming upbringing helped instill. Lawson is inclined more naturally toward hard work and rugged living than to recreation and entertainment. Give him an ax and wood to chop, and he’s a happy man; a massage at a spa, not so much. His pleasures are unpretentious: a walk in the evening; time on the ranch with his wife, Dorie, and their five children; or (at 53 years of age) an exhilarating foot-pumping ride on the back of a shopping cart through a parking lot.

The American West is part and parcel of Lawson’s core experience and affinities. And for much of the year, he still lives there. But 15 years ago, he packed up his family, left his beloved Bighorn Mountains, and headed for Maine. “We found a piece of property that was solid woods. I had no idea what it would take to turn a New England forest into a small farm.” A labor of love for his children, the farm would be a place to call their own, a place to identify with apart from Lawson’s essential Westernness.

The family now split their year between the two rural places, spending summers on the farm in Maine and the school year on a ranch in Wyoming. The change of venue gives Lawson fresh eyes and a different perspective. “I see the West very differently now than I saw it when I grew up here, and vastly different than if I had stayed here the whole time. It’s very exciting, especially for my work.”

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PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY T. ALLEN LAWSON

ROM THE QUIETUDE AND BEAUTY OF HIS PAINTINGS, YOU’D NEVER IMAGINE THE CREATIVE STRUGGLE

His way of seeing is one of the secrets to the quiet thrall of his work. What’s also spellbinding — whether it’s chickens eating feed or wasps alighting on a nest, an old barn peeling paint in the sun or a copse of trees shimmering in the moonlight — is the feeling of his paintings. Primarily a representational painter, Lawson explains that he’s nonetheless reaching beyond literal representation. “Working on a painting, I concentrate on the abstraction of it, and the subject matter almost becomes irrelevant to me. I am much more after trying to paint the emotional connection to a subject or place than I am to the actual subject or place.”

He’s always in search of that “inspirational moment” — when the waning light of the setting Wyoming sun glances off worn mountainsides, for instance. “I can see something a thousand times, and then one day something is different; the light hits a hill in a way I’ve never seen before. It’s always at the most inconvenient time when it happens, and I end up making sketches on the back of gas receipts so I don’t forget it.” He takes the inspiration back to his studio in Sheridan (a beautiful building that “you would be more likely to see in Paris or London than Wyoming”) and spends the next months trying to translate not only what he observed, but how he felt about what he observed.

Therein lies the struggle. “I feel like a salmon swimming upstream to try to get back to its spawning place, to the essence of the inspirational moment,” Lawson says. “I constantly have to fight the distractions of daily life to try to get back there. But I think that’s probably the way it’s meant to be.”

— Deanne L. Joseph T. Allen Lawson is represented by Simpson Gallagher Gallery in Cody, Wyoming; Jonathan Cooper in London; and Ann Long Fine Art in Charleston, South Carolina. His work will be on view October 7 – December 31 in The Best of the Best retrospective exhibit at Woolaroc Museum & Wildlife Preserve in Bartlesville, Oklahoma (woolaroc.org), and November 16 – December 16 at Jonathan Cooper in London (jonathancooper.co.uk). Find more on the artist at tallenlawson.com.

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OPPOSITE: Desert Pageantry. THIS PAGE: Bernadette, Winter’s Dawn.

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EVENTS

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September 9 – November 26 Birds in Art Anyone who loves birds and bird art knows there’s one show that can’t be missed — and it takes place in Wisconsin every fall. Since 1976, this annual exhibition has showcased the talents of more than 1,000 international artists who have presented their best avianinspired work. This year, 114 artists will participate, including 2017 Master Artist Milwaukee sculptor Don Rambadt, and 19 Master Artists from previous years.

The exhibition will feature a dozen or so works by Rambadt and more than 100 original paintings, sculptures, and graphics created within the last three years by the other artists. Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, Wisconsin, 715.845.7010, lywam.org/birdsinart September 21 – November 19 American Ballads: The Photographs of Marty Stuart Best known for his songs, this country music great has a story to tell through images he has captured of the people and places he has seen since going on tour at age 13 with Lester Flatt. Stuart’s photos include intimate behind-the-scenes shots of legendary musicians, eccentric characters from the back roads of America, and dignified portraits of members of the impoverished Lakota tribe in South Dakota, whom he met through former father-in-law Johnny Cash.

The Haggin Museum, Stockton, California, 209.940.6300, hagginmuseum.org September 22 – October 1 Escalante Canyons Art Festival Once known as Everett Ruess Days, this weeklong celebration includes an exhibit of historic and contemporary quilts, a plein-air competition, two paint-outs, live music, speakers, plus an exhibition and sale of the plein-air artworks. Various locations, Escalante, Utah, 435.616.1075, escalantecanyonsartfestival.org October 6 – 7 Cowboy Crossings Once again, Cowboy Artists of America and the Traditional Cowboy Arts Association have joined forces to offer the utmost in Western art and craftsmanship. TCAA showcases saddlemaking, silversmithing, bit- and spurmaking, and rawhide braiding, while CAA celebrates the West in painting, drawing, and sculpture. The CAA exhibition will be on view through November 26; works by TCAA artists will be on display through January 7, 2018.

Galleries open to the public October 7.

National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City, 405.478.2250, nationalcowboymuseum.org

October 6 – December 31 The Best of the Best Retrospective Exhibit and Sale Frank Phillips, founder of Phillips Petroleum Company, built Woolaroc Museum and its 3,700-acre wildlife preserve in 1925 to educate, to entertain, and to preserve the history of the West. One of the ways it fulfills its mission is with its The Best of the Best Retrospective Exhibit and Sale. This year’s event features the work of painters Bill Anton, George

PHOTOGRAPHY: WYOMING CONFERENCE CALL BY BILL ANTON, 2015, OIL ON LINEN, 32 INCHES BY 50 INCHES/PRIVATE COLLECTION

SOUTHWEST

Through November 5 Andy Warhol: Endangered Species “Animals in makeup” is how pop artist Andy Warhol described the vibrantly colored 38-by-38-inch silk-screen prints of 10 endangered species he created in 1983, transforming them into superstars to remind people of the importance of these animals to the world. Although he’s better known for Campbell’s Soup and his celebrity prints, Warhol’s Endangered Species series is some of his most important work. Due to the fragile nature of the prints, this is the first time in many years that they’ve been on view. National Museum of Wildlife Art, Jackson, Wyoming, 307.733.5771, wildlifeart.org

Carlson, Len Chmiel, T. Allen Lawson, Dean Mitchell, and Andrew Peters, and sculptors Tim Cherry and Steve Kestrel.

Woolaroc Museum, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, 918.336.0307, woolaroc.org October 7 Taos First Saturday Art Walk Follow the blue line from 3 to 6 p.m. and join in the fun as shops, studios, and galleries along the route celebrate with music, refreshments, receptions, and demonstrations by painters and other artisans both inside and on the street.

Taos, New Mexico, 575.770.5733, taosgalleryassoc.com

October 14 – 15 Cherokee Art Market Shop for treasures among the beadwork, pottery, painting, basketry, sculptures, and textiles for sale by some 150 elite indigenous artists representing more than 50 tribes throughout the country.

Now in its 12th year, the event is one of Oklahoma’s largest Native American art shows. Deepen your learning about Native American culture by taking in a demonstration or two on jewelry, stampwork technique, katsina making, pottery, painting, or basket weaving. Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 918.384.6990, cherokeeartmarket.com — Michele Powers Glaze

Beach Bums oil on canvas . 36"x 36"

October 7 – 9 Abiquiú Studio Tour Now in its 24th year, this self-driving tour takes visitors and collectors deep into Georgia O’Keeffe country, leading through the village of Abiquiú, New Mexico, and the Chama River Valley.

Enjoy the fall season and the mountains and rivers of the Piedra Lumbre basin as you take in the work of more than 80 artists at 31 unique homes and studios.

Various locations, Abiquiú, New Mexico, 505.685.4585, abiquiustudiotour.org

For a full listing of Western art galleries and events, visit cowboysindians.com.

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BONNER A BE AC ON OF T H E BU LL R I DI NG WOR LD BE FOR E A N D A F T E R H I S LI F E - A LT E R I NG AC C I DE N T, T H E 3 0 -Y E A R- OLD T E X A N E M BR AC E S A N E W LE V E L OF S TA R D OM .

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PROFESSIONAL

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RIDERS’

January 2016 season opener in Chicago started off with a bang for athlete Bonner Bolton, who took second place in the first round. In the next round, he drew a bull called Cowboy Up. The pair moved seamlessly in time together, step for step like a dance. Bolton made the whistle.

The ride looked near perfect. The dismount, however, did not.

Bolton was launched high in the air off the back of the bull and landed at an odd angle on his neck. He felt the break.

Fully conscious, Bolton lay facedown in the dirt, trying to catch his breath while the bull bucked over him.

He tried to raise his head but was met with a sharp pain.

The rest of his body was completely limp, unmovable.

Bolton was temporarily paralyzed from the neck down.

That moment was both the end and the beginning, in terms of Bolton’s career as a bull rider and his trajectory toward mainstream media success as an actor, model, and Dancing With the Stars competitor.

The “cowboy” label has stayed put throughout.

Bolton, now 30, grew up on a ranch in West Texas, near Odessa. His father was an accomplished bull rider, and Bolton looked up to him. The ranch, which had been

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in his mother’s family since 1903, immersed Bolton in the Western way of life as his love of rodeo flourished.

In 2008, at age 20, Bolton won the Championship Bull Riding world title.

A string of injuries would plague Bolton over the next several years, including a torn biceps, elbow surgery, and a shattered collarbone. Despite these setbacks, Bolton was on the cusp of realizing his ultimate goal of a world championship with the Professional Bull Riders.

The burgeoning athlete was also getting his first taste of Hollywood.

The Nicholas Sparks novel The Longest Ride was being turned into a feature film, and PBR sent out the call for bull riders to serve as actor Scott Eastwood’s stunt double. Bolton answered the call. “I knew it was a good opportunity. I was just coming off an injury, trying to knock the rust off and get back on,” he says.

After a triumphant ride on a top-ranked bull for the final action scene, Bolton felt better than ever.

Securing his place on the 2015 PBR tour, he successfully qualified for his first PBR World Finals that fall, finishing in seventh place overall. Bolton headed into 2016 thinking it could finally be his year for the championship.

But there in the dirt in that Chicago arena, Bolton knew his neck was broken. He could see the concern

PHOTOGRAPHY: CHRISTY BURLESON

By Lindsay Whelchel

on the normally stoic face of PBR physician Tandy Freeman.

“I remember feeling like it could be my last day on earth, and I just remember praying my last prayer,” Bolton says. “You think about everything that matters to you most in a moment like that, and everything that does matter becomes very clear instantly.”

Bolton had shattered his C2 and C3 vertebrae, leaving him temporarily paralyzed. But his movement and sensitivity returned over the next 24 hours. “[The doctors] said the real miracle was that one of those bone fractures never chipped into my major artery there, which runs your whole brain and body function,” he says. “They said that’s why most people that sustain that injury never walk or talk again.”

Six hours of surgery repaired Bolton’s neck, and although he walked out of the hospital, he faced a long road to recovery.

Using physical therapy and intense exercise, Bolton worked toward what he hoped would be a return to bull riding. Doctors initially told him there was a chance.

“I think they told me that to give me hope,” he says. “They probably knew deep down I would never ride again.”With the placement of the metal between his C2 and C3, right next to a main artery, it became clear that Bolton wouldn’t be released by his doctor to ride.

The dangers associated with any new injury were too great.

“It broke my heart to hear that because of how hard I’d worked to come back,” he says. “Then, to have it all ripped away and my lifelong dreams ripped out from under me in the prime of my athletic career, it was really tough to hear. The next few months were pretty tough to go through.”

Bolton describes having dark moments struggling with physical and emotional pain, feeling angry and lost. He even thought about taking his own life.

It’s a mental health struggle he says he doesn’t mind sharing, because he wants to give hope to others who may feel there is no hope. “I just had to really dig deep, bury my head in my chest, give it all up, and just know that no matter what happens, there’s more to life,” he says, crediting his faith with recovering emotionally.

Bolton also credits IMG Models with helping him back on his feet. “The light at the end of the tunnel started appearing. I started to realize there could be a new future for me doing something else.”

He signed on with the modeling entity of WME | IMG, an entertainment talent agency that had become aware of Bolton after acquiring PBR in 2015.

Now, Bolton has redirected his determination toward modeling, acting, and being an ambassador for the PBR and the cowboy way of life. He’s brought his boots and cowboy hat into the fashion realms of London, Paris, and New York, modeling for high-profile entities like Saks Fifth Avenue. “It’s hopefully giving people that never knew anything about rodeo or the cowboy lifestyle in general a positive look on who we are, what we do, and what cowboys stand for,” he says.

PBR CEO Sean Gleason had been impressed by Bolton in the arena and on the set of The Longest Ride, and he says the organization looks forward to a long relationship with him.

“[The mainstream public] has very little exposure to [cowboy] athletes in the sport, and I think it generally creates a little bit of a wall in terms of understanding the fact that these guys are great guys, athletes in their own right. So when you expose them in an environment outside of the arena, it humanizes them. And people are more inclined to check out what they do for a living,” Gleason says of the mutual benefits.

While Bolton’s success is certainly not the first time a cowboy has crossed into the mainstream, and it’s always been a goal of PBR, according to Gleason, the organization has benefited from resources now being owned by WME | IMG. Bolton was thrust into the spotlight this past spring as a fan-favorite competitor on Dancing With the Stars, where he finished in the final five. He acknowledges the rigorous training and competition were painful for his body, but he was drawn to the opportunity to share his story of triumph over physical and mental health challenges, especially after losing a friend and fellow bull rider, Ty Pozzobon, to suicide in January of this year.

“I knew I was fighting the good fight for a reason,” he says. “There’s a lot of people out there struggling with pain, whether it’s in their heart or physically. I just believed I survived that wreck to be a beacon of hope.

That meant the world to me to be able to hopefully inspire other people.”

And though his new schedule in the limelight can be tiring, the success of his goal was apparent at the Country Music Association Music Festival in Nashville this summer. Bolton was constantly approached by fans who had rooted for him and been moved by his story.

“I wasn’t the best dancer, and that was obvious, but it wasn’t about that. It was about overcoming all that I had went through and just having belief in myself to go out there and try. I let people know it’s OK to be overwhelmed by the odds, but don’t let the odds determine your outcome.”

With that, and a busy list of new projects and appearances ahead, Bolton appears to be embracing the true meaning of “cowboy up.”

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GE T CAUGH T U P ON T H E MODE R N W E S T E R N N E T F LI X S E R I E S A S I T S F I N A L S E A S ON A PPROAC H E S .

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Longmire, the modern-day western crime drama based on the novel franchise by Craig Johnson — and, yes, you can count most of us who ride for the C&I brand in that band of fans — the start of Season 6 can’t come quickly enough.

Granted, this particular 10-episode run will likely be a profoundly mixed blessing, no matter how excellent those episodes might be, since it will be the final season for the series that Netflix picked up in 2014 when it was canceled by A&E (reportedly because it appealed to an older demographic that was unappealing to advertisers, despite it scoring respectable ratings over three seasons on the cable network). But first things first. Before we can even think of what awaits us at the end of

the trail, we want to see how Longmire walks us back from the cliffhangers that were set up in the Season 5 finale.

Consider: During that episode — titled, with more than a dollop of irony, “The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of ” —Walt Longmire (Robert Taylor), the veteran sheriff of Wyoming’s Absaroka County, had to recover from the physical and psychological battering he endured during a fistfight with buddy and confidant Henry Standing Bear (Lou Diamond Phillips), a dust-up fueled by Walt’s (entirely justified) suspicions that Henry has been doling out rough justice as the avenging angel Hector.

Not surprisingly, the fracas brought an end — a temporary one, we can only hope — to their friendship, just at a time when Walt might need all the friends he can get.

PHOTOGRAPHY: URSULA COYOTE/COURTESY NETFLIX

By Joe Leydon

Because of the ongoing bad publicity driven by the wrongful death lawsuit filed against Walt — a carry-over from Walt’s Season 4 shooting of real estate developer Barlow Connally, the man behind the murder of the sheriff ’s wife — image-conscious Mayor Sawyer Crane (Eric Ladin) announced plans to have Walt temporarily removed from office, pending the outcome of the legal proceedings. Trouble is, that suspension may turn out to be a permanent ouster. Behind Walt’s back, Crane took a meeting with Jacob Nighthorse (A Martinez), the sheriff ’s longtime nemesis, and offered to relieve Walt of his badge in 72

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return for Nighthorse’s support during an upcoming reelection campaign.

But wait, there’s more: Walt and therapist Donna Sue Monaghan ended their on-again, off-again romantic relationship after Walt, responding to Donna’s query about their “thing,” responded: “Maybe it’s not the kind of thing we want it to be.” Unfortunately, that left Walt without a shoulder to cry on — figuratively speaking, of course, since Walt isn’t into weeping — when he learned, near the conclusion of the episode, that Tucker Baggett (Brett Rice), Barlow Connally’s estate

PHOTOGRAPHY: URSULA COYOTE/COURTESY NETFLIX

Walt Longmire (Robert Taylor) faces the possibility of losing his job and his land as Season 6 begins.

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attorney, isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t backing down from pursuing the wrongful death lawsuit, because he wants to claim Waltâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s home and property for a major golf course project.

As bad as things looked for Walt, they appeared even worse for Henry â&#x20AC;&#x201D; much, much worse â&#x20AC;&#x201D; at the end of Season 5. The good news: Tribal police chief Mathias (Zahn McClarnon, who recently moonlighted on AMCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s The Son) announced he would stop â&#x20AC;&#x153;requestingâ&#x20AC;? Henryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s extralegal assistance as Hector. The really bad news: The scarred and sinister Malachi (Graham Greene) captured Henry, took him out to a remote corner of the desert, and, with ample help from similarly evil minions, pinned him to ground â&#x20AC;&#x201D; with, not incidentally, stakes that belong to Nighthorse â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and left him to die under the merciless sun.

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LOU DIAMOND PHILLIPS T H E AWA R D -W I N N I NG AC T OR I S A PR E S E NC E ON - S C R E E N A N D I N T H E K I T C H E N.

hen we last profiled Lou Diamond Phillips, he was deep into filming the first season of Longmire, in which he plays Henry Standing Bear, the longtime friend of the titular Sheriff Walt Longmire and the owner of The Red Pony.

This time around, we’re on set watching a scene with Phillips’ Henry opposite Jacob Nighthorse, the Native owner of the casino that has brought violence to the once low-key county of Absaroka.

(Warning: spoilers ahead.)

The pair are deep in conversation about how to protect Nighthorse from a potential murder plot. “Every year when we come back to work, the producers have raised the bar,” Phillips says.

“At the end of Season 5, the audience was not sure that Henry would stay alive for Season 6.

And this season, the fine writing has not only enriched my character, but I am directing the second episode. It’s so exciting to help the cast shine in a different way. The crew is the finest I’ve worked with in a 30-year career.”

Phillips says he rightly suspected from the beginning that there was something very special about the series.

“It was one of the best pilot scripts I’d ever read — classic storytelling evident from the outset.

Our head writers have maintained that level of

cinematic storytelling and there is nothing like it on television. We have a passionate and loyal audience of almost 6 million viewers [per episode]. Airing on Netflix [after the original run on A&E] has given us the opportunity for longer stories and deeper story lines, as we’re not constricted by the traditional 48-minute episode length.” He assures that the final story arc will bring closure and satisfaction.

Phillips’ Henry Standing Bear character has become one of his most beloved portrayals, but the actor has been on the scene for three decades, creating many memorable performances.

He first came to the public’s attention in 1987, when he was cast in the starring role in La Bamba. The now-classic biopic features Phillips as Ritchie Valens, the Mexican-American rock pioneer whose meteoric rise was cut short at the age of 17 in the same 1959 plane crash that took the lives of Buddy Holly and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson.

The role made Phillips a star. He further solidified his reputation with his award-winning turn in Stand and Deliver. More recently, Phillips costarred alongside Antonio Banderas in The 33, about the Chilean mine disaster.

He has been busy with TV projects, too, appearing in everything

PHOTOGRAPHY: URSULA COYOTE

W

from procedural-format shows to sci-fi series to the Netflix sitcom The Ranch.

In addition to his wellrespected acting career, Phillips has branded himself a culinary aficionado with solid bona fides in the food world. He’s been a celebrity judge on Iron Chef America, has competed on the Food Network series Rachael vs.

Guy: Celebrity Cook-Off and the “Sauce Boss Cook-Off ” segment on The Rachael Ray Show — emerging as the winner on both series — and has sat around the table with Gordon Ramsay as a guest on Hell’s Kitchen. Phillips has also competed on the Food Network’s Chopped.

“As my reputation as a serious foodie grew, I was able to move from hobbyist to pseudo-professional in the restaurant industry, most notably when I became one of the original partners in Tribeca Grill in Manhattan with one of my heroes, Robert De Niro,” Phillips says. “I am proud to say that, while my original motivation was purely sentimental — I wanted to be associated with De Niro any way, any how —Tribeca Grill has become an institution and has now been flourishing for 25 years.”

His association with Tribeca Grill and a higher profile in the food world led to even greater involvement.

“Cooking for others has become my modus operandi,” Phillips says, “especially considering the amount of time I spend on location for film, television, and even theater gigs.”

One of Phillips’ favorite holidays and meals is Thanksgiving, and he once cooked this traditional November feast in July for the cast and crew of Longmire.

“I love the Thanksgiving meal so much that I find it hard to stand on tradition and prepare it only every third Thursday of November. One’s blessings should not be limited to a once-a-year event, and with that in mind, I found the occasion near the end of the second season of Longmire to kill — or at least cook — two birds with one stone.”

This last season, Phillips has prepared meals for cast and crew on an ongoing basis, including a vegetarian feast of eggplant Parmesan and a creamy polenta with grilled peppers, corn, and leeks, as well as lamb lasagna and pea pesto served on crostini. At the screening of his Longmire directing debut, he served a special meal of Filipino dishes: pork and chicken adobo and pancit.

When the final season wraps, he’ll miss cooking for this close cast and crew, and he’ll miss his character, too.

“I am completely enamored of the cast and crew, but, on a more selfish note, I feel the role of Henry Standing Bear is one of the most satisfying characters I have ever played,” Phillips says.

“He is complex, intelligent, and iconic because of Craig Johnson’s books. And he is bestowed with the qualities of honor, integrity, and loyalty that I hope to emulate in my own life.”

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Will Henry free himself, or get freed, before he’s baked? Will he ever again invite visitors to the Red Pony Saloon and continual soiree? Will the pregnant deputy Victoria “Vic” Moretti (Katee Sackhoff) establish her own “thing” with the attentive Travis Murphy (Derek Phillips) — or continue to pine for Walt?

And what about Cady Longmire (Cassidy Freeman), Walt’s daughter? Will she continue to be torn between her love for her father and her duties as Nighthorse’s attorney? And what’s the meaning of those spooky visions she experienced during a ceremonial sweat as grateful Cheyenne acquaintances adopted her into their tribe?

Specifically: What’s up with that image of Henry hanging from a noose — and talking on a cell phone?

Presumably, we will receive the answers to these and other burning questions when Longmire returns this fall for its final season. At least, that’s the promise implicit in the prepared statement given by the show’s creative team when it was first announced that Season 6 would indeed be the show’s swan song.

“We are grateful to Netflix,” executive producers Greer Shephard, Hunt Baldwin, and John Coveny said, “for the opportunity to compose a closing chapter for these beloved characters that inspires lasting memories. Most importantly, we’re committed to delivering a dynamic and satisfying conclusion to our fans that rewards their longtime loyalty.”

In turn, the folks at Netflix are encouraging high expectations for how the show will be resolved. “We are proud to be the home of the Longmire series,” said Cindy Holland, Netflix’s vice-president of original content, “as so many viewers over the last few seasons have watched and been captivated by Walt’s journey. There has been no better team to work with on this show than Greer, Hunt, and John, and their tremendous cast and crew, and we have every confidence that they will have a satisfying conclusion to this revered series.”

Still, it will be hard to bid goodbye to the good (and not so good) folks of Absaroka County. To be sure, we’ll still be able to read about most of them in future novels by Craig Johnson. And of course, Netflix will continue to stream all six seasons of the series for subscribers. But many fans of the show will have just cause for melancholy as they consider a television landscape without new episodes of a

PHOTOGRAPHY: URSULA COYOTE/COURTESY NETFLIX

Malachi (Graham Greene) has Henry Standing Bear right where he wants him.

PHOTOGRAPHY: JOHN GOLDEN BRITT/COURTESY NETFLIX

The future is uncertain for the friendship between Walt and Henry.

show that so deftly balanced classic and contemporary takes on the western mythos.

“The American West — the sort of iconic, archetypal, American West that everybody thinks about — was a wide open book as far as morality goes,” Baldwin tells C&I. “There weren’t the sorts of social systems and class structures already in place. People could go out there and theoretically be whoever they wanted to be, and make whatever life for themselves that they wanted to make. And that actually allows for a whole different set of choices in terms of both heroic and nefarious activities. And I think that’s what brings people back to the western time and time again.

“But I also think that over the past 10 years, television viewers in particular have been kind of inundated with antiheroes. Really interesting dark characters like Tony Soprano, or Walter White on Breaking Bad. They may do really cool things — but they are decidedly dark, dark characters. One of the things that attracted us to the Longmire character and Craig’s series of books is they were contemporary and modern and all that — but Longmire himself was still a really, really morally centered hero. Kind of an old-school romantic hero who’s finding a way to exist in modern times.”

And that, Baldwin believes, has been the key to the appeal of the Longmire TV series: For all his flaws, and despite his battles with inner demons, Walt Longmire — thanks in no small measure to Taylor’s unfailingly persuasive and consistently engaging performance as the complex character — has emerged as, to put it as simply as Walt would, a good man at heart.

“There’s a kind of nostalgia for an older type of hero that westerns bring out in a lot of people’s minds,” Baldwin says. “I think it’s one of those things that people are kind of hungry for. Like I said: a real old-school hero. Not one who relies on modern technology. One who relies on his own memory, his own knowledge of the people and the place where he lives. And his perception of humanity, and his intelligence. And his sort of bedrock decency.

“To make a character like that interesting I think is sometimes a little more challenging. But I think it’s something that people have been missing.”

Which is a large part of the reason why we’ll be missing Longmire.

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Rocki Gorman multistrand turquoise necklace ($130), cowboysindians.com/shop.

Prayer stick earrings ($300), jewelryladyredriver.com.

Chelsea Collette Collections blossom pendant necklace, thesparklingspur.com.

Thunderbird necklace by Donovan Cadman ($3,000), sunwesthandmade.com.

Turquoise cuff ($1,850), thesparklingspur.com.

Turquoise ring, goldenfleecejewelry.com.

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(THIS PAGE) Babe suede cape, shopwesternandco.com.

Stretch suede shirt ($365), eq-wear.com. Handmade leather contour belt with hair-on-hide inlays and conchos ($580), leather42. com. High-rise ďŹ&#x201A;are jeans ($58), wrangler.com.

Turquoise blossom earrings ($175), leddys.com. Navi turquoise and leather wrap necklace, thesparklingspur. com. Turquoise Moon squash blossom necklace ($830, with matching earrings), pintoranch.com.

Morenci turquoise cluster necklace ($4,500) and cuff ($1,950) by Andy Cadman, perrynulltrading.com.

(OPPOSITE) 1. Dream Catcher turquoise ropers ($179.99), durangoboots. com. 2. American Hat Co. 50X fedora ($480), besthatstore.com. 3. Taos rosary necklace ($219), desire2b.com. 4. Sweater ankle boot ($330), cantyboots.com. 5. Rhonda Stark blanket purse ($80), leddys.com. 6. Turquesa nubuck boot ($390), liberty-black.com.

7. Hair-on-hide handbag, merlinshideout.com.

8. Hand-beaded cuffs (from $375), desertsagebeadart.com.

9. Buckskin Bandit clutch ($400), doublejsaddlery. com. 10. Mojave Canyon clutch ($850), alliefalcon. com. 11. Custom suede boot with lug sole ($998), backattheranch.com.

12. Turquoise and brown embroidered boot ($288), corralboots.com.

13. Turquoise concho belt ($23,000), thesparklingspur.com.

ON HER: Thunder Quarrel reversible cape by Pendleton ($399), orisons.com. Custom tall suede boots, riosofmercedes. com. Concho earrings ($495), nathaliesantafe.com. Turquoise cluster cuff ($900), castlegap. com. Stamped cuff with Egyptian turquoise by Arnold Blackgoat ($2,700), sunwesthandmade.com.

Tufa-cast cuff by Kevin Yazzie ($2,430), samsvillegallery.com.

ON HIM: Ryan Michael suede jacket ($759), orisons.com. Double R by Resistol plaid shirt ($45), hat-co.com. Wrangler Retro jeans ($54), wrangler.com. Custom Indian chief buckle ($4,495), bohlinmade.com.

Dance Hall hat ($190), charlie1horsehats.com.

Coyote fur vest ($899), merlinshideout.com. Tasha Polizzi tepee tee ($72), thesparklingspur.com. Black Stallion custom leather skirt ($1,800), montanadreamwear. com. Dixie booties ($795), lucchese.com. Prayer stick earrings by Peyote Bird for Double D Ranch ($300), jewelryladyredriver.com. Goldie choker with naja pendant by Chelsea Collette Collections, thesparklingspur.com.

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1. Hand-tooled ďŹ&#x201A;oral belt with black buck stitch ($174) and The Beaded Mesquite buckle ($829) on Running Oak Leaf hand-tooled belt ($94), vogtsilversmiths.com.

2. Custom trophy buckles (from $1,395), bohlinmade. com. 3. Custom 100X beaver felt hat ($800), catalenahats. com. 4. Multistone bolo tie by Hank Whitehorn ($2,950), wrightsgallery. com. 5. Wrangler Retro denim shirt ($49), wrangler. com. 6. Desperado wool vest ($169.95), rhondastark.com.

7. Mantauk custom boots ($2,495), rocketbuster.com.

8. Headdress custom boots ($1,595), rocketbuster.com.

9. Ranchstone twill snap shirt ($75), schaefer-ranchwear. com.10. Rock Art bolo by Ben Nighthorse Campbell ($1,000), sorrelsky.com.

11. Resistol snap shirts ($49.99 each), resistol.com.

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Hand Crafted Jewelry

Gold and Turquoise Our Diamond or Remount Yours

White or Yellow Gold

ON HIM: Arena hat ($659.99), resistol.com.

Diamond Jacquard shirt ($190), ryanmichael.com.

ON HER: Deerskin jacket with antler buttons ($2,398), wildinstincts.net. Wild Hearts tee ($28), rubysrubbish.com.

High-rise ďŹ&#x201A;are jeans ($58), wrangler.com. Squash blossom necklace by Gary Spencer ($3,150), lanterndancer.com.

Chelsea Collette Collections naja pendant necklace, thesparklingspur.com. My Little Cactus necklace with deer hide fringe ($231), rachellem. com. Silver concho belt by Roy Begay ($7,950), store. nationalcowboymuseum.org.

Dannyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Jewelry 275 N. Tegner St. Wickenburg, AZ

1-866-684-5823 www.dannysjewelryaz.com

FASHION RESOURCES Allie Falcon x The Classy Trailer alliefalcon.com

Chelsea Collette Collections 210.827.5130 chelseacollettecollections.com

Hat Co. Apparel 800.288.6579 hat-co.com

American Hat Company 800.392.4197 americanhat.net

Christina Greene 832.803.9152 christina-greene.com

Jewelry Lady Red River 575.770.0226 jewelryladyredriver.com

Amy Kaplan Jewelry Design amy@amykaplanjewelrydesign.com

Corral Boot Company 866.426.0001 corralboots.com

Ariat International ariat.com

Cowboys & Indians Shop 214.750.8222 cowboysindians.com/shop

Jill Duzan Artisan Fine Jewelry 317.289.3751 jillduzan.com

A. Tsagas Custom Furs & Leather 720.941.3877 atsagasdesigns.com

Cowgirl Kim Unique Western Chic 281.703.5814 cowgirlkim.com

Back at the Ranch 505.989.8110 backattheranch.com

Dan Post Boot Company 800.447.3533 danpostboots.com

Kimes Ranch Jeans 888.512.0886 kimesranch.com

Desert Sage Bead Art 775.219.7815 desertsagebeadart.com

Lantern Dancer 970.264.6446 lanterndancer.com

Desire 2 B 408.821.8120 desire2b.com

Laura Ingalls Designs 262.949.1330 lauraingallsdesigns.com

Double D Ranch 800.899.3379 ddranchwear.com

Leather 42 505.604.8532 leather42.com

Double J Saddlery 800.669.2535 doublejsaddlery.com

Liberty Black Boots 844.598.9151 liberty-black.com

Durango Boots 866.442.4908 durangoboots.com

Liz James Designs 512.535.7885 lizjames.com

Dynabelle Designs 480.586.4435 dynabelle.com

Lucchese 888.582.1883 lucchese.com

EQ Wear 918.921.3533 eq-wear.com

Madison Creek Outfitters 706.824.1905 madisoncreekoutfitters.com

Golden Fleece Trading Co. 877.851.2236 goldenfleecejewelry.com

Maverick Fine Western Wear 800.282.1315 maverickwesternwear.com

Bar V Ranch x Vogt 800.344.7457 barvranchsilver.com Best Hat Store 817.625.6650 besthatstore.com Blue Flax Studio 208.521.4392 blueflaxstudio.com The Bohlin Company 800.823.8340 bohlinmade.com Brit West 303.746.1770 britwest.net Canty Boots 406.490.2436 cantyboots.com Castle Gap 214.361.1677 castlegap.com Catalena Hatters 979.822.4423 catalenahats.com Cates Custom Hat Company 806.731.3762 catescustomhatcompany.com

Greeley Hat Works 888.367.2428 greeleyhatworks.com

Junk Gypsy 979.249.5865 gyspyville.com Kanaine 541.969.8736 etsy.com/shop/kanaine

ON HER: Montana Magic poncho by Double D Ranch ($150), therollinj.com. Wool handbag with leather fringe ($295), etsy.com/ shop/kanaine. Spirit Animal boots from Junk Gypsy ($390), gypsyville.com. Bar V Ranch x Vogt cactus earrings ($59), barvranchsilver. com. White Buffalo turquoise bolo ($725), prairieskyjewelryco.com. Ouray leather concho bracelet ($150), lauraingallsdesigns.com. Tufacast cuff by Kevin Yazzie ($2,430) and stamped silver ring ($1,050), samsvillegallery.com.

FASHION RESOURCES The Mercantile 830.992.3870 cowgirlkim.com Merlin’s Hide Out 307.864.3657 merlinshideout.com M.L. Leddy’s 817.624.3149 leddys.com Montana Dreamwear 406.225.3909 montanadreamwear.com Montana Silversmiths 855.358.5002 montanasilversmiths.com The Museum Store at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum 405.478.2250 store.nationalcowboymuseum.org Nathalie Santa Fe 505.982.1021 nathaliesantafe.com Nativa 866.862.8482 nativashop.com Old Gringo 866.395.8735 oldgringoboots.com Orisons 972.562.7077 orisons.com Overland 800.683.7526 overland.com Perry Null Trading Company 505.863.5249 perrynulltrading.com Pinto Ranch 800.393.8001 pintoranch.com Prairie Sky Jewelry Co. 918.728.0804 prairieskyjewelryco.com

Rachelle M. Rustic House of Fashion 971.319.6934 rachellem.com Resistol Apparel hat-co.com

Stetson Hats stetsonhat.com Sunwest Silver 800.771.3781 sunwesthandmade.com

Resistol Hats resistol.com

Tin Rose Boutique 817.568.4764 tinroseboutique.com

Rhonda Stark Designs 800.649.0843 rhondastark.com

Two Grey Hills Gallery 307.733.2677 fineindianart.com

Rios of Mercedes riosofmercedes.com

Vogt Silvermiths 800.344.7457 vogtsilversmiths.com

Rocketbuster Handmade Custom Boots 915.541.1300 rocketbuster.com

Western & Co. 916.397.2539 shopwesternandco.com

Rockwell Tharp 808.268.6131 rockwelltharp.com

Wild Instincts 205.521.8898 wildinstincts.net

The Rollin’ J 785.302.1688 therollinj.com

Wrangler Western 888.784.8571 wrangler.com

Ruby’s Rubbish 940.230.3267 rubysrubbish.com

Wright’s Gallery 505.266.0120 wrightsgallery.com

Ryan Michael 844.738.7424 ryanmichael.com Samsville 505.216.7777 samsvillegallery.com Schaefer Outfitter 800.426.2074 schaefer-ranchwear.com Silverado 505.248.1221 silveradohome.com Sorrel Sky Gallery 866.878.3555 sorrelsky.com The Sparkling Spur 701.421.1489 thesparklingspur.com

Fashion Styling: Holly Henderson Product Styling: Lanelle Corbin Contributing Style Influencer: Brianna Bigbee, The Bleacher Babe Models From Kim Dawson Agency: Kait Ri Emily Deaver Chad Rohde Hair And Makeup: Lisa Martensen, Kim Dawson Agency

Staci Trehern, Miss Rodeo NM 2016 Featured in VOGUE Magazineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 125 Women.

DAVID ROSALES DESIGNS Contemporary Designs, Traditionally made

NATIVE VISIONS BLUE-EYED BEAR COLLECTION Cerritos, CA ShopNativeVisions.com 562-402-6088

Featured at Rollies Camera Sedona, AZ BlueEyedBearSedona 928-282-1158

WARPATH

FOUR WINDS GALLERY

BLACK ARROW JEWELRY & ART

Old Town Albuquerque, NM WarpathTraders.com 505-842-9242

Naples, FL FourWindsNaples.com 239-263-7555

Prescott, AZ BlackArrowGallery.com 800-621-6668

Native American Handcrafted Jewelry Made in the U.S.A.

S P O T L I G H T

PAUL MICHAEL COMPANY

W H E T H E R C U R AT I NG, BU Y I NG, M A K I NG, OR SE LLI NG I T E M S FOR T H E HOM E , PAU L M IC H A E L A N D H I S H A R D WOR K I NG FA M I LY H AV E E S TA BLI S H E D A LE GAC Y OF U N IQU E DE S IG N A N D A RT F U L DE A L S .

By Dana Joseph Photography by Jamison Mosley

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OT THAT YOU’D GUESS IT AT THIS

moment — and not that he’d agree — but the guy under the cool round table is a retail rock star.

Dressed in black boots, jeans, and a smart blue-onblue houndstooth jacket, Paul Michael is crouched down in a showroom at the Dallas Market explaining where he found and how he fashioned every part of his own take on a 19th-century parlor table, down to the pedestal’s lion’s paw feet, which he had reproduced based on an antique from Poland.

You can turn over tags to see prices for all these things, but what’s actually on offer here is a ticket to enjoying life.

Rose Agate Coffee Table (from above), 36 inches wide, with exceptional matrix, polished edges, and brass base handcrafted in Dermott, Arkansas.

Watching and listening, you get the fascinated impression that no bridge is too far in finding, creating, curating, buying, and selling for this self-admitted black sheep whose rebellious early life didn’t necessarily indicate he’d become a business success and influential tastemaker. But he’s both. His four thriving stores — the flagship in Canton, Texas; his base of operation and creation in his hometown of Lake Village, Arkansas; one in River Ranch in Lafayette, Louisiana; and another in Monroe, Louisiana — showcase home décor items whose quality and affordability put the good and beautiful life within reach for a growing fan base.

There’s evidence everywhere of Michael’s impeccable taste and unerring eye. The smooth-as-silk sycamore slab banquet table with the Lucite panel legs. The soft hair-onhides speckled with elegant gold foil spots. The brass Sputnik pendant lamps bursting with polished quartz slices.

The glass cube occasional tables that open for display items. The oversize château cabinet with distinctive antique iron hardware. The big rusty receptacle made from an ornate wrought-iron fence.

The impactful art — from Picasso-like paintings to African graphics — on every wall.

You can turn over tags to see prices for all these things, but what’s actually on offer here is a ticket to enjoying life.

It’s all about Paul Michael’s personal touch.

COWB OYS & I ND I A NS

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Paul and Debbie Michael are heartand-soul people, and, not surprisingly, Market Hill by Paul Michael is a heartand-soul project.

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O C T O B E R 2 017

up a situation and getting creative with it. “We were going to Round Top to buy antiques for our stores,” Michael recalls. “I could see what was going on there, and it rang a little bell. There was a super-high-quality clientele buying and spending lots of money, but the facilities and accommodations weren’t up to it.”

Part of the charm of Round Top might have been the heat and the dust and the we’re-allin-this-together-waiting-for-a-port-a-potty, but Michael saw an opportunity to elevate the experience. And the timing was right: “We had a rice farm in Arkansas that we’d paid off. We decided to sell it and take the money and build a first-class place in Round Top to showcase the things we’re making and selling.”

The we Michael’s referring to is his wife and “50-50 partner” in all things, Debbie. Sitting next to him in a casual chic black shift and white Angora wrap, she nods along with her husband’s recollection of how their latest

entrepreneurial leap of faith came to be. “We sort of stumbled into it all,” she says. “There’s not a part of our married life that’s been planned. We’re good at reacting to things. We evolved into this, and we just never tire of the excitement and fun of doing it.”

Paul and Debbie Michael are heart-andsoul people, and, not surprisingly, Market Hill by Paul Michael is a heart-and-soul project — a full-circle culmination of their relationship and shared career that not coincidentally began in dusty flea markets.

“He found me in a flea market in Nashville,” Debbie says. At the time, she had a shop in Music City on Elliston Place near Exit/In, where she was “buying and selling antique quilts and was the first to sell antique clothing.” Her vintage pieces were finding their way to concert stages and album covers. He was busy buying and selling on the Nashville-Memphis-Canton flea market circuit. “He’d be my late date,” Debbie

PHOTOGRAPHY: (MARKET HILL IMAGES) APRIL PIZANA

One of the best places to experience his personal philosophy writ large is the new Market Hill

by Paul Michael in the twiceyearly antiques Mecca of Round Top, Texas. There Michael has gathered his own wares and 19 of his favorite vendors in an architecturally significant building of his own design — a destination unto itself of indoor airconditioned shops and outdoor covered breezeways, beaucoup parking, loading and unloading zones, and an on-site restaurant that serves up a nice glass of wine and a darn decent lunch and evening meal to cap off a day of hardcore treasure hunting. It’s 130,000 square feet of the look and feel of living life to the fullest, filled with the best quality affordable antiques and decorative arts a hard-earned buck can buy.

It’s probably his best — and certainly his biggest — example of a preternatural gift for sizing

remembers. “He’d say, ‘I’ll be there at midnight.

Wait for me.’ ” She did, and they’ve been together picking, creating, raising a family, and building the business ever since.

It wasn’t always clear that Michael would find his way, especially during his deep-inhale hippie days in the 1970s. But when the smoke finally cleared, he embraced his buying-and-selling birthright. “I grew up in a family department store,” says Michael, the only boy in a family of four sisters whose influence he credits with honing his instincts for décor. “I had an aunt who was a supreme merchant. But all the while I felt the call of the wild and had to try it all.”

He got a first inkling of his calling when he started hanging out with a “dyed-in-the-wool Texas girl. We’d go to the horse races in Hot Springs [Arkansas], and on Sundays we’d go out into the countryside looking for antiques in old country stores and general stores. After racing season, she said, ‘Let’s go to Canton.’ ” He’d never been to the Texas trading town before — it would prove a revelation. “We packed all that stuff we’d been buying during racing season. I knew what she’d paid for it, and I saw what she was making. I thought, This looks good to me. At the end of the weekend, she handed me 600-some dollars — this was COWB OYS & I ND I A NS

97

“But when I started buying and selling, I found myself. It was a use for me on earth. I could see that I could do that, make money doing that, without doing anything immoral or harming anyone. I could go out and make a good, honest living. When I found that, I grabbed it with both arms and have never let it go.”

— Paul Michael

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O C T O B E R 2 017

in the early ’70s — and I said, ‘What’s this?’

She said, ‘This is your half.’ So I started going down to the flea market and buying stuff for a dollar in the field and would take it back to the booth and she’d sell it for 5 dollars.”

He knew he was onto something. Before that, though, Michael says, he had wandered aimlessly and had very low self-esteem. “But when I started buying and selling, I found myself. It was a use for me on earth. I could see that I could do that, make money doing that, without doing anything immoral or harming anyone. I could go out and make a good, honest living. When I found that, I grabbed it with both arms and have never let it go.”

He had his purpose, and he had his code.

He started gathering a team and gathering momentum, identifying talent and opportunity whenever and wherever he might find them.

In the early days, some termite damage at the Arkansas store led to a long-lasting partnership. “The insurance company sent a carpenter

named Terry Barley out to fix it,” Michael remembers. “He was a great guy and we hit it off.” That led to an invitation to help on some projects, and it was Barley’s help and teaching that turned Salvador Dominguez and his brother Pedro into Paul Michael’s secretweapon woodworkers and co-creators. “You find out pretty quick in the creative process, it’s not just ideas,” Michael says. “Steve Jobs used to say that Michelangelo had to know how to quarry marble before he could make David. All that technical knowledge won’t be in one brain. All the brains must work together. If you hung around with us, you’d see the thing that I am most fond of: We are just blessed with people that know how to contribute to the whole. When we’re all done, everybody’s thrown in.”

The family certainly throws in. Daughter Elizabeth launched the company website and social media; daughter Mary left a career in the music business in Nashville to come home

to take on, well, everything; and son Jake, who played a big part in the push to open Market Hill, has apprenticed to his dad in buying, selling, trading, and now designing (witness his handsome conveyor-belt coffee table). And many have cheered Team Paul Michael on along the way. Among the shoutouts he’s anxious to get out there is one for the Houston Ballet and its giant annual Nutcracker Market.

“We occupy a 45,000-square-foot booth filled with 25 tractor-trailer loads, and we sell about half in four days,” he says. It’s the ballet’s top fundraiser, and a highlight every year for Michael not just because he does so well but because, he says, “They bet on me when I was nobody. [Nutcracker Market CEO] Patsy Chapman has a lot to do with my success as a businessman. And [Houston philanthropist] Philamena Baird took me under her wing and gently told me when I was going wrong. She really brought me along. Those people at that ballet encouraged me. If it wasn’t for them ... .

What has happened to me in Texas has been everything.”

You can easily see how people who come into his orbit would hit it off and form fast friendships. It’s easy to get drawn in by Michael and whatever he’s selling. By the natural gregariousness, genuineness, and charm of his Lebanese heritage and Southern roots. And by his constant entertaining stories. Michael segues seamlessly from a recitation of a hilarious Robert Earl Keen song to reflections on how economic and political realities lead to fashion trends to an account of how he and Debbie ended up for a while in the jewelry business with inventory in dozens of big department stores.

“It was the mid- to late ’70s in a Nashville flea market. I was going back and forth from Nashville to Canton. It was the Friday night setup, and I saw a guy kneeling in the sawdust. People were raining down hundred-dollar bills. There were 70 to 80 wealthy, famous, and beautiful people trying to buy Indian jewelry from him. Turquoise jewelry was so hot. He had a suitcase-full straight from the Navajo reservation.

I’m literally on my hands and knees helping him. I didn’t even know him, and I said, ‘Let me have $2,000 worth of stuff to try to sell.’ And he did — without knowing me. It turned out to be Mike Leverett, who would become a real mentor to me. He introduced me to people and mentored me in the jewelry business. Debbie and I got started selling jewelry to Dillard’s. Then we started our own costume jewelry line.”

Michael’s is the kind of conversation that makes you want to write out a place card for him at your dream dinner party. Take, for instance, the story about the sycamore logs. “One time I was driving down the road behind three truckloads of giant sycamore logs. I called my buddy and asked him where they were going. He said his sawmill. I said, ‘Turn around. I want ’em. And I bought ’em right off the highway.

There was enough for 300 tabletops. It was $36,000 — and it was going to be five years before I could get anything out of them. That’s a lonesome feeling.”

Less lonesome once the wood’s been cured, cut, finely sanded, and meticulously finished into insanely stroke-able tabletops that will beautify 300 homes and, by extension, the lives of anyone who sits around them.

How those sycamore tabletops came into being — from wild hair on the highway to gorgeous items in the store — is just one of many examples of the teamwork that makes the vision real and the joy possible. “It’s a gleeful existence among us when we’re doing something good,” Michael says. “You can feel it. ... When we hit on something, it’s not really about the money at a certain point.”

Creating and picking, buying and selling — he wouldn’t do anything else. When he does take a break, he might go fishing at a quiet spot or golfing at Pebble Beach.

More often than not, though, Michael’s on the go, much to the affectionate frustration of daughter Mary, whose job is in part to keep track of him and his crazy schedule. From late September into early October she’ll be sure to find him in Round Top, when the fall antiques market is in high gear. Around Thanksgiving and Christmas, he’ll be found in Lake Village, baking 150 much-coveted loaves of bread, which he’s

known for giving away. At 5 o’clock on any given day, you’ll find him adjourning for cocktails and camaraderie.

Right now he’s heading out into a sea of stuff to see what he can see. Immersed in it all, he’ll get high on the thrill of finding something special.

But that will have to wait for a bit. On his way out of the showroom, Michael is stopped by a woman and her young son. “Are you Paul Michael?” she asks. “I love your store in Canton!” She’s got a store of her own, she tells him. They happen to be standing beside what Michael tells her is his most versatile piece. “It’s our single bestseller,” he says, “expensive but a great value. It starts with a real antique cart that was originally used in factories before they had pallets. A customer actually helped design this.” We all stop to admire the terrific handles that really make the piece. “During the early days of travel, porters used to put your baggage on carts,” he says. “This is perfect for firewood!”

Caught up in the Paul Michael moment, the woman almost forgets why she stopped him in the first place. It’s not for an autograph — it’s for something more valuable: advice from Paul Michael.

“What’s the secret to longevity?” she asks earnestly.

Michael doesn’t hesitate for a second and answers with the sincerity and confidence of someone who was just born for this: “An honest deal,” he says. “There’s no substitute for an honest deal.”

Find out more about Market Hill and take a virtual tour at markethillroundtop.com, follow on Instagram @market_hill_round_top, and stop in during Antiques Week in Round Top, Texas, September 15 – October 7. Drop by the Paul Michael booth at the Nutcracker Market in Houston, November 9 – 12. Visit Paul Michael Company online at paulmichaelcompany.com.

The Promise a most unusual gift of love

THE POEM READS:

“Across the years I will walk with you— in deep, green forests; on shores of sand: and when our time on earth is through, in heaven, too, you will have my hand.”

Dear Reader, The drawing you see above is called The Promise. It is completely composed of dots of ink. After writing the poem, I worked with a quill pen and placed thousands of these dots, one at a time, to create this gift in honor of my youngest brother and his wife.

Now, I have decided to offer The Promise to those who share and value its sentiment. Each litho is numbered and signed by hand and precisely captures the detail of the drawing. As a wedding, anniversary or Valentine’s gift or simply as a standard for your own home, I believe you will find it most appropriate.

Measuring 14" by 16", it is available either fully-framed in a subtle copper tone with hand-cut double mats of pewter and rust at $135, $95. Please add $14.50 $145, or in the mats alone at $105. $16.95 for insured shipping and packaging. Your satisfaction is completely guaranteed.

My best wishes are with you.

The Art of Robert Sexton • P.O. Box 581 • Rutherford, CA 94573 MasterCard and Visa orders welcome. Please send card name, card number, address and expiration date, or phone (415) 989-1630 between 10 am-6 pm PT, Monday through Saturday. Checks are also accepted.

Please allow 5-10 business days for delivery.

Please visit my Web site at

www.robertsexton.com

Fantastic 2-DAY Old West Artifact, Firearms, and Art Auction October 28 / 29, 2017 â&#x20AC;˘ waco, Texas NO BUYERâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S PREMIUM

Over 100 Spurs and Bits

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Auctioneer Scott Franks TXS-7222

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Featuring the fine collection of avid Texas Collector, George Jackson , the incredible Bit & Spur Collection of Deanie Henderson, from Plainview, Texas, and firearms & old west artifacts from the late Dan Hardesty â&#x20AC;&#x153;Old West Museumâ&#x20AC;?. Mr. Jackson is known nationally for the fine quality of early Bowies and his massive collection of authentic badges from the old west and turn of the century. The offering of Bits & Spurs will be one of the most unique collections to surface in years. Combining these two collections with the late Dan Hardestyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s collection will take this 2-Day auction over the top in quality. Also original Art and Bronzes by artists such as: Porfirio Salinas, J.W. Hampton, W. A. Slaughter, Robert Summers, G. Harvey, Jim Thomas, Covelle Jones, Donald M. Yena, H. T. Fisk, Donald Putnam and many others!

A & S Auction Co., will offer a 200 page full color Catalog, with photograph and description of each item. Catalogs will be $25.00 that includes priority postage. You may order your catalog by calling our office at 1-254-799-6044 or by mailing your check or money order to A & S Auction Co., LLC, 900 East Loop 340, Waco, Texas 76705.

By ordering your catalog, you may bid In-House, by Phone, Absentee or On-line. Catalogs will be mailed Priority approximately 30 days prior to auction date.

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W E S T E R N

G O U R M E T

TASTE OF THE WEST

C&I CHARTS THE PEOPLE, PLACES, DISHES, AND GEAR T H AT DEF I N E W E S T ER N E AT S.

T

Illustrations by Jonathan Fehr

he tale of food in the West goes back further than the Lewis and Clark Expedition of Discovery’s dependence on food for diplomacy, trade, and survival. The region’s assembly of cuisines begins with pre-European-contact staples such as the three sisters (corn, squash, and beans), so called because indigenous farmers grew the crops in such close proximity to one another that they had a symbiotic relationship with each other and the earth. The crops remain crucial to Native American foods, which lately have received deserved attention and made a foray into contemporary restaurant kitchens and food trucks.

We’re not talking about fry bread, here, although that dish remains significant in the story of the region’s food.

We’re talking wild rice, timpsula, game, farmed produce, and the full spectrum of America’s bounty.

These culinary riches began to share plate real estate during westward expansion, eventually spurring into new traditions and regional specialties. While foods like the corn tortilla and its blue-corn cousin piki bread endure — and are even celebrated in high-end,

award-winning kitchens — the torrent of ingredients has resulted in surprising and delectable dishes like the rustic workman’s stew cioppino. Necessity put Oklahoma fried onion burgers on diners’ plates. Sweets haven’t been exempt from innovation, either. Beloved candy bars and Kool-Aid have their provenance in the West.

As for contemporary innovations and trends, we can point to things like a reemphasis on craftsmanship and tradition for simultaneously preserving and pushing the boundaries of Western eats. The evidence is in craft breweries, sustainable wineries, local whiskey bars, and thoughtful sourcing by butchers and chefs. Elements of adventure give us the opportunity to catch and forage for our fine-dining meals.

Some of the stories and subjects we have chosen to spotlight herein were born around the campfire. Yet others came out of industrious minds with impressive work ethics and a compulsion for tinkering. So diverse is the West and its food.

We hope you will relish our choices and share your own in return.

—José R. Ralat

MOO-ORE MEATS

n La Jolla, California, IHomegrown 9-year-old Meats/

FISHING EXCURSIONS IN THE WEST

hen plotting a fishing trip, take into account the Five S rule: size, strength, solitude, W scenery, and story. Translation: You want a fish large enough to pose with, a fighter caught in a secluded place drenched in natural splendor. If you can’t weave a good fish tale out of all that over dinner, you probably need a new line. These excursions cover those bases and more, from horseback riding and wildlife-watching to chefs perfectly preparing your catch fresh from the water.

John Day River, Oregon At 281 miles, the John Day is one of the longest undammed rivers in the contiguous United States. It also supports the largest remaining wild run of steelhead trout in the Columbia Basin. Its smallmouth bass fishery has been called the country’s best west of the Mississippi — 75-fish-per-rod days aren’t uncommon. Cabins are scattered along the remote high-desert corridor, but the best way to take it in is by dayor tent-trip (with a riverbank fresh bass cook-up) out of tiny Condon, the heart of Oregon’s fly-fishing community. Guided trips and tent camping from $395 per day per person.

503.819.4035, fly-fishingguide-oregon.com 106

O C T O B E R 2 017

Bear Camp, British Columbia, Canada A short flight from Vancouver, the Chilko River isn’t wellknown, but insiders revere it among North America’s finest dry fly-fisheries. Crystal clear, the river’s feisty wild rainbows range from 14 to 30 inches. With one of B.C.’s largest sockeye runs, you can also catch king salmon in late summer. On Chilko Lake, remote Bear Camp does tent glamping on elevated decks where, during salmon runs, you’re practically assured of seeing grizzlies wander about while you sip cocktails.

Luxury tent packages from $1,995, double occupancy, four nights. 888.639.1114, iroamtheworld.com/trips/ bear-camp-multi-sport

Alaska’s Boardwalk Lodge, Southeast Alaska Near Ketchikan, one of Alaska’s elite fishing lodges does it all — fly-, freshwater, and saltwater fishing for everything from massive king salmon and halibut to steelhead and Dolly Varden.

With this type of unrivaled action, glacier tours and haute cuisine are rendered mere distractions — almost.

“Preparing guests’ catch of the day is a huge part of what we do. It’s a big reason many of our guests are repeat visitors,” says owner Brad Steuart.

Packages from $5,000 per person, three nights, two days. 800.764.3918, boardwalklodge.com — Chuck Thompson

Homegrown Meats, 7660 Fay Ave., Suite C, La Jolla, California, 858.454.6328, homegrownmeats.com

PHOTOGRAPHY: NICK CARMAN

THE LINE ON FISH TALES

La Jolla Butcher Shop’s operation blends the old-school butcher’s craft with a modern, grass-fed, and all-natural palate.

Dan Snyder and business partners Matt Rimel, Thad Benshoof, and Peter Morris pull from Black Angus/Hereford hybrid cattle raised on native California grasses at family-run Mendenhall Ranch on nearby Palomar Mountain.

But there’s more at Homegrown Meats than beef. The shop stocks a range of organic lamb cuts, pork, game, and that’s not all. It’s very much the old ways stacked with the new and now. Customers can also pick up California cheeses from Cypress Grove or Cowgirl Creamery, olive oils, and other fixings for the perfect homegrown cheese board.

— José R. Ralat

SEATTLE’S RADIATOR WHISKEY

PHOTOGRAPHY: NICK JURICH/COURTESY RADIATOR WHISKEY

W

hiskey bars are generally inviting places, but Radiator Whiskey has more going for it than most. For starters, its Pike Place Market location, with a view onto First Avenue, is in the hub of Seattle’s buzzing downtown tourist district.

Opened in 2013, it looks far older, thanks to the use of reclaimed materials, such as a set of old bleachers from a local high school used to make bar tops and tables.

Then there’s the smoked half pig face, an order-ahead menu item. Yes, it’s really half a pig’s face presented in profile on your plate — cheek and snout meat intact, tongue and ears prepared separately. Whoever eats the eyeball gets a free shot of whiskey. Gratis or otherwise, it’s the drinks that keep folks coming back.

“We specialize in American whiskeys because it’s what we love, but we still offer a fair share of single malts,” says general manager and beverage director Sara Rosales.

Radiator stocks 200 or so whiskeys with about 20 regional spirits, including a local Bainbridge Battle Point organic wheat whiskey — yet another warm reminder that, yes, we’re in Seattle.

One reviewer called its profile “reminiscent of a heavily buttered slice of banana walnut bread.”

Make that organic banana walnut bread, please.

— Chuck Thompson Radiator Whiskey, 94 Pike St., Suite 30, Seattle, 206.467.4268, radiatorwhiskey.com

STORYTELLING CHEFS

is narrative, chefs are storytellers. In kitchens all over the West, chefs are making a difference Ichefsfinfood how we eat by telling their stories through whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s presented on the plate. C&I talked with three whose food â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and tales â&#x20AC;&#x201D; we particularly love. James Beard Foundation Award-winning chef Hugo Ortega connects with his family and Mexican roots; Laura Cole celebrates the rich bounty of the Last Frontier; and Brian Yazzie keeps the foodways of his and other indigenous cultures alive.

Each has a unique and powerful approach to how they cook and taste the West.

8IFSF UP Ă OE IJN: At one of his four restaurants in Houston, including the Bon AppĂŠtit â&#x20AC;&#x153;Top Tableâ&#x20AC;? Hugoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, and the newest, Xochi, which serves modern Oaxacan cuisine inspired by the dishes his grandmother used to make.

8IZ IF T OPUFXPSUIZ After six nominations, Ortega won the James Beard Award for Best Chef Southwest in 2017. .PTU WJWJE DIJMEIPPE GPPE NFNPSZ â&#x20AC;&#x153;When my grandmother would toast cacao beans on a clay comal, we knew two things would happen: one was mole and the other, chocolate.â&#x20AC;? %FTDSJCF ZPVS TUZMF JO UISFF XPSET â&#x20AC;&#x153;From the heart. Sometimes after I make a dish, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll close my eyes and think about the ingredients, and I think, If I

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O C T O B E R 2 017

present this to my grandma, what would she think?â&#x20AC;?

'BWPSJUF JOHSFEJFOU â&#x20AC;&#x153;Chocolate.

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the most intriguing ingredient by far and the most iconic, along with corn.â&#x20AC;? #SFBLGBTU â&#x20AC;&#x153;On Sundays at Hugoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s we have brunch, and Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll have chilaquiles. But during weekdays, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll just eat a tortilla with house-made queso fresco. Simplicity for me is important.â&#x20AC;?

-BTU NFBM: â&#x20AC;&#x153;A crunchy chicharrĂłn with avocado and fresh tomatillo salsa.â&#x20AC;? *G IF XFSFO U B DIFG IF E CF â&#x20AC;&#x153;A clothing designer. I love shoes and clothes.â&#x20AC;?

0O UIF NFOV OPX â&#x20AC;&#x153;Right now in Mexico, theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re picking ďŹ&#x201A;ying ants called chicatana, a unique ďŹ&#x201A;ying ant. People season and toast it and make a quick salsa with it. Or you can make an incredible mole with chicatana, which is what we do, and we serve it with steak. Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re big â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a half-inch long and kind of meaty-tasting, kind of gamey.

After the ďŹ rst rains in the spring, they begin to ďŹ&#x201A;y, and dogs go wild trying to catch and eat them. They hatch for maybe a week, so you have to be very aware. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s part of our ancient traditions.â&#x20AC;? chefhugoortega.com

LAURA COLE 8IFSF UP Ă OE IFS Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the owner-executive chef at 229 Parks Restaurant and Tavern at Denali National Park & Preserve, Alaska.

8IZ TIF T OPUFXPSUIZ A twotime James Beard Award semiďŹ nalist, her restaurant, 229 miles north of Anchorage, is a destination for daily changing menus featuring innovative hyperlocal cuisine, including eggs from her neighborâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s chickens and honey from the areaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 4-H club. $PPLJOH TUZMF JO UISFF XPSET â&#x20AC;&#x153;Foraged, farmed, Alaskan.â&#x20AC;? " TJHOBUVSF EJTI â&#x20AC;&#x153;Housemade lemon semolina pasta, leeks, king crab, dill with lemon oil, and a hint of cayenne. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s served with a carrot reduction sauce and a little bit of butter.â&#x20AC;?

'BWPSJUF JOHSFEJFOU â&#x20AC;&#x153;Reindeer.

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not like beef; itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s slightly sweet, but the meat is very lean. We have a reindeer hanging right now for prosciutto. We get whole reindeer, break it down, and sell the extra fat to a company that makes soap out of it.â&#x20AC;? #SFBLGBTU â&#x20AC;&#x153;Yogurt, granola, and honey. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s probably the

only meal I eat during the day.

I make my own granola, and I eat Greek yogurt because it has a higher protein content, plus I like the texture.â&#x20AC;?

'BWPSJUF LJUDIFO UPPM â&#x20AC;&#x153;A Vitamix is my lifeblood. I have two. You need a backup of everything, because if something breaks, you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t just go to the store.â&#x20AC;?

8IBU ZPV WF NBEF SFDFOUMZ UIBU ZPV MPWF â&#x20AC;&#x153;I like the octopus dish the way weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re doing it now: poached and charred with squid ink noodles tossed with orange oil with ham-hock broth, tomatoes, jalapeĂąo, and ďŹ&#x201A;at-leaf parsley. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the sweet char of octopus, briny squid ink, and bite of jalapeĂąo. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unexpected.â&#x20AC;? )FSP DIFG â&#x20AC;&#x153;Alice Waters, hands down. Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a strong woman in this industry, but sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s never lost her compassion for the story that ingredients tell on their way to becoming a dish.â&#x20AC;? 229parks.com

PHOTOGRAPHY: JULIE SOEFER/COURTESY HUGO ORTEGA, EVA CAPOZZOLA/COURTESY LAURA COLE

HUGO ORTEGA

BRIAN YAZZIE

PHOTOGRAPHY: MICHAEL OJIBWAY (RED CLIFF BAND OF LAKE SUPERIOR CHIPPEWA)/COURTESY BRIAN YAZZIE

8IFSF UP Ă OE IJN Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the chef de cuisine at The Sioux Chef in Minneapolis.

8IZ IF T OPUFXPSUIZ Yazzie, whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s from Dennehotso, Arizona, on the Navajo Nation, uses modern techniques with ancestral knowledge along with pre-contact ingredients, locally sourced and from tribal farms around the nation, to create innovative cuisine. Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s one to watch in the indigenous food movement. %JTI IF T DSFBUFE MBUFMZ â&#x20AC;&#x153;Red Lake Reservation wild rice pilaf with heirloom carrots from a local farm, parsnips, ramps [with] a

Hopi blue-corn-crusted Red Lake walleye, one of the main staples of Minnesota ďŹ shing, with a foraged-greens pesto.â&#x20AC;?

8IBU IF FBUT FWFSZ EBZ â&#x20AC;&#x153;I mostly use pre-European-contact ingredients. A few items I have in my pantry at home: I have dried heirloom beans, corn, amaranth, quinoa, and different cornmeals/ďŹ&#x201A;ours and processed foraged fruits, nuts, greens, and mushrooms.â&#x20AC;?

8IBU ZPV XPO U Ă OE JO IJT LJUDIFO White sugar and highly processed foods. He uses agave nectar, honey, pure maple syrup, and raw sugar instead.

'BWPSJUF JOHSFEJFOU â&#x20AC;&#x153;Corn. You can do a lot with corn. Right now, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m working on a bluecorn sorbet with agave and a pinyon tart. The blue corn is from my tribe, Navajo, and the agave is from my area, the Southwest.â&#x20AC;? #SFBLGBTU JT VTVBMMZ â&#x20AC;&#x153;Coffee and pinyons. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not a big breakfast person.â&#x20AC;?

-VODI â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got some leftover bison, fresh ramps, and a gluten-free bagel, so Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll probably do something with that. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll toast up the bagel, wilt the ramps, reheat the bison on the stovetop, and make a sandwich. The other day, I made spruce-tip syrup, so I might add that to boost the ďŹ&#x201A;avor.â&#x20AC;?

5ISFF XPSET UP EFTDSJCF IJT DPPLJOH TUZMF â&#x20AC;&#x153;Coast to coast. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m Navajo from the Southwest and I deďŹ nitely focus on my region, but I have been residing in the Twin Cities the past ďŹ ve years and have gained so much knowledge about Great Lakes food culture. There are chefs who focus on micro-regional foods, but as for me, I like to work with ingredients across the board. For example, I have a go-to dish and it consists of wild rice, sage, maple-glazed salmon from Alaska, nopales, and New Mexico Hatch green chile salsa. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all about respecting the food with appropriation and keeping its natural ďŹ&#x201A;avor proďŹ le.â&#x20AC;? sioux-chef.com â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Ellise Pierce

STACKED RED CHILE ENCHILADAS (Serves 4) 6 – 8 dried red New Mexico chiles, stemmed and seeded 1 clove garlic 1 teaspoon ground Mexican oregano ½ pound pork, cubed from a roast or chops 1 – 1½ pounds lean ground beef 12 corn tortillas Vegetable oil for frying 2 cups grated cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese 1 medium onion, chopped Cover the chiles with very hot water and soak for 20 – 30 minutes or until limp and partially rehydrated.

can only be described as medium soupy.

Remove the pork pieces and save for another meal such as carne adovada. Place the chile sauce in the refrigerator and cool. Remove any fat that congeals on the top.

Season the beef with a little salt and pepper and sauté in a skillet until the meat is no longer pink. Combine the sauce and beef and simmer, covered, for an additional 30 – 45 minutes.

Fry 3 tortillas per person in a couple of inches of oil until they are slightly harder than taco shells. As they are removed from the oil with tongs, dip each into the red chile pot until they are fully submerged.

DAVE DEWITT IS THE POPE OF PEPPERS

Place the chiles in the blender (they should loosely fill three-fourths of the container; if more, make 2 small batches). Fill the container up nearly to the top with water. Drop in the clove of garlic and sprinkle the top with the oregano. Add a little salt at this stage if you wish. Blend for 2 – 3 minutes on high or until a homogeneous orangered mixture is obtained.

Pour the mixture into a saucepan and add the pork. Cook, covered over a very low heat or uncovered at a slight bubble, for 2 – 3 hours.

If cooked uncovered, periodically add water back to original level to maintain proper consistency, which

Remove, place on an oven-safe dish and top with some cheese and onion.

Continue the process until the tortillas are stacked 3 high on each plate.

Ladle red chile, including a small amount of the meat, over the tortilla stack until it is puddled up as deep as it will stand around the base of the stack. Cover the enchiladas lightly with grated cheese and place in a 250-degree oven for 20 minutes.

Recipe adapted and edited from Southwest Table: Traditional Cuisine From Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona (Rowman & Littlefield, 2011) with permission of the author.

Dave DeWitt is a food historian and the author of Dishing Up New Mexico: 145 Recipes From the Land of Enchantment. DeWitt has published about 50 other books (and counting), most of which have the word “spicy,” “fiery,” or “pepper” in their titles. He has been dubbed “The Pope of Peppers” by The New York Times, and he travels the country promoting uses of the chile. DeWitt is the best PR machine the chile has ever seen.

“New Mexico’s love for and dependence on the chile pepper is the most obvious thing that sets our cuisine apart,” DeWitt says. “New Mexico has two state vegetables: the chile pepper and the pinto bean. Neither of those are actually veggies. The pepper is a fruit, and the pinto bean is a legume.”

So which chile is the chile pepper expert’s favorite? “New Mexico chiles are my favorite. They’re the most versatile that I have found,” DeWitt says. “I prefer red to green.

When you think about how fruit ripens, the red fruit is more mature and more complex.

There’s just a depth of flavor that exceeds the green chile.” dave-dewitt.com — Alice Laussade

DUTCH OVEN, UTAH

O

K, there’s not really a place called Dutch Oven, Utah, but it would be fitting if there were. The iconic three-legged cast-iron lidded pot was the favored utensil of Mormon pioneers, and it is the official state cooking pot. Home to more Dutch ovens per capita than any other state, Utah is also home to the International Dutch Oven Society. It must be doing a good job of advancing its goal of preserving and promoting the skills and art of Dutch oven cooking, because the society describes its growth from humble beginnings in the Rocky Mountains to “the largest and most productive group of black-pot enthusiasts in the world.”

You can experience the group’s motto — “Good Friends, Good Food, and Good Fun” — firsthand at the society’s annual World Championship Dutch Oven Cook-Off at Utah State Fair Park in Salt Lake City during the Utah State Fair held September 8 – 9. If you’re thinking of entering, heed this: “Over the years, the bar has been raised higher and higher,” according to Cyndi Boyer, a past World Championship cook-off winner and wife of society president Rod Boyer. “Backyard cookout favorites like chili, stew, or dump cake will not get you a berth in the finals. Instead, you’ll find filet mignon with lobster, crown rib roast, duck breast, or glazed Cornish game hens.”

— Dana Joseph

COOKIES SAY THE DARNEDEST THINGS Wherein we present some eyebrowraisin’ slang terms to sling during your next chuck wagon experience.

CALF SLOBBER the meringue on a pie

HEN FRUIT eggs

COW GREASE butter

SWAMP SEED rice

CHUCK WAGON CHICKEN fried bacon. Mmm.

WRECK PAN the place you put your dirty dishes, if you’re a polite cowboy

PHOTOGRAPHY: (OPPOSITE PAGE) SERGIO SALVADOR, WES NAMAN/COURTESY DAVE DEWITT

For more information on the International Dutch Oven Society, visit idos.com.

COWB OYS & INDIANS

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W

ashington is rightly known as a hot spot for craft beer, thanks to the state’s ideal climate for growing hops. But there’s another crop for which the state is famed, and it’s the primary ingredient in another booming craft beverage.

Apple cider was once the most popular alcoholic drink in America, says Nick Gunn, president of the Northwest Cider Association.

But during Prohibition, cider-apple trees were cut down, and the industry never recovered.

(Table apples are much sweeter than the bitter, astringent ones used for dry ciders.)

Recently, though, hard cider has made a comeback, says Emily Ritchie, the association’s executive director, and the industry is enjoying phenomenal growth comparable to the recent craft beer boom. In 2010, the Northwest Cider Association had seven members. Today there are 80. Twenty-nine of those are in Washington.

Gunn credits a few factors for cider’s blossoming popularity in the Northwest, including the area’s influx of young entrepreneurs to the area, similar expansion in craft beer and wine, and demand for gluten-free products. Nationwide, he says, cider makes up 1 to 1.5 percent of the alcoholic beverage industry, while it’s 5 or 6 percent in the Northwest.

The craft cider industry is so young it doesn’t have universal terms for types of cider.

But there’s a wide variety: sweet, dry, sparkling, still, hopped, barrel-aged. They can be made with other fruits or honey, and fermented with various yeast strains or wild-fermented in the farmhouse style. There are hazy ciders and clean, wine-style ones comparable to champagne. Which one is best for your palate? Ritchie recommends finding a good bar or tasting room and ordering a flight to sample the wide range of flavors and find out which ones you like.

— Jesse Hughey Washington Cider Week is September 7 – 17 and includes food pairing menus, tap takeovers, limited releases, and other events across the state. Visit nwcider.com for more information.

CIDER SUGGESTIONS TWO PACIFIC NORTHWEST-BASED EXPERTS SHARE THEIR CIDER RECOMMENDATIONS NICK GUNN, president of the Northwest Cider Association: Though he no longer has a stake in the company he cofounded, his top choices still include Wandering Aengus for Old World-style dry ciders and its Anthem Cider for a more sessionable fruit-driven drink. His other picks: Finn River Cider experiments with wild yeast strains and offers farmhouse-style ciders. Seattle Cider Company’s offerings are more sessionable, with unique blends and an enthusiasm for experimentation similar to craft breweries. Whitewood Cider Co. is a small but highquality operation that creates unique ciders from old apple varieties. nwcider.com KATE SMITH, the blogger behind Cider Says: Her all-time favorite is Alpenfire Cider’s Smoke, “a unique, bold, and complex 16-percent ABV barrel-aged cider.” She also likes Liberty Ciderworks’ portlike single-varietal Manchurian Crabapple; Schilling Hard Cider’s King’s Schilling, “a budget-friendly and tasty but easy-to-drink apple-brandybarrel-aged and fortified cider”; and Snowdrift Red Cider, “a fruity cider made from red-fleshed apples, a rare variety that originally hails from Kazakhstan but is now grown in their orchard, is literally crimson red instead of off-white inside, and creates a rosé cider.” cidersays.com — J.H.

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SAY MIM-BRAIN-YO BUT SPELL THIS STRIKING, HISTORIC CHINA MIMBREÑO

PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY HF COORS

Y

ou could hardly get a more iconic plateful of Western design history than Mimbreño restaurant china. It’s downright legendary stuff. Based on pottery motifs from ancient tribes in New Mexico’s Mimbres Valley, the pictograph patterns were designed by Mary J. Colter in the 1930s when she worked as chief interior designer and architect for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway and the Fred Harvey Company, which had a contract with the railroad to civilize Western travel by providing quality food and lodging along its routes.

Later, Fred Harvey also operated the railway’s dining cars.

From 1937 to 1971, Mimbreño china was used in the Santa Fe Railway’s Super Chief dining cars. Today, those original pieces are rare and highly collectible. Fortunately, you can buy newly minted Mimbreño made largely from the original artwork positives from HF Coors in Tucson, Arizona. For company president Dirck Schou, the decade it took to nail down the licensing agreement was a labor of love.

A Southwest native, Schou loves Colter’s national park achievements, which include the Grand Canyon’s Desert View Watchtower and Phantom Ranch, as well as the interiors of the park’s famed El Tovar Hotel. He considers La Posada Hotel, in Winslow, Arizona — where she designed or selected everything from the buildings and landscaping to the furniture and dinnerware — her crowning achievement.

But as a longtime potter, Schou considers Colter’s most evocative work the maroon and black Mimbreño. For him it carries the mystery and artistry of the little-known indigenous people whose ancient pottery inspired her. “I continue to be taken by the art and the story of this small, otherworldly valley in New Mexico where these Native Americans created this unbelievable, gorgeous utilitarian artist-ware.”

— Dana Joseph HF Coors makes Mimbreño in Tucson, Arizona, where you can tour the factory and shop in the factory store; 520.903.1010, hfcoors.com. Find out more at cowboysindians.com.

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OUR FAVORITE

CARBS

THE OKLAHOMA

FRIED ONION BURGER

T

he air inside Sid’s Diner tingles sweet and pungent. The source? The restaurant’s famed fried onion burgers cooked on the salt pork-seasoned grill, an Oklahoma specialty whose epicenter is a network of two Sooner State towns: Ardmore (along Interstate 35) and El Reno (along Route 66). According to one legend, it was in 1926 at the latter burg’s now-shuttered Hamburger Inn that ribbons of caramelized onions were first smashed into a griddling beef patty. At the time they were called Depression burgers, says Adam Hall, who along with his wife, mother, and father, Marty, works at and runs the family restaurant. Established in 1967 and named in honor of Marty Hall’s father, Sid, the restaurant has been in its current location for 30 years.

“During the Depression, hamburger meat was really expensive,” Hall says, “and they had to find a way to ration the meat.” The inclusion of onions stretched out the amount of protein available for serving in those lean years. “[The fried onion burger recipe] has since been passed down generation to generation, and we still have the burgers today.”

Of course there’s more than one creation story — such is the way of food. Another tale claims the onion burger was first served in the pre-boom postwar years. Whichever is true, one thing is certain: The patty of beef and allium is an all-in order. It’s not first-date material. The dish carries the weight of struggle and sacrifice of a people who came out of the 20th century triumphant and proud. The onion burger is a bite of the history and cultural makeup that define Oklahoma and the West.

— José R. Ralat Sid’s Diner, 300 S. Choctaw Ave., El Reno, Oklahoma, 405.262.7757, sidsdinerelreno.com. For more on the fried onion burger at Sid’s Diner, including a recipe, visit cowboysindians.com.

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etables. Dressed up with custard and sauce, it makes an excellent pudding. Bread in its many incarnations might be the ultimate universal staple. It’s certainly integral to the way we eat in the West.

Tortillas, both corn and flour, have long sustained the people of Texas and the Southwest. In A Log of the Texas-California Cattle Trail, 1854, a cowboy at a New Mexico camp wrote of his evening meal consisting of a flour tortilla and a piece of bacon.

What is Navajo country without fry bread at a roadside stand or powwow? Or New Mexico without piki, the Hopi blue corn analog to tortillas served in gossamer sheets or in rolls after cooking on a pinyon-fired piki stone? Or the Southwest without sopaipillas to punctuate a meal with a scattershot of confectioner’s sugar dusting the fried dough pillows?

Farther west, what would San Francisco be without its famed sourdough? Popularized by French bakers during the California Gold Rush, the crusty white bread — characterized by the sourness imparted by the one-two punch of lactobacillus bacteria and yeast — is so ingrained in local culture that the San Francisco 49ers football team’s mascot is named Sourdough Sam. Even the bacteria used for the bread bears the city’s name: Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis. As with other good breads, sourdough’s fame has spread throughout the West. Witness Perini Ranch Steakhouse in Buffalo Gap, Texas.

The memorable bread pudding there? That flavor bomb consists of Jack Daniel’s whiskey sauce and pecans on a custardy bed of sourdough bread.

— J.R.R. Get the recipe for the Perini Ranch Steakhouse Bread Pudding With Whiskey Sauce at cowboysindians.com.

PHOTOGRAPHY: ROBERT STRICKLAND

read. It soaks up ciB oppino and chili.

It cradles meat and veg-

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FRIED PRIDE

I

first learned of the National Indian Taco Championship while writing “More Than an Indian Taco,” for which I had covered nearly a millennium of history and explored the significance of fry bread (October 2013 issue). In the process, I fell head over ropers for Indian tacos — a fluffy, saddle tan-hued exterior and spongy interior as the foundation of beef, chili, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and more. I was determined to make a pilgrimage to Pawhuska, deep in Oklahoma’s Osage Nation.

And there I was in October 2016, in the middle of the town that seemed to have stumbled into modernity as the Old West came to a close, when the Osage were one of the wealthiest people in the world, thanks to the oil reserves beneath the land they had been forced onto. A “For Rent” sign-occupied storefront sits next to a Western art gallery, a flatiron building stands sentinel over the dilapidated downtown, where 86 structures are landmarked on the National Register of Historic Places. Firmly planted across from the flatiron is an expansive corner building being renovated by Pawhuska resident Ree Drummond —The Pioneer Woman — and her family. The space would house the Mercantile, a one-stop shopping destination for Pioneer Woman-curated merchandise and goods in a bakery, deli, and general store. Everywhere teased promises of a Pawhuska renaissance.

The next day, 40 food vendors lined downtown Pawhuska hawking not just Indian tacos but sticky-sweet fry bread desserts and Indian taco dogs (fry bread-wrapped franks). Salsas ranged from Pace Picante clones to nail-spiked-gauntlet hot options. Some tacos were weighed down by the Southwestern garnishes of cheese, 116

O C T O B E R 2 017

lettuce, and tomato. Some allowed the protein — whether bison or beef — to shine. Fry bread thickness varied by vendor. Many of those were up for the blind-tasting competition component of the event, for which I was a judge, requiring me to sample 20 entries from folks who traveled from as far as Florida, Minnesota, and Spain. The tacos whipped up taste-bud twisters on my happy palate. Ultimately, Ramona Horsechief (Pawnee/Cherokee) took first place, making her the five-time champion.

Before that, though, I had the opportunity to chat with Paula Mashunkashey (Osage), who with Mike McCartney and Raymond Redbird established the NITC in 2004. Although Mashunkashey — whose twang is as generous and energetic as she is — retired from the event and now lives near her daughter in Kentucky, she makes the trek to northern Oklahoma to check in on the gathering where she says “there’s so much love, there’s so much culture, there’s so much pride.” It was about that time that the dance competition powwow caught her attention. She looked at the dancers in their brilliant regalia. She looked at me. “Oh gosh.

We’ve got to do this,” she said before pointing at my voice recorder.

“Turn this off. Turn this off.” She grabbed my wrist and off we went to join the circle dance. And then I understood.

— José R. Ralat This year’s National Indian Taco Championship takes place October 7, in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. For more information, visit facebook.com/nitcpawhuska or call 918.287.1208. For more information on The Pioneer Woman Mercantile, visit themercantile.com.

PHOTOGRAPHY: ROBERT STRICKLAND

IN PAWHUSKA, OKLAHOMA

THIS SPUD’S MEET ME AT

SHORTY’S PLACE

S

elf-styled as Denver’s original steakhouse, the Buckhorn Exchange was opened in 1893 by Henry “Shorty Scout” Zietz for those carnivorously inclined. (Sitting Bull gave Zietz his nickname.)

The 124-year-old brick building is only 20 feet wide, stretching back nearly 70 feet with murals of the West of yore painted along one side. The interior décor is classic Old West with a wide range of animal trophies, antique firearms, and souvenirs collected by Zietz while riding as a scout with William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody and as a hunting companion for President Theodore Roosevelt.

Besides Teddy, U.S. Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower, and Jimmy Carter have dined here. The upstairs bar has seen the likes of Cody bellied up for a drink away from his nagging sisters as well as John Wayne, James Cagney, Bob Hope, Will Rogers, Charlton Heston, and Roy Rogers.

There’s more here than a fine steak. The Buckhorn boasts a menu featuring pork, lamb, elk, bison, rattlesnake, yak, duck, alligator, quail, Cornish game hens, salmon, and Rocky Mountain oysters. Bison and elk are the restaurant’s biggest sellers. “[Exotic meat] really put us on the map nationally and internationally,” says co-owner Bill Dutton. “[Customers] try things they don’t usually get back home.”

Dutton says his establishment has dropped various meats from the menu when quality and consistency came into question. “We dropped pheasant because of those issues.”

As for the Buckhorn’s selection of produce, Dutton says they stay within the boundaries of what was used in the Old West. “We use sage as a seasoning in some of our recipes.”

Technology has made a once out-of-the-way destination — “You were either looking for us or you were lost,” Dutton says with a laugh — convenient. Denver’s lightrail system now stops directly across the street from the Buckhorn, making the restaurant a 10-minute ride from downtown hotels.

— Mike Coppock The Buckhorn Exchange, 1000 Osage St., Denver, 303.534.9505, buckhorn.com

FOR YOU

T

he candy bar that made Idaho famous came from the imagination of Thomas Ovard “T.O.” Smith, who experimented with chocolate recipes in his garage before selling candy door to door out of a shoebox. In 1901, Smith established the Idaho Candy Company. By 1909, he had opened a factory in Boise. The extra space allowed him to expand his line to include the Idaho Spud Bar (1918), the Old Faithful Bar (1925), and the Cherry Cocktail Bar (1926), all of which are still in production.

But it’s the Idaho Spud that remains the company’s most beloved product.

A combination of dark chocolate sprinkled with shredded coconut over a soft cocoa-flavored marshmallow center, the vaguely potatoshaped oblong candy bar is still made in the same factory space Smith opened in 1909. It’s long been the company’s bestseller.

It’s especially popular in Boise, and almost everyone from Idaho seems to remember it fondly from their childhoods. Luckily for everyone who doesn’t live there or elsewhere in the Northwest, the Spud is available on the company’s website and on Amazon.com. idahospud.com — Kristin Brown

A HUNTSMAN’S PLATE

IS WHERE THE WINERY IS

I

’m not one for meaty wines that kick my palate like a nervous horse. Rather, I prefer easy-drinking quaffs that while full of character are noted for their laidback attitudes and versatility. The wines of California’s Russian River Valley have that makeup in abundance. The Russian River Valley AVA, or American Viticultural Area (a sanctioned winegrowing region), in Sonoma County was established in 1983 and is home to 110 wineries and vineyards favoring Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes. It’s the 2014 Benovia Tilton Hill Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir that piqued my interest at a recent dinner. Refined but not fussy, the dark red glides as you drink but finishes with a zesty pop that lets you know the wine is nonetheless substantial and shouldn’t be taken for granted.

Established in 2005 by husband and wife Joe Anderson and Mary Dewane, with Mike Sullivan in the role of co-owner, winemaker, and manager of all things from dirt to bottle, Benovia covers more than 71 acres across three estate vineyards. For Anderson and Dewane, Benovia is home. Their house sits on Benovia’s Cohn Vineyard estate, and the family takes great care of home. “We’re stewards of the land,” Sullivan says. “Taking care of the soil and the land leads to higher-quality wines.” Of the work put into producing sustainable and organic vineyards in what is essentially his backyard, Anderson says: “We have dogs running around the farm. There are horses. There are bees. If we use pesticides and other chemicals, the dogs could get sick, the horses could get sick, and the bees could die. Who would want to live there? The work we put into Benovia is work we put into our home.” benoviawinery.com — José R. Ralat For more information on Benovia Winery, including a recipe and pairing suggestions, visit cowboysindians.com.

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ELK TARTARE 4 ounces elk loin, small dice 1 white anchovy 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard 1 teaspoon minced shallot 1 teaspoon capers 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil 5½-inch pieces French baguette, sliced on a bias Salt and pepper, to taste Sliced radish, for garnish Sliced golden beets, for garnish Beet powder, for garnish Micro kale, for garnish Combine first six ingredients in a mixing bowl. Salt and pepper to taste. Salt and pepper sliced baguette and grill on both sides just before serving. Garnish with radish, beets, beet powder, and kale. brushcreekranch.com For more recipes from Grunbeck, visit cowboysindians.com.

PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY BENOVIA WINERY, COURTESY BRUSH CREEK RANCH

HOME

My inspiration for this dish came to me after hiking Medicine Bow Peak, outside Brush Creek Ranch in Saratoga, Wyoming. Taking in the beautiful landscape from above and observing the ranch’s diverse ecosystem, I knew I wanted to design menu items that reflect what surrounds us in the natural environment.

I also wanted to present each item in a way that is unique and visually appealing, with an essence of tranquility.

— Dan Grunbeck, executive chef of Brush Creek Ranch

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or decades, the all-you-can-eat buffet was the lowexpectation, low-cost option in Las Vegas dining. Not anymore. The cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ascent to culinary hot spot has also elevated the serve-yourself chow lines and transformed the best of them into destination dining. Try these three the next time you hit the Strip.

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(Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t miss: the Frank Sinatra spaghetti and meatballs, made from the original Sinatra family recipe.) wynnlasvegas.com LE VILLAGE BUFFET Paris Las Vegas Hotel & Casino As Las Vegas resort theming becomes more contemporary and less whimsical, one appreciates even more the experience of dining at Parisâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Le Village Buffet. The cobblestone walkways, the antique streetlamps, and specialties from ďŹ ve provinces of France offer the kind of immersive experience that adds to the pleasures of the meal. Just donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t make the rookie mistake of ďŹ lling up on the amazing onion soup and fresh bread before you get to the main courses. (Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t miss: made-to-order crepes, and bananas Foster for dessert.) caesars.com/paris-las-vegas STERLING BRUNCH Ballyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Las Vegas Hotel & Casino Most buffets donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t take reservations, but thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just one of the reasons why Ballyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Sterling Brunch is an exception.

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s served only on Sundays, and despite being one of the most expensive buffets in town, it usually sells out before the doors open. Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s good? Everything, but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s best known for splendid seafood offerings â&#x20AC;&#x201D; caviar, lobster tails, lobster ravioli, stone crab claws â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and unlimited Perrier-JouĂŤt Champagne. (Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t miss: the Gruyere cheese popovers â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a swanky spin on a classic American comfort food.) caesars.com/ballys-las-vegas â&#x20AC;&#x201D; David Hofstede

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NEBRASKA: FROM NIX-O-TINE TO KOOL-AID! Nix-O-Tine Tobacco Remedy peddler and mailorder household products entrepreneur Edward E. Perkins invented Kool-Aid in Nebraska in 1927.

The powdered drink mix has been a wall-bustin’ success ever since. Oh yeah!

Y

ou can thank 1800s San Francisco for one of the West’s most famous dishes: cioppino (cho-peano). A fish stew with Mediterranean flair, it’s been around since the days when Italian and Portuguese fishermen settled in the Bay Area during the Gold Rush era.

They’d bring home leftovers of what they’d made onboard; restaurants created their own variations of the spicy winelaced tomato-based soup, and the dish took off.

You can still get a memorable bowl of cioppino that’s virtually the same flavorful crab-crammed delight it was more than 120 years ago at Duarte’s Tavern in Pescadero, a former fishing village 45 miles south of San Francisco. It was in this sleepy coastal town in 1894 that Portuguese immigrant Frank Duarte bought a modest wooden building for $12 in gold and soon began attracting customers to his new tavern with cheap whiskey shots. The patrons might have come for the booze, but they stayed for the cioppino.

The small rustic spot is one of the Northern California coast’s most popular tavern-restaurants. Run by Duarte’s greatgrandson Ron and great-great grandchildren Kathy and Tim, it serves hundreds daily on a typical weekend, and plenty of them are tucking in to the crab cioppino. Duarte’s Tavern’s renown also rests on its artichoke soup and olallieberry pie, but it’s the cioppino — along with the old-time nothing-fancy atmosphere and house-made sourdough bread — that best reflects the character of the community and gives the place the timeless appeal that makes it a true American classic.

In his book A Century of Restaurants: Stories and Recipes from 100 of America’s Most Historic and Successful Restaurants, Rick Browne provides the Duarte’s cioppino recipe, describing it as “[P]iled high with half a crab and a half dozen shrimp and clams, and bathed in garlic, tomatoes, and cumin, [it’s] messy and heavenly to eat.”

Make the trip from the Bay Area for your own bowl of heaven, and you’re bound to agree with Browne.

— Dana Joseph Duarte’s Tavern, 202 Stage Road, Pescadero, California, 650.879.0464, duartestavern.com

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I’LL HAVE

THE CIOPPINO

FIRST-CLASS CALIFORNIA EATIN’ FIRSTHAND

lizabeth Ann Hill is a certified natuE ral chef, but that’s probably not the reason she’ll feel like your new best friend

when you follow her hospitable lead through the fertile West Marin, an unusually bounteous and beautiful rural region just north of California’s Golden Gate in Marin County. She knows the place like the fourth-generation local she is, and she shares that insider knowledge with visitors through her deliciously informative West Marin Food & Farm Tours.

There are 40 farms and food producers in the area, and West Marin Food & Farm Tours connects people to that rich gamut of local seasonal — and largely organic and sustainable — food. A handful of choices: cheese tasting at Cowgirl Creamery, oyster tasting at Hog Island Oyster Company, and grass-fed burger tasting at Marin Sun Farms. There are wine tastings and bakery tours, too.

“For a first-time visitor, I would recommend the Flavors of West Marin Tour,” Hill says. “It offers a good variety.

We visit several different food producers: cheese-maker, winemaker, bread baker, oyster farm, vegetable farm, and grass-fed beef farm. You get to experience the whole breadth and diversity of the food in the area. It’s our most popular tour. Lots of people come back for the cheese or oyster tour to go into more depth.”

You can also tailor your own adventure with the custom-tour option.

Whatever you choose, your taste buds will thank you because Hill is an eater and a host after our own hearts. She caps the burger-tasting tour with dessert, and not just any sweet: “There’s a local company that makes gelato from candy cap mushrooms, which grow wild and are locally foraged. They taste like maple syrup.”

Till you can get there yourself to experience the bounty of West Marin firsthand, Hill’s got something to tide you over: her

grandmother’s famous huckleberry tarts.

“My grandparents started coming to Inverness [near Point Reyes in West Marin] from their home in Berkeley in the 1800s.

They really got into the huckleberries and would send all us kids into the forest to pick them and keep us occupied.”

Hill has shared her grandmother’s huckleberry tart recipe with C&I. You can find it at cowboysindians.com.

Like we said, new best foodie friend. foodandfarmtours.com — Kristin Brown and Dana Joseph

SIMPLY, THE WORLD’S FINEST

PHOTOGRAPHY: (OPPOSITE PAGE) DENISE WOODWARD, (THIS PAGE) COURTESY MARIN TOURS

FI RE P I T & GRI L L

cowboycauldron.com

801-918-4490 COWB OYS & INDIANS

121

C

omparing Texas barbecue to that of Kansas City is a bit of an apples-andoranges juxtaposition. But contrasting smoked meat from the second-largest state in the country to that of a single midsized city isn’t as off base as one might think.

Texas has four main regional styles, says Texas Monthly barbecue editor Daniel Vaughn: East Texas, West Texas, South Texas/Rio Grande Valley, and Central Texas. For all their differences, “nearly every barbecue joint in Texas serves the Texas Trinity,” Vaughn says. “That’s brisket, pork ribs, and smoked sausage. The sausage is one of those things you don’t find in a lot of other barbecue traditions, but it comes from meat market days, and we’re seeing a resurgence in the house-made varieties.” Historically, German American-owned smokehouses influenced Central Texas-style ’cue. It focuses on brisket, imparting it with heavy post oak smoke flavor, and saucing the thick slices is left to the customers if sauce is offered at all. Texas’ Mexican heritage is evident in the Rio Grande Valley’s barbacoa-style beef head buried with hot coals.

West Texas barbecue tends to be “cowboystyle,” cooked directly over mesquite fire, while African American-influenced East Texas stands traditionally offer more pork options, plus hot links, boudin, and chopped brisket sandwiches.

Kansas City’s barbecue is similarly wide-ranging,

BARBECUE

despite the municipality’s comparatively modest size.

“We kind of borrow the best from every region,” says Ardie Davis, a Barbecue Hall of Famer and the author of 11 barbecue books, including The Kansas City Barbeque Society Cookbook.

Asked to characterize his city’s barbecue, eclectic is the first word that comes to mind.

Mutton used to be prominent, though he can only think of one place that serves it now, and lamb ribs are another K.C. cut. “We’re known more recently for what they’re calling burnt ends, because they’re in such demand,” he says. The term, he explains, originally referred to blackened fatty brisket trimmings the famed Arthur Bryant’s Barbeque would give to customers waiting in line. Today burnt ends include what he calls “brisket cubes,” fatty portions cut from a smoked brisket, sliced into squares, smoked further to develop more bark, and then slathered in sweet sauce. Sliced K.C. brisket is leaner and cut thinner, Vaughn adds.

Davis sees more concessions to convenience in Kansas City, such as an increasing number of places using what an 86-year-old pitmaster friend calls “stainless steel ovens,” as opposed to 100 percent wood-burning pits still used at historic Texas barbecue restaurants. “We take shortcuts and still make it great, but the purist in me has great appreciation for Texas-style barbecue,” he says.

— Jesse Hughey

FOUR TO TRY

Kansas City barbecue critic Ardie Davis and Texas ’cue critic Daniel Vaughn offer an overview of a variety of smoked meats.

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onsidering the ubiquity of German ancestry and influence in the Midwest, it makes sense that South Dakota designated kuchen as its state dessert. If you’ve never heard of the treat (commonly pronounced koo-ken), it’s actually just German for “cake.”

Just like cake, kuchen can take many different forms, whether it’s a round, custard-filled cake; a roll-like pastry with spices and nuts spiraled in; or something resembling a small cheesecake with a bread-y base. Whatever the recipe, its sweetness and adaptability to different flavor profiles has made it a constant among family gatherings and celebratory events across the Dakotas.

Karen’s Kuchens in Larimore, North Dakota, offers nearly 70 different varieties — everything from cherry cola to maple pecan to, yep, German chocolate.

And owner Karen Schwandt acknowledges the different approaches to the signature dessert. “My kuchen recipe was my greatgrandma’s, and it is a Black Sea kuchen, where the custard is thicker,” she says. “The Volga kuchen from Russia is a thinner custard, and they’re usually cut in squares.

“I also make wedding kuchen, which my ancestors never made but was mainly used in Catholic churches. The reason for a thin butter crust and a thin custard is because people are too full to eat much when dessert comes around.” karenskuchens.com — Hunter Hauk

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hey call Billings “Montana’s Trailhead,” a fitting moniker for the jumping-off point to several daytrip destinations for history buffs and outdoors lovers eager to put a few miles on their hiking boots. It’s also close to the Little Bighorn Battle National Monument, Pompeys Pillar National Monument, and the Beartooth Highway.

But there’s a trail within the city that beer and spirits aficionados will want to explore — no canteen needed. For the Walkable Brewery District in the city’s historic district, all you’ll require is a map (available online), your billfold, and a healthy liver to sample an array of local beer and, as an added bonus, locally crafted spirits and a Smithsonian Institutionaffiliated history museum.

The 1.5-mile self-guided walking tour includes six breweries, two distilleries, and the Western Heritage Center, a 1901-built former library that now houses artifacts that tell the history of the Yellowstone River Valley. First up are Spirit of Montana Distilling, where you can enjoy vodka and gin in the tasting room, and Yellowstone Valley Brewing Co., where you can chase the hard stuff with a smooth Black Widow Oatmeal Stout or a hazy Huckle-weizen.

Less than five minutes’ walking distance is Überbrew, offering house-brewed beers and brewpub fare. Across the street is Trailhead Spirits, offering small-batch whiskey, gin, and vodka.

A block away you’ll find Carter’s Brewing, where you can enjoy a Golden Spike Pilsner if you need to take it relatively easy or a Ghost Train Imperial IPA if you don’t. After that, you can stop at the Western Heritage Center.

Angry Hank’s Microbrewery offers, along with seven other taps, Dog Slobber, a deep brown ale that looks just as appealing as its name doesn’t. Thirsty Street Brewing Co., which shares a parking lot with Angry Hank’s, specializes in creative brews like the chile pale ale Uno Mas and Oaked Up Hopped Sour.

Finally — if you have room for one last beer — stop at Montana Brewing Company for the appropriately named Custer’s Last Stout. visitbillings.com — Jesse Hughey

H I S T O R Y

Wild West Alaska A L A S K A DAY ON O C T OBE R 18 C OM M E MOR AT E S T H E 18 67 T R A N S F E R OF T H E T E R R I T ORY F ROM RUS S I A T O T H E U N I T E D S TAT E S . T O C E LE BR AT E T H E 15 0 T H A N N I V E R SA RY, W E ’ V E I N V E N T OR I E D S OM E OF T H E C H A R AC T E R S W HO T O OK T H E W I LD W E S T T O T H E FA R NORT H .

By Mike Coppock

PHOTOGRAPHY: (ALL IMAGES) LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

KIAK, ALASKA — FEBRUARY:

It is pitch-black in the Alaska village where I am teaching. The generator has broken down and the village has no heat and no lights. I am in my sleeping bag wearing my coat, a little worried about hypothermia.

The forecast calls for a low of around minus 30.

I am drifting in and out when I hear the barking. Wolves are coming in for the dogs. Light usually keeps the wolf pack from entering the village, but the easy meal the dogs make is too hard to resist now that we are in the dark. Suddenly a shotgun blast erupts, followed by another. Yupik Eskimos aren’t about to lose part of their dog teams to wolves.

Around 6 a.m., I trudge through the snow for school to get ready to teach my class.

The air is crisp to the point of being painful. I am watching the moonlight illuminate my breath when I hear a chopping sound. I make out an elderly woman to my left wearing everything she could find to stay warm as she chops firewood.

A few days later, I am showing my replacement around the village when he says he sees a caribou skin stretched over the side of a cabin. It looks odd to me until we get closer. It’s a wolf pelt. There is a Native woman in the doorway braving the cold for a smoke. She says a hunter brought it in off the tundra a few days ago. A woman in her 60s took it into her cabin, thawed it out, skinned it, and then tacked it up to dry.

As we walk away, my replacement asks if I ever plan to come back to Alaska. I always come back, I say. It is as close as I can ever get to how the Old West was.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Gold miners climb to the summit of Chilkoot Pass in 1898. Red Onion Saloon in Skagway, Alaska, ca. 1898. Miners search for gold along Anvil Creek in Nome District, Alaska. Skagway, pictured sometime between 1900 and 1930.

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up selling everything from ice cream to hay out of his store the Yukon, once described those who went to in Dawson called The Wigwam. The Klondike reminded him Alaska as a “race of men who don’t fit in.” They so much of the Old West he wrote his old friend Buffalo Bill were men and women who only felt comfortable about coming north to participate in all the fun. living on the fringe of society, moving farther and farther away A young Army lieutenant named Charles Erskine Scott until they fell off the edge of the map.

Wood guided the Charles Taylor Expedition in 1877 to Mount It seems like an apt description for some of the men who St. Elias, a monster of a peak at 18,008 feet. Taylor failed, but went west in the early days. I often wonder Wood became the first American to encounter if the description applies to me as well. I am the creamy white Kermode “ghost bear,” play confident it applied to Service. In 1904, he was medicine man for the Huna Tlingits, and discover northbound for Yukon Territory, headed toward Glacier Bay. Two years later, he was in Montana the Whitehorse branch of the bank he worked standing next to Gen. O.O. Howard recording for when he got off at Juneau for a few days.

Chief Joseph’s immortal words, “From where the He wandered into a watering hole called the Sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.”

Missouri, today’s downtown Imperial Saloon, Luther “Yellowstone” Kelly, the chief of the lingering long enough to witness a gunfight. It U.S. Army Scouts Yellowstone Division, who became the basis for his poem “The Shooting of guided U.S. forces against the Sioux after the Dan McGrew.”

Battle of the Little Bighorn, took a stab at Alaska Frontier historians claim Alaska drew in leg- Edward H. Harriman. twice. Kelly’s most famous trip north came as endary Old West figures as sort of a last hurrah a guide for the 1899 E.H. Harriman Alaska for them. There are plenty of stories to back up the assertion.

Expedition, a two-month maritime exploration of Alaska’s coast Capt. Jack Crawford, the Poet Scout of the West — who from Seattle to Siberia and back financed by wealthy railroad rode with Col. William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody and James Butler magnate Edward H. Harriman. It’s not clear why Harriman, “Wild Bill” Hickok — went to the Klondike Gold Rush sport- who is a story unto himself, chose to journey to Alaska when ing a white goatee, long hair, and a buckskin shirt and ended he was supposed to be taking a long, restful vacation at his OET ROBERT SERVICE, THE SO-CALLED BARD OF

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doctor’s behest. The speculations were many: Did he intend Square Garden in New York City, become the founder of the to develop Alaska’s resources? Build a railroad bridge from New York Rangers hockey team, and make millions as a fight Alaska to Russia or across the territory? Buy the whole shooting promoter. match? Whatever the deeper motive, Harriman’s idea of R&R A very green Jack London landed in Skagway in 1897. He included hunting Kodiak bears — but with a full contingency of dreamed of being a writer, but thus far he’d been everything scientists, artists, and photographers to explore and document but — he’d worked in a jute mill, a laundry, and a cannery; been the wild frontier from a retrofitted ship. a sealer and a hobo. Desperate to change his fortune, he headed One-time cowboy, bank robber, cattle rustler, for the gold fields. But instead of finding gold, and outlaw turned lawman Frank Canton, who he found muddy streets lined with tents, huts, aided in the killing of the notorious Doolin gang and ramshackle structures. Laughter, screams, of Oklahoma and fought in Wyoming’s Johnson and gunfire filled the air. Prostitutes conducted County Range War, begged to be appointed a business in full public view. Supt. Samuel Steel of deputy U.S. marshal for this new land. After folthe North West Mounted Police called Skagway lowing the gold rush to Alaska, he received the “little better than a hell on earth.” The White appointment in 1897, maintaining the law out of Pass greeted young Jack with a horrifying scene. an office in Circle City. In 1898, he rescued the Dead and dying horses littered the slopes. One riverboat Walrus from a gang of cutthroats on the count estimated the death toll at 3,000. “The Yukon River. horses died like mosquitoes in the first frost and Texas lawman George Lewis “Tex” Rickard George Lewis “Tex” Rickard. from Skagway to Bennett they rotted in heaps,” went bust in the Yukon before participating in London wrote of the justly named Dead Horse the Nome Gold Rush. In Nome he opened the Northern Trail. London made it over the White Pass, gathering enough Saloon in direct competition with Wyatt Earp’s Dexter Saloon. adventures to write The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and “To Build The two staged boxing matches through the hard winter a Fire.” months. Rickard eventually returned to the lower 48, and the Augustus Mack cofounded Mack Trucks with his Klondike one-time cowboy would go on to construct the third Madison gold fortune. Sid Grauman opened his Chinese theater in Los

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Angeles with Klondike gold. Playwright and admitted con man brothel proved highly profitable, netting Silks $38,000. Unable Wilson Mizner, who later opened the famed Brown Derby to stand the cold weather and fleeing unsavory characters in the restaurant in Los Angeles, spent time in Alaska scamming min- Klondike, she left Skagway for Seattle. She eventually returned to ers out of Nome gold.

Colorado, where she got back in the business of selling “gentlePresident Donald Trump’s grandfather, Friedrich Drumpf, manly goods,” in Denver, along with real estate and sometime went to the Klondike in 1897 to mine the miners. He had ranching. Though she was married to rancher and gambler John come to America in 1885 at age 16 and worked as a barber Dillon “Handsome Jack” Ready when she died in 1929, she’s in New York City. In Alaska, he partnered with Ernest Levin buried (as Martha A. Ready) next to con man and longtime onto set up a tent along the trail and serve soups and fresh horse and-off lover Cortes Thompson, who had accompanied her on steaks harvested from the numerous dead mounts along the her Alaska adventure. way. He eventually set up a restaurant-bar in Whitehorse with Such an epic land as Alaska deserved and got an epic bad an attached bordello that catered to the wants of would-be man, Old West con man Jefferson “Soapy” Smith, whose checkprospectors. Drumpf left the Yukon in 1900 for Germany to ered path actually crossed Silks’ at one point. Smith had been marry and then returned a confidence man durto New York City, where ing the Colorado silver he got into real estate booms, working his using funds earned durway up until he owned ing the gold rush. a saloon in Creede.

Many of the Old When the silver boom West holdouts came collapsed, he operated from Arizona. John his own gang in Denver Clum, who had been the until the rival Bonger editor of The Tombstone gang ran him out. News Epitaph during the famous of the Klondike Gold shootout between the Rush came within weeks, Earps and the Clantons sending him north. and forcibly disarmed He soon controlled Geronimo in 1877, went two towns: Wrangell to Alaska as a postal and Skagway. Wrangell inspector. He traveled already had a tough a record 8,000 miles reputation. There, dance through unmapped wilhall girls performed derness in order to set up nude on bar tops for the 12 post offices. Fellow Jefferson “Soapy” Smith stands at the bar of one of his saloons in Skagway. right price. White minArizonan Ed Schiefflin, ers had earlier raped a who found the silver strike that gave birth to Tombstone, sailed Native woman in her home, and then set the place on fire, up the Yukon River searching for gold. Wild West showman and watching her burn alive. A whiskey dealer was dragged into rodeo champion Charlie Meadows arrived from Arizona with a court on the charge of breaking Alaska’s prohibition law. As portable saloon, which he hauled over the near-vertical Chilkoot a witness began testifying against him, the accused pulled a Pass in order to open the Palace Grand in Dawson. There, he pistol and shot the witness as he sat in the stand. Smith’s men impressed patrons by shooting tiny glass balls out of the hands surprisingly calmed things down with a few murders so that of dance hall girls with his six-shooters until the inevitable acci- would-be gold seekers would not be frightened off. His men dent occurred, forcing him to provide different entertainment. then demanded a 10 percent cut of all profits from the saloons Famed dance hall girl and singer Honora Ornstein, aka as protection money. Interference from the law was not a worry.

“Diamond Lil” Davenport, worked Skagway for a season before Deputy marshals were either found dead floating in the harbor returning to Chicago. She eventually got caught up in a scandal or taking the first available boat out of town. when a former lover, a Chicago police detective, shot and killed But Skagway was the rough-and-tumble place Smith called her then lover, mobster Big Joe Hopkins. Her wealth faded, and home. He controlled most of the saloons and operated some of she ended her days as a scrubwoman for a Seattle bank. his own. His gang roamed the Dead Horse Trail, robbing lone Self-proclaimed Old West madam Mattie Silks brought her travelers. Yet it was his confidence schemes that earned him his brothel business from Denver to Dawson for one very lucrative reputation. Smith’s men hired out to unload incoming ships. Smith season in 1898 after a stopover in Skagway. The temporary opened his own visitors bureau, where one of his men would hand 130

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out free maps of the Dead Horse Trail with campsites marked. He had his own outfitting company for prospectors and would rob them as soon as they left sight of town heading north along the very same trail he had mapped for them.

Smith’s best scam was the Dominion Telegraph, which amounted to an office with a copper telegraph wire running from it to a tree about a mile out of town. For a $5 charge, people just arriving would send home messages that they were safe. The “operator” would then ask where they could be found in case of a reply. There always was a reply: A fake message would state things were financially bad at home and ask that money be wired, which the unsuspecting usually did from the fake telegraph office.

Smith eventually became so thorough in his stealing and killing that those returning from the gold fields began to find routes that avoided Skagway, which hurt business in the town.

A citizens meeting was called for a Friday night down on the wharf. Drunk, Smith ran down to break it up, only to be confronted by soldier, teacher, engineer, and vigilante Frank Reid.

The two shot it out. Smith shot Reid in the groin; Reid would die from the wounds a few days later. But Reid had managed to get his own shot off, directly in Smith’s heart, ending the con man’s reign of terror over Skagway, and the incident — on July 8, 1898, at 9:15 p.m. — became known as the Shootout on Juneau Wharf.

HE GOLD RUSH ALSO DREW IN WYATT EARP AND

his wife, Sadie. The Earps made it as far as “hell on wheels” Wrangell before running short of funds. Earp was offered the job of deputy marshal until the actual one arrived, and he served as a lawman in Wrangell for 10 days. Today, Wrangell promotes itself as the last place Wyatt Earp was a lawman, while local wags declare the town was “Too Wild for Wyatt.”

In Juneau, the Earps learned Sadie was pregnant and returned to San Francisco, where she had a miscarriage. After, Wyatt decided to make another go for Alaska, this time on the derelict freighter S.S. Brixom. Sadie boasted that Wyatt helped put down a mutiny before changing ships at Dutch Harbor. At Saint Michael, they took a riverboat bound for the Klondike, but became iced in until sourdough legend Al Mayo rescued them and had them stay over the winter. At Mayo’s, they met Tex Rickard, noted bootlegger Charlie Hoxie, and soon-to-be novelist Rex Beach.

Spring found the Earps back at Saint Michael with Wyatt managing a canteen selling cigars and beer until Hoxie’s and Rickard’s letters enticed them to the Nome Gold Rush. The Saint Michael cabin the Earps lived in is still in use as a residence today. In Nome, Wyatt partnered with Hoxie, opening the only two-story saloon in Alaska. Earp and Rickard staged the aforementioned boxing matches when the long winter hit, along with drinking contests and food drives. Earp was on the watch committee keeping an eye out for claim jumpers 132

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and was arrested once for interfering with a local law officer.

The Earps left Nome (and Alaska) in 1900 with $85,000.

Today, the Red Dog Saloon on Juneau’s dock displays a pistol claimed to have been owned by Earp and surrendered on one of his trips.

HE STREETS THAT WYATT EARP, SOAPY SMITH,

and others walked down can still be found in Wrangell, Juneau, and Skagway. The buildings they frequented still stand. Juneau’s Imperial Saloon and the Alaskan Hotel are authentic echoes of the Old West.

But, to genuinely experience it, go into Skagway’s Red Onion Saloon. The Onion serviced Jack London as well as Soapy Smith.

A patron inclined to entertainment beyond liquid courage could choose one of 10 dolls behind the bar. When he went upstairs to the brothel rooms, the bartender would lie the doll down to show that the girl it corresponded to was occupied (and then stand her back up when the patron had finished).

Today the historic spot tends to overload with tourists from the nearby cruise ship dock, but the Red Onion Restaurant and Bar and Brothel Museum might be worth braving the crowds.

Patrons no longer request dolls behind the bar, but there’s Freeride APA (from Juneau’s Alaska Brewing Co.) and Madam’s Martinis to drink and Streetwalker Salmon Dip and Harlot ham sandwiches to eat. Upstairs, you can tour the rooms, filled with original and period furnishing from when this place was the best bordello in Skagway.

There are also echoes of the Old West along the Chena River in downtown Fairbanks, where low-roof log cabins dating back to its gold rush line the banks. Cordova, though, holds a real gem from the Old West. Besides the massive rosewood bar inside The Alaskan, there’s the Red Dragon. On a hill overlooking downtown in ornate Edwardian style, the landmark was built for alcoholics and drug addicts to dry out. Local historians claim Yellowstone Kelly was once a tenant. Today, the Red Dragon serves much the same purpose. You’d be advised to knock first before entering.

Barely more than 100 years after the Alaska Gold Rush ended in 1914, today’s Alaska in some respects could be any modern U.S. state. Fast-food signs clutter the streets of Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau, and other towns. Tour guides speak to visitors about the Last Frontier in the past tense. But travel off Alaska’s road system into the Alaska bush, which is larger than Texas, just west of the Alaska Range, or off the beaten path to towns such as Eagle, Cordova, and Tenakee Springs, and you will encounter the state’s past.

There, people struggle to keep warm or find enough food as they live off the land, communicating with loved ones without cell phones. They are living in this massive raw-boned land beyond the mountains, seeing what man is really made of, much like those Old West adventurers who risked it all for the freedom and opportunity of the untamed wilderness.

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N THE 1870S, AS NATIVE AMERICANS WERE PUSHED ONTO RESERVATIONS IN

what is now Oklahoma, the Osage had the foresight to buy land in an area that seemed barren and rocky, reasoning they would be left alone on their seemingly worthless territory. The strategy worked until the discovery of oil.

In the 1920s, oil royalties made them the wealthiest people per capita in the world.

But a paternalistic federal approach wrested control from the owners of mineral rights and gave it to white “guardians,” many of whom swindled money from their wards through various schemes such as outrageous price markups and kickbacks. Worse, some whites would marry into the tribe, as ownership of the mineral rights could only be passed on to tribe members, and then their Osage spouses would die under suspicious circumstances. In response, the newly formed FBI investigated the murders, with former Texas Ranger Tom White leading the team using a combination of straight-shooting frontier lawman tactics and newfangled forensics and undercover work.

David Grann, whose award-winning bestseller The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon (Doubleday, 2009) was adapted into a 2016 film, spent five years researching the crime for his latest book, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, and uncovered disturbing evidence that the murders were far more widespread than most of the nation knew at the time. White is one of the impressively fleshed-out historic figures characterized in the gripping tale, along with Mollie Burkhart, an Osage woman whose sister Anna Brown is found dead — shot execution-style in the head — and whose diagnosis of diabetes turns out to be a cover-up of her being poisoned. There’s also William King Hale, the aristocratic self-declared white “King of the Osage Hills” who arranged Brown’s murder — and orchestrated much more during the era’s “reign of terror” — and Ernest Burkhart, Hale’s nephew and Mollie’s husband who seems to have conflicting loyalties and motivations in what was euphemistically called “the Indian business.”

Killers of the Flower Moon is an astonishing, suspenseful story that practically begs to be adapted to film, which is what Imperative Entertainment plans to do, with a screenplay by Eric Roth. Speaking to C&I by phone, Grann says he isn’t very involved in the movie’s development but is glad for the increased exposure. “Part of the reason I told the story was that, outside of the Osage, it was kind of lost and neglected, forgotten by so many Americans,” he says. “It would be so wonderful, if it does become a movie, that it would become part of our national conscience, which is where I think it belongs.”

PHOTOGRAPHY: MATT RICHMAN

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PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY RAYMOND RED CORN

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Cowboys & Indians: With the victims and perpetrators long gone, is there anything that could compensate descendants of the victims or bring about justice?

David Grann: Well, I always thought of history, when there is an injustice: social injustice, racial injustice, criminal injustice — and often some of the perpetrators escape justice — the hope is with history, The Osage were the wealthiest people in the world at least you can provide a proper in the 1920s. Consequently, they were targeted by accounting. And that you can idencriminal enterprises often covered up by authorities. tify the perpetrators and you can record for posterity, most importantly, the voice of the victims.

I tried to do that the best I could in the book, but one of the tragedies of the case is that because it was such a broad conspiracy, many people were able to escape justice.

And because much of the evidence was purposely covered up and obscured, at least in many of the cases, the perpetrators denied their victims even a proper history, a proper accounting. It’s a secondary crime, but it’s a very nefarious one as well. ... Part of the haunting quality of this case is that we are probably left without the possibility of a full, complete, comprehensive accounting of what transpired.

C&I: What happened to all the stolen money? Did it stay with Hale’s descendants?

Grann: Much of the oil money was swindled through the guardianship system.

Millions were embezzled: stolen, graft, kickbacks. It was one of the largest federally and state-sanctioned criminal enterprises. Then a number of headrights [oil money royalties] were stolen through these nefarious crimes. Many of them are still outside the tribe now. ... Millions and millions of dollars were stolen and never recovered, and what made these crimes so nefarious is not only that the descendants of the perpetrators and victims live in the same neighborhoods, the perpetrators and the victims lived in the same household, often.

C&I: Mollie remarried after divorcing Ernest and eventually died after an illness. Do you have any suspicions about her death?

Grann: Obviously, one of the things is that because of the nature of the crimes, doubts hover over every single death from that period. Again, this gets to this sense of terror, and the lack of a proper accounting. Because of the nature of these crimes, many families lived with these doubts. That said, speaking to family members and looking at records, there were never any evidence or allegations that the death was anything but natural.

C&I: A 2013 This Land story called “Terror’s Legacy,” by Jason Christian, claimed that Mary Jo Webb [a retired teacher who was investigating her Osage grandfather’s suspicious death] got an anonymous death threat about 20 years earlier, which would have been in the 1990s. Who would have still been trying to cover up the story even then?

Grann: I’m trying to remember if Mary Webb mentioned that to me — I always want to be precise. I read that story, and I don’t recall if she told me, but I do remember her telling me at one point she placed some of her research in the local library and someone took [it] and absconded with those documents, obviously not wanting them to be widely available. I do know she talked about how the descendants of the murderers still live in the same neighborhoods as the descendants of the victims, and their fates are in many ways intertwined. She said, in what I think showed a remarkable degree of compassion and understanding, “The descendants

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of the murderers don’t always fully know what their ancestors said, or they don’t want to talk about it, but we try not to hold them accountable for the blood of their forebears.” But the fact that they still live in the same neighborhoods and their fates are intertwined is sort of the story of America, which is part of why we need to reckon with this history.

C&I: Do you see any parallels between the swindling, or even the murders, of the Osage and any contemporary issues with indigenous people?

Grann: Undoubtedly, there are definitely echoes and resonances to this day. For example, during the demonstrations in Standing Rock [against Energy Transfer Partners’ Dakota Access Pipeline], I spoke to an Osage army veteran, a scout who received a Purple Heart in Afghanistan.

During the demonstrations, he walked almost the entire way from Oklahoma to North Dakota to participate, and he told me during that pilgrimage, that quest, he thought a lot about the Osage murders.

And while the events are separated by nearly a century and in many ways the particulars are very different — the Sioux were not making money from oil, they’re really trying to protect their natural environment and their sacred burial rites — he said they’re really about the same fundamental issue, which is the rights of Native Americans to control their natural resources and protect their sovereign rites.

I spoke to a former Osage chief who said he can’t believe in 2017 they’re still having the same fight. I do think there are parallels and echoes to this day. I don’t think you can understand something like Standing Rock unless you understand parts of our history like the Osage murder cases [are] why Standing Rock galvanized so many American Indian nations. It certainly galvanized many Osage to travel there.

— Jesse Hughey For more information about David Grann or Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, visit the author’s website at davidgrann.com.

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C O W B O Y

C O R N E R

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WITH RED STEAGALL Official Cowboy Poet Of Texas

The Visalia A friend of mine who raises horses asked if I would stay, And halter break some yearlin’s in the fall.

We’d finished eatin’ supper, I was leaned back in a chair.

As I watched the fire cast shadows on the wall, I heard his footsteps on the porch before I heard him knock.

My friend yelled out, “Old pardner, come on in.”

He’d seen him comin’ up the drive and recognized the truck, And knew the lanky cowboy was a friend.

His weathered features, gnarled hands, and bent bowlegged walk All told of life out on the open plain.

His dress was plain and simple but he held his head up high.

With hat in hand he told us why he came.

Excerpted from Red Steagall’s book Born to This Land.

UPCOMING APPEARANCES October 12 Lincoln County Cowboy Symposium Ruidoso, NM October, 27–29 Red Steagall Cowboy Gathering & Western Swing Festival Fort Worth, TX FYI: 800.457.7966, redsteagall.com

TV AND RADIO SCHEDULE Episodes of Red’s travel show, Red Steagall Is Somewhere West of Wall Street, air Mondays at 9:30 p.m. EST on RFD-TV. Find out more about the TV program at rfdtv.com, and keep up with Red’s radio show, Cowboy Corner, at cowboycorner.com.

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RED : You’re a great teacher and you’re a great mentor. One of the examples [of] somebody that you and I are very, very close to is Tyler Crow, a young man who grew up in Oklahoma and has an eye for putting things down the way he sees them, and he has developed into a magnificent artist and is one of the newest members of the Cowboy Artists of America. So if Tyler hadn’t have had you, where could he have gone to perpetuate his talent and improve his talent and become a stand-alone artist?

BRUCE : Well, I think the best vehicle to that is to work with a professional. ... I think it’s better than the school systems right now for representational art to go right, and that’s what worked for me, as I studied with actual members of the Cowboy Artists of America. ... I went straight to the best in the world and I studied with the best. ... And certainly it’s a privilege for me to pass that along to someone like Tyler, and it’s an honor and a pleasure because he has such a great attitude. ...

RED : Because what you are teaching him, a lot of it is technical knowledge that you’ve learned through time, and part of it is your opinion. So if they don’t take your opinion, they need to be working for somebody else. They need to be learning from somebody else, I mean.

BRUCE : Yes, sir. And that’s right. And they have come to me and they ask me what I think. And I’ll devote my time and I’ll try to pay back and pay forward with that, but if they’re not going to listen, we need to go and do something different.

RED : You have to find those things that work for you and then discover what you need to learn from a professional and get yourself on the right track. And then comes the marketing. ...

BRUCE : My approach to marketing — and right or wrong, Red — is just to be very naturally myself and to try to establish relationships with the people as we go.

And I think it’s a relationship business. The people that are collecting artwork, I find it’s very important to them to get to know the artist, and artists need to be available. You’ve helped me with that because my natural tendency would be to sit in the studio and just do the work and kind of be a hermit out there in the studio, but you’ve helped me with that. I’ve really realized that it’s very important to these people to get to know the artist, and so just to go out there and to be a friend to them and enjoy their company is the best marketing that I know how to do. But certainly galleries are still in this day and age a great part of art and marketing. And I think people still love to go into a good gallery and walk in there and be surrounded by these treasures and to maybe pick one out and take it home.

PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY BRUCE GREENE

WITH WESTERN ARTIST BRUCE GREENE

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S H O W T I M E

F E AT U R E D E V E N T RED STEAGALL COWBOY GATHERING Texas poet Red Steagall is holding his annual Red Steagall Cowboy Gathering & Western Swing Festival October 27 – 29 at the historic Stockyards in Fort Worth, Texas. The gathering will offer visitors and locals the opportunity to enjoy a plethora of events that entertain and educate folks about authentic Western traditions. Activities include ranch rodeo events filled with trapping shows, authentic cowboy poetry and musical performances from Steagall himself, a Texas Lone Star Open live bid-calling contest, the West Fork cattle dog competition, a youth chuck wagon cook-off, and Western swing dancing at the youth fiddle contest. redsteagallcowboygathering.com

O W B O Y S

O C TO B E R

N OV E M B E R

I N D I A N S

DECEMBER

Trailing of the Sheep Festival Ketchum, ID, 10/4 – 8 trailingofthesheep.org

PBR World Finals Las Vegas, NV, 11/1 – 5 pbrworldfinals.com

Denton Holiday Lighting Festival Denton, TX, 12/1 dentonholidaylighting.com

National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum: Cowboy Crossings Oklahoma City, OK, 10/5 – 7 nationalcowboymuseum.org

Wild West Days Cave Creek, AZ, 11/1 – 5 wildwestdayscavecreek.com

Cowboy Christmas Poetry Gathering Wickenburg, AZ, 12/1 – 2 wickenburgchamber.com

Grand National Livestock Exposition, Horse Show, and Rodeo San Francisco, CA, 10/13 – 14, 10/20 – 21 cowpalace.com

Indian National Finals Rodeo Las Vegas, NV, 11/7 – 11 infr.org The Cowpoke Fall Gathering Loomis, CA, 11/9 – 12 cowpokefallgathering.com

Wickenburg Fly-In & Classic Car Show Wickenburg, AZ, 10/14 wickenburgchamber.com

WRCA 22nd World Championship Ranch Rodeo Amarillo, TX, 11/9 – 12 wrca.org

Cowboy Mounted Shooting Association World Championship Amarillo, TX, 10/18 – 21 cmsaevents.com

Dallas Veterans Day Parade Dallas, TX, 11/10 vetsdayindallas.org

Cattle Baron’s Ball Parker, TX, 10/21 cattlebaronsball.com

Artwalk Alpine Alpine, TX, 11/17 – 18 artwalkalpine.com

Strawbale Winery Twilight Flights Renner, SD, 12/1 – 16 strawbalewinery.com Wrangler Gold Buckle Gala Las Vegas, NV, 12/4 prorodeohalloffame.com Stetson Country Christmas Las Vegas, NV, 12/7 – 17 countrychristmas.com Pueblo Grande Museum Auxiliary Indian Market Wickenburg, AZ, 12/9 – 10 pgindianmarket.com Arizona National Livestock Show Phoenix, AZ, 12/27/17 – 1/1/18 anls.org

Cowboys & Indians ® October 2017, VOL. 25, NO. 7 (ISSN 1069-8876) is published eight times per year (January, February/March, April, May/June, July, August/September, October, November/ December) by USFRSC Inc., 6688 N. Central Expressway, Suite 650, Dallas, TX 75206. Subscription in USA: $29.95. Other countries (to cover extra handling and postage): Canada $43.95, other foreign $49.95. Please provide payment in U.S. funds. Periodical postage paid at Dallas, Texas, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Please send address changes to Cowboys & Indians, P.O. Box 420235, Palm Coast, FL 32142-0235. Copyright © 2017 by USFRSC Inc. All rights reserved. The contents of this publication, including the cover, may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, in whole or in part without the prior written consent of the copyright owner. Cowboys & Indians assumes no responsibility for loss or damage of unsolicited material. Contributing authors agree to indemnify and protect the publishers from claims or actions regarding plagiarism. Material to be returned should be accompanied by a self-addressed stamped envelope. We reserve the right to accept or reject, at our discretion, any advertisement. Cowboys & Indians is neither responsible for the statements of any advertiser nor the value or authenticity of items advertised within the publication. Cowboys & Indians ® is a registered trademark of USFRSC Inc. (US Trademark Reg. No. 2,540,455).

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PHOTOGRAPHY: DAVE ROTH

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Cowboys & Indians: From the very first episode of The Rifleman, you and Chuck Connors developed a compellingly believable father-son relationship. What sort of preparation did you have to do to make that work?

Johnny Crawford: Well, we’d both been doing things C O before that, and even before I met Chuck, I was very W impressed when I saw him in The Big Country. When we got B O together to do The Rifleman, we just hit it off. He was very easy Y to work with. And we had such wonderful scripts. In fact, we S had several scripts by Sam Peckinpah in the first season. And the father-son relationship was a great handle for a lot of the writers as they told their stories.

C&I: The Rifleman continues to attract new viewers and longtime fans in reruns. What do you think is the secret of its enduring popularity?

Johnny: Oh, that’s easy to answer. It’s like you mentioned — the strongest thing about it has always been that father-son relationship. That, and the fact that there was always a lesson at the end of every episode. Really, it’s such a wholesome show — a healthy show. And Chuck was so perfect. You know, I still miss him. He was unique — I’ll never meet anybody else like him again. He tried to be a good influence for me, even off-camera. And he treated me like an adult when we were working. He made it much easier than it might have been.

He was a lot of fun.

C&I: What would you say is your happiest memory of your working relationship?

Johnny: [Laughs.] Oh, there are so many to choose from. I’ll tell you something that comes to mind. Our first live appearance was during the St. Louis Police Circus around 1958. Or ’59, maybe. Anyway, he and I had a little routine and a silly little song. And at the end, we took off our hats — and I was in heaven.

C&I: That’s a nice memory.

Johnny: And the funny thing is, while we were in St. Louis, a rancher loaned us three horses — one for me, one for Chuck, and one for the Indian who took a fall off his horse when we’d make

our entrance. [Laughs.] Yeah, I know: It was corny. But this rancher, this wonderful guy who loaned us these horses, he invited me to spend an off day riding on his ranch. And then he asked my mother if he could send me a horse, because he had some foals coming along. She I gulped — and then I had a wonderful horse. I didn’t use N him for The Rifleman. But I did use him in 1965 when I D I did a movie in Texas called Indian Paint with Jay Silverheels. A I played an Indian, and that was a lot of fun — because I N S enjoyed riding bareback.

C&I: During your five seasons on The Rifleman, you got to work with some notable up-and-comers — like Dennis Hopper, Warren Oates, Robert Vaughn, Harry Dean Stanton, and Dan Blocker — and established names like John Carradine, Agnes Moorehead, and Sammy Davis Jr. Do you remember who impressed you the most?

Johnny: Well, I was impressed by almost all of them. I learned a lot from talking with those people and watching them work. Of course, I was in awe of Paul Fix. He played the marshal on The Rifleman. He got into the movies in the early ’20s, and he was a great storyteller. We took a liking to each other, and whenever I could ask him about some actor, he’d have a good story. In fact, while they were setting up the lights, he’d sit in his chair and everybody would kind of get as close as they could to him, because he was so delightful to listen to.

Los Angeles

Johnny Crawford

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MAKING MUSIC: During the 1950s and ’60s, Johnny Crawford scored as a pop music singer with such hits as “Cindy’s Birthday” and “Your Nose Is Gonna Grow.”

More recently, he has enjoyed a second career singing, recording, and performing with his vintage music ensemble, The Johnny Crawford Dance Orchestra.

ILLUSTRATION: JONATHAN FEHR

WATCHING RERUNS: The Rifleman continues to be an audience magnet wherever the series is available. Its newest showcase: the commercial-free subscription streaming video site ProClassicTV.com.