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A FAMILY ADVENTURE  A pair of wild horses curiously observe the approach of some Kiefers |
This is a family with lots
of "west" in its blood
of TheColumnists.com
Ten of us Kiefers–ages 4 to 74–rumble along
a parched, rutted road on a pinon-studded plateau in Western
Colorado in search of wild mustangs. From time to time we get
out of the cars to inspect the freshness of horse droppings by
the side of the road. We listen at the edge of a canyon for whinnies.
Nothing. We stop for lunch on the windblown top of the cliffs
overlooking the Grand Valley where the family homesteaded land
seven generations ago. Shiny droppings all around us but not
a horse in sight.
No one talks of disappointment.
For me it is enough to know that wild horses roam the plateau
just five or six miles as the eagle flies from Grand Junction
where my husband Bill grew up. For all of us, the chase is textured
enough so that the outcome will be just part of the story.
The previous day we had gathered with about 50 other people of
all ages at the annual Kiefer reunion. The locale was a cousin’s
place nestled at the base of towering fluted, brown cliffs.
All generations of the large individual families that made up
the group remain close to each other and to all the Kiefers.
Bill posted a genealogy chart he’s worked on for months.
It unwound the family from Colorado back to the Midwest, and
beyond to 17th century Germany. Everyone seemed fascinated, as
if they instinctively cared personally for each ancestor as much
as for the cousin standing next to them in the line for fried
chicken and potato salad.
The star guests were Bill’s dad Jerome and his aunt Agnes,
both in their early ‘90’s. Agnes proudly pushed her
walker along. After she broke her leg a few months ago, few of
us thought she’d walk again or leave the nursing home.
Neither she nor Jerome would be able to join our expedition,
but they had heard about the mustangs first-hand from their Uncle
John, who traded for them with the Utes in the early 1900’s.
Five dollars a head plus dry goods and “stomach bitters”
which were 92 per cent alcohol.
Bill’s younger brother, Denny, is taking the reins from
their dad. Jerome used to be the one to round up visiting relatives
along with the local family to go exploring the desert or some
13,000 foot mountains, always choosing roads that looked like
cow trails.
The city slickers on this
trip are myself and Bill’s cousin and her husband from Muncie,
Indiana. Although we live in Silicon Valley, Bill has never become
urban.
A nephew joins us with three of his children–ages four,
six and eight. They make me think of the time I watched the cartoon
“Spirit” with my son Dave’s daughters. Its opening
lines were unforgettable: “They say the story of the West
was written from the back of a horse. The West has no beginning
and no end. No boundaries between earth and sky.”
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take a close-up look at 'hoodoo' rock formations along South Shale Ridge. |
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The 10 of us start off on the interstate. We pass the configuration of cliffs that formed the backdrop of our family reunion. Then we turn off to a town that looked like it blew in from a movie about the Old West.
As soon as we leave pavement, the dirt road forks in several directions. We could end up on an oil exploration site. We stop to consult our topo maps and then plunge on through a wash and over large stones. When we were first married, I would have jumped out of the car at this point and said, “No more for me."
I’d never driven on
a dirt road until I married Bill. Why work so hard for scenery
when you could find it along a paved highway? But somewhere in
our more than 40 years of marriage the Kiefer “I can do
anything” rubbed off on me. I realized that their family
qualities are just what historian Frederic Jackson Turner described
in 1883 as traits of frontier life: “…strength combined
with acuteness and inquisitiveness; practical, inventive turn
of mind . . . buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom.”
We bump along, stopping now and again to stretch our legs or
to calm queasy stomachs. Four-year-old Abby takes off her shoes
and scrambles up the sandstone rocks barefoot. No surprise to
her dad. Kiefer kids start out on backcountry outings just weeks
after birth. By the time they are toddlers they scramble the
slickrock like lizards. They put me to shame.
No one asks “are we there yet?” They already are.
What Abby knows instinctively is something I had to learn by
experience: the vast rugged landscape of western Colorado and
Utah–the legendary wide open space of the west--is the family
sense of place for the soul. Endless fascination and love for
this kind of country flows through their veins like the blood
of their German ancestors. My own children absorbed this heritage
through family lore and hair-raising outings when we visited
the relatives.
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into the frontier world she seems to love instinctively. |
When the road ends at the cliffs overlooking the Grand Valley, we stop to eat lunch. Had the horses plunged off the edge? We take a different road back so we can have at least one new adventure–checking out South Shale Ridge. No one in the family had been there.
We turn a corner and–surprise--our wild horse chase is over! A buckskin stallion, two mares, and a palomino graze in a hollow as if they were waiting for us. I suck in my breath and let it out in excited whispers. We get out our cameras, pass the binoculars, and stand respectfully back. Except my brother-in-law Denny and I. More excited than the kids, he creeps up on the stallion while keeping its face in the cross hairs of his telephoto lens. I sneak up on the mares. When the horses stared back balefully, we heeded everyone’s calls and retreated.
He and I can hardly forget Great Uncle John’s memoir of the Ute roundup of the 100 wild horses he planned to send by train to Indiana around 1905: “It was not long after that I saw the cloud of dust and the horses coming down the canyon headed for the corral. It was the largest bunch of horses I had seen and they were moving five or six abreast in a long file headed by three or four Indians and followed by several more.”
He described the mustangs: “Their home is the wide open range, red desert and the dark hidden folds of the mountains. They are as wild as a tornado, galloping over prairies, zigzagging through foothills, flying along canyon ledges, churning up dust until they are lost in the clouds of it. Of all things they love, the best is liberty.”
The horses we see are part of a herd of about 80, according to the Bureau of Land Management office. The BLM is getting ready to thin the numbers down to 60 in order to maintain the health of the herd, given the resources for food and water. The horses will be rounded up by helicopter and freeze-branded. The strongest will be let go and the rest taken for auction to the Mesa County Sheriff’s Posse grounds in Grand Junction. The minimum bid is $125. The buyer must also meet strict facility requirements for adopting a horse. He or she has the option of having the animal broken in by prisoners in the Canon City penitentiary.
But finding the horses doesn’t end our day. We also discover South Shale Ridge. Not too large, the place is filled with “hoodoos”–human-size formations that look like goblins. The kids lead us through. The horses could never fit here.
As we drive out, I stare at the wide, panoramic scene of plateaus, mesas and mountains. The variety of clouds overhead reflects the rugged textures below. The realm of the family’s wild west is a complete world.
Our son Dave reads Great Uncle John’s memoirs to his daughters after he tucks them into their beds in their home in a well-paved suburb of San Francisco. To them, as to me, the “west” is to the east of home. It is also in the blood.
©2004 by Joyce Kiefer. The photos are courtesy of the author.
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