sw, that's a great story!!!!!!!!!!! I wish I coulda been a spotted owl in one of those trees,
watching them head for the hills......... :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Ok, the rest of the story............
Back in the late 90s, Kit and Sherry (Hubby's brother and his business
partner/ex-wife, though they still act like they're married, or even more
so) found some old laws that stated that if your ranch was grazing land
before the Forest Reserve (pre-cursor to our modern-day Forest Service)
was established in the 1890s, then you (supposedly) don't have to have a
permit to graze your "allotment". You just file on the water rights that
you're putting to beneficial use, and basically, the grazing rights are tied
to the water rights, so you can graze without having to put up with the
bureacrats and all their BS.
So, they filed on everything, and refused to sign their grazing permit, or
pay their grazing fees. Nothing happened until about two years later,
then the FS took them to court over it, the judge ruled that they had to
sign the permit and pay the fees, plus interest and penalties, and get the
cattle off.
They moved all 1,000+ head of cattle first to Gila, NM; then here and
there, finally ending up at Logan, NM; where they stayed until the fall of
2003. At that point, they had come up with some more court cases that
defended their original stand, and moved the cattle back onto the
Diamond Bar, which is situated in two wilderness areas (Gila & Aldo
Leopold Wilderness areas), with a strip of regular forest and some private
property in between the two.
Everything was fine and dandy for several months, Hubby moved over
there when he'd finished helping with the fall works around here, and
started helping them with their cattle, too. The guy we got Rebel from,
was also there at the same time, and that's pretty much where we got to
know him. Al and I would get someone to do chores for us here on
weekends, and go over there, too, then back on Sunday evening. Finally,
that got to be too many rough miles (110 each way, all but 30 over really
bad dirt roads) on the old pickup, so we loaded up Al's heifer, Blondie,
and the goats we had here, and pretty much moved over there in Feb,
2004. We dropped the goats off at a neighbor's who has a lot of them, so
Blondie was the only one we took. Hubby had taken the dogs and horses
over, when he went. It was like going home (he and I had lived and
worked on the Diamond Bar for just a little over a year, after we got
married, he'd been there since 85, so he was there 3 years longer than I
was). We've homeschooled Al since he was nearly out of the 3rd grade,
so school was no problem, we just took his books and stuff along with us.
By that time, the FS was intent on sticking Kit to the original court order,
regardless of what new stuff he'd come up with. Later that spring, the FS
started taking bids for the contract of gathering the Diamond Bar cattle,
and removing them from forest lands (which is a laugh, since the federal
government has no lands in NM.........legally, anyway). Every time they'd
try to make a contract with someone, the contractees would find out what
was really going on, and back out. This happened probably 4 or 5
times. Really, no one wanted to be a part of the "legal" rustling of the
Diamond Bar cattle......
Finally, about March, they found some unscrupulous character from El
Rito, NM, who would come and gather the cattle for them. They moved
in, in force, for the big gather. There was FS vehicles everywhere you
looked. They closed the ranch off to anyone but those of us who were
living there, and even we were supposed to have a permit to get off the
private property. No one was allowed to go into the ranch, or out of it,
without special permission from the forest supervisor, Marcia Andre. (Ya
want to talk about a witch with a capital "B" :roll: ) So, for close to 2
months, we were "there".
Backtracking to the week they all moved in.........Hubby and Al had ridden
over to the other private property, to bring what was left of the horses, to
Black Canyon, where they could be taken care of. On the way back, they
were almost to the canyon that cuts across to the BC horse pasture, when
these 2 vehicles loaded with FS LEOs (Law Enforcement Officers) stopped
them. Hubby said you could hear the dogs barking in the canine unit
one......They wanted to know where they were going, and Hubby told
them that he and Al were taking the last 3 horses to BC, from the Link.
They wanted to know where his permit was, to be on FS land. He told
them in no uncertain terms, that he didn't need no *%^$@ permit to go
from the Link to BC, and he caught up with Al and the other horses, and
they started off again. As soon as the LEOs could get their vehicles
turned around, here they came, in hot persuit.........lights flashing, siren
blaring, yelling over the PA system for them to stop their horses and get
off. Hubby told Al, keep going........by this time, they were loping along
beside the road, the FS right behind them. Hubby turned the horses to go
off the hill, where the road starts to switchback to the bottom of the
canyon. The FS had to follow the road, and he thought they'd probably
stop when they headed the horses off the hill, but nope. They came on,
driving like maniacs, still with sirens and lights, and yelling.
Hubby said that he and Al turned the horses up the canyon, and that was
the end of the hot persuit.......(It's a dang good thing that Little Dan is
gentle for the most part, cause ya ain't never seen a mad mama like Al's
mama gets, and those FS goons would have never known what hit em, if
they'd been sued for endangering the life of a minor........he was 13 at the
time :roll: )
Not too much longer, and they showed up at the house at Black
Canyon......dogs and all..........(they had me being the "official
photographer and historian" of the deal, here's a couple of pics of that,
forgive the poor quality, I was having to shoot through the window, so
they wouldn't know they were gettin their pics taken, in case they could
be used in court)
The K9 Unit:
One of the LEOs (notice the gun):
Two more of the LEOs (also "packing" but you can't see theirs).......along
with Sherry & Kit:
The LEO without the jacket seemed to be in charge, and he told them that
they had to keep everyone on the private property, or else. :roll: So Kit
told them not to set foot on the private property again, either, or else.
A couple of times, the publisher of one of the local newspapers came out,
took pics of the cattle they'd gathered, etc. and write up something for the
paper. We had the local reporter from KOAT7 Action News out there
three times, I believe, doing interviews with Kit, over the mess.
Here's a scan I did, of one of the newspaper deals:
There were a lot of tight-bagged cows in the holding area, calves that
couldn't find their mamas, it was a horrible mess from what we heard.
The whole deal bothered especially Kit, terribly. We never got to see any
of it. They would just make a circle (or whatever they did) and bring
everything they found, jam them in trailers and haul them 20 or so miles
over the worst roads you ever saw, and dump them in the enclosures
they had set up (portable corrals mostly). Here are some pics that the
newspaper guy took and sent me over email:
Not long after these pics were taken, Hubby, Al and I came home for the
weekend for the 4-H awards banquet (where Al won 7 county awards in
addition to his year pin :clap: just had to throw that in.......lol) and Kit and
Sherry were out checking waters, etc. She went back to BC, to tend the
milk cow, etc., and Kit was going to spend the night at one of the cabins,
then were going to meet the next morning. She went to where they were
supposed to meet, and he wasn't there. She went to the cabin, and he
hadn't been there, either. Worried, she headed back to where they had
parted, and started tracking him from there. Right away, she knew
nothing good had happened, when she topped over a rise, and there was
a set of bright orange portable corrals, and his tracks were leading right
to it.
Later that day, one of the neighbors got a call from the FS, saying that
there was a Diamond Bar branded horse at the FS camp, and for them to
get word to Sherry to come get it. The only horse it could have been,
was Alex......the horse Kit was riding when they parted the evening
before. Sure enough, when she got there, it was Alex.
The FS spokesperson told her that Kit had tried to run over their
employees and contractors with the horse, trying to turn the cattle out of
the enclosure. Allegedly, he had hit one across the face with his rope,
and did bodily damage to a couple of others, before the 6 or 7 of them
got him off the horse, pepper sprayed him in the face, cuffed him and
hauled him to Las Cruces, where they put him in jail. Kinda one of those
cut the head off of the body, and both will be easier to handle deals, I'm
thinking.
So, we pretty much stayed at the house for the next 3 weeks or so.
Every evening, someone would go down to the gate and pick up the head
count gathered that day, but that was about all we could do.
The FS tried one auction barn and then another, each one turning them
down, wanting nothing to do with the illegal sale of the cattle. Finally,
they ran out of options in NM, and tried in AZ and TX, with pretty much
the same results. Finally, the Guymon, OK barn consented to sell the
cattle, and make the check out to the FS. (Yep, they stole em for
sure!
)
After about 3 weeks in jail, they turned Kit over to the custody of Bobby
Jones, from over by Alamogordo, with one of those electronic monitoring
deals, and he couldn't get more than 10 miles from the house, or the
monitor deal would go off, and they'd take him back to jail. Jones' have a
ranch over there, and even though it wasn't the Diamond Bar, at least Kit
could go ride and work cattle instead of sit in jail. He was over there until
about mid-summer, and then they let him take the monitor deal off, but
he still couldn't go home, or even to Catron County. So they stayed with
Sherry's mom over by T or C.
In May, Michael Martin Murphey did a benefit for them, over at T or C,
and raised quite a bit of money for Kit's defense fund......it was one of the
best shows I've ever seen...........
After MMM had performed for over an hour, he brought out cowboy poet
and storyteller, Doc Mayer, and he entertained for about a half hour.
Sherry and her mom had put together a couple of boards, with pictures of
Diamond Bar and family stuff from the oldest they could get, through the
present,
and another with all the articles that had recently appeared in Range
magazine, about the whole deal.
Kit had to go back to court for the assault charges sometime that fall, and
they decided he should serve 5 months jail time, for doing what he
supposedly did. Fortunately, they counted the 3 weeks he'd already
served, so he only had to spend 4 months and a week in La Tuna, near
Las Cruces, NM. When he got out on May 6, we had another big party for
him, again at the Civic Center in T or C. Unfortunately, MMM couldn't be
there for that one, as his father had just passed away and he was busy
with the arrangements. There was a good turn-out, though, and
everyone seemed to enjoy having Kit back among us. He was sure glad
to be back, and some of the stories he told about being in prison for even
those few months, were enough to make me decide I don't ever want to
go there.........
In this pic, we see Kit's dad, Alvin, sitting in the chair facing the camera,
then Kit talking to the reporter from the Denver Post, and his
photographer. This was taken before everyone got there for the party.
Since there wasn't anything to do anymore on the Diamond Bar, Kit
decided he'd try Argentina. About Christmas time, all the in-laws kids &
their families got together at the old ranch, where FIL & MIL live, for a
farewell party for him. Here they are, at that.
So, Kit went to Argentina and spent a good part of last year down there,
(please don't hate him) clearing out the rain forest. Of course, he said as
soon as they cleared a spot of it, it started growing right back, so it's not
like it's gonna be anything drastic.......
They got rained out, down there (their rainy season is during our winter)
so he came back, and worked with Hubby for their oldest brother for a
spell, until brother got his panties in a wad and fired them both (another
long story). Last we heard, Kit's over by Anaheim, CA, working on a road
job there, and hating every minute of it. He's trying to get enough money
to go back to Argentina, where he wants to buy a hunting lodge deal, and
do that.......there's some big money in that, we hear.
And so ends the saga of Kit Laney and the Diamond Bar Ranch.......
