Mattie and Paul Black, Dairy Valley-Gamble Ranch, Montello NV, late 1940s

Mattie and Paul Black, 1940’s

Fast forward 40 years: my camp,(image above of Teepees and horses) while branding calves. Mattie and Paul were standing just in front of where the truck is in this picture. The old cabin stood under the big rock on the hill.

The Chuck box stood on the back of the truck tailgate, the tarp covered the kitchen area with a cooking fire outside; teepees for sleeping quarters and a rope corral to catch horses. The horses were grazed during the day with the the “Rango boy” watching them and held in the rope corral at night. Headquarters was 35 miles south and no fences in between to stop the cavvy, if they left camp.

Not much had changed two generations later, except the cabin burned down, both Paul and I would brand a few thousand calves with a handful of Buckaroos through the summer.

We were on the other side of Dairy Peak when a wind came up and took some ambers from the branding fire into some dry grass and ended up burning a few hundred acres. We just moved out of the way and kept branding calves. That afternoon the helicopters came in dropping off firefighters. The next morning we went back over the mountain to follow up in that area. We asked the firefighters what they figured started the fire and they said it must have been lightning, to remote for it to be man caused. Ok. We rode off and went about our business.

Simple times, good times. Paul and Mattie always got a twinkle in their eye when they talked about their time at the TS and Gamble, and the young boys helping them, the Jones boys, the Roeser boys, my dad and uncles. Mattie looked after them as if they were her own, Paul shared his knowledge and several went on to be accomplished horsemen. ~ Martin Black