In celebration of Glacier National Park’s 2010 centennial, here’s the first in a series of memories and historical anecdotes about Montana and the park. The following excerpt from “Garden of Heaven” is based on a pair of white wolves, called Lord and Lady Snowdrift, who purportedly were the terror of Montana many years ago. (See historical note at the end of the post.) In my view, today’s wolfers are just as determined and cruel as my fictional Jack “Jayee” Gordon.

In the following, my protagonist’s grandmother tells the story of her broken nose:

I could praise him, my husband Jayee, and forgive him for his long absences if it weren’t for Lord Snowdrift.

You know Mark Twain’s claim that he came in with Halley’s comet and expected to go out with it. Elizabeth Jane, my Little Deer, came and went with a white wolf.

Between 1916 and 1923, Jayee hunted Snowdrift, the “soulless wolf” who rampaged—so it was said—from the Bear’s Paw Mountains to the Belt Mountains, killing cattle and sheep. Snowdrift brought out the worst men and the worst in men. Wolves were evil, an ‘enemy of the state’ according to wolfer Ben Corbin who wrote The Wolf Hunter’s Guide some years earlier. Manic in his pursuit of the “sinister canis lupus” or “the devil’s four-legged scourge” as Jayee called the misunderstood puppies, your grandfather disappeared into the great fastness of his own skull where there was plenty of room for long journeys.

Jayee liked the role of the wolfer-hero and he packed the hallowed tools of his trade with the same care attended to his surveying instruments. He lived and breathed death in the clothing of traps, guns, strychnine, arsenic, cyanide, matches and gasoline, and dynamite. He was less cruel than some. He slept with the gospel of Ben Corbin closer to his heart than the words of Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.

I cannot say how often he set eyes on the illusive Snowdrift. Like as not, he saw more of that wolf with a claw missing from his left front foot than of his daughter with her open spine. Truth be told, I reared Jayee’s first daughter and truth be told, I buried his second daughter, Betty—my exuberant Áwakásipok—for the want of good medicine on May 1, 1923. Jayee missed those last days. He came by the ranch later that month after verifying Snowdrift had been shot stone cold dead by wolfers Stevens and Eckerd in the Highwood Mountains and that’s when I told him the news.

He found me in the pens clipping the cord of a new born that had just fought its way into the world hind legs first. The ewe gave me trouble and was in a fair sour mood.

Jayee burst into my line of fire like Santa, with an armload of dolls, his coat pockets bulging with scrip from Buttrey’s store.
‘Where’s my sweet bouncing Betty?’ he asked. I believe he thought she’d be playing in one of the pens. ‘Where’s Daddy’s little girl?’

‘She’s down in the cottonwoods,’ I said.

I had grabbed up the lamb by its front feet and was sloshing a bit of iodine on the navel cord when the heel of Jayee’s boot slammed into my face. He was accustomed to kicking fractious stock and used to laugh his ass off saying the ewes thought his foot was a battering ram. Odd to say, I reflected on that as I lay on my back while a squirming lamb caressed my freshly broken nose and a spooked ewe kicked me in the ribs.

‘Damn squaw. Has all your sense run off? How the f— can you leave her off alone while you mother the sheep?’ Jayee was into a first class shout. ‘I’m just asking you how the damned f— can you leave her?’

When I didn’t answer due to the ongoing commotion of sheep, he flung the ewe off me and allowed me to sit up and lean against the side of the pen. I wouldn’t let him near the lamb.

‘Did you bury the wolf?’

‘Wasn’t mine to bury.’

‘Betty was, had you been around.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘Walk down and read her tombstone while I settle myself.’

His face bleached out and that surprised me.

‘God, no. When?’

‘Two weeks ago. Pneumonia on top of everything else was the death of her.’

‘You could have written.’

‘Written where? The Havre, the Fair, the Grand? Your actual Havre address has been vague.’

‘The yard office might have been a start. Did you have any help?’

‘Fiona stayed with us.’

‘Tom’s fiancé?’

‘Of course.’

‘Where do we do from here?’

‘Well Jack, I’ve got a broken nose, a splitting headache, a bruised rib, a dress covered with iodine, and a lamb to see to. What about you?’

He reached down and wrenched my nose more or less straight. ‘I meant you and me,’ he said.

‘You and me what?’

‘Having a bite of supper and talking about our life.’

‘As for supper, why not heat yourself some sheep dumplings. As for our life, if the law allowed, I’d divorce you again.’

‘That’d be double jeopardy, my sweet pine.’ He flung a handful of scrip at me. ‘This’ll fetch you a new dress at Buttrey’s next time you come looking for me in Havre.’

‘I’ll come looking when pigs fly,’ I told him.

He left the ranch close near dark, though there was light enough for him to pay Betty his last respects—such as they were.

Now, my little bear cub, we have gone further than facts into the true story of How Granny Got Her Crooked Nose.

–
Historical Note:

Like as not, we can blame a combination of well-intended false sightings, good natured fibbing, tall tales, moon light, whiskey, and the probable existence of multiple white wolves for the lack of precise details about the real exploits of the wolves called Lord Snowdrift and Lady Snowdrift in Montana beginning in 1917.

Lord Snowdrift purportedly ranged over a 70,000 square mile area of Montana for many years preying on cattle and sheep. With or without the help of his mate Lady Snowdrift he was blamed for over 1,500 kills and credited with the ability to maintain a five mile-per-hour run for 24 hours straight. He was variously reported killed in 1919, 1923, 1930 and other dates.

In my brief account, I settled on 1922 and 1923 respectively for the years in which Lady Snowdrift and Lord Snowdrift were killed. These dates are provided by Jack Holterman’s book Who Was Who in Glacier Land, privately published in 2001 at West Glacier, Montana.

Copyright (c) 2009 by Malcolm R. Campbell, author of “The Sun Singer,” a novel set in a fictionalized version of Glacier National Park.