Nickels
were hard to come by in the tough economic times of the early 1890s, but the cowboys
patronizing Jim Scarborough’s saloon in Claude
never minded standing Blackie a drink when they could afford to.
When cowboys
with a little time and money on their hands ventured into the saloon, they’d usually
find Blackie hanging out near the bar. If no one offered him a beer, Blackie did
not mind begging. Once he did that, it was generally more than a cowboy could
take.
As soon as the bar tender set a cool bottle of brew down on the
bar, Blackie would stand, grab the bottle and down it to the last drop. He didn’t
say thanks, but his eyes and body language said it for him.
The reason
Blackie didn’t articulate his appreciation was that he was a bear. He liked his
beer as much as any man, but bears couldn’t talk.
If anything gave Blackie
more pleasure than a beer it was whipping up on town dogs. Smart enough to know
exactly how far his chain would reach, the bear would position himself so that
he had plenty of loose chain to spare and wait with seeming indifference for one
of the dogs to get in range. Then, to the delight of the cowboys who knew the
drill, Blackie would box the unsuspecting dog around until it could get loose
and run howling away.
Years later, pioneer Panhandle
rancher Jim Christian, who spent 15 years working on the legendary JA Ranch in
Armstrong County, told his daughter Inez Christian Dozier of Amarillo
how Blackie came to be a fixture in early Claude.
“Several
of us were gathering cattle north of Ceta Creek,” he began. “Paul, my brother,
was riding the hills, and drifting the cattle toward the [Prairie Dog Town fork
of the Red] river. I was working below, and would gather the loose stuff and throw
them into the main herd…farther down.”
Christian
heard his brother fire a shot about the same time he saw a large black bear running
off through the brush. He figured Paul had only taken a pot shot at the animal
for fun, and continued tending to his business. But
when Christian returned to the herd, Paul was missing. When his brother finally
rode in, he held a squiring baby bear. Annoyed with Jim for not checking on him
after hearing the shot, Paul explained that he had run onto a mother bear and
two cubs. He decided to rope one of the babies. Naturally, the mama bear put up
a pretty good fight until Paul’s shot ran her off with the other cub. The
ranch manager and everyone else took a shine to the cub and collectively adopted
him. The cowboys kept the bear chained to a cottonwood tree near the camp’s rock
well house. “Blackie
seemed contented enough, never wanting for food or entertainment,” Christian continued.
“The whole camp was beginning to feel very attached to him, and then, about the
third morning, we found he had escaped.”
Several
days later, the cub showed back up content to be rechained as long as the groceries
kept coming. But after several months, the cowboys gave the bear to the owner
of their favorite watering hole in Claude,
Jim Scarborough.
Somewhere
along the line, the bear got named Blackie. Though tame, one trait he never overcame
was occasionally slipping his chain and going for a walkabout. His favorite home
away from home was the local hotel, where he became the nemisis of a middleaged
widow named Nellie Anderson Weaver.
One morning, Blackie absented himself
from Scarborough’s saloon and ambled over to the hotel. There he ran into Mrs.
Weaver walking back from the barn with a fresh pail of milk.
“This was
as gratifying a breakfast as he could imagine,” Christian said. “But on raising
his nose to the bucket he found it held higher and higher. He was not to be denied,
however, and he started climbing the indignant lady…. Needless to say, he came
out victorious.”
While Blackie had a robust appetite, he also enjoyed
a refreshing dip in the rain barrel just outside the hotel’s dining room. Drinking
water was not easy to come by back then, and Blackie’s fondness for her rain barrel
infuriated Mrs. Weaver.
One day, cooking lunch for her guests, Mrs. Weaver
heard water splashing and realized Blackie in her rain barrel again. Armed with
a broom, she ran outside and flailed away at Blackie every time he raised his
head above the rim.
“After churning out most of the water,” former JA
cowboy Charlie Taul remembered, “[Blackie] darted out of the barrel and around
the [hotel], sending a spray of water in the pathway of his pursuer. Noticing
the front door ajar, he dodged in and on down the hall through the dining room,
and then out the open window…into the rain barrel again.”
Habits are hard
to break, however, and Blackie continued to periodically get loose for a romp
around town. One time, a dog kept him on the run so long that he died from heat
exhaustion.
“His pranks were the interest of the village and countryside,”
Christian concluded, “and even the hotel manager could not help pine at his going.”
© Mike Cox
- March 28,
2012 column
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