fencecutters

"My greatgranddaddy was a fencecutter along the Colorado River in the 1880's. I'm one, too, by God, and for the same reason. He hated the rich capitalists from up north fencing off the free range, and I hate the high game fences. It is the same old story, the have-nots against the deep-pocket rich bastards. I am the Texas version of an Earth-firster monkeywrencher." The self-avowed eco-terrorist glared at me. We were standing along a highway in the hill country, and the tall game fences lined both sides of it as far as could be seen.

"It is getting so a person has to have five to ten grand in his pocket for a weekend of deer hunting. I'm a mean son of a bitch -- I was driving along a road the other night and saw a big trophy buck just behind one of those goddamned fences. I just happened to have my rifle with me, and being drunk and not giving a shit, I blasted that deer, just so there would be one less rich bastard bragging about the big buck he shot. Wimpy-assed city pricks don't know what real hunting is. Hunting behind a game fence is nothing but slaughter-house killing.  How can anybody be proud of shooting half-tame critters?"

I had accidentally run into him along the highway where I had stopped to photograph a flower. He had walked up, carrying a bag of tin cans over his shoulder, carrying a stabbing stick. When he had jabbed a can with what seemed to be excessive vigor I had commented, "I hate the assholes that toss their crap out the windows, too," as a way of greeting him.

"I don't hate 'em -- they keep me in beer money. I'm just pissed at this fence -- " and he slapped the 8 foot tall fence with his stick. "Look at this, this was not here last year -- and to build it they cut down one of the largest tickletongues along this road. It had strands of old Spur Rowel barbed wire buried in its wood."

 I asked about his fence cutting ancestor, "I heard a little about that fencecutting. Was your grandfather up toward the little town of Robert Lee?" 

"My grandfather was a mercenary that fought for Pancho Villa and died in Spain fighting against Franco. His brother joined the Farmers’ and Laborers’ Protective Association, and some members of that were tried for treason in World War One, just because they were socialists. The history of the folks that fought for worker's rights in the United States is always glossed over by the oligarchy's educational system.  But you were asking about my great-grandfather, right?"  I nodded. 

"My great-great-grandfather came to Texas as part of an Utopian community known as La Reunion, near Dallas. He'd been part of the group that later formed the International Workingman's Association cofounded by Karl Marx in 1864. A bunch of like-minded folks tried to create their socialist paradise here in Texas in 1855 but it fell apart in a decade. A bunch of them went back to Europe, but he stayed and went to the frontier and claimed some land, but died at age 40 from cholera. Like a lot of folks, my great-grandfather started branding mavericks and building up a herd as a teenager. And being at the edge of the frontier with all the country being free range, he saw it as a chance to make something of himself. He threw in his stock with others and went up the Chisholm Trail, and then the Western Trail and did pretty good for a few years. Then Comanches killed his first wife and their three kids, and stole his herd. After that, he just worked for wages for other men, running cattle on the open range."

As he talked, I was trying my darnedest to recollect what years the trails were used, and as far as I could remember, the guy's story seemed to fit what I knew of history. I knew for sure that open range ranchers south and west of Brownwood and on further west filled up the Colorado River valley to its headwaters in the late 1870's and early 1880's.

"In 1879 a rich Kentucky girl by the name of Mabel Doss married William Day and helped him buy 130 sections of land in Coleman County. One or the other of them had listened to "Bet-a-million" Gates and decided barbed wire was a good thing. By 1881, Day died, and a year later Mabel sold a half-interest in the ranch to other Kentuckians. By then, almost the entire ranch had been fenced off -- the largest ranch behind fence in Texas. Other outfits started doing the same. The free range boys were a mite unhappy, to say the least. In 1883 a drought dried up the country, and to get water for their cows, they sometimes had to cut fences to keep their stock alive. The conflict escalated, and the fencecutters started going after every fence. Over at Robert Lee the fencecutters burned a thousand fenceposts and threw rolls of wires on the fire -- you can still see that mass of melted together metal in the old jail museum there. "

"My greatgrandpappy, with his socialist background, printed up broadsides that read "Down with monopolists" and "Down with foreign capitalists." His buddies printed up others that read "The soil of Texas belongs to the heroes of the Confederacy," and they plastered them all on every fence in town. When they rode out fencecutting, they often wore white hoods, so they became known as the "White Caps." Some of his compatriots were the justice of the peace and the constable of Brownwood -- and they got shot while cutting fence and were found wearing false moustaches. Things got pretty hairy -- Mabel Day hired a gunslinger to protect her ranch while she went to Austin. After almost a year of lobbying she got fencecutting and malicious pasture burning made felonies."

"And in an interesting sidenote, my great-granduncle married a Mexican gal up on the upper Pecos, and with the old free range Spanish sheepherders also cut fences trying to protect their common grounds -- the old Spanish land grants. They were known as Gorras Blancas, which means white caps. You ought to read about the Gorras Blancas in "The Devil's Hatband" by Daniel Aragón y Ulibarrí to learn how ruthless the capitalists of the late 1800's really were. And, interestingly enough, one of those capitalists was Mabel Day’s new husband – Captain Joseph Lea, who had been Bloody Bill Quantrill’s righthand man."

When he finished his speech, the fellow was rocking back and forth on his heels and holding on to his old shirt as if it had lapels like a coat. I decided to prod him a bit on the reasons he had for his modern-day fencecutting.

"The main reason I have heard against high fences is that they restrict animals and their ability to roam naturally -- and that without careful management the genetics of the deer will deteriorate, and the gene flow of other animals will be totally disrupted. If there is too many deer on a place, then disease can wreak havoc, or so I've heard. It sounds like part of your reasons are based on the unfair economics of the situation -- that it makes hunting a rich man's game."

"No lie! You have to pay a minimum of a grand to hunt deer on the cheapest of those ranches, and the price goes up and up. I have heard that each point and each extra inch of inside spread adds another 400 bucks to the price of the deer. These ranchers buy deer semen at 500 to 2000 bucks a sample so they can genetically engineer bigger and bigger bucks. They buy breeding bucks for 5 grand a head. The fences cost 10 to 20 grand a mile. The deer are raised in pens and only released into bigger pastures just before the hunt -- and don't have a bit of their natural wariness -- they have been handfed, for God's sake! Other places charge 4 or 5 grand a deer."

He pressed his nostril with a finger and blew a wad of snot on the ground. "Some of these gamefarm ranchers will show videos of each individual deer on the place to their prospective clients, just so that the "guest" can select the very animal they want to shoot.Deer factories, that is what they are, not ranches! The wild animals of Texas belong to us all, and it is dead wrong to turn deer into a  commercial product. No wonder that there is fewer and fewer local Texas hunters going to the field -- ninety-nine percent of us can not afford it! Rich punks from all over come to hunt the game ranches -- foreigners and Yankees, but damn few Texans -- we are getting shut out from our own landscape. There is 70 miles of nonstop high fences from Uvalde to Junction, by God!" He was getting on a roll, jabbing a finger at my face.

"Dr. Deer, Dr. James Kroll, director of the Forestry Resources Institute at Stephen F. Austin, is the guru of "private deer management." He was quoted in the Texas Monthly as saying that game management by the state is "the last bastion of communism." Hell, in communist Russia only the rich and powerful could hunt  -- I'd say he's got it "backasswards." The reason for these high fences is to create large, multipoint sets of antlers to have hanging over a fireplace -- and that has nothing to do with what hunting is all about -- the meat, the chase, or the relationship with nature that a hunter can feel. It is cold-blooded testosterone posturing -- "Mine is bigger than yours!" Deer-queers and their  trophy bucks! Shoot -- the deer blinds on some of those places are climate controlled and have a wet bar!"  I was surprised he didn't honk up a big wad of disgust to spit.

"The Boone and Crockett Club refuses to certify deer shot inside high fences. Dr. Robert Brown at A&M calls game ranches "deer feedlots." I'm not the only one that feels the way I do. I don't buy any of the arguments of the apologists for the game farms -- that mountain lions climb the fences and javelinas dig under them. They say it preserves the land -- giving an incentive to restore the land to that fabled "original state" -- which original state do they mean  -- back when buffalo roamed this far south? After the brush came in after fire control?" He shook his head.

"After high school I worked on the oil rigs in the Gulf with my daddy, and bought an old rundown house to fix up when I retired, at the edge of town --" and he gestured down the road. "After twenty years I got hurt, so now I live alone on a disability pension. My house is full of books, and I spend a ton of time on-line. Sorry about the speech."

He suddenly lost steam and looked half-bewildered. I had the feeling I could stimulate a lecture on ecological history, but before I could say something, he shrugged and started to walk away, saying, "Ah, hell -- I know I am a clueless Luddite and can't change a thing, but I can for goddamn sure disrupt things!" With that, he marched off down the fenceline, whacking it with his jabbing stick with every step.

 

I watched him go, and wondered how many other people hated high fences -- and later found online a result of a poll that a hunting magazine had done -- almost 60% of the respondents said they did.