Musings from Jim Mundy

I hope to find time to get many Bill & Ethel stories in this blog but time is crowding me, so who knows?
Bill played polo at New Mexico Military Institute on a scholarship with Jack Smith; who became a wool trader in the Chama Valley. Around 1950, Jack called Bill & told him that there was a hell of a deal to be had 11’000 acre ranch in the Chama area. Bill took a look & decided to buy it if there was any way to raise the down Payment. Luckily, Bill had a rich aunt (Aunt Nell) (kin to Huey Long!) who loaned the $10,000 down payment to her bro. Pop (Bill’s dad) & him .
8 different families had made similar attempts to buy the land from Arlington land Company but the local neighboring land grant claimants (GRANTERS)., had ran them off by cutting fences, burnings, killing livestock & other acts of terrorism.
This only lowered the price & excited Bill , who was always looking for a fight.
A few years later, after Bill had purchased the land, a group of granters were logging the huge , beautiful Ponderosa pine from along the Brazos River in what is now known as the Millstone Acres subdivision.
Many truckloads of logs had been cut, piled, & skidded by the granters using horses to skid the logs through the snow .
Bill hired Shorty Buckman, who owned the sawmill in Chama, to load & haul the logs to the mill.
Knowing there might be trouble, Bill asked Jack Smith to fight with him while also notifying the State Police, who, of course , being politicians, were on the granter’s side & failed to show up; but Bill & Jack, knowing this would happen, built a bunker of logs near the iced over Brazos River crossing from which Bill told the granters in perfect Spanish, that the” 1st one who set foot upon my side of the river had better give his heart to God because his ass belongs to me”.
Throughout the day, as logs were being hauled off, the group of over 20 granters would start across the river with their rifles & pistols , but as they neared Bill’s
side, the leaders would loose nerve & melt back into the crowd with no one brave enough to give his ass to Bill & Jack!