Page 25 - Ninety Miles From Nowhere

At every dance the floor was cleared sometime during the night for a special dance by Dad and Mrs. Moore. Their’s was a very fast, intricate step on the order of a polka or a “stomp,” and it was obvious they enjoyed showing off their skill. Mrs. Moore danced with a gaping smile, showing her remaining teeth, but the habitual snuff stick was not in evidence, thank goodness!
At the time I moved to New Mexico, I didn’t know how to dance, as my father object strenuously to dancing, card playing (except Rook and Flinch), and all other “tools of the devil.”
When the first dance was announced in the countryside, Gayle was determined that I should learn to dance before the occasion demanded. He and Riley came up to Dad Moore’s, and while Riley worked the wind- up phonograph, Gayle taught me to dance. He kept insisting that I listen to the music and let my feet act as they wanted to.
At first I was very stiff and self-conscious, but Gayle had given me very good advice, and he was a good dancer. Suddenly, by listening to the music rather than thinking about steps, my whole body began to feel permeated with music, especially down in my feet. All at once I had the feeling of falling into a groove or a rut, after sliding all over the place, and from then on it was easy. I just had to practice.
I didn’t win any prizes, and my repertoire was very small, but I could dance the two- step, waltz, and what they called the one- step. I still didn’t pay any attention to the mechanics of each dance, but following Gayle’s instructions, just listened to the music. Anyway, I enjoyed it, and I never lacked for partners, even a novice like me.
One of the best dances of the whole year was held at the Evans ranch, between the Beaverhead Ranger Station and the Beaverhead Hunting Lodge. They had a very large, one-story house with a porch running all around it and with a fireplace in every room except the kitchen. The kitchen had a range big enough for a restaurant — in fact, it covered almost all of one wall.
Their ranch was called the Slash Ranch because of their brand, and some people called it the V-Cross-T. I think that was another brand. As I recall it, the Slash was a brand for their horses and the V+T for their cows. There was also a lake not for from their house called the V-Cross-T Lake.
The Evans family was very interesting. The father, G.W. (Dub) was later a state senator, and wrote a book called Slash Ranch Hounds. He had several very famous hounds that he used for tracking bear and mountain lions. These same hounds were written up in the old magazine called “Country Gentlemen,” now defunct. The article was written by Paul Bransom or Branson, an artist who visited the Evans ranch for a mountain lion hunt, and illustrated the article with his drawings.
Dub’s wife, Miss Beulah, was a very beautiful lady, and in 1986 was still living at the age of ninety-five on the Evans Montoya ranch. She was the daughter of James B. Gillett who was a Texas Ranger from 1875 to 1881. In 1921 he wrote a book titled Six Years With The Texas Rangers.
The Evanses had three children, Pansy, G.W. Jr. called Pete, and Robert. Pansy was attending high school in Albuquerque.