Non-Fiction 1,014 Words Don M. Mahan 820 E. Wagoner Rd. Phoenix, AZ 85022 602-788-5299 historianone@gmail.

com July 1, 2011

ALL IN A DAYS RIDE

ALL IN A DAYS RIDE

As a young boy growing up southwest of Tucson, Arizona, at what was once called Ajo Junction, I had ridden horses for as long as I can remember. I had always dreamed of owning my own horse, and my parents and I had even built a corral in anticipation of owning one someday. And yes, dreams can come true. One month after turning nine years old, I received, not only one horse, I was given two. And that on the same day! The first, an Indian pony, was a strawberry roan. Choppo, or little boy, was his name. He was a present from my mom and dad. About an hour later a rancher friend, Bill Douglas, presented me with the second horse. It was an older horse and snow white in color. Due to those two distinct features, I gave him two names, Grandpa and Snowball. Although quite young and a just over four feet tall, I was allowed free rein to ride and roam wherever I pleased. There was to be no overnight rides, but many of my ventures had me arriving home late in the evening. The area I rode included the desert and mountain ranges west of Tucson. To the north, riding either Choppo or Snowball, we rode past "A" Mountain (Sentinel Peak). The Santa Cruz River was the eastern border of my riding experience. Along the river to the south was the old Spanish mission, San Xavier del Bac. It has been called the White Dove of the Desert. As a curious and adventurous youth, I explored every nook and cranny of the mission, as well as all the abandoned ruins along the Santa Cruz River between, Bac and Tucson. Several miles west of my home and on the south side of a low mountain range was an interesting attraction, an abandoned mine we youngsters called bat mine. On one occasion my cousin Danny Mahan and I, while riding Snowball and Choppo, threw rocks at a mountain lion resting in its entrance. When the lion began a low growling sound, we appreciated it was time to ride on. My cousin Peryno Brothers and I once rode past Cat's Back (Cat Mountain), near the south end of the Tucson Mountains, when my white horse did some serious sidestepping. It seems that he had been gored in the past by a Brahma bull and there were a number of them from Bob Barkerss nearby ranch. 2

A neighbor girl, Lavenia Nutt, was with me the day that I received several vicious and life threatening cuts to my left arm. My pony Choppo and I got tangled up in a section of barbwire that was coiled up, unseen, in a palo verde tree. Lavenia would remember that day well. She fell off of Snowball twice as she hurried home for help. When I look at the scars on my left arm, the memories of that particular ride quickly return. Four months later I was bucked off of Choppo for the first and last time. I remember it distinctly, as I was ten years old the following day. Although I was just a youngster, Buddy Taylor, an experienced cowboy who lived nearby, asked me to ride as an extra in the film, Duel in the Sun. My parents werent excited about that opportunity, nor were they when Taylor convinced me to ride my first bull. I was about ten or eleven years old at the time. Yes, I got pitched off, but only after riding him eight seconds! Old Tucson, the movie set, was built in 1939 for the film Arizona. In the late 1940s, the location on the western side of the Tucson Mountains, had few visitors, but there was one regular. Me. It was my town. No gates, no locks and no entrance fee like the tourist attraction it is today. Up and down the dusty streets I rode, sometimes at full gallop. The saloon, the adobe mission, the numerous false storefronts, they were all a part of the mystique. One moment I was the sheriff, the next the outlaw. I was having the time of my life. I was the only young boy to have his own western town, even if it was a movie set. The majority of foot and hoof prints in the street were mine and Choppos not those of some movie star such as John Wayne. A little north of Old Tucson, I watched an unusual construction project take shape. I was the project's first, although unofficial, visitor. On Labor Day, 1952, there was an official visiting as the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum was unveiled to the public. On one of my rides deep into the heart of the Tucson Mountains in the summer of 1947, I made the unusual discovery of an unknown and abandoned Japanese airstrip. It had apparently been used to spy on Davis-Monthan, a military base during WW2. There wasnt a road leading in or out, but there was a small structure on site, which I found empty, except for one item. That item quickly caught my eye, a cap a pilots cap. This youngster wasnt about to leave that trophy behind. Several of 3

my fathers friends, army veterans, confirmed my find. Our local newspaper, the Tucson Daily Citizen, had earlier on February 26, 1942, reported that possible secret air bases may be located in isolate areas of California, Nevada, Arizona and Mexico. That seemed to be the case with the little landing strip in the Tucson Mountains. A Japanese pilot, flying out of Mexico and landing near Tucson, could walk out to a waiting vehicle and with that accomplice secretly do surveillance on the military activities. Whether it was finding a Japanese trophy, or riding Choppo or Snowball to A Mountain, San Xavier Mission, Old Tucson or just meandering along the Santa Cruz River, for this young cowboy, it was all in a day's ride. END