Howard Fugate

HF: He said, bring me money. I said, I'm not taking no checks. He'd give different ones a check, you know.

WN: And they bounced?

HF: We lived out, and him and Joe come down there. Dad, he, he put his pistol, he stuck it right down there with his open jacket, see, and jumped it on. And, they had a, they had their pistols on, each one of them had a pistol and a Winchester on their saddle. Dad wasn't afraid of nothing.

WN: Oh, that's great. Well, you got it all settled then.

BN: You had to be brave then.

HF: But, we moved up there to Lovett place after that, and he was the best neighbor we had. He'd horn him, and brand him, and [indecipherable] him, and this and that. And where's them, where's them

pictures of them two? I'm, and Emmett on the horses.

WN: Oh, right here.

HF: Emmett brought that horse, that, there's a, no, no.

WN: That's not the one. Here's the, here's the horses right here.

HF: Yeah.

WN: No.

HF: That's, that's, that's alright. It's not in there. It's, I've seen it somewhere.

WN: I've got these two with you on it.

HF: No.

WN: No, not that.

HF: No, that's a cow horse, see.

WN: Oh.

HF: These are all work horses here, see. Now, see, that's the way a horse looks when he's pulling.

WN: Huh.

HF: See, they're stretching. These here is not doing too good, and here they are…

WN: Really straining there, aren't they?

HF: Yeah. See, I'm, I'm have pushed this old, this old mare here, this gray mare here. She, she is a [indecipherable]. You could slap

[00:02:00

]

her on the back a time or two, she'd, well, she'd run away with 'em horses. See.

WN: Well, you worked well with your horses then, didn't you?

HF: Yeah, I yeah. I was a good team hand. And my brother, older than me, he was a cowboy. He made, he made all, he sold a Joe Ihle horse, a cow horse there, and I seen that picture somewhere. One time we was loading pipe, and I was working this team, and my brother, he was, we always tried to work our, our, our sorriest team, or horse, you know, to make him better, to load stuff with it. And we was loading eight inch pipe, and one joint at a time on short skids, you know, just rolling up. The wagon was a couple of way out long, and it was about that 30-foot pipe, you know, on one load.

WN: Oh, that was heavy.

HF: He rolled up, rolled that up there,

[00:03:00

]

and he was, he had a little Appaloosa horse. He was driving him and a gray mare together. And he was loading that pipe with the Appaloosa horse, and he was doing alright on one, one joint, so he had rolled. He said hook me on two of them, roll me on two of them, and I said, Reggie, you can't load them. He said, I bet you you can. I bet him. He whooped and beat that old horse around. And my uncle, my Uncle Cully (ph), he was driving a bay pair of mares, and he said, I got one loaded. And I said, load two of them. And I said, I bet you, oh, we just bet a dollar or something, you know. And he, he hooked that old mare on there and said and she couldn't, she wouldn't load it. And I said, I'll bet you a dollar or two or whatever it was. I got one loaded, and they wanted to use that young horse that I had.

[00:04:00

]

I said, no, I work with old Belle (ph). So, I hooked on to him. I held her by the bits, and I got it was just a board about like a shingle. About that wide. And I got that board, and I held her by the cheek and right there. And slapped her on the back two or three times. And I started rolling back and said, come here, Belle (ph). Doll was her name. And it sounded like a cannon going off that, that pipe was rolling over each other. They, they wouldn't get after it fast enough to, to jump one pipe over the other.

WN: But you did it.

HF: And I, she ran me plum back into the bell hole, see. Yeah, and, and she, she, she'd have went on further. I pulled her a lot of times and pulled her head up to a building, you know. And with her head out in front, she could, she'd turn her head, you know. I've had

[00:05:00

]

her put her shoulder again in the building. As long as them tugs tied, she'd go. She crippled a guy after after Dad traded her off to that guy that was up there on 7th Street, I think. They was moving timber, rig timber. We used to haul, we hauled all the rig timber out to build them rigs when we first started.

WN: Where did you get the rig timber?

HF: Out of the, they had big lumber yards.

WN: Oh, and they cut the trees from around here?

HF: No, no. Oh, no. It was shipped in here.

WN: Oh.

HF: And see them walking beams, they was, they was 36 inches deep and, and, and 18 inches wide. Wide is it?

WN: Oh my.

HF: And they was, they was thirty something feet long.

BN: Oh yes, way [indecipherable].

WN: How did you handle them?

HF: Well, dad started out he worked in a logging down in Missouri with oxen

[00:06:00

]

and stuff when he was young. And, they lifted and used can hooks. You ever, you know what a can hook is?

BN: Yeah.

WN: I don't.

HF: They're just a pole with a hook on them, and you, you hook on the log, put the pole over the log and it's hook under here.

BN: It's got a and flexible piece.

HF: Put it, it had a swing hooks.

WN: Oh.

HF: And put your shoulder in it. You could roll. And he, he'd wanna roll in stuff on there. And I said, dad, that's too hard. And I'd load, I'd take my team and load them see. And you take, you take them, beams now see them, them was square. I mean, they was square shoulder. They wouldn't roll like a pipe, you know. And you flop them. Well, it takes, and if you, you flop once, and when you go down, if you keep your, your horses a going, well, it, it'll, it'll, it'll,

BN: Catch it just right.

HF: Go right on up. I went out here one time, I asked a

[00:07:00

]

farm boss out there for some of his work, see, for, after I'd taken them pictures there, and he said, well, I've got a man out here with a pair of mules that's doing a good job for me, and he's been out here a long time, and says he'd do anything I wanted him to do. I said, okay, I thought maybe you might have more than he could do. And you know, it wasn't three days, but he'd come up to my house and said, can you move a set of bullwheels? And I said, well, sure I can. I said, well, that ol' boy that had working out there, he said he, he, he come over late one evening, he said he's been trying to load them bullwheels all day and broke his wagon down by 3 o'clock and had to quit.

BN: Yeah.

HF: And he said, well I said, if I can't, if I can't load them in 20 minutes,

[00:08:00

]

I'll, it won't cost you a dime to work out there all day. So I went out there and, he was going to send me a helper and, and he told the helper to go help the pumper start two wells and then go on up there and help Howard load them bullwheels. Well I got up there and he had all the blocks he could find, on the lease I guess, piled up out there around them bullwheels. And I moved them, and this and that, before I get my wagon right inside of them bullwheels.

BN: Yeah.

HF: And when that guy come up there to help me, I was moving them down. See, I done have them over here. And I went down, I hauled them down to the rig. See, they was cleaning and, cleaning wells out, see. They weren't they had these bullwheels was, you know what the bullwheels is in the back of the rig there?

BN: I think so.

WN: That's the big wheels.

HF: It's in the, in the back of the rig. They're not in the,

[00:09:00

]

I don't know, bell hole.

WN: Oh.

HF: There's a band wheel in there, see.

BN: Yeah.

HF: There's a [indecipherable], bull wheels, and what other kind of wheels is this? I don't know, I'll read that. Anyhow Mabel's uncle, Vester Johnson (Sylvester Johnson), you remember him when he was commissioner here? Or do you know him?

BN: No.

HF: You wouldn't know him. He he was dressing tools [indecipherable] in the drill over there. And I said, Vester, if you'll fold that [indecipherable] out at that rig up there, I'll pick them bullwheels off and set them on, in the [indecipherable] for you, so they left them. And he said, can you do that? And I said, try me. And I put down there a [indecipherable] and put my team to that end of the line. They hooked on those bullwheels and I picked them up and they swung right in there where they went. And I, I could pick them up. I could, with them old horses, I could just move them a little

[00:10:00

]

bit at a time. And I held them up there and they scooted a big post on them that they set in, see. And over a while I'd come up there and he said, and when you get that, he said, I wanted to see you load the bullwheels. And I said, well you didn't get up here in time. And he said, after you get that other stuff moved down there, I had a stand to take down there and some water lines and stuff. I loaded that up and take it down there and he, he hooked me on four more sets of bullwheels that day, see.

WN: Oh, your poor horses, didn't they nearly die?

HF: No, no. You can roll, you can roll a big, a round thing, as big as a round is, easier it is to roll. Yeah. Ain't that right?

WN: Oh, shoot. Well, listen.

BN: You gotta know what you're doing.

HF: Yeah. See he was, I don't know, he was going to block them up some way. I don't know why. See, I just rolled it right up again

[00:11:00

]

in the wagon. And see, it's got two grooves for a rope that big or bigger for the bull ropes on one end and the other is the brake wheel, see. Well, I just rolled, I just pulled my wagon right up close to them and just rolled them up again in the wagon, in the wagon and hooked a chain on my wagon down to the bottom of the band wheel, see. And this end down here, I hooked the chains to the wagon, you know, and run it right on to them grooves over and hooked my team on that.

WN: Hey, that was an engineering feat.

HF: And see, I just got them by the face and, and they just went, went to pick it up. And that other chain, the hole in there, just looked and it couldn't turn it. It couldn't come on over them, see.

WN: Oh, gah.

BN: Vester Johnson, would he have been kin to Gus Johnson?

HF: He is Gus's brother.

BN: Gus's brother.

HF: Huh. Full brother.

BN: And Lee Johnson.

HF: Yeah. Gus, Lee, and Loddie

[00:12:00

]

(Lowdwick Johnson). Remember Loddie?

BN: No, I never did know Loddie.

HF: He was the youngest one.

BN: That right?

HF: You know Charles Ray?

BN: Yeah.

HF: That's his dad. Loddie.

WN: Loddie was his dad.

BN: Yeah, I know Charles Ray [indecipherable].

HF: He came out here a while back and we sat out there and talked to him.

WN: He's a nice looking fella, isn't he?

HF: Yeah, he's a good guy.

WN: Yeah, he's a nice person.

HF: I didn't know who he married. I noticed his dad and mother, I mean, her dad and mother she was down in the rest home for a while.

WN: Interesting people back in those days.

HF: Yeah, I guess they will be.

WN: Listen, we're going to stop for right now.