Clifton Robinson

History from a rugged land in the American West and the dynamic individuality that continues to mark it fell into our very crosshairs as much as the pronghorn antelope we sought out this month.

Our premier pronghorn antelope hunt actually began at Waco International Airport when we were picked up in a new CJ3 jet owned by our hunter friend, E.R. “Bo” Campbell of Shreveport, La. Paul “Crunch” McClinton, “Bo” Campbell and I constituted the Nimrod party meeting our host, Armand Smith, in Clovis, N.M.

Armand is “Crunch’s” Baylor roommate of bygone years and his ranch is actually some 120 miles north of Clovis, an equal distance west of Amarillo and south of Colorado near Mosquero, N.M., county seat of Harding County and for some reason named after a swarm of flies. (The county wasn’t much more fortunate in its name, which honors President Warren G. Harding, routinely ranked as our nation’s worst president alongside James Buchanan.)

Armand Smith (left) and E.R. “Bo” Campbell inspect one of the pronghorn antelope that roam the high mountain desert plains of New Mexico.
Clifton Robinson photo

All that aside, I’d call it real, pure cowboy country, a great little all-American town in the middle of nowhere, yet emphasizing education and technology. In some respects, it’s a town of dreamers unconcerned with such things as growth. They had a graduating high school class of 15 in 2010, compared with one of just eight in 1960. But all of the 2010 graduates plan to attend college this fall. Wow.

Nearly all students travel 50 miles or more to attend school in Mosquero, a town without even a service station, the closest being 55 miles away. Yet, there’s a clear emphasis on higher education and technology. Microsoft recently provided all students with computers, and high tech is a priority. Talking with super-charged teacher Donna Hazen, you can see the promise of the future with this community’s dedication to education, even in such a remote area of America.

The Smith Ranch is 25,000 acres of high mountain desert plains and offers breathtakingly beautiful gorges. It’s abundant in springs, wildlife and evidence of early human civilization. Ancient rock dwellings dot the landscape, prompting one to imagine any number of hardships suffered by long-ago inhabitants.

Finding the first antelope

Indian depredations here were rare and peaceful integration among the Mexican and white populations eventually became the standard. The ranch also contains the remarkably well-preserved remains of a stagecoach line camp, which is interesting to explore, especially when pondering early-day ways of traveling about this rugged country.

The high plains of this massive ranch are incredibly well-watered with untold thousands of feet of pipeline providing water to hundreds of fat steers feasting on the greenest grass anywhere in the state. In these vast prairies live the pronghorn antelope, the ultra-wary desert goat with vision to match any animal on earth. On the opening day of the season these shy antelope would run like the wind at first sight of our entry into their domains, disappearing over ever-so-slight ridges into the distance. Our first day of driving 50 miles or more we came upon a mature male, obviously banned from the harem by a dominant alpha male. Alone, having just been released from the asylum, he was smartly harvested through extraordinarily remarkable shooting by our friend, “Bo” Campbell.

Back at camp, Armand Smith’s ranch house is a huge, almost new four-bedroom home decorated in grand-ranch style, overlooking miles of gorgeously desolate country primarily landscaped by juniper cedar, shin oak and small pine. Wildflower stands reminiscent of the Texas Hill Country dot the rolling canyons.

After a gourmet lunch and naps befitting a group of hunters well accustomed to late nights of storytelling, we continued our hunt on the vast prairie. However, success eluded the evening hunt.

Rising late Sunday morning, the hunters feasted on a gourmet breakfast prepared by Armand’s wife, then headed out to pursue the almost magically elusive pronghorn antelope. The previous day’s scouting and hunting located several areas where large concentrations of antelope lived in relative peace due to the vast distances they roam and the location of ranch roads.

Bitter-tasting harvest

Naturally, the herd monster bucks eluded our shooting party and we had to pursue the lone younger male discarded from the herd. Shortly before 10 a.m. an escapee from the asylum was sighted and harvested with our Nimrod shooter in a moment of sheer excitement — so exciting, alas, that he swallowed a mouthful of tobacco juice.

And so ended our three-day adventure, which saw the best of us laid low because of stomach discomfort and temporary sickness after that unfortunate ingestion of tobacco juice from an ill-advised cigar in the field. The rest of us were laid almost as low once we returned to Central Texas and its sweltering 100-plus-degree days.

The pleasant, arid desert temperatures of the New Mexico high plains, especially those cool nights, will last a lifetime and become all the more powerful as summer back home drags on.

Clifton Robinson is chairman of Robinson Media, which owns the Tribune-Herald .