Marshall McClung
I spent most of the summer of 1974 on the Ashley National Forest in Utah, on a fire-prevention detail.
I was assigned to the Duchesne Ranger District and the ranger station was in a town of the same name that was about the size of Murphy back then. This ranger district covered over 157,000 acres.
The entire forest was in extreme fire danger and had already experienced several large wildfires. There was a forest-wide ban on any outdoor fires, including campfires. The local district personnel hadn’t had a day off in weeks.
My job was to patrol certain areas of the district for fires, so that the local person assigned to that area could be off. Before the summer was over, I had covered many different areas of the district.
I met a lot of interesting people that summer and the one I remember most was a shepherd.
One of my patrol areas was Reservation Ridge, which ran for miles and was the divide between the Ashley National Forest and the Ute Indian Reservation.
Along this ridge were hundreds of acres of lush green grass. The forest service issued grazing permits in this area to locals that raised sheep.
It was on one of trips through this area that I met the shepherd. All at once, a man rode a horse into the road in front of me and held up a carbine in a manner that meant for me to stop. He rode up to my truck and called me by name. He said that the man he worked for told him about me and to watch for me. He asked me if I would take his mail and deliver it to the post office. He also had a grocery list for me to drop off with his employer.
Since he was holding a rifle, I thought it best to oblige.
I glanced at the return address on his mail and saw that he was from Romania. I delivered mail and groceries to him several times that summer and got well-acquainted with him. He told me that he had been coming to America for many years to work for the same man. Once he was with his flock of sheep – which numbered in the hundreds – he did not leave the mountain until time to bring the sheep back down into the valley before winter set in.
He had one border collie, which could make that huge herd of sheep go any direction he chose without ever touching them. He would make some sound to the dog, which indicated which way he wanted the sheep to go. He had a small puppy that he would put with the sheep dog and the dog would train it. When the puppy got tired, he would put it in a saddlebag on the horse to rest.
I wish I could tell you his name – but I can’t remember it; couldn’t spell it or pronounce it if I could.
Marshall McClung is the historical columnist for The Graham Star. He can be reached via email, mcclungs@email.com.