Interview with Vivian August "Pat" Bundy

Content Warning: Contains words that are inherently offensive, insensitive and harmful.

Vivian August "Pat" Bundy was interviewed by Helen (Bundy) Russell, June 22, 1981 while hospitalized in St. George, Washington County, Utah. He related his life experiences of living on the Arizona Strip. Gene and Barbara Jean (Bundy) Carroll also participated.

HR:Uncle [Vivian August] "Pat" [Bundy] is going to tell some of his story of when he grew up on the Arizona Strip.

VB:They turned on down there at the [inaudible] place when I [was going down there]. [I] had [that] old Dodge, before I got this car. I was sailing down there just before you get to Dutchman's Tank [or Dutchman's Spring on the Arizona Strip] and the damn thing caught on fire! I got out and raised the lid [hood] and shoveled [snow and] dirt and threw everything else to put it out. Finally, [I] put it out, but it burned up all the wires. So there I sat without chains. [They had] twenty-foot chains so I put that on. Pretty soon here came a couple of girls [who] were working for that oil outfit. [There were more than 00:01:00twenty oil drilling outfits on the Arizona Strip at various time. It is hard to pinpoint the specific outfit in this case.] They kept trying to telephone their boss to see if it was okay for them to hook onto me and drag me into town. They never could get ahold of the boss, so they hooked onto me anyhow. While I was there, along came one of the forest [fellows] along. [He] said "I could take him down to the top of Quail Dugway, but that is as far as I can take him." [So they got hooked on and] they wanted to know [if] we take you fast, how fast should we go? I said, "You can go as fast as you want to." I didn't have any idea that they would take me as fast as they did. They threw up dust behind them and threw up rocks against my windshield. [It] chipped the windshield. It was so dusty that sometimes I couldn't hardly see if I was in the road or if I wasn't. They 00:02:00finally got me down to the top of the dugway. I didn't know it at the time, but they had two seats in the car they were riding in. One of [the girls] was pretty good looking and the other one wasn't so good looking! The good looking one, drove me down to there and then the other one took over. They wanted me to go to town with them to get help to come out there and pull it on in. "Jake" [his dog] and [I] got in the back seat and [went] on down there just the other side of the 00:03:00Hay Rocks, going down that long ─ I call it Jimson Weed hill.

[Hay Rocks is located in the Quail Canyon Dugway. The old dugway route followed the path of the wash up the mountain. The current route is much different and has been in place since the 1960s.

─ Added by Dean Bundy during editing.]

A big black and white snake fell off the bank and started across the road. I said "If [Ernest] "Ernie" [R.] May, ["Pat's" brother-in-law] had that snake in there, he would take it to [Las] Vegas [Nevada] and get $30.00 [for] it ─ which he [could]. They have about that much of it recorded in [Chester] "Chet" [Marion Bundy's] outfit. The next day we came on out and went down where Johnny Dollar is at down where the outfit [is that] he has at Fort Pearce Wash [Washington County, Utah]. He has fenced two sides of it, east side and south side. He had an Indian down there [that] they called "Woody." They were sighting up to get the fence in line and while they were moving the line along, I took 00:04:00the flagpole and helped them that much. That night this [fellow who] had hauled me in had to go uptown and get a [draw] board to hook onto me so I wouldn't run up against him. Coming back down that same Jimson Weed hill, he looked back that way and said, "I guess we are alright if that [fellow coming along] behind us doesn't run over us." I thought somebody was coming behind us, [but] it was that damn car he was dragging. [Laughter]

HR:[Laughter]

VB:Anyhow, he got it in there, wired it up and put it in time. I wore out McCain Hill in high gear. Before that, I had to put it in second [gear] at least to get up; but the dag-gone thing got to where it didn't have any power at all, and the 00:05:00clutch went out on it. Maybe I told you the other day, [I] had to go to the bathroom before I got down that far. When I got there to that line, I went right around that hill, put the clutch down and it went plum to the floorboard!

HR:No clutch at all!

VB:No clutch at all. So I had to drive the thing in compound low [gear] over there to where Eddie lives. Believe me when I got there I wasn't long [in] asking where the rest room was! [Laughter]

HR:I want you to tell some of your memories [of] when you were a [youngster]. I 00:06:00want you to tell that story about when you and "Chet" were down [in Mexico] and about your skunk hunt. What did you do down in Mexico?

VB:When Uncle [Peter] Martin [Iverson] came down there with Lillie [Belle (Bundy) Iverson], he had a brand new wagon [with] four horses on it. He had twelve of those little bitty one spring [gopher] traps. He bought them for gopher traps. "Chet" and I stole one and the trap [had] about that much chain on it. We took bailing wire and took it over here [to the] side of a sand bank where the arrowheads grew up on top. There were quite a few arrowheads down in the bottom. There was something in a hole, you could see his trail going back and forth. We sat [the trap] in there. The next morning we were supposed to turn the washing machine for "Ma" [Ella (Anderson) Bundy] and we just ran off. It was 00:07:00about half cloudy and drizzling rain and we ran off down to see that skunk trap.

We had a skunk in the trap, so we drug him out in the sand away from his home, put a stick on the spring and turned him loose. We would see where he [ended] the next day. He [was] over there and the creek was about that deep ─ maybe half the width of this room. He waded across there, went up the bank, partway up towards town and went up the ditch the other way. When we got up the ditch a 00:08:00ways we ran into the head-gate where the main ditch was going northwest. We got up on the bank and reached way down [where there was] the smell of water, but he didn't walk in it. I said, ""Chet," kick him in and let's see if he can swim." So "Chet" did. He kicked it in and [the skunk] swam right across the ditch and out on the other side. We waded right through it, got on the other side and there was one of those big mesquite bushes with branches right down, pretty well, close to the ground. [The] skunk went around that way and "Chet" and I came around this way. [We] stood there and watched him come around. He came right up and smelled "Chet's" pants leg. "Chet" started moving back. I said, "Stand still! Let's see what he will do." So "Chet" stood still. He got "Chet" 00:09:00in the pants leg then. Away "Chet" went around that tree. "Pat," pull him off!

HR:[Laughter]

VB:"Pat," pull him off!" I just laughed my head off! [Laughter] He found out I wasn't going to help him, so he finally had mind enough to put his other foot on him and pull him loose. We found out we were pretty well sprayed!

HR:You were pretty well perfumed!

VB:It wasn't quite dark when we got back home. We had a tent and a kitchen stove. We usually put the wood right behind the stove. We eased in there and figured we would get in there until they all went to bed. Then we would go to bed too. [We] thought maybe they would forget about it by the next day. [Laughter] We got the dad-burnedest beating you ever did see with one of them 00:10:00sticks of wood! "Ma" said, "I can smell a skunk!" "Pa" [Abraham Bundy] said, "Oh, there wouldn't be any skunks out this time of night. But she kept kind of sniffing around, came over there and found us. What I mean we got a whipping with a stick of wood!

HR:[Laughter] A stick of wood!

VB:[Laughter] It wasn't a willow ─ it was a stick of wood, old mesquite wood too.

HR:I guess you had it coming, didn't you?

VB:I guess we did, but we didn't think so. [Laughter]

HR:[Laughter]

VB:It used to be a half mile across the [Bavispe River] from the San Pete [referring to the San Bernadino River, Rio San Bernadino, which flows into the Bavispe, Rio Bavispe, at Colonia Morelos] across to the [inaudible]. There used to be a lot of grape vines over on the side of the hill. We used to try to run away and go over there with Roy [Bundy] and [James] "Jim" [Bundy]. They were going over there to work on Rollins's [a colonist at Morelos] farm or [were] going over there fishing. I don't remember which, but we used to try and follow 00:11:00them. Oh, that sand would burn our feet! We would bawl, try to get up on a pile of driftwood or something until it kind of cooled off, then break and run again. That is about all.

We did get [to] stealing chickens. [We would] watch the neighbors [to see] when they left to go uptown or go down to the field to water. We would go around and the chickens would be right along the ditch bank in those old Mexico Willows [Willow and cottonwood trees grew unusually large in the Morelos areas]. I had never seen those kind of willow [trees] until we went down hunting for Iven [Leroy Bundy] around the red turn [possible reference to a location on the 00:12:00Colorado River below Whitmore Wash] there are some of them. We stole some of those chickens and they made us turn the washing machine again to pay for the chickens. [Laughter] What they paid for the chickens we had to work for! We earned it.

HR:You had to work for.

VB:Oh, we were mean little devils, "Chet" and I were. We used to steal [Perry] Huntsman's eggs. He lived up in the mesquites on past your dad and mother [Roy and Doretta Marie (Iverson) Bundy]. On Sunday when he would go to church, we would go up there and steal his eggs. He had some nests up high off of the ground. We got up there and stole everything he had. I think we stole about nineteen eggs. We didn't have a cussed thing to cook them in, so we went back around down the [Bavispe] River, buried them just under the sand and then built a big hot fire on them. First thing, you could hear one bust, then another one bust and then we knew they were done. That is the way we would keep the sand out 00:13:00of them and eat them. They caught up with us again and made us turn the washing machine. [Laughter]

HR:[Laughter]

VB:We learned how to turn that old washing machine, believe me! [Laughter]

HR:How old were you when you went to the Arizona Strip?

VB:I was about sixteen [years old].

HR:Can you tell some of your experiences?

VB:We came out here and your dad [Roy Bundy] sent me out of that dugout to the wood pile. He wanted me to get enough wood so that we wouldn't have to chop wood on Sunday. I went out and got two armloads of it while he was cooking dinner. 00:14:00Then I snuck around, got in that big wash up by the reservoir and went down past where the schoolhouse is now. It was in February and [there was] water and snow; water was running out of every little draw. I had a pair of boots on and I walked from there plumb over to the head of Pigeon Canyon. Forty miles in those boots. I swore I would never wear another pair of boots as long as I lived! But old Sonny [Bundy] and Rey [Lucero Bundy] bought me a pair of boots and the instep was pretty high. I think that is what made that scar on my dag-gone foot. I was going to show it to you, but I can't do it. I have that sock on. [There is 00:15:00a scar] on top of my instep. [There] was a little glowing looking fire out across the wash where the road went down. I walked over there and hollered, "Hello," and they answered me. They had some mules tied up to a bush where they had fed them and they were in this wagon box. [Peter] "Pete" Atkin was a big old [fellow] just like "Hy" and [Joseph] "Joe" Milne was a long, slim [fellow]. I finally got my boots off. They were practically froze on [my feet]. Got them off and they put me in the middle. I like to [have] roasted before morning. It was so tight in there whenever somebody wanted to turn over they would holler, "Turn," and we would all turn the same way for a little while and then turn back. The next morning they hooked up, came on back this way, went down around 00:16:00the turn and met "Ma" and "Pa" and Ina [Ina Bundy] coming out with a load of furniture. So I got in [with] them. Dad never said a word about how come I was down there. When we got back to the dugout Roy never said a word either.

HR:Never said a word either. [Laughter]

VB:He just smelled a rat and I had run off and run away! Just before I had cut that wood, I had been up there working on that pond. He had me up on a dog-gone pole and we were nailing slabs to it standing up. There were slabs and there was another one between the two on top of one another. He had me straddling that pole, reaching down as far as I could and trying to drive those spikes. [They were] big spikes about that long. I would hit one and then I would miss the next one.

HR:[And] cuss you out!

VB:He said, "Oh, you drive a nail just like some old woman." That is all it 00:17:00took. [Laughter] That was when I went out to cut the wood and took off! I hauled ore from the Grand Gulch [Mine] to St. Thomas [Nevada] when I was [only] sixteen [years old]. A fellow named Johnny Hatch lived down there [in] Overton [Nevada]. His wife got sick and they had to take her to Salt Lake City [Salt Lake County, Utah]. While they were gone they had me driving his team. I drove [the] team about one or two trips for him and then Alvey Leavitt and Orson Sprague, wanted a week or two off to go down to [Las] Vegas and see the girls so they turned the outfit over to me and Joe Turnbaugh.

HR:Joe Turnbaugh?

VB:Yes, Joe Turnbaugh. They had the dad-burndest outfit you had ever seen in your life! The wagon tongue was patched up with wire. The back of it was alright, but then they had a long two-by-four they [had] wrapped the wire around and around and twisted it around and around. Going down that "S," instead of screwing a burr on, they had big old nails go through the burr. Working that wheel back and forth cut those dag-gone nails off and that let the wheel off right on top of the "S"! "Joe" was ahead of me [and] down quite a little ways. He just happened to look back and saw that I wasn't coming. I got out to where I 00:19:00could holler at him, so he stopped the outfit and came back up there. We put three or four horses on it, pulled it off of the road and left it. [So we] got in his outfit, went on down to the foot of the hill where we had some grain and water and camped there that night. The next morning I took off for St. Thomas and was in St. Thomas by dark the next day! All I had on were a pair of tennis shoes. A fellow by the name of Ryan Hannig did all the weighing of the wagons, driving the team on their scales to weigh them. He weighed the wagons. [There are] Hannigs right down here where you cross the Fort Pearce [Wash]. There was another one someplace else.

When I was herding sheep for [Gilbert] "Gil" Prince he used to give those [fellows] a doggie lamb. Over here east of Washington [City, Washington County, Utah] where the dugway goes up that Black Hill; they had a snow storm come and 00:20:00every ewe and lamb, every lamb that got ahold to suck, made it. But those that couldn't get a hold they froze in the night. Yet we lambed out 116% that year. "Joe" said it was the best lambing he ever had in his life! [Laughter] I caught every ewe that had a lamb. We had those sheep [hooks] and I would just sneak up as close as I could, then run in and grab her, throw her down and milk her or let the lamb suck. That way they got milk in them and they would get stout enough to follow their mammys. I never will forget, right at the foot of that hill the road went through the sand. I had "Joe's" team on the commissary, a couple of black horses, and there was a dag-gone three-legged coyote that came 00:21:00right out across the road. [He] went right up the road a little ways out ahead of me. [I had this] .25/.35 on the foot of the bed [and] I just reached back there and got that [rifle]. I didn't know those dad-burned horses were scared of guns. I just stood up there in the door with the gun and shot this coyote. Boy, those dad-burned horses started that quick on a dead run; with all that grain and water on! It threw me back on the bed and I bumped my head on the bed. [Laughter] If it had bumped me any harder it would have knocked me out.

Right along the foot of the hill there we were chasing an old ewe with a big 00:22:00bag. [David] "Dave" Limb was a camp tender [and] helped me. He stumbled down and that old sheep was scrambling over the rocks [with that sheep hook]. [Laughter] He fell down, but the sheep got away. We finally cornered her here and there caught her.

Up in there in that sand you could see where a Gila monster [went here and] there and trailed down. So "Chet" came in one day with [one on] a wire. [He] hooked it around his neck and one foot. [He] carried it in on a sheep hook and put him in a big pasteboard box beside the wagon tongue just outside. All the time, Verl Kelsey slept outside on a cot. "Dave" turned that dag-gone Gila monster loose and when he was taking his socks off he took the [inaudible] 00:23:00unbuckled and that thing fell down the calf of his leg. Man! He thought that Gila monster had him for sure. [Laughter] He slept in the wagon from then on.

HR:[Laughter]

VB:"Dave" had company! [Laughter] "Chet" and I were talking just before he died, wondering if "Dave" was still alive.

HR:Tell about the time that George [Bundy] was lost.

VB:We were up at that well just below Hell Hole. George and LaMar [Bundy], I guess it was, were playing around there and [my] wife [Edna (Wilson) Bundy] was 00:24:00over in the tent. It doesn't seem like Aunt "Jennie" [Genevieve (Bundy) Bundy] was up there, but she could have been.

UV:What are you doing out here?

VB:Oh, I am telling wild goose stories. They are trying to get a recording of me.

UV:I won't interrupt. I am sorry.

VB:You come in here and tell some more. Then I won't have to tell it all!

UV:Okay. [Laughter]

VB:That is the [girl who] takes care of me in the mornings. She just gets on with me. Boy, she is tough! [Laughter] Anyhow, we started out and that well was about twenty feet deep. The first thing "Chet" thought of was the [youngster] might have fallen in the well. So we went over and let the rope down. There had been a sheep or two fall in there. He just knew that was George down in there. 00:25:00He went down that rope so fast it burned his hands and then found out it was a sheep. He got out of there and started in with flashlights. We could track him alright as long as we were in the dirt. When we couldn't track him we would make a circle, come back and make a bigger circle. We finally ran the flashlights down. [Maria] Delila [(Van Leuven)] Alldredge had a lantern and I don't know who else, but we borrowed those lanterns, one of them at least, and tracked him clean across over there on that [inaudible] knoll. "Chet" seemed to think it was "Old Man White" [James "Jim" White who] carried him in, but it wasn't. It was [Ephraim] Albert Snyder [who] carried him in. When they found him he had crawled 00:26:00under [some] big logs that [had] fallen over. [Inaudible] went right on around, followed him around and kept getting further up to on the top of that knoll. It didn't look like he had ever cried, but the sweat had run down his face and left streaks of dirt. [George] hollered at them and said, "I want my daddy. I want my daddy." [Albert] Snyder went over, picked him up and [took] him back to camp. There was a whole slew of [folks] camped up there at that old sawmill at the time ─ there at the well.

HR:He was gone all night, wasn't he?

VB:Gone all night. It is quite a long ways from that old well plumb down over to the Petty Knoll.

HR:Oh my! I will say it is. Tell about when Afton [Snyder was] kicked.

VB:Well, Howard [Ingle] always had a dad-burned old stud horse around there for 00:27:00his mares. Afton and this little boy of [Charles] "Charley" Allen's got out there in the corral, got ahold of [the horse's] tails and were following them around the corral. That horse hauled off and kicked him right in the side and left his hoof mark. I think it was [Charles "Shorty"] Lovelady's [horse]. I gave Lovelady a horse that I had down there [at] [George W. "Jockey"] Hail's [place]. He would haul me into town [where] Dr. [Wilford J.] Reichman pronounced [it] "Goat Fever." I couldn't see through that because he never had seen a goat, but it had blood poisoning in there and that is what made him have that fever. He 00:28:00was just like Dell. When Dell died in Salt Lake [City] he just couldn't get enough water. [As] fast as he would drink, up it would come.

HR:[He was] dehydrated. He couldn't keep it down long enough.

VB:Yes. That is what happened to him. When "Charley" Allen's wife had his first [child] she was the worst milk cow you ever saw. They had to bring that [baby] over there to have him breast fed.

HR:Yes.

VB:Either that or go buy a breast pump and they were [too] bashful to go ask for a breast pump.

HR:[Laughter] I had plenty of that [milk] myself! [Laughter] I [could have] fed two! [Laughter]

VB:Now days they feed them on bottles.

HR:Yes, stupid!

VB:Stupid is right. Did you see Tina who was here the other night? Did you see her [baby]?

HR:Yes.

VB:That [baby] came two weeks too soon and they fed him on a bottle. Government 00:29:00[assistance] has been feeding him ever since. [She] and [the] old man split up, but a lot of them figure out a way to have the government take care of the woman [and] the [baby] and the man stays away from them. He doesn't even have to work. [He caused the] divorce. [The] man and I were talking one day and I said, "I will bet you a dollar that is what you are doing." It came out then. Tina said, "Well, we were together last night."

HR:Now, tell about Iven [Leroy Bundy].

VB:He [drown] right down there between where you hit the bottom of Whitmore 00:30:00[Wash] and the Red Turn]. Iven [had] just learned to swim across these tanks. He was only supposed to have been nineteen years old and was just learning to swim across these tanks. Floyd [James Iverson] was a good swimmer. I have often thought [as] they tried to swim [the Colorado] River if you will angle along with it, it will take you across itself. But Iven got out there and kept fighting the stream and gave out before he got across. He hollered at Floyd to get below him [as] he was giving up, so Floyd dived out below him and just before he got to him he went under. By the time he came up again he would be down river so far that by the time Floyd would get to him he would go under 00:31:00again. That was awful tough. It was a good thing [that Iven] didn't get ahold of him or they would have both drown. I never knew at the time that there was any such thing that they called The Island. [But your dad sent Albert] Snyder down to The Island while we went down that far. If we didn't find him he was to build a big smoke [fire]. Then we were to go across the river and build another smoke on the other side if we hadn't found him. Just before sunup that big smoke boiled up white, just like a big white horse, up on the side of the mountain there. Snyder [had] built that fire. So we went on down. It seemed like every 00:32:00night when we camped we put a gallon of beans on [the fire].

[END OF RECORDING ONE.]

VB:Then we [had] to lay there and listen to those rapids all night, get up and start [looking again] in the morning. Away on down the river, [we] came to a pile of driftwood that was just going around and around slow. It was so dag-gone thick. It was about so thick [we] couldn't row through it. We pulled the boat back up along the ledge, got a little further up and got out on top of the first ledge. It only weighed 150 pounds and "Chet" and Floyd would take one oar and 00:33:00put under it. We would carry it that way. I would kind of balance the tail end of it. While they were doing that, I looked off to the side over and there was a big rattlesnake that big around stretch out. I hollered, "Whoop! Whoop! There is a big snake." We killed that and then went on down.

"Hy" told us when you get to Diamond Creek there are some white salmon down there six feet long. We were pretty well fed up on beans and thought a mess of fish would taste pretty good. We were aching to get to Diamond Creek. When we got down there, there was a big boat with a big inch cotton rope. The boat was 00:34:00tied back around the ledge and was up on the sandbar out of the water. You could stick your hands through the cracks [because] it had been there so long. We went up this creek. All that was in this creek were a bunch of little suckers about that long. You could reach your hands out there and touch the ledge on each side. We went up there for a mile, until you could see the top, and then we came back. It was pretty hot so we crawled under kind of an old bench there.

That was [when] "Chet" saw where the Hyde couple [Glen and Bessie Hyde] had written their name up under that bench. That is when he told [Otis] "Dock" Marston that he found traces of them. They were going down through there on their honeymoon. But they hired George Weston and he started in down around Twin 00:35:00Canyon [on the Colorado River] and followed him around. They would get down on the river hunting, then at night they would climb out and have a camp. It would take him all day long to go around to the head of that canyon and back on the other side, pretty near to where you could throw a rock from where he camped the night before. They got on further down, or further up this way, [when] they ran out of feed and food. He told me he tried to kill a damn burro. He had a six-shooter and he would shoot that old burro in the ribs. The dust would bounce off of him, but he couldn't knock him down. He said he threw his six-shooter away! Then they came on out. [Laughter]

The Hyde couple had walked out there at [Peach] Springs [Arizona]. They were supposed to have had themselves insured. They lived up in Idaho somewhere. They walked out and snuck back to Idaho and got the insurance. They were supposed to have gone back and hunted the next year for them, but Weston told me that is the way they got out of there. [They] walked out at Peach Springs, left the boat hanging there with the diary and everything in it.

Then we [went] on down there to where the dad-burn water was rounded up in the middle. It had gotten so swift. We came to Separation Rapid [in Separation Canyon] and we didn't dare ride it. We drew to see who would push it in, who 00:37:00would get down the river, swim out and get it. Floyd got just around the turn there, where we had to climb up over, [and] there was a dad-gum rattlesnake right under the crest there! I pulled out my six-shooter and shot him. "Chet" went way down the river there and the cussed river was making so much noise. I still would have thought that he would have looked up to see that I was still up on there. He waited and waited down there and the boat never did show up. The barge was around behind the first rock hanging on with the oar, because it had tied an oar on about a twenty foot rope. They figured if it would come around close enough they could keep hold of the oar and drag in the boat. "Chet" waited and waited and it didn't show up. Finally, it came on up the river there and got 00:38:00right straight down below me. I took that six-shooter out and shot right down there in the water right in front of him. Boy! He took off down the river again, got on the rock and waited again for that boat to show up. [Laughter] Finally, we got up there. While we were waiting on him that boat had sunk and was half full of sand. We had to get both of them up there and pull as hard as we could. I would take the slack up on top. Finally, [we] got us out back around the rock, carried it out on the bank and leaned the thing up against the bottom of the boat. It leaned against a big rock with the other end and we went off and left it.

We walked up Packrat Canyon for seven hours. Here was [the] wash coming back 00:39:00from that way and another one coming the other way down there. We had passed [it]. We didn't know if it was possible to get out, so I went up the first one, came back and told him a dad-blamed hummingbird couldn't fly out of that place because of the high water flow. So [Floyd] took the next one and [he] came back with the same story. "Chet" said, "It down to me to inspect this other one. If we can't get out of there we are done for." So we went out that same way and had to wade through waterfalls sometimes clear up to our neck. [By] the time we got out of there over to Kelly Seeps [near Kelly Point], we were pretty well done for grub. I think we had some hot cakes. We had scared a jack rabbit to death. 00:40:00While we were eating breakfast that morning, here came old Rufus Warren and Ed Johnson. "Chet" [had] it wrong, he said it was Tine Tate or Tine Heckathorne, but it was old Rufus Warren and Ed Johnson. Ed had been staying in a cabin up at what they called Shanley Reservoir. He told us there was a sack of jerky around on the north side of the house and "to go up there and help yourself."

When we came to the fence we crawled through it and went on the old, old road. The road had gone down to the Snyder Mine, but there were cedar trees that had grown up in the center of it that were ten feet high. We crawled through that fence and thought ─

HR:[It] was a cut off.

VB:─ a cut off. We missed the jerky and had walked plumb to [Jonathon Deyo] "Slim" Waring's Horse Valley ranch. [Charles] "Charley" Walters had the biggest 00:41:00pan of biscuits you had ever seen and a pot of beans! [Laughter] We helped ourselves to that, left him a note and walked from there on over to [Reed] Mathis'. There was a [fellow] there [who] was staying with Mathis [and] working for him by the name of Roy Dickinson. We were telling him our story and oh man, he got mad! He said anybody who would look for a body in that dad-gummed Colorado River ought to be [inaudible] and choked to death! We just walked on and went down to George Weston's place in Penn Valley. Just before we got to Penn Valley, right off to the side, Jess Welch had a claim and a dugout. That was where he was making his booze.

We stayed there that night and the next morning we went down to Westons and she 00:42:00[Mildred (Cragun) Weston] gave us our breakfast. Then she gave us a quart bottle full of canned meat. Just before we left she said, "[Is] there anything more that you need?" I said, "You got any smoking tobacco?" She said, "Yes. When George runs out he gets awful cranky so I always keep a can hid [from] him until we can go over to your dad' store and get it." She fixed up this lunch. We had a little ten-inch Dutch oven and I think one blanket [or] maybe two blankets. While she was gone after that can of tobacco, [we] took that jar of meat and that Dutch oven and put [them] in my pack. I couldn't keep up with them as it 00:43:00was and every little bit I would have to trot to keep up with them. They just kept walking and walking and I was carrying all the load! We got over there to where the Ivanpatch Wash goes down to Parashaunt. Coming back up there, there is a place on the side where you can jump up about that high up the bank and back in there is a pocket of water, we called it Bull Pocket. We were going to have dinner there. We sat there awhile and "Chet" said, "Open up the pack and let's have dinner." All that time I had been carrying that. [Laughter] We had dinner and then we got out on top [at] [Oliver] Belnaps and stayed that night. In the meantime, George went over there to the store to get [some items]. He told his 00:44:00dad and mother, "You will never see those [fellows] again." [Laughter] That very day we walked in over there [and] he went back to his ranch. That was the side of that story. Several years later when they put in Boulder [Hoover] Dam [Nevada], the [United States] Government gave people the chance, if they had any bodies buried, to move them. So they moved Iven up to the [Mt] Trumbull graveyard.

HR:They found the body down there, but somebody else buried him. Didn't they?

VB: Yes. A couple of [fellows] had been there fishing, saw his body, got it out and buried it there. Then somebody told [Omer] "Dick" [Bundy] something about it and "Dick" figured they had found Iven. "Dick" had to go to Kingman [Arizona] 00:45:00for jury duty and the [fellows who] buried [Iven] told him. He didn't tell the right story. Anyhow, that is the way he [was] moved from there to [the Mt. Trumbull [Cemetery].

HR:Can you tell any stories about grandpa and grandma [Abraham and Ella (Anderson) Bundy], your "Pa" and "Ma"?

VB:I can tell you when Lawrence Smith and I went down with [David] "Dave" [Harris]] herding sheep around on the west side of Bunkerville Mountain. They had about 900 head of sheep that were his, "Dave" Harris'. We went around on the west side of Bunkerville Mountain and stayed there for three months without any water. We went down through Hidden Canyon, from up [at] Poverty Mountain, went 00:46:00down through Hidden Canyon on around and down through what they call Squaw Hollow. It is a big wash that comes down like ─ well, it is more of a wash there than it is at the Grand Gulch where it comes out.

We were up on the ridge there one morning and Lawrence was cooking breakfast in the Dutch oven, cooking meat, mutton and sour dough biscuits. We looked down the ridge there and here come an old squaw with a shotgun. That was when Cregal was rampaging and he figured that is [who] it was. He had a German Lugar six-shooter. When he saw her he wasn't long getting that thing and putting the scabbards on his belt. She came walking up there where we were. Instead of 00:47:00coming up and leaning the shotgun against a bush, she kind of gave it a toss and let it fall against a bush. She could talk some English. We were eating breakfast and every now and again she would grab one of those pieces of meat and a biscuit, break it open and then put it down in the coat pocket [of] that old blind buck she was leading around on that horse. She finally asked Lawrence, "Is this your papoose?" Lawrence said, "No, he is Bundys." When she heard "Bundy" she [said], "Oh yes, I remember Bundy. He gave me some taters, flour and sugar over [at] Pidgeon." So we went from there on down Buckhorn Bench [near the Grand 00:48:00Wash Cliffs] and down to Buckhorn Springs, on up towards Gold Butte and back around the "Mud" [Muddy River] and over west of the Bunkerville Mountain where we stayed in our camp for three months.

Along about that time, "Dave" Harris and Art Swapp went back to Chicago [Illinois] with their lambs because a [fellow] named Jack Isabelle and Charles ["Charley"] Esplin and some of them, all had a herd of sheep leased from Jim Smith. He lived in Cedar City [Iron County, Utah]. I think [he] paid five or ten lambs per hundred and so much wool, or maybe they got all the wool. I am not just sure how it went. Anyhow, Art and "Dave" went back there with the lambs and that was why we were down there with those sheep. When "Dave" came back, he 00:49:00couldn't find us, not hide nor hair of us. He finally went down to St. Thomas and asked old man [Henry] Gentry if there were any sheep in there. He said, "Yes, there was a [fellow] in here the other day. [He] had a mule [and] bought a whole ton of salt, rock salt." You could get it for $6.00 a hundred down there. [Inaudible] [Laughter] The idea of buying that much salt to be hauling around, he just hauled it back out here. That year we came into Hurricane [Washington County, Utah] to the shearing grounds. [Gould's Sheep] Shearing camp was just on the side of that knoll, or just around that knoll, where you drop off. You can see the city of Hurricane. We had been herding up there on that ditch. If you 00:50:00got on that city ditch it was a $60.00 fine. There was no chance whatever to get a wink of sleep ─ you would just about doze off and ting-a-ling-a-ling. Meantime, I found an old dead cow that had fallen on that ditch, on the back, and water was running out around. [The] maggots were floating down each side. [Laughter] What is the old saying, "What the eye don't see the door don't creak." I told old John Columbine he had to pull a cow out, [but] he probably didn't tell the city folks what he had done.

HR:No. Well, I wonder who these people are?

UV:I don't know! How are you feeling?

VB:Well, not too bad.

[TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF]

HR:OK, now go ahead.

VB:[The] old slab house, right there south of the house that is out there now. I can show you where that post is sticking up through the ground about that high.

UV:Oh?

VB:Then I think we lived in that. Dad used to have a store over there, but your dad said he wouldn't make enough money profit so they moved over there. That was when your dad put up the gas bowser and what not.

HR:Yes, I remember hauling plenty of gas [when] he put that there. [Laughter]

VB:I have sat and thought a lot of times [that] I knew where all these mines were down in Mule Canyon, every one of them. But boy, these big [fellows] go 00:52:00down and jump them here and there. I knew where every one of them was. [Edward] "Ed" Cox was down there when "Dick" and I were down there trapping. "Dick" rode old "Orf and that old sorrel horse. We called him "Turd Nugget." [Laughter] Anyhow, that is when you leave the Copper Mountain Mine, go across like you are going across Andrus Canyon, over to that other mine over there. That is where they are supposed to be drilling now. But there was a water pocket down in there, off to the side of the road, and this "Turd Nugget" would go down there. We wouldn't get down close enough to drink. He would jump over the dag-gone thing ─ jump over! "Dick" was swearing at him. He said, "Damn your soul!" and "Ed" Cox said, "A horse ain't got no soul." "Dick" said, "The hell they ain't!" 00:53:00[Laughter] They got to arguing over a horse having a soul. It tells in the good book that the Lord breathed the breath of life into every living creature.

HR:Yes.

VB:"Ed" Cox wanted me to go over there and put a claim on that place where they are drilling for uranium right now. All he had to give me was [a suit]. One of his boys died and left a good suit of clothes. I thought: I am not going to go over there and [inaudible] paper with that suit of clothes. Just think, I [would be] wearing that dead boys clothes. So I never did do it. He was down there the same time that all of you [folks] went down the [Colorado] River hunting for 00:54:00"Ed" Cox.

HR:Yes, that was the first time I went down to the [Colorado] River.

VB:Yes. Weren't you ever down to Whitmore before?

HR:Well, it was down ─ we came off down in there by Frog [Springs] and we went down.

VB:Back in those days there was a big rock down there and you couldn't get down in through there with a horse. You had to go down [to where] a wash came in right north of the Copper Mountain Mine and came down in those big water pockets. Then you go out through them and come right out [at the] bottom of the Parashaunt [Wash]. Go down a little further, and here's a big pile of rocks [and] you couldn't get up over them. Later on Roy Woods, [inaudible] Woods, shot a trail over them. He took his sheep down to the [Colorado] River and on down.

HR:Down that canyon?

VB:Yes.

HR:Oh!

VB:One time I was camped over there in the Garden of Eden. To show you how crazy 00:55:00a man was [can get] for company, I went around down below the red turn there and went on down. There is an old trail that goes on down the [Colorado] River, high up on those benches, a dim trail where somebody has come up on that side of the river. I went down there plumb to where Andrus Canyon Wash is, just to get to talk to Roy Woods! Just after that, up the wash a little ways from the river is where he had camped for dinner. He had left a couple of bottles of prune.

HR:Prune?

VB:That stuff you use to wash your hair. [The conversation changes here and he is talking about his hospital room.] I looked around at all the pretty flowers 00:56:00and thought: I will have a truck load of [things] when I leave here! [Laughter]

HR:[This card is addressed to] Uncle "Pat" Bundy, hospital [room] 3442. That doesn't tell you who it is [from]. Oh, that is the room [number]. It says, "Love and best wishes, the Carrolls." This is from Barbara [(Bundy) Carroll].

VB:Barbara and Gene [Carroll].

HR:Yes. You are supposed to smile.

VB:I am doing all I know how.

HR:Do you want to try to get down?

VB:No.

HR:Are you comfortable?

VB:I ain't exactly comfortable.

HR:Let's get you a little straightened around some way or the other.

VB:I have been leaning there in one spot and my whole back in starting to itch.

[TAPE RECORDER IS TURNED OFF]

VB:I didn't run on to Roy Woods so I went up the canyon a ways. Instead of going up there and climbing out at Frog [Canyon] I climbed up on The Island. There is a trail [that] goes off of The Island up on top and I camped over there in the Garden of Eden. I had to go down through Blake [Canyon] and down by Katherine Pockets and back around that trail over into the Garden of Eden up onto the rock 00:58:00where I was camped. It must have been ten o'clock at night when I got back there. I had to light a big ocotillo to see where I was going around that trail. That is just how hungry a man gets for company! Then after that I went down, pretty near the same route, going down to where LaMar [Bundy] and "Chet" were coming up around the [Colorado] River with a bunch of sheep. I got down there [and] could hear the sheep bells. If you go down the river there, there is a place where water runs against the ledge. You can get down there and wade across. It is not too deep, [just] up to your knees and you can wade across. While I was under there wading across, here came the boulders down sliding off of the hill! The sheep had knocked them loose. I finally got through there, got 00:59:00in behind them and they were plumb out of grub just like we were when we came out from hunting Iven. So I came back to camp that day and went back down with a pack load of canned meat, canned venison and [such] to take back to them. They had shot their last dynamite down about Andrus Canyon trying to kill some fish to get some more grub. After that Roy Woods went down to Parashaunt, shot that trail out and went on down several miles below Parashaunt [to] Andrus Canyon.

HR:With his sheep?

VB:With his sheep, yes. The way he found that was when that big snow was on. My cows were over there against the school section fence, over there by [inaudible] 01:00:00shack. Your dad said [inaudible]. [Elmo Aaron] "Frosty" [Bundy], I guess, was looking after your [sheep]. The next day I went with mine, got them through and went over towards Roy Woods' place [which is] "Frosty's" place now. He had been snowed in over there and [while] cutting cedar's for his bunch. Those cows went right through that bed-ground and all of the sheep just followed after the cows, went right over into that canyon. That is the way he found his way down into Mule Canyon the first time. There was Roy, "Pat," Troy and Perry. Perry was the 01:01:00youngest one. They had a bunch of cows.

HR:Troy and Perry were Mrs. Wood's brothers, weren't they?

VB:No, Mrs. Woods was a little, bitty Mexican [girl], [a] little [girl].

HR:I know, but they were her brothers, weren't they?

VB:I don't know. I have heard more about something like that since. Anyhow, I had six or eight cattle down on The Island. I used to go down there and pour water out to them rather than see them go down to Copper Mountain Spring and around the side. So I ran onto Perry. He was the [fellow who] was herding and [had] a big old yant pit [Paiute word for pit used to roast agave roots] in the wash there. They called it the Lone Mountain. He was telling me about how happy 01:02:00they were to find that [area] where [nobody] else had never been. He asked me to dinner. Right there where we were sitting [and] eating [by] this yant pit, there was a big, dry cow turd. My cows had been there. I said, "My cattle were here before you [fellows] ever saw this place." [Laughter] He couldn't believe it until I showed him. I can't figure out yet how I used to go down there, get those few head off of The Island, back up to Frog, then get them with all the rest of them and then come home. Back in those days there weren't any dad-burned fences down there. The only way you could get all those cows moving was to let them choke! If they got dry, they would come home, but if you watered them they would just take their time.

HR:Can you tell anything about your younger sister? Aunt [Ida] Edna [(Bundy) Griffiths].

VB:About all I can tell you about her is I think Ensign [Griffiths] kept her in the family way [with] very little to eat, maybe a can of tomatoes. [Inaudible] I think that is what caused her to go ─.

HR:Loose her mind?

VB:Yes, loose her mind. Yet, I have to pay Veneatta [(Griffiths) Laub] $150.00 for that section over there. Orvel [Allen Bundy] came along and he offered her $300.00 if she would sell it to him. So he let the fence down and let his cows 01:04:00water over [in] the school section and go back up around the fence; but they have it all. They finally got that 160 acres there and [had] it fenced off. I never have even seen them have anything on it, but the one time [that] they had a few steers in there and [some] horses. He hasn't had nothing on it.

HR:Can you tell any of your memories of [the] recreation we had out there? When you were young out there?

VB:I know we used to go up to Nixon ─.

UV:Hello, Uncle "Pat."

VB:There is Gene and Barbara [Carroll].

[END OF RECORDING TWO.]

GC:What [do] you have, Helen?

VB:A tape recorder.

GC:I know, [but] what kind of tape?

BC:She is taping what he is saying.

GC:Oh, so he is talking in that?

HR:I have been having him talk here for an hour, I guess. Sixty minutes anyway! [Laughter]

GC:Are you going to play it back to him?

BC:No, he's going to tell her some more.

VB:I was wondering what they did with all the chairs in here. I don't see any, but [there] one there and they have [it] full.

GC:They don't want you to have visitors?

VB:I don't want you to leave.

GC:I will stand until I get tired and then leave. [Laughter]

HR:Well, maybe I better just shut this off while you are visiting for awhile, unless you are going to tell another story.

BC:We will listen.

VB:You will listen?

HR:Ask him to tell something that you would like to know about Barbara.

BC:I have been writing about him and Aunt Edna [from] what I remember about them.

VB:About what? Grandpa?

BC:Grandpa and grandpa ─ I am supposed to tell what I remember about them, but I can't tell about them without telling about you and Aunt Edna.

VB:Did you ever find out what [color] of eyes "Pa" had?

BC:He had blue! He had twinkly, blue eyes like my dad.

VB:No, he did not.

BC:Yes, he did.

VB:No, he didn't. Everybody I talked to said he had ─.

BC:Then I was color-blind because I always said my dad took after my grandpa because he had blue eyes.

VB:Your dad was the only one in the Bundy family [who] had blue eyes.

BC:Because he took after grandpa.

VB:[Laughter] You will have your way. [Is] that the way she does, Gene?

GC:Yes, she tries to, but she doesn't get by with it. [Laughter]

BC:I remember him as blue-eyed. You can have him [with] brown [eyes] if you want to, but I still remember him as being blue-eyed. I may have been color blind.

GC:What color were your grandma's [eyes]?

BC:She [had] dark brown [eyes] and that is where all the rest of them got brown eyes, from grandma. But dad, he [had blue eyes]. [Laughter]

GC:According to genetics he could not have been brown-eyed.

BC:Yes, he could! Brown eyes can have a blue-eyed [child], but two blue eyes cannot have a brown-eyed [child]. If he was brown-eyed and grandma was brown-eyed then they [could not] have blue-eyed [children], but if they are both blue-eyed they cannot have a brown-eyed [child].

VB:I don't know.

HR:They had a blue eyed [child]. [Laughter]

GC:Your dad was the only blue-eyed in the bunch?

BC:Yes.

VB:I can remember that great big picture they had when they first [were] 01:08:00married. [It] shows your dad had blue eyes. Was that the picture that fell off the wagon tongue when they first came out there and [was] broken?

HR:Broke the glass? Could have done, I don't know. I can't remember anything. Besides I was only three years old.

VB:[Laughter] When we first got out there, dad wasn't in camp right there at the dugout. He had been out looking at his traps. The way he was getting by, he had a five-gallon can [that] he would melt [snow for] water. He would [shovel] snow 01:09:00in there until the can was practically full and that would last him. If he was tired at night he wouldn't have to [mess] around with melting snow to get water. When they saw him coming, he walked in there and asked your "Ma" who those [children] were. I suppose it was you and [Bessie] "Bess" [(Bundy) Faught].

HR:Iven.

VB:Yes, just kind of hid around. That night or the next morning she said she had to do some washing. So she took a tub and went over to a big snow bank and had you [children] shoveling and melting snow while she did the washing.

HR:That is my mom!

VB:Yes, that was your mom.

HR:Grandpa only had a five gallon can that he had water in, wasn't it?

VB:Yes.

HR:When she got there?

VB: Yes.

BC:[He] said, "You can use it all tonight or save some for tomorrow."

VB:That was exactly what he told her.

HR:It didn't take her long to learn how to melt water.

VB:No, dad-gum right. Another thing about the story that I was telling you about me up on that log tacking those nails in those slabs. Levi [Aaron Iverson] had an old mare, an old sway-backed mare, he called "Rock." He put me on her with the harness and sent me down [to] Billy Brink's, down to Little Tank. There must have been twenty five or thirty of those old slip scrapers down there. Some of them were worn out with holes in them and some of them were pretty good. He sent me down there for one of those slips graders and Billy Brink wouldn't let me have them. I came back. I figured if I got ahold of one of those slip scrapers, 01:11:00I might get "Pa" to ride in behind, but I didn't.

HR:What were you going to do with that? Make a pond?

VB:Make a pond. See, after he tacked those slabs up there he was going to get dry land, dump that dirt, just keep piling it over there and build it up high enough. It tells in that book [Footprints on the Arizona Strip] how it was wiped out in one of those big floods.

UV:[Inaudible]

[TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF]

VB:When the north rim [was] snowed in and had a lot of snow on the roof, they had two snow mobiles going out there. He [National Park Service ranger, John Riffey, who kept a two-seat Piper Cub at an airstrip near the Tuweap ranger station] and I got in there at Tuweap and went right up the dag-gone [Colorado] River to the North Rim and followed the road back towards Kanab [Kane County, 01:12:00Utah]. They were about halfway over there and, believe me, that north wind was a blowing! I thought we would never get over to Kanab. [We] got over to Kanab, finally landed and somebody came out to give us gas. He looked at the gas [gauge] and said, "Oh, we can make it home." So we got back in and came on back to Tuweap. It didn't seem like thirty minutes until we came to Tuweap.

[John Riffey called his Piper Cub, "Pogo." He often flew over the Arizona Strip and up and down the Colorado River. Riffey knew all the early ranchers and homesteaders on the Strip. He was the National Park Service ranger at Tuweap for forty years.

─ Added by Dean Bundy during editing.]

GC:The wind was with you.

VB:Yes sir, the wind was with us. Then I flew across to the South Rim with him several times.

GC:Those little ones [airplanes] get in rough weather and they bounce you around pretty good.

VB:I know they do. I know they do. The time I went down to the [Colorado] River with him was the smoothest [airplane] ride I ever had in my life.

UV:The worst [airplane] ride I ever had in my life was about six weeks ago. [Inaudible] had to take his yearly, or bi-annual, or whatever they call it, [certification]. He had to have an instructor with him you and do all these maneuvers. I said, "I can take it." It didn't worry me. I wanted to go for an 01:13:00airplane ride. He got up there and I tell you, I [was] sick! [I] had my grandson, Bruce, with us and he [was] sick. He couldn't throw up. I did [and] I felt a little better, but it was early in the morning and he never [went] to school that day. [Laughter] He eventually got over it, but, oh boy!

VB:I never did get sick [riding] with him [Riffey].

UV:You would on that, ─ what they do is they fix their eye on an object down here and they point that wing right down at that. They just go around and around like that. Then they will straighten up and they will go up, then they will level down. You will be right out there in space; it feels like. You haven't anything under you and that is when you get sick. You can't get that in big airplanes. [Laughter]

GC:No. In those big ones, something like a 747, they have a table that you pull out from the seat behind you. You can sit a full glass of water on that table 01:14:00and never see a ripple in that water. It is that smooth.

UV:I don't see how people get enough money to ride on those [airplanes]. That is what gets me. [Laughter]

VB:I told that New York [girl] over there [who] came to the reunion one time [that] I was going to go back to New York with her and she could show me around. I would fly back [there]. She said, "You wouldn't like it. It is nothing but a bunch of tall buildings." [Laughter]

GC:That is about right, New York City, anyway. I have flown quite a bit all over the country [and] overseas. I crossed the North Atlantic and that was pretty rough, from New York to Ireland.

UV:You did it in a big airplane?

GC:Yes.

BC:I can remember when Maxine [(Bundy) Cook Bryant] was born. She was the prettiest baby you ever saw with those big black eyes. She got those from Grandma Bundy not Grandpa! [Laughter]

VB:She is still fighting me!

BC:From her dad and Grandma Bundy, but not from Grandpa Bundy. [Laughter] I can't help it if I think his eyes were blue. I always ─.

HR:Linda looks just like her mom.

BC:She does, yes.

GC:Her face is kind of thinner.

HR:They must have brought this without any water, didn't they?

VB:I don't think it is a live flower. Is it?

HR:Yes, it's a live flower but ─.

VB:That one you left out there with me when I married Ruth [Hoffpauir-Sullivan Bundy], it didn't last no time. The chickens picked all the leaves off of it.

BC:Probably [had] a wrap-around thing down there in it. Isn't it kind of a glass 01:16:00thing, isn't it? I don't know.

HR:Yes, I guess there is some water in there.

GC:Is that a real flower?

HR:Yes, it is a real flower.

GC:That is something like Violet Barbara gave for Mother's Day.

BC:He says smile. Keep smiling.

VB:That is all I been doing! [Laughter] I have to smile. Some of these nurses, like that tall [one] that comes in here, I thought I had won her over until I told her I didn't come to town only about twice or three times a month. [Laughter] She said, "That is it with you and me, mister!" [Laughter]

BC:What was that Alaskan Husky's name? Dog?

VB:Oh, [it] was one that Josh Crosby [gave me]. What the devil did we call him? Josh Crosby out there. It was a big black dog.

BC:You are telling me! That took all the courage I could ever dig up to walk down there to Aunt Edna's and know that that dog was coming like this at me just as soon as I could come around that little hill. That just raised the hair up on my back! [Laughter] Aunt Edna says, "Gosh, you don't know how lonely it is down here without "Pat" around." She said, "I couldn't get along without that dog. That dog follows those [children] up and down that wash all the time. I don't worry about the snakes as long as that dog is with them."

VB:I never did see him kill a snake.

BC:I didn't either, but if he would growl at them they would die! [Laughter]

GC:You would probably know where your [children] were.

VB:There [is] one that I have out there now, "Jake." He will kill snakes as fast as he can get ahold of them. Seems like he can smell them. He can smell mice and wood rats.

GC:You know "Pat," [this] is hard to believe. I was telling Barbara that in Kentucky, I guess it is the moisture or the dampness, [but] you can smell a snake. I would get around anywhere close to a snake and I could smell it.

VB:Yes?

GC:It had an odor, kind of a sweetish odor, to it. I called her attention to it.

BC:I kept saying, "What is that nasty smell?"

GC:I said, "It is a snake!" I learned from [the time I was] a [boy] when I could smell one of those snakes that he was around there close somewhere.

VB:Yes.

GC:Watch out for him. I think it was the dampness and the moisture that makes them smell. They sure have a stinking smell to them. I had a little dog when I was, oh just a small boy. The river bottom [was] where dad and grandpa would be farming. I would take lunch down there to them. I was probably ten years old and the weeds were waist high, clear up to there, you know. Here I am with my pants legs rolled up and bare-footed wading down through those weeds. There are rattlesnakes, copperheads [and] water moccasins along the river, but the water moccasins stayed close to the water. The copperheads were more dangerous than 01:20:00the rattlesnakes because they didn't make any noise. They were deadly, too.

VB:They look just like [the] bull snake here.

GC:Yes. Except they have a head like a rattlesnake, diamond shaped. They would kill you if they bit you. I had that little dog along with me. I saw him tackle those snakes [and] he wasn't a bit scared. Man, he would smell one of them or get close to one of them and he would stop. The hair would go up on his back [and] he would make a bee-line over through the bushes. I saw him grab those snakes and they were so big. You've seen a dog kill a snake. They will grab it and just beat it to death. He would grab them and [they were] so big that he couldn't hardly swing them!

VB:That is the way "Jake" does. I had a setting hen down there at the cellar and six eggs. The next day I went down there to see if any of the other chickens were laying and three [eggs] were gone! She went back on the nest. [The] next day I went down there -- I didn't go down that time. I was standing out there on the porch and that hen came out of there just a cackling. [She] came right up 01:21:00and just looked right at my face like to say, "Come and help me." So I went back down there and there was a dad-burned blow snake down there. He was three inches longer than a shovel handle. He [was] the [one] that sucks those eggs! When I jabbed him he tried to get in the hole. When I jabbed him, it didn't quite break his back. When I did that he started to heave up the yolks of those eggs. I got him out of there and he was so dad-gum big "Jake" couldn't handle him. He shook him, kept shaking him and finally, he shook him into four or five pieces. Every little bit during the day he would go out there and pick up one of those pieces and shake it some more!

GC:That little dog I had would grab [a] snake about middle ways, and would beat it to death against the ground, just like that.

VB:Yes, I have watched them. "Jake" gets barking at them and the dad-gum snake will draw his head back this way to make a strike at him. Just as he is ready to strike, and come back, he will catch him.

GC:Yes. Grab them and start beating them to death.

VB:I don't know how they can shake their heads so fast.

GC:I don't either.

VB:The dad-gum guts just flew!

GC:They just beat them to death. My grandpa was the darndest [fellow] I ever saw. There were a lot of black snakes back in that [area] and they were big devils [and] long. The black snake will come up in the grass, raise his head up and look around. I saw my grandpa run over and grab one of them by the tail.

VB:Pop his head off.

GC:He would swing that [snake], like you would pop a whip!

VB:I've seen Bob Morris and [others] do that with these bull snakes. You wouldn't catch me doing that with any kind [of a snake]! [Laughter]

HR:I don't want to touch [any] of them.

GC:He would just grab and swing it over his head like this and he would be 01:23:00swinging so hard the snake couldn't coil back. He would just psfft! Off would come his head.

VB:Well, that is a dry hole on the Arizona Strip.

BC:Is it?

VB:Yes. Do you know of a well where there is any water?

BC:Could be some other kind of hole, too.

VB:I don't know what. [Laughter]

BC:Hell hole, maybe. [Laughter] You think?

GC:I don't know about you, Barbara.

BC:I know it. You mean you are taping that?

HR:Can you think of another story you would like him to tell?

BC:I want him to tell everything he can remember.

VB:Well good gosh, you are going to keep me in this hospital for the next week!

BC:No, I just want you to keep talking, so I will go so [that] you can.

VB:[Laughter] Is that it?

GC:Where is [your son] Merrill [Bundy] now?

VB:He is over [at] Jacob's Lake [Arizona].

GC:Is he working for the [Arizona] Highway Department there?

VB:Yes, he works for the highway department when they need something done, but otherwise he goes down toward Wickenburg, Phoenix and over here to Littlefield [Arizona].

GC:He still works for the highway department?

VB:Yes.

BC:His wife [Audrey Joan (Averitt) Bundy] works there in the café.

HR:She was here awhile ago.

GC:They live right there on Jacobs Lake, don't they?

VB:Yes. He stays right there. She was here a while ago.

GC:Was she?

VB:He is what they call a maintenance man.

GC:Does he run equipment?

VB:Yes, he runs a Cat or a road grader.

GC:That is a good job then. A pretty steady job.

VB:Yes, it is a good job and, I guess, pays pretty good.

GC:Yes, it would [be] for a younger man. Wouldn't be any good for me.

VB:It wouldn't? Merrill, is getting up there in his fifties.

GC:He will be ready for retirement. Has he been there a long time?

VB:He has been there a long while; [started] before [John] Riffey died. I don't know how long. Riffey got him the job. He first started cleaning up the roads to some of those places over [at] Pine Mountain [on the Arizona Strip]. Riffey went through there and "Chet's" outfit went through there when they were building that fence up on top. [He, Riffey,] cleaned out all those pine trees to make the road straight [and] left them laying right along the road and the [National] Park [Service] made them go over there, burn them and clean up that [area]. Merrill was with him running the chain saw. One time Merrill came up there 01:26:00early, went right up above the house there and killed a deer while he was waiting for Riffey to come [to work]. When Riffey left that night he went back and got [the deer]. [Laughter]

GC:[Laughter] He will have a good retirement from the highway department.

VB:Well, I think he will. But he [inaudible].

GC:That is normal, I guess. What I mean is, when he gets old he will have something coming in anyway. I don't know how I would make it if I didn't.

VB:She was here a while ago talking about burning off cancer in his eye. I don't 01:27:00know whether I've seen him since he had that burned off. They were out there when we buried Ruth, but I never noticed to look at his eye.

GC:It is almost eight o'clock. It gets late early, doesn't it? It is eight o'clock.

VB:Yes, it does, and this is one of the longest days of the year.

GC:Yesterday was. No, Sunday was the longest [day]. Yes, the twenty-first is the longest day of the year.

VB:I always thought the twenty-second was.

GC:No, the twenty-first. It starts the first day of summer.

BC:Old Sol goes back the other way now.

GC:That was the day Barbara and I [were] married, "Pat," on the twenty-first of June, the first day of summer. That was a long day. [Laughter]

VB:I bet you were saying, "Gosh! I wish that night would come so we could get in bed!" [Laughter]

BC:Pat!

GC:Sure was a long day.

VB:He keeps coming right out with it, there wasn't nothing else to think about. Such a long day.

GC:Watch her blush! [Laughter]

VB:Yes, she is blushing.

GC:Ah, she is a timid little [girl]. I am sure glad they got that strike settled. That was throwing the country into kind of a bind, wasn't it? [Reference is made to the 1981 Air Traffic Controllers' strike.]

VB:Oh, man, wasn't it though!

[END OF RECORDING THREE.]

UV:Unidentified Voice