Range Wars: a Deep West Video by Whit Deschner

How a series of practical jokes escalated to the point of all out war between Whit Deschner and a neighbor who lives up the road in rural eastern Oregon. An Old West New West Video by Whit Deschner of Sparta, Oregon, in 2008.

[Range War]

(Gun shot)

[Whit Deschner]

(Gun shot)

[Music by Galen Green]

(Gun shot)

(Gun shot)

Mike: And all through this,

every two or three months
he'd call up and he'd say,

"Don't you think we'd have a truce
before somebody gets hurt?"

And I'd agree with him.

Yeah, I think we should.

And the next thing I know,
we're in trouble.

Whit Deschner: When I first
moved to the country,

I thought I knew all about range wars.

I knew about how they started.

I knew about it because
it was in my blood.

My great grandfather,

who ranched sheep
on the open range out of Durango

once engaged in a small dispute
with some cattlemen, the Truebies.

He was tried twice for murder
and three times for attempted murder.

He walked.

And even with a hundred years
padding of reconciliation later,

the Truebies, what's left of them,
still remain sensitive over the issue.

My war started so innocently,
I wasn't even aware it had started.

I was too busy doing my chores.

And taking care of my animals.

Here's Delbert, my closest neighbor.

Delbert's dead now.

He loved to fight, and I always
expected he'd die with his boots on.

Which he did.

The war didn't kill him, though.
A heart attack got him.

Thank God Delbert was on my side.

This is Mike.

And this is his son, Justin.

My antagonists, akin to the Truebies.

They live five ranches away.

Here's Mike.

Mike: So, I was minding my own business.

And him and Delbert started it.

(Gun shot)

WD: Which is Mike's opinion.

It really started when
I hired Mike to dig a trench.

Which he did, along with
digging up my phone line four times.

Mike: We [all the peace].

We were still friends
somewhat at that point.

So we moved down to Delbert's

and these two kids pull in on a motorcycle

and Justin had rolled up there.

So these two boys
pulled up there and said,

"Hey mister, have you got any gas?"

And I said, I don't have any,

I said, not a thing.

And they went to get back
on their motorcycles.

WD: That's when Justin steps in
and says, "Gas? You need gas?

I got all the gas you want.

Just turn right up there at the mailboxes,

go about a mile, and I'm
the ranch on the left.

Can't miss it.

I got a green truck in the driveway

and just go ahead and siphon
all the gas you want out of it.

The next thing I know,

is two kids on motorcycles
racing down my driveway.

I was waist deep in my trench
burying water pipe.

They shut off their engines
and one yelled over to me.

"Hey man, you got a hose?"

"What do you need a hose for?"

"We're going to siphon gas
out of that truck."

"The hell you are!"

"No, we just talked to the owner,
he said it was OK."

"Well, I happen to be the owner
and it's not OK.

Who said you could have the gas, anyway?"

"The guy up there, helping
that guy on the backhoe

told us this was his ranch
and to take anything we needed."

(Gun shot)

Waiting until Christmas,
I took an ad out in the local paper.

There, I though. Score's even.

(Gun shot)

Or was, until I answered the phone one day

and a voice wanted to know
about all the free stuff.

For the next week,
the phone never stopped ringing.

Mike: So at the end of the month,
Whit gets a bill.

For the ad.

That did bother him.

And it was one of those moments

where, he called them,
he says, "I didn't place the ad."

And the lady says,

"Do you have any idea
who may have done this?"

(Gun shot)

I said, OK it's time Mike moved.

I had Delbert,
who frequented Mike's ranch,

take careful inventory
of his equipment and herd.

Mike: And I should have known,
because he'd roll in here,

and every day he'd have one question.

He'd drive off the hill
to ask me one question.

It was the description

of all my equipment and my cattle
and everything was just -

you just can't imagine.

WD: I laid up an auction flyer,
set the date for April first,

printed a hundred copies that Delbert
distributed throughout the county.

On auction day
Mike locked his gate and left.

But word had even traveled
to the sale yard, 90 miles away

where the owner approached Mike
and exclaimed,

"You've got a lot of nerve
auctioning off your place today,

and you're down here buying bulls."

(Gun shot)

Coming home one day,

a real estate sign was stuck
in my driveway entrance.

Hardly original, I thought.

But three days later,
an old rancher stopped me and said,

"What's this nonsense about you
and your marijuana farm?"

"What are you talking about?"

"That sign in your field."

"What sign?"

"The one that says,
'Vote Yes for marijuana'."

Beyond where I rarely went,

Mike had planted a four by eight
plywood sign that read,

Vote Yes for marijuana,

and painted a marijuana leaf beside it.

(Gun shot)

I loaded it into my truck
and drove down to Mike's.

His neighbor and his tractor loader
raised me up in the bucket

and I nailed the sign onto Mike's arch
with every nail I had in my shop.

(Gun shot)

A week later, Delbert showed up
with a flyer he found in our mailboxes.

"Looks like nuclear war," Delbert said.

Then Mike suddenly arrived.

He apologized and wanted a truce.

He said Justin and a friend
had run off a pile of those fliers,

got drunk and distributed them
along the mail route.

Mike claimed he had nothing to do with it.

Delbert hoisted his eyebrows.

Mike said, "Look, if this keeps up,
someone's going to get killed."

I considered.

I thought about my great granddad.

After his trial,
the Truebies hired a killer

who put three bullets through his head.

He survived, but he always remained edgy.

I knew the feeling.

Between worrying and planning out
the next attack,

I hadn't slept in months.

Peace, I've discovered, is a good thing.

Although occasionally
I get this strange urge

to call up the highway department

and have them make a sign for Mike

and give him a section
of highway to clean up.

[Created by Whit Deschner]

[The Delbert Boogie
written by Galen Green]

[Keyboards, tenor
and soprano sax: Galen Green]

[Bass and drums: Cody Rahn
Engineer: Charlie Smith]

[With thanks to:
The Western Folklife Center]

[Old West New West Video
Taki Telonidis]

[And to you Mike]

[P.S. If you're watching this Mike,
I copyrighted your face]

[However you have my permission
to go ahead and use it]

Mike: I grabbed the phone and said,
"Deschner, have you had enough?"

There was like, dead silence.

He was like, I'm going to kill you.

(Laughter)