place, Mickey’s Blue Heeler rolling hisrneye at me as he swam doggedly besidernthe horse. “Do }’ou see,” Mary asked,rn”where the sod is falling into the river?rnThey tell us the cows do that, but the riverrnundercuts the grass naturally. If thernBLM comes out here tomorrow andrnfinds any of our cows left, we’ll be inrntrouble. I’ll fly in the morning and see ifrnI can spot any stragglers.”rnThe Cessna appeared to pivot on onernwing on the desert flat as we turned westrnagain toward the river. From 500 feet uprn(7000 on the altimeter) the desertrnlooked almost entirely barren, arnlichenous pattern of spaced sagebrushrnspread over a pale gray floor pimpledrnwith ant hills and stained white byrnalkali deposits. The smoke from fires inrnWashington, California, Oregon, Idaho,rnand Utah dimmed the sky, and I madernout the Big Sandy fire burning up arncanyon in the Wind River Range, 80rnmiles cast across the Green River Basinrnand isible this morning only as arndark transitional shadow between thernearth and the sky. Meandering southrnfrom the wide cofferdam restrainingrnFontenelle Reservoir the Green revealedrnits rust-colored bed, streaked by weedyrngreens above which white pelicans floated.rnThe bottom was emerald on therneast side of the river, but on the west sidernits intensity was muted and the polls ofrnthe cottonwoods showed gray and ugly.rn”The trees have been dying sincernthey filled the reservoir,” Mary explainedrnas she brought the wing up. “Cottonwoodrnseeds can’t germinate without arnlayer of silt above them laid down byrnflooding. With the dam in place, therernare no more spring floods, and withoutrnthe floods the water table is dropping.rnAdd to that the salty alkali ponds thernrefuge is providing, and there is no wayrnfor the trees to live. We can sec thoserntrees dying back a little every year; in anotherrn15 or 20, they’ll all be dead, exceptrnon the side of the river where we irrigate.rnBut the environmentalists don’t care.rnThey think that because the governmentrndid it, everything is perfectly all right.”rnWe scrutinized the bottom carefullyrnand saw no cows on the refuge, but Marrnwas not willing to return to Kemmererrnyet. In the groves along the banks andrnon the islands where the river braided,rnbuildings constructed of logs hewn fromrnthe same cottonwoods stood in variousrnstages of disrepair. Some of these, builtrnby fhe early homesteaders, had been acquiredrnby the Thomans and finally abandonedrnwhen, after a 20-year condemnation,rnthe federals succeeded in forcingrnthe family from the land on which theyrnhad established a prosperous ranch andrnraised six of their seven children. “All forrna bird refuge, and we’re not even on arnmajor flyway,” Mary said. This actionrnfollowed by a decade the acquisition,rnalso by the federal government, of thernranch’s deeded land upriver, whichrnthough crucial to its operation for pasturernand the production of a hay croprnwas desired by the United States Bureaurnof Reclamation to create a major waterrnimpoundment on the upper GreenrnRiver. When the Bureau of Sports Fisheriesrnapproached them about taking thernmajority of their remaining land forrnthe refuge, the Thomans decided it wasrntime to make a stand against the government.rnThey fought the condemnationrnfor years at tremendous legal cost, butrnthe law regarding takings was even lessrngenerous 25 years ago than it is todayrnand their adversary had no incentive torncompromise and no obligation to offer arnland exchange. Instead, after accomplishingrnthievery by legal means, it admittedrnhaving neglected to secure an appropriationrnfrom Congress from which tornmake compensation: unable to offer fullrnpayment at the time of transfer, it dribbledrncheeks in widely disparate amountsrnover a ten-year period to the ThomanrnRanch, which could not tell from onernmonth to the next how much money tornexpect and was for that reason incapablernof either purchasing another ranch or rebuildingrnon higher ground above thernriver north of the refuge. At last, twornweeks before Christmas while the familyrnwas burying their eldest son after hernhad been killed in a winter wreck onrnSouth Pass, the federals sent final paymentrnand notified the Thomans thatrntheir patience was exhausted and thatrnthe- would henceforth charge them arnfine of $500 for each day that they remainedrnon the old ranch. By workingrnthrough the winter with a backhoe, excavatingrnthe foundations and the waterrnand sewer lines, the Thomans installedrnthemselves in March on the new place,rnhaving incurred a penalty of $15,000. InrnMary’s girlhood, there were no pavedrnroads to Fontenelle, no electricity andrnno water; turning north again, she pointedrnout for me the white franre schoolhousernin which she and her brothers andrnsisters had been instructed by a teacherrnon the ranch and where she had takenrnher first steps on the road to a Ph.D.rnWe flew north of the ranch, and circledrnit. “Is that you, Mary?” Mickeyrncalled up oir the radio, and Mary assuredrnher that the cows were now where theyrnbelonged. As the July sun heated thernground and the thermals rose, puttingrnsubstantial bumps in the road, we took arnsouthwest heading on the KemmererrnAirport, known to pilots as among thernmost hazardous in North America. ThernExxon Corporation’s La Barge Creekrnsour gas plant passed under the left wing,rnand also a few of its contributing wells. Irnhad worked on one of these wells yearsrnbefore, in January of 1980, when therntemperature reached 40 degrees belowrnzero and the wind blew 60 miles an hour;rnthe drilling crew was so bundled yourncouldn’t tell them apart from each otherrnand the heater in the derrick froze solid.rnOff the right wing 20 miles out, therntilted blue ridges—Absaroka, Indian,rnCommisary, Dempsey—ran north inrnparallel lines toward the Wyoming andrnSalt River ranges. So much country, sornlittle time to get to know it all.rnThe windsock pointed northeast.rnMary overflew the airport and camernaround sharply north, preparing to landrnto the south. As the Cessna lowered towardrnthe airstrip the runway lightsrnflashed on, red over white, and suddenlyrnthe sock swung directly into line withrnour approach. I recalled another friendrnwho had neady caught a wingtip whilernattempting to land on this high mesarnalways subject to powerful shiftingrnwinds, but we were committed now.rnMary made a nearly perfect three-pointrnlanding and taxied up to the gas pump.rnIn spite of his many thousands of hoursrnas a military pilot and since, the deputyrnsheriff to whom she leases the plane wasrnonce diverted by erosswinds secondsrnbefore touchdown onto the alternaterneast-west runway. “People ask me if I’mrnnot afraid to fly a plane,” Mary said.rn”I tell them that it’s when I get on arnhorse that my life passes before my eyesrnnowadays.”rnShe dropped me at the house andrnthanked me for my help with the cattlerndrive. “The ranchers are the best environmentalistsrnBruce Babbitt will everrnfind,” she said. “The land has been suchrna part of our lives! Since the governmentrntook our deeded land, we’ve beenrncompletely dependent on the federalrnleases that Babbitt wants to ‘reform.’rnWhen I talk about the last roundup, I’mrnnot kidding anymore.”rn50/CHRONICLESrnrnrn