Centennial by James A. Michener

I SPENT THE MONTH OF OCTOBER 1973 SEARCHING CENTENNIAL for some man or woman whose life epitomized the history of the west. I wanted to send the US editors in New York a kind of capstone to our project, a detailed and intimate portrait of what westerners were doing and thinking about in these critical years prior to our national birthday celebration.

At first I focused on Centennial's black barber, Nate Person, grandson of the only black cowboy ever to have ridden point on the Skimmerhorn Trail. The story of how this family achieved its position of love and leadership in my small western town was an American epic.

Then I shifted to Manolo Marquez, descendant of those redoubtable Mexicans, Tranquilino and Triunfador. He had a fascinating story to tell of breaking through prejudice and winning a solid place for himself. But these were special cases, and their association with Centennial began rather late in its history. I needed someone more deeply rooted in the community, and more typical. And then, on the last day of the month, I found my perfect prototype.

Early in the morning on November 1 I was breakfasting in a corner of the large room at Venneford Castle. Three moose heads, long undusted, stared down at me as I chatted with Paul Garrett, forty-six years old, tall and graying at the temples. He was one of the most perceptive men in Colorado, and a leader in many fields.

What attracted me to him especially was his combination of seriousness and self-deprecating good humor. For example, as I finished my tar-flavored cup of tea he told me, "My family has always favored that strange-smelling stuff. My grandmother, Pale Star. She was an Arapaho Indian you know. she said it tasted to her like charred jockstrap."

"Who were your grandparents? " I asked, and he produced from his cluttered desk a standard breed book in which he kept track of his prize Herefords.

"I've already studied the history of the Venneford bulls," I told him, but he said, "Not this one," and he opened the book to a page which he had filled out about himself, as if he were a Hereford. It showed his ancestors back to the fifth generation, and after I had studied it for a few minutes, I was confirmed in my earlier opinion that here was the man I needed to complete my report.

The Garretts had started in sheep, it is true, but they'd had the good sense to shift over to cattle. Paul had army people like the Mercys in his ancestry, and frontiersmen like Pasquinel. One branch of his family had been English, so he would know that interesting aspect of western development, and another branch was Indian.

"Garrett, Messmore and Buckland were of English stock," he told me as I put the book down. "The Lloyds were a Welsh family that emigrated to Tennessee and Texas. Patrick Beeley was a hard-drinking Irishman. Pasquinel and Mercy were French, and writers usually ignore the French influence in western history. Zendt, Skimmerhorn, Staller and Bockweiss were Germans. Deal was Dutch, but originally he spelled his name a different way. Red Wolf and Pale Star were full-blooded Indians. Lucinda McKeag, whom everyone seemed to love, was the daughter of a squaw named Clay Basket, about whom the mountain men wrote in their diaries."

"Pretty mixed up," I said.

"Damned near incestuous," he confessed. Then he slapped the breed book and said, "If you follow the history of the really great bulls, you'll find many instances of very close in-breeding. My case, the same way. A son of Lucinda McKeag married the daughter of her brother. Messmore Garrett married his first cousin. And Henry Buckland, father of the formidable Charlotte you've spoken about so often, married his niece, if you please."

Before I could respond to this last bit of information, the telephone rang and an elderly Mexican serving woman shuffled in to report, "It's very important. " And she handed him the phone from his desk.

It was the new governor of Colorado, eager to share some exciting news: "At my ten o'clock press conference this morning I'm announcing your appointment as head of our executive committee responsible for the state centennial celebration. " This was a greater honor than a stranger might have appreciated, because Colorado alone of the fifty states would be celebrating in 1976 not only the two-hundredth birthday of our nation but also the hundredth anniversary of the state.

"This fits in perfectly," I said when I heard the news. "What I'd like to do, Mr. Garrett, is to follow you around a bit. For a couple of weeks. Listen in as you conduct your business. give my editors a feeling for what a westerner is doing these days. If you wouldn't mind, I wish you'd carry this tape recorder with you when I'm not there. Just in case there's something you'd like to get off your chest."

"A month ago I'd have said no," he replied. "It isn't easy, Vernor, when your wife dies. Not even when you haven't been really married, which was my case, as you may have heard."

"I've heard a good deal about you," I said. "I'd like to know more."

"If the tape recorder works, you may know a helluva lot more. " He insisted on my staying for lunch, and as we ate beneath the moose heads, word of his appointment penetrated to various corners of the state, and his phone began jangling, with citizens from the western slope of the Rockies demanding to know if they were to form part of the twin celebrations, or if they were as usual to play second fiddle to the greater concentrations of population along the front range. "Of course you're counted in," he assured them. "First thing I do tomorrow is drive across the mountains to consult with you. Get your crowd together. Decide what you want, and I'll have dinner with you tomorrow night. in Cortez."