Distinctly Montana Magazine

W W W. D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA NA . C O M 43 In addition to protecting his own Judith Basin herd that winter, OH Ranch owner Jesse Phelps looked after five thousand head of cattle branded "Bar R" by Helena businessmen Louis Stadler and Louis Kaufman. Deep into the frozen February of 1887, Phelps received an urgent letter from a worried Kaufman concerned about how his livestock were faring. Weeks of fighting snowdrifts and 30-below-zero temperatures trying to keep the herd alive made it impossible for ranch hands to figure out how many cattle had per- ished, and Phelps just didn't know how to express their misery. A young cowboy named Charles Marion Russell, working at the OH Ranch that fateful winter, had a moment of inspiration as he watched Phelps struggle to give an accurate assessment to Kaufman. e 22-year-old from St. Louis had always been artistically inclined, and while the promise of adventure on the range called him out to Montana in 1880, he continued to draw and paint scenes from his life on the ranch. His watercolors were with him at the OH bunk- house, and using a small piece of scrap cardboard Charlie quickly rendered what would become the first of his many iconic western masterpieces. From inside the bunkhouse, Charlie's sharp memory and eye for detail perfectly captured the plight of an emaciated steer only barely surviving against a bleak white background. His loose yet accurate brushstrokes show the cow's skeleton stretching and protruding from the forlorn cowhide with painful anatomical precision. Charlie also illustrates how the steer's tail has been gnawed down by the taunting wolves while they wait for the inevitable death. is subtle observation about the how helpless the steer is to the relentless weather and predators gave chills to the cattlemen who saw the picture. With his trademark black humor, Charlie called the postcard- sized painting Waiting for a Chinook, and added the iconic cow skull to his signature for the first time. According to an interview he gave near the end his life, Charlie told Phelps to put the painting in with his reply to Kaufman, but the veteran rancher said, "Hell, he don't need a letter; this will be enough." And it most definitely was enough. While Phelps' words couldn't describe the cold hell the cows and cowboys were going through, Charlie's simple, powerful image created a sensation back in Helena. Distraught by the mournful scene, Stadler and Kaufman showed the painting to other cattlemen and investors around town, and anyone who saw it lost hope that any of their livestock would survive until spring. Soon, it seemed that everyone in Helena had seen the painting—or if they hadn't they certainly heard about it. e warm chinook winds eventually swept in, and when winter finally released its death grip, it was estimated that as many as 60% of all free range cattle in Montana had perished in what was called "e Big Die-Up." is disaster, with the resulting business losses as well as new laws created to protect cattle from overpopulation and overgrazing, signalled the end of the classic cowboy era in the west. But it was the beginning of Charlie Russell's career as an artist. In May, 1887, e Helena Weekly Herald said of Charlie: "the fame of an amateur devotee of the brush and pencil has arisen in Montana, and nurtured by true genius within the confines of a cattle ranch, has burst its bounds and spread abroad over the Territory." Waiting for a Chinook made Charlie famous in Montana, and while he loved life as a cowboy on the open range, as an artist he was heading toward much broader horizons. T HE PHRASE "WORDS CAN'T DESCRIBE IT" IS OFTEN USED WHEN A PERSON IS TRYING TO ARTICULATE SOMETHING EI- THER EXTREMELY GOOD OR EXTREMELY BAD. And mere words definitely could not describe the extremely bad winter of 1886-87 for the Montanans who experienced it. Starting with a late fall arctic fist that slammed into the Territory's cattle country and never let go, cowboys, ranchers, and homesteaders deserately hung on for life as snow piled higher, temperatures fell lower, and food ran out. C.M. RUSSELL'S REAL MONTANA WINTERS by ROBERT RATH Beyond Words WAITING FOR A CHINOOK (THE LAST OF 5000) Watercolor, 1887 Used with permission from the Montana Stockgrowers Association, Helena, Montana L1953.01.01

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