00:00:00 Speaker 1: M one time that I described him as is six ft six and in perfect physical condition, the slender but powerful man, and that could out walk anybody on their best saddle horse in any kind of terrain. On this episode of the Beargrease Podcast, we're heading into the American West to me to ranch your midway through his ninth decade on planet Earth, and he still rides his mule every day. He's known as one of the nation's best dry ground mountain lion hunters. The southern border of his property is Mexico. He plays a little fiddle, and he did some unconventional roping in an Academy Award winning movie. But that's just the flashy stuff. We'll hear a wild story that involved the helicopter rescue, but mainly will glimpse into the life of a true American cowboy named Warner Glenn. I had expectations of who this man would be, but they were scattered in the desert when I met the real Mr Warner. This is part one in our series on the life of a living legend, Warner Glenn. You're not gonna want to miss this one. He always kept up with his dogs a foot, which he did one day this young man asked him. He said, how do you do that? And Dad said, well, I just got slower dogs. My name is Clay Nukelem and this is the bear Grease Podcast where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the story of Americans who lived their lives close to the land. For his scented by f h F Gear, American made purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. Guys, we've got an exclusive bear Grease discount code for f h F Gear that's fish Hunt Fight Gear. I've been using their products for the last year and I love carrying my gear in a chest rig or my binos and their bin no harness. It's easier and more accessible than a backpack and it doesn't get in the way when I'm riding my mule. For a limited time, you can head over to fh F gear dot com forward slash bear Grease and listeners to this here podcast get a discount on purchases for your f h F Gear system and you can see how I build my gear system. So go to f h F gear dot com forward slash bear grease for a special code. If you're buying stuff from fh F Gear, check it out Fish Hunt Fight f h F Gear. I arrived at the Mouthpie Ranch in southeast Arizona a few hours before the glowing sunset blanketed the desert. If I'm being honest, I've rarely been more impacted at a first meeting. He was feeding his hounds, and I was greeted with a wide smile and a warm demeanor. I was a stranger to him, but a more genuine and gritty handshake I have never felt. I was invited to get into side by side and we rode five miles west to a remote generator powered well. So what is that pump doing? It's pumping water into these Yeah, it feels just take and it's full all the time. They overflows. What feels is that way if I have a flute getting knocked off or a land break, a great mission that I have that and it's just waters all the cattle on this side of the ramp. Yep, h, Mr Warren, how old are you? I'm so still working well, ten hours twelve hours a day, Like, Hey, I didn't I didn't, lucky, Sure I didn't do sandom horse and ride, and I tell you, and that's good enough. Lowly they can do that. I can get something done, you know. But the shadows getting heavier every year, and the hills are getting there. Warner Glenn is six ft six, slender and wiry, like American barbed wire, the expensive kind. He's wearing a faded salmon colored button up shirt and his T shirt showing through the neck reveals a tattered collar. His cowboy had a straw and stained with sweat and dirt. He's an old man, but his eyes are as bright blue as you'll ever see. I find that with age sometimes a man's eyes brightened, almost like they've been bleached by the sun. We made it back to the ranch House, which is quite literally a museum of the West, replete with art, Native American artifacts, photography, old guns and saddles and antlers, but the dominant theme is beautiful photos of hounds and mountain lions photographed on Warner's hunts, and a huge painting of the jaguar. More on that later. We had dinner with Warner's daughter, Kelly, who will meet later, and her daughter Mackenzie, and some other friends helping on the ranch. Thank you Lord for this food, and thank you Lord for the guidance and safety of giving us today, and please watch over through the night and give us all good nights rest. I'd heard about Warner Glenn for almost two decades, and I knew it was time to go see him. He's known in the hound world as one of the best dry ground mountain lion hunters in the nation. Today he's probably the oldest active mountain lion hunter left. Later we'll explain what a dry ground lion hunter is, and that knowledge is very important, But in short, I'll tell you that it's one of the most demanding styles of hunting that there is. Warner has lived a storied life of a true American cowboy. Over the next few podcasts, I hope to do the man and his family partial justice in describing their way of life, their character, and their humility. Rarely have I seen the like. It's been many moons since Mr Warner played his fiddle, but he was kind enough to break it out on my request. After a short night and a five am breakfast, we headed to the kennel in the mule Barn. We're going on a ride. How many dogs do you have Mr Warner six tiers and one or two good ones. I can buy that. So these are primarily walkers, but they're mixed breed dogs. You've got let a black and tants. Some of them look kind of dark, little something else in him, a little bit of blue tick and worst walker. I can start putting collars on dogs if you tell me which ones to do, you put that. Don't turn him down. Don't turn it down. His dogs are meticulously cared for. The kennels are clean, and the dogs obey Mr Warner's every command. Tell me about that us and the dog you said was the best dog you got, the best dog you've got. He's get at everything. He's good cold traders, good straight dog and he'll move out and catch him that to Trouble twelve, Yeah, still going though. Yeah, he'll be all right to winner, but this broad be the last winter. Yeah, so he and I might go out together. I don't know. I wouldn't count on it. Yeah, he's one of the best ones. Hook kids, and that's his full brother right there. And he's not worth it too, Yeah, litter mate. Yeah, what so what are we gonna do this morning? Well, we're just getting ride we're just exercising these dogs. I do this probably four times a week and try to go back in ten miles with him, and it kept your feet in condition, hardened up, and fairly in good shape. Mr Warner, you're eighty five years old and you you're still riding the mule. That's pretty unique. How many miles a year do you think you ride? I heard him say that you ride. You probably ride miles a year on horseback or yeah, d every day somewhere you unless I happen to go, you know, the town or something for some reason, every day. Track to you working Kettler keeping the dog in cape Er hunting. You know that type of deal. Mr Warner saddles the sixteen hand mule named Vivian, and he instructs me to ride a shorter strawberry roan mule. He gets on the big bay with the agility of a man fifty years his junior, and I'm not kidding. His mount on the mule was smooth, natural, and effortless. We head out of the ranch house with sixteen white spotted walker dogs canvas seen the landscape in front of us. My questions and his stories flow almost NonStop on our two hour ride through the open country loads and that white dog right behind it. She's a really good cool the trainer a good right dog. So she's a good dog, but not too good to get the right. And now, okay, that was Clump and a fella, Johnny Clump a good friend of ours and and also a line of hunter. He gave me that dog to the pump, and that dog on pump would do nothing to follow my mule around until he was about a year and a half old. I mean, the other dogs would be trailing lions and he'd just stay with right. And so one day we had trailed the line into a big little bluff and I couldn't find it. And who guy that was helping to say cowboys tell me Todd. He and I were looking at some blood splattered and spots on the on the rock. You're the basis bluff And I said yeah, and that it looks like whatever one went run up and I pointing to the right, and littlettle female line was right there about thirty keep from it. And as soon as we made eye contact, whether she just bailed out of that buff running and went off the mountain and ran right square overall. Clump just cannon ball clump down down the hill and he got up and what the squall and he he ran that line up in the bottom of big Old Canada and treated and from that day on he was one of the best dogs I've ever had. And that I mean just like to switching the light, Bobo, and so once in a while there's hope for those duds you think are duds, and most of the time they're always had dud. But he did. He made one of the best dog I've ever had from that nail clump, clump he got cannon ball, give him a chance, clump. We gained some elevation and overlook a rough section of tall pointed mountains. When in an unfamiliar place, I never take for granted my own ignorance of it. Mr Warner interpreted the landscape for me. Okay, this from right here, you can see this valley up to hear. All of these small heels you're looking at it were cinder cones or volcanoes and uh and going to south into Mexico too. So this would have been a pretty wild place like several thousand years ago. With all this was foreman, you know it wouldn't it wouldn't have been too place to place. Tell me what the name of your ranch is and what it means. Okay, we called it to malpa rent and that uh, it's derived from the Spanish word mald pace maldpiece, which means untillable land, bad land. It's n't terrible and that's because it's too rocky for farm land. And it's pretty good cal country though. But they've better have good feet on them because they've trigue shore footed in the country like good line country too. Yeah, it's pretty good at some of this good life country land. It's debatable on how that wall that they've been able to go to, No doubt it's got to break up some of the wildlife corridors, but it's not continuous. I mean the pelts he is there still open and and it's a good wildlife corridor. And tell him about We'll see, let's see what the future hopefully. I wanted to ask Mr Warner about his connection to the land and how his family got here. Here's what he said. Mr Warner, you've been in Arizona your whole life. You were born in nine that's correct. Tell me about your upbringing, your mom and dad and kind of how your family came to this part of the world. Okay, my granddad he came out here in eighteen ninety six from Texas. They had a little dirt farm right south to Abilene. There were eleven kids and the family, and they were the two oldest at the will and Ira Iras my granddad. And it was their job to get up early in the morning and go feed the two plow horses. My great granddad J. J. Glenn. He went in. He told the boy, he said, well, are said the time to get up and go feed those horses and then come back and get breakfast so they'd be ready to start plowing daylight. And oh will he night it? I and I well, they went back to sleep. So J. J. Went in there about five minutes later they were both sound asleep, sloorn again. So he walked outside and they had big barrels catching the rain water off the roofs, and they were they all always had water in him. There's a cota ice on that water. He got the worse pan and scooped the big pan of that ice water out within their jerk colored by throwing it on the boys, and they went and fed the plow horse and old Will. He went to saddle and went up and Irish said, Will, what are you doing? And he said, I'm leaving here and I'm never coming back. He was eighteen at the time, granded and he did, he did. He my grandfather stayed there with the plant in the fields. But they didn't hear from Will for four months. And he came down here and he rode up through that half Moon Valley and he wrote up in a lot of this country at that time were homesteaded already, especially in the valleys, but the mountains warn't. So he rode up and this is the south, in the Turkow Mountains, and he wrote up that half Moon Valley in the grassroot is thick and dragging the stirrups of his saddle. And he went to Wilcock. At that time they had a telegraph line, and he said, his dad wire and he said, Dad, if you want to come to some of the best scout country you'll ever find, you had to come to Arizona Territory. That's what at that time. And J. J. Dead. He brought the whole family out and that's what brought about water water and they homesteaded there what we call high loads, so Canyan in the south end of the turret couse. J. J. Homesteaded there, and my granddad Ira, he homesteaded about three miles north that they're in what they call hunt Kenyan. I want to read an excerpt from the author Stan Steiner's book titled The Ranchers. It might give us a window into something that's hard to understand unless you've seen it or have lived it here. It is one thing that ranchers seem to have in common was a sense of place, a place on Earth. It was not so much that they owned a place on earth that the place on Earth they owned was where their ancestors were buried, where they grew up and would die, where their children were born. They were part of that earth, and their feeling came from more than simply owning, buying, and selling the earth. It went deeper end of quote. The Glen's connection goes deeper. I saw this quote inside of a photography book titled The North American Cowboy, a portrait by a man named Jay Dussard. Mr J is eighty four years old, and he has dedicated his life to photographing the landscapes and cowboys of the Western United States. He only shoots black and white, and his images are meticulously crafted in composure and lighting. They're stunning. He has multiple photography books. Another one is called open country, which I've learned is a cherished phrase and descriptor of the land in this part of the world. In the said book, Mr j described open country. Keep in mind that these words are written by a man who interprets the world through shape, color and images. These are Mr Jay's words open country. My kind does not mean endless planes. Planes alone are too much like the endless sea for this landsman. I crave relief, changes of level, substantial reference points in a landscape that is vertical as well as horizontal. Being earth bound is completely satisfying. From a rim rock high enough to overcome the spherical earth disappearing act. It is a mesa or a mountain a hundred miles distance that defines the sculptural reality that give perspective to the intervening ridges, riffs behind us, and drainages. So rounding this with clouds of monumental proportions lit at a low angle from ninety three million miles and your photographic potential may even surpass postcard at age twenty three, I finally realized what I had been missing. Space, magnificently articulated by form, relief, light, and unbelievably clear atmosphere took on a new sense of continuity. I simply wanted to live on this grand piece of sculpture. I wanted to be like a little ant or microbe crawling around on its wondrously complex surface. End of quote. Jay headed west and one of the first acquaintances he made was with Warner and Marvin Glenn. Listener, take note that I'm holding a sun faded mountain lions skull with the date November nineteen sixty three inscribed on it. Here here is Mr J with an interesting story. Well, I got so lucky that I discovered Warner Glen and the Glen family. Warner and Winding Glenn were so generous to bring me into their lives, into their world, and they traded me so wonderfully, and they put beyond the payroll at the prevailing wage of seven dollars a day. Now, Warner and his father, Marvin Glen, they were, had a hunting business. They would guide hunts for for mountain lions, primarily what they were known for, and since I was working at the ranch. They had booked a hunt with a couple from Sierra Vista, and they said, well, you you can just go, uh join us on the hunt and you can kind of babysit the the clients. Everybody was writing mules, but me and he had the clients, and we split up so we could cover more country. Uh. In fairly short order, Warner saw a lion track on the ground. He said, he said, I don't have time to show you this, and I couldn't see a thing. And he says, it's a four year old female. And we're going in the right direction. So we were on on the on the high ridge and going in the direction that the lion had taken. And then suddenly we came to a place where the ridge dropped off and it was nothing but with slick rock and boulders to get down into the canyon where this lion had gone. And Warner said, you'll ever be able to make it down there, and and I'm running. It's my good mule, mochobo, and he said, uh, try and get down there into that canyon. Work your way down easily into that cannon. And he said, I'll see you later. And he touched a spur to Mochomo and they just flew down down that slick rock. It was the most amazing thing that I've ever seen. And so uh machonos steel show shoes were trying to grip the rock and striking sparks, and they got down to the lower level, down where I couldn't see them again. And there here they took off on a on a lower elevation and then Chomo just leaped into the next drop off. It was. It was spectacular. This is the skull of that four year olds y'all caught the lion Febal. Yeah. Tell me about the date on the skulls on on pencil here it says no number. That's right, And that's a date that a lot of people with a little age on them will remember because that's the date that President John Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. And we were about the last people in the civilized world who had known about the tragedy that took place in Dallas, Texas. We were it was way after dark when we got out of the mountains and H. Rancher came through his place and he said, they killed the president today. How did that impact you, well, it was. It was shocking, and I think it made me remember that I had voted for Nixon, had voted against Kennedy. But you can tell something about a person when you learn where they were when a monumental event happened. It's a random one time sampling and Mr Warner was on a flashy mule hunting mountain lions. I asked Mr Jay to describe Warner Glenn. This is what he said. I think one time that I described him as a six ft six and in perfect physical condition, a slender but powerful man, and that could out walk anybody on their best saddle horse in any kind of terrain. That's my description of him. I want to jump back to Mr Warner as he describes the foundation of their families lion hunting. So I grew up there. We call it the j br A and it's in the south south end of the church house and that's where I was raised him. My dad was there at that time. We were raising our own horses, coats and breaking or he was this little boy. The lions would kill those colts. He couldn't had it raised a coat there because the lines were killing him. And also they were killing a lot of cows too, So he got his first lion dog, a red bone hand out of a from a guy down in a valley called Elfrida, and he took that hound up there, and that when he first started line. And then you went on your first line hunt when you were six years old, nineteen forty two. Yeah, I think it was forty forty two. That was the first line. I had been with him on a few tracks before. We've never caught anything, but we did catch a line that day, the big Old Tom's a long day. We left early that morning, the dollars picked up that track and we trailed that old day. We caught that line just just about the sundowns, but we were about nine miles south of the rent, so we got back to the leven that night. It was a long day before for a six year old. Yeah, he and then he took his first He in need the hunt. But it costs quite a bit even in those days to get a pack of hounds together and feed him. And the rent is the Cata rent as we ordered Upgrader considered small rents in this area. He had probably a hundred mother counard, so increases income a little bit. He started taking the hunting clients. Yes, and the first took he took with nine. Marvin Warner's father would become well known as a mountain lion hunter and renowned guide. He began lion hunting in the nineteen thirties and started an outfitting business in nineteen He was known for a charming personality and his unusual hospitality. His wife, Margaret, was an integral part of their ranch and business. It was said that she quote did everything with infectious enthusiasm, the type of enthusiasm that makes people enjoy your company. Well, this is actually a quote from a book written about Warner. I hadn't told you about that yet. The book is titled The Life and Times of Warner Glenn, A Glimpse into the American West, written by Ed Ashurst. I believe the enthusiasm that Ed wrote about for life is still evident in this family today. To understand more about Mr Warner's upbringing, I couldn't overlook a peculiar streak of good fortune that, of all places, came from Hollywood. I bet you weren't expecting that. Here's the story. When when you were fifteen years old, you and your father, Marvin, were in a movie. You roped a lion on a on a movie that one and Oscar they wouldn't even let your film me right right right, you know, because we were any credent closure or anything like that. We we would just ropingout it. Of course, yet have your dogs all tight back out of the way, because you couldn't get something hurt, because that lion on when he hits the ground on the end of that rope, he'd ever were and somebody's got to go in there and get him behind a leg or a tail. They they kind of choked down a little bit and somebody and once you get them stretched out like that, then you just take your time and get a rope on the feet and pull them back into something in her mouth. We tied tied up quite a few in the reason we were doing that was either for a movie or it was for a zoo we had had or I read where you and your father gave a lion to the Bakersfield, California Zoo. Several of those lines ended up in shoos. What's really is the worst thing you can do? The well, but really, I mean, I mean at that time we didn't think much of it, but and it was. It was something we did. We didn't think we're doing the wrong thing. But over the years you kind of say, how would you like to be stuck stuck in the taking me, you know, because I'm used to free life and show the land. Yeah, some people may think they're cool or that they're cowboys. And if they've got a story that will top roping a wild mountain lion out of a tree when they're fifteen years old for a Disney movie, yep, I said, Disney, I'll buy him an angus river by steak and a beaver felt hat. Mr Warner went on to describe how this movie impacted their lion hounds for decades to come, and the pole of the name of Larry Landsberg came out and got used to help him film that. It was really a story about a hound that had got that came across the Mexican border and Disney actually they brought a walk around tree and walk around that was nine months old. Your fellow, the neighbor, Jay Sissler, had trained the dog this having and that's something well, I mean he just did everything that we asked for him in the movie. Yeah, yeah, it did, and and it's kind of a cute little story. Uh rex Allen there, Rachel. But anyway, it went on to win the Tendey Ward that year for the Best Live Action Short. It was a short twenty minute short that showed me the feature film. That's something. Before that picture we were most of all our dogs were black and tan and red bone blue tick. Uh you know red tick, that type of just the old English breeds and a good dog. I mean, we had some good son of a gun. And then when we saw that walker that that they trained was a walker a tree and walker out of somebody right there in your country. Sure. So when the movie was over, Daddy tried to They called in the in the movie that a dog is called Puckle that name, and so he tried to buyo Poco, and they wouldn't tell him. We gotta we might need him for this and that, which they did. Later they came back and filled something for that uh Disney presents at night. They can't and they had to do it all. They had to film all while he was a pup that so they wasn't Sally Pockles. So he said, you know, I'm gonna try to give it. He bought a female out of Filly River Chief out of the Missouri, I think. And then he bought a mail out of the the house in bally and to the mail was too and the female was a yearland So we got him and started raising pups. And both of those does ended up being good. They were on those were just those were you bet and and and they made wonderful landdogs and we were raised. We raised pups out of those for in or ten years, and that's when some of those puffs scattered all over the country. And some of the dogs nowadays are still related. To go back to the house of the bally Affilly River Chief for anyway. But it's hard to believe. But the Hollywood hound that came from the east was one of the most impressive young hounds Marvin and Warner had seen. They tracked it back to Missouri and built a line of lion dogs with some Apoco's relatives. A good lion dog is wherever you find him. I asked Mr Warner about his connection to the Beast of Burden, of which he is quite fond. I'll give you one guess about what my next question is about. Well, I want to talk about mules. Just give me your spill on mules and horses and cattle. Working on the rinch. We like to use horses. They're a little more respond to than that type of thing we're just although we used uld a lot of times if we don't have the horses up, if we have to work in the cattle, but in the hunting, but that I use a lot of horses. When it first started, early in the forties and early fifties and six's, we were horseback most of the time, even because we were raising all those horses in the mountain and we were breaking them our sails, so they were good mountain horses. It's kind of hard to find a good mountain horse now, but we want to use mules. We use mules all toogether now when we're hunting. They take care of themselves in that rough, rugged country. They hardly ever get crippled. Ever, hardly ever get hurt. If they do happen to fall with you, and I'm not saying the mule will fall with it, they will have had them fall with me. But usually when they get in a real bad place and fall or get in a tight situation there, they're kind of relaxing. Wait a minute, they don't panic. Were a horse were usually panic and go to London or kicking and getting frantic. Well, you might find one occasionally that would, but most mules will settle down and take it kind of ease out of a tough situation, and in doing that they allow you time to step out of the middle of the trouble. So they're not They're not London than fighting. And I'll tell you when you get it. When they go down with if there's a pause, taught you better take advantage of it, better get out of the way. I'm gonna remember that. Yeah, you told me a statement today. You said, uh, you said, we've had some good mountain horses, but I sure felt sorry for Yeah. Well, a lot of the old timers rounded wonder why do you run mules all time hunting rather horses, And I said, well, to tell you the truth, I did. You know, I just don't feel sorry for a mule and I do a horse, and I figured that mule is gonna take him and me both. I'm not saying they're not some good mountain horses still around. Some of the hunters still use horses quite a bit, but by large, most of the mountain hunters in our area use mules most of the time. Tell me about tell me about your mule Machoma. Well, I tell you yeah. And he came out of Mexico. At that time, this would have been like fifties six fifty seven fifty nineteen fifty six f set. We were doing a lot of hunting in the northern part of Sonora, in these mountains that you didn't see from here in the south ost and uh. They had a mule called Mochobo down there that one of the wranglers down there was riding. So when we came out of there that the rancher was making Armando Varela. He was making some really good horses. He had some real fancy studs. And he said for payment for catching some of the lines down and he said, word, I want to give you one of these good horses. And I said, man, I won't. No, I said, I would really drither have that bay mule calledbo. He said you would, and I said yeah. So he gave me the mule. That's where he came from. And he's one of the best mules of ever in there. He was a little wild and rank at first. He I got he kicking me a tirat to really bad. But he got over that when he got about eighteen nineteen years old. He got took a while. What was your favorite mule of all time? Well, I tell you I've had a lot of but but of all the time, if I had my pick for one to stay with, I had a white mule called Snoy River, and he would want He would do anything you wanted to do it, and he would do it good, and he was willing. He never balked. I mean, he was a good rough country You could go ahead and caw and word cattle, and he were doing. It's just a good all around mule. Carry a line too, Oh yeah, yeah, he carry it. Yeah, it's some most of here, I tell you, they're not afraid of the lion as much as you are. Bearing it seemed like our mules here, of course they don't. We don't bear hunt much. It's just very rare that they're even round m I've had. I'm riding. You'll see her in the morning, Vidian. She's she's one of those. How big a mule do you like? I don't. I don't like him too big. I like him ways of probably ten fifty to twelve fifty. These are pretty big meals. You've got that six hands? Probably are they that a couple of couple of Probably you're a big you're big guy. They're they're a little bigger than those are good DALs and what we've got now. But I'd rather have a little smaller when I'd rather have one. Uh snoy Rimond would probably he'd probably weighed ten fifty something like that when he was drowned down. Good tradition too, would have been too. Mr Warner's love of mules is music to my ears. And as you know, I'm fond of the animals too. But my fondness should not mean that much, but coming from him it should mean a lot. Warner's not on Instagram trying to look cute and flashy. Dang, I wish he was. No, I don't. It's now mid morning and we've ridden to one of the highest points on the Mouth High Ranch. Our mules are facing uphill towards the west. Mr Warner shifts around in his saddle and points to the south. The life of the Glens can't be understood without a realization of where they live. The landscape defines their existence. The southern boundary of the ranch is the Mexican border, and he's got some wild stories. So what those mountains are in Mexico. Yeah, all of this country you're looking at right south other or in Mexico. That big range you see right there kind of the southeast Others is the starting of the sier Modri Mountains and mexicoing there continuous clear to Mexico City. I can I can see the wall down there. Oh yeah, wow, you can see it on that side going out through the hills and that side going into the mountains. So just used to it was just h barbede get to barbar fits. Yeah. When we bought the rent, it was just it was an eight strand barbed war and fence and the added steel t post ever twelve feet, so it was a pretty good fifth but it was old is war out. We were men and tenants all that time. So that and then the first thing they did was built at the vehicle barrier, and that was in the early two thousand. Of course the vehicles could still get over and then they would just ramp overs. Yeah, you've had some encounters with I mean lots of encounters with people carrying drugs over the border. Yeah, I tell you, Kelly, and I probably is running into like thirty bunches in the mountains over the years that had drugged big veils right right long, and we just right I mean you you come around the the end of the canyon and they know where to go, and there right there, we just right up to them. We always got her dogs and we we got going. We thought we were never been worried about. We've never been threatened by them, because it surprises them as much as it does us. And we we just I just talked to them in Spanish and tell them we're line hunting, We're on our way. But yeah, but the looks on their faces sometimes those drug mules they call them really readership. It's a big relief to them when they know we're not tarrying the badge or something. But when we get away from them, we don't ensure report those. We we turned those. But then that's why the Border Patrol worked with us a good We've had a lot of I've run into quite a few charrying bales UH run through the ranch here, and in fact, we we've found probably over over the year, thirty or forty bales that have been abandoned. And when we do we don't pack them in. We I get the Border control to take them and have them pick them up. Well, I've I've been on this ranch lesson to only four hours. And while we were driving into your ranch, the Border patrol was pulling out of your driveway with They told us six people they had picked up just yesterday. So that's common. Yeah, that's that's the kind of an everyday coach, or at least four times a week now now. Honestly, some of his stories, and there are some very specific ones in the book, remind me of Daniel Boone's encounters with hostile Indians in the backwoods. Mr Warner has used his tech, genuine demeanor and cultural understanding he can speak Spanish to get him out of trouble a lot of times. Speaking of trouble, I want to hear Warner and his daughter Kelly tell about the time they got into some big trouble in the back country hunting lions in And this is also a great place to introduce you to Kelly Glenn Kimbro, Warner's daughter. She's worked on the ranch then lying outfitting with her father for decades. She is an accomplished rancher and dry ground lion hunter herself, and honestly, we could be doing a whole podcast on her life. What an incredible lady. Luckily, we'll hear more about her in Part two. These next interviews were done separately. That Kelly and Mr Warner are telling the same wild story. There's a mountain in the north end of the tellance she is. Actually it's in the New Mexico side called Pratt Peak, and it did a terrible rough bluffy son up the gun and wind come over the top of Pratt Peak and we would lead down through some really bad rims and rocks and stuff. And I told Kelly. She was behind me and we had to a couple behind us, and I told him, I said, I think we can ride from here on. So I got him a new little sitting there and Kelly want to get on her mule, and she had stepped She went on the peel side to get on. Here's Kelly, and there was about a couple into the snow on the boulders and stuff on our mules. We do it all the time. We get on the off side. If that's the uphill side, we get on the off side. So I stepped up on a boulder and put my right foot in the stirrup to get on, and when I did, the boulder was cracked from the freezing and thine and it broke off and it hit her on the back leg. I had just it was literally the second day I started riding after having my shoulder rebuilt, so I didn't have my full strength and I was able to grab onto the saddle, but my right foot was hung on the stirrup, so I was off hanging on. It was gonna be a disaster. She is bailing off some mountain and it was frozen ground boulders. It was a terrible deal, and I knew it was gonna hurt if I hit the ground, so I'm trying to hang on. And then she stepped This leg was back here, and she stepped right on it and it broke it in seven places. But what it did it flipped it around backwards. But when she stepped on it, it jerked this foot oil of the strup, and it jerked me free. Well. I was going so fast that they were watching Dad and Rick and Heather's the people who were with us. They said, I made like two full flips and then I hit a boulder with this side of my head, and in those flips, I remembered seeing my leg going by point in the wrong direction. She looked up, she said, Dad, my legs broken. And I said, boy, Kelly, it sure is. And I mean, what did you say it was? It was pointed south and she would head north. Oh, it was a bad deal. There was blood spewing out. I had put like a three fifty seven bullet hole right here and fractured this whole corner of my skull in one inch when I hit that rotten but it was just pouring blood. But it didn't hurt. This hurt. And he said, I know, and he grabbed my leg and he said it was like a bag of bones. It was just lost. There was a man and his wife with us, the man Ricky. He got to tell him by the arms and held her there on the hillside, just to help her stay and stabilizers as she wouldn't slide and roll in further down the mountain. I could see. I knew I had to straighten that lege. I mean, we're way up there with new We're gonna have to have reelactuated somehow. So I went ahead and I told Kelly, I'm going to straighten your leg, Kelly, and then we're gonna splice it and we'll we'll immobilize it. So I just pulled it out and pointed the tod the right direction. I went ahead and cut four or five of those yuck poles to stock that rolls out of the Yucca plant. The tournament about eighteen ins. And then I took him down there and I had to rule at electricians taping my saddle bay, and so we we got it. We got those We used those stocks for splints and taped pretty tight with that electrician tape, and then we went This was eleven o'clock in the morning, and this was this was last day at each sever and cold. We knew it. There was snow about in the eighth shore on the north slope. We were on the north slope, so it was shaking, The ground was a little frozen. Its kind of an uncomfortable place. Then we tried to get cell service, no service because we were in a basin on a peak, so it was all block. What was your anxiety level fear level? I hurt really bad and I was laying It was twenty seven degrees. I was laying there and the man was still holding me. I honestly thought they'd get me out of there pretty quick. I thought, I know, I can't walk out of here. I wasn't panicked and I never went into shock, which is amazing. The hounds kind of grouped around me. One of them, I didn't realize that it was so much was licking blood off of me. And Warner and Heather took off and hiked up to the top and got cell service and then they started coordinating this rescue while a rescue helicopter came within about an hour and they circled us and they left. It was the winds and it was too dangerous. There's nowhere to land canyon. Yeah. So in the meantime, when everybody knows us, just because we've been in this country for so long, the sheriff and Hidalgo County was talking trying to get some help and border patrol in El Paso. A pilot in El Paso was sitting in their coffee room or whatever, and they heard this a woman had been hurt on a peak in southwest New Mexico and that nobody could rescue her helicopter wise, and he said, I can. And he had just got back from Afghanistan, and there was a guy there that day, a border troll supervisor. There wasn't a pilot. He said, I'll go with you, and they loaded up in one of those little boarder troll helicopters. They flew to the mountain. They got there about six hours after I'd been hurt, because all this took time. They landed on a boulder a d seventy five yards above us, on a on a saddle, and it was sundown already, and Warner had ridden off to the valley and gotten one of those basket stretchers check in from the truck. We were like three or four miles from the truck, but it was terrible country. Border patrol got the coordinates. They started riding in on horses, hiking in. There was nine border patrol and showed up there at this and one came and they all knew us. And one guy came right to me and he goes, I'm not allowed to administer pain medicines, but I have some advil and I so I took two. By then I was I was hurting. So you're you're laying there on the rocks for seven hours with no pain medication? Bush, Yeah, But Warner and Rick. About two or three hours into it, they dug up, because literally we were like this angle. I mean, it was the whole time, you're just holding yourself. So they dug out some rocks and stuff and put a saddle blanket, and then I could sit. I could finally relax and be down and not be slight. And that poor man that was holding me had held me all that time. So when they did that, then I said, I told him, I said, Rick, I'm cold. I said, you're gonna have to build a fire. Well, there was snow on everything, so Tall burns, it has a fuel in it, a dead soul, tall plant, saccosta. These are things that we have out here. So he left so talls and and he he'd light one right there by my feet, and so he got my feet warmed up. But the border ptoleman Dad rode up. And there's a picture, an epic picture that Rick took. It's a Life magazine kind of picture. It's Warner on a mule with that stretcher in front of him, riding up the bluffs behind him, and those border patrol kind of lined up way for him to get there, and they took the stretcher and they lifted me. They were awesome, and they put me in that basket stretcher and then those guys by now it was dark, and they carried me all the way up there. Never one of them slipped or fell. I mean, they just they were a team and they got me up there. The coal pilot he said, okay, ma'am. He said, you're not going to fit in our helicopter. So he said, we're gonna stick you through sideways, and he said we're gonna put your head against the door and and then your legs are going to be sticking out in that for about two and a half feet outside. And so they tied me in with cargo straps and he held onto me and off we went. We had eleven people up on the mountain. Pratt peeked to get off there, and we got everybody up there. We were back to our truck and trailers, probably at eleven o'clock. We got back here at one next morning. Lonely, Okay, bad. It could have been much worse. Yeah, And Kelly, Kelly, she made it fine. Yeah, there's one of the times that Kelly heard who We're going more wild stories, you say, Mr Warner. That sounds interesting. I got bit by a lion. Did Dad tell you that? Okay? So, so last so March eighth of nineteen, we're hunting at in New Mexico. We tree this calf killing lion in a stand of pine trees and the guy with us shoots him twice in the chest. Everything's good and he falls out. Then the dogs pulled him downhill and they wrapped his body around a tree and it was kind of steep, and then he went limp. And you know how dogs wool lying around that, they're all wanting to chew on it. Dad, it's a reward. So Dad and I said, he's dead. Yeah, he's dead. He's dead. But I am a miss practicality. I didn't want him to drag him down the hill, so we'd have to pull him back kept the skinning. So I put my foot on the back of his shoulders to hold him against a tree. And no kidding, he stands up, turns around and I remember thinking, oh, man, his eyes are yellow. He's looked at and then he just reaches out grabsh me by this like, jerks me down and bites me right through the calf slipped off the bone, did not break the bone right through the meat. Well, Warner, Mr fearless Warner is wailing on him with his spiths to getting to turn loose to me, and the dogs are garbalistic because I yelled when I hit the ground and he bit me and he lets go. Then he takes off and runs off, and the dogs went and Warner went, and Warner shot him point blank with his pistol. Well, the poor guy with us had never been in on a lion or any of that. First he says, did you see him by you? And I'm like, yeah, I did, and I'm thinking, oh, man, I'm thinking he broke my leg. It hurt. I said, go help Warner. So I took off my shoe and rolled up my long underwear and blood was everywhere, and I had fourteen puncture wounds, the canines and the clause. So I put my foot against a tree and gently pushed. And my experiment was if it moves, it's broken, and if it doesn't. So by the time they got up there, it hadn't moved, and I said, Dad, it's just superficial, just superficial. Well, ironically, we bandaged it up and stopped the bleeding and went down and skinned the lion and rode out an hour minutes to the truck. And so they gave me a raby shot in each puncture. They don't sew up puncture wounds. You know. It took seventy five days for those to heal. But I drove back over there the next day. We caught two more lions. In the next three days I hunted. There was no pain, and we caught two more lions. On that hunt. There were calf killers. On part one of this podcast series, we've just barely introduced the Glens, and they've given us insight into their lifestyle, history and some iconic family stories. Next episode will dive in deeper into the craft of dry ground lion hunting and will learn that Warner was the first person to document a live jaguar in the United States. He wrote a short book about it called Eyes of Fire. We're gonna hear the whole story directly from him. I truly cherished the opportunity to highlight families like the Glens. In my opinion, Mr Warner is the embodiment of a living legend, and we haven't even heard half the story. Later we'll learn how he and his wife Wendy, who has since passed away, helped start an influential conservation group called the Maupi Borderlands Group. You also haven't heard about the fist fight in his younger years that catalyzed a life altering change in Mr Warner about how to deal with confrontation. Later in his life, he'd be known as a diplomat for the open country of southeast Arizona. Here's what Kelly had to say in closing about her father. We have a unique lifestyle. We have a unique family because we were raised to respect each other, to be cohesive, to collaborate, whether it was to collaborate with our family to get it done or to collaborate. So the with changing of time and conservation becoming such a big deal, you know, we are so blessed. Mackenzie is sixth generation. She will carry on the ranches she wants to. We've given her every choice, not to what she's doing right now in her side business. We want her to be able to develop something that she can call her own, because until Warner's gone, and then I'm gone, she will be under the umbrella. You know, she won't be the leader. However, Warner has gracefully let Mackenzie and I take on more and more and we do it respectfully. I know the answer, but I ask Warner one thing I think is left out in a lot of families as they transition through the generations. A lot of times the elderly generation doesn't really give the next generation a lot of respect because they're still stuck in that in that mindset, and they are still in power. And Dad's pretty good at that. He's pretty there's now and then he'll he'll say he'll say something real quick and forceful, and then he'll backtrack immediately and say, tell me the rest of the story, because I know the rest of the story. It's like whether it was to do with the border or whatever was happening. I'm the one that's getting the emails, the phone calls. Dad has a great life. He's he knows and exercises his dogs, he does his ranch work. We kind of run interference with with the way life is nowadays. As you know, there's so many issues. But I would just say something that's forgotten in a lot of families and is maintain your traditions and your the history of your family, and the ethics and respect and morals of your family, your community, your environment, your landscape. Because we're only here for a short time, but we need to when we leave, we need to be remembered as Warner will be as a legend. It's been a great life. I've been so blessed to have such a mentor. And sometimes it's been really tough because I'm a woman in a man's world. Luckily, my dad has respected women and there and and the fact that they can work equally hard. Like I said, O here be your personal best, do your best. And that's what Warner. That's all he asked of people, whether it's clients or family or that's incredible. We did, ah, We just did an extensive podcast series on Daniel Boone. What's wild about the end of Daniel Boone's life. Boone lived to be eighties six years old. They said, when he was an old man, he hardly recognized the life that he had lived. And he was quiet and he was humble, and you would have thought he would have been this like proud, boastful guy for all the incredible stuff he did in his life. And there was a woman, a family member that said, the old woodsman that had spent their life in solitude, when they were old, they were humble, they were meek. I see that almost in your dad. There's a humility that is unique that you would have You would you would think that life would have built them up inside of their accomplishments. But but but it actually has made him more humble, exactly exactly. And he'll tell so young houndsman will ask Warner. You know, he would. We all we've always said he always kept up with his dogs a foot, which he did. One day, this young man asked him, He said, how do you do that? And Dad said, well, I just got slower dogs. But yeah, yeah, humble. And just like the example of that lead dog way up there, quietly going on, the old dog. We have an old dog named Hook. And when you see Hook two yards out there quietly going on, that's, you know, that's an example of what Warner is. I had never met nor spoken with Warner Glenn before I showed up in his barn lot. I knew he was a man of character and a man of the land. But what impacted me the most was something I wasn't expecting. It's a trait that the gunslinging John Wayne images of the Western cowboy typically don't embody, which is an authentic humility. Manhood is an interesting journey because we want to be bold and confident, which are both honorable traits, but we might be fooled into thinking that is supposed to be the dominant, most important feature of who we are as men. However, what Mr Warner showed me in the very short time I was with him that confidence and boldness flow out of humility and servant hood of those who you're around. What you wouldn't have seen when the recording devices weren't on was Warner Glenn putting away our dishes from the table, serving us food, taking genuine interest in our lives, and doing things for us he didn't have to do. One could argue that any one could put on their best behavior for a guest, but I can tell you there aren't two Mr Warners. There's only one, and that is the definition of authentic and that's what I want to be when I grow up again. I can't thank you enough for listening to Bear Greece. Don't miss part two of this series on Mr Warner and Kelly. I have a feeling it's gonna be better than the first. Please do me a favor and share our podcast with the Buddy. This week good hunting and keep the Open Country Open.