Anita and Hunter Thompson's Owl Farm is two miles down the road from the Flying Dog Ranch. In rural Woody Creek that's just "Two Doors Down," literally. With only three houses in two miles there is space and invitation to ride dirt bikes. In 1972 I bought a Bultaco Matador just like Hunter's and we rode together. We wore no helmets but carried fence cutters tucked in our belts. The neighbor in between us ran a few cattle, and the barbed wire fences that separated pasture from hayfield would get in our way and require cutting. This did outrage our neighbor, Danny, and he began carrying a handgun. However his hours did not coincide with ours, and there never was a showdown. Jumping irrigation ditches is quite like motocross, some big air and serious risk of not getting quite enough and going over the handlebars into the opposite ditch bank. I happen to know how much that hurts.

The Salvation ditch winds downhill through the Flying Dog and next through Owl Farm. The previous owners of Owl Farm had not transferred any water rights with the deed, and it frustrated Hunter that while the ditch ran behind his house he had no right to use the water for his own lawn care uses. My own role in the ditch was as its president, elected to deliver its shareholders the maximum water at the least cost. Here in the arid West, precious irrigation water is "owned" by the shareholders. In days when they were all ranchers, stealing water was confronted at the point of diversion with sharpened irrigation shovels brandished roughly like a broadsword.
I concurred with Hunter's view that an act that caused no one damage might be illegal but was not immoral, and further had no consequence if one is not caught. With the exception of the Vagneur ranch, no one downditch from Hunter would be damaged if he watered his lawn from the ditch; they were all gentlemen ranchers and wouldn't know what to do with the water even if it was delivered properly to them. I coached Hunter just when and how he could steal water for his lawn and avoid detection by either the ditch walker or the water referee. I made Wayne Vagneur whole by becoming blind to his practice of boarding his diversion box, which more than replaced the water spread upon Owl Farm, and we never did get caught.

I bought my Ruger .44 magnum at Matthew's Drug Store, and that's the way it is in the rural West, a land of wide-open spaces, coyotes, and water thieves. Ranchers have and use guns, and those living amongst ranchers—well, why not? Hunter and I joined our neighbors in appreciating the heft of a good piece, the recoil and blast of shooting. It's not as highbrow, perhaps, as a poetry reading, but damn it feels good! Because I was of the rancher community I was able to purchase and add Detagel and Irimite to our repertoire of outlawry. Hunter often described himself as an outlaw and I learned that this was simply his way of expressing Thoreau's civil disobedience, a stance for perfecting democracy, and he was a good role model for me.

To be a member of the Owl Farm Rod and Gun Club was a guarantee of the kind of weekend recreation that can threaten marriages; Sunday night, bedtime, and the children are asking, "Where's Dad, still down at the Rod and Gun Club? Again?" And mothers begin to reassess some of their important life choices. A little more damaging to my marriage were the ten days Hunter stayed with us at our university address on his way to cover the '72 presidential election. He was an interesting houseguest, and hell, the marriage probably wasn't going to last much longer anyway.

Guns, drugs, and alcohol are not supposed to mix, and generally I counsel strongly in favor of their separation. With Hunter there was always a flirtation with the edge between fun and danger, between excitement and fear, a crossing from one side to the other and back. When done perfectly there's simply a sense of being on both sides at the same time, and time stops.

Standing there with the fuse lit and burning toward seven sticks of dynamite under the Wagoneer, close enough that the blast will thud against our chests, a sudden bear hug over in a millisecond: that's close enough that engine parts will be passing by with the shock wave. It's over, we're alive, and drunk we clutch each other and clap each other on our backs; it's perfect, quite perfect. Buy the ticket, take the ride.

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