Heck of a Creek - A Shadows on the Trail Adventure

Figure One - The Ranch. 

Over the years, I have stopped at dozens of ranch houses to ask permission to hunt artifacts. Most of the time the landowners don’t care if you hunt as long as you treat their land with respect, in other words, keep your vehicle on existing roads and, above all things, close the gates behind you! Out of the many landowners I have asked permission, only a handful have denied me permission to hunt artifacts and it was always because sometime in the past some goofball did not follow the simple rules. They trespassed, left a gate open, drove through the landowner’s hayfield, or did something equally stupid. They did something to torque the landowner off and one thing I have learned about every landowner, they have very long memories.

I will never forget meeting one particular landowner. It was June 1, 2002, and I was heading back to Cheyenne from the southwestern part of Wyoming. I went hunting artifacts in that neck of the prairie, but I spent more time dodging rainstorms and mud than hunting artifacts. 

Figure Two - Mule deer buck on the ranch with his antlers still in velvet.
Photograph taken on May 28, 2014.  

Early June in Wyoming is an unsettled time for weather. In some parts of Wyoming, June can be spring while in other parts of Wyoming, June is still winter. I learned a long time ago to always pack extra clothes and waterproof items on my expeditions into Wyoming because June can be cold, windy, wet, and muddy.

So, there I was driving eastward down the interstate highway feeling like a whipped puppy dog. All I saw on my trip to southwestern Wyoming was rain, rain, and more rain. I felt lucky to even make it back to the main highway with all the gumbo mud on the backroads I traversed. I sure didn't want to drive back to Cheyenne empty-handed, so I decided to check out an area I had been eyeballing for some time on my topo maps. The place looked quite interesting, and it helped to pique my interest when the mapmakers named several topographic features after Native Americans. How could that go wrong?

 

Figure three – lichen-covered metate with inscribed lines on the surface.
Metate is 7.5 inches long. Found along the creek on May 30, 2013.  

I arrived at that spot on the map and started looking around for a ranch house. I wanted to ask permission before traipsing off onto someone’s private land. I found the closest ranch house and knocked on the door. After several dogs announced my presence, the rancher answered the door and peered down at me through a rusty screen door. The way he stared at me, you might have thought I was trying to sell him a vacuum cleaner or a set of encyclopedias. I introduced myself and explained to him why I was there. I always squeeze into my introduction that I am a native Wyomingite which most of the time scores a few brownie points. I ask permission and tell them I will only drive on the roads and the only thing I leave behind are my footprints (and hopefully fewer artifacts).

While the rancher sized me up, we talked about the weather and cattle prices. Before I knew it, the screen door flew open, and the rancher invited me into his home. As soon as I walked through the door, three cattle dogs surrounded me, investigating every scent I accumulated on my boots over the past three years. I smelled bacon as the rancher directed me to a chair at the kitchen table. After taking a brief detour to the stove to introduce myself to the rancher’s wife, I sat down at the kitchen table. I watched the rancher digging around on some shelves in the living room and the first thing my warped mind thought was he was looking for bullets for his Ruger pistol. While I kept an eagle eye on the rancher, in case I needed to make a hasty exit, his wife brought me a steaming cup of black coffee. The rancher walked back to the kitchen table and plopped down a bunch of rocks in front of me.

Figure Four - Pronghorn antelope checking me out along the creek.
Photograph taken on September 27, 2014. 

“What do you think of these?!” the rancher asked me with the confidence one has when laying down a winning hand at poker.

Wow, I thought to myself.

On the table in front of me were several broken prehistoric arrow points, the base of a large Besant dart point, a broken Pelican Lake knife form, and a perfect, tiny Hogback bird point. I started talking about what the artifacts were. I couldn’t help myself.

The rancher’s eyes lit up when he said, “I didn’t know that.” 

When I told the rancher and his wife the age ranges for some of their artifacts, they looked at me like I was from another planet. I am not sure they believed me. The rancher told me that his folks and grandparents hunted arrowheads on the property since the late 1800s. My heart sank a bit when I thought about all of the artifacts the family picked up in the last hundred years or so. As a side note, I prefer ranchers who couldn’t care less about artifacts and they leave the hunting up to me, but after all, it is their land.  

Figure Five – In situ photograph of a 3.3-inch-long Pelican Lake knife form made from Big Horn Chert. It was found on June 2, 2020, along a tributary to the main creek.    

After taking me to the basement to show me a fossilized skull of a very large Bison antiquus bull that the rancher found eroding from a riverbed, we went back to the kitchen table. By that time, the wife brought out two shoeboxes and set them down on the table. Well, I would never claim to be the brightest light bulb in the box, but I was pretty sure she was not going to show me any brand-new shoes in those shoeboxes.

The rancher’s wife meticulously unwrapped each artifact from paper towels and laid each one carefully down on the kitchen table. There were dozens of dart points, arrow points, knives, drills, and scrapers. I noticed a beautiful Goshen knife in the middle of a bunch of Late Archaic dart points. When I asked her about the Goshen knife, she told me the rancher’s brother found it in the sandy bottom of a nearby river when the water level was down. I then spotted another killer artifact hiding amongst the scrapers, a paper-thin Folsom point, made from a ghostlike, semi-translucent chalcedony. I would have loved to have found that Folsom point. By that time, I was thinking to myself that I wished that family would have taken up stamp collecting instead of arrowhead hunting. 

  

Figure Six - A 22.7-inch-long metate that I found half-buried with 
two manos along a tributary of the creek on August 22, 2022. 

Then, the rancher’s wife plucked out what appeared to be a large cotton cocoon from the bottom of the shoebox. She held it up for me to see as if my X-ray vision could see through that thick glob of cotton. She unwound the cotton with the same delicate touch you might expect if she was unwrapping a priceless Faberge egg. When she was done, she teasingly held the artifact away from me so I could not see it. Then, with her cupped hand, she held the artifact in front of my nose. Nestled in the palm of her hand was a beautiful corner-notch tang knife. I am quite sure my jaw smacked the kitchen table. I most likely drooled out of the corner of my mouth. I lost all feeling in my brain as I stared at that glorious tang knife. You see, corner-notch tang knives may be more common in other parts of the country, but in dear old Wyoming, they are as rare as moose feathers. Then again, moose feathers might be more common in Wyoming than corner-notch tang knives.  

I was a bit speechless. I stared at the tang knife, then the wife, and finally the rancher. I wanted to know more about that artifact. They kept me in suspense with their smiles. Eventually, my mouth worked, and I formed two words as if I had never spoken English before.

“Tang knife,” I declared the obvious.

“Yes,” the wife replied with a giggle.

“Whe-where did you fi-find it?” I stuttered for the first time since third grade.  

“Here on the ranch,” the wife disclosed as nonchalantly as describing the weather.  

I wanted to ask them where on the ranch, but the rancher beat me to it. 

“She found that along the creek,” he said. “That’s one heck of a creek for finding arrowheads.”

“Eighteen years ago,” the wife added, “The year of the flood.”

“Seems like yesterday,” the rancher remarked. “That’s one heck of a creek.”

I already knew where I wanted to hunt if I could only get their permission.

“Have you ever found one?” the wife asked me.

I thought about that question. Over the years, I found what I thought were pieces of tang knives and perhaps some variants of tang knives, but a perfect corner-notch like that one? 

“One,” I answered. “I’ve found one.”

Yep, in all those decades and thousands of miles hiking, I had only found one measly, but nearly perfect, corner-notch tang knife.

 Note: since that visit, I have been fortunate to find several tang knives. Mostly from private land in Colorado.

After examining the rancher’s wonderful collection, I told them that I would like to check out ‘Heck of a Creek’. The rancher told me how to get there and we said our goodbyes, and I was off. I drove to that creek to find a corner-notch tang knife or a Folsom. That did not happen, but I found a bunch of chipping debris and some broken artifacts. The day was a success.  

Figure Seven - What have I got here? June 27, 2012, at the creek. 

I fast forward ten years and twenty-six days to June 27, 2012, and I am still finding artifacts along that “Heck of a Creek”. No, I haven’t found any Clovis caches or Folsom dart points, but I can’t complain about the hundreds of artifacts that I have found. I arrived at the creek that morning and started my search along the floodplain along the west side. Prehistoric people liked that side of the creek for some reason, and so did erosion. Back and forth I meandered across the plain like a tractor preparing the ground for planting. My eyes scoured the ground with the objective of not missing one single flake.

I remember that glorious day with its blue sky, brilliant sunshine, and northerly breeze as if it were yesterday. Even though it was late June, it was chilly and I wore a hoodie with the hood pulled snugly over the top of my noggin. The first interesting artifact I found was an odd-looking metate. I walked farther and found several more broken artifacts, but nothing to write home to Mother about. I was beginning to think that this was going to be one of those days when the hike was the most productive event of the day. Then, I spotted it, a buried artifact (figure seven). I didn’t know what kind of artifact it was or its condition, but I saw the tell-tale flaking and the beautiful material. Soon, I would set that artifact free from its grave.

Figure Eight - Pulled from the ground on June 27, 2012,
a 2.8-inches-long corner-notch tang knife.   

I reached down and pulled the artifact from the ground. I was as quiet as a closed coffin as I stared at the artifact. Then, I yelled into the wind something like, “Glory, hallelujah!”, but much less pious words popped out of my mouth. 

The freed artifact was a corner-notch tang knife (figures seven, eight, and ten). My hands shook as I photographed one of the rarest artifacts I have ever found. Then, I thought about the rancher’s wife and her tang knife. Two corner tang knives on the same creek, nearly impossible to fathom, but man that is one Heck of a Creek!

Although we do not know for sure how prehistoric people used or hafted corner-notch tang knives, Bob Patten (1999) provided an interesting possibility in figure nine. Since the hafting element is offset to one corner of a tang knife, people have come up with various possibilities as to how the knives were attached to a wooden or bone handle. I believe Patten’s theory is as reasonable as any solution, but we will never know for sure until a corner-notch tang knife is found with the hafting mechanism still intact.  

 

Figure Nine - Patten (1999)  

In addition to some great artifact hunting, the creek offers some fantastic scenery and lots of wildlife sightings. So, if the artifacts aren’t biting, there are always other diversions. Even today, I am walking the creek a couple of times per year in search of artifacts. Occasionally, I find a good one. Some time ago, the rancher lost his interest in artifacts. He definitely has his hands full running his cattle ranch.

The landscape in the area has dramatically changed in the last decade. It is no longer the pristine place it once was. The rancher and his neighbors received offers that they could not refuse. Hundreds of wind turbines tower over their ranchland for tens of miles in every direction. The landscape has forever changed and not for the better. As I listen to the whirring and humming of wind turbine blades, I have to conclude that yes, it once was a “Heck of a Creek”.

Figure Ten - The Find of the Day. 

References Cited

Patten, Bob

            1999    Old Tools – New Eyes, Stone Dagger Publications, Denver.            

 

About the Author

John Bradford Branney is a geologist, prehistorian, and author. Born in Wyoming, he currently lives in the Colorado mountains. He has published eleven books (working on twelve) and many magazine articles about archaeology, wandering, and geology. He has collected prehistoric artifacts his entire life and has documented an extensive artifact collection.