When I worked on the Clovis News-Journal in Clovis, N.M., my editor Dave Molina and I were always looking for good story ideas we could convert into cash. One day while we were having coffee at a restaurant near the newspaper, Dave said he had a friend he wanted me to meet.
'His name is Ben Pritchett and he manages a ranch for his brother near San Jon,' Dave said. 'He served in the U.S. Marines in the South Pacific and he's writing a book. He needs a collaborator. Want to take a look at it?'
I liked the idea and the following Saturday, Dave and I climbed into my car for the 20-mile ride to Ben's ranch.
It was spring and the jackrabbits were out in full force. As we drove down the dirt road to the ranch, jacks stood motionless in the shade of sagebrush and yucca trees. Now and then one would dash across the road and we would have to avoid hitting it.
The ranch house sat in a pleasant setting shaded by a low mesa that gave off colors of blue and red in the morning sun. Ben was standing in the front yard along with a couple of boys when we arrived. His wife, Chris, a good looking blond woman, was on the porch. They waved as we stopped in the driveway behind his pickup.
'Greetings to a couple of journalists,' Ben said with a grin. 'The coffee's perking.'
We spent the morning talking about Ben's experiences in the South Pacific. How he had fought the Japanese during World War 2 from a jungle outpost near his camp, and how he had met the chief of a village and married one of his daughters.
'You got married in the South Pacific?,' I said.
Ben glanced at his wife who was smiling. 'Well, they called it marriage. It was quite a ceremony,' he said.
We spent the day at the ranch. For dinner, Chris cooked us a couple of prime steaks taking from a cow they had butchered. I found out Ben was a poker player who had learned to play the game while in the Marines. Dave and I were planning to drive to Albuquerque the following weekend to play poker at Sandia Casino and Ben said he would love to go with us if Chris didn't mind.
'I don't mind,' she said, brushing back a wisp of blond hair. 'All this war talk makes me nervous.'
That evening after dinner, we climbed aboard Ben's pickup to go jackrabbit hunting. He had a large collection of guns, pistols and rifles, and gave each of us a pistol loaded with .22 caliber mini-magnums.
'You boys will do me a favor if you can hit some of these jacks,' he said. 'They're eating all the grass that should be reserved for my cows.'
Dave and I sat in the bed of the pickup as we drove across the prairie country. Jackrabbits were everywhere. It was like going on a buffalo hunt. Ben would chase the jacks while Dave and I fired at them from the rear of the bouncing truck. It was great fun and we actually hit a few of the long-eared rabbits.
We collected the carcasses of half a dozen jacks, threw them into the pickup, and drove back to the ranch. The country was alive with a large New Mexico moon hanging over the mountains.
'It was a good day, fellows,' Ben said, shaking our hands. 'I'll see you here Friday and we'll drive to Albuquerque to buck the tiger. That's rancher talk for testing our luck at the tables.' He winked and we drove off into the prairie night.
The following weekend, we drove to the Sandia Casino. Ben turned out to be a good poker player and won a couple of hundred dollars while Dave and I broke about even.
I found Ben Pritchett to be one of the most decent men I had ever met. Good-natured, fearless, a gentleman around women, and a crack shot with a pistol. On our way back to his ranch, we ran across a large rattlesnake wriggling across the highway. I stopped the car and Ben made a hasty exit and dispatched the rattler with two quick shots.
Tossing the dead reptile into the trunk, he said, 'That will make me a nice snakeskin belt.'
(AUTHOR'S NOTE: Ben's book was never published. Dave and I remained close friends with him and he later left the ranch to become a school teacher and principal at a high school in New Mexico.)
Author: Geno Lawrenzi Jr.
(Geno Lawrenzi Jr. is an international journalist, magazine author and ghostwriter and poker player who lives in Phoenx, AZ. He has published 2,000 articles in 50 magazines and 125 newspapers. If you want to share a gambling story or book idea with him, send an email to glawrenzi@gmail.com ).
