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Vaqueros and Buckaroos |
Pete was born in 1906 in Deer Creek California to Larisa and Manuel Garner. He was brought to the Owens Valley by his uncle, Johnny Valdez, when he was about eight years old.
They came from Porterville through the Sierra Mountains on horseback to Big Pine. The reason for this long trip was because Pete's uncle Johnny Valdez, who was a noted bronc rider from the San Joaquin, heard about a bucking horse in Bishop named Black Hawk.Black Hawk was owned by the Indians and had never been ridden and they would cover all bets.
Johnny Valdez' fame had preceded him to the Owens Valley. By the time he reached Bishop there were so many bets placed in his favor that is was believed that Black Hawk was poisoned to prevent John from making the ride.
Pete told me that the horse was being kept in a corral, out at Fish Slough. When he and his uncle went out to look the bronc over, he was lying dead in the corral.
Whether the horse died from poison or natural causes the match was never made.
Johnny Valdez left Pete in Big Pine with the Lloyd and Nora Lane family and he was raised as a brother with James Lane Sr. now of Lone Pine.
Pete started working at a very early age as a cowboy, a mule packer, and horse breaker. Pete was a top hand at breaking horses and turned out some good riding horses. The ones he couldn't break he bought from the owners and by the age of 18 he had his own bucking string that he leased to rodeos.
At one time he contracted bucking horses for the rodeo in Porterville. With the help of Salty Peters, and Ratshit McDermitt he lead the horses over the same trail his uncle had brought him on from Porterville as a eight year old boy. While leading the horses down Owens Valley, he stopped for the night at the old Spainhower Ranch in Lone Pine. A fortunate stop it was, Russ Spainhower gave him the best bucking horse Pete ever owned.
This turned out to be a well-blooded horse that couldn't be ridden and only could be worked in harness, and then only by one man, Harmey Jefferson. Russ was glad to be rid of the bronc, as he cost the ranch many dollars in broken equipment.
Two of his broncs qualified to go on to Salinas, the biggest rodeo in the western states at that time. The three men returned very broke and disappointed as the horse they had all their hopes and money on walked out of the chute and never jumped, and never bucked again. They were a mighty broke and hungry crew when they hit Mulkey Meadows on the way back. It was Thanksgiving Day and mighty cold. A bear had broken into the cabin and eaten all the food except one onion. If you've ever heard the saying, "Soup of the bullion, a bucket of water and one onion", that's where this phrase was coined, by three hungry cowboys on Thanksgiving day, many years ago
Pete and my father were good friends growing up in Big Pine. They took two sisters from Arizona out for a drive one evening in Pete's old car, a Baby Overland. They were caught by the girls' father. I don't know exactly what happened but a couple weeks later he caught them out again. The man that caught them turned out to be my grandfather, Hi Imus. I guess everything turned out alright as the older sister married my father and they are still together after fifty-seven years.
Some of my earliest memories are of Pete breaking horses in the round corral in my dad's pasture, then riding in rodeos in June Lake and proving himself to be a world class roper, at the Howdy Smith Ranch in Big Pine. Pete was my hero as a child and my friend when I grew up.
Pete worked for many of the ranches and also for the Darwin mines. If you will look at the picture of the twenty mule team that went into Death Valley in 1949, to take place in the first Death Valley celebration then you've seem Pete, because he is on his little pinto horse "Ikee" riding by the lead mules, the man riding the left hand wheeler is Harold Gill, in the first wagon is Smokey Bye, the man in the second wagon is Pete Olivas. Next, driving the team of horses is Billy Carrasco, last is Eddy Cline driving a team of mules.
The mules were owned by Bruce Morgan and broke to harness by Pete Garner, Pete and Leaky Olivas, Fred More, and just about every hand in town helped. This same mule team appeared in the 1950 Rose Parade.
In his later years, Pete worked for the Forest Service as a packer. I was packing for Bob White at the Tunnel Meadows pack station. On the evening of June twenty fifth, the phone rang and Frankie Diaz said that Pete had died. Joe Belles had taken a mule back up the Big Whitney trail to bring Pete down.
I called to send a helicopter in. At that time we had an old tractor and trailer for hauling wood to camp. I took the tractor down to meet Joe and Pete. When we got back to Tunnel, Walt Pettis was there with the helicopter.
Pete took his last ride out of the mountains.
