Hoss Bennett

September 22, 1937 – June 24, 2004

           I don’t know how it started, it doesn’t really matter.  The fire I mean.  I could ask, but you know, now that I think about it, I do know exactly when it started.

          Folks gathered in the morning coolness at the Bennett family cemetery.  Off to one side of the two graves, to the right of Hoss’ final resting place, sat a huge rock, obviously recently wrenched from beneath the surface.  About three feet into hole where Hoss would “rest in peace” the boys met with a rock, as previously mentioned, a huge rock.  These boys could move heaven and earth, but they couldn’t move that rock, so a backhoe was called it to make the treacherous climb to the graveside and get that rock out of the way.  One might have thought Hoss had some power from the grave, so to speak.

          Before everyone had hiked the steep road or been shuttled by Jimmy or Mike in their four wheel rigs, Chet McBroom, sensing the restlessness of the gathered hundred or so folks, stepped forward and addressed the crowd.         Photo: Jeff Buchin

          “You know, I bet this is the quietest Hoss has ever been with this many people around.” He said.  “I bet he’s laughing to himself to see so many people hike up that hill and sit in the dirt and poison oak, just to say good by to him!”

          The words rang so true and they broke the little tension that builds in crowds of people as they gather to try to comprehend the death of a friend.  Death in a close community tends to bring people smack up against their own mortality, and there was an audible chuckle that rippled through the river community that gathered on that steep sidehill.

          No way I ‘m gonna try to explain Hoss here.  It would take too long and I’d leave too much out.  I think that I’ll just tell you about that day we buried Hoss Bennett.

          There are two beings you don’t want to mess with, Coyote, and Hoss Bennett when he’s feeling there’s too much seriousness going on.  We should have known, we should have known.  Never trust Hoss Bennett when he’s too quiet.

          I know we all expected Hoss to die, hell, I’ve help haul him twice, in the SRVF&R’s ambulance, to meet the helicopter, that would take him to the hospital where he’d die... Not!  The local band, The Fines, even went so far as to go down to his hospital room in Redding and play a final bunch of Salmon River songs to one on the greatest Salmon River legends, ever.  Of course a week later he came home and resumed a life that only he could survive.  Like I said we all expected him to die, but, we weren’t ready for him to die.

                    When most of us “white-eyes” first met Hoss, in the late sixties or early seventies, he was still “Little Les”, being his pop, Les was still alive and a robust character in his own right.  But, as I learned at the service, Little Les named himself Hoss.  He just like the way it sounded.  (I don’t think anyone outside the immediate family knew that as a very young boy, he was called “Tootles”.)  He was a legend even then.  He was a teddy bear with the women, but usually greeted a newcomer-male by seeing how he handles being threatened by probably the biggest Indian he’d ever encountered in his life.  Stand up and take a chance that Hoss really was the meanest fella you’d ever met in this life, and you had a life- long friend.  If you were the right kind of person.  Hoss didn’t tolerate anyone messing with his friends.  Those were many and some were quite surprised to find that Hoss was their friend. 

          Hoss made the Beer Tree, in Forks of Salmon, his office and that’s where we gathered after sharing food with the family at Lillian’s home.

          By three o’clock in the afternoon about forty or fifty people from up and down the river were gathered under the Beer Tree.  Petey and Rex were making music, people sang, talked, stared, played horseshoes or a local version of bocci-ball.  The cooler seemed to never be empty of beer or soda, even though the gathered were doing the best they could to honor the loss of their drinking partner. 

          We were bullshittin’, gettin’ serious, forgetting what we were talking about in mid-sentence, our voices would just sort of fade away just short of a full thought.  And we didn’t notice, we didn’t care.  We were starting to take the sadness a little too seriously. 

          A pick-up roars to a stop and a shout goes up, “ Wayne’s house is on fire!” 

          Instantly the crowd sobers and people are flying to the nearest pick-ups and moving fast out of town.  SRVF&R folks break for their engines and everyone else careens off to the base of the Picayune Road.  Not the house!  Brush at the base of the hill was burning hot, heading quickly up the sidehill.  An old truck involved.  Men and women were piling out looking for had tools and hooking up garden hoses.  Pat took the big mother tanker up on the Picayune Road and helped keep the fire from jumping the road and really getting ugly.  The Pete got the fire engine to the base of the fire and got effective water on the hotspot.  Bracing a hose from the “mother of all tankers”, holding Ben at the other end down in the burn, watering down the flare-ups, it occurred to me that Hoss had had one last thing to say after all.  I kinda think we all had that thought a different times during the action.

          A couple of hours later, with the fire contained and pretty much under control, the forest service crews arrived to mop up and kinda look at us as if we were some sort of wierdos to even think about fighting fire in our dress-up clothes, or sandals and shorts.  And we looked back thinking that if we had delayed even five minutes, that fire easily could have jumped the road and we’da had us a full fledged forest fire.  Sometimes, when it’s about a friend or your home, you don’t get it done by the book.  We were all grinning and laughing as we left the scene.

          As evening closed in, people trickled back to the Beer Tree dirty, tired, elated.  Rex and Petey were playing and folks were singing, talking excitedly, the whole mood of the day now one of family given energy by it’s successful response to real danger.  The beer cooler was as full as ever.  As Tonner put it, “That was the best therapy I’ve ever had.”  He was speaking for all of us.

          Pretty sure Chet spoke a little too quickly about Hoss being quiet.  By the end of that day we knew he was still had something to say. We’re really gonna miss that.

 Back to Index                                                   Back to In Memory