American Nomads Page #6

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Drive for nine hours at 70 mph,

buck for eight seconds

at a million mph,

win some money,

get on down the road.

They're just loving it.

They love the life, it's written

all over their faces, isn't it?

'The first Europeans in the American West

were the Spanish conquistadors and settlers.

'They came up from Mexico on horses

'and these were the first horses

that American Indians had ever seen.

'In time, horses got away

from the Spaniards,

'and established wild herds.

'In the early 1700s, Indians learned

to catch horses and ride them.

'And a golden age of nomadism began.

'Here in Nevada, there are still

herds of wild horses.

'Their ancestors got away

'from Indian tribes, cowboys,

cattle ranches and the US Cavalry.

'They're a living symbol

of the Wild West and some of them

'are directly descended from

the horses that the Spanish brought.

'Normally you see wild horses

at a distance, if at all.

'But here in the Joshua Tree Forest

outside Cold Creek, Nevada, I get lucky.

'Horses revolutionised life

for the Indian tribes in the West,

'changing their whole conception

of speed and distance.

'Lacking a word

for these new animals,

'the Sioux called them holy dogs.

'Mounted on horseback,

they could travel 100 miles per day,

'and gallop alongside

a running buffalo

'instead of watching it recede

into the distance.

'Before the horse arrived, most of the Western

tribes had practised farming and lived in huts.

'Now they began

a nomadic life on horseback

'following the buffalo herds around

and living in tepees.

'"For bringing us the horse", said

John Fire Lame Deer of the Sioux tribe,

'"we could almost forgive the

white man for bringing us whisky."'

It's going to be cold tonight.

It looks like Afghanistan, or...

There's more mountains in Nevada

than any other state.

More wild horses and my contention

is more lunatics as well,

but we're well away from them,

we keep them down in Vegas.

The rest of Nevada is just

a big, wild, wide-open place.

This elevation can hit

85 or 90 degrees during the day,

and then at night,

it'll get below freezing.

'When I first came

to the American West,

'I saw this beautiful thing

outside my car window.

'I called it scenery and sometimes

I stopped to take a photograph of it.

'Then I started walking out into it,

'scared at first to be

in such a big, wild place. '

That's good enough.

'Slowly I became more comfortable

'and started going out there for

days and sometimes weeks at a time.

'I slept under the stars

and bathed in the rivers,

'and paid very close attention

to the animals and birds and plants.

'This wasn't scenery anymore,

but a living, breathing place,

'full of mystery and wonder.

'I still can't

get it out of my system.

'So I was having a quiet moment,

savouring a beer at sunset

'in that perfect silence

you sometimes get in the desert.

'Then I heard an engine

coming towards me across country.

'It was a guy

on some kind of dirt bike,

'a moment of totally random

American weirdness.

'He said his name was Ray

and he told a long, garbled story.

'It seems his family

are polygamist Mormons from Mexico

'and they dumped him

out here in the desert.'

So how long have you been here?

Here? Yeah. Two days. No, three days.

My dad came from the US.

He went down there on a search

for the religion, to find God.

He did that for a while,

and he moved around the United States

and preached about the downfall

of the United States for a long time.

'He seems lonely, confused, jumpy.

'And his stories get more and more

agitated and incomprehensible. '

That's what I figured until somebody

walked up a little while ago,

wondering where the f*** his bike

was, with a big metal pipe on him.

"Where's my bike?"

Dude, I have no f***ing idea!

I helped the f***ing guy out.

At a gas station,

I helped him pick up his bike

and put it on his truck

and I have no idea.

He got off the truck

with a big old pipe like that.

"Where's my bike?"

I don't know!

"I might have to get violent

with you!"

I didn't tell him nothing.

But he looked at me...

I guess you're not the person.

I guess there's trouble everywhere.

So, I feel really bad

for Ray last night.

I was kind of trying to get away

from him because he was crazy.

And I didn't know whether he was

going to flip over into violence.

He seemed poised on the edge there.

But the poor guy just doesn't stand

a chance. He's crazy, he's lonely.

He doesn't have any money.

I just feel really bad for him.

He doesn't have anything.

Didn't look like he's eaten much.

That's just about

as hard as it gets.

'Someone asked Johnny Depp

to sum up America.

'He said, "All appetite, no taste."

'Las Vegas is only 30 miles away

'from the wild horses. And a more

extreme contrast is hard to imagine.

'The first casinos were built here

by a gangster with big dreams

'in the 1940s. And he borrowed

so much money to build them

'that the Mob put a bullet

in his eye.

'The mafia ran Vegas for decades,

but now it's all corporate.

'Two million people

live here permanently

'and this city in the desert

'is expected to run out of water

in less than 30 years.

'For me, Las Vegas is a place

to get through.

'I'm heading east

into the highlands of Utah,

'up above the snow line,

hoping to find some buffalo. '

Oh!

Almost hit a golden eagle.

Just literally flew

inches over the windshield.

I'm extremely glad

I did not hit that golden eagle.

Somewhere up this road, there's

supposed to be a herd of buffalo.

'The American buffalo,

also known as the American bison,

'is the largest mammal

on this continent.

'It's a symbol of the American West,

'and of American roaming.

'The herds were always moving,

migrating with the seasons,

'and this why the tribes

that hunted them became nomadic.

'Bison are now restricted

to a few national parks

'and a growing number

of private ranches like this one. '

60 million is the accepted number

for how many bison

used to roam the West.

And they were wiped out in less

than 20 years by hide hunters,

thereby depriving the Plains

Indians of their livelihood.

And then those 60 million bison,

which were reduced to, I think,

less than 2,000 animals,

were replaced by 50 million cattle.

And some people in the West

now think that the whole thing

was basically a mistake, that

cattle are not nearly as well suited

to this environment as the bison.

These guys can give birth

without the assistance of vets,

they have good immunity

to the various diseases

that are endemic here,

they can make it through the winter

without supplemental feed, they

can survive the 40-below storms.

You see, they have these

big head and shoulders,

and when the blizzards come, they

face them straight on like this,

whereas cows kind of turn tail and

it gets too cold, the cattle die.

They are perfectly adapted

to this environment.

They've evolved out here.

Now we're starting

to see them come back,

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