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<\/p>\n
As her saddle-length blond braid bobs in step with her horse, the 18-year-old shouts over the wind to direct the movements of her mom, Jeanette. Together with two frantic border collies, they impress upon the cattle that the most convenient option is to mosey on forward while sneaking mouthfuls of the windswept grass.<\/p>\n
Weekend adventurers in motorcycles and SUVs wave as they pass on the road \u2014 \u201cThere are some real-live cowgirls back there,\u201d one will announce to the passengers of a car parked ahead.<\/p>\n
After a few miles, Tean rides away from the herd while Jeanette continues to drawl \u201cHeeey, cow\u201d at its rear. She waits for them just beyond a cattle guard, demanding that they turn more than 90 degrees and begin to climb the mountain where the scrub is less dense.<\/p>\n
They\u2019d rather not. The last time Tean tried this, when she was by herself, the cattle refused. The whole effort, including a 45-mile drive south from the family\u2019s home near the Utah border in Cane Beds, Ariz., had been for nothing.<\/p>\n
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<\/a> This time, the dogs scurry about to browbeat the grunting insubordinates as mother and daughter turn them toward slope and sky. The herd starts and stops, starts again and stops again. Finally, deprived of an easier choice, it heads unhurriedly toward the top, from which point memory alone will lead the cattle to the higher ground\u2019s water source.<\/p>\n
The day\u2019s work has been a success, and the Finicums are pleased.<\/p>\n
But even victories like these are dampered by a recurring thought.<\/p>\n
This was easier with Dad.<\/p>\n \u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n It was April 2014, while he was attending a conference in Salt Lake City, that LaVoy Finicum set himself down the path that would lead to his late-January death on a rural highway in eastern Oregon.<\/p>\n Reports of a standoff near Cliven Bundy\u2019s southeastern Nevada ranch compelled Finicum to ditch the conference and drive to meet Bundy, who invited Finicum to ride with him the next day. Little was written about Finicum\u2019s role in Bunkerville, but he later would become the de facto spokesman for the 41-day occupation of a federal wildlife refuge near Burns, Ore.<\/p>\n Those who believe the federal government\u2019s administration of public lands amounts to tyranny regard Finicum and Bundy as martyrs for their involvement at Bunkerville and Burns.<\/p>\n To those who don\u2019t, they were misguided at best, domestic terrorists at worst.<\/p>\n But to Tean Finicum and Arden Bundy, these men are Dad, painfully absent as the teens come of age on the rugged earth where their fathers taught them intertwining lessons about ranching and life.<\/p>\n Arden graduated early from Mesquite\u2019s Virgin Valley High so he could ranch full-time this spring. His days are bookended by 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. feedings of the 100 or so cattle kept on the family\u2019s homestead, a green swath of grass and melon farm sandwiched between the muddy Virgin River and rusty bench of Virgin Mountain.<\/p>\n Tean says her shortest days were 12 hours and her longest were 20 before she walked at graduation May 26 \u2014 four months to the day that news of her father\u2019s death spread while her family sat in the same gym to watch her play basketball.<\/p>\n It was her dream to one day take over the ranch, but not for another 10 years or so.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m constantly working, everywhere I go.\u201d<\/p>\n Working, both Arden and Tean, without the blessing of their fathers\u2019 shared adversary: the federal government.<\/p>\n Arden speaks with his hands up, as though conducting the steady, deliberate rhythm of his words.<\/p>\n \u201cMy dad never really told me, \u2018You\u2019re going to take care of the ranch,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cBut I felt like I was the best fit.\u201d<\/p>\n He\u2019s stocky, powerful enough that in his first year wrestling, he reached the state quarterfinals at 220 pounds, and his belt buckle reads \u201cAll-Around Cowboy.\u201d He says he can teach you to rope in a morning.<\/p>\n Even if his four brothers weren\u2019t behind bars awaiting a February trial with his father, Arden says he was always likeliest to inherit the operation as the youngest Bundy, unburdened by other family and business obligations.<\/p>\n A dog seeks his attention while he talks, keeping the weight off its wounded front leg. Arden reckons that Spur, at 4, is getting old to be a cow dog, but he\u2019s seen him drag a coyote by the throat after it came for their chickens.<\/p>\n \u201cHe don\u2019t put up with that.\u201d<\/p>\n He expected to be arrested when he turned 18 at the end of March, and he says he was prepared to die in 2014. He likens their success retaking their cattle at a BLM impound site, when federal agents chose to stand down as both sides trained guns on the other, to when \u201ca bunch of podunk farmers came together and kicked [British] ass.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSomething big is going to come out of this,\u201d he says. \u201cIf I stop ranching, there\u2019s no point in fighting.\u201d<\/p>\n At one point during his morning feed, Arden stops the loader to cast a skeptical eye at a helicopter passing overhead.<\/p>\n But as much as his performance recalls the seriousness and bravado of his father\u2019s public appearances, he is still the \u201cbaby of the family,\u201d says his mom, Carol. A teenager.<\/p>\n \u201cHe still wants to stay out late and hang out with his friends,\u201d she says. He enjoys Snapchat, and ribbing family security guard Jonathon \u201cSkipper\u201d Speece. This year, he took dates to three different proms, and after he leads reporters on a tour of the mountain, he talks on the phone about a custom bumper for his truck and later will post a photo of it to Instagram.<\/p>\n His friends from school, who know little about ranching, think his lifestyle is a \u201crotten deal,\u201d he says. And, sometimes, he agrees.<\/p>\n Speece says Cliven\u2019s arrest at a Portland airport in early February \u2014 days after he\u2019d attended Finicum\u2019s Kanab funeral with Arden by his side \u2014 took a toll on Arden. The teenager no longer wakes up to find his father reading scriptures, or preparing \u201ccrazy-looking\u201d breakfasts that always included meat, potatoes and Tabasco. Most days now, he works alone. But he remains faithful to his father\u2019s philosophy.<\/p>\n He points the way to a spring that he calls Rabbit (on Google Earth, it\u2019s Government Spring), where he snaps some buds off a small bush and rubs them between his fingers to create a powerful fragrance. Grazing replenishes this vegetation, he says. Without the cattle, he says, it would die.<\/p>\n When a cow shepherds her calfs away from a passing car, Arden says their recent birth is proof the cattle have everything they need to survive. \u201cThey\u2019re happy,\u201d he says, or else they wouldn\u2019t have bred.<\/p>\n Federal prosecutors have deemed the Bundys\u2019 ranching methods \u201cunconventional if not bizarre.\u201d The cattle aren\u2019t vaccinated. They\u2019re rarely branded. Some wander as far as 50 miles from the Bundy estate, onto golf courses and Interstate 15, until they\u2019re trapped by bait for sale or slaughter.<\/p>\n This draws an eyeroll from Arden.<\/p>\n Carol Bundy \u2014 speaking beneath a painting in which her husband holds an American flag in his outstretched right arm, his hat held across his chest as he bows his head reverently \u2014 says their way of ranching is in line with \u201cthe custom and the culture of the West.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re wild. That\u2019s what I raise. Wild cows. But that doesn\u2019t make them bad. That doesn\u2019t make me bad.\u201d<\/p>\n Jeanette Finicum met LaVoy at a St. George barn dance, where dancers changed partners each time a bell rang. When the music stopped, she was with LaVoy.<\/p>\n He told her he\u2019d gotten a flat and had to hike to the dance, and asked her for a ride. She had thought it might be a line, but, truly, he\u2019d had a flat.<\/p>\n \u201cI instantly was attracted to him,\u201d she said. \u201cHe was just a sweet man. Very polite. Very kind.\u201d<\/p>\n That was 1992. By 1993, they were married, living in a small white house surrounded by a red rock panorama on the Finicum family\u2019s Cane Beds homestead. Together they had nine children from previous marriages \u2014 though four lived in Provo with LaVoy\u2019s first wife \u2014 and they added two more with Tean and an adopted boy, Mitch.<\/p>\n LaVoy had designed his LV bar brand, now synonymous with the broader movement, when he was only 8, but jobs in foster care took them to Albuquerque, N.M., and Paulden, Ariz., before he ever owned his own ranch.<\/p>\n They returned to Cane Beds in 2010, when they purchased 20 head and took over a BLM grazing permit 45 miles south that was in the name of LaVoy\u2019s father, David.<\/p>\n These 17,000 acres, named Tuckup, are marked by dramatic elevation change, from desert shrubland to green high country, about a dozen miles north of the Grand Canyon\u2019s Toroweap Outlook.<\/p>\n The sunbaked Arizona Strip was long considered uninhabitable by white explorers until it was settled by Mormon ranchers in the latter half of the 19th century. Eventually, it became home to 100,000 cattle, as well as untold sheep. Today, the BLM permits 15,000 cattle, and no sheep, and claims good relationships with its permit holders on the Strip.<\/p>\n All except one. Last August, the BLM says it discovered Finicum\u2019s cattle at Tuckup two months earlier than his permit allows. He was directed to settle the matter at his local office, but the cattle continued to graze until October, when he was found to be in willful trespass and fined $12,000.<\/p>\n Jeanette says it wasn\u2019t an act of disobedience but a standard practice \u2014 \u201cnot a big deal\u201d \u2014 that got them punished. She believes they were under the microscope after her husband had decried federal oversight of public lands while touting his novel about a survivalist patriarch who defends his family from corrupt government in an end-times scenario.<\/p>\n In April, Arizona Strip District Manager Timothy Burke said he had yet to talk to the Finicums, delaying because \u201cit is a very difficult situation.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, the Finicums\u2019 permitted season has expired, the cattle remain, and the fine still is unpaid. \u201cWe\u2019re pretty much keeping them here year-round now,\u201d says Jeanette, who says she received a call from the BLM the week prior. She has hired an attorney, she says, but she hasn\u2019t made any final decisions about what to do next.<\/p>\n Burke\u2019s office said in a statement at the end of May that it is \u201cworking through a standard administrative process to find a resolution to this issue.\u201d<\/p>\n The Bundys, meanwhile, are a more pressing concern for the BLM. Conservation groups say their cattle still imperil the desert tortoise, and Nevada Sen. Harry Reid says the Bundys have damaged Joshua trees \u2014 abundant on the Gold Butte landscape, where bright flowers dot vegetation that has an otherwise surreally ancient appearance.<\/p>\n The BLM contracted with Utah companies for its ill-fated roundup and sale of Bundy\u2019s cattle in 2014, leading to a picket of the R Livestock Connection in Monroe and opposition from Utah lawmakers and county law enforcers.<\/p>\n BLM Southern District Acting District Manager Erick Kurkowski said in an email to The Tribune that there \u201care no plans for a gather at this time as we continue to cooperate with the Department of Justice on the ongoing legal matter.\u201d<\/p>\n Speece, meanwhile, waits at the ready to call for help if the BLM returns. Arden believes that if the feds try again, more than 1,000 supporters will join him in opposition.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019d be a repeat of 2014.\u201d<\/p>\n The Bundys are old hands at this, having defied the federal government since Cliven decided not to renew his grazing permit in 1993.<\/p>\n For the Finicums, this is new.<\/p>\n On New Year\u2019s Eve 2015, they camped at Tuckup after a day of gathering and branding. Jeanette, LaVoy and son Thomas slept inside a tent, while Tean curled up outside with a puppy in her sleeping bag to keep warm.<\/p>\n The next day, when they got home, LaVoy got a call.<\/p>\n \u201cSure, I\u2019ll go,\u201d they heard him say. \u201cI can drive. I\u2019ve got my new truck.\u201d<\/p>\n Taking with him the clothes he had on and, presumably, the bugout bag with food, water and an extra set of clothes that he had in case of a flat, he left for eastern Oregon to protest the return to prison of ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond, ordered to serve the remainder of mandatory minimum sentences for setting fires on public lands.<\/p>\n He\u2019d just bought Jeanette a new horse, a jacket to match his own, a slicker and a cap. They were about to become empty-nesters, and he figured they\u2019d spend more time out at Tuckup.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was going to be our life,\u201d Jeanette says. \u201cWe were just at the point where we could retire in a few years from doing foster care and just run the ranch.\u201d<\/p>\n Wife and daughter say they believed he would come back after the protest in Burns. They knew nothing of plans to occupy the nearby bird refuge, though they would visit. He hoped they\u2019d stay, but his brother Guy persuaded him that it was best if they returned to Cane Beds.<\/p>\n Finicum\u2019s parting plea with Tean was for her to take care of the ranch.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know what to do,\u201d he said. \u201cUntil I get home, it\u2019s your job.\u201d<\/p>\n They learned of his death at Fredonia High when Jeanette received a call from the wife of Ammon Bundy, Lisa, who was \u201cscreaming and crying and yelling over and over again that they killed LaVoy,\u201d Jeanette says.<\/p>\n They were still trying to verify Lisa\u2019s report hours later, but police and hospital staff wouldn\u2019t confirm it \u2014 still a sore spot for Jeanette.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was pretty tough. We soon learned we had to get another layer of skin. A few layers.\u201d<\/p>\n They\u2019ve since encountered people who\u2019d like them to push their own agendas, she says, and seen reports that they say are factually inaccurate. But they\u2019ve had support, too. About 70 people greeted Jeanette when she brought the body home for burial. Guests painted the Finicums\u2019 chicken coop, tilled their garden and planted crops. A pile of letters sits at the foot of their couch, and Jeanette unfolds a sketch of her husband with the words, \u201cThe salt of the Earth that did not lose its savor.\u201d<\/p>\n Earlier this spring, Arden Bundy came to help rope cattle and stayed for a night of games that reminded the Finicums of happier times, when the family gathered to fiercely compete over Rook, Dominion and Settlers of Catan.<\/p>\n This day, a whistling wind fills the silences, and Tean sits quietly as her mother talks, occasionally correcting small details about her childhood.<\/p>\n Her father put her on a horse at 2, Jeanette says. At 12, she saved $800 to buy her own cow, and she was taught to apply a brand, clip the ears and castrate young bulls. She home-schooled while she was in elementary school so she could help her father scout available ranches, and later again in high school so she could join him at work.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve always been his right-hand man, from the beginning,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Now, caring for the cattle that her father prized is both a reminder of his love and his absence.<\/p>\n \u201cThe ranch, I guess, was more something I did because I loved him, and I loved to spend time with him,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n mpiper@sltrib.com<\/a>![\"Trent](\"http:\/\/photos.sltrib.com\/projects\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/20160521-5901.jpg\")
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\u2018If I stop, there’s no point\u2019<\/h5>\n
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Scenes from the Bundy Ranch<\/h5>\n
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<\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n![\"20160414-2279\"](\"http:\/\/photos.sltrib.com\/projects\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/20160414-2279-200x300.jpg\")
‘A very difficult situation’<\/h4>\n
![\"Trent](\"http:\/\/photos.sltrib.com\/projects\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/20160521-4340-200x300.jpg\")
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‘It was going to be our life’<\/h4>\n
![\"Trent](\"http:\/\/photos.sltrib.com\/projects\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/20160521-4041-200x300.jpg\")
\nTwitter: @matthew_piper<\/a><\/p>\nIn their own words<\/h4>\n