Maynard Trees a French Pilgrim Where the Angel Landed
In memory of Doug West (1946–2025)
Dedicated to my friend Doug West and his dog Maynard, who is always cheered to see me, but that means nothing since Maynard is promiscuous in his enthusiasm.
My friend Doug is a cowboy who rides with his Aussie sheepdog, Maynard, who himself is named after a wonderful western artist. But Doug is not entirely cowboy. He does not adore cows, particularly on some few federal allotments, and he wears a baseball cap, against the scouring desert wind. And he lives in town, like Gulliver with his horses, although he does not yet bed in the stables. Doug was a poor boy before horses, whose father fought in Europe and saw things he did not talk about, but went quiet to work every day. And this man had a small garage with tools on pegboard, like Clint Eastwood in Grand Torino, possibly the greatest movie ever made about a quiet man, excepting maybe True Grit, either version. And Doug came to culture late because ideas are dangerous things for cowboys who read. So sometimes Doug discusses books with Maynard while they ride the gray sage, and Maynard is thoughtful when he is not too glad he is alive, although he tends to Aussie in his view, and that sometimes leads to differences of opinion. They discuss the early days of Cowboy, when riders closed the gates behind them, when culture was not war, when a gun was a tool in the hands of a respectful man. They patrol the desert together, Doug, on horseback out for discovery, Maynard, on foot, out for rattlesnake. And Doug was dawdling, as usual, puzzling over the bones of some newly-extinct creature, while Maynard ranged ahead making the desert safe, when Doug heard a cry in French, “Pour l’amour de Dieu," which he recognized immediately as a phrase of his father’s, which means, “Dammit, get it over here!" So Doug spurred his mount, like the Duke in Rio Lobo, and got it over there, to find Maynard had a scared a French tourist up a dead juniper. “O”—the rangy woman wailed, —”eet eez ze kyotee-dog. Eet will eet me!" Doug recognized her immediately as a class of secular pilgrim, garbed in habit of tight lycra and loose nylon, veiled modestly down the back of her neck by the sunshade of her REI cap. “Tasteful”—though Doug, who is no fashion slouch in his boot-cut Wranglers— “maybe even Desert Aerodynamic, judging from the earth tones and camos." The clincher was a silver pilgrimage badge which bore the biblical inscription of Zion Park and showed where the angel landed. This species of pilgrim is European and urbane, having abandoned Chartres and Lourdes to walk the shrines of the American West among the bones of saintly natives. So Doug called Maynard to heel, and Maynard, an obedient sheepdog, did. Doug said, “Ma’am," and tipped his hat obligingly and rode off into the sunset, like Duke in Rio Lobo, thus sparing our French pilgrim a near-lethal lickin’.
The Utah Monthly is saddened to share that Doug West, 78, of Pleasant Grove, American Fork, Grover, and St. George, Utah, passed away on July 4, 2025. Doug was a regular contributor to the Utah Monthly, and his love of the Western landscape, horses, and the outdoors were apparent and infectious to any who read his pieces. We’re grateful to have learned from Doug and are inspired by the life of public service he led.
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Doug's contributions to the Utah Monthly were some of the best. He will be missed.