The Lompoc Record from Lompoc, California • 31

Saptambar 28. 1979 OUO IS 4 About Ooors by Loo Juillcrat Nwlll Ll.ll. ber his part in squelching the threatened Indian uprising. The story of Shoshone Mike and the Eagleville Boys has been written about many times in newspapers and books. Most recent is Dayton "Hawk" Hyde's "Last Free Man," which evokes some understanding of the Indians' plight.

During the last five years, Van Norman has been in and out of and back in the convalescent home. But he still has the look of the outdoors-man with his barrel chest, shock of white hair and costume of flannel shirt, denim jeans and leather belt with longhorn-decorated belt buckle. Of all Ottie Van Norman's 103 years, it's those few turbulent weeks in 1911 that for him remain, if not fresh, at least alive. before moving on. The events before and after Van Norman's joining the posse have been lost over the years.

"Went right on with the job that I had," he says, struggling to remember fragments of life after the massacre. "I worked there- several years after that started a little business and run horses raised a family, three sons and one daughter "Cowhand? Yeah, buck-arooed all my life. I've been a-buckarooing ever since I could get on a horse." Van Norman's reputation as an "Indian fighter' he is the only member of the posse still alive has given him a status that few men who spent a lifetime tending cattle have achieved. He was grand marshal of the county parade in 1972 and has been called on through the years to remem i pi J- ALTURAS, CaUf. (NEA) -OtUe "O.D." Van Norman is a Yankee Doodle Dandy born on the Fourth of July in 1876.

While celebrating his 103rd birthday recently, he opened a card, read it (without glasses) and nearly fell out of his chair, the card was signed by Jimmy Van Norman is mighty Sroud of that card. But receiv-lg it was not the highpoint of his life. That came back in 1911. Van Norman was then "buckarooing" that is, tending cattle in the lonely sagebrush deserts of western Nevada and northeastern California. In January of that year, the region was shaken with the news that four men had been killed by Indians in Little High Rock Canyon, about 35 miles southeast of the scenic California town of Eagleville.

Some settlers feared it was the beginning of a full-scale Indian uprising. Van Norman was one of the many who left work to join the party that searched for and found the dead men. He was also one of the 21 men who took up rifles and galloped off in search of the Indians nearly a month later in the posse that became known as the "Eagleville Boys." And Van Norman was there when the posse caught up with the straggling band of Indians led by one "Shoshone Mike" and launched a three-hour attack that left aU of the Indians dead except for a squaw and two youngsters. "I drawed a pretty good bead on one and he piled up right there," recalls Van Norman. "I was a pretty good shot at that time." Now in retirement at a convalescent home, Van Norman almost automatically recites fragments of the episode: "I was with the posse and followed them all the way to the east of Rabbit Creek.

We ran into those old Indians just before noon old Shoshone Mike and the rest of them. "When we run into them, ff St ff 1 5. pile of snow We cleaned 'em up, the whole works of 'em, in a little bit." When it all ended, Van Norman was among the celebrated. Just how much that helped is not known, but he was married in Eagleville the next year. He returned to his job, where he worked for 33 years THIS WEEKEND 0IJLY1 OF ALL THE events of his 103 years, Ottie Van Norman remembers most vividly the few weeks in 1911 when he rode with a posse in search of massacring Indians.

His reputation as an Indian fighter has won him a degree of fame rarely received by old cowhands. if' a con job ment. "I figured out that they suddenly were out of vacancies because we were unemployed, admitted it, and even worse, looked so unem-plyed. What did he do? "I lied," says Furst, who donned his best suit and invented an entire corporation for which he supposedly worked. That got them an apartment, but they still had to pay the rent.

Furst finally did land a job delivering pizza. He refuses to say whether the deal included all the wares he could eat. AX. .1. I I 'Employing' When Steve Furst, who plays the portly Flounder in "Animal House" and "Delta House," first landed in Hollywood he had to be a better con man than any of the Deltas.

"I was married immediately after graduation to the girl I dated throughout my semior year," the Virginia Commonwealth University graduate says. The two set off for Hollywood in a rented truck, with Furst's old car in tow, and very little money. They hit town with no place to stay, and no one would rent them an apart Hot TC3S C3 rir-i we had an Injun and he told them to throw up their hands and we wouldn't hurt them. "But that old Shoshone Mike, he said: 'No, we're going to die right here. We ain't going to stop for While the battle raged, Van Norman and George Holmes, another posse member, chased a breakaway group down a gully.

"When we got right up there close to them, they took six shots at us. I could feel them bullets whizzing past my head. "I asked George Holmes if he'd been hit and he said no. He asked me if I'd been hit and I said no. "We fell off our horse in a up your iroo 250 SAVE on any Redwood Tub System ciisi3 eh vcon oim dasei VALID Drop by our showroom and see tint hand the bubbling action of our display units.

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