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BILLINGS - The West got a little wilder recently when a wagon train tried to cross the Crow Reservation and instead became entangled in a long-simmering tribal dispute.

Like a scene out of the 1800s, the wagon train was reportedly stopped for five hours on July 24 by a group of Crow tribal members after trying to cross a contested route southwest of Billings known as the Pryor Gap Road.

Duncan Vezain, the organizer of the trip and a Bridger saddle maker and horse trainer, said he called the tribe about a month in advance of the two-day trip between Bridger and Pryor and talked to a member of the Crow Tribe’s Fish and Game office, Marlin Notafraid, to pay for a recreation permit to use the Pryor Gap Road.

Vezain said he paid Notafraid $400 for permission for his group of 45 riders.

The route has been closed to public travel since 2002 following a dispute between the Plain Bull family, which owns land along the route, and the Crow Tribe.

Standoff

The dispute started when the wagon train got to within about three miles of the travelers’ final destination and was blocked by a group of tribal members and their vehicles. More tribal members arrived later and circled behind the wagon train blocking any retreat, Vezain said. The Plain Bull family requested a $500 trespass fee for the wagon train to continue on.

“It was straight-up a hostage situation,” Vezain said. “They offered to let one guy go through to get to a cash machine if we didn’t have enough money. One family wanted to leave, and they wouldn’t let them.”

Terry Jean Plain Bull denied that the group was held hostage but said they were blocked from leaving.

Vezain’s wife, Bonnie, said she was very concerned because the hot day was taking a toll on her children, older riders and the horses.

“It was a pretty concerning situation and kind of suspicious,” she said.

Disputed

Plain Bull said the Crow Tribe and Notafraid had no right issuing a permit to the wagon train without first seeking permission from the Plain Bull family.

“They trespassed on allotees’ land,” she said, using the term for landowners within the reservation.

The groups were in a standoff while they waited for Notafraid to arrive and settle the situation, since both sides thought they were in the right. When Notafraid did finally arrive, Plain Bull and Vezain said he was dishonest about what had transpired.

Notafraid said he believed then and now that the recreation permit he issued the wagon train was valid on reservation and allotees’ land and that the Plain Bulls were in the wrong. He also said there would be no refund of the access fee the wagon train members paid since it was still valid to travel on other tribal lands.

The Plain Bull family sees the issue differently.

“They put those people in a spot because they already knew” the road was closed to nontribal members, Plain Bull said. “Marlin said the BIA had opened the roads, which is a lie.”

Flash point

With the disagreement simmering under the hot sun of a July afternoon, tempers on both sides flared.

“This confrontation almost went hostile,” said Elias Goes Ahead, who owns land farther down the road.

“Guns were open on both sides,” he said. “The next time it might get into a bloody shootout.”

Plain Bull said some members of the wagon train were drinking alcohol, littered, were disrespectful and tried to intimidate her family and friends, even threatening to cut the barbed wire fence so they could continue on.

Wagon train members accused the tribal members of being disrespectful.

Resolved

Reservation resident Cary “White Buffalo” Lance said the dispute is one of many that has pitted reservation residents against each other, the tribal government and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

“There’s this kind of war between everybody,” Lance said. “It’s something that needs to be addressed by the tribe.”

He said the wagon train dispute is also keeping “alive the animosity and racism that needs to go away” between tribal and nontribal members.

The wagon train was finally allowed to proceed after paying the Plain Bull family a $500 cash trespass fee.

Vezain said one of his riders telephoned the Bridger Police Department, which called the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which dispatched an officer to Pryor Gap. Those interviewed for this story said the officer did not get involved in the dispute. The Crow Police chief said he was gone when the dispute arose and the BIA district officer was not available for comment. A message left for the Washington, D.C. BIA representative was not returned by press time.

“The BIA let them rob us,” Vezain said. “There was no due process.”

Despite the long delay and additional cost, Vezain said he was pleased to have reached his objective of crossing the historic stage and railroad route that’s now closed to public travel.

“I achieved my goal,” he said. “It cost me a little extra money, but I’ve been wanting to go through the Gap for eight years,” ever since he started leading his annual wagon train trips.

“I bet it’s been a century since a wagon train has been held up by hostile Indians.”

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