The Incident at Broke Bottle Mountain

The Incident at Broke Bottle Mountain

The current movie “Brokeback Mountain” reminds me of my time growing up in the beautiful cowboy country of Wyoming. I remember it fondly save for the time I accidentally started an international incident that threatened to tear the very fabric of diplomatic ties between America and France. It became widely known as The Incident at Broke Bottle Mountain.

The whole adventure started innocently enough. My friend Billy Cross and I planned to go on a week-long camping trip in the Wyoming mountains. As usual, we used painstaking care to plan a well balanced menu: 8 boxes of macaroni and cheese, 14 envelopes of instant oatmeal, 148 chocolate bars, and seven 24-pack cases of beer. We took along our fishing gear and small .22 caliber rifles, planning to supplement our food with fish and have some fun shooting at targets. All in all it was a typical camping trip for young men in America’s Rocky Mountain region.

We drove far up into the mountains on boulder strewn dirt roads that proved to be easy for my 1967 Volkswagen van, fondly named “Babe Magnet” for its ability to attract beautiful women. We paused at one point to admire the magnificent view. Before starting off again, I spotted an old relic that I just had to have. Smiling a little bit, Billy watched me load it into Babe Magnet and said, “Next time we should use thicker wire to tie that bumper in place.”

After Babe Magnet crawled over miles of steep roads, we finally reached our camping site on a beautiful lake. The next few days we enjoyed camping, fishing, exploring the hiking trails, shooting our rifles at targets, and sitting around blazing bonfires at night telling stories and lies to each other and our fellow campers we met. We had a fantastic time until disaster struck on the fourth day – we ran out of beer. Who would have guessed that 168 cans of beer wouldn’t be enough?

Cursing ourselves for poor judgment, we tied the bumper back on Babe Magnet and drove back to a local bar for more supplies. The bar turned out to be a typical establishment in cowboy country. It was a simple wooden bar with a dirt floor, dogs wandering around the place, and deer and elk heads displayed proudly on the walls. During the day it was nearly empty and at night it was filled with people who drove over from a 50 mile radius. We asked the bartender what he had for sale. He answered, “I got the usual: Coors beer, whiskey, and tequila.” Billy and I examined our meager finances and said, “Great. Sell us whatever you have that’s cheap.”

We loaded up with 3 more cases of beer and were preparing to leave when the bartender said, “Are you guys interested in some wine? I got some stuff left over from a foreign guy who stayed here. No one around here will touch the stuff. I’ll sell it to you real cheap.” We looked over the bottles and they had strange names like Gamais Beujoulais, Pinot Noir, and Cabernet Sauvignon. The names didn’t sound nearly as good as Jack Daniels, but we figured alcohol is alcohol. We said, “OK. Give us 4 bottles, we’ll pay you a dollar each.” Sold!

We drove a few miles and then took a break and decided to try one of the bottles of wine. We quickly discovered that the bottles had corks instead of the usual screw tops. No wonder the bartender sold them so cheap. How were we supposed to get those bottles open? Billy quickly came up with a great suggestion: let’s shoot the necks off with our rifles.

Moving off the side of the road, we set 2 of the bottles on a flat rock and got out our rifles. My shot was first. Carefully I aimed at the top of the bottle on the right, relaxed my body, paused breathing, and gently squeezed the trigger. BAM! I was exactly on target, only a little bit off. The bottle on the left exploded as the bullet shattered right through the center.

Suddenly from behind us we heard some yelling and cursing in a foreign language. A foreign tourist came running up asking what we were doing? He examined the 3 remaining bottles and yelled, “Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!” Quickly we prepared for a fight and informed him that we wouldn’t stand for people calling us bad names, no matter what language.

The tourist calmed down a little bit, but not much. He identified himself as French. He exclaimed loudly that we should NEVER shoot a fine bottle of French wine. It was sacrilege, horrible, an insult to the whole nation of France. What were we possibly thinking? Quickly he grabbed the remaining bottles of wine, threw $40 at us, climbed into his Jeep and roared off.

We couldn’t believe our luck! What a stupid French tourist, paying us $40 for 3 bottles of wine we bought for 1 dollar each. We climbed back into Babe Magnet and returned to the bar to buy some more cases of beer. Satisfied, we returned to camp.

The rest of the trip went uneventfully until we returned to town. As soon as we reached the town limits, we were mobbed by reporters and the local sheriff. It turned out that the French tourist was a famous French business man. He had started an international scandal and he demanded an investigation into the intentional shooting of French wines by Americans. The reporters mobbed us and asked us about the whole thing, what they called “The Incident at Broke Bottle Mountain.” Climbing on top of Babe Magnet, we held a brief press conference. The questions seemed endless:

Q: Why did you wait 3 days to report this incident to the local police?
A: We had priorities. First we had to finish our beer. Second, we had to wire the bumper back onto my van.

Q: Do you often shoot bottles of alcohol?
A: Only in self defense. But to tell you the truth, we are really bad shots. Usually we miss the target.

Q: Would this incident have been more serious if someone had died?
A: What? Are you serious?

Q: Why did you wait 3 days to report this incident?
A: Didn’t I already answer this question?

Finally the reporters finished their questions and ran to be the first to get their stories out. The local sheriff invited us to the bar and bought some beer and hamburgers. He told us that while we were gone this whole thing became a huge international scandal. There were widespread demonstrations and protests in France denouncing the unacceptable desecration of France’s National Symbol, great wines! The French President demanded an official apology from the American government and suggested that the American cowboy (me) should be thrown in prison. Boycotts were organized, cars were burned, and the American embassy was surrounded by angry mobs. France approached a state of total chaos until the protesters went on strike to demand higher wages and more time off.

Looking back at the whole sad story, I almost hate to admit my role in this unfortunate international scandal. France and America might still be living in peace and harmony. If only I had packed a corkscrew, the Incident at Broke Bottle Mountain would never have occurred.