DUNCAN — For more than 40 years, Jimmie Pruitt traveled the world as he worked in the oil industry, but it’s his own back yard that means the most to him.

Driving across 600 acres of Oklahoma prairie southeast of Duncan, Pruitt stops his truck at a creek to get out and point at a rock bearing deep etchings. The etchings include a date — March 17, 1884 — and names or initials. Pruitt believes it is the work of soldiers or cowboys who passed that way in the days of Indian Territory. He says the creek crossing was made by pony soldiers traveling to Fort Sill.

“This is the old military road from Fort Sill to Fort Washita.”

The creek is part of old East Mud Creek, he shares.

“We’ve been running cattle on this creek for 128 years, since the 1880s or thereabouts.”

He gets back in his truck and heads across the creek and back up the embankment to more pastureland.

“It looks pretty good. That Bermudagrass is taking hold,” he says.

Driving even farther into an area not seen by many people, Pruitt searches for wild turkey as horses wander freely and deer jump.

He mentions that as long as the deer and turkey stay on Pruitt Ranch land, they’ll be safe.

“I don’t allow hunting here. Wildlife need a place they can fall on and to be protected,” he says.

He points at a huge mound that he calls Indian Hill. He freely drives on top of it.

“Now you get a feeling of why this is all the world to me,” Pruitt says.

Nowhere in sight is any oil rig equipment. But he does keep up with the industry through newspaper articles and clippings.

Pruitt, 81, and his wife, Betty, 80, have lived on the property in a home they designed and built 14 years ago. They’ve owned the land for 22 years. He says getting it was a family trade, because he owned property in Jefferson County that his sister wanted.

Originally, the couple planned to retire along the St. Johns River in Florida, near St. Augustine. They’d even built a home there.

“But the roots of country run strong,” he says.

He was born in Healdton and, when he was 18, he joined the U.S. Navy. He met his wife in Jacksonville, Fla. After the Navy, he became a roustabout for ARCO and eventually worked his way to a senior staff instructor engineer position. That job allowed him to travel to Italy, Iran and other such places. He and Betty also lived a few years in Alaska.

The Pruitt Ranch land has been in the Pruitt family since just after 1880. He knows that from family lore and original deeds and other documents. He says his grandfather and grandmother, Henry and Orinthia Pruitt, brought 450 head of cattle into southern Oklahoma around that time. Orinthia is buried near Comanche in an unmarked grave that will soon have a headstone, he says. He knows his grandparents were included in the Fort Worth, Texas, census in 1880. One of those original documents is a deed of unallocated land from the Choctaw-Chickasaw Nations, bearing the signature of Quanah Parker. It’s dated May 1, 1917, and is for the sale of 120.09 acres to Nannie F. Pruitt, in Jefferson County.

“My grandfather was a pioneer Texas rancher. He finally settled on Mud Creek and was a fiddler. The old home place is 13 miles east of Comanche and a mile south,” he says.

Pruitt’s parents were Johnnie Henry Pruitt and Ethel Charleston Parsons.

“I’m walking Oklahoma history,” he says.

And his stories are rich with that history — the good and the “dark side” of the Pruitts, he says with a laugh.

Sitting at his kitchen table, he shows off a 1970 book, “Shotgun for Hire: The story of ‘Deacon’ Jim Miller, Killer of Pat Garrett” by Glenn Shirley, also known in Stephens County for penning “The Fighting Outlaws.”

Pruitt begins relating a tale of Pruitt ancestors, more specifically, legends of six Pruitt brothers, which involved gun shoot-outs and barn hangings. The story also involves the hiring of Miller by a Pruitt to kill Ben Collins, a U.S. Indian federal marshal. According to family lore and factual evidence gathered over the years as well as in the book, Pruitt says Davenport “Port” Pruitt had been in a gun battle with Collins, and Davenport Pruitt vowed to get Ben.

“That was a dark chapter in Pruitt history,” he says. “To redeem it, one of the Pruitt boys lost his life in a shoot-out in Ardmore. He was a police officer. My grandfather’s brothers, he was one of those seven boys. And they were all cowboys,” he said.

Pruitt loves being a rancher, but the drought forced him out of the cattle business three years ago. As he drove around his ranch this week, he thought his pasture land looked strong enough to maybe get some more cows.

“I love having the cattle around,” he says.

He even “took part” in the 2007 Oklahoma Centennial Chisholm Trail Cattle Drive.

“I didn’t ride. Didn’t have a horse, but I rendezvoused with them at some of their campsites.”

He also bought the souvenir belt buckle that he wears these days — along with his Harley-Davidson vest and ballcap as he rides his Harley. When he’s not riding his motorcycle, he gladly jumps on a four-wheeler to travel his 600 acres.

“I did OK in the oil business and just want to have a legacy for my family and that’s what this land is all about. I want to keep it alive for my grandfather’s memory,” he says.

His wife agrees.

“I love it out here,” she says.

They have three sons, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, some of whom share homes on the land and the others come and visit often.

“The only thing, we don’t get any rain out here,” she says.

But the rainfall they do get is enough to keep the land lush and green, wildflowers blooming and water in the creek.

“I have quite a heritage,” he says. “You’re looking at a contented man. I’m happy.”