Badluck Way: A Year on the Ragged Edge of the West (13 page)

In a burst of strength, the elk began to climb. They labored up through snow that deepened until it overtopped the grass and sage. They blew clouds of steam in the moonlight. The wolves followed in their tracks.

The Stock Creek bench is a hard climb in any season—it is steep, scattered with loose rocks, and long enough to make you wish for a break before the halfway point. In the winter, with a storm blowing out of the south, it often became impassable. The wind tore across flat and mostly featureless expanse, gathering snow. A real gale could sweep that snow across the ground for
miles, looking for a place to put it. Ditches and the borrow pits along roadsides were filled quickly and then burnished to an icy shine. Snowflakes changed as they tumbled across the land. They got pulverized, refined into uniform, minuscule crystals that rolled easily and packed densely together into something more like sand than snow.

The wind built strange things all over the ranch, but its masterwork was the enormous cornice at the top of the Stock Creek bench. In the dead of winter, with the right conditions, the cornice could take form overnight and stretch out for miles. It was massive, and arced so far out into space that it seemed to defy gravity. Chunks calved off and fell in piles on the slope below. Deep, dense snowdrifts grew at the foot of it. Such drifts lasted all through the winter and well into spring.

There must have come a moment, when the snow reached belly level and their legs began to bind, that the elk despaired of reaching the top. The wolves were just behind them, and the cornice towered overhead. The elk churned forward, postholing the deep, packed snow until they were high-centered and thoroughly mired. The wolves closed in behind them, walking lightly across the crust.

M
osquito season was in full swing by the beginning of July. Ahead of me on the trail, James’s shirt was covered in gray bodies. The bugs moved across it slowly, stopping sometimes to probe through the cotton weave. I reached back and ran my hand along my horse’s flank. Two passes covered my fingers in blood.

James, Jeremy, and I worked our way around a particularly remote portion of the ranch’s southern boundary fence. We rode where we could, walked where we had to, and sometimes left the horses tied to stout trees while we fixed extremely bad sections. The valley was socked in with steely, bulge-bottomed clouds. It had drizzled all morning and started pouring at noon.

Rain was never warm on the Sun Ranch, but this shower felt particularly icy. A soaking rain, it set teeth chattering and numbed fingers into a state of complete uselessness. To walk in rain like that is bad. To ride through it is worse. I sat my horse and felt the warmth ebb from my feet and hands. When we hit breaks in the fence, I dismounted and tried to bend rusty wire to my will.

We sighted the fence’s end as the first peals of thunder split the air and finished the final splices as bolts of lightning began crackling out of the southwest. They pounded the foothills on the far side of the Madison River for a while and then crossed it, sending us scuttling for shelter. We rode along an old logging road for a while, and then took cover in a grove of big Douglas firs beside Squaw Creek. We tied our horses, and James and I hunted for shreds of dry tinder while Jeremy worked with knife and lighter to make a fire in the wet dirt. He built a little smoldering pile and the three of us took turns blowing on it. I shivered until the fire caught, and then I steamed.

The smoke boiled up and knocked back the bugs. We stood by our blaze, in the midst of wild mountains and a godforsaken storm, and shared what little food we had, joking about neighboring ranches and discussing the progress of the grass. We talked the talk of hired men, about work that needed doing, the eccentricities of the owner, and short routes from one place to another. We told
the secrets of the country, as if we could earn some title to the land by knowing it.

We let the fire die when the storm broke, and rode together toward the higher pastures and the barn. Every tree was dripping and the creeks had swollen. It occurred to me that I had achieved a rare thing: I was living at the center of my heart’s geography. And I knew it.

In July we moved cattle almost every day. More than any other chore on a ranch, herding is an art. When approached correctly, and if the animals are willing, a cattle drive becomes a complex, intriguing dance. I’ve always believed that cattle understand the steps a lot better than all but the most practiced and attentive humans. I won’t claim to grasp the rules perfectly, but I’ve been around stock enough to know that their lives and movement are ruled by two interrelated principles: flight zone and herd instinct.

To understand the flight zone, imagine a rough circle around each cow in the herd. Certain animals—mostly other, familiar ruminants—are allowed inside the circle. The rest of the world’s creatures, including cowboys, are personae non gratae.

Walk toward a bunch of contented, grazing cattle. At first they’ll watch your progress with dull interest, as if you’re in a sitcom they’ve seen before. Draw near the edge of the flight zone, however, and you’ll quickly have their full attention. Heads jerk up into the air. Ears snap to attention. Worried glances fly back and forth within the herd.

Press the issue by taking another step or two forward, and the animal nearest you will react, generally by moving away. Working
cattle in the open, grassy pastures above the Madison River, I learned to picture the flight zone as an elastic sphere, somewhat like a rubber kickball. When the sphere was pressed into from behind, the animal sprang away, forward. Direction mattered: pressure from the left rear would cause cattle to bend their course obliquely to the right, and pressure from the right would send them yawing to the left.

The process is not as simple as it sounds. The circle can vary infinitely in size based on the mood of the animal and the condition in which it finds itself. On the open range, when a herd is under constant harassment by predators or overzealous herders, the flight zone can expand all the way out to the horizon. In corrals, with the right sort of handling, it can diminish to a few feet. The animal’s reaction once you’re in the flight zone can vary, too: Yearlings often skip all the steps between curiosity and full-on panic. Older, more dominant cows will force you to prove that you’re serious. They’ll sometimes stand their ground until you’re close, toss their heads, and paw the dirt to test your nerve. Make one wrong move with a cow like that, or hesitate for an extra, nervous beat, and she’ll charge right over the top of you.

Misanthropic cows and human error aren’t the only variables in herding. Terrain matters, too. The past experiences of the herd carry weight. The temperature and the barometer can make or break a day’s work.

Nobody wants a stampede, humans or cattle. Controlled, sustained motion was our goal, so we tried to be judicious with the way we applied pressure. Generally, James, Jeremy, and I worked together to move herds, staying in an even line behind the animals, angling back and forth to nudge along any stragglers. The herding
dogs, when James or Jeremy brought them, zipped back and forth along that line, filling any gaps between riders. Older, more experienced dogs understand the whole business perfectly. One of Jeremy’s collies, Bonnie, had a particular talent for the work. She was calm and patient with most cattle and had an intense, focused stare that curbed bad behavior. Quick, vicious bites to the nose and hind legs—Bonnie’s harshest punishments—were reserved for repeat offenders and egregious insubordination.

Younger dogs, like Jeremy’s new pup or James’s heeler, Tick, made more mistakes. When one of them pushed too hard or nipped the wrong hoof, agitation rippled like a wave through the heifers and steers.

When we wanted to turn our herds, we simply shifted our line—and the pressure we exerted—to one side or the other. If we did it right, the effect was striking: without anyone out in front to guide them, the cattle found a new trajectory. There always seemed to be something magical about the way they swung around like a compass needle finding north.

A cattle drive has to stay calm. It also has to be comprehensive—every member of the herd must arrive at the intended destination. Failing at this task even once or twice leaves stock scattered across the ranch, creates unnecessary work down the line, and gives the neighbors something to talk about. On a landscape as wild as the Sun Ranch, there were also spots in which leaving a heifer behind amounted to offering her up as a sacrifice.

Fortunately, the majority of the cattle despised being left as much as we hated to leave them. Their herd instinct runs deep, though not quite as strong as it does in elk or bison, which will tear apart the world to get back with their fellows. In cattle, the desire
to stay close exerts a subtle but undeniable magnetism. Move one animal, and the cow alongside her will almost always follow. Trail a small bunch through a pasture of scattered, grazing yearlings, and a herd will fall in line and pile up like snow in front of a plow.

When everything was working well, it was possible to gently steer a herd across the land, ford creeks, pass in an orderly fashion through gates, and settle the cattle on new pasture with a minimum of stress. An outcome like that depended on a lot of things going right, some beyond our control and some within it. Above all else, success, safety, and the welfare of the cattle were contingent on our ability to remain calm and relaxed. When we lost our tempers, or tried to hurry, a wreck followed in short order.

One morning we were pushing cows down Highway 287 and wanted to have it done before nine, when tourists started heading for Yellowstone. It wasn’t an especially big herd or a long move. The heifers gathered up easily enough and spilled through an open gate onto the asphalt. As the greenest of the crew, I rode behind the herd. Engulfed in the smell of fresh shit, I clattered my horse back and forth across the highway, pressuring stragglers. As I rode, I watched James work one of the roadside ditches and marveled at his knack with cattle. James knew precisely when to press ahead, and when to rein his horse. He stayed calm, and the animals in his care did the same.

Mostly, when the right-of-way fences were in good repair and nothing too exciting happened on either side of the road, we did well. The traffic was manageable: Locals waved and pushed their way through the herd. Tourists stopped, gawked, hung out their
windows, and took photographs. I smiled for them. It thrilled me to be somebody’s cowboy.

One Black Angus heifer in a herd of the same distinguished herself by turning and sprinting full tilt past me. She didn’t look like much. I backtracked and double-timed her to the herd. She did it again. Cursing, I dropped to collect her. The second time, I chased at a hard lope and lodged her solidly in the middle of the bawling, jostling crowd. Her ear tag was blue, number 512.

Ahead, Jeremy had turned the leaders off the road and was counting the herd into their new pasture, moving his horse forward and back in the gate to keep their flow to a steady trickle. He ticked off numbers with his outstretched index finger.