Cowboy Wisdom (7 page)

O
ne good, sharp knife is worth two of almost anything else, except women and horses, of course.

—C
HARLES
J
IMBY
XIT Ranch, Texas c. 1885

I
can’t remember ever learning how to sharpen a knife, myself—people were just always around filing or grinding their butcher
knives all the time because they needed them sharp to slaughter the hogs and stuff. So learning how to sharpen a knife for
me was sort of like learning to walk—everybody did it so I did it too, but I certainly don’t remember taking my first step.

1. Take an Arkansas hard-stone
—I guess they come from Arkansas—and put a spot of oil on it to keep the temper in the knife, to keep the friction from damaging
the blade. Some guys use spit, but I use oil. The oil I use is called honing oil and it’s made for that purpose. I’ve got
a set of three stones, each mounted in wood. One is a hard Arkansas, then there’s a soft Arkansas, and then there’s what they
call a Washita, and it’s just an extra little stone that you use. They’re each about 4″ × 16″.

2. Take the stone and lay it down flat
. Turn the blade of the knife toward you and bring the knife across the stone in a kind of circular motion, about a half moon.
Then reverse it to sharpen the other side. You can tell whether you’re getting an edge or not.

3. The angle is the most important part of the sharpening
, and that’s the thing that you just have to feel and learn. If you over-do it and hold the blade at too sharp an angle, you’ll
make the blade flat and you won’t be sharpening anything—you’ll just be wearing the blade out. If you don’t have enough of
an angle, you’ll just make the knife duller. Get the angle right.

—C
HARLIE
D
ANIELS
Lebanon, Tennessee 1993

O
ne afternoon a puncher at Charles Goodnight’s ranch in the Texas panhandle saw smoke boiling up to the south and raced toward
it. When he arrived at the scene he found a gang of men beating at flames with wet gunny sacks, slickers, and brooms. When
the fire refused to go out he and the other men attacked the blaze by a grisly but effective method: they shot a big steer,
skinned him on one side and tied ropes to two legs. Then a pair of riders on either side of the fire line dragged the bloody
carcass over it to quench the flames, like moving an eraser across a blackboard. The horses had to change sides frequently,
or the one trotting on the burned patch might have been crippled by the charring of his hoofs.

—W
ILLIAM
H. F
ORBIS
Bozeman, Montana 1973

I
ndians say that coyote, unlike man, never kills wantonly, but only for food. As a matter of fact, given a chance, he may in
an hour kill more kids out of a flock of goats than he can eat in a week. His business in life is not essentially different
from that of man; namely, to find and get his daily meat.

—L
ILLIAN
E
LIZABETH
B
ARCLAY
Waco, Texas c. 1938

O
ne man in a million can become a ventriloquist; every coyote is one at birth. He can so “place” his voice that you shall not
know if it came from north, east, south, or west. As a multiplier—well, hearing one coyote, no newcomer but will swear it
is a dozen. The wail is the strangest, weirdest, most baffling sound known to any wilderness—a wild medley of bark, howl,
shrick, and whine utterly confounding; and as to its articulation, glib as nothing else I know.

—C
HARLES
F. L
UMMIS
southern Texas c. 1898

I
was born in Rhode Island, you know, and it got too little for me. When I lay down, my head would like as not be in the lap
of somebody in Massachusetts and my feet bothering somebody else in Connecticut. I just got too big for the state, so I thought
Texas would be big enough for me.

—S
HANGHAI
P
IERCE
Texas panhandle 1900

I was raised in a canebrake by an old mama lion.

I got a head like a bombshell and teeth made of iron.

I got nine rows of jaw teeth, and holes punched for more.

I come from ourang-a-tang, where the bullfrogs taught me to snore.

—A
NONYMOUS

I
’m a wild wolf, and I’m gonna eat meat alive. I’m a wild wolf, and my tail never touched the ground.

—A
NONYMOUS

L
ast summer I wauz ridin’ along thinkin’ as how the weather must be hotter’n Satan in long handles, when i hears a low moanin’
behind me and turns ‘round to see a blizzard whizzin’ in. Right away I knows I got no time for admirin’ the scenery, so I
jabs steel an’ heads for home. That ol’ hoss musta known about blizzards, too, ‘cause ‘fore I had time t’ chaw my terbaccer
twice, we wuz there. But when I went to unsaddle the animal, danged if I didn’t find its frequarters plum’ foamy with sweat
and its hindquarters frozen solid with ice where th’ teeth of the blizzard had caught it.

—J. F
RANK
D
OBIE
Dallas, Texas 1936

I
t got so derned cold at our ranch one winter that the thermometer dropped to ninety-five degrees below zero. Our foreman came
out to give us orders fer the day, but the words froze as they came out of his mouth. We had to break ‘em off one by one so’s
we could tell what he was sayin’.

—A
NONYMOUS COWBOY
quoted in
Life
magazine 1942

F
irst cowboy
: I did own an ol’ hoss one time that was about the
dumbest
critter I ever did see. I’ll tell yuh what that fool horse did one night when I drunk too much likker and passed out in town.
He picked me up and slung me on his back and carred me twenty miles to the ranch. When he got me there, he pulled off my boots
with his teeth and nosed me into my bunk. Then he went to the kitchen, fixed up a pot of coffee, and brung me a cup all fixed
up with cream and sugar. Then the next day I had a hangover, and he went by hisself and dug post holes all day so’s the boss
would let me sleep. When I woke up and found out what that fool hoss had done, I cussed him for two days without stoppin’
and wished him off on a greener which was passin’ by. It wuz good riddance, too.

Second cowboy
: I’d say that wuz a pretty smart horse. What in the world did you get rid of him for?

First cowboy
: Smart, heck! Who ever heard of a real cowboy usin’ cream and sugar in his coffee?

—
Arizona Nights
by S
TEWART
E
DWARD
W
HITE
1907

I
drove over every trail from the Gulf of Mexico to the Dakotas and Montana, but the Chisholm Trail was the one I traveled
most. Now, after thirty years of settled life, the call of the trail is with me still, and there is not a day that I do not
long to mount my horse and be out among the cattle.

—L. B. A
NDERSON
Seguin, Texas c. 1920

I
put in eighteen or twenty years on the trail, and all I had in the final outcome was the high-heeled boots, the striped pants,
and about $4.80 worth of other clothes, so there you are.

—G. O. B
URROWS
Del Rio, Texas c. 1920

May you brand your largest calf crop,

May your range grass never fail,

May your water holes stay open,

May you ride an easy trail;

May you never reach for leather

Nor your saddle horse go lame;

May you drop your loop on critters

With your old unerring aim.

May your stack of chips grow taller,

May your shootin’ e’er stay true,

May good luck plumb snow you under—

Is always my wish for you.

—T
OM
M
IX