Wild Cow Tales (19 page)

This would probably no longer be the case since the Texas Stray Law was rewritten about 1960 to state that anyone caring for a stray animal is entitled to $1 per head per day for care.

I knew now why Judge Barwise wanted to sell me the heifers. His greatest fear was not for the value of the heifers but for all the damages that the railroad might be gettin’ into from the farmers whose land the heifers were runnin’ wild on. Well, this kind of conversation set pretty well with them.

By noon I had found the schoolhouse. It was summer and school was out, and of course the grass was growed up big around the schoolhouse. There was a water well with a hand pump on it. The schoolhouse was fenced around on three sides and open on the front toward the road, and it seemed like this would be a real good campground for me and my horses. I unsaddled my pack horse in the shade of a big tree on the back side of the school grounds plumb out of sight of the road. I staked my extra horses with long stake ropes, and I decided I would try to make acquaintance with some of my heifers between then and sundown.

I rode to the northwest across a field whose owner had said that some heifers had gone through and might be on the headwaters of Denton Creek, which ran behind his house. Well, that water up Denton Creek wouldn’t amount to much in the way of a stream but would have some grazin’ on it. Sure enough, I found three heifers
standin’ in the shade and when I got within hearin’ distance, they threw up their heads and those big floppy ears came forward, and though they couldn’t see me I knew they could smell and hear my horse. (Some people may not know that cattle can’t see as far as horses or as men, but they can smell a long way farther than they can see if the wind is in the right direction, and then they go to tryin’ to hear what they smell.)

I reined my horse to the west of them, thinkin’ maybe I could get a little closer to them, but directly they bounced out from under that tree and the three heifers went three or four different directions. I saw quick that they weren’t goin’ to herd and drive, so I decided I had better have one of them than none at all.

I took after what looked like the slowest one, and just before she dived into the thicket I set the loop of my rope down at the bottom of her horns and turned, and ole Beauty stuck her feet in the ground and turned that heifer a big nerve-rackin’ flip. There wasn’t a whole lot of fight in these heifers. They were too young for that, but their experience with stockcars and railroads had had a bad effect on their dispositions and they sure would try to get away. I drove and jerked and maneuvered and pulled this heifer back to my camp just before dark. I staked her to a nice gentle tree and she bawled and fought that rope and threw herself down a good many times before she quit fightin’.

As I fixed me some supper and fed my horses, I worried about what I was goin’ to do with these heifers after I caught them. I couldn’t stake them to a tree and let them stand there a week or two waitin’ to catch the rest
of them, and none of these farmer people had cow lots or corrals that would hold wild cattle. After me and the horses had finished with supper, I pumped water from the school well and watered everything except that heifer.

Next morning she was standing astraddle of the rope pullin’ out away from the tree with her head about halfway to the ground, and I just thought all these heifers have jumped several fences and will jump some more, and if I could just tie her head down to about the position she had it in now she couldn’t do anything but graze. Any four-legged animal, be it horse, cow, or deer, has to be able to raise its head in the effort and motion of raising its forelegs before it can jump, so I just took me a short rope and tied it around that heifer’s horns underneath my lariat rope where I could get it up later.

While she pitched I managed to get the head rope pulled down and tied in a bowline knot—so it wouldn’t get any tighter—just under her ankle and above her foot around the pastern joint with her head drawn down about four inches lower than the level of her back. I eased around and untied the lariat rope from the tree, and with that one foot to where she would jerk it off the ground with her head, I could very easily hold her with me on the ground afoot until I could get a hold of the lariat rope and jerk it off her horns. She thought she was loose and made two or three wild jumps to leave, each time trippin’ and throwin’ herself. After a while she stood there mad and thoroughly disgusted with me and the rest of the human race, but in spite of this she had her mouth in reach of grass and water.

In a week’s time I had four or five miles of the public road stocked with black heifers with their heads tied to their foot and had become the talk of the community. Everybody was friendly and tellin’ me where they saw the last one of my heifers. I had been changin’ horses twice a day and rode hard and had twelve head gathered.

During this time I had visited everybody out of the notion of suing the railroad without ever tellin’ them that I had bought the cattle and the railroad didn’t really have anything to do with them. I had eaten watermelon during the daytime when I was ridin’ through the fields and visited with the people who had gardens, fresh roastin’ ears, peaches that were ripe, and fryin’ chickens that were plentiful. I don’t believe I ever fattened on a cow-workin’ as much as I did on this one. Folks who stay at home and raise stuff are nice to know, especially when you are gatherin’ wild cattle off their land for them.

I had pretty thoroughly determined that there were eleven more heifers and that the twenty-three count was right. There were two heifers back in a big pasture about six miles from the road that I was leavin’ for last. Every afternoon I would ride up and down the public road and herd my crowhoppin’ heifers to where the creek ran for a drink and drive them into the school grounds to bed up for the night.

The stock laws and speed limits were different in those days. There was little or no danger of anybody drivin’ fast enough to hit a heifer and, besides, at that time the man drivin’ the car was liable for damage to livestock, instead of the other way around, as the law is
today; if livestock that are on a public road are hit by a car, the owner of the livestock is liable for both the damage to the vehicle and any injury to the driver.

I had finally worked my heifer herd into the public road where they could graze along the right of way. I had to go into Bowie to buy some extra rope, but I had the heifers grazin’ and drinkin’ and fillin’ up with their heads down and not jumpin’ any more fences.

The time had come for me to go after the two heifers that were farthest from the road and in the biggest pasture. They had been loose the longest and I didn’t know whether that had caused them to settle down and get over some of their fright or whether it had caused them to be wilder. I threw a mess of cooked meat, bread, onions, and stuff in a brown-paper sack and rolled it up in my jumper and tied it on the back of my saddle, countin’ on this being an all-day ride, and took Beauty for my day’s mount. The pasture that I had heard my heifers were in was probably a thousand acres and kinda rough with a creek runnin’ through the middle of it, which meant that the two heifers could water ’most anywhere and there wasn’t any certain spot that I could wait to trap them.

During all this heifer-catchin’, I had been takin’ the wire loose on these old, sorry fences and tyin’ it to the bottom of the post in one place until I rode over and then let the wire back up and tied them. I always carried a strand or two of baling wire wadded up pretty short and wrapped to the back cinch ring of my saddle.

I was in this pasture by good sunup, hopin’ to have some luck catchin’ one or both of these heifers before
the day got too hot. The creek ran east and west through the pasture and the brush wasn’t too dense. You could ride by a thicket or at least ride around it and see all the way through it, but at this hour of the morning I thought these heifers ought to be out in an open glade or on a ridge grazin’.

In a short while I spotted a small herd of various shades of red-and-yellow-colored cattle grazin’ on a slope with two sure-enough black heifers among them, and I knew from the-size and shape and hair that these were my last two heifers. Knowin’ that this must be a herd of gentle cows and calves, I whistled and sang and made a little noise and came in pretty close range with them, hopin’ to get a quick throw at a black heifer and maybe not disturb the rest of the bunch too much. This was bad thinkin’ because, as soon as I got out of the brush and in good view, the two black heifers left the bunch and started for the brush along the creek.

Since I had roped every heifer I had caught, I didn’t think there was any use hopin’ for better now, so I took down my ropes and fastened one of them to Beauty’s saddle horn almost in a matter of minutes. Each heifer that I roped had offered to fight a little when I got off my horse and went to put the head rope on her that I was goin’ to tie to her foot, and I learned early to maneuver around and let the heifer think she was gettin’ away until I got her to some sizable tree or sapplin’; then I would run around the tree, and when I had one or two wraps around the tree with my rope, I would back my horse up and take the slack out until I had her head pulled up within three or four feet of the tree. This way I could get
off my horse and go to the heifer without her being able to meet me on the way and start a fight, and by havin’ her rope wrapped around that tree, it took a lot of pull off my horse. You can throw at a heifer’s horns or neck or maybe rope a forefoot when she only has three or four feet of rope to play on without much danger. So I got this heifer to wind herself around a fair-sized tree that was standing in the opening, and I took one of the head ropes that I carried tied on the back of my saddle with the same saddle strings that I tied my jumper with.

It didn’t take but a few minutes to get a rope on her head and down to her foot and tie it in a bowline knot with what little slack she had between her and the tree. I had two extra lariat ropes with me and I decided to leave her tied to that tree just in case I wanted to yoke the other one to her and make them drive and handle a little better. I stepped back on my horse and looked around; there wasn’t a cow brute to be seen.

I rode the ridge and the valley across the creek several times the rest of the morning, and about late afternoon, when cattle would normally come out from shadin’ up to graze, I found this same little herd of cattle at the far end of the pasture and the black heifer had rejoined them. This heifer was a little bigger than the average of them, and maybe a little wilder. The wind was against me and the cattle hadn’t smelled me, so I rode in pretty close with my rope ready and easin’ along until the heifer made the first move and started the race.

She was not only a little bigger, she was a little faster too, and we had to take her a long ways before she began to wind enough for Beauty to put me close enough to rope
her. I was never the best roper in the world and in this modern-day times of rodeo’n’ probably wouldn’t have been able to win a dollar, but I was always steady enough to catch enough stock to make a livin’ horseback. I set that rope on my last black heifer. When Beauty stopped we didn’t flip this one into the air. The heifer pulled hard and turned and started back to us, and when we dodged her that time, sure enough, we did throw her hard enough to knock the wind out of her. She got up like she was leavin’, and we gave her slack and followed and drove her back towards the first heifer that I tied that morning.

She wrapped herself around a small sapplin’ a little before I was ready for her to, but I took the hint and went to gettin’ down and slipped my head rope off the saddle to go to her. This sapplin’ was pretty limber and from her pullin’ on it one way and Beauty pullin’ the other, the wrap bent the sapplin’ and the rope slipped off and I guess I had gotten a little careless by now, and this heifer hit me a good hard lick in the ribs and I heard something pop that I was pretty sure wasn’t her skull, but I didn’t take any time out. She turned to come back and fight me, and instead of tryin’ to put a rope on her head, I just looped the rope on her forefoot and jerked it out from under her and, while she was down, tied it up to her head. I got back on my horse and worked her on up to the tree where the other heifer was and without too much trouble got them yoked together.

It was gettin’ real late and I knew that I wouldn’t have daylight enough to get through the fences and back to the school grounds with this pair before dark. Just over the west fence line of this pasture was an oat field in the
creek valley. The oats had been cut and bundled with a binder and shocked in stacks of about ten to twelve bundles to cure in the air and sunlight before the harvest would be finished by thrashin’ the oats. This is all done now with a combine and you never see oat shocks any more. I rode up to a big live-oak tree on the fence line and unsaddled Beauty, crawled through the fence, and pitched her about three big bundles of oats. Of course, Beauty had been fed everything from cream of wheat to chicken feed and she knew how to bite the oat heads off those bundles.

By this time I began to get my breath a little short and the place where I got that lick in my side had begun to sore up and throb a little bit. I took the rest of that shock of oats and laid the bundle under the shade of that big tree in about the shape of a pallet, laid the heads of the bundles to the inside from both sides, which made a soft place up and down the middle, and unfolded my saddle blanket and spread it across the top of my oat-bundle pallet. It was almost dark and I had my heifers tied, my horse fed, and my bed made, and I left ole Beauty untied so she could go to the creek to water; I knew she would come to call next morning. I ate what I had saved from my noonday lunch and stretched out for the night.

I waked up early and, after I did manage to struggle around and stand up, decided I was goin’ to live. I had ribs broken before, so I knew what my ailment was, but I hadn’t quite figured out how many were broken until I picked up my saddle and started to throw it on my horse in the usual manner. This damn near took my breath.