Wild Cow Tales (21 page)

This was a real good location for a cowboy’s camp. The knoll was just high enough up to be a little above the mesquite flats and would be in the evening shadows of the caprock and could enjoy a little more shade in the late afternoon because the sun would drop behind the caprock. Range cattle and old cowboys know that the breeze follows the draw and the foothills and the best night breeze would be up out of the draw and along the foot of the caprock, instead of high on the hill or deep in the valley like so many city folks would think about wind.

I had gotten pretty well acquainted with the fence line and how the pasture lay and knew that the windmill was toward the southwest corner and the worst of the thicket was up to the north and northeast. I felt pretty good about the fact that there was only one water-in’ place in the pasture. I really didn’t see why I just couldn’t have waited for these cattle to come in to water and then, mounted on a sure-enough cow horse, headed and herded them until I could work them into that
big corral gate, but this seemed a little too easy.

Next morning I saddled up early while it was still cool and decided to ride into the dense part of that mesquite thicket on the north end of the pasture and hunt for cattle. It didn’t take more than an hour of poppin’ the brush until I rode into these steers in the thickest part of the mesquite thicket, and they, in fact, were just gettin’ up off their bed ground from the night before.

There were six bedded in a fairly close bunch and then there were two settled further up in the thicket away from these first ones. As I rode in, these cattle got up and stretched like any cow brute will do when it gets off the bed ground and, sure enough, they were great big steers strictly of Mexican origin, dark brindle-brown and solid-black colors with long, keen, well-set horns that showed they definitely had some Spanish fighting blood in their veins.

I whistled and hummed and rode through the thicket usin’ both hands to get the limbs out of my eyes and rein my horse as carefully as I could, and I got pretty close before the steers decided to move off away from me, and I thought to myself,
These cattle are nearly gentle
.

I had the idea that I would push these cattle north against the fence line and hold them against the fence and drift them around to the west side about where I had made camp. This would throw them out onto a small prairie glade where I would try my luck at drivin’ them in to water and into the big corral gate.

I rode along pretty quiet and didn’t push these cattle too fast. When they came to the north fence line, of
course, it was in dense, thick mesquite thicket, but I winged them to the west with no trouble and held my horse back away from them as they drove like common range cattle. We got around to the prairie glade that sloped in toward the windmill. My horse had broke into a good sweat and so had I, but it was just because the sun was up and the July day was gettin’ hot. It wasn’t from any extra runnin’ we had done tryin’ to work these steers.

There was a big water storage tank at the windmill that was built out of native rock, and the walls were about a foot thick and over six feet high and it was about ten feet across the tank. On the south side of this tank there was a drinkin’ trough built with a common stock float in it to keep it from overflowing. It was about two feet wide and eighteen inches deep and built in the same circular formation as the storage tank, only it was just the length of the south side of the storage tank. This drinkin’ trough was on the side of the storage tank facing the corral.

These eight steers were so big, horns and all, that they could just barely all get to the water trough at the same time. They stood there and drank and raised their heads and looked around. They were docile as any bunch of common cattle could be. When they had all finished drinkin’, they all walked out to the open, facing me and my horse. I just made a little wavin’ motion with my hand and slapped my leg like any cowboy would do when he wanted cattle to go the other way. When I did this, they raised their heads up, wrung their tails, and spread out fast, and I made a little circle like I was going to herd
them back together, and as I passed each steer, it turned out behind my horse and headed for the thicket. It was the best original play that you ever saw pulled and there ain’t no football team that had the precision work that those eight head of steers had. In less time than it took to stir the dust, I was standin’ between the windmill and big corral gate on horseback and not a steer in sight. They had made it to the brush and was probably holdin’ a little “bull session” for their own entertainment.

Any time a bunch of cattle get back to the thicket on you in the heat of the day, you just as well camp and make coffee ’cause you are not going to get much of a chance at them again that same day until the cool of the afternoon. I watered my horse and I was carrying water to my camp and had left a bucket down there that morning so I dipped my bucket of water and rode back to my camp, unsaddled my horse in the shade of a live-oak tree, and started cookin’ me a batch of something for dinner. I had a batch of grub and took a nap. I didn’t sleep too long because it was awfully hot. I raised up and gazed across the thicket where I thought those steers were shadin’ and could see heat waves risin’ up from the draw. I knew I needed to save myself and my horse so I managed to be contented to stay in camp until late afternoon.

I rode into these cattle and this time they weren’t so gentle. They bawled a time or two and boogered and hit the thicket and you could hear brush poppin’ a mile away. I rode till dark and never saw a steer.

I got out early the next morning and we had that same little morning exercise of goin’ ’round the fence and
into the water. After they had drank and started to make their play, I didn’t try to head them. When the first one came by me, I took after him with a long rope and a big loop. When I set that rope around his horns, we were goin’ about as fast as a steer can run. When my horse, Bob, set his feet in the ground to stop the steer, you could see that steer set his head and shoulders, and instead of hittin’ the end of that rope limber, like any wild cow would do, he had set his head down at an angle that a work steer would set if he were on a hard pull, and when he hit the end of that rope and took the slack out, he popped it into right at the hondo where the rope fitted around his horns and the end of it flew back and stung me across the nose and the cheeks. Bob was taken by such surprise that he ran backward four or five steps before he got himself braced to keep from falling back. I heard the other cattle in the thicket bawlin’ to the steer that I had caught and he answered in a tone of voice that sounded like he was tellin’ ’em everything was all right.

I worked a full week at these cattle without making the slightest impression on them or without breakin’ the even tenor of their ways of comin’ in to water every morning between ten and eleven o’clock. I had set all the common-known snares made out of rope and concealed them with mesquite limbs across the trails in the pasture, which must have been a source of amusement to this bunch of steers since they had very carefully horned each snare so well out into the brush and out of the way of their leisure passage. Then I had begun to wonder what kind of a play it was goin’ to take for me to begin to be a winner.

It was just a little before daylight when I was layin’ on my pallet with this first week’s failures runnin’ through my mind when all of a sudden I had a real bright idea. I slipped out of bed and put on my clothes and saddled my horse that I had left tied to a tree that night and rode to the windmill. These cattle were so rank and on the prod that I didn’t dare walk around in the pasture afoot. Even though I was going just a few hundred yards to the windmill, I had saddled my horse and went horseback.

I took my ax on the saddle with me, rode into the corral, and cut down a small mesquite tree about four inches around, then I cut about three feet off the trunk part of the tree, took me some wire, and ran this chunk of mesquite across the top of the water trough and tied the float up tight and with enough pressure against the mesquite to hold it in place. This way I was shuttin’ off the water in the water trough at the storage tank. I took an old lard bucket and dipped the trough as nearly empty as I could get it, and my plan was that these cattle would would come in to water and stand around and paw and bawl a little while and even a day or so and would have to go into the big corral and drink out of the trough, which would give me a chance to hide and run out and shut the gate on some of ’em. This sure was a foolproof bright idea and I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before.

Sure enough, way up in the morning they followed their usual trail out of the mesquite and across the glade and around the tank to the water trough. I stepped on my horse and went into the brush to work my way down the
slope and around to the east side of the glade and waited for these steers to go into the big corral. I didn’t much think they would the first morning, but, just in case, I wanted to be on hand to try my luck at gettin’ the gate closed on some or all of ’em.

They smelled that dry trough and looked around the big storage tank. They hooked and played at one another a little since they weren’t too dry, and I thought to myself that the next day they would want water enough to go into that corral, so maybe I had better not crowd them. After all, every time I crowded these steers they had either challenged me for a bullfight or else they had scattered and gone to the brush, and this wild cow hunt was just the reverse from most of them in that the damn cattle had got me afraid of them instead of makin’ them afraid of me. They must have killed an hour or two before they drifted back into the mesquite to shade up before the heat of the day. I thought I ought to be as smart as a steer, so I shaded up too.

Since these cattle hadn’t had a drink at their usual time, they made it back late that afternoon and I stood around horseback in the brush, but they never did go into the big corral. Along about night they drifted back out into the mesquite and I could tell that this little waitin’ game we were playing was goin’ to get monotonous for me. However, for the lack of a better plan and figurin’ that the drier they got the easier they would be to put through that gate, I went back to camp and went to sleep feeling rather smart that up to now I was gettin’ ahead of them.

I waited all the next morning and no cattle came in to water and this got me bothered because I knew unless they broke out of the pasture there was no other way for them to get water. I thought I had better ride out and see what had happened to them. So I saddled up in the middle of the afternoon after I had eaten my dinner, and on my way out I rode by the corral. Those eight steers had made a plain trail in the dry dust goin’ through the gate into the big corral and had watered in the night and were feelin’ no pain. I began to wonder when I would ever have more sense than a steer, so I got down and fastened that big swinging gate with the chain that was on it and then took some balin’ wire and then wrapped around and tied it some more to be sure that these cattle didn’t get in there that night.

I heard them walkin’ and bawlin’ in the night and rattlin’ the gate with their horns, but when I got out there in the early morn, there was no sign of any steers. The weather being as hot as it was, I knew these cattle would have to water at least once a day and I felt like they would come in the next night and I would have the gate open and by some means I would figure out how to shut it fast after they went in.

I loafed around camp that day. A little after dark I still didn’t dare go afoot, so I rode down to the corral and put my saddle horse in one of the small corrals with my saddle on, then I opened the gate and took a long rope and tied it to the gate and ran it along the ground back to the small corral. I figured that the partition fences were plenty good protection against these bad cattle, and I would have to get on my horse to do whatever I thought I
was going to do to them after I shut the gate. I ran the rope through the fence to the same small corral where I had my horse. I laid down close against this pole fence, as much out of sight as I could possibly be, and waited for the big steers.

I dozed a little now and then and about midnight a noise woke me and I knew I about had my cattle caught. They milled around the trough where I had the water cut off and bawled and hooked one another and finally the big chocolate-colored steer came down and stuck his head through the gate and stood there. The one steer that usually ran with him came down and stood behind him and things were awfully quiet and still. I said to myself, “I’m goin’ to get some of ’em if not all of ’em.”

They smelled the ground and looked up and down the fence, and even though they hadn’t found me, they were bound to have scented me and knew I was there. The other cattle moved down a little closer behind these first two, and some way or another in hooking at one another one of them stepped over the rope that was running on the ground across the gate; the feel of that rope was something strange, and when he boogered he stampeded the whole bunch and they went back to the thicket without water. That ruined the night’s work.

I still thought this was a pretty good plan, so the next day I dug a little ditch and buried my rope and smoothed the dirt back over it with a limb to where it would look natural and took my stand that night, feelin’ like maybe I was goin’ to get some thirsty cattle to go into that big corral for water.

It was a hot, almost-still night with just a few top
leaves flutterin’ in a breeze that was high above the ground. There was only part of a moon at this particular time, and my vision was not too good in the dark. Cattle can see a little way in the dark and their smell is extremely sensitive. About midnight or a little after, I heard the steers come in to water.

Many times wild cattle make less to no noise walking on a well-beaten-out trail; but because they are cloven-hoofed their toes will rattle as they pick up their feet. When you have trapped for wild cattle, you learn to listen and know what this sound means.