by Ben K. Green
JOE BARWISE IN FORT WORTH WAS ATTORNEY for the Fort Worth and Denver Railroad and a few other major operators in Texas but his clientele was very limited. I was just a wild rough young cowboy, but Judge Barwise and I had had several livestock deals and our dealings had always been pleasant and profitable and I suppose this was the reason that he was callin’ me long-distance. Along about this time you only got a long-distance call when it was a sure-enough must.
Charlie Sharp stepped out of his grocery store on the corner of the square to holler at me that Fort Worth was callin’ me long-distance. I rode up and dropped the reins on my horse (which is tyin’ a horse Texas-fashion) and went into the grocery. This was one of my several loafin’ spots and the local telephone operator knew that it would be one of the places where she might find me. Pretty soon Charlie got the operator and Judge Barwise asked me how soon I could come to Fort Worth. I knew that there would be a Red Ball bus just about noon and he told me to be on it if I wanted to make a good cow deal with him and the railroad.
I went to his office in Fort Worth and he was walkin’ the floor and a-waitin’ for me. There had been a small train accident up close to Bowie on the Fort Worth and Denver Railroad and a carload of forty head of black two-year-old heifers had been crippled or killed or turned loose. The best count that he had from the claim agent was that there was twenty-three alive and runnin’ loose on the vegetable farms, orchards, cornfields, and oat patches somewhere a few miles east of Bowie.
After he had painted the picture and told me his trouble, he asked me what I would give, range delivery, for twenty-three head of two-year-old Black Angus-and-Brahma-crossed heifers. I told him that I needed to use his phone and talk to the stockyards. According to his and the claim agent’s information, Gib Wright had bought and sold the heifers. Gib already knew about the train wreck and he told me that the heifers would bring $26 and a few cents at the rate of five cents a pound. I hung up the phone and told Judge Barwise that it was a two and a half or three days’ ride on horseback from Weatherford to the place where the heifers were supposed to be and they would probably have to be caught one in a bunch, and I painted the story about as bad as I guess it really was and offered him $10 a head.
The Judge gave me a nice gentleman’s argument that would have sounded good before a jury about how little trouble it would be to catch these heifers, and how the railroad couldn’t afford to lose that much money, and how to take the price that I had offered him would be ridiculous.
I said, “Judge, in view of your analysis of the heifer situation, why don’t you just have the section crew catch ’em by hand and lead ’em back to town.”
He bowed up at me and looked over his glasses, cleared his throat, and said, “Ben, that’s ridiculous!”
I answered, “I was just tryin’ to even up the ridiculous score in this conversation.”
I got up about like I was about to leave and he said, “Where have you started for?”
I said, “Well, nowhere in particular, but anywhere that I would be goin’ I’d be doin’ more good than I’d be doin’ here arguin’ with you about a bunch of wild heifers three counties away that you never even saw, and I never even saw, and you suggestin’ that I pay money for them!”
“Well,” he said, “I’m just trying to represent the interest of the railroad, and I didn’t intend to be trying to take advantage of you.” And, as an afterthought, he added, “I don’t think I need to worry about that, so maybe you better pay me for the heifers.”
I said, “I’ll give you a check for fifteen head and then pay you by the head for any more that I gather above that number.”
He said that would be all right because he knew I would finally catch them all.
With this batch of business tended to, I caught a bus later in the afternoon and went back home and rode off next morning with four good horses and a pack to go gather my black heifers out of the orchards and fields of the farmers that were pasturin’ ’em involuntarily.
The third day I found the place on the railroad right of way where the car had turned over and the cattle had gotten away. Of course, the railroad had been repaired in a matter of hours and the only signs were a few dead cattle and some new ties and rails. I found a creek with water in it close to the spot and lots of tall grass up and down the railroad right of way. It was late and I made camp and studied about my heifers till morning.
I rode toward Bowie the next morning and asked along the way about the heifers and everybody had something to tell me. Some of the folks were real nice and hoped I could catch them and told me to ride through their fields and pastures and do whatever I had to to get the heifers off of their land. Of course, there were a few that were hateful and wanted to know who they could sue for the watermelon or whatever else had been damaged and hoped that the railroad price for the stuff might be better than the town price.
I was fast to catch on, and that I had better explain that I wasn’t in any position to be doin’ any settlin’ or payin’ off for the railroad and the most help that I could be would be to get the stock off the land to where they wouldn’t do any more damage. I had gathered all kinds of wild stock and strays and I knew the Texas Stray Law. It had been written in the days of big ranches and was phrased to discourage farmers and nesters from unnecessarily penning livestock for damages.
In my conversation with those people that were a little huffy, I always explain that the one way that they could get some money for their damages was to pen the heifers that were runnin’ on them and have the sheriff or constable advertise them as strays. I knew that the law required that the animals strayed be confined in a pen, fed, watered, and properly cared for for a full twenty days before the sheriff or constable could sell them at auction. Then the man holding the strays could bid his amount of damages and was allowed ten cents per head per day for care for the number of days that he had them penned up. So I encouraged these farmers who were mad to pen all these heifers they could and “stray” them, since the owner, under the law, could claim them and pay the ten cents per head per day as soon as they were posted by law as strayed and didn’t have to wait the full twenty days.
Of course I could have argued with them about the damages and I sure would have been glad to pay the thirty or forty cents per head due for these heifers penned and kept a few days instead of me havin’ to ride after them, but none of these “pumpkin rollers” fell for that story because they knew they couldn’t catch them and, besides, none of them had a pen or corral of any sort that would hold these little jumpin’ crow-lookin’ black heifers.
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 hea
d 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.