Wild Cow Tales

by Ben K. Green

  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 dow
n 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.

  The night the steers boogered they didn’t see me and I didn’t think that they had quite figured out where I was, so I didn’t move my hidin’ place where I intended to lay until the cattle came through the gate and I could pull my rope to pull the gate closed. They first came to the dry water trough at the storage tank and stood around there bawlin’. Of course, they could smell the water in the water trough in the corral and they would walk back and forth between the corral fence and the storage tank, but it seemed that none of them were interested in takin’ any chance on walkin’ down the fence a few steps to try that open gate that would be an easy way in to water. I watched through a crack in the pole fence. It seemed to me like for half the night, but I am sure it wasn’t for more than an hour or so. Every now and then a steer would lick or smell the bottom of that dry water trough and accidentally hit that tin float with a horn but this noise must have been familiar to them and it didn’t cause any disturbance, but pretty soon I heard a worse noise and knew that it wasn’t caused by just hittin’ the tin float. Some big steer had hung both horns under the mesquite limb that I had tied the float up to with baling wire. This was a smart bunch of cattle about not being caught, but I didn’t think that steer was smart enough to know what he was doing. I think that catchin’ both horns was an accident, and it was causin’ a certain amount of fright. When this big steer thought his horns were hung on something, he made a powerful lunge with his head and broke the baling wire and threw the mesquite limb over his back, and I heard the check valve in the float spewin’ clear fresh water for a bunch of thirsty steers.

  I raised up and saw them all scramblin’ tryin’ to drink at the same time and I thought that this might be my chance. I opened the gate and stepped on my horse and rode out into the opening and started hollerin’ and hazin’ these cattle, thinkin’ I might crowd some of them into the big corral while they were still wantin’ to turn back to that fresh water that they had only gotten a sip of. I was ridin’ a big stout chestnut horse called Bob that had lots of cow savvy and was fast on his feet. When I rode into the cattle and squalled at them, it seemed to kill their thirst. Instead of showin’ any interest in the water, they began to try to get away.

  A horse has a reflector built into his eye that enables him to see better at night than cattle or men, and Bob was sure doing his part at trying to head them and hold them against that corral fence in an effort to push them in through the gate. In the flash of a second one of the big older steers came out of the black wad of cattle and charged me and Bob. Bob first set in to hold him and then saw that he was to be gored if he did and dodged as fast as he could and one horn opened the skin on the left shoulder on the point back to the cinch and ripped my britches leg open as he went by headin’ for the thicket. The other cattle had taken the signal and were already out of sight. These old wild steers valued freedom more than water and just a short dry spell of two or three days hadn’t caused them to think in terms of domesticity.

  The next day I got up with the intentions of havin’ me at least one steer roped, tied, run to death, or in a corral before night. After all, this was eleven days in a pasture without catchin’ a single cow brute and if it was to get out it would damage my reputation as a wild cow hunter.

  I started early and I boogered these steers in the brush, and I thought I would play it different. I turned them away from the water, rode and hazed and hollered and pushed them all morning. I didn’t stop for dinner but about two thirty or three o’clock in the afternoon these cattle had scattered so bad that they had laid down and hid themselves in dense thicket and tall grass to where I couldn’t even see a steer to holler at much less rope.

  I was ridin’ a tired horse from the south fence lines toward the corral and the windmill. We had both been wringin’ wet with sweat several times, and the combination of dirt and salt caused from sweatin’ had dried all over the back and arms of my shirt and in the hot sun it had begun to itch. I rode up to the water trough at the storage tank and as my horse drank and I drank a little from the trough, I just raised up and pulled off my shirt and was going to rinse the sweat and dirt out of it and put it back on wet. A shirt sure is cool in the heat of summer after you have rinsed it in a water trough.

  This big storage tank made a little shade at this time of day on the north side of it. My horse snorted and took a few quick steps back away from the water trough on one side of me and I looked on the other side and there was this big chocolate-colored steer there. He had been shaded up on the other side of the water tank when I rode up and that was where he had gone when the bunch scattered.

  He snuffed his nose and charged me fast and my only hope was to reach the windmill tower. As I turned to jump about two steps and get hold of the wooden cross braces on the windmill tower, he caught my left leg with one horn just along the shin and almost gave me what amounted to a foot lift as I grabbed the cross brace of the windmill tower and pulled myself barely out of his reach. He bawled and shook his head and jumped in an effort to reach me. Well, I had one boot heel hung over a cross-piece and clingin’ with one hand and arm to the other crosspiece and fightin’ at that steer with my shirt with the other hand. If a steer was about to get you cornered, it wouldn’t make any difference what you had in your hand, even if it wasn’t anything but a feather, you’d wave it at him.

  Of course, I was squallin’ at him at the top of my voice, but it didn’t seem to put much fear in him. This everyday shirt was heavy cotton and drippin’ wet. About the second or third lick I made at him, one wet sleeve wrapped around his horn, and I guess he thought that he had a piece of me because he made a kind of low, laughin’-like bawl and tossed his head so violently that he jerked the whole shirt out of my hand and the lashlike motion wrapped the other sleeve around the other horn. All of a sudden he stood still and I realized that steer looked better in a shirt than anybody that I had ever seen wearin’ one because he was blindfolded completely and that wet shirt was stickin’ close to his head.

  I got a heap braver and the tone of my voice was a heap stronger, and when I bellered back at him he took a few steps backward. I eased to the ground as quiet as I could and went about one fourth of the way to the corral gate afoot. I whistled and hollered in not too unfriendly a tone and he turned and faced my direction but didn’t make any move towards comin’ at me. I took a little more chance and came a little closer and took some small rocks and hit him on the end of his nose, and when I did this he charged in my direction.

  About that time a summer whirlwind passed me goin’ toward him and I don’t know what whirlwinds know about handlin’ cattle but that steer came on full drive. I ran through the corral gate with him and closed it behind me and turned and slammed the gate and fastened it. The other steer had run off about one half mile and turned and watched the show and he
bawled a time or two, just a lowlike call, and my blindfolded friend as yet hadn’t offered to answer him.

  By this time there was enough blood runnin’ from the gash that the steer had made in the calf of my leg that it was sloshin’ in my boot when I walked. My horse durin’ all of this had gone over by the corral fence and was standin’ easy, and I had no reason to try to catch him because he wouldn’t leave me now.

  There were some rocks built into the side of the storage tank that stuck out enough for a foothold, so that a man could climb up the side of the rock wall to see about the water in the big tank. And so I climbed up this rock, set up on the edge of the tank, and pulled my boot off my left foot. The windmill was runnin’ just a little and there was a small stream of water runnin’ out of the pipe into the tank, which was about the only clean water, so I sat there on the edge of the tank and let the cold well water run over the gash in my leg until it began to get cold enough to quit bleedin’ and while I sat up there without my shirt on, I got a mild sunburn to add to my discomfort.