by Ben K. Green
He choked and swallered and scraped his feet on the marble floor, run his hands through what hair he had left and tried to moisten his lips, and in a whipped kind of voice said, “I won’t take it.”
I smiled and got up and said, “I’m sure glad of that. Good-bye.”
He raised up and said, “Don’t you ‘good-bye’ me. Set down in that chair while I make out the note. At least I’ll make a little interest out of the deal.”
I loafed up and down the street a few minutes and walked in the country café where the usual gathering of cowboys, ole cowmen, and ranchers and the workin’ people of the town were gathered for coffee. The grapevine had worked pretty fast. Because I didn’t have my Coke half drank when an old-time rancher cleared his voice behind me and said, “Ben, I hear you bought the Drippin’ Springs Canyon cattle, range delivery.” Some of ’em swallered their hot coffee, others spewed it out, but they all turned and looked at me and you could tell what they’as all thinkin’: How damn crazy can you get?
People don’t understand about cowboys. In the fall when the shippin’s all over and before the winter work starts, when young cowboys come to town they go to the pool hall. The middle-aged cowboys take it a little less strenuous and sit down and play dominoes. The sure ’nuff ole-timers that took the range away from the wilds and built the fences and established the ranch headquarters and built the schools and communities, they set mostly in silence and do the listenin’ and the thinkin’ that’s carried on at coffeetime.
The young cowboys whistled and laughed and asked how many horses I’d cripple and who did I think would have little ’nuff sense to ride in that canyon to gather wild cattle besides me. The middle-aged kind of domino-playin’ cowboys … one of them spoke up and said, “Did you pay cash or did you give a note for ’em?” I told ’em I give a note for ’em. Ever’body laughed again and said anybody that didn’t have no more sense than to give a note for range-delivery cattle could pay for all the drinks.
After a few minutes of silence, ole man Alph said, “Ben, ya got any plans about how you gonna trap them cows?”
I’d been a-studyin’ about it, and I told him that when we got all these loose-tongued, twentieth-century manicured cowboys out of the gatherin’, I’d take it up with the old heads. It was five or six of these ole-timers and they all kinda laughed and nodded their heads at me like they was kinda for me. The gal came around and warmed up the coffee a time or two, and the gatherin’ finally broke up in one’s and two’s, and left me settin’ there with the mornin’ tab. This didn’t shock me none. I paid off and went on back to my horse and rode off toward Drippin’ Springs Canyon.
Before hard winter set in I made a few wild runs at these ole cows, caught six head by ropin’ ’em, then I’d get ’em wrapped around a tree so they couldn’t fight my horse, go home and bring a lead steer in and yoke ’em to this lead steer with a big, soft rope and drive ’em one at a time to my home ranch, which was about ten miles. It was a full day’s work to catch one cow, get her out of the canyon and to my ranch. This kind of cow-gatherin’ was hard on horses and riggin’. Each time I caught a cow I was in for a day’s fight.
One pretty Sunday afternoon I propositioned the high-school-size cowboys to help me, with the intention of cuttin’ the calves away from the cows and runnin’ ’em down the middle of the canyon and out the gate. There was fifteen of these aspirin’ young Saturday-night cowboys and we managed to get seven calves and the three colts off of the ole mares out of the pasture and to my home ranch the same day.
That left me fourteen cows and two yearlings in the pasture, and I didn’t bother them any for the rest of the winter. There was lotsa grass in the canyon and I didn’t especially need that bunch of ole fightin’ cows at my ranch to feed through the winter.
I heard a lot of smart talk around the fire all that winter about my cow trade. This wasn’t a new experience to me, which never did bring me to tears nor cause me to worry about that note that wasn’t due till the first of April. The last of the February grass was green enough and it looked like we were gonna have a good spring, and I knew I’d better catch those ole cows before they got on the mend.
Ole Man Alph had a pasture that joined the canyon pasture on the back side high up on the prairie. I went to him and asked him if I could cut a gate where his fence line cornered with the canyon pasture, which was way out on the bald prairie. I told him that I wanted to build about two good corrals just inside his pasture. We were settin’ on the south side of the drugstore enjoyin’ the afternoon winter sunshine and no one else was listenin’ to our conversation. He said, “Ben, I’ll do better’n that. I’ve needed some workin’ pens in the back side of that pasture a long time, just about where you’re talkin’ about, and I’ll build ’em and have ’em ready for your use in about two weeks.”
The ole man was bein’ so good about it all that I nearly choked down. I told him that I’d come over and help with diggin’ the postholes and puttin’ up the fence. He told me that I needn’t worry about that, that he had plenty of hands that was about through with their winter feedin’ and that he’d see that the matter was tended to.
I was in the canyon in a few days and rode up on top of the ridge and sure enough the corrals were nearly finished and the gates were already cut in the pasture fence.
I had a pen full of young bulls at my ranch that I had fed all winter and had ’em in good shape to turn out in the spring when my cows began to calve. These young bulls had begin to fight and walk the fence and bawl. I took four young bulls out in the road and grazed them and drove them very slowly, went around the edge of town with them, and over to Ole Man Alph’s pasture. I got ’em in the pens just at dark. They were a little jaded and laid down and spent the night without any commotion.
Next morning Alph loaned me a wagon and team and some barrels to haul water and feed and let one of his hands go help me. We spent most of the morning haulin’ alfalfa hay and fresh windmill water and gettin’ these bulls comfortable in one pen for several days’ stay. I wired these new gates shut and tied extra poles across ’em to be sure that these young bulls couldn’t git out, and then I opened the adjoining pen that led out into the Drippin’ Springs pasture. I threw two or three bales of alfalfa hay into that pen, too.
Well, like I said, the grass was gettin’ green, the bulls had begin to fight, and the cows had begin to bawl, and I was countin’ on that bunch of young bulls romancin’ them ole cows out of that canyon into that pen.
’Bout the second day after this long drive these bulls had been on, they began to fight and bawl and paw the ground and pitch that alfalfa hay around on their horns.
The first of these ole wild cows came up out of the rim of the canyon and grazed around on the rim of the canyon and mooed a few times and these bulls romanced ’em into comin’ up to the corral where they smelled that alfalfa hay.
I was sittin’ way back around on the rim of the canyon to the south side where the wind was against me and the cows couldn’t hear nor smell me or my horse. There were five cows in sight; in about an hour’s time they worked their way into the corral. They would smell through the fence and rub noses with the bulls between bites of that alfalfa hay. I rode my horse in a slow walk around the rim of the canyon until I got even with the gate. Then I broke him into a dead run, swung the gate closed on five head of wild cows!
Late that afternoon I rode into town and went to Alph’s house and told him what I had done. He said, “I’ll have the boys bring some gentle cattle to the corrals in the morning and we’ll drive those wild cows with ’em to my ranch headquarters, where we can keep ’em until you catch the rest of ’em, and that way you and bulls can open the trap gate again.”
In less than a week I had trapped all these cows and Alph had ’em all in the corral at his ranch. We’d kinda kept this business a secret between us.
On Saturday mornin’ he and I met at the coffee ground, and he informed all the natives that the wild cows were no longer in Drippin’ Spr
ings pasture, but there was two fat yearlings left in the pasture and all the would-be cowboys in the community were invited to be out after dinner that day to help catch and butcher these two yearlings so that on Sunday we could have a big barbecue and reopen Drippin’ Springs Canyon for the summer social activities.
This all worked out just like he and I had planned, and the whole community turned out on a beautiful spring Sunday afternoon for a big barbecue. The ladies brought bread and potato salad ’n’ stuff, and Ole Spendthrift made a big crock of lemonade with about a small sackful of lemons, but he stirred it and served it and that brought the acid content up to where it was enjoyed by all. And Miss Effie broke over far enough to invite me to the spring recital.
Miss Effie, no doubt about it, exerted a bad influence on the community … Just, for instance, there were more people at that barbecue that were paying more attention to the way they held their little finger than to the meat they were sticking the fork in. I was afraid she was about to start “culturizing” cowboys so I rolled the barbecue over to one side of my mouth and said, “Shore I’ll come … what you goin’ to serve?”
INCIDENTS OF
TOWN COWBOYIN’
THE MACHINE AGE HAS REACHED A high state of development and the Atomic Age was mentioned for a few years and now this era of human existence is referred to as the Space Age In view of the changes in transportation methods brought on by these various developments and by paved streets and fine residential districts, one-way traffic and all the other unnatural means of movement other than walking, cattle are no longer driven in herds through cities or even through small-size towns because of traffic problems. With the almost deathlike danger of running horses on pavement, and most all cattle, horses and other kinds of livestock being transported to the railroads, central markets, between ranches, feed lots, and other locations by trucks, it seems fitting that some historical record should be made concerning the incidents both humorous and dangerous that occurred during the period when cattle were driven by cowboys horseback through towns and cities of any and all sizes. The real reason that this phase of cowboyin’ was necessary was because shipping stock pens at railroad points were built close to the town depot, which by necessity or custom was usually near the business district. The more that business districts developed and the more that the residential part of town grew, the worse located the old original shipping stock pens were insofar as getting cattle from the country through town to the stockyards, and the harder it was, when the cattle were shipped in by rail, to drive them from the stock pens through town out to the country.
FAT CATTLE
AND THE MORNING PAPER
One summer morning early, Roy Young, who was foreman of the Lanius Ranch south of Weatherford, and his cowboys had turned out some good fat Hereford two-year-olds that had been fattened in the feed lot at the ranch. They, of course, were frisky and full of steam and Roy started them to town as early as a rider could distinguish the form of a cow brute, hopin’ to take advantage of the coolness of the early morning hours.
There were four carloads of these cattle, which would be in rough figures about a hundred and twenty head. Roy had made the trip to town without too much trouble.
In handling fat young cattle, a rider has to ride point, which means in front of the cattle, and hold them back to keep them from traveling too fast. Then two riders ride wing behind the point and on each side of the herd. Usually there are two more riders bringing up the end of the herd and taking time apart riding back point of the herd when it’s necessary to move up to keep cattle from turning down crossroads, lanes, and so forth.
All cowboys and ranchers movin’ cattle were glad to get extra help to meet the herd at the edge of town to help them through town to the stock pens at the railroad tracks. For a good many of my growin’-up years, I met several herds of cattle a week during shippin’ time the days and nights that I happened to be in town. Of course, we cowboys learned and dreaded concrete sidewalks, clotheslines, bicycles, open doors to storm houses and cellars, unprotected water hydrants stickin’ up in the yard, and one hundred and one other things too numerous to mention, such as tricycles, little red wagons, squealin’ kids, high-tone screamin’ old women and damned old grouchy men that lived along the streets where it was necessary to move herds of cattle back and forth to the railroad.
That day me and some more boys met Roy’s cattle about early mid-morning at the south edge of town and eased up South Main Street, which at that time was wide and unpaved. When we came to Weatherford College, we turned the cattle east a block and then north onto the street that would run into the railroad tracks close to the stock pens.
Nothing eventful happened until we were over on this street and hardly a mile from the stock pens. Then old Judge Irving, who was settin’ on the porch readin’ the morning paper, saw the cattle comin’ up the street. For fear that there might be a cow track put on his lawn, he walked up to the edge of the porch and shook that morning newspaper unfurled and hollered “Houey” a couple of times.
Roy turned in his saddle and saw the stampede started and he knew that the run was on and that we would have cattle scattered for the rest of the day. But before he left Judge Irving’s, he rode over in the yard horseback, jerked the paper out of Judge Irving’s hand, folded it and handed it back to him and said, “Judge, these cattle don’t want to read the damn paper, they want to go to the stock pens, so take it in the house with you and stay there.”
HEIFERS YEARNIN’FOR HIGHER LEARNIN’
One morning we had turned out three hundred and twenty long yearling Angus heifers and started out of town with them to what was known as the Black Ranch. We were about even with the college campus in that narrow street and were ready to turn and get onto South Main Street, which was much wider and easier to work up and down the side of a herd of cattle to keep them out of the yards and from goin’ down cross streets.
As we swung the leaders on the point and were about halfway around the corner with the herd, some college girls came runnin’ out of the dormitory squealin’ and hollerin’ and takin’ on about the cattle and they sounded like a cross between a glee club and a pep rally. All this sudden commotion and high female voices had a nerve-rackin’ effect on this bunch of black heifers that had been shipped four or five days and were thirsty, hungry, and nervous and unused to such commotion, and so the stampede was on. I’m sure the college girls thought it was most colorful.
It looked like a big bunch of these big black heifers were about to ’tend class when I cut them off and only two topped the college steps and started through the hall. I jerked my feet out of the stirrups and sat deep in my saddle, in case ole Beauty might fall on that slick oiled floor, and went through the college hallway.
There was a one-armed, narrow-eyed preacher that was a teacher in the college and he had some other things about him that was empty besides that sleeve on his shirt. As me and Beauty made the intersection of the two hallways and turned this heifer toward an open door on the other end of the hallway, this preacher waved that empty sleeve at me and screamed in a high, sanctimonious tone of voice that I didn’t have to ride that horse in there. I hollered back at him as we went back into the sunlight that the reason I did it was that I was afraid that the heifer might get in the wrong class.
CLOTHESLINES,
COWBOYS, AND PETTICOATS
One morning Jack Hart, who was a good cowman and village banker and had a feed lot two or three miles north of town, turned out a bunch of steers at the stock pens to go to the feed lot. There were several good cowhands helpin’ on this quick, short drive and the north side of Weatherford wasn’t as hard to get through with a herd as the south side was. However, this bunch of big steers decided to make a pretty wild run.
They weren’t gettin’ away. We were managin’ to hold ’em up the road we wanted them on, but ever’body was jumpin’ sidewalks and curbs—which was dangerous horseback and runnin’ through yards—and one cowboy made a wild dash around through
the back yard. He dodged a loaded clothesline almost, but his horse had broke into and begun to buck because, when he raised his head up comin’ out from under the clothesline, he had fitted himself with a beautiful lacy, frilled petticoat right around his neck, and I guess this old pony didn’t like petticoats. He bucked into that herd of steers and we had the damnest runaway that a bunch of cowboys ever had.
This cowboy was sorta known as a ladies’ man, and after he had shed his petticoat and we had got the herd sort of herded back together about even with the oil mill, Jack rode by him and said, “I never thought that you would get trapped by an empty petticoat.”
COTTON HEAD IN THE SANDBOX
We were movin’ three hundred head of big steers through Denton one time and I was ridin’ point. These cattle were travelin’ in kind of a long, sweepin’ trot. They weren’t exactly wild, but they were a little excited and travelin’ pretty fast and I saw that they were goin’ to turn on a side street where we didn’t want them to go. It was on a corner and I took a short cut around through the back yard of a home to head them off.
This back yard had a big rosebush hedge around it about four feet tall. I was ridin’ a good fast horse and he came to that hedge and rose and jumped it and then I saw that near where we were landin’ on the other side there was a cute little bitty cotton-headed kid playin’ in a sandbox.
The sandbox was built up a foot or so and made it easy for me to bend down and take a hold of him. I knew some cattle or more cowboys might have to come that way, and just as my horse’s forefeet hit the ground real close to this little fellow, I reached down and picked him up by one arm. A young woman screamed and came runnin’ out the back door.