Wild Cow Tales
Page 22
It was late afternoon when this other big yellow steer eased out ahead of the herd to take watch on the ridge and he was surprised when we cut him off from the herd and ran him uphill and paid no attention to the rest of the herd. He was a little faster—maybe I was a little slower—and we ran him a little farther, but this time Okie got a throw at his head and I got his hind feet and we stretched him out quick. I pulled another horsehair and threaded my needle and made a nice little hemstitchin’ job on both of his eyelids. We took the rope off and rode away and left him here. It was almost dusk.
Next morning after good sunup we managed to get in behind this bunch of cattle and cut them off from the brush. This pair of big yellow steers were by far the biggest and walkin’ the nicest behind the herd, which was the only way they had figured they could drift. They could smell and hear the cattle in front of them. The rest of these cattle really weren’t very wild. These old big steers had been leadin’ them astray.
When we got them in the stock pens, which were big and high and stout, with the shipping gates fastened, I put these two big steers in a branding chute, put a rope on their horns, and pulled their heads up tight to a post. With a small pocketknife I cut the horsehair and let their eyes loose and knew that they were glad to see daylight, but I am sure they didn’t exactly appreciate their surroundings.
A NOTE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ben K. Green, whose Horse Tradin’ is already a minor classic at the very least in a rich assemblage of Western Americana, is the kind of a Westerner who almost crawled out of the cradle and into a saddle, spending his childhood, adolescence, and young manhood on horseback. He studied veterinary medicine in the United States and abroad and practiced in the Far Southwest in one of the last big horse counties in North America. When he eventually gave up his practice and research, he returned to Cumby, Texas, where he now lives, raising good horses and cattle.
Soon to be in a Ballantine Books edition
THE VILLAGE
HORSE DOCTOR:
West of the Pecos
Ben K. Green
The author of WILD COW TALES spins many a great yarn as he recalls the years when he was “Doc Green” out of Fort Stockton, Texas, and his patients were some of the best and worst horses in one of the last big “horse countries” of North America.
Look for These
Ballantine Westerns
BITTER TRAIL Elmer Kelton
CAPTAIN’S RANGERS Elmer Kelton
HOT IRON Elmer Kelton
SHADOW OF A STAR Elmer Kelton
BUFFALO Mel Marshall
LONGHORNS NORTH Mel Marshall
LONG-RIDER Mel Marshall
McQUADE Mel Marshall
HANGING AT PULPIT ROCK Lee Leighton
TOMAHAWK Lee Leighton
SHOOT TO KILL Ray Gaulden
A TIME TO RIDE Ray Gaulden
SHOTGUN MARSHAL Wade Everett
THE LONG SEARCH Hunter Ingram
STALLION SOLDIER John L. Shelley
To order by mail, send 95$ per copy plus 25$ per order for handling to Ballantine Cash Sales, P.O. Box 505, Westminster, Maryland 21157. Please allow three weeks for delivery.
MORE
WESTERNS
From Ballantine Books
INDIAN COUNTRY, Dorothy Johnson
LAST STAND FOR A LAWMAN, Joseph L. Chadwick
THE NIGHT OF THE COYOTES, Philip Ketchum
HARSH RECKONING, Philip Ketchum
GAMBLER’S GUN, John Hunter
WYOMING, Philip Ketchum
THE BURNING LAND, John Hunter
FIGHT AT SUN MOUNTAIN, Clark Brooker
CASSIDY, Lee Leighton
SUN DANCE, Fred Grove
THE HANGING TREE, Dorothy Johnson
SMALL SPREAD, Edwin Booth
To order by mail, send 95$ per book plus 25$ per order for handling to Ballantine Cash Sales, P.O. Box 505, Westminster, Maryland 21157. Please allow three weeks for delivery.
“Unusual and beautiful … the first time that the secrets of the spiritual heritage of the Hopi have been divulged.”
—Library Journal
BOOK OF THE HOPI
Frank Waters
Drawings and source materials recorded by
Oswald White Bear Fredericks
Unquestionably the best book ever published about the history, mythology and rituals of the Hopi Indians of the American Southwest. To Frank Waters the thirty-two Hopi elders told for the first time their legends, the meaning of their religious rituals and annual ceremonies, and their deeply rooted view of the world. The result is a beautiful and moving book, an important landmark in anthropology which brings to life again an Indian tribal culture now almost completely destroyed.
To order by mail, send $1.25 per book plus 25¢ per order for handling to Ballantine Cash Sales, P.O. Box 505, Westminster, Maryland 21157. Please allow three weeks for delivery.
“This is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read, inside and out.”
—Robert Kirsch
Los Angeles Times
SEVEN ARROWS
Hyemeyohsts Storm
A unique and moving novel about the ways of the Plains People by a Northern Cheyenne.
Superbly illustrated—over 150 pictures of faces and places, birds and animals of the Plains—and eight-tone color plates of the 13 symbolic shields, designed by Hyemeyohsts Storm and painted by Karen Harris.
$4.95
To order by mail, send $4.95 per copy plus 25¢ per order for handling to Ballantine Cash Sales, P.O. Box 505, Westminster, Maryland 21157. Pease allow three weeks for delivery.