by Ben K. Green
The road got progressively worse for the full ninety miles. We turned several times off of well-traveled roads onto lesser-traveled ones, but none of this was any shock to me since I was used to the road conditions of the country. I was driving a high-wheeled car and had two extra spare tires and an extra tank of gas under the back seat.
We pulled around a high bluff and down in the valley below I saw a typical Mexican sheep camp. There were about twenty acres, I guess, under the south foot of the bluff that had been fenced by hand by laying native stone without any form of cement. This rock fence was tall enough for sheep but would not have held cattle or horses. There was a camp at the foot of the bluff from under which a fair-size spring ran out. A stone wall had been laid around it to protect the spring from the sheep, and the water that ran away from the spring and under the wall down into the draw was left unfenced for the sheep to water. This little camp around the spring was almost a luxury spot to a sheepherder. It had shade from the summer heat, protection from the winter winds, a fair supply of snarly oak trees along the ridge for wood, and an abundance of good cold water.
There were five bands of sheep with fifteen to seventeen hundred in each band. They were taken into the mountains to graze and were not always brought back at night, depending on the distance and the availability of natural water over the rest of the range, which I gathered from conversation was about three hundred thousand acres in American figures.
Since there were so many malos (sick sheep), they were all being herded in the nearby hills so that they could be brought to this headquarters corral. Each herder had two dogs, a pack burro, and a riding burro; however, most of their herding was done afoot and the burros were used mostly when they moved camp around over the range. There were about eight thousand sheep in all; more than one third of them showed varying degrees of sickness, and some symptoms were visible on the rest of the sheep.
This was typical of a call to a sheep ranch in Mexico. It had to be of a serious nature and border on what was generally termed a die-out before the Mexican ranchers felt they could stand the expense of a veterinary doctor, since there were very few in that region. I was well acquainted with what to expect and always carried a large supply of any drugs and vaccines that might be needed since it would be such a great distance back to where drugs would be available.
These sheep had a combination of garvencia poisoning generally called rattle weed, and a large percentage of those sick showed some signs of having been on lechuguilla.
We ate a noon meal of mutton, frijoles, and tortillas, and the herders washed it down with coffee strong enough to kill while I went to the spring for water two or three times to put out the pepper fire in my belly that helped burn up the grease and frijoles. One reason a white man ought to learn to eat hot pepper is that’s what makes those Mexicans able to digest a batch of that stuff that give Gringos indigestion.
There were several hundred sick sheep and a good many dead ones that they were pulling the wool off of near the spring, and to satisfy myself as to my diagnosis, I cut open a few of the sheep that had just died. While we were doing this, the bands of sheep were being brought in from the hills by the herders and their dogs into the rock trap or corral. All the herders were anxious to help doctor the sheep, and they brought them in in small bands into a corner of the fence with the help of the dogs. The dogs would hold the sheep in the corner while the herders would pull the sick ones out by the hind leg. Then they would hold them by the hind leg for me to give hypodermic injections, and I would drench them by the mouth at the same time. Most of these sheep would be saved and this day’s work wasn’t unusual.
I was hoping I could treat them all at one time and leave enough medicine so that the herders could continue to treat them after I was gone. It took a great deal of time and patience to show the herders how to drench these sheep and where in the hindquarter to “shoot” them that would get the best results with the least effort, and I was hoping that I might get away from there by late afternoon, in time to cross the river early in the night, which meant that I might get back to my office around midnight.
We had treated all but two hundred head when seven horsemen appeared on the high bluff to the south and west of us about a mile away. The herders noticed them before I did and began to carry on a rather strained conversation in low tones among themselves and they couldn’t help but show that there was some anxiety among them.
I didn’t speak much Mexican, but I savvied a lot more than I could speak and picked the word banditos out of their conversation. The old ranchero who had brought me out and who owned the sheep had paid very little attention to the conversation or to the riders. When we were finished, I said to him, “What do those damn bandits want? Mutton to eat?”
“Doc-tor, they plan, I think, to rob you if you leave here tonight.”
“What if I don’t leave? You and your herders don’t have any guns.”
“That is sad, but true, but they would be afraid to enter my camp because General Grearea is my kinsman, and this is known to the Capitán Bandito, but after you leave here, it will be hard for me to guarantee you any protection. For this I am sorry.”
I asked in a suspicious tone of voice, “How did they know I was here?”
The old ranchero studied a few minutes and then said, “The officer at the border is a cousin to the Capitán Bandito, and the little boy that rode with us is a cousin to both of them. I am afraid there may be some connection.”
I told him I believed I would spend the night and that I knew how we could protect my car and its contents. He didn’t know it, but I intended to be some of the contents.
He asked, “How is this, Doc-tor?”
I explained to him that these sick sheep were listless and tired, and it would not be possible to excite them into running by gunfire or riding into them horseback and that we would drive my car out from the spring a piece, and for the herders to bring the sickest of the sheep and bed them down around the car. Then bring the rest of the sheep and bed them down beyond the sick ones. He knew as well as I that neither a horse nor a bandito afoot could wade through that mass of woolly creatures with enough speed to slip up on any of us. The old ranchero seemed to think that this would be all right, and gave instructions in Mexican, and the herders and dogs began to bring the sheep up after I had moved my car.
We ate supper about sundown and were sittin’ around the spring a little while before we went to bed. One of the old herders had a very chronic old running sore on his leg just above his knee, and he pulled his britches leg up and showed me the sore by the firelight and wanted some medicina to put on it. I told the old ranchero to explain to him that I really needed to scrape out some of those old dead tissues and cause blood to come into the sore in order that the medicino would enter the blood and the tissues to make it get well. Whether the old herder understood this or not, I don’t know but he nodded his consent.
I used cocaine to deaden the pain and cleaned out the old wound, which was probably caused by a mesquite thorn or bruise and had been there several years without healing. I packed it with sulfanilamide powder and put a bandage around his leg and told him to wear it a few days until the sore quit running and scabbed over.
The herders watched very intently and made much comment that I used strong medicine because they could tell from the old herder’s expression that there was no pain. One of the young herders spoke up and wanted to show me a tooth, and the old ranchero explained for him that he had been eating on one side of his mouth because this tooth was very sore. When I examined it, I saw the only thing that would help would be to pull it. He asked if he could have some strong medicine before I pulled it. I shot it down with cocaine and got a pair of small horse forceps and the other herders pulled back on his shoulders while I pulled up on the tooth. When it came out, he said in Mexican that it felt much better already. This would be the most medical attention that these Mexican sheepherders ever got and made them to think of me as their friend.
The riders had
been gone from sight long enough that we decided we had better make our plans for the night, and I very slowly picked my way through about three hundred yards of sick sheep to my car. Just at dark I heard some commotion back up at the spring among the herders. It developed that one of the banditos had been sent in to tell the ranchero that they wanted my spare tires from the car and all the American dollars I brought with me and that I could go tonight or tomorrow without any fear.
The old ranchero waded through the sheep with this messenger, who was maybe nineteen years old, slick-faced, wearing two big pistolas, big spoke rowel spurs, a ragged white cotton shirt and ragged, what were once white, cotton britches. He was not a big Mexican and didn’t have a tough face or voice.
The rancher spoke English and told me what the proposition from the banditos amounted to, and I asked, “What makes them think I’ve got any fear now?”
Since the bandito was only the messenger and neither spoke nor understood English, I was at a great advantage. I told the ranchero, while I searched around for my money and got my keys to unlock the turtle of my car to get the spare tires for him, to call two herders to come help carry the spare tires through the sheep. He hollered at his herders in Mexican and explained why I wanted them, and even in the dark you could see this young bandito was well pleased and had begun to get real brave.
By the time the herders were about fifty feet away, I had filled a 50-cc. syringe with calcium gluconate and had put a two-inch 16-gauge needle on the hub of the syringe during the time I was pretending to get the spare tire out of the back of the car. At the right moment I told the ranchero for him and the herders to surprise the bandito and overpower him, and then I would give him a shot of real stout medicine.
Mr. Bandito had become so relaxed and so sure of himself that it was easy for the herders to sneak up behind him, throw him to the ground, and tie his hands behind his back while the ranchero jerked his pistols away from their scabbards. Of course, the calcium gluconate wouldn’t hurt a sheep or a Mexican either, but that two-inch 16-gauge needle and the mass of calcium gluconate being forced into the muscle structure was painful when I jabbed him in the thigh with it.
While I was doing this, I told the ranchero to tell him that this would give him the disease of the sheep, and he would give it to the rest of the banditos when we turned him loose, and in a little while we would be rid of them all. When I jabbed him with that big needle, he howled at the top of his voice, and as he got up and stumbled back through the sheep when we turned him loose, he was hollerin’ to the other banditos to bring him his horse.
We had a big laugh, sat around awhile in the dark, and all of us pretended to go to bed. It’s not often that sick, fevered, vomiting sheep smell good, but that bunch smelled real good around my car till morning.
Most of the sheep were lots better the next morning, and I left plenty of medicine for them to be treated as long as they needed it. The ranchero thought he would help keep the banditos off by going back with me. He got out at the bar, and I drove on down to the port of entry at the bridge.
When one of the Mexican officers at the port of entry looked into the back of my car, he showed considerable shock that I still had both spare tires, had a pocketful of money to pay my fee, and was still wearing my gold watch. This couldn’t have bothered him any more than it did me, wondering how the grapevine worked from the Mexican boy to the banditos.
There was a little slack in my practice, which was usual in the late summer, and I was trying to shape up my own horse business. I had a good many mares and colts scattered around, pasturing them with different ranchers, and I had made a deal with Con and Concho Cunningham for some more mares.
These mares, with the exception of one, were all smooth-mouthed and up to eighteen years old. The filly colts were left on the mares in the deal and were great big colts, ready to be cut off. We had these mares in the railroad stockpens in Fort Stockton and were roping the colts and dragging them out of the pen when Gid Reding rode up.
Gid was an old-time cowboy who had gained fame, if not notoriety, for having some sort of a peculiar kinship with animals. He broke the worst of outlaw horses to ride, and they never bucked with him. Nobody’s guard dog would bite him; instead they would wag their tail and come up and meet him, and they would carry on some type of conversation. Horses had no fear of Gid, and he could walk into a band of wild mares and rub around over them and pull their tails and get on one if he wanted to. Gid always swore that he never knew what it was about him that caused him to get along with animals, and I guess he was telling the truth because I never knew what it was about me and other people that caused us to put up with him.
He came into the corral and bemeaned and reprimanded us for draggin’ his “little friends” around at the end of a nasty rope, and after sufficiently bemeanin’ us for our brutality and ignorance in no uncertain terms, he walked in among the mares and colts and what he said to them, I’ll never know, but they must have liked it.
They nuzzled around on him and he pulled the mares’ tails, played with the colts, and in a few minutes he came walking out of the bunch of horses with his arm over a colt’s neck, talking to him. They seemed to be having a very enjoyable visit as they strolled out of the corral into the next pen, where I was holding the gate open. When Gid turned around to walk back into the pen, the colt, believe it or not, turned and tried to follow him, with me standing there tryin’ to shut the gate.
In a short time, Gid had all the colts “visited” away from the mares and into the other pen. He remarked that one mare in there particularly appealed to his fancy. She was a seven-year-old outlaw mare that didn’t have a colt—a nice, big, black half-thoroughbred-looking mare with white markings.
I told Gid that he was welcome to the mare if he would like to have her, so he walked over into the bunch of horses, scratched around on this particular mare, who was known to be an outlaw and had hurt a few cowboys, and in a few minutes we looked around and saw Gid sitting on top of the mare, no rope, no bridle, no nothin’. He said he didn’t believe he would take her, but that he was glad to make her acquaintance.
MRS. ROSE, MR. ROSE—POISON HAY
Several times during my late summer and fall practice, an occasional cow would be found dead in an alfalfa field. It was the practice of alfalfa farmers after they baled their last cutting of hay to start grazing the alfalfa stubbles until cold weather. Each time I was called for one of these cases, I would find no apparent sickness in the rest of the herd, and the cow that had died would be lying down in a normal resting position with her legs under her and head laid back on her shoulders. There was never any sign of a death struggle on the ground.
When doing post-mortems on this kind of a case I would find an enlargement of the spleen and discoloration of the liver, and these indications were the usual symptoms found in the contagious disease of anthrax. However, it was common knowledge that you never have just one case of anthrax. It is a spore disease and spreads rapidly through a herd and cattle would die in bunches. This evidence was kept so we wouldn’t start a scare. These scattered cases through the years caused me some unrest but there had been so few of them that they had not been a serious part of my practice.
In late September, Alton Simmons, who farmed and ranched north of Fort Stockton on the Pecos River near Imperial, called me late one afternoon. His tone of voice almost reached a stage of excitement when he said that he had two cows dead and two more down. From his description it seemed to me to be a recurrence of that same trouble I had not yet been able to solve.
I got to his place a little before dark, and we cut open one of the dead cows to look at the vital organs and intestinal tract. Here again was the same enlarged spleen and discolored liver. I treated the two cows that were down, and they offered no resistance when we took hold of them. They had no fever and did not appear to be too sick, except that they refused to get up.
I didn’t know what I was treating and used a shotgun remedy for general poisoning and
told Alton, “I’m only trying and haven’t positively diagnosed what’s the matter with the cattle.”
By daylight the next morning he called to tell me that both cows had died and there was another showing signs of sickness. I hurried out. I tried a different medication on this cow. However, before I gave the cow any medication, I took a sterile syringe and drew a 500-cc. vial full of blood and sealed it for later analysis in my laboratory.
Alton looked at the amount of blood that I pulled out of the jugular vein and said, “Doc, be careful that you don’t drink some of that stuff. You ain’t the best vet I ever saw, but you’re the only one we got.”
I asked Alton what he was feeding these cattle, and he told me that they were grazing in the field and he wasn’t feeding them any sack feed.
For want of better information, I told Alton that I thought these cattle were being poisoned by fertilizer and asked him about the possibility of some used fertilizer sacks being scattered around the field. He said that this couldn’t be—that the land had not been fertilized for two years.
The cattle were drinking from the irrigation ditch that ran through the field. There couldn’t be anything wrong with that water because cattle all over the district were drinking from that same irrigation ditch and these were the only sick ones. This case, like many others in my veterinary practice, caused me to be as much of a detective as a doctor.
Alton had over a hundred cattle in this field and he was losing from one to three cows every twenty-four hours without any apparent sickness in the rest of the herd grazing around where we were treating the sick and the dying. He was a heavy-set, good-natured, middle-aged fellow who had always worked hard and these losses were hurting. He said, “Doc, I sure hope that you find out pretty soon what’s killin’ these cattle ’cause I’ve bragged on you so much to the neighbors, I would hate to have to buy some more cattle for you to finally prove to them I’m not lying.”