Wild Cow Tales (24 page)

I had eight big outlaw steers in a corral and my problems may have just started instead of being settled. I went back to camp and slept very little as these cattle walked and bawled and I could hear horns clashin’ all through the night.

Every bright idea that I had durin’ the night about gettin’ my wild steers out to the public road was going to take more big rope than I had with me, and I thought it would be best when I started in on these cattle not to stop or allow them any rest. The way I figured it, I was going to need more rope to tie the steers to the fence and rope to yoke them together in pairs, so I thought I had better go back to Fluvanna to that mercantile and get some more rope before I started the war.

As I rode past the corrals, I noticed that this bunch of old wild cattle, either in fun or because they were trapped, had marked each other’s hides up pretty bad in the night with their horns. This corral fence was a big stout fence and the uneven jagged points made by the poles at the top of the fence would cause them to be much less likely to try to jump out or try to push over than if it were a plank fence with cracks in it and a smooth plank around the top, so I didn’t much think there was any danger of them trying the fence during the day that it would take me to go to Fluvanna and back.

I rode the horse Peanut into town a little before noon
and this old storekeeper couldn’t help but show a little shock when I told him that I needed about two hundred feet of three-quarter- or one-inch rope to tie my big steers with. He pulled it off a long coil that was under the counter and marked it off by the tacks that were driven in the counter for the purpose of measuring rope. This was a right smart coil of rope, and I took it out and tied it on my saddle. Then I thought I would eat a bunch of can grub for dinner so I turned and went back to the store. The old man had one of them big community bowls under the counter that he wiped out with a piece of paper on his elbow for me to pour some can grub in for dinner.

We was visitin’ all the time and I had noticed a little pair of fat bay horse mules over the fence from where my horse Peanut was tied, and among some of the other bright ideas that I had a pair of mules would help my plans. So I up and asked the old storekeeper, “Wonder where I could trade for a pair of little mules?”

He brightened up considerably and said that last year’s schoolteacher had made a little failure at a crop and before the schoolteacher had moved that spring, he had swapped him a pair of little mules in on the grocery bill, and he would be easy to deal with if I could use them.

I already had my suspicions that these mules belonged to the store because this was a small trap pasture that they were in across the road from the store and there was kind of a mixed-up little bunch of cattle in the same pasture with them. I asked him how he would trade for a nice gentle saddle horse.

Peanut was a little small but that wasn’t his worst
trouble. He
was a horse that cowboys would refer to as not havin’ any “heart.” He was a little on the lazy side and couldn’t stand to much ridin’ and when you would tie rope or something on him, he couldn’t stand pain and pull and I didn’t mind tradin’ him off.

Mr. Storekeeper said he had more use for a saddle horse than he did them mules and one would eat less than two and he would try to trade with me. I finished up my pork and beans, crackers, gingersnap cookies, and Coke, and we walked across the road to look at his little mules.

They were little fat mules and maybe weighted 800 pounds a piece, and you could tell at a glance that their mamas were bound to have had kinfolk in Mexico. It didn’t take me long to swap my horse and $20 for this pair of little mules. They were eight to ten years old and had been worked and rode and were plumb gentle, so I put my riggin’ on one and cut a short piece off that big coil of rope and tied it around the other mule’s neck and started back to camp ridin’ a mule and leadin’ a mule.

It was late when I rode in. My cattle were all right and there was water in the corral. I took the bucket and watered the second steer that was still tied. His manners were improved and he was glad to drink four bucketsful as I carried it to him. The other cattle hadn’t begun to show much shrink from lack of grazing yet.

That night I cut my rope into twenty-foot lengths and raveled the ends and tied good, hard knots and rolled the ends on a rock with my foot to be sure that they were gonna stay tight. This rolling breaks down the rope to where you can pull the knot tight and it won’t come loose.

Next morning I saddled my standby, Beauty, and started in roping these steers over the fence and pulling them over to the big heavy posts that were about ten feet apart in the fence line and tying them hard. I took time out for me and my horse to eat dinner and went right straight back to work even though the summer sun was beatin’ down pretty hot. By late afternoon I had tied every one of these big wild steers to a big gentle post and had sawed a little piece off the end of all seven steers’ horns.

The next morning I started early and since all the steers were tied I could go into the corral and not be working over the fence, which made it a lot handier. I would pitch a rope over a steer’s neck and give it a whip-like motion to where the knot would come back under his neck on the ground back on my side. These old cattle would wring their tails and bawl and kick at me but as long as I stayed against their neck and shoulders I stood a pretty good chance of not gettin’ kicked. When I got the rope tied around one steer’s neck, I pitched it over the next steer from him, and as I loosened the rope that he was tied to the post with, I would let it slip two or three feet and take up the slack on the loose rope around the other steer’s neck until I got them pulled together. When I had them as close together as I could get them, I would tie around the steer’s neck that I had been pullin’ on with a bowline knot, then I would give the steer that I had left tied fast that I had pulled to slack so he could back away from the post and they could both stand with their heads up. I had to go in and out of the corral and give them slack from where I had tied them, and it took me just
about all day to yoke these eight head of cattle to four pairs, and even though I had given them slack I still hadn’t untied any of them from the fence.

That night I packed all my campin’ gear together and had it ready to move out next morning. All I left out was a skillet and a few little things to cook with, and I could roll my bed up next morning.

I was up early, fixed my breakfast, and packed all my belongings on Bob. I had another saddle and another packsaddle that I rigged the two mules up with. Both the saddle and the packsaddle had big, heavy cinches front and back and breast collars. I led all of them to the corral and dropped the lead rope on Bob so he could graze until I was ready for him. He wouldn’t run off with the pack.

I took one of the little mules into the corral and made sure that his riggin’ was all good and tight. I flipped a rope around until I got it wrapped over the yoke rope across between one pair of steers. I managed to get up to the other side of the steer and get hold of the knot. I stepped back from the steer and made a slip knot and pulled it down tight on the yoke rope between the two steers.

These little mules didn’t seem to have much fear so I led the first one in and tied that rope that I had just put on the yoke rope to the back ring of the cinch riggin’ on the saddle. These old steers weren’t liking all of this messin’ around but still didn’t seem to be dead set on killin’ anybody that morning after they had been tied to that fence about a day and a night. I got a rope rigged up on another yoke of steers on the other side of my mule and tied to the back ring of the cinch riggin’ on the other
side. I knew that a little mule couldn’t drag four steers far, and I also knew that the steers couldn’t run backward and drag the mule very far and I didn’t believe they could horn him runnin’ forward because a mule in most every circumstance will wind up by takin’ good care of himself. But before I rigged up the other mule, I decided I would turn these steers loose from the fence and see what the show was going to be like.

I untied the rope from the fence but I left all the head ropes on the steers and draggin’ on the ground, thinkin’ that while they stepped on the drag ropes and while they were learnin’ to walk without stepping on them, it would give my mule a little better chance at survival. I got on Beauty and took a bull whip and started these steers and this mule on into the middle of the big corral. One or other of these big steers had taken a lick or two at the little mule and since their horns had been tipped back with the saw, they had made a little mark on the hide of the mule but hadn’t cut into the flesh. This is the main reason that I had tipped these horns to start with.

The mule worked his ears and had turned his head around to keep an eye on his playmates. It wasn’t easy for any one steer to run at the mule since they were yoked together, which gave him a lot of protection, but one pair had eased around close enough that the one steer raked him up the hind leg. By this time, Mr. Mule was gettin’ smart so he proceeded to stand on his forelegs and kicked these steers in the face, head, and up and down the legs and shoulders about half a dozen licks before they realized that he had a mad on. I felt like that my plan was workin’ right so I went through the same action
of gettin’ the other four steers tied to the other mule.

By mid-morning I turned two mules, eight steers, and my pack horse out on the trail that would lead to the public road west of Snyder where Bull Creek crossed the public road. The steers ran astraddle some mesquite sapling but the separate yoke pairs never did get badly mixed up with the other yoke that was being led by the same mule. I had a ten-foot bull whip with a revolving handle in it that I used to my complete satisfaction any time the steers got unruly, but I never did have to hit the little mules. Of course, Bob followed along and watched the excitement and carried the pack and Beauty seemed to enjoy the whole episode since this was something different from the other few thousand things that she and I had done together.

In the beginning these steers would get to hurryin’ one of those little mules and I had a few runaways, and there was one time when my two sets of oxen were a half a mile apart and they were still tied to a mule apiece, but with enough ridin’ and enough bull whippin’ I put them back together.

I went through two fair-sized pastures followin’ a narrow road through the mesquite until I came out on a country road that led down to what was a public road, or maybe called the highway; however it wasn’t a paved road and turned east toward Snyder.

It was gettin’ late afternoon and I had begun to wonder what I was goin’ to do with my pets for the night. After seven or eight miles out of Snyder I saw a small set of corrals settin’ out in the pasture a little piece from the road, and a wire gate at the road that would let me into
these corrals, so I knew that me and my pets had found bed ground for the night.

It was customary among stockmen of the Old West to use corrals or small water traps anywhere they found them. It was considered nice to ask somebody if there were people anywhere close to the corral but it wasn’t thought to be bad manners when you were driftin’ across the country to pen your stock anywhere you found a place; and whether you did or didn’t see the owner, it was generally known that you were always welcome to use whatever you needed to hold your drive overnight. And, it’s good to know and I take pride in saying that this is still the custom among stockmen of the West.

I rode around my steers and mules and opened the gate and dropped back and waited for them to come through. The little mules were doing a heroic job of leadin’ and jerkin’ the steers—just for instance, it would have been a fair job of cowboyin’ to have put these steers through that gate, but the little mules were broke and gentle and lookin’ for gates and led the steers right on through. The same was true when I set the gates and drove them into the corral where I was going to leave them for the night.

The big corral hadn’t been used in a long time and was grown up in grass and weeds and the steers might not fill up but they could get some pickin’ during the night. I stayed on my horse and eased up against the mule’s shoulder and untied the steers’ lead rope from the cinch rings, but I didn’t unyoke the steers from one another.

I took the little mules into a small corral and unsaddled them and got my pack off Bob, which had some oats
in it, and fed the mules and ole Beauty, but I was runnin’ short of oats and Bob had loafed along and grazed all day so I just gave him a double handful to keep his feeling’s from being hurt.

By that time it was good dark and I talked myself out of buildin’ a fire and fixin’ supper because I could see some glow in the east and knew that Snyder would have to be about seven or eight miles from where I was. Bob had had an easy day, so I turned Beauty loose and saddled Bob and rode into Snyder.

It was about eight thirty when I got to town, and of course I headed for a big batch of café cookin’, and ate up everything I ordered and wiped the plate clean with the last piece of bread. I didn’t try to take in the town picture show, but I rode about a block down on the north side of the square in the flat where I found some traders’ pens, and I knew then I would pen my cattle and spend most of tomorrow around Snyder and do some restin’ and loafin’ and maybe sell some big steers. I rode back to camp and bedded down with my stock for the night.

It was about sunup when I put the riggin’ back on the mules and led them to the big corral to tie the steers back to ’em. These bad cattle were drawn and sore and had lots of the fight taken out of them by the rough use they’d had for the last couple of days, and it wasn’t any trouble to ease ’round and pick up the lead rope that I had left on each yoke of steers. I went about leadin’ the mules a little and drivin the steers a little until I got them all back about like they belonged, put my pack on Bob and rode Beauty and started to Snyder.

The grass was good in the ditch along the side of the
highway. The steers and the mules grazed a lot and didn’t drive very fast and it was about noon before I made that seven or eight miles into Snyder. I turned north at the edge of the business part of town and followed Deep Creek around to the flat north of the courthouse square where I had spotted the traders’ pens. I saw some fellers visitin’ and a-whittlin’ and shaded up next to a small barn about half a block away and hollered at them that I needed some place to pen these cattle. A feller, who I later learned was Bill Taylor, stepped down the fence a piece and held the gate open and hollered, “Bring ’em on.”