Texas Tales -- Low Pain Threshold? Never Consider Ranching

My son’s grandfather, Luke, when talking about cowboying used to say “any man that works with horses and livestock that says he’s never been hurt is either a damned liar or a damned liar.” I’ll soundly second that motion. Throughout my ranching years I’ve not only been the hurtee but looked on as others took their licks from getting kicked by a horse to being run over by a mad mama cow. (Little cowardly advice: Keep the cow’s calf between you and her and you’re fairly safe – she won’t run over the baby to get to you – usually – if she knows how this game is played!)

There’s lots of old cowboy advice about getting hurt and not getting hurt. Some of it works and some, I now know, is like sending a new pilot to the shed for a gallon of prop wash. Luke used to sit on his horse in a lot full of Brahma cows and tell my son’s father and me what he wanted done next – like cut that cow out of the herd or let those last two out the gate. That’s easier said AND done if you’re sitting horseback while 40-50 scared and angry cows mill around you. If you’re afoot among that bunch it’s a whole different situation. We were always the ones afoot!

Luke gave me a serious talking to one evening at the supper table after I’d pretty well made a fool of myself and got all crippled up. I wasn’t too much into one of Luke’s lectures because all of us were tired to the bone from working cattle down at the river all day but when Luke talked one listened. The river lease was a pretty primitive set-up with a few “sort-of” cattle pens right in the middle of a lot of brush and various and sundry Texas plants that all had thorns or stickers.

We’d all been horseback to find, round-up and pen the cattle that day but I dismounted and closed the gate behind the last cow – or what I thought was the last cow. I’d no sooner closed the gate when I heard Luke shout “Boots!” That was a head’s up warning I never ignored. I glanced over my shoulder to find a big, old, horned Brahma cow was coming at me full tilt. She and her calf had gotten separated and the calf was in the pen and she wanted him out – or possibly wanted to join him in the pen – I didn’t take time to decide.

My immediate choices were to get in the pen with all the angry, milling cattle and get stomped on, try to mount my horse and get out of her way or run like hell. I chose to run like hell to the truck with the cattle trailer attached to it which was parked not too far from the corral. I decided, while running full tilt, that I didn’t have time to get in the truck or open the end gate to the trailer so when I was near enough I dove through the open bars of the cattle trailer. One can do that if one only weighs 110 pounds and is nearly six feet tall.

All of me got in the trailer except my big feet and before they could follow the rest of me the cow hit the side of the trailer and mashed both my feet against the bars of the trailer. I thought she’d cut ‘em both off at the knees. Hurt – Lordy, Lordy did that hurt. I managed to pull my feet on into the trailer (contrary to my opinion at the time they were both still attached to my legs) and then sat in the trailer and cried while the old cow proceeded to try to dismantle both the trailer and me. She must have charged and hit that trailer 20 times before she quit – either she finally got over her mad or she’d given herself a headache.

That was one time nobody laughed at me because they didn’t know if I was under the cow or made it in the trailer. When she gave up her attack and walked off both Bill and Luke were at the trailer trying to help me. It’s one of the few times I got hurt that both of them seemed just about as scared as I was. They had to cut my boots off as both ankles and feet were already swollen up the size of my head (and I had skinny ankles back then). I couldn’t stand because I couldn’t even feel my feet. I was still amazed they were both still there!

I was done working for the day – a legless cowgirl is useless – and Bill and Luke finished up the day while I sat in the pickup and put cold compresses on my ankles and feet from our ice water keg. When we got home Luke insisted I soak my feet in kerosene nearly up to my knees (as I had a few cuts and the trailer bars were metal), they gave me two aspirin and we all went to bed. I was horseback again in two days (with a pair of new boots). Luke chewed on me pretty good at the dinner table that night but that was it. The incident was never mentioned again. That’s ranching, dear hearts – yesterday’s news.

Aside from being the hurtee; on occasion I was present when someone else got to wear that thorny crown – like Earl. Now, Earl was probably 6’5” tall and looked like a soda straw punctuated by boots, a big belt buckle and a hat. He was an affable guy, always liked a good laugh and prone to cutting up at times he should have been paying attention to what was going on. Earl was already disabled when he came to the cow lot that day as he’d broken his ankle riding a young horse he was breaking. Seems the horse had run him into the side of a mountain and he didn’t get his foot out of the way in time. He was wearing a cast nearly up to his knee with a walking heel and was on crutches.

There were several cowboys in the lot working cattle and Earl just opened the gate and swung himself right on in on his crutches. It was hot as hades that day and there was one little spindly tree in the corner of the lot under which Earl took refuge from the sun. Our neighbor, John, was horseback in the lot trying to separate and keep the cows off the cowboys that were knelt down working on an old horned cow that needed her eye doctored. They had her roped up pretty good and she was on her side and fighting like a tiger.

When they finished with the cow John yelled at Earl that they were going to untie the old cow and the cowboys on the ground were going to step up on their horses because she was a fighter so he’d better get on the fence. I was sitting on the fence watching and suggested Earl come on up where I was. He just laughed, said he wasn’t running from any old cow and even swung himself on his crutches a little closer to the center of the lot.

The last of the cowboys on the ground repeated John’s warning to Earl. “I’m gonna let this old cow up Earl and she’s fighting mad. Now, you better get your butt up on that fence ‘cause as soon as I let her go I’m gonna get on my horse so she can’t get me and you’re gonna be the only one standing there!”

Earl kinda rared back on his crutches and yelled back “Let ‘er go – I’m ready!” To make a long story even longer, dear hearts, Earl wasn’t ready. That old cow got on her feet, shook real hard to get the dust off of her, looked around for something to take her temper out on and there stood big, old, dumb Earl on his crutches. She ran at him like a freight train and suddenly Earl realized he was in big trouble. He turned and swung on his crutches as fast as he could to the little spindly tree in the corner of the cow lot.

He must have been about four or five feet from the tree when he discarded the crutches and jumped for the tree. Being as tall as he was he logically thought he could probably land right in the top of that tree but it didn’t work that way. He grabbed and wrapped himself around the tree all right but his butt wasn’t two feet off the ground – unbeknownst to him.

That old cow first hit Earl right in the middle of the back and the little tree bent nearly double. When it came up it hit the mad cow in the face, with Earl still hanging on to it and that was more than the cow could take. She put her head under Earl’s butt and snuffed him right to the top of that little tree bellering and snorting every push. King Kong couldn’t have dislodged Earl from that tree and it’s a real good thing ‘cause the rest of us were laughing so hard we couldn’t have helped him no matter what happened.

One of the cowboys that was horseback finally roped the cow and drug her out of the lot with Earl still hanging on to the tree for dear life. It may be one of those times when you had to be there to see the humor in it but with Earl’s eyes as big as his belt buckle through the whole thing and the tree/Earl hitting the cow in the face every time she hooked at Earl it was quite a site – kinda like one of those toys you swat down and it pops right back up.

In the end it was Earl’s end that was sore – the cow had snuffed/hit him in the butt every time she charged the tree and he didn’t sit too comfortably for a week or so. For a fact, he never lived down the event as it was the funniest gossip in our little county for quite a while. Eventually Earl began to act like he enjoyed it as much as everyone else did but then what else could he do? I, for one, could relate to that many times over.

As for me, well, can’t say I got a lot smarter due to my trailer mishap. I got thrown, pinched, jabbed, stepped on, kicked, mashed and skinned up more than I ever wanted to admit but eventually I did excel in one area. Luke told me when a Brahma got after me in the future just to stand exactly where I was as when a Brahma charges they put their head down and aren’t looking to see where you are. Then you can just step aside and they’ll harmlessly pass by you. Perhaps that was sage advice but try as I might I just couldn’t stand there with a mad cow intent on stomping me to death.

Instead, and with my long legs, I decided it was more prudent to run like a haint and dear hearts, I got good at it. Shoot, I can remember a time Bob Hayes (remember Bob?) himself couldn’t have outrun me on foot if I gave him a 20 yard head start! I might add that in all those years of ranching I may have nearly scraped all the meat off of every bone in my body but I never broke a bone until the day before my 65^th birthday. Damn. . . and just about the time I thought I was getting’ good and feelin’ fine!

AngelaBlair©2012