December 12, 2002

Stop staring at your boot toe, little cowboy; the post office is no place to cry. Fold the cow receipts back into the envelope. Lift up your chin, and for the last time, stop staring at your boot toe. The post cow sale litany of opening the mail from Box 636, Mertzon, 76941.

Charge the above against me on a Friday afternoon trip to town to pick up the receipts from the first gooseneck load of old cows from the Divide place. Only 12 head and a light steer calf, but a big deal for an operator my size. The problem, however, is that six of the cows tested dry.

Here's the way the bill of sale read: "6 head pregnant at $510 per head; 5 head of open cows cut in 3 orders averaging 1100 pounds at .35 cents, and one open cow weighing 750 pounds at .28 cents." (Mark the last old sister at a gross of $222.60.) The steer weighed four and a half and brought 87 cents, making my guess on the price 10 cents too high and off 30-plus pounds on his weight.

Trucking came to two hundred dollars for a 70-mile haul. Allowing the steer calf to ride free, the freight on the cows ran over 16 bucks per cow and the nick-knacks like stockyard board and passing through the ring cost another 16 or 17 dollars a head. But again, the distressing part was that 50 percent of the old cows tested dry in that draft.

Stop staring at your boot toe. Move; you can't stay in the post office all night. Who, pray tell, is going to lead a song of salvation at the ranch on the final day the chute is emptied and the last cow tested?

Out on the parking lot, head resting on the steering wheel, the investigation began: "Twenty-nine head of eleven year-old cows were cut into the best grass on the ranch September '01. Three different bulls ran with the cows from February 12 to May 30. The cattle went on range cubes the first of November; the last feed run was the end of May. From September '01 to last month, 22 dollars per head worth of free choice molasses tubs enhanced the ration. In August, the herd weaned 29 calves."

I never noticed a steering wheel feeling hot before. Reckon this darn Ford burns so much oil, the steering wheel overheats from carbon expulsion. Was it last winter or winter before last that the feed wagon had to drag a trailer to the north side for extra feed for the old cows? I must be having a nervous chill. Now the steering wheel is cold — cold as the bars on an oldtime teller's cage.

I tossed the rest of the mail on the dashboard. Watched the postmaster lower the flag to the tune of the rusty pulley grating from the motion of the descending banner. Thought of a new sign for the lobby door: "In Observance of Pancake Tuesday and all subsequent Tuesdays, no mail will be delivered from this office." Thought deeper as the conveyer of post turned toward the building how soon he'll be going to a post office in a comfortable resort town to pick up a handsome pension check, unencumbered by commission, yardage, feed, testing, trucking, chute charges, checkoffs and insurance.

Took five days to arrange the testing. Actually, five days and five nights, as after the bad news, I flounced around in the bedclothes the way those elephant seals sun on the beaches of California. One thing certain: If that many old cows were 50 percent bred, I wasn't spending the holidays wondering how many of the young cattle were open, especially the second-calf heifers.

On the fateful morning the test fell, I checked the calving heifers at five instead of six. Stopped by the pecan tree my stepfather and mother planted. Realized the sounds of heavy cows sighing and groaning in the darkness set an end of the trail scene fading away in the dissolution of ranches that'd make the image of the Indian slumped on the buffalo nickel seem light as the froth of the meringue on a chocolate pie.

By noon, we tested 104 head. My report card shows the oldest cows, counting the twelve head sold, hit 75 percent. A pasture of mixed age cows ran 95 percent; a group of young cows reached 83 percent. As I grabbed the last pipe to catch the last cow, I must have jabbed a splinter under my thumbnail. I can't be sure, as I didn't notice the pain until I pulled off my boots at the house.

Drouths demand their toll. A herder must pay his dues to the dry devil. All pastures aren't in yet, but my thumb is healing and it's a better crop than I thought ...

December 12, 2002