June 7, 2001

Before the old ranch was divided, the White Mill pasture held a jinx on cowboys. Ropes and hats were lost and never found. Riders strayed off the drive onto neighboring ranches, confused by a big brushy draw that looked the same on the north and south ends of the pasture.

Steady hands grew weary from tracking down strayed punchers new on the job. The task was harder if the cowboy wandered into the ranch to the south of us as the neighbor's pasture was 10 sections of cedar brush served by one windmill and one road system. However, we were bound by a code to never go off and leave an unaccounted horseman in the pasture.

A one-man search party going back to cover 15 square miles on a tired horse could be mighty discouraging. If you can call it a "plan," we'd ride the high points, yell and whistle and wave our hats, hoping for the sound or sight of a man or his horse. The honor roll is too long to bring up the names of the lost and found. Just leave it this way: we solved every case, including part credit for a dude a neighbor headed 12 miles off the south boundary.

After my boys started taking part in the drive, I stayed in agony until the last one showed up at the gate. On one occasion, John Noelke's horse either fell on a slick ledge rock or threw him off way south of the White windmill four miles from our starting point. Instead of heading north to the ranch, this idiot piece of tail and mane of a bronc hit the south fence.

We found John real easy walking down a trail. He descends from famous walking stock. In my horse-tuning days, I passed a 14-mile hiking merit badge every week. But we kept waiting and watching for his horse to come in looking for the house or the other horses. It was dark by the time Jose came leading the fool into the ranch. (John had ridden in behind the saddle of one of his brothers.) Next weekend John's saddle disappeared off the rack. (I've told you this part before, but will do better this time.) When his rig returned, his brothers had tacked a plate on the horn reading: "Forward to John Noelke, Zip code 76941." I missed the ceremony held to dedicate the plaque. I understand his brothers told him if he kept losing his horse and saddle, he'd need a return address.

The story came back the other day while I was waiting to meet a guy on a ranch close to Barnhart. Across the fence, 15 or 20 big, black, "humpy" cows became curious of the strange pickup invading their grounds. In the right ear, the cows wore a big tan eartag labeled with black marker ink. Under the magnification of 7 X 35 binoculars, I read the following: "Ike & Amelio Hamstrum (Maybe), Box 446, Midkiff, TX (Possibly) 76____."

Every time an ear came in focus, the subject would throw her head too high to read the tag, or wheel around ready to flee from this strange man peering through field glasses. So I couldn't ascertain if a day and night telephone number was listed, also. My conclusion was that the owners trusted the mail more than the wire service. In other days, the Mertzon post office led the district as a receiving point for mail order baby chicks, but I don't ever remember anyone mailing a cow brute. With all that information on the eartag, I overlooked the brands, except I know they weren't fresh branded or native cattle.

A month before, I helped recapture one our Angus heifers running in a neighbor's herd of Brahman cross cows about the caliber and projected speed of the postmarked cattle. The foreman of the Diamond A's out in New Mexico once told me the only way to head a Brangus cow in the forest was to run fast enough to be in the lead of her. When we jumped the neighbor's cows and our heifer, I cut across and gained an advantage until I came to long slab of slick rock leading into a solid mesquite thicket.

If I'd been sorting the mail, the only way I could have read the forwarding address was on the tailhead of those flop-eared race cattle. After I lost them, I thought I heard brush crashing, but it turned out to be "Dun Boy" and me trying to catch our wind. Took two more hours of hard riding to work the heifer out of such bad company. Before we reached the house, I thought I heard a replay of John Noelke trying to teach Jose the words to a Bob Dylan song. However, working in the high winds of spring can cause a man's imagination to run wild, especially when he's exhausted from a cow hunt.

June 7, 2001