January 20, 2005

The cowboy working closest to Barnhart helps patrol Highway 67 for loose livestock toward Mertzon. A bit closer, Aunt Annie, Goat Whiskers the Younger and his staff take over to support my outfit on around to the big curve paralleling the railroad tracks. From there, we share the responsibility with other neighbors and the sheriff's department.

            Whether our efforts save lives depends on how much importance is placed on a Honda station wagon overloaded with kids and Christmas stuff sideswiping a 2000 pound black oxen on the shoulder adjoining Whisker's Holiday Inn Ranch. Also to be considered is the right of way of a Volkswagon loaded with teenagers celebrating the holidays by plowing through a herd of escaped hair goats, or fleeing weaned calves.

            Herding strays off County Road 131, or the old Barnhart-Mertzon Highway 29 is the dominion of the cowboy living at Monument Ranch and the small scattering of us herders left on the 09 Divide. Our responsibility extends to pairing calves weaned from mothers by cattleguards one day after motorized roundups to dragging dead sheep from the road to reorienting lost deer hunters. We further put kid goats back with their mothers, report grass fires and fight the same, and leave the keys in a 1983 pickup for stalled or water-bound motorists on the county road.

            During the holidays, the San Angelo Police Department became active in estrays by capturing and containing a humpy bull over on the north side of the town. Made big news in the daily paper. Rich material, including the rodeo bull's name, "Dirty Deeds," plus the police firing shotguns so haphazardly the bull handlers became backstops for a scattering of the buckshot. "Old Dirty Deed" had to be sent to a merciful death at a veterinary clinic, but not before a graphic news photo showed his dreadful head wounds.

            No mention was made of the fate of the men brave enough to work a rodeo bull on foot, or tough enough to deflect steel shot. Probably they were so tense and excited the shot bounced off their hides. Way back, some of us smarter kids aspired to be bull riders in a little bush and thicket rodeo association at Mertzon. Swarms of horn flies and mosquitoes plagued the rodeo grounds that wet summer, but as we waited our turn behind the chute, there wasn't a stinger or beak sharp enough to nick our skin, much less draw blood.

            First trip to San Angelo after the holidays, I met a cowboy herding a white heifer down the county road late of evening on the railroad right-of-way. Dismounted in my dark blue pants, white shirt, and dress shoes to help him put her through a neighbor's gate. We herded her within 50 steps of an opening before she came back over us. My dancing shoes lacked the traction to head her in the slick winter grass. Fell and stained the elbow of the white shirt light green and added the same color to the knees of my blue pants.

            We finally headed her to a locked cattleguard. We planned on jumping her across the guard, but it was too dark by then to read the combination on the lock. Did find the wire gap connected to the guard half open. On the third try, we put her in the pasture.

            Later the same evening, Aunt Annie Bailey from the Whiskers Holiday Inn ranch reported a white cow out in the same spot. She asked my advice. Told her I'd try to find an off-duty Angelo policeman to come work the cow back in the pasture on the weekend. Thought we'd have plenty of time to recruit a gunner. Asked her to please not remove the evidence (She knows how to herd cows, having served her apprenticeship shedding the Whiskers goat herd.), as I have claim against the cow for a pair of blue pants and a white shirt.

            I expected the animal rights people and Humane Society to give the bluecoats over in Angelo a stand-up lesson in restricting and containing humpy bulls that'd last until the youngest member on the force retired. One fair-minded citizen wrote she was furious at the police for shooting the bull and angrier at the handlers for being rodeo people and owning a bull. Appeared she had spunk to spare. Was glad she wasn't around the night we captured the white escapist, as she sounded too impatient to work a cow through a six-foot opening shod in dancing pumps and using blue serge for knee pads.

            Our road work promises to expand in the new year. The railroad announced that its tracking is now sound enough to raise the speed limit from 10 miles an hour to 25. That adds eight miles by 250 feet more width to watch. Just hope we don't have to work too many cattle in such a narrow space.

 January 20, 2005