THERE WAS THIS ONE TIME

For the last ten days or so, my older sister has been in Texas helping ship all cattle out. Some have gone to Colorado, some to Nebraska and a few are staying here in Texas. In the past, we would have been in a big hurry to get these cattle out, but now that we are older we take our time. Aside from a day or two with a couple old friends to block the roads, Kelly and I handle all of it. After thirty years working together, we are still in tune today. Certainly, it’s not the same as it was all those years ago, so we often talk of the past and wonder why and how we did what we did.

Tonight, she rode with me to another of Beatty’s baseball games and on the ride home we wandered back into the past. We reminisced of all the horses we made and the horses we ruined. The truth is, Kelly made a lot of good horses, and I pretty much ruined the rest of them. And when I say we went thousands of miles on horseback, I’m not exaggerating. We were wheat pasture cowboys in the winter. Sunup to sundown every single day and then we followed the cattle to where they would summer and spend all summer taking care of yearlings wherever our dad sent us. There is a reason that all we know is cattle, horses, windmills and fences. We never worked in a shop, changed oil in a pickup or did those creative things real ranchers do. We were in the saddle. Cattle people, specifically yearlin’ people.

Kelly reminded me tonight of the time she got bucked off of a paint mare while we were pushing calves to grass and broke her pelvis. She also reminded me of the paint gelding I bought that bucked her off and broke her shoulder as she went to rope a sick calf on wheat. Over the years, there were a lot of cattle, a lot of horses and some wrecks. This conversation was based on the premise of perseverance. We both agreed that we stayed hard at it, but reminded me of the one person still living that perhaps exhibited more perseverance than any of us. Our mother and matriarch Linda. Talk about wrecks, she has seen a few. Like the time when she was pregnant with Kelly and my dad accidentally hit a bump in a trail road and threw her off the back of his pickup breaking her shoulder and knocking her out. Or the time she was nearly killed in a car accident on Halloween on Cottonwood Road west of Ordway. Another time she was alone in an old ranch pickup and had a flat and of course she tried to change the tire using a “handy-man” jack. It collapsed and smashed her arm between the wheel well and the tire. Her arm didn’t break but it dang sure rolled the wheel well metal up about four inches. And of course, by now, everyone has heard about her breaking her back when the wind spooked a colt and ran over her, while my dad was laying in the house dying of cancer. Even as I write this, I kind of face-palm myself. But…. there was this one time.

In the spring of 1997, my dad sent me home to Colorado to turn all the windmills and wells on, clean the tanks and go around the fences so I could receive the Texas cattle. That was not a small job for one man, but of course, Linda was almost always there beside me to help. She did not travel to Texas like the rest of us, and she only came to Texas for a few days at Christmas, still does. As I remember that spring was particularly bad in terms of tumble weeds in the fences, but at the same time, I had good luck getting all the water running and tanks filled up. So, when I was ready, I called my dad, and told him that he could start trickling cattle in as me and Linda were ready. So he did. Back in those days it would take two weeks or more to get all the cattle north. We might receive three to four loads a day, every other day, so we had time to get the cattle set and take care of other stuff in between loads.

Normally, they would load those cattle in the evening in Texas so they could ride to Colorado in the cool night and be ready to unload at sun-up, where we would unload into a trap. After they had rested four or five hours and filled up with water, we would open the gates and let them walk out and then start filtering them out to their summer pastures, which could be as far as ten to 14 miles and as close as 2.

This one morning, Linda and I headed over to the receiving trap and unloaded a couple of trucks. As I was unloading, I noticed a black crippled heifer that I had pulled off a set the previous day in a smaller trap to the west. She was about a half mile south and she looked pretty gaunt and was holding her foot funny. So, when I got done unloading those trucks, I had Linda drive me out across the prairie to look at that heifer. Sure enough, she was in bad shape and I had no choice but to doctor her. Normally I would have saddled a horse to take, but that morning I cheated and told myself I would just go back and get one, “if I needed one.” Well, I needed one and it was about ten miles back to the house, so I got an idea!

I really thought the heifer was in a bad enough shape that if I could rope her I could probably man-handle her and wear her out and get the job done. Now, let’s back up. We had left the house early enough that we jumped in mom’s brand-new pickup, and it was a fancy black Chevrolet with all the bells and whistles one could offer. Why we got in it, I will never know. As I drove around and evaluated that heifer, I realized she was a bit bigger than I had thought, probably weighing 625, but I still felt like I had the ability to get her doctored “if mom could help.” So, I very cautiously said to Linda, “do you think you could get me up on that heifer so I can rope her out of the bed?” Well, as any ranch raised woman, she said yes and so I hopped in the back of the pickup, built a loop and that was mistake number 1 and mistake number 2.

Well, when that heifer seen me up in that pickup bed, she took off like a wounded bandit and she never slowed down. So did Linda, but she didn’t retreat in her promise to get me up there and as we were running fifteen or twenty in a circle across some really rough country, dust flying and sage spitting up in my face I swung my loop and got her caught! Uh oh! I hadn’t really thought about this all the way through as this brand-new pickup didn’t have a ball in the bed to dally on yet! The bumper did have a hitch, but how was I going to get down to it? So, as I was yelling at mom to stay up with the heifer I ever so gently slid to the back of the pickup and screamed at her to stop when I told her to. It worked! When I yelled at her to stop, I quickly jumped out of the back of the pickup and dallied that rope around that tiny little ball on the bumper hitch and found my bearings.

By now, the heifer was not only hurting, but she was a bit tired and mad, and I thought I had her whipped. I told Linda to stay in the pickup until I called her back with the medicine. So, I wrapped that roped around my hips and every time that heifer would make a move I would run backwards, so I could get her up against the pickup at least with her head and keep it there. After a couple minutes of fighting with her I finally got her head tied hard up against that pickup and she was tired so she just kind of stood there, with me and her trying to breathe. But I was sure I had her, and we were solid and ready to get her doctored.

Linda drew up some medicine and eased her way back toward a very angry heifer and me. I told her that I would hold her tight if she could gently ease up there and give that heifer a shot in the neck. The idea was good. As Linda approached her, she took a swipe at her with her hind right but missed and Linda continued in pursuit of the job at hand. As any good former cow-milker would do she laid her hand on her shoulder and slowly ran it down her neck a time or two before the gentle injection.

At this point the heifer was madder than a hornet and fighting me a bit, but I still had her. But as Linda laid her elbow and arm on this heifer’s shoulder so she could slide that needle in, this ol’ biddy kind of fought her a little and as the first taste of that needle came that ol heifer found her fourth wind and jumped up and forward! As she did, she hit mom and the rope came off the hitch! Trouble had come and as Linda lost her footing and went to the ground, I quickly realized that there was nothing between the world, that heifer and me! As Linda was getting back to her feet the heifer was headed straight to me and I was a lost soul! I hollered at mom to get back in the pickup to get out of the way, as that heifer had her focused lasered on me! At this point I, for some reason, was still holding the rope wrapped around my hips like it belonged there! I was dodging and ducking every direction I could to avoid the consequence of this terrible idea! We were in the wide-open prairie, and I knew I had to be near the pickup for safety so I ran as hard as I could and jumped head first into the open passenger side window with this ol hussy hot on my tail! She followed me in and as I felt her warm snout run up my leg into my crotch and hit the door of the pickup I thought for a second it was over! All of a sudden, I hear, “SHAAAAAAAAAADD!” As I lifted my buried head from the entrapment of the passenger side seat and looked out the driver-side window I saw my mom running across the prairie with a very mad black heifer in hot pursuit! I still had the rope wrapped around my hips. The timing was such that when the heifer hit the end of the rope her nose was up my mom’s hiney just as mom tripped on some sage and went head-first into a badger hole! I saw it all! With Linda face-first on the ground that heifer was having a hay day stomping on her like a rag doll! The heifer was screaming, Linda was screaming, and I was screaming at her to “stay down, stay down!” Well hell, she had no choice that heifer was having her way with her!

I hurriedly, as hurriedly as a fat boy can move, wiggled out of that passenger window and ran for the heifer scaring her off mom and dragging that rope along with her. Linda lay there still and quiet, and I thought she was knocked out or dead! In what seemed like forever, and I am sure it was all of three seconds, in a complete panic I yelled for her. Nothing. Then all of a sudden, just like the in the Looney Tunes and Wile E. Coyote smashed on the canyon floor one arm slowly pops up and then another and I hear, “Shad help me up.” I truly thought I had gotten her bad hurt and when she looked at me, I was convinced. She literally looked like she had been on the receiving end of the Road Runner’s booby trap bombs. Her hair was in every direction, she had grass, sage and sand in her hair, and it looked like she had rolled in the manure for a day. The dirt on her face was catching all of the blood running down her chin and she had chipped a tooth. I asked if she was alright and she said, “I don’t think so,” which is code-word for I think I’m going to die when it comes to my mom.

Slowly, I helped her into the pickup, and she was SLOW. Certainly, she was in a daze and a bit delirious, so I told her I was taking her to the emergency room in Colorado Springs. She said, “ok,” and to be honest, I was hoping she was going to say, “I’m alright.” But she didn’t. As I slowly headed north across the rough prairie she was finally coming to, and she was already badly bruised. As she came more to her senses, she started to kind of realize that heifer got her down and she remembered tripping and falling in that hole head-first. As I pulled up to the gate, I stopped to assess her damage and make sure I didn’t need to call for the air-ambulance. We chatted a bit and I got tickled reliving the episode so I asked her if she thought she could open the gate. In her disheveled look, she turned to me as if to say, “you son of a buck!” Instead, she exploded into the most hilarious laughter I have ever seen from her. I didn’t know if this was a part of her injury or if she needed mental help, but she couldn’t stop laughing as she opened the door and got the gate. Like a true pioneer woman…she got the gate! The rest of the day, Linda and I would break out into mini laughter sessions re-hashing the event. Needless to say, the next day she could barely move, but true to her nature she was right out there with me. And the heifer? Well, that next morning I saddled my horse and circled her down until I could grab my rope. I tripped her, tied her down and doctored her, but for the life of me I can’t remember how I got to my horse without getting eaten after I untied her. I guess it doesn’t matter now.

Copyright © Shad Sullivan