Wild Cow Tales (6 page)

I
WAS SETTIN’ IN THE SADDLE SHOP
while Bill, the saddle maker, put some new riggin’ in the front of my saddle. I’d roped a big four-year-old wild mule
that morning; when I dallied the rope to the saddle horn, this big mule was stout enough that he tore the riggin’ out of my saddle. I had managed to give him slack and at the same time wind him around a tree and tie him before we got in a storm and I lost my whole saddle. Bill was an old-time saddle maker and he never stopped talkin’ while he worked, so I was hearin’ stories about the times that other cowboys had tore their saddles up when in walked Mr. Davidson, who ran a dry-goods and furniture store next door. He had been to the post office and comin’ back by came in to talk to me and Bill. He passed the time of day a few minutes talking about the weather and work and stuff. Then he turned to me and said, “Ben, I want to sell you eight two-year-old heifers worth the money.”

I knew about his heifers, but I thought it might do him good to talk about ’em, so I didn’t butt in. He said that he had a string of yearling steers in his pasture, and when he shipped ’em out in the spring the man that bought ’em didn’t want these eight heifers that were in the bunch, so they had turned them back in the pasture.

He wanted to stock this pasture in the late fall with another bunch of steer yearlings and would like to get these heifers out of the way. I listened to all this and I liked Mr. Davidson; he was a nice kind of ole country merchant that ever’body some time or another had owed money to, and after thirty years in the community there still wasn’t anybody that would say anything bad about Mr. Davidson. He took jokin’ pretty good too. I knew that I’d make a trade with him before we quit talkin’, but I felt
like I ought to carry him on a little while, so after this explanation about his heifers I asked him how fat were they and how much would they weigh.

He said they were big fat, and would weigh about 600 pounds apiece.

I said, “Well, I guess they’d be worth about six cents a pound and that would be $36 a head; put them in the corral and I’ll come get ’em.”

He said, “Now, that’s not quite the kind of a trade I want to make because these heifers’ll bring about eight cents a pound, and you know I’m no cowboy and don’t have anybody workin’ for me to pen heifers, so why don’t you just buy ’em and go gather ’em out of the pasture yourself?”

I said, “Mr. Davidson, I didn’t know that you didn’t like me.”

He said, “Why Ben, what do you mean? You’ve always been one of my favorite boys.”

I said, “Well, I know for a fact that Ole Slim Cartwright rode in that pasture at $3 a day until he paid his dry-goods bill and never did see hair nor hide of them heifers. And now you wanta sell ’em to me just like they’as a-standin’ at the gate bawlin’ to get out.”

We had a big laugh and he admitted I was a-tellin’ the truth.

I started out by tellin’ him that it seemed to me like the circumstances would change the price of them heifers a whole lot and $36 apiece would be enough for ’em.

He started out then by tellin’ me when I’d get the heifers out would have something to do with him sellin’ em to me. This was early August, and I asked him how
the fifteenth of September would suit him. He said that’d be early enough if my price was good enough.

I did some fast cowboy arithmetic in my head, and bid him $225 for the bunch. He hemmed and hawed around and looked at the mail that he had in his hand and ’lowed as how he ought to get $250 for ’em. That little remark as much as told me that I already had ’em bought.

So after a little more jaw work he took me up and I paid him for the heifers.

The weather was hot and I rode this pasture from daylight until about noon and then from about three o’clock in the afternoon till dark for five straight days without findin’ the heifers. This bunch of heifers hadn’t been run and they weren’t spoiled or outlawed; they were just by instinct wild, and too, the grazing was better in the thickets and valleys than it was out of the open mesas. The summer foliage was extremely dense, and standin’ out on the bluffs horseback tryin’ to spot brownish-red and brindle cattle in a thicket below was not easy.

This particular afternoon I had ridden up on a high mesa that had a steep bluff lookin’ off to the east. The fence line ran so close under the bluff that you couldn’t see it from a standin’ position on top of the mesa. The mesa overlooked a small farm to the east that faced out on a country road at the other side of it. As I sat there on my horse wonderin’ where else to look for my heifers, I saw little Peddy ridin’ Queenie comin’ up across the field.

Queenie was a small grey mare of mine that was about sixteen years old. She had taught half of the town
kids how to ride horseback, and the fall before this I had taken her away from some kids in town that were runnin’ her up and down the streets and not takin’ very good care of her. She was gonna bring a colt in the spring, and I had started to the pasture that I had leased down the road in front of Peddy’s house.

When Peddy came out to the road, as he often did when I passed, and stretched his hands up to me to pick him up and carry him in front of me on my horse. This time I had reached over from my saddle and picked Peddy up and set him on Queenie that I was leadin’, and let him ride her back to his house.

Peddy had had a very serious sickness when he was only three or four years old and had always been frail and had lots of sick spells. He was a good little boy, but his older brothers and sisters never had bothered to play with him and his mother and daddy didn’t have much time to spend with him.

Peddy laid around on the porch in the summertime and in front of the fire in the wintertime, and had taken very little exercise. His mother, Amy, had never been able to get him to eat very much.

When we got to the house, he didn’t want to get off of Queenie. He didn’t make any fuss, nor cry, but he got around to askin’ me if Queenie could stay at his house a few days. Peddy couldn’t talk plain and his voice was weak, but his big eyes put forth a very convincing argument, and I had left Queenie there almost a year ago. Queenie had kept Peddy out in the sunshine and fresh air, and caused him to take exercise and he was growin’ into a healthy, chuffy little boy. Queenie had brought a
colt in the spring, and it was nearly grown and was followin’ as he rode across the fields.

I had watched him a few minutes when he looked up and saw me up on the bluff. He waved real big with his ragged straw hat for me to meet him at the north corner of the field. I rode down to the fence line as Peddy rode up, and in his broken dialect he asked me to crawl over the fence and we’d eat a watermelon. That sounded like a good proposition to me. We walked out among the watermelon vines and Peddy picked out one that looked a little overripe, and when I suggested that we get a different one, he said, he’d give this one first to Queenie and then we could have a better one.

We got a good melon and got under the shade of a tree on the fence line of the pasture. Peddy asked me what I was doin’ in the Davidson pasture, and I told him about buyin’ the heifers and that I was lookin’ for ’em. Peddy was a serious little boy; I suppose because he had been sick so much in his life. He didn’t hoorah and play much, and he seemed to have wisdom far beyond his years concerning pets and dumb animals. As we ate the watermelon I told him that I’ad put out some feed for the heifers, but they had never been fed and probably wouldn’t come to feed.

Peddy had pulled some salt, wrapped up in wax paper, out of the pocket of his homemade shirt that we had been usin’ on the watermelon. He held the salt up in his hand and said, “Ben, hepers like sol.”

I said, “Peddy, I know heifers like salt, but if I put a sack o’ salt out in the pasture, they’d eat as much as they
wanted in a few-days, and I might not get a chance to drive ’em out when they came to salt.”

Peddy looked very serious and said, “Don’t put out no sack, hepers lick sol outa yer han.”

I didn’t laugh at Peddy unless he said something that he knew was funny because Peddy had been laughed at too much by people because he couldn’t talk. I studied about what Peddy had said as I flipped watermelon seeds off of the piece I was about to eat.

I said, “Peddy, gentle heifers would lick salt out of your hand, but these heifers are wild.”

Peddy looked over the fence to the other side at Queenie as though he was tryin’ to figure out a way to make me understand. He held the salt up again in the paper and said, “Hepers lick sol out of Peddy’s han. They no wil. I sol hepers when I sol Queenie when she under tree.”

This was the only shade tree in the field and when Queenie was in the field loose Peddy would bring salt to catch Queenie with, and he said that he had been lettin the heifers lick salt out of his hand through the fence.

This sounded too good to be true! But Peddy was a good little boy and was not jokin’ about the heifers lickin’ out of his hand, and he convinced me of it in broken sentences and the serious look on his face.

We were about finished with the watermelon, and I said, “Peddy, what’s Queenie’s colt’s name?”

He said, “Queenie hav’ Princ, what do you think?” and then smiled real big.

I told Peddy that I would take the fence down, and
the next time the heifers came to the fence he could give ’em some salt and after they were cut in the field I’d put the fence back up.

Peddy said that these heifers came to that thicket under the bluff by the tree about every third day. I pondered this and knew that that would be so true because cattle range over a big pasture, and make it back to certain spots at intervals. It was evident that Peddy had watched for ’em and fed ’em salt out of his hand and knew what he was talkin’ about.

He said that “they’d no be there tomorro’, but would be there the nex’ day,” which I knew would be Friday.

I asked Peddy why he didn’t have a saddle on Queenie. He told me it hurt her sides when he tightened it up, and he didn’t mind ridin’ bareback. He got a hold of Queenie’s mane and crawled up her foreleg with his bare toes as I crawled over the fence and got on my horse, and we waved at each other and rode away.

I studied about the heifers having been in the pasture all summer without any salt. Hot weather and green pasture cause cattle to crave salt, and when they smelled Queenie licking from Peddy’s hand, they came to the smell by instinct.

The next day I took a ten-pound sack of table salt and tied it on my saddle and rode out to Peddy’s house. Ace, his father, was home and I told him about mine and Peddy’s conversation and watermelon eatin’ the day before. His mother was listenin’ and she broke out laughin’ and said that she had wondered what Peddy had been doin’ with all the table salt.

Peddy came in while we were talkin’ and we discussed
our plans about the heifers. Ace and Amy went on at length about how much good Queenie had done for Peddy and now he was strong enough to start to school this fall, which would be his first year. They talked on about Peddy feeding Queenie before he would eat breakfast, dinner, or supper.

Ace said that he’d go up to the back of the field and let the fence down. Peddy broke in to warn us that the “hepers were no fra’d of Peddy, but mit be afra’d of big mans.” So we agreed to let him try it his own way.

The next day Peddy was up at sunup and went to the watermelon patch on Queenie and sure ’nuff, the heifers worked their way up to the fence. I was settin’ up on top of the bluff, horseback, when I watched eight two-year-old heifers follow a small boy and a little ole grey mare out from under the bluff and down into an open field. I came off the bluff and put up the fence behind him. Peddy walked on the ground and the heifers one at a time would follow along and lick salt out of his hand. Ace came out away around and away from the heifers and Peddy. I came up from behind and neither of us did anything to help or made a sound, while Peddy and Queenie tolled eight fat, brownish-red crossbred heifers into a corral.

Ace shut the gate, with Peddy tellin’ him not to “kare” ’em. I rode up and got down off of my horse. Peddy wasn’t anxious to get out of the lot and he poured a little more salt out of the sack into a trough as he led Queenie toward the corral gate. Ace opened the gate and let him out.

Of course, I was all smiles and I’as a-braggin’ on
Peddy and a-braggin’ on Queenie, and for the first time since I had known Peddy, he literally beamed over what he had done!

This was the best heifer-gatherin’ that I had ever had. I had bought ’em awful cheap; they were bigger’n either Mr. Davidson or I had guessed ’em and sure ’nuff would bring eight cents a pound.

I said, “Peddy, I’m gonna put you in the cow business. Pick out the heifer you want, and I’ll give ’er to you.”

Peddy looked at me and looked at Ace and got very serious, and in a broken, stammerin’ voice, said he’d ruther have Queenie. I told Peddy that the heifer would make him the most money.

He buried his face in Queenie’s mane and rubbed her neck with his hands and said, “Queenie make me well.”

I looked at Ace and he was tryin’ to get something out of his eye.

I couldn’t think of any reason to want Queenie, so I cleared my throat, and in a clear, firm voice said, “Peddy, get on
your
mare and help me up the road with these heifers.”