12
Before Mr. Aikens leaves for Flagstaff, he gives me the direction for Apache Maid Mountain. I am to travel on a trail to Mormon Lake through the heavy timbered country about twenty-five miles, where I find a camp with a small horse pasture and a cabin with supplies for cooking. Here I am to stay the night, then continue my trip to the big mountain. On the day I leave for the roundup, I tie my bed roll on the curly blue pony and, riding the old reliable cow pony of my outfit, I head for Apache Maid via Mormon Lake. I was told that if I traveled in one direction I couldn’t miss Mormon Lake, as it was twenty miles long, and when I reached its shores to turn right and I would run into a camp at the end of the lake. I am on my way with a string of green horses, half broken, to join a real cow outfit where punchers with green horses are seldom welcomed.
The past two weeks have been my worst experience as a cowpuncher, much worse than in the Mazatzals. There I had a companion. Here at Mr. Aikens’ camp, I was completely alone where anything could happen, only it didn’t.
I have been awfully lucky with no trouble. Following directions, I arrive at the Thursten headquarters where many punchers from many other cow outfits are rendezvousing for the start of the spring roundup. This fellow Thursten is a real cowman, greatly respected by all the cattle folks in Arizona. He is a big man with an understanding of cowpunchers’ problems. To say he is amazed that I have landed to start on roundup with a string of half broken cow ponies, all of said ponies having been broken by me in the past fourteen days, without help, is putting it mildly. In no uncertain terms he expresses his opinion of my boss, but gives me the assurance he and his men will help me anytime I am in trouble. Here I am, meeting with some of Arizona’s best cowmen. They are all older than I and all experienced in this territory, where cowpunching is different than in Colorado or in the Mazatzal Mountains, which are the only three places in my short life where I have worked as a cowhand.
The cattle range of Flagstaff and surrounding country is similar to the Mazatzals in that there is a lot of timber, only of a different kind. The Flagstaff country doesn’t have such terrible steep mountains, and here the cattle aren’t so wild. In the summers the grass is fattening, so the cattlemen are able to ship beef to market in the fall without the usual feed yard.
Among the representatives of different outfits is Lee Miller, whose headquarters are on the Little Colorado, where he was boss for the Babbitt people of Flagstaff. Lee was one of the best riders, ropers or all-around cowmen in any man’s country and became my good friend in the days to come. Working under Mr. Thursten as boss with my string of half broken colts, I had a most enjoyable and different two months than any I had ever experienced in the cattle business.
One of the first things I learned as a cowhand in this territory was that altitude has a great effect on many things, especially cattle. Here they were quick to stampede. That was why, when working herd, they always tried to find a real rocky piece of ground where the cattle would have sore feet and couldn’t run. This was also a reason for having shoes on all horses, as they could work in the malipi and the cattle couldn’t. Another thing, one should always be alert for skunks, which would go mad with the altitude and would bite anything. Also, in the fall when beef were real fat, there was a tendency to stampede, and when holding a herd at night the cry of a coyote or timber wolf or the rustle of a slicker on a rainy night would stampede a herd instantly.
Working our way from Apache Maid Mountain back past Mormon Lake toward the Little Colorado, we ended up near the shores of Lake Mary, which was July the first, when Mr. Aikens joined us for our last day of work before the roundup ended. I had made many friends and was offered a job by Mr. Thursten any time, any place, all of which he told Mr. Aikens, who only grinned. I learned from my boss that Flagstaff had a three-day rodeo and general celebration starting on the fourth of July, with riding contests, relay races and all-around general sports. So, turning my string of horses loose in the good pasture, the boss and I go to Flagstaff to see my pal Brownie and celebrate.
While I have been out on the roundup, my new saddle I had ordered before leaving Flagstaff has arrived and Brownie has been using it, so we exchange saddles, although they are both just the same. Brownie’s is broken in and a new saddle needs use. I have three months of pay in my pocket and am all dressed up with no place to go. With three days celebration coming up, Brownie tries to talk me into entering the bucking contest. Inquiring as to the prize money and the rules, we find the prize money is not very big and that each person riding furnishes his own horse. I have no bucking horse, but Aikens has three pretty fast ponies that I just turned loose at his ranch which I think might win the relay race worth a couple of hundred bucks.
When I tell Mr. Aikens about the three ponies, he says, “Go get them. You can have all you make, and if you want to enter the bucking contest, my uncle Tom Fryer has a real bucking horse you can have, only I suggest you ride him first, just to get the feel. I’m sure with this horse you can win first dough.”
Leaving late, I am back with my three relay ponies and the little sorrel bucking horse. In the morning, going out to the track, Brownie and I work the three relay ponies, just getting them used to the fast change of saddle and mounting. I am quite satisfied. At the suggestion that I try out the bucking horse to see if I can ride him, I laugh this off as ridiculous, it isn’t the way we do it in my country. You drew for your horse, which you had never seen, and either rode him or you didn’t. It didn’t seem like cricket to me to ride a horse before the contest, even if they assured me everyone did.
Looking the little sorrel over, I tell Brownie if I can’t ride him, I don’t deserve any money, which is exactly what I got — no money.
The relay is for two o’clock, so Brownie and I are on the job. It calls for saddling your first horse when the signal is given, all starting at once around the track, changing horses, then around to another change of horse and home. With Brownie holding, I do the saddling and riding; we are away first each time and it looks like we will win, but my last pony wasn’t quite fast enough, so we finish second out of nine contestants, which is good going for three horses that three months previous were green broncos.
Now comes the riding. I am fifth to ride, which is a good spot, and Brownie and I think we have a cinch. There is no chute, you saddle out in the open, so with Brownie pulling the sorrel’s head down and twisting his ears, I quickly saddle, give the cinch a good pull and step on. Brownie steps back. Without paying any attention to this baby’s head or what he is going to do, I have hat in hand, throw the right spur toward his shoulder and start to look back at the crowd for a grandstand ride, when this little monster falls apart. He doesn’t go ahead but lets out a bawl and starts bucking backwards and sideways. I lose both stirrups on the second jump, and by the fourth I have to grab the horn to even stay on. This I manage to do. I could well imagine what my big brother would have said had he seen my noble exhibition. It was every bit my fault. I was careless and too cocksure. I rode like a farmer. It served me right. Well, at least we won a hundred and twenty-five dollars in the relay, which was expense money for our celebration. Better than spending our own dough.
I was all for drifting south but accepted a job with Mr. Aikens to stay with him until the beef roundup in the fall, when I could go down to the Little Colorado and join my friend Lee Miller. Of one thing I was sure, I wouldn’t winter in Flagstaff. I had enough snow and dead cattle the previous winter to last me a lifetime. Besides, I wanted to travel in the direction of warmth and sunshine.
Back at the Aikens camp, I unpack the groceries and canned food to put things in order before visiting the other cow camps. I find no Carnation cream. Although my boss has been charged for a case, there is no cream. Someone has pulled a boner. Here, eighteen miles from town, over a damn tough road, I am without my Carnation for my canned fruit, for my rice, my coffee, my gravy The joy has gone out of my eating department — immediately.
It is a fact known to all cowmen that there may be ten thousand cows in the back yard but who wants to milk a cow? The canned product is the stuff every cowman has in his home, at the ranch, with the roundup wagon. Hell, children grow on it. I was raised on Carnation cream, and here some damn clerk has left me high and dry.
The closest ranch is three miles, owned by my boss’s uncle. I know he isn’t at the ranch, but this makes no difference. The place will be open, as no one ever locks a door in this country. This is tradition with cattlemen. A fellow eats and sleeps, cleans up afterwards and goes on his merry way. It is a nice custom and never abused by real cowmen. So, over I go, hoping to grab a half dozen of Mr. Carnation’s best, which will, if I am real careful, last me until I join the roundup wagon. Anyway, I will be visiting the other camps some of the time. Mr. Fryer’s camp is deserted, but as usual everything is open, so I raid the joint. There is everything to eat, beans, canned fruit of every kind, but only one poor, lonesome small can of Carnation cream, which I haven’t the heart to take. Someone may need it worse than me. By now, convinced that a clerk is a clerk and mostly a jerk, I am headed back where I started from, when I pass a nice looking red cow with a nice pair of horns and a young bull calf she seems mighty proud of. Here, I have one of my greatest ideas — why don’t the young bull and I become partners in the milk department? There is only one little problem. He knows how to proceed better than I do. So, without further thought, I drive young Mr. Bull and his mother toward my camp and the big corral. Now I have me a walking container full of milk, only I know the lady is going to object. So what? Ladies have objected before. Why, I don’t know, but I name the lady Susie and her little monster Cyclone. Had I thought for a hundred years, I would never come up with a more appropriate name for the little bull. He was all of that and more. Putting the little monster in the small corral, I leave his mother in the large corral with the gate open, so Susie can go out and graze or have a drink. But young Cyclone has a rail fence between himself and his mother for the night. He doesn’t have any manners, he wants to eat all the time, but he is going to share his breakfast with me. I don’t know how, but for once I am going to learn about cow’s milk.
There is one bad feature about fresh milk after you get it — what to do with it? With a can, you just stick a plug in the hole and the milk keeps. No wonder cattlemen don’t bother with taking it away from the cow and then trying to find a way to keep it fresh without ice. Me, I have a thought. Taking two stone jars, which were once full of apple butter, I am going (if I can get some milk) to put the small jar with the milk in the large jar, tighten both lids, dig a hole in the sand in the springs near our shack and let the cool water run over them. If this doesn’t work, Susie will only have one to support. Tomorrow after breakfast, I shall talk the matter over with the lady and see how she feels. I have my doubts.
On my way to the milking department to be, I am about to call the whole thing off as being too much trouble. Then I remember how flat breakfast tasted. I decide, just once and no more. Young Cyclone is bawling and raising hell. The pig is real hungry, so for once in his young life he is going to have seconds. His mother is up against the little corral fence as close as possible, when I throw my rope over her horns and pull the lady’s head up next to a post so she can’t stick one of those nice horns through my middle. This takes care of the front end, but the dairy end is free and kicking and it’s here I have to operate. So, wasting no more time, I rope and tie her right back leg to another post. This leaves the faucet department open to attack, which I do. With a tin cup in my hand I grab number one faucet and squeeze and pull. Nothing happens. Susie is a real lady, she resents the addition to her family and has turned the faucets off.
With my head against her side to keep her from falling on me, I try them all. I have one more chance. I turn Cyclone loose on the lady. This guy knows all the answers. Giving his mother a butt in the milk department with his head, the gentleman grabs a faucet and goes to work. Soon there is a stream of fluid running down the little monster’s neck and I go to work with my little tin cup on the other side.
Evidently Susie can’t turn the faucets off one by one, for very quickly I have extracted three tin cups full of nice milk, which was all I wanted. The rest is for my partner, and does he understand what he is doing? While I am untying the lady, he is punching her with his head until he has drained the container dry. Then with milk all over his white face like a little pig, he looks at me as much as to say, “Son, you just don’t know your stuff.”
But I know something he doesn’t. Today he and mother are free in the pasture, but tonight it’s back to the small corral for him. I have decided to give it a try for a few days if the milk keeps in my jar under the springs.
With three tin cups of milk every morning, I have plenty and everything tastes better. My hole in the springs works perfect and Susie doesn’t put up so much fight, although I think she would still like to stick a horn through me just for having disgraced a perfectly good range cow. For it’s back to the range for her when I head for the roundup, and it’s me back to the canned article, no work, no trouble, just poke a hole in a can. Nothing could be easier or sweeter.
With Susie and her offspring, I have a nice arrangement. When I am away for a night or two, my young friend Cyclone does the milking, and when I return and want milk, I just pen the little fellow up for the night and, come morning, we both battle for our share. I have grown very fond of the little guy. When he is not busy in the dairy department, I pet him and he has no fear, even if his mother is worried and disgusted with the entire affair.
I am having an easy time, visiting other cow camps, and join in a wild horse roundup where I catch a big, wild, dark brown stallion, about seven years old. This fellow is all horse but wild as hell. So this beautiful horse I take to my home camp where I have plenty of time, and, just for my own satisfaction, I break him to ride.
The big stallion starts out full of fight, but with patience and kindness and by never allowing him to win a battle, I soon have a big powerful horse with greater stamina than any of the colts I broke for the roundup.
When my boss comes to visit me and to tell me to go down to the Little Colorado and join the fall roundup for beef, he is amazed at the big brown stallion. But what to do with him? I can’t take him on the roundup with the other horses, since he’s an original wild horse and a stallion. So Mr. Aikens decides to turn him loose on the big range from whence he came, where he could join his own kind and be free again. I hate to part with the big boy. While he is far from being a gentle horse, with me he was always very friendly, would push me around with his head when he wanted it scratched or petted. So I turn him loose with a farewell pat, never expecting to see him again.
Taking six of the top cow ponies, I join Lee Miller and his gang on the Little Colorado. The work is, as usual, long hours from early to late, with two hours night herd. The cattle are beautiful and fat, more so than any range cattle I ever saw on a fall roundup. Truly, the Flagstaff cowmen have the world by the tail. In the winter they drift off the mountains, out of snow and cold, down to a warmer climate and good food.
We have completed our fall work. The beef have all been shipped. All I have to do is turn my string of cow ponies loose in the big pasture where there is plenty of good grass and water. Here they will remain until spring, when some puncher is hired for the spring roundup.
Coming down over the mountain into the small valley with the frame shack and rail corrals of Aikens’ ranch, I see several horses grazing near the stream which runs past and between the shack and corrals. These horses spot us at about the same time, throw up their heads and start for the hills, all except a big brown horse who disputes our way with his head held high and nostrils blazing. He is a beautiful sight. Here is my old friend that I had turned loose to freedom a couple of months before. He circles around us, not knowing if he would be welcome or not. So, pushing my ponies through the corral into the pasture, I leave the big gate from the range open to see if he will come in. With all the horses out of the way except my saddle horse in the small corral, I walk out to the open range. The big boy hasn’t forgotten. While I was away he has gathered up his old family of mares, who are now waiting on a hill a short distance away, and has brought his family back from their own range, where there are no fences or humans.
He is magnificent! A stallion returned to a place he had never seen but once in his life, and that time by force, returning to visit the only human he had ever known, where he had been treated like the gentleman he is, with petting and kindness.
Standing outside the big corral gate on the open range, he is tossing his head, making up his mind that I am the right person. I start talking to him, then hold out my hand and say, “Let’s go, son.” I turn and walk toward the corral gate. Without a minute’s hesitancy, he follows me like I thought he would, through the gate and inside. Here I stop and he is up against me to have his head rubbed, just the same as in the old days.
I have just passed my twentieth birthday and have broken many wild horses — not the domesticated wild horse, it is always the real wild horses that make the better cow ponies. They are tougher and can stand more hardship, are more loyal and friendly than our domestic breed. Always, in choosing the best horses to break out of a large herd, we tried not to pick one over four years of age, as the older horses were real tough to break. But here was this beautiful brown stallion who had roamed the mountains with his family of mares and was at least seven years old, never touched by a human hand until, veering to escape in a wild horse drive, he passed close to my rope and it settled over his pretty head and the battle was on. As he traveled down the mountain with a terrific speed, I had just time enough to head Gray Eagle uphill to take the shock, and even then he almost upset us. It was a foolish thing to do, but I wanted this fellow who was so beautiful and graceful in flight, and I acted before I thought. With an ordinary rope horse other than Gray Eagle, we could both have been severely hurt, but my big gray was no ordinary horse, so before any help could arrive we had the big stallion tied fast. I was the only one with a wild horse, as the rest of the herd went through and over the new corral, which was built as a trap. For once the king had made a mistake by deserting his herd to go over the side of a mountain.
Now, here on a range where he doesn’t belong, this magnificent animal with his family of mares has returned. How long they have been here, I don’t know. I only know it is dangerous for them. They belong far back in the mountains, where only on special occasions are they ever bothered by man, and where the odds are a hundred to one they will never be caught.
In a big corral, where I have left the gate open, I am being nuzzled by this king of all wild horses. Whether he is trying to thank me for turning him loose, or thank me for not making a slave of him by treating him like most wild stallions are treated, I will never know. It is getting late. Soon the sun will be down and I have eighteen miles over a rough trail to Flagstaff, but I can’t push this fellow around. He seems so glad to see me, so I clean his mane and tail and trim one of his front hoofs which is broken.
Taking him out the big gate to open range, I pet his beautiful head, and with a few pats I tell him to get the hell back where he belongs. My friend trots off to join his family, which is waiting near the top of the big hill. I watch him and his group disappear and, as sad as I had ever been in my life, I start for Flagstaff in no hurry.
I have plenty to think about. A big beautiful stallion, with a greater understanding and affection than most human beings I have ever known. Him, I shall always remember. I only hope he wasn’t fooled by his one touch of civilization.
I have my mind made up when I get to Flagstaff to draw my pay and go south. I don’t want to be caught in any storm or freezing weather, and tell Mr. Aikens of my decision to move and about the big brown stallion returning. He says, “Son, your friend Guy Gal-brieth told me right when he said you had a way with horses. If you would stay with me, or come back in the spring, we could catch a lot of wild horses using your big brown for a decoy, for I’m sure you could find him again.” This doesn’t appeal to me, but I do agree to live at his house and break two thoroughbreds he has bought. They are a couple of young, nervous colts he wants broken real gentle to keep in town and train for racing. I agree to do this, but at the first sign of snow, I am gone.
My pal Brownie isn’t going with me. He is going home for Christmas, so a young cowboy, Berry Carter, is going to join me, and on November the seventh we depart for the south to a spot in Imperial Valley, Calexico, on the border of Mexico. We are at least near a foreign country. To us it is foreign.
Imperial Valley was new. Many farms were in the making, with new land being leveled, new irrigation ditches being built and various crops being planted. It was a garden-spot-to-be under development. There were no paved roads through the valley, just in some of the towns and then only the main streets. Here, in one of the worst dust storms Imperial Valley had ever known, we arrive in the town of Calexico.