he ranch was 250,000 acres in size and 10,000 Texas cows knew it as home.
As I walked through the pre-dawn darkness toward the camp shack a cow bawled out on the range, and I heard the shuffle of horses’ hooves in the corral.
A dozen cowboys blinked at me. Great hats shaded their faces. Frying steak sizzled and the lanky cook said, “He’p yourself to coffee.”
The men awkwardly shook hands and told their names. The camp was two-roomed, with bunks lining the walls. Bedrolls were sprawled on them and under them were boots, spurs, ropes and chaps.
The cook yelled, “Chuck,” and the men heaped tin plates full of biscuits, steak and fried eggs. They ate silently, and when finished they scraped their plates clean and returned them to the kitchen.
Silent still they gathered saddles and bridles from the fence and hobbled to the corral. Spurs jingled in the jet-black morning. I followed the sound.
The horses’ heads molded against the skyline like barren snags of dead trees as the cowboys bent low, identifying their mounts by the shapes of their heads.
There sounded a soft snorting, jingle of spurs, gentle words soothing the horses. Two youths, Jim and Dagger, were the last to leave. Jim’s black twice ran out from under the saddle. Patiently, Jim buckled the cinch and put his weight on the saddle to test it. Dagger was ready to go but fiddled with the reins to see if he was needed.
Dagger said, “He ain’t gonna buck, Smith.”
Jim untangled the mane. “Ain’t sayin’ he is. Aint’s takin’ any chances is all.” He twisted his boot into the stirrup, eased up. The bronc pranced and tried to get his head down. Jim socked in a spur. The bronc snorted in surprise and forgot to buck. The partners rode off into the gray dawn.
At sunup I bounced across the ranch in a jeep to a corral where the herd was to be held. East of the corral was a sea of white faces.
Swinging lariats, yelling, the punchers pointed the herd through the gate. Tying their horses to mesquite branches, the cowboys walked to their places of begin the tiresome task of weighing 1,000 calves.
I helped Jim and Dagger drive the calves over the scales, 20 at a time.
Came noon and time to eat at the chuck wagon. Then, lying back on their saddles the men half-dozed, occasionally waking up to tell a story. Someone brought up the subject of wild cattle in the Palo Duro Canyon, a 100-mile-long gash in the Texas panhandle at the south end of the ranch.
John Brown asked, “Wonder how one of them old steers would be for meat?”
C.H. Long shook his head. “Once me and Wylie Marsh were bringing in one when he broke a leg. We butchered him and that was the toughest meat I ever ate.”
I stretched out on the sun-warmed buffalograss, pulled my hat over my eyes and thought of taking a nap. Things got quiet. Too quiet. Somebody said, “Reckon what that newspaper feller would do if an ol’ rattler pulled up alongside him and settled down for a snooze?”
There was a little snicker.
I tried to ignore it. But my flesh began to creep. I jerked up and looked around. The cowboys slapped their leather chaps and shouted. John Brown sat up, knuckled his eyes and said, “Time to go to work, fellers.”
His spurs jingled as he walked toward the corral. I followed, grinning.
Fuss fell in beside me. “What are you going to write about?”
“About cowboys. A roundup in Texas.”
“Write something about me, will you?”
“Why?”
His face reddened. He said, haltingly, “I… ain’t never been, uh, married. Maybe… if you wrote something nice about me, it would help me catch a woman.”
