A bunch of heifers and a future

School House Pasture

A bunch of heifers and a future

Prince Albert tins

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            The empty Prince Albert tobacco tin was the clue.

            Dusty and I were coming down the main drainage of Brock Canyon just west from his headquarters when we saw it. The conversation immediately shifted to Albert Wilmeth.

‘Mr. Wilmeth’ left an esoteric legacy among the circle who knew him. Prince Albert tins were a lingering part of it. For years after he was gone and Dusty had acquired the School House allotment, he or others would occasionally find one of those rusting tins. Most of them were found where they were tossed when the tin was emptied and the last cigarette was rolled. Others were found and used as chats with notes in a pile of rocks signifying a mining claim.

            I can remember the process very well. Rain or shine, hot or cold, still or in a spring wind, he would reach for his makings. He would tear off a piece of paper and put the rest back. He’d crease the wrap in his left hand and then reach for the Prince Albert in his jumper. Never pulling the horse up, he’d tap the tobacco out, spread it, lick the paper and spin it into a perfect roll.

He’d then reach for a match and strike it across his Levis. If the wind was blowing, he’d use his jumper as a windbreak.

I loved the smell of those freshly lit cigarettes.

            I can’t remember what Dusty and I did with the tin that day. I wish I had kept it. It would mean a lot to me, and … it would certainly prompt memories.

“Time to jingle, son”

            That nudge was from Grandpa Albert and the clock in the front of the house would have just chimed 5:15.

Indeed, time to jingle and that meant gathering the horses. In our vernacular, it was simply, horses. That meant the dozen or so horses that were kept in the pasture that ran between the headquarters on the west side of the Mangus and across the creek to the filling station at Mangus Springs.

            I never dreaded waking. It was always a thrill to be on the cusp of making a ride. The only regret I have now is not spending yet more time with Grandpa. Perhaps that is now impacted by the desire to converse with him in terms of years of experience as opposed to being a kid that just wanted to follow him around horseback.

            The sweet smell of predawn greeted us as we walked to the barn.

            We talked sparingly. Grandpa was not a great detail communicator. He would keep you between the posts, but he would make you work most things out by yourself. Other than catching the horse on which we jingled, that meant catching your own day horse. That meant throwing your own saddle. That meant figuring out how to do what he told you to do.

            As you got your saddle and pads out of the barn, he’d be off into the dark to catch the lone horse “kept up” for the purpose of gathering the horses those mornings. That one time he’d throw the saddle, and, when we were little, he’d boost us into the saddle.

            He’d walk with you to the gate, open it, and then … you were on your own.

            The gather was an experience of immense freedom. The predawn, the cool morning, the feel of the fresh horse, the anticipation of the inevitable run back to the corral, and the responsibility were learning experiences few ten year old and younger kids could fathom today. Wrapped in the security of that little silver horned saddle, all the tools of making a young cowboy were brought to bear.

It was exhilarating.

            The order of business that day was to move replacement heifers from the windmill trap to School House pasture. After eating breakfast, we were saddled and gone promptly at 7:00. Goofus, the sorrel gelding, was mine for the day. Jack was bowed up and walking sideways under Grandpa as we left the corral. We were in full ranch regalia that morning. We were going to be in the brush for part of the ride and leggins’ were the order.

            Grandpa would have a hard time striking a match across his split hide batwings. He’d have to strike them under the nail of his right thumb.

            I was always told it was exactly one mile to the windmill in the windmill trap. We made the ride without ever letting the horses trot. By the time we got there and started gathering, both horses were reaching and walking. That was the mandatory rule of horsemanship with my grandfather. He could get as much out of a horse as anybody I ever saw. Even at the end of hard days, he still had a horse under him. He taught you those things without ever saying anything.

            The heifers were heifers.

            Like young girls that didn’t know whether they were still little girls or women, they simply reacted to the herd responses. Days like that taught me something Grandpa didn’t. I don’t recall him ever putting older cows with his weaned calves. We now believe the influence of an older cow that knows the country and has been with those home grown replacements is a stabilizing factor. The calves won’t be as silly and unpredictable with a nurse cow.

            The first quarter mile was fast and furious. It was the right stuff for ten year old cowboys who have been exposed to a few runoff cattle.

            The climb out of the trap helped settle the cattle, and, by the time we topped out, we had things in pretty good order. There was still little talking as our attention was on the calves and the expectation that the descent down the other side would present another challenge of holding them up and together.

            When they did try to run, Grandpa got them headed and I kept the drags up and close. By the time we hit the extended canyon bottom off the other side of the divide, we had them lined out and acting like young ladies. It was then time for a bit of conversation back and forth.

            The cut in the bottom of the canyon along the two tracked road helped split the herd and I was coming down the left side of the drive across the cut from the rest of the calves and Grandpa. There was order, though, and we let the calves set their own pace.

            “What are you going to do with your life, Stevie?” he asked out of the blue.

            I suppose my delayed reaction was typical of that ten year old. He asked me again and there was insistence in his demeanor.

            “I am going to be a cowboy just like you, Grandpa”, was my natural inclination and reaction on a day like that one.

His response was not at all like I had expected. He was very negative about it and told me there were better things that needed to be pursued. I didn’t like that response and felt very intimidated by his less than patronizing drilling that continued. He was pretty tough with me.

We finished our drive by holding the heifers up at the corral and water lot in the bottom of School House Canyon. We forced them to hang around the water to make sure they all saw what was there and the importance it would be to them and they wintered in that pasture.

The ride out

Grandpa was never just my friend. He was my abuelo who seldom wavered from seriousness. It was always work and sticking to business. The fact we finished the drive didn’t mean the day was over, and … far from it.

Since we were over in that part of the country, it was necessary to make a little soiree out across it. I now know he was looking at feed. We also looked at water gaps. We checked for tracks of cattle that were not supposed to be there, and we checked waters.

When we finally turned and headed for the house, we topped out and crossed the divide right in the same place Dusty and I found that empty tin of Prince Albert tobacco 32 years later. Very likely Grandpa had lit another smoke and settled in for that ride off the ridge. He would have been thinking what he needed to do next, and I was doing what was most important … I was following him horseback.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “Grandpa was the only man of his standing and his generation that I know whose children all earned college degrees. Of that, I hope he was proud, but, like it or not, his words didn’t sway me. I dreamed every day of owning those heifers we put over that ridgeline.”