Wild Cow Hunts

Presidential aspirations

Wild Cow Hunts

Words or Actions

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            There is a picture of Grandpa Albert Wilmeth on my tack room wall.

            He is probably 18 or so which would make the year about 1910. He is mounted on a little black horse that probably didn’t weigh a thousand pounds. His stirrups extend below the girth line. The horse has shades of mustang about him with a head that modern bridles may not fit. In fact, it looks like he’s fitted with a side pull arrangement with rope reins. Maybe the available bridle at that time didn’t fit either. He had his ears back listening to the rider without any suggestion of more serious intentions.

            Grandpa is wearing a short brimmed black hat that could have been a derby or it was cut down from a wider brim at some point. He has Levi’s and a jumper on and he’s tied hard and fast. In the backdrop there are two horses. One is probably a sorrel with a flaxen mane that has been combed out with some care and the other is a bay. Both look like they are out of a Charles Russell painting with need of a hundred pounds added to their frame. They are ground tied and both are standing and dozing.

            The scene is on a wooded hillside in the Gila. It was winter or early spring.

            It was too early to be working located cattle and the backdrop is not one that I would place my grandfather in his daily life. If I had to guess, I will wager the scene was from … a cow hunt.

            Cow Hunts

            J. FrankDobie chronicled cow hunts in the Texas brush country.

            In one of his accounts, he described how brush country cowboys would stick a needle into the fleshy middle of their saddle skirts for sewing the eyelids of wild cattle shut when they turned them loose to be led home by a neck oxen or another lead animal.

            The process would start with roping the animal. There are many accounts of roping wild cattle and Dobie recounts in vivid description many of them. Among his accounts, the night ropings stand out. The danger and the skill required to get such an undertaking done was incredible. The setting was brush country and the need was to catch cattle grazing in the grassy clearings. The cattle had become so wild they simply couldn’t be caught in the day when they retired to the thickest brush. The cowboys would watch for tracks and move into an ambush with enough numbers shape the cattle for other ropers or to spread out enough that multiple chances at a shot could be afforded.

            With a bit of ranch humor, the stories are fascinating.

            There is a story of a vaquero roping what he thought was black calf. It turned out to be a full grown bear. In another story, the roped animal was thought to be a blond colored calf. Every time the cowboy would trip the animal and get down to tie it, it was on its feet either coming up the rope to him or running in circles away from him. This adventure went on until it was light enough see and it turned out the calf was a lion!

            When the cow brute was successfully caught and snubbed to a mesquite, it was typically left tied for a period of time. The rationale was practical. First, draining off a bit of energy was a safer bet than competing with a fully charged animal that was intent on squaring the deal. The second was to retrieve a lead animal. In south Texas that was usually an ox.

            Onie Sheeran, Atlee Weston, and a five year old pet brindle ox by the name of Pavo once cleared 125 head of cattle off a range for a fee of $5 per head. Pavo led every one of those mavericks to a pen near a windmill where they could be handled and eventually driven away. Pavo shared the cowboy’s camp every night as well as the charred prickly pear fed to the captured cattle.

            The snubbed cattle would be sore by the time Pavo or one of his contemporaries were necked to the roped animal. They would then be turned loose and the necked partner would eventually lead the animal to the place he was used to being fed. In this case, it was that pen near the water source.

This process was also captured brilliantly through the genius of J.R. Williams in his Out Our Way caricatures. In framed snapshots, the daily lives of the characters Curley, Stiffy, Soda, Ick, and Wes were played out. Cowboys, old and young, smiled at the matter of fact skill of the characters. Implicit in them were the real life cowboys who actually lived those moments and got it done.

Both Dobie and Williams witnessed the skill and the courage of those men and their horses.

            As a child, I listened to similar stories with utter fascination of the cowboys of my heritage. Those cow hunts were in the Mogollon Mountains of southwestern New Mexico. In these cases, I never heard any accounts of oxen as neck animals. It was always burros.

            The use of the needles was novel. When I read Dobie’s reference, I thought it was brilliant. The impression was left by my maternal grandfather who delighted in talking about turning yoked pairs loose on the side of a steep hill. There would be a thunderous skirmish as the roped maverick would fight the lead animal. Off the hill they would go, breaking brush with the little burro kicking the maverick every step of the way. After a time, the burro would get the upper hand and the two would head for Sacaton Mesa and the juniper corrals above Rain Creek.

              The south Texas use of the needle, though, would have reduced a great deal of the conflict and danger. Those cowboys would retrieve their needle, jerk a mane or tail hair, thread it, and sew the eyelids of the steer shut. They would then be turned loose, and the oxen would have immediate control of the maverick. The suture would be clipped when they turned the yoked pair loose at the water and the pens of destination.

            Presidential aspirations

            As the executive branch hopefuls commence smiling, start kissing babies, run to the right, and remind all of us it takes money to win elections, I can’t help but envision there is a better way to eliminate the fodder from the single person who has the constitutional head and skill set to lead this country from the precipice. The place to start is to eliminate all but one debate and substitute a series of cow hunts for those cancelled.

            Every aspect of presidential leadership would be fully exposed.

            Although it would be important, the selection process wouldn’t hinge on who collected the biggest pen of cattle. What is most important is to fashion a process that reveals who the person actually is. The need is to gauge and highlight any incremental success as the series unfolds. The candidate who emerges as gaining ground and shaping his or her battleground with the most logic and economy of effort would be judged most favorable.

            Quite frankly, we are all weary of Washington words. What is needed is to strip the wordsmiths from the pack and highlight the leader who has the fortitude to offer his life for the cause of this nation. The marginal details would reveal that leader in every aspect of life and duty.

            Starting with the timing, the need would be to engage not at the convenience or comfort of the cow hunter, but for the success of the outcome. The reliance and care of the only assigned partner, the horse, would be most telling. That interaction would not be just for the hunt itself, but the commitment of devotion the candidate displays to his charge and his ally.

            The use of the lead animal would be optional. The candidate with the heavy conscience might balk at the secular aversion of employing a beast of burden, but his success would be in jeopardy. Decisions to address political correctness or limit greater loss would be observed with clarity.

            That is especially true if the decision is made to employ the most simplistic blindfold approach of the needle and the horsehair suture. As the old time cow hunters found out, it doesn’t take too many death experiences to become realistic in using the few safeguards actually available when self-reliance is the only alternative.

            Smile if you will, but we need brutal honesty and the emergence of fundamental, visceral presidential leadership. Words have been used for couching and perpetuating deception. Action is necessary.

It is time to mount up and … go cow hunting.

            Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “Hunting wild cows successfully … will erase pretension.”