OL' NUMBER 316
In the late 1970s, I was ranch foreman on a ranch called " Rancho Escondido,"
southeast of Marfa, Texas. It was owned by Hayes Mitchell, part of an old
ranching family. He was a good man to work for. Escondido is the Spanish word
for "hidden", and that’s what some of this story is about.
Rancho Escondido was the best ranch that I was ever on, and I was on a number of
them. It was hidden in the rimrock country of West Texas. There wasn’t much barb
wire on this place. All of the outside fence was sheer rimrock, and over that
was five hundred feet to the bottom. If a cow got through that fence, you didn’t
have to worry about bringing her home. It was a small ranch in a big sort of way
– it kept you working from dawn until dusk.
The cattle got their water from three wells, through pipelines that that went
into each of the pastures. These pipelines were made of old oilfield pipe - you
fixed leaks all the time. Besides that, I had forty miles of old telephone line
to take care of. Hayes liked to hear that telephone ring. That was a nightmare
in itself - I never did like a damn telephone.
Then, when I got a day off from this, I got to take care of the cattle on
Escondido. In most cowboy stories you read, working cattle is all that they ever
do. That just isn’t true. It’s nice to be horseback, checking out the cattle,
and it’s a great vacation from the rest of the work. But, every vacation can
have its nightmares, and this is one of them.
Calving a bunch of first-calf heifers can be a Holy Hell nightmare sometimes.
This means you ride herd over a bunch of bred heifers that are going to have a
calf for the first time. They are young and scared, they get goofy, and
sometimes Mother Nature isn’t there to tell them what to do. Maybe that’s one of
the reasons God made cowboys.
We had, at Escondido, Braford cattle - a good cross for that country. The cows
were Brahma and the bulls were Hereford. The offspring were known as Braford.
Then, the first-calf heifers were bred back to Limousine bulls, a French breed
that throws big calves. This cross produced good weight calves at weaning time.
That is, if the first-calf heifers could give birth. A Brahma cow will normally
have a relatively small calf – she’s not really prepared for a big one.
The second year that I was at Escondido I had thirty-five first-calf heifers to
look after. We cut them out of the herd and put them into a small holding
pasture near the ranch house. It was a small pasture, but was it ever tricky. It
was at the base of some big rimrock mountains. When it would rain, the water
would cut small deep canyons through the pasture. It was filled with cat claw, a
brush that will eat you alive. The thorns are like fishhooks - they do catch a
man and his horse.
So everyday I would check on these heifers, to make sure that they were doing
all right. If they were having trouble giving birth, you’d have to pull that
calf right quick. It’s not a pretty job, but you have to try to save them both.
A normal ride- through inspection of these heifers would take me less than an
hour. But this particular morning I came up one short in my count - where was
she? I checked all the fences, and she hadn’t gotten out. I saw no signs of
aliens or UFO's, so where in the Hell was she? Then I started to ride out all of
the little canyons in the pasture of cat claw. That’s where she had to be.
Finally, I found her - number 316 - in the bottom of a small ravine with a
wanting-to-die look in her eye. I knew this wasn’t good, and I could see that
she had lost her calf she’d been trying to deliver. My next thought was, well,
now what do I do? I knew I had to get her out of there to save her. But, the
question was, how? It was about ten in the morning – there still a lot of
daylight and little hope.
I loped Doc back to the barn. We had a Mexican alien working for us at the time.
His name was Felipe, and he was from San Luis Por Tu Se, Mexico. He wasn’t a
cowboy, but he was sure a good hand. I filled him in on the problem, and told
him to go eat a good lunch. I knew that we’d need our strength, and we’d be
there for a while getting the heifer out of that draw.
Then, in the ranch pickup, we returned to where old number 316 was at. She
hadn’t moved a muscle. We got the rope and chains, and I dropped down to where
she was. I placed a loop around her snubbed horns and drew it tight. Then I told
Felipe to try to pull her up with a chain come-along that we’d tied to the
pickup’s bumper. This took hours - number 316 fought us all the way. We were
sweating and cussing at the top of our lungs, " You sorry bitch, let us help
you." Finally, we did prevail and got her out of there. Then she just laid there
like a beached whale. We were tired and worn out, and just sat there looking at
her.
As we stared at her, tired and frustrated – not knowing what to do next, I had a
brainstorm. I had built some pipe gates the week before. We got in the pickup
and went back to the ranch and loaded one on the truck. We returned to old
number 316 and again, she hadn’t moved a muscle.
We put the pipe gate beside her, then rolled her onto it. We tied her to the
gate and ran a chain to the pickup. As we drove back to the barn, I told Felipe
that we were going to give her a Texas Sleigh Ride home.
When we reached the pen at the barn, I told Felipe to go get her some water and
hay. I removed the ropes so that we could get her off of the gate. Felipe
returned with the hay and water, and we rolled her off the gate. Then something
happened right before my eyes that I couldn’t believe.
Old number 316 just got up and walked away from us like nothing had happened. In
a way I was glad, but in a way I wanted to shoot her. This probably isn’t your
typical cowboy story, but it was a typical day at Rancho Escondido
© 2002