GOD'S COUNTRY
Or at least a subdivision
Or at least a subdivision
The horse I was riding knew a lot more about rounding up cattle than I did so I was unprepared for the horse’s first bolt of speed toward the scattered herd. Knocked backwards, I grabbed the horn of the saddle with both hands to hold myself upright as the back of the saddle seat whipped my butt back and forth, rocking my entire upper body like a throw rug being shaken out. The surprise had snapped my head back, creating the first injury of the day, but the horse cared less about my condition. His focus was on the quickly retreating cows in front of him. The cattle, two thousands pounds apiece, sprinting at full speed, were no longer lazy bovines chewing cud but a thundering herd of frightening beasts. The horse, himself over a thousand pounds of muscle operating at peak performance, raced around them on the upper side of the hill before careening down straight towards the group. Sand flew up all round me from the cattle’s hooves as they scattered in all directions. The horse stopped, twisted, leaped and twirled like Nureyev at the Royal Ballet, cutting off the terrified cows’s retreat one by one and herding them down to gather at the center of the valley before sprinting back up the hill to round up stragglers. The bouncing rump of retreating cows as they dodged this way and that, their heads twisting from side to side to look back in fear was a comical sight. A godly thrill radiated into me from the charging horse as his body compressed and extended like the pounding of the earth’s heart. Necessity and fear had married my body to his, as if my existence here on earth had finally been consummated into a union with nature. I was ecstatic.
I did not deserve to be on that horse because I had zero riding experience, especially rounding up cattle, but my new boss, Herb Wait, who owned a smaller, ten thousand acre, ranch on the lower Sandhills about twenty miles south of Alliance said I would be fine. Just like that it was as if I had been plucked up by the nape of the neck and dropped into a cowboy movie right during the time when cowboy movies and television show were most popular. It was if I really had stepped into the screen. My life has been like that. Fantastic adventures that I did seek out or prepare for just dropped into my lap because I was standing next to someone who does seek out and does prepare.
I want to write about the adventures whose memories I clutch to so that my sons and grandson can know the joyful moments, those that expanded the perimeters of my life. However, writing is difficult, almost too difficult. Plus I am old and may not have the time. If necessary I can gather the kids around and tell the stories to them, like the stories I used to hear my uncles tell. However, I do want to write a little about working for Herb Wait.
Herb did not look like a cowboy at all. The ordinary straw hat and blue jean bib overalls made him look more like a scarecrow in a cornfield than a rancher. His face was thin with only one front tooth, which looked excessively long hanging down all by itself. With his hat off, his balding scalp was a white, soft circle compared to the leather tan of his face. He was in his early, maybe late, sixties and had a very relaxed manner with a gentle laughter that spilled out at almost every occasion He rolled his cigarettes so loose half the tobacco fell out on the way to his lips where they were lit by large wooden kitchen matches ignited by lifting his leg and stroking the tip from his butt almost to his knee. Herb’s wife, Millie, was equally sweet and gentle. I never heard a cross word between them even though I lived in their house for the next two summers.
The horse I was riding was named Underwear, which Herb said was in honor of all the pairs he had worn out riding over the years. His legs were visibly bowed, proving his claim. Underwear and Herb may have known each other longer than I had been alive, been on roundups while I was still crawling on the floor.
Ed was Herb's full time hired hand. He also dressed in bib overalls, stretched tight from his full belly and appeared to be about Herb’s age. He never conversed, responding only with “Yeps” and “Nopes” to Herb’s comic philosophies. The two of them worked a casual pace and even had a pair of old, overstuffed armchairs in the repair shop for their rest times. Both of them rose at dawn to milk the cows and haul feed to the pigs before breakfast was even served. I did not have the forearm strength to even milk a cow, giving up halfway through my first try. I loved working there, riding fence, fixing the old wooden wind mills, feeding the hogs, mowing the fields and sitting “tall in the saddle” of Herb’s flashy new red International Harvester with a hood so large it looked like the prow of an ocean liner cruising over the grassy fields. The time at the ranch was peaceful as working in a monastery for the Dali Lama. If I could bring that time to life with words I would because I cherish it so.
The three of us spent several days rounding up the cattle scattered across his land. That is all that needs to be told. Most of the imagery is much the same as in the many movies made when the whole country was in love with cowboys, except for the testicles that were tossed in an ice bucket to be fried up by Millie. The delicious baby rocky mountain oysters were usually not a subject that was filmed. Plus, not a single shot was fired.
I did not deserve to be on that horse because I had zero riding experience, especially rounding up cattle, but my new boss, Herb Wait, who owned a smaller, ten thousand acre, ranch on the lower Sandhills about twenty miles south of Alliance said I would be fine. Just like that it was as if I had been plucked up by the nape of the neck and dropped into a cowboy movie right during the time when cowboy movies and television show were most popular. It was if I really had stepped into the screen. My life has been like that. Fantastic adventures that I did seek out or prepare for just dropped into my lap because I was standing next to someone who does seek out and does prepare.
I want to write about the adventures whose memories I clutch to so that my sons and grandson can know the joyful moments, those that expanded the perimeters of my life. However, writing is difficult, almost too difficult. Plus I am old and may not have the time. If necessary I can gather the kids around and tell the stories to them, like the stories I used to hear my uncles tell. However, I do want to write a little about working for Herb Wait.
Herb did not look like a cowboy at all. The ordinary straw hat and blue jean bib overalls made him look more like a scarecrow in a cornfield than a rancher. His face was thin with only one front tooth, which looked excessively long hanging down all by itself. With his hat off, his balding scalp was a white, soft circle compared to the leather tan of his face. He was in his early, maybe late, sixties and had a very relaxed manner with a gentle laughter that spilled out at almost every occasion He rolled his cigarettes so loose half the tobacco fell out on the way to his lips where they were lit by large wooden kitchen matches ignited by lifting his leg and stroking the tip from his butt almost to his knee. Herb’s wife, Millie, was equally sweet and gentle. I never heard a cross word between them even though I lived in their house for the next two summers.
The horse I was riding was named Underwear, which Herb said was in honor of all the pairs he had worn out riding over the years. His legs were visibly bowed, proving his claim. Underwear and Herb may have known each other longer than I had been alive, been on roundups while I was still crawling on the floor.
Ed was Herb's full time hired hand. He also dressed in bib overalls, stretched tight from his full belly and appeared to be about Herb’s age. He never conversed, responding only with “Yeps” and “Nopes” to Herb’s comic philosophies. The two of them worked a casual pace and even had a pair of old, overstuffed armchairs in the repair shop for their rest times. Both of them rose at dawn to milk the cows and haul feed to the pigs before breakfast was even served. I did not have the forearm strength to even milk a cow, giving up halfway through my first try. I loved working there, riding fence, fixing the old wooden wind mills, feeding the hogs, mowing the fields and sitting “tall in the saddle” of Herb’s flashy new red International Harvester with a hood so large it looked like the prow of an ocean liner cruising over the grassy fields. The time at the ranch was peaceful as working in a monastery for the Dali Lama. If I could bring that time to life with words I would because I cherish it so.
The three of us spent several days rounding up the cattle scattered across his land. That is all that needs to be told. Most of the imagery is much the same as in the many movies made when the whole country was in love with cowboys, except for the testicles that were tossed in an ice bucket to be fried up by Millie. The delicious baby rocky mountain oysters were usually not a subject that was filmed. Plus, not a single shot was fired.