At Week’s End: Trailing cattle not much of a career

By

opinions

March 24, 2017 - 12:00 AM

Occasionally I like to sift through daydreams. Several come to mind, the most prominent of when I was dead set on being a cowboy.
I suppose every kid who followed the adventures of Lash LaRue, the Red Ryder and Roy and Gene had similar dreams. Wouldn’t it be dandy to jump on a pretty little paint, settle into a saddle and trail a herd of longhorns from west Texas, across Indian Territory and to a railhead in Abilene or Dodge.
If any us of had taken the trouble to learn what herding cattle over hundreds of miles really was like, we might have jumped at the chance of working in the safe confines of a general store. Starting out from near Lubbock and riding past the wonder of Palo Duro Canyon would have been a good start, and piqued enthusiasm for what laid ahead — until reality set in.
A high-prairie thunderstorm would erupt somewhere north of Amarillo, where low hills are ghostly shapes when lightning flashes at night. Cattle, unnerved by the the storm’s rolling thunder, might stampede and the cowboys, soaked to the bone, would spend a sleepless night rounding up the frightened bovines.
Come morning, a couple of cups of gritty coffee, a hard biscuit or two and whatever else the cook could find would be a welcome interruption to the long hours in the saddle. No rest with daylight, no matter how busy the night before. Getting cattle to a buyer as quickly as possible was the only goal.
The Indian wars were over, but you never knew when a gang of renegades would try to cut out a handful of choice steers. Gunfights with thieves seldom erupted, but the boss didn’t like losing dollars on the hoof and railed when a cowboy didn’t notice cattle being spirited away in time to make a difference.
Kansas was more populated with farmers and dotted by tiny towns back then, and once there the weeks-long journey was nearing its end. Might even get a real meal from a farm family outside of Meade in exchange for a lame steer. More often, dirt farmers weren’t pleasant, fearful of heavy hooves crashing through crops.
After cattle were sold for a few cents per pound and put on rail cars bound for markets in Kansas City and Chicago, the cowboys got their pay, not much for all they had done and endured, but, they seldom had much.
For most a few days in saloons and having what wasn’t spent on watered-down liquor filched by a “hostess” or two, it was back to Texas, and another journey north with no guarantee of making the trek unscathed, or even finishing it alive.
A pragmatic look takes a lot of the romance out of cowboying. Now, where do you apply to be a store clerk?

Related
August 22, 2019
July 10, 2019
April 9, 2019
June 17, 2018