Reminiscing XXIV

This story is from James Greet, written in 1991 about his life as a cowboy in the 1940’s. 

When we started down the other side, we dropped quite rapidly the first mile and a half. It was a nice, sunny day and we enjoyed the colorful landscape of the gumbo and bentonite terrain, accented with snow and blue, blue sky. This is truly getting away from the “fast pace”. When you get that taste of cowboy life, it lasts a lifetime.

George and I enjoyed each others’ company. After all, he is my older brother. He taught me the ways of ranch life and we get along together very nicely – thanks to my big brother’s patience.

The sun was lowering in the west in a cloudless sky. We could feel it getting colder. We were getting close to Spratt’s cow camp and we anticipated a warm fire and a hot meal. Usually, Spratt had three or four men stationed out there. One of them was “Ziney” McQuary. Their job was to ride the outer perimeter of his range every day and throw back any cattle that had strayed off of Spratt’s allotment, as there were no fences.

Spratt had an electric fence around his horse pasture. Now, George and I thought that we’d see some surprised cows with their first encounter with an electric fence. But there was no response when they rubbed against it. So I took a glove off and grabbed a wire, and sure enough, it was dead. Well, for good measure, I took my other glove off and grabbed the steel post. OOPS! It was very much alive! It was so cold, and the snow so dry, that it acted like an insulator, no “ ground” until I took hold of that post.

We put our cattle in the holding pen, and we’re a bit surprised that there was no other signs of life around. We watered and stabled our horses for the night, and by now the darkness was setting in fast, and the thermometer was going down. Uncle Fred was to come in on a road from the north and bring bedding and grub for us. Well, we learned later that he presumed that Spratt would have men out there by then, and there would be no need for him to bother about coming.

George and I went to the cabin and lit the kerosene lamp. The cabin was completely deserted, and it was about as cold inside as it was outside.

(To be continued)

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