A Cowman's Wife by Mary Kidder Rak

Author:Mary Kidder Rak [Rak, Mary Kidder]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Women, History, United States, General
ISBN: 9780876111277
Google: vNuUzQEACAAJ
Publisher: Texas State Historical Association
Published: 1993-01-15T04:20:33+00:00

CHAPTER XXV—A NEW COWBOY

‘I WOULDN’T have fired Teofilo,’ said Charlie the day after the barbecue, ‘but since he fired himself, I am going to try and get a cowboy this time.’

I groaned. Of all the men we have had working on the ranch at one time or another, Teofilo is the sole and only one who has admitted to knowing nothing whatever about cattle. All the others insisted that at some previous stage of their careers they had worked cattle and broken horses. They not only told these stories of vast herds and hundreds of wild ponies to us; they also told them to their fellow-workers as they drank coffee and swapped lies around the campfire. We have been taken in by these tales and disappointed so often that a man now has to prove to us that he is a cowboy by working cattle.

‘Where are you going to look for a cowboy this time?’ I asked.

‘Town, I guess. I don’t know of anyone around here.’

‘What’s the matter with that Yaqui who Steel Woods told you used to work cattle for Slaughters?’

‘He won’t stay put anywhere. Just about the time he learned enough about the range to be of any use, he’d quit and I would have to break in a new one at branding-time.’ Charlie heaved the long sigh that hunting a new man and breaking him in calls forth; then started for the garage. ‘I’ll grease up the truck and go to town mañana,’ he declared.

He stopped for the usual parting word as I opened the gate for him to drive away early the next morning.

‘Look for me when you see me coming,’ he said. ‘I won’t come home ‘til I find a cowboy.’

‘Don’t bring home another Eugenio,’ I warned him, mockingly.

‘Don’t pick up another Torres while I’m gone,’ he retorted, and we were both grinning at the remembrances as he drove away.

Eugenio, his wife, his five children, a dog, a cat, and a truckful of household goods were driven away out here one day. Having taken the man’s own word for his abilities, Charlie thought he had drawn a great prize. The morning after their arrival, we went over to the corral and saddled our horses to make a round-up of a small pasture. When Eugenio, a melancholy creature with drooping mustache and long hair, got on a gentle horse which I had lent him from my own mount, he put one hand on the horn and the other on the cantle. We call that ‘sitting down on your own arm.’ That was all we needed to know about Eugenio.

‘Sunk!’ hissed Charlie to me as we rode out into the pasture. We rode along slowly, scattering out to note the cattle as we went so that we should know where to pick them up on our way back. Up in the very farthest corner, as the cantankerous old creature naturally would be, was a lame, old cow, hiding in the heavy brush and betrayed by the bell which we had hung on her neck some days before.

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