Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Cattle Drive

At six thirty A.M. the sun has already been up for over an hour. It hangs over the fresh prairie, two fists up and climbing. I step onto the lawn, striding my morning commute from bunkhouse to breakfast. The light is only just warm, the west breeze off the mountains is cool, and I can almost smell the sharp lodgepole bite mingling with the sweet smell of the wild pink roses. Every color is more brilliant so hard on the heels of dawn.
When I enter the kitchen, everyone else is already up. Cass is eating a bagel, Kyra is frying eggs, Jamie gulping his coffee, and Emma is packing our lunches. I pour myself a cup of the good coffee made in a cheap pot, and begin to catch up with breakfast. Everyone seems to be in good spirits, chatting about the plan for the day. First we are going to catch up the horses, saddle up and load them into the trailer. I am going to be driving the quad from here to the field we call Goodfellows’ where the cows have been for the past three weeks. Taking them up there was my second cattle drive. Driving them from there to The Forestry will be my fifth. I am feeling more confident about this one.
After a bagel, a banana, and my quick cup of coffee I head out with the girls to go catch up the horses. Earl, the tall brown cow horse with a white star on his forehead, comes right up to us. I slip the leadrope around his neck, slide on the halter, and start leading him back to the corral. Emma is busy catching her white and brown paint named Pepsi, Ky is haltering old Eddie, and we hope that Brandy will simply follow the other horses. She doesn’t like to be caught, nor tied. Once saddled and bridled she is a trusty horse though, and I will be riding her.
Enticed by both the bucket of oats and her friends, she does follow us into the corral. Tying Earl with the quick release slip knots of hitching posts everywhere, I slowly approach Brandy with her halter. “Hey there Brandy,” I say softly, only barely self conscious of talking to an animal, and learning to enjoy it more every time. “Hey now, easy there. You ready for a good ride today? Good girl, there you go.” Sweet nothings that soothe us both. The first time I tried to brush and saddle her she shied pretty bad, a bad habit of hers. That time, her shying spooked Earl, who pulled as well, tearing a plank from the corral, bruising my elbow. The New Zealanders had joked about how I had gotten over the corral fence so fast. “I didn’t think it was a jumpable fence!” Today Brandy is calmer, likely because I am. She stands politely as I brush her and pat her, talking softly. She even stands patiently as I lay the saddle blanket just behind her withers, set the heavy saddle down, and heave the cinch tight.
Everyone’s saddled, so I rush up to the house to put on my boots, and tie on a neckerchief against the sun. I still am not wearing spurs, but I am starting to think they might be useful. It would be nice to be able to get a little more umph from Brandy sometimes. Ky and Emma leave in Ky’s car. She might have to rush home, since she works the late shift at a restaurant in Waterton park this afternoon. I hope astride the ATV (the Canadians call it a quad) to ferry it out to the field for Cass to ride. Jamie and Cass are already on their way out with the trailer.
After the seven miles on the straight gravel road, the only curves vertical until we hit the foothills, we get to the tall Texas gate marking Goodfellows. I get there just in time to unload Brandy. I hop into the trailer following Jamie’s no nonsense encouragement. The horses are all in there, and I feel a bit claustrophobic with so much muscle inside a little metal box with me. Grabbing Brandy’s lead rope, though, I just walk her out, and everybody stays calm. I lift her bridle from my saddle horn, and she takes the bit without too much trouble. Finally, I stick the toe of my battered boot into the stirrup and swing up. Brandy wants to go right away, but I hold her back, doing my best to sit deep as I softly say “whoa” and gently pull the reins. She stands, but wants to eat the grass. I hold her head up remembering it is impolite for the horses to eat without permission.
When everyone is saddled, we head into the field. Ky and I are assigned to go through some thick brush and aspens and over a small creek to see if there are any stragglers in another open pasture. However, we are on the two less compliant horses, and hers, Eddie, is no fan of water. We can’t cross the creek, both horses simply shying and backing as we kick away at them. Finally Ky dismounts to check on foot. Luckily there are no cows over there.
Meanwhile, Emma and Jamie have been gathering the herd and pushing them toward the gate. Ky and I head over to help, and head off a few “free spirits” as Ky dubs them. Then a calf stupidly darts past the gate when his mother goes through it, cutting him off from the herd. Jamie charges around back, circles into the trees, and Ky and I take up positions to angle the calf through the gate. “Here he comes!” Jamie hollers. Sure enough there is the little calf, at the edge of the trees. He sees us, and isn’t quite sure if he can make it though. I turn Brandy just to point her head away, and with a growling “Get on up there!” from Jamie, the little fella scamper though the gate. “Daniel! Go up the road and hold the herd while we count!” Jamie barks. I haul Brandy’s head around and squeeze my legs. She half jumps into a trot and the cows part before me, eyeing me and bawling before moving to the side. A piece up the rode, we turn to face the others. There is plenty of grass on the roadside, and most the cows, and even the two bulls, are placidly chewing away. Only those on the edge eye me warily.
Once a good count of 33 pairs and the 2 bulls is backed up several times, Jamie calls me back again, and the drive is on. Everyone gets behind the group, calling and constantly moving back and forth to keep the various animals moving in the right direction. “Get along now!” “Come on guys” “Hey Hey Hey” “Heeeya” “Move it up there!” Soon enough, the cows are moving, not fast, but at a steady. We keep the horses right on them, and every once in a while have to move quick to keep one from diving off into the brush.
We head first out onto what is known as the Landing. We have to be careful, because Mac has a bunch of heifers in here, and they will be trying to use their wiles if they know about the bulls. Jamie takes the lead position, up front. Ky is in the back, Emma to the right, and I am on the left. “You know, you have to be more useful than me, because you are on the more useful horse,” Ky jokes to me. She is riding old Eduardo, who is over twenty, and has a special old man saddle blanket because he is so swaybacked. “Well, so long as I am not screwing things up, I’m being helpful right?”
A bit further on, we notice one of the bulls is limping. It’s the Black Angus, with a neck like a linebacker but ten times the size. I remember having to pull the lever on the headlock when Emma and I were testing the bulls. He seems much less threatening from horseback. Then we notice a pair heading for the bush. “Hey…giddup Brandy!” I kick my heels and turn her into the woods. I have to hold a hand up to keep branches out of my face, and my knees knock tree trunks on either side. But we head off the cows, and emerge again back on the road with the girls and the rest of the herd.
As we ride along the family talks about past rides, and summer plans, and the past year. I mostly focus on doing my job right, since I still have to focus on riding, although having the cows to worry about does help the riding run a bit smoother. Suddenly up front we hear Jamie yelling at cows. “You better get up there,” Emma says to me. I give a sharp dig to Brandy and she opens up to a few strides in a trot, then a rolling canter. I am trying my best to stay in the rhythm of the strides, hold Brandy to the hill so as not to ride through the cattle, and position myself to head off the few cows chasing Jamie as he rides down on Mac’s herd ahead of us. Hearing me coming, he looks back, “Ride around them, not at them!” he hollers. I take Brandy farther up the hillside, then head down hill, aiming to cut our cows from following Jamie. He also wheels Earl around, and then yells to me, “Push these guys on down the road a ways!” He heads back to the other herd, which, stretched out as it was, has taken a wrong turn. I ride up on the already trotting cows and start whooping and yelling, they move along fine, and after a bit, I turn back to the others. They have gotten our herd settled and moving again, and I wait up the hill until they go past, and fall back into place as a rear guard.
The rest of the trip is more of the same, riding through bush, stepping the horses over downed logs, crossing a few small creeks, all the while the mountains looming larger over us, the pine and fir forest full of sticky geraniums and lupine.
We come around a finally corner, and there is our barbed wire gate. Emma opens it without dismounting, and we count the cows again going in. We seem to have lost one somewhere, but no one knows when it could have been. We hope the cow will show up on her own.
Having finished our day’s work, we settle down for a picnic in the mountain sun. The Freemans have a traditional spot, in the elbow of quicksilver Whitney Creek. We all munch happily on ham sandwiches, our horses hitched to trees and nibbling the mountain grass. After a quick nap, cowboy hats shading faces, we mount up for the trip home. The gallop home, as it turns out. I can hardly keep from singing with the branches whipping by and Brandy’s hooves drumming the road. This is just about right.