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.

To Buy a Hat

Space is something that the Albertans aren’t short on. Sure, they aren’t making any more land, but for the moment, there seems to be plenty of it round here. It takes at least 40 minutes driving to get from one town to the next. Along the way are spaced out farms and ranches, signs warning that it is 50 km to the next rest stop, and hawks pirouetting in three dimensions. Huge railroad trestles sweep over river bluffs and cutbanks, hopscotching over the roofs of barns and farmhouses. Trees fill the hollows, and only windblown grass and windmills and hold onto the low ridges. Through it all wind the sparsely traveled two lane highways.
I was whirring down those highways in a little Japanese pick up truck with holes in the floorboard in search of a cowboy hat. I wanted the genuine article. Not some gawky tourist bauble, but a working cowboy hat that would keep elements off my head. The little Nissan had a few short comings, but it rode easy. I had the windows open to keep cool and tried to follow other vehicles in lieu of a speedometer. I sang all the songs I knew to replace the defunct radio.
In Claresholm, partway north to Calgary, I found the store everyone had been recommending to me. It was a big place, almost a department store of saddles, tack, wranglers, and a dedicated hat counter. Since it was unmanned, I wandered the store a bit, handling spurs, ogling the chaps, (pronounce the “ch” like you would in Cheyenne, not chuckwagon) and milling about until I saw a likely attendant. She was pretty, and I had held the door open for her on my way in, so I had at least enough familiarity to interrupt her folding the jeans. She smiled and followed me over to the hat counter. I pointed out the brown, wide brimmed hat that had struck my fancy.
“Hmm…ok. What is your size?” she frowned.
“Seven?” I ventured.
More scowling.
It looks like we don’t have any more of that one in brown. We don’t seem to have any in sevens in brown at all.”
I was a bit stunned. I had just driven for an hour to get here, and they didn’t have anything my size.
“You don’t have more in the back?”
“No, we sold a lot of hats this past week. Stampede is coming up.”
She and another saleswomen then proceeded to explain that when a hat company changes colors they have to shut down for several days. They only get hat shipments every six weeks. I would have to wait six weeks to get the brown hat I wanted. That was out of the question. We were going to be riding on Wednesday. I needed a hat that I could walk out with.
After milling about a bit more, I bought a slate blue silk scarf. At least I could get a bandana out of the trip. And a milkshake, bought on the way out of town.
In the truck on the highway again, in between verses of “King of the Road,” I decided not to give up. At Fort McCleod, I turned east, and headed to Lethbridge, an hour towards Saskatchewan. The mountains now faded completely out of view in the mirror. Winds buffeted the little truck, and I started my repertoire over from the top.
Countless minor rises and half a dozen crossings of the Old Man River later, I saw the biggest railroad trestle yet. Behind it was a low swath of dark trees, telltale sign of settlement. I swept up the side of the bluff into Lethbridge. Not far into town, I noticed a bookstore and pulled in. I hadn’t browsed through a bookstore in the last three weeks, and I couldn’t resist. Plus I figured I could ask about a store that would sell me a hat.
As I walked in, I noticed a rangy older man leaning against one of the windows, engrossed in a magazine. His pale round ten gallon hat had sweatstains round the brim, and his bright yellow scarf contrasted with a scarlet western shirt. As I walked up to him, I noticed he had a cane and a sprawling white handlebar moustache.
“Excuse me sir, I have a question, and you look to be the one ask.” He looked up at me, surprise in his eyes. “I’m looking to buy a hat.”
“A hat, eh? Well…I reckon old George would sell you a hat. You know the old cigar store on third?”
“I’m afraid not, I’m not from around here.”
“Oh really?” He seemed genuinely surprised, and interested. He shifted his cane, leaned farther back to see me better. “Whereabouts then?”
“I’m from Idaho, but I’m working in Pincher Creek for the summer.”
“You can’t buy a hat in Pincher?”
“No sir. I asked around, and it isn’t a big enough town to be overlooking a place.”
“Well, to get to this place, you just need to go out here, and take a right after three blocks. You’ll come to a cigar store, I don’t know what street it is, I never remember their names, but there is a cigar store right on the corner. Turn left and just a few buildings and you’ll see it. Just a real small place, but he’s got lots of hats. And he’ll shape ‘em for you too, make sure they fit just right.” I had noticed as he pointed out his directions on the bench that he only had three fingers, no thumb or index finger on his right hand. I thanked him, and he gave me a broad smile and wished me luck. Off I went to George’s.
I found the cigar store easy enough, parked and started walking. I was pretty sure I had missed the place, or it had moved, when I saw a sign for boots, letters far too small to read while driving by. I opened the door and stepped inside.
“Hello!” called an old man cheerily, and went back to talking with a customer, a short blond woman. I looked back into the gloom. On the right of the store were floor to ceiling shelves, stretching back to the far wall, filled with cowboy boots. Up high a row of straw hats hung on nails. On the other side, maybe five yards distant, were boxes and boxes of hats stacked up to the ceiling behind a counter. Hats on display hung the full distance back to the end of the store. There was a general feel of dustiness, coming more from the brick walls than the wares. The store was an outcrop of an older strata.
The proprietor finished up his business with the woman, promising the hats by the next day for the customer, who promised not to leave Lethbridge without coming back. She was obviously a tourist, and the old man assured her she was making a good choice buying a good hat. As the woman walked out the door, George turned to me.
“And what can I do for you today?”
“I would like to buy a hat, and a fellow with three fingers told me this was the place”
“What do you need the hat for?”
I explained that I was working as a cowboy on a ranch in Pincher.
“Will you be working in the winter?”
“Well, no”
“Then you ought to get a straw hat, I have fifteen felts, and not a one has sweatstains, I only wear straw in the summer.” Sure enough, he had a straw hat on.
“Well, I would like to get a felt, something that will really last.”
“Alright then. What were you thinking?”
I told him I would like something with a flatter crown, and preferably brown. I pointed to one hanging up.
“Well, lets try it out.” He carefully took it off its nail, and equally carefully set it on my head. “Oh dear. Terrible.”
I looked at him surprised, and amused. “Really? I liked it. Do you have a mirror?”
“No. But I have a Hutterite television. Go take a look.”
I did, the mirror was up front where the light was strong. I wasn’t sure what he was talking about. The brown wasn’t the most interesting color, but I thought it was more my shirt than me that was the problem.
“See, it isn’t your color. Let’s try this.” He lifted a pale buckskin hat, swapped it out, sent me back to the mirror. “No, not that one either. Just bad.”
I was confused, I didn’t think either looked too bad.
“Let's try a grey, eh? Oh yes! This is your color…or maybe black…(quickly exchanged the grey for the black) oh yes. Black is best.”
I took a look in the mirror. The hat he had selected didn’t have a flat crown, but double peaks running the length, a style I later learned was called a cattleman crown, the brim had a hard curl on the front corners. I thought I looked a bit like a country musican, and not much like a cowboy.
“I would sort of like a flatter brim,” I hinted.
“I can’t sell you that. It would look dumb. Your face isn’t round enough, maybe if you had a fat face, but no."  He pointed to his cheekbones, his nose, “See here, here,” he pointed to the hat brim showing the angles with his hands, “see this fits.”
I wasn’t convinced, and he could see it. He grabbed a straw hat off the boot shelves, one with a completely flat brim in the back. He handed it to me, sent me to the “Hutterite television”. “See you look dumb. I do the hats for the rodeo queens from Red Deer on south to the states, and you know, it takes such a little thing to make the look smart, to get them to win. I couldn’t sell you a hat with a flat brim. I could do a bit flatter, but I have to be responsible. I’ll flatten if for you because you want me to, but if were walking around Pincher Creek and I saw you with my hat, and you looked silly, well what could I do?”
I had to acquiesce to his expertise and laughing obstinance. He took the hat from me. “You going to wear it in the rain?”
“I am, when it rains.”
“Well this hat can put up with most everything. It costs $139. Did you come in with a smile?”
I laughed, “Why, I believe it did! I was happy to find this place.”
“Well, since you don’t have fag tags, I guess I can give you a discount.”
“Fag tags?”
“Yeah, those guys that come in here with their eight year old girl haircuts and a mountain goat hanging off their face, well I don’t give them a discount.”
I had to laugh--despite the casual slurs. This nice old man, who hadn’t yet broken his smile, was quite a wellspring of culture, to be sure. He gently took my hat, and took it to the back of the store. Behind a small glass counter full of moccasins, leather tools, dirty hats waiting to be cleaned, and chap patterns, he fired up an archaic steam machine. He took the hat between his palms, fingers splayed and not touching the hat.
“Now if anyone ever shapes your hat, and he grabs it like this:” he grabbed the brim with his fingers, “you get your hat back and come here. These are the sensors. See, and I can funnel the steam.” He gripped the hat, and slowly bent brim flat. Then he bent the front corners up. I was happy to have my hat. He pulled the brim liner down, and sprayed the inside with water. He put the hat on my head, pushed hard, and told me to wear it till it was dry.
I paid for my hat, thanked him, and started out the door.
“Wait,” he called. He rushed up, took the hat and bent it a few times around the brim, ever so slightly. He set back on my head, and sure enough, now it fit perfectly. “And it looks good from the back, good with your shoulders.” I thanked him, and head out the doors, back to the road and back to the mountains. Thanks to George I was really ready for the summer.