BORN TO RIDE, Marcos Ybanez was told that when he was only a day old, his father held him on the back of a colt of the same age. The 83 year-old South Texas vaquero worked horseback all his life until a couple of years ago, and still feeds cattle and checks on waterings.

A True Vaquero Recalls Some
Bygone Days In South Texas

DULL, Texas — A vaquero from the old school, Marcos Ybanez has spent the large majority of his life in the saddle.

Most days he was horseback long before the first streaks of sunlight ever danced on the eastern horizon and still there long after the last rays were gone from the western sky.

"My mama always told me that my daddy’s mare had a colt the same night I was born and the very next morning my daddy put me on that colt," Marcos says.

His life has consisted of breaking broncs, roping wild cattle out of the brush and doing whatever it took day in and day out to get the job done. He worked for some of the great pioneer ranching families of South Texas, but the majority of his time, some 56 years, was spent with the Donnell family of McMullen County.

It’s been a hard life but mostly a good life for this now 83 year-old vaquero, a life full of long days that involved his fair share of wild cattle and rough broncs and a good cow pony or two.

Ybanez was born February 7, 1919 on the Nueces Ranch in McMullen County near present-day Tilden. Tilden, known as Dogtown in earlier days, was considered the "Capitol of the Brush Country" of South Texas. The town was originally named Dogtown because of the fact that it took so many dogs to gather the cattle out of the brush. Dogs were found everywhere here.

Marcos’ father was raised by Henry B. Shiner, a pioneer South Texas rancher for whom the town of Shiner is named.

"They used to call my father Pete Shiner because of his close connection to Mr. Shiner," Ybanez recalls.

After Shiner died, his widow deeded Marcos’ father 100 acres of farmland up on San Miguel Creek. He eked out a living on that place for his family as best he could.

One year in the 1920s, Marcos’ father didn’t make a crop and couldn’t pay back the $150 he borrowed from A.J. McKean, so Marcos, who was only 12 at the time, went to work for McKean on the Shiner Ranch and Rancho Nuevo, where Jourd Franklin was foreman. Marcos worked for him for nearly two years for $10 a month until the debt was paid in full.

"I rode horses, gathered cattle, cooked — did just about anything," Ybanez recalls.

Learning to be a good cowboy, he says, comes from doing it day in and day out. Jourd Franklin taught him to be the best.

"On one ranch I worked for six months just cleaning one pasture," he recalls. "That’s where I learned to rope and tie animals. I don’t remember how many head we took out. We roped big four or five year-old steers and little ones too. They were wild cattle – Floridan cattle. I tell you, those cattle would fight.

"We’d rope them," he continues, "then we’d neck them to a lead steer or a mule and drag them through the brush to the pens. We used a donkey one time, but he was too mean. He drug and kicked a bull one time until he killed him."

Another time, when he was working for the Donnells, being the best man for the job, Ybanez was enlisted to get 64 wild remnant steers out of a big pasture. The helicopter had not been successful, so Donnell sent Marcos and Martin Guillen over there a couple of times a week to work on them. He had some good dogs, and after a month to six weeks they caught all but 13 of them.

Ybanez worked for men like J.C. "Col" Dilworth Jr. and Dick DeBardelben. He worked for Dilworth for 16 years. He made $15 a month plus $2 for every horse he broke.

He went to work for J.W. Donnell on the Tilden Ranch October 25, 1946. He stayed there for 12 years and 11 months. In 1958 he moved to Donnell’s Dull Ranch. He and Donnell were lifelong friends. Together they rode many miles and processed many a steer in the pens.

"Mr. Jim was a good man. He told me, ‘If you die before I do, I’ll take care of your family. And if I die before you do, you take care of my ranch.’ And he got up from the chair and came and shook hands with me. We didn’t sign a paper."

Back then, the largest shipping point in that part of the country was at Fowlerton on the LaSalle-McMullen county line. Cowmen drove their cattle as far as 50 to 60 miles to load out of there.

"They were big ol’ pens," Ybanez recalls. "We shipped boxcar after boxcar full of cattle to markets and to grass in Oklahoma and Kansas."

At the Tilden Ranch, when it came time to ship cattle to Kansas grass in early April, he would leave early enough in the morning to drive the cattle the 15 miles or so to the pens at Fowlerton by 8:30 or nine in the morning to load.

"Col" Dilworth sent Ybanez on the train once with some steers that were going to grass in the Osage. Another time Dilworth put Ybanez and his father-in-law on the train together with cattle going to New Mexico. It was meant to be a time for the two to either cool off or solve a problem that had arisen between them, however they saw fit. Ybanez, who was 19, had just run off and married the man’s 14 year-old daughter, Lucia. Lucia’s father was none too happy about the situation, but they returned as good friends and remained friends throughout their lives. It worked out in the end, and together the young couple had six children, four of whom are still living.

Ybanez says he has no idea how many horses he broke during his career. On average it took about two weeks to get one broken, but every horse was different.

Ranches today, he insists, don’t raise horses like they used to.

"We never touched a horse until he was at least three years old. You made a good horse," Ybanez says, "by really working them in the brush, by roping off of them in the brush and handling cattle."

It was important for a man to be handy with a rope back in those days. Early on, during the tick eradication program, cattle had to be gathered and dipped every 14 days for nine months straight. Often that meant dragging cattle out of the brush on the end of a rope. The tick inspectors rode with them all the time to make sure the job was done properly. If one animal was missed, the whole process had to begin anew, he says.

After the tick eradication program of the 1920s and ‘30s came the screwworm eradication program in the 1960s. Anyone who worked on a ranch in those days had to be able to rope.

Ybanez has had more than a few wrecks in his lifetime. He broke his neck once when a young filly pitched him off and he landed on his head. He worked the rest of the day before going to see the doctor in Pleasanton.

"I asked him why if I broke my neck why was I still here, and he told me that I was going to be here forever."

Ybanez finally retired from riding horseback a couple of years ago, though he was not at all happy about it and Jim Donnell says he had hell keeping him off his horse. He still lives in one of the ranch houses there on the Dull Ranch and feeds cattle and checks on waterings. His eyesight and hearing are not what it used to be, but in his spare time he makes his own quirts to give to friends who stop in to see him.